The Mantle of God

by Caron Allan

  And he was lonely. At home, his mother and his sister were there, but he did not want to share his life with them in that sense. A man was supposed to leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife. He had once been engaged but the loss of prospects had led immediately to the loss of love—if love it had ever been—and now the demands of his profession, whilst he was deeply grateful to be employed, meant that he had neither leisure nor funds to socialise with his old friends, nor to consider romance or courtship.

  Yet his dreams were continually haunted by the tall slender girl with the large hazel eyes, the wide beaming smile and the alluring figure. He could never hope to deserve her, and certainly even if he himself, or she, could overlook the gulf between their stations in life, then he knew without a doubt that Dottie’s parents would never commit such an aberration.

  He opened his eyes. He turned his head and looked at the flat, undented pillow at the top of the empty space beside him and felt a fresh stab of misery. His alarm clock blared out, startling him out of his daydream, and he rose for the new day.

  Maple was already there in Hardy’s office when he arrived. Now a detective sergeant, and enjoying the status that came with the promotion from uniformed beat copper, Maple was repaying Hardy’s belief in him with good solid work and unfailing good cheer.

  ‘Morning, Bill,’ he said, informal as ever when they were alone. ‘You look a bit rough, mate. Did you get any sleep?’

  ‘A bit. Not enough. Where are we with all this?’

  Maple took him through everything they had. It wasn’t as much as Hardy had hoped. He raked his fingers through his hair as he looked about the room. But there was no point fretting, they just had to keep plodding through everything.

  ‘Chase up the fingerprint chappie, will you Frank? And phone Hertfordshire and see what time they can see us. I’ll go and see about a car. Not sure what time we’ll get there, better see if we can see them around mid-afternoon. From what little information we already have, there could well be a connection between our cases and theirs. In fact, I’m almost certain of it.’

  The car wouldn’t be available until after lunch due to having the brakes repaired, so Hardy settled at his desk with the neverending paperwork. The day ground slowly on, reports and statements were read, yet more reports were typed. Information was gathered, and as expected, every fact seemed to contradict another fact, every clue seemed to be meaningless, all the witness statements told them either not enough or too much of all the wrong things. The witnesses failed to corroborate one another, seeming almost deliberately to say the exact opposite of the person interviewed before them. Hardy felt he was getting nowhere. His head ached and his mood was grim.

  They left at half past one, arriving in Hitchin in time for an early tea and a long leisurely chat with the very pleasant inspector in charge of the case. He was happy to allow them to read through his case notes and witness statements. By eight o’clock, Hardy was mentally exhausted and even Sergeant Maple was looking completely fed up.

  ‘Frank, can you go and get a table at the pub? Order us some food. I’ll phone the chief super and tell him we need to stay overnight. That way we should finish at a reasonable hour and get some sleep before driving back in the morning,’ Hardy said at last, stretching and yawning. His head was pounding. All the information he had read was beginning to blur together in his mind.

  The chief didn’t seem too surprised that they wouldn’t be back that night, and when Hardy had confirmed his opinion that the two forces’ cases were linked, somewhat to his surprise, the chief seemed content with paying the bill for their night’s room and board at the pub. Next Hardy phoned his mother to let her know he would be away overnight. She warned him to be careful on the roads, and to wrap up warm against the evening chill. Smiling to himself, he assured her he would be fine, she had no need to worry.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked then, ‘you don’t sound too good yourself. Coming down with something?’

  ‘I’m just a little tired, William dear, that’s all. We’ll see you tomorrow evening, then. Take care, dear. Goodnight.’

  After a very welcome and filling hot meal at the pub, the two men returned to the police station and continued to go through reports, making notes and discussing anything that seemed significant.

  ‘It says here,’ Maple said at one point, waving a sheaf of paper aloft, ‘that the two men who went upstairs to ransack the house while the others kept everyone in the dining room, came down with nothing in their hands. That’s one of the maids that said this, and she goes on to say that their coat pockets were flat so they didn’t have much in them. She says they could of got all sorts of small valuables upstairs, yet it seems like they didn’t take anything. So why not? They weren’t threatened or in danger of getting caught, all the guests and staff were contained, so they had time to grab a few useful bits and pieces. Apparently there was jewellery, small pictures, silver ornaments, one of those Russian decorated eggs. All sorts of stuff in the hall and the bedrooms.’

  ‘Fabergé,’ Hardy said, but he was preoccupied with the report he was himself reading. ‘Well listen to this then. One of the gentlemen says, ‘the robber who came over to me was an inch or two taller than myself, and I am five feet eleven inches tall...’

  ‘Well if he’s right, then we know one of the robbers was about six-foot, six-foot one or so tall. Useful, I suppose but hardly unusual. If he’d said he was six-foot four and the robber was taller than him, that might have been a bit more useful.’

  ‘He goes on to say, ‘And as he reached across me to take my wife’s necklace, his sleeve rode up and I noticed he had a tattoo on the inside of his forearm. It was small, in blue ink, and it appeared to spell the word Duck.’ He then says as soon as the robber realised he’d seen it, he turned away from them, pulling down his sleeve very quickly, and the gentleman says that was why his wife didn’t lose her earrings as well as her necklace.’

  ‘Interesting. But Duck? What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it could be useful. And it was clearly a mistake, the robber wasn’t happy that this chap saw it. That means it can be used to identify him.’

  By half past ten they were back in the pub having a last pint before going to their beds. They sat at a quiet corner table. They spoke little, each man too tired and focussed on his own thoughts for idle conversation. It was a relief for Hardy to tumble onto the rather lumpy mattress. He had not expected to sleep, but he closed his eyes and knew nothing more until he was called for his breakfast at seven o’clock the next morning.

  Comfortably full of bacon and eggs, they went back to the police station to take their leave of the local inspector and to check one or two more things. By ten o’clock they were on the road again. It was a bright, if chilly day and the journey was somewhat like a half-day’s holiday for the two of them. They even stopped for a cup of tea at one point and sat in a warm and comfortable tearoom talking about the case. Hardy felt more relaxed than he had felt for a long time. Perhaps being a police officer wasn’t so bad, after all? He just couldn’t decide how he felt about his work. But after such a long delay, and with no money, he had no possibility of resuming his studies, so what other choice did he really have?

  Returning to the car, they swapped places, and as Maple drove, Hardy again read over and over the notes they had made. He felt he knew the handwriting and the contents of each statement by heart. But he was gaining nothing from them in terms of a breakthrough with either of the cases which were now, in his mind, inextricably linked.

  When they pulled into the little parking area behind their own police station just after lunch, he said to Maple, ‘Can you check with other local forces, see if there have been similar robberies in their areas. Try Surrey, Essex and Kent for starters, then perhaps we’ll contact some of the big cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester. I’m convinced our thieves will have spread their net a bit wider than just London and Hitchin.’

  Dottie was nervous about her upcom
ing dinner with Dr James Melville. All that day, she had been torn between the desire to ring up the museum and ask to speak to the doctor in order to cancel their arrangement, and a stoic acceptance which necessitated frequently repeating her sister’s comment as a silent reminder: It’s only dinner, I don’t have to marry him.

  By the time she was ready, at a few minutes before seven o’clock, she was a bundle of excited agitation. Her mother had repeatedly questioned her about the young man, inquiring minutely into his antecedents, of whom Dottie was completely ignorant, his financial position, again not an area Dottie was acquainted with, and his prospects, also another grey area in the great field of her knowledge of the man with whom she was about to leave the house on a dark winter’s evening. Dottie’s mother’s opinion was that he sounded decidedly Bohemian. Coming from her mother that was almost the gravest aspersion she could cast, practically the same as suggesting he lived in a pig sty or even a Victorian opium den. None of this helped to calm Dottie’s nerves.

  Dr Melville arrived at a quarter past seven, instead of the agreed seven o’clock, which irritated Dottie immensely, especially as he made no apology for his late arrival. He spoke briefly but politely enough with her parents, assured them—to Dottie’s great disappointment—that he would bring her home on the stroke of ten o’clock, not a second later, and even went so far as to name the restaurant where they were to dine.

  It was with great relief that she preceded him out of the house. She was starting to feel horribly hemmed in and constricted. The fresh air of the evening was bracing and cooled her frayed temper, even though Dr Melville failed to compliment her on her dress. She was wearing the moss green silk-satin, it was sleeveless to show off her shoulders, but she had her dark grey moleskin cape over it, and the skirt of the dress flared out beautifully from the knees.

  At least they didn’t have to walk. He hailed a taxi to take them to the restaurant, and sitting in the back with him—did he have to sprawl quite so much and take up so much room, he really was a very untidy man, she thought to herself—they rode in near-silence. She had enquired after his health in the usual manner, and received a monosyllabic response. And still no apology or excuse for his lateness. He had failed to respond with his own equally conventional yet socially essential enquiry about her health. After another minute of silence, Dottie had broken in on his sullen musings with a banal comment about the weather: still so cold, although it was almost March, and of course one always hoped for an early Spring. He gave her a brief if puzzled smile as a reply then lapsed once more into his former preoccupation.

  She sat back against the leather of the seat; clearly the situation was hopeless, he had changed his mind about his impulsive desire to see her again but had been too polite to cancel their arrangement. Her own doubts about the evening were all too entirely justified. She exhaled heavily, sending her hair fluttering in the breeze, and she turned to stare unseeing out of the window.

  At long last, Dr Melville seemed to realise he was expected to act as if he wanted to be in her company. He rallied, stole a look at the face of the openly bored Dottie, then said pleasantly, ‘So, have you and your sister found any more intriguing pieces of old fabric from Granny’s attic?’

  Caught off-guard both by his sudden remark and the reference to her fictitious grandmother, Dottie stared at him, then floundered into speech.

  ‘Oh, er, haha, nothing else so far.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the doctor. After another pause he added, ‘Sorry once again about trying to cut up your fabric sample. I got a bit carried away, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter in the least,’ Dottie told him. ‘I know you were just trying to help.’

  ‘You don’t happen to have it with you, I suppose? I wouldn’t mind another look.’

  She smiled and shook her head. She certainly wasn’t going to let him see it again. She really didn’t believe he would give it back. It could stay right where it was, thank you very much. He would never know she had it with her. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t bring it with me,’ she lied, without a moment’s guilt.

  For a moment, she thought he was angry. He seemed to hold his breath for a second or two and he blinked a couple of times rather rapidly, but in the end, said simply, ‘Ah well.’

  Any further nuggets were lost as the taxi drew up outside the restaurant. Fortunately, Dr Melville had finally remembered his manners, and he hastened to open her door and assist her to step down to the pavement. Normally such attentions didn’t matter too much to her, but she felt it was the least he could do under the circumstances. Ten o’clock began to seem a very long way off.

  It seemed almost inevitable to Hardy that as soon as he was ready to go home, his attention would be needed urgently on some police matter. After the long journey to and from Hitchin, he had been looking forward to getting away at the right time for once. He did actually make it out of the building and was halfway along the street when a young constable in uniform came panting after him, calling him back. He was wanted about a burglary, and no one else was available.

  Hardy seriously considered saying that he also was not available, but then the youngster told him the name and address, and all thoughts of going home went out of his head.

  The evening wore slowly on. The food served at the Le Pierrot was more fashionable than delicious, and the staff emitted a sense of injury at being required to wait at table. Dr Melville—‘Do, please, call me James,’—had made an endless evening even longer by retailing anecdote upon anecdote about his adventures on the golf courses of the British Isles. He seemed to take excessive delight in his membership of two or three prestigious clubs. She didn’t understand why he seemed to feel he had accomplished something of a coup in joining the ranks of their members. Dottie abhorred golf, but as she reminded herself for the hundredth time, he was at least talking to her. Or at her, to be more accurate.

  A waiter approached with a new bottle of wine and proceeded to open it, then refill her glass. Dottie realised all too late she could have done without the wine. The tedium of the evening had made her drink more than usual, and far more quickly, and she was afraid of making a spectacle of herself. Though it would serve him right if I did, she thought. Flora was right, and thank the Lord I don’t have to marry Melville, if this is how bad it is to spend just one evening with him. What a complete and utter bore.

  She rose from the table with an apologetic smile, and Melville, halfway through resetting the table to indicate the position of his ball (pepper pot) and those of his opponents (teaspoons and butter knife), relative to the hole (salt pot), rose in hasty good manners, upsetting his glass of wine as he did so. Dottie smiled a polite apology and hurried for the staircase and the door to the ladies’ cloakroom.

  In the cloakroom it was much cooler and she had the place to herself, so she sat for a little while at the vanity unit. Her bad temper gave way to humour as she dabbed her dampened handkerchief at her temples and the back of her neck. What a dull man! And given his good looks, it was such a shame that his character was so flawed. Boring, inconsiderate and completely socially inept. I bet he can’t dance either, she thought, and he’s not even old. What on earth would he be like in middle age? She shuddered at the thought. How different he was in reality to her favourable initial impression.

  The clock in the cloakroom indicated twenty minutes past nine. With a sigh of relief and a sense of a heavy burden gradually lightening, she told herself, only another half an hour, then I can remind him it’s time to take me home. Then I need never see him again.

  She rejoined him at the table, and this time as he rose out of politeness, he managed not to knock anything over. The cruet and cutlery had been replaced during her absence, but whether by him, due to abandoning his story, or by the fastidiousness of the waiter, she didn’t know, though the latter seemed almost as unlikely as the former.

  The wine had also been cleared away, she noted. Coffee cups and a sugar bowl and creamer now graced the new, snowy cloth.r />
  ‘Miss Manderson, I do hope we have time for a coffee, I’ve already taken the liberty of ordering,’ he said. She nodded and forced herself to smile at him.

  ‘That would be lovely, Dr—er—James, thank you.’ Half an hour, she reminded herself, just another thirty minutes and she would be free. It could even be only twenty minutes by now.

  Soon the waiter arrived with the coffee pot and left them to pour for themselves. Melville slid his chair back. ‘I’ll just go and settle the bill,’ he said, and again, Dottie simply nodded and smiled.

  He was gone a full ten minutes. She was beginning to think he had left without paying, but eventually she saw him coming back, putting a piece of paper into his pocket. He was frowning. She congratulated herself on having only another fifteen minutes at the most left in his dreary, irritable company. She sipped her coffee, grimaced at the bitterness, and heaped more sugar into the cup to mask the taste, stirring vigorously.

  ‘Well,’ Melville said as he sat back down, ‘I must say it’s been a very pleasant evening. We really must do this again. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed myself so much.’ He stretched a long bony wrist across her and for a fleeting second she thought he was going to take her hand, but then she saw that the sugar basin was his object. He spooned in four little heaps of sugar and stirred his cup noisily before letting the spoon clatter into the saucer. He slurped appreciatively.

  Dottie, unable to tell another outright lie to his face, settled for a perfectly true, ‘I can’t remember ever having an evening quite like this,’ which he luckily took as a compliment, and looked really pleased with himself, whereas she was wondering about the mark she had just observed on his wrist.

  ‘Alas we must leave if we are to have you home at the time I promised your parents.’

  Dottie glanced up in surprise as he came around the table to pull out her chair for her. She couldn’t help commenting, ‘Well the coffee is here now, and you’ve paid for it, so we may as well drink it, it’s not quite time to leave.’