by Simon Parke
‘Touch her? I would like that more than anything.’
‘Then consider the promise of Baha Kuhi.’
‘The Master Poet of Shiraz who died in 1050?’
‘The same - and keep your voice down.’
‘But I have memorised many of his poems!’ Muhammed looked mildly interested.
‘I was learning one last night!’ added the boy.
‘Then consider his promise.’
‘His promise?’
‘The promise of Baha Kuhi. Now go - Hafiz.’ The boy was confused.
‘But what is his promise?’
Eight
Monday morning
3 November
‘Do you always leave your front door open?’ asked Tamsin.
She stepped thankfully out of the gusting south-westerly, fresh from the Atlantic and God knows where else, into Abbot Peter’s simply furnished front room.
‘I didn’t want you ringing the bell,’ said Peter quietly. Too quietly.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The bell. I didn’t want you ringing it.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Ssshh!’
Tamsin wanted to be noisy now. As soon as someone said ‘Ssshh!’ she longed only to march around the room playing a trombone. And how bloody typical of Stormhaven to have issues with doorbells - noisy things, disturbing the peace in this seaside graveyard. Tamsin was not a fan of the town, seeing here only a collective loss of the will to live.
‘She doesn’t mind voices,’ said Peter, as he finished cleaning up ash from the fire place with a dust pan and brush. ‘But the bell disturbs her.’
‘Disturbs who?’
‘You’re very welcome of course!’ said Peter, with a smile. ‘Long time no see.’
There followed an awkward hug between the two, neither familiar with the practice. No one hugged in the desert, and the desert had been as near as Peter got to a mother... and maybe Tamsin was the same. As a girl, she was hugged neither in love nor in pain; love was absent and pain drew only the instruction to get on with it. And this she had done, she’d got on with it with some success, she’d got on with getting on - but she was always uneasy with physical contact. What was the point? And anyway, she’d come here today as a copper, not a niece. She had a murder to solve and this man was going to help her, despite the ‘long time no see’.
‘Almost a year,’ she said in a matter-of-fact manner, putting down her bag. ‘Which in uncle/niece relationships is probably not that long,’ said Peter.
If there isn’t a funeral, just when do family meet?
‘Any coffee coming soon?’ she asked.
‘Just keep your voice down.’ Trombone thoughts again.
‘You sound a little flustered, Abbot,’ she said playfully.
But beneath the play was a message well-heard by Peter: he was not ‘Uncle’ today but ‘Abbot’. She was definitely here on business and not for the first time.
***
It was just eleven months ago that she’d arrived as an unknown on his doorstep and left him stunned with the revelation that he had a niece... and that it was her. For reasons of messy history, Peter’s family was a scattered community, fragments of which could be found all over the world; all knowing much, but all ignorant of each other. And without much ceremony, Tamsin had drawn him into the sad case of Stormhaven’s murdered vicar, the Reverend Anton Fontaine, crucified in his vestry. She’d stayed with Peter for the duration of the case and, on leaving, had promised to remain in contact. Well, you do make promises as you leave - otherwise how would you ever get away?
‘Speak soon!’ she’d said.
But time passes, promises fade, eleven months sped by and he’d heard nothing from her, until she rang him half an hour ago to pester him with questions about the Mind Gains clinic and announce the death of Barnabus Hope. She’d said she was coming round, and now here she was on this grey November morning, demanding coffee and probably something else.
‘I see you haven’t had the decorators in?’ she said, placing herself down in the one comfortable chair, left by the previous owner.
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘And furniture still provided by Beachcomber Furnishings?’
This was an accurate observation from the detective inspector. There were persistent echoes of the shingle beach in the house, for the simple reason that most of the furniture had come from there, in one way or another; but not the black buggy in the corner, which was clearly new.
‘What’s that?’ asked Tamsin.
She wanted to get on with the murder. SOCOs were finishing at Henry House even now, she needed to be there herself, she wanted Abbot Peter to be there also, she’d get to that - but first, another mystery to solve.
‘It’s called a “buggy”, I think,’ said Peter. ‘Don’t ask me why, but it’s a remarkable contraption, never seen anything like it.’
There was a little sigh across the room.
‘You’re not a father are you?’ asked Tamsin.
‘Me?’
‘I wouldn’t think the worse of you.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘You were a long time in the desert, after all. Who could blame you if you wanted to make up for lost time, wild oats and all that?’
Wild oats?
‘I’m not a father, no.’
‘Why am I disappointed?’
‘Just a novice in the repulsive baby-care industry. The more unnecessary the item, the more expensive it is, as far as I can see. It’s a new world to me.’
‘The Bedouin branch of Mothercare has yet to open.’
‘Indeed,’ said Peter, enjoying a digestive. ‘How have they survived for the last seven thousand years?’
‘And why’s it here?’
‘The buggy?’
‘The buggy, yes.’
‘Where else would Poppy sleep?’
‘Poppy?’
‘It’s a rather long story.’
‘Then feel free to edit savagely.’
‘I’m part of a local fostering network.’
‘Sounds like an exposé waiting to happen. Does the Sussex Silt know?’
‘Not proper fostering, of course.’
‘It’s getting worse.’
‘I just give young mums the chance to get out for the day, whether for shopping, a job interview, that sort of thing. I have Poppy twice a week to enable Sarah to work for a business diploma.’
‘Sarah?’
‘Nice girl.’
‘All very cosy.’
‘Only to a mind soaked in the fearful juice of suspicion.’
‘I need to talk with you.’
Tamsin’s interest in toddler tales had waned; it was time for work.
‘She’s just gone down, so we have an hour or so,’ said Peter. ‘As long as we talk quietly.’
And so they did, talking in the warm, while outside the gusting south-westerly blew, and above them, circling the white cliffs, a seagull rested on the wind, wings strong but still, its only work to rest in the strength of another.
Nine
Earlier the same day, Monday 3 November - three days on from a bloody Halloween - various conversations had occurred in Stormhaven, the first when a man had forgotten his lunch when leaving for work... though lunch was hardly his greatest concern.
‘You’ve forgotten your lunch, Gerald!’
‘Have I?’
Gerald appears in the kitchen doorway.
‘Wake up, dearie,’ says Kate, his wife of twenty-three years. ‘Get some sort of a grip.’
Gerald picks up his sandwich box, while Kate swans around like a resentful prima donna when make-up is taking too long. He is awake, so why does she say that? H
e had to be awake with four maths classes to face, as well as a parents’ evening; so he’s wide awake, awake enough to survive, which will make it a good day - survival equals good for Gerald. But neither equations nor parents are the matter now on his mind.
‘I put an apple in,’ says Kate. Gerald is disappointed.
‘No bananas?’
‘I’ll get some. Apples are better for you anyway. Do you know how many calories there are in a banana? It’s why tennis players eat them.’
What has that got to do with anything? He’s a teacher not a tennis player. Kate can go hang, he loves her in a way - but sometimes... ?
‘How did they find out?’ he asks.
The tidying prima donna knows what he means and pauses for a moment. This isn’t a tennis question.
‘We’ve talked about it and it’s sorted, Gerald.’ she says. ‘End of discussion. End of.’
‘How?’
‘Let’s just say that the Feast of Fools therapist proved very helpful.’
Gerald looks through her, motionless.
‘Well go on then,’ she says, ‘you’ll be late!’
Ye gods, get yourself together, Gerald! This is what she’s thinking. But Gerald is struggling to get himself together... not easy at the best of times and this is one of the worst, for while the discussion is over for Kate, ‘end of’ as she says, the fear for Gerald is just beginning.
Beginning all over again ...
Ten
‘He just said he was going out,’ she said.
‘And you didn’t ask where?’
Why had she not asked where? As his mother, she should have asked where he was going.
‘He just said he had to collect something from a friend’s house before school.’
‘And you didn’t ask which friend? Or what he might be collecting?’ Rebecca felt bad for not asking, she should have asked Michael where he was going, but then again, why should she have asked him?
‘He’s seventeen, Ezekiel, I don’t feel I can just -’
‘Assert some discipline?’ came the sharp reply.
Sometimes Ezekiel despaired of his young wife, and not that young anymore... yet not learning, not growing in the Lord, this was his view. As pastor of the church he needed a mature and godly wife, an obedient wife under his headship, certainly, but also a stronger force for discipline in the home. Michael, their son, had left the house while Ezekiel had been at a prayer breakfast with the church elders. This is what he’d discovered on his return. And it was unusual behaviour for the boy, a committed student at school and a role model in diligence, which his elder sister had never been. Michael had even preached at Sunday worship when he was only sixteen years old, never done by anyone in living memory in the church... and many had commented on how well he spoke.
‘The apple has not fallen far from the tree, Ezekiel!’
That was one comment from the congregation, and while guarding against the sin of pride, Satan’s sin, Ezekiel had high hopes for young Michael.
And before this news, the news of the boy’s unexplained departure, it had been a good morning for Ezekiel, a time of blessed assurance among fellow believers, folk who shared his certainties. The Feast of Fools had been a strangely unsettling evening, a great shock of course, as the ways of the ungodly are; but he’d done what he had to do, he’d had no choice, though what to do now, he was unsure.
Eleven
So what’s the problem?’ asks Frances Pole, co-director of Mind Gains but presently denied access to her place of work by a young policeman approaching puberty.
‘There’s no entry, madam,’ he says.
He’s keeper of the gate this Monday morning with clear instructions in his head: ‘No one to be allowed in to Henry House - understand, Brightwater?’
That’s what the sergeant had said, and he’d made it clear to the lady: no entry.
‘I can see there’s no entry,’ she says. ‘But why?’
Police tape is stretched across the gates and her car parked by the side of the road.
‘I’m afraid I’m unable to say at present, madam.’
He didn’t know, hadn’t a clue and hadn’t thought to ask.
‘I work here,’ she said.
‘Not today, you don’t,’ he said, before realising his mistake, before realising she deserved better than his playground response. But then he’d only been a policeman - ‘Little Barry, a policeman, would you believe!’ - for six weeks, and you don’t suddenly know how to do these things, because he’d never had this conversation before, never in his life, never been at a crime scene - and he’d blanked out the role plays at training school for good reason. He also quite fancied this forty-ish woman, large earrings and all, dressed all trendy, too good for Newhaven, his home town, so he felt sheepish and asked about the purpose of her visit, to which she replied, ‘to work’, at which point he called over to his better-looking colleague:
‘She works here, Sarge!’
The better-looking colleague indicated he’d be over in a minute, and the constable, PC Barry Brightwater, indicated to madam that his sergeant would be over in a minute which madam already knew, while noticing Bella, her new administrator, twenty yards away in deep conversation with another policeman... well, not deep, because Bella didn’t do deep, but she did do persistent, and she was persisting with them now, not giving up, half coy little girl, half Miss Pushy.
And then noise on the drive way.
‘Stand back please!’
Scene of crime tape was being wound back to allow a police car out of Henry House, the small crowd scattering, allowing a change of partners, PC Brightwater now dancing with his sergeant.
‘Who was that?’ asked Brightwater, watching the car drive through the gates and head west.
‘DI Shah,’ said the sergeant.
‘Oh,’ said Brightwater, who still didn’t know who anyone was.
‘Tamsin Shah. Cold bitch but tasty.’
PC Brightwater was over the moon with this banter.
‘So she’s handling the case, is she?’
The sergeant nodded, young himself and grateful for the naivety of this PC who rendered him a battle-hardened veteran by comparison.
‘So she works here?’ says the sergeant, looking across at Frances.
‘Yes, Sarge.’
Frances is now talking with Bella, seeking information:
‘So do you know what this is all about?’
‘They wouldn’t tell me.’
‘No clues?’
‘I think it’s a burglary,’ says Bella. ‘It must be a burglary.’
‘But they didn’t say that?’
‘No, they didn’t say that, but no one’s been here since Friday, so how could it be anything else?’
‘That’s true,’ and as an afterthought Frances adds that everything was fine when she locked up after the Feast of Fools.
The events of last Friday had left things slightly frosty between the two of them, unresolved obviously, but this wasn’t the place to sort all that out.
‘Apart from Barnabus,’ says Bella.
‘Sorry?’
Frances had been eyeing the sergeant. She had an eye for authority... and attractive men.
‘Well, he might be in there.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Perhaps something’s happened to him,’ says Bella, who looks more concerned than the co-director of Mind Gains.
‘I don’t know what his plans were for the weekend,’ says Frances, vaguely.
‘He didn’t like the feast very much - fact.’
It feels like a dig.
‘Perhaps he should have pulled himself together and got on with it. Anyway, how would you know, you weren’t even there!’
‘Hello ladies,’
says the better-looking colleague. ‘My constable tells me that you both work here.’
His eyes rest happily on Frances, who confirms that they do, as the car carrying DI Shah and Chief Inspector Wonder makes its smooth way from Henry House to the police HQ in Lewes.
‘Well, I’ve seen some bodies in my time,’ says the Chief Inspector,
‘but never a clown. Not much for him to smile about, eh?’
‘Isn’t the clown smile just painted on?’
‘Never liked them as a child,’ says Wonder, ‘always frightened me those clowns, can’t be doing with masks.’
They travel on in silence. The Chief Inspector could share his childhood fears with Tamsin, but she wouldn’t be reciprocating. Never give ammunition to anyone, certainly not your colleagues... and she used the term loosely. Her childhood fear was not being as good and brilliant as her mother expected her to be, but what did that matter now? All that mattered now was the case in hand, the murder of a clown at Henry House, recently acquired by a therapy clinic called Mind Gains.
The case had arrived on her desk yesterday. A morning call from a phone in the house had alerted police to a body in the office cupboard. No idea who made the call, a disguised voice, ‘a bit croaky’ said the desk sergeant.
‘Bring in all known frog impersonators,’ said Tamsin.
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ said the desk sergeant before realising.
But the body was there right enough, a clown without the comedy, sprawled sideways, smashed skull - there’d been no Sunday lunch for forensics.
‘So we’ll need to ask some questions about Barnabus Hope,’ said the Chief Inspector, offering fatherly wisdom to his young DI. He was old enough to be her father, though perhaps best that he wasn’t, given some of the thoughts in his head.
Tamsin didn’t answer. Wonder may have meant well with his advice, but frankly, she didn’t need to be told that questions would have to be asked about Barnabus Hope. What did he think she was going to do? Write him a get well card?
There was something she did need, however - or rather, someone.
‘I’m going to ask Abbot Peter to be Special Witness again.’
