A Death Divided

by Clare Francis

  ‘A proper performance? Not that I’ve heard.’ And from her tone Joe was left in no doubt that she would have been sure to hear. ‘There’s the school put something on. What was it, George?’ George shook his head and got on with stacking cigarettes. The school,’ she repeated more decisively. They always put something on at Christmas.’

  Joe said pleasantly, ‘I’m trying to contact an old friend who used to sing in our local choir. She’s come to live somewhere around here. She’s called Jenna - Jennifer - Chetwood.’

  ‘Chetwood?’ The woman was starting to consider the name when she saw Joe pull the photograph from his pocket, and he might have been offering her a rotten fish from the speed with which she recoiled. ‘Can’t help you,’ she said firmly, and without even glancing at the picture retreated behind the counter.

  Joe risked: ‘It’s her family who want to find her.’

  But the woman’s face confirmed her earlier message: she had no truck with enquiries of an intrusive nature, and a photograph was an intrusion too far.

  The church was called St Peter’s and the guidebooks would probably describe it as mediaeval with later additions. It had a stocky tower, square with a clock face on each side, and no spire. Inside, there was a Christmas tree, a crib, and draped foliage with candles. Two churchwardens were tucking carol sheets into hymnbooks, while another moved around the altar.

  ‘Good morning.’ The churchwarden who greeted him was a tiny lady with a voice like a bell.

  ‘Good morning. I’m admiring your church.’

  ‘You’re most welcome,’ she said.

  ‘You have a choir?’

  ‘We do indeed. Just eight, but voice enough to be heard twice over.’

  ‘Does Jenna sing with them?’

  ‘Jenna?’ Her little head cocked to one side. ‘I don’t believe so. What would her surname be?’

  When Joe told her, she thought about this with the conscientiousness she undoubtedly applied to every task in her Christian life. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe anyone of that name has ever sung here, not in my memory.’

  Joe thanked her and took a seat in the back pew where he could keep an eye on the door. The younger generation were too busy inheriting the earth to thank heaven for it, for apart from one or two families with young children the congregation that assembled for nine-thirty Communion were all middle-aged or elderly.

  Once the service began, Joe slipped quietly away. Walking west this time, he came to another church, United Reformed, in dark grey stone, but there was no service till later and he wasn’t sure Reformers sang anyway. Turning east, he climbed the slopes of the bluff, up narrow cobbled streets with tightly packed cottages and an arts centre and an ancient timbered pub, which promised a quiz on Tuesdays and live music on Saturday nights. Dropping down towards the square again, he found a fine Georgian hotel called the Royal Oak which smelt of woodsmoke and the beginnings of lunch. Mention of a choral society brought frowns from the staff, and no one had heard Jenna’s name. A couple of the female staff were prepared to inspect the photograph, however; both were sure they’d never seen her before.

  One of them eyed the jagged scissor-marks down the side of the print and gave Joe a hard stare. ‘Didn’t work out, then?’

  Finding a quiet corner, Joe folded the photograph once down the edge to hide the scissor-strokes, and again across the bottom to conceal the bouquet in Jenna’s hand, before sliding it back into his pocket.

  Exploring the considerable length of Broad Street, he came to a bridge and heard the water before he saw it. Standing on the bridge he looked west and saw a strong river flowing steadily towards him, its surface burnished with cold metallic light, woods down to the water’s edge, and, above, heavy clouds streaming in from the mountains. Fifty yards downstream on the other side was the source of the muffled roar: a weir in the form of a well-defined step, straight as a die and marked with a line of posts, over which the water slipped in an otherwise unbroken line, to reappear as churning foam below.

  When he turned away, the cloud was fast covering the sky, a wind had sprung up, and it felt cold enough for snow.

  He got back to the church in time for the end of the sermon and the last two carols. The choir sang a good descant and there was at least one fine soprano among them, a plump thirtyish woman with glasses. When the service ended, Joe went up the side aisle to the robing room and heard voices chattering. He knocked on the open door. The soprano with the glasses and two of the men looked round, and Joe apologised for bothering them.

  The soprano was in a hurry, pulling on her coat, running a comb through her hair, but she listened attentively and by this time most of the others were listening as well.

  ‘No one’s done a Messiah,’ the soprano said. ‘Not this year.’

  ‘The school did Jesus Christ Superstar,’ said the alto.

  ‘You’d have to go to Hereford for a Messiah. There’s at least one choral society in Hereford, maybe two.’

  Joe explained about the old singing friend he hadn’t seen in a long time, how she always sang alto in Messiah, and how anxious he was to find her. He gave plenty of detail this time, about Jenna being his childhood friend, the daughter of the family doctor, how by chance and a huge amount of bad luck involving name changes and house moves and lost addresses they’d managed to lose touch. ‘Oh, and I brought a photograph,’

  he said, making it sound the most inoffensive thing in the world.

  The soprano had hoisted her bag over her shoulder and was moving purposefully towards the door, so he showed it to her first. She peered at it, shook her head and moved away, only to come back for a second look. She stared at the picture for much longer this time, then reached out to take it from him with a ‘May I?’

  She showed it to the second soprano, and they conferred for a while, apparently without result. Then, marching past Joe without a word, the first soprano took the picture into the body of the church and when Joe followed he saw her holding it up to the tiny lady churchwarden who’d greeted Joe on his arrival.

  ‘Ah, it’s you,’ tinkled the voice as Joe came up. ‘Did you enjoy our service?’

  ‘I did,’ Joe said, allowing himself the lie.

  ‘We’ve seen her all right,’ declared the first soprano, handing back the picture. ‘But we don’t know her name, do we, Mrs Evans?’

  ‘Not her name, no,’ piped Mrs Evans. ‘But she used to attend here.’

  ‘Not now?’

  ‘Not for, oh, six months, I’d say. But’ - the tiny voice dropped so low that Joe had to bend to catch her words - ‘I think you might find her at the other place.’ Now the whisper took on a pained note, as though it offended her to utter such words in the true house of God. ‘The Roman Catholic church.

  You’ll find it at the far end of Broad Street, right at the fork, just there on the left.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The first soprano was in a hurry now. As she moved away, she called back over her shoulder in a ringing tone that caused Mrs Evans to close her eyes: ‘You’d best be quick if you want to catch the Romans. They come out about now.’

  Joe ran to the car with the photograph still clutched in his hand and almost slipped on ice or slush. He drove the length of the street, past the dark hotel and the bridge until, coming to the fork, he took the right-hand road as directed. He saw the church even as he turned into the tiny lane. It was a low-built rectangle with a steep gable-end topped by a cross, perched over a sharp downward slope. Knots of people stood outside, others were walking away. Joe stopped rather suddenly, blocking a car that was trying to leave, and in his haste began to reverse before he’d taken a proper look behind, causing a man and woman to pull back against the wall, their arms flung protectively across their children. Joe stopped and waved them across with an apologetic smile, and took the time to examine the people outside the church. The priest stood in the porch taking leave of his congregation. He was a short man with a thatch of grey hair who smiled a lot and, from the sound
of the laughter, joked a lot too.

  There were ten or twelve people left outside the church.

  Jenna was not among them.

  Making sure the family had safely negotiated the road, Joe reversed slowly alongside a wall. He looked up the rise ahead and he looked back towards the village centre, then climbed out for a better view. He realised the service must have finished a good five minutes ago and that in his dash down Broad Street he had almost certainly passed people coming away from the church. Passed, but not thought to see. The street was long, one pavement raised, the other low. Had he missed her? He wanted to think it was impossible, that even from an acute angle her outline, her walk, would have brought him up short.

  Thoroughly annoyed with his own ineptitude, he looked around fretfully, but there was nothing more to be seen. The people strolling away up the hill or back towards the village walked in pairs or family groups, while the few on their own looked elderly. Those who’d parked on Broad Street were opening car doors and helping each other in.

  Soon there were just three people left outside the church.

  Joe walked quickly down to the fork, where he could see almost the entire length of Broad Street. Cars passed, pedestrians walked by: he examined them all. The wind was bitter now, and when he looked out over the rooftops the hills had been consumed by cloud.

  Turning back towards the church, Joe found the priest loading a bag into the boot of his car.

  ‘Good morning, Father. Have I missed the service?’

  ‘You have indeed.’

  The smile was quick but with a hint of reserve, and it occurred to Joe that he should have said Mass.

  ‘Visiting for Christmas?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, there’s Midnight Mass at eleven tomorrow night.

  For Mass today, you’ll need to go to Hereford.’

  ‘I was meant to join a friend for your service’ - he stuck with the word - ‘but obviously I got the time wrong.’

  The priest slammed the boot shut and offered a bright nod of commiseration before moving round to the driver’s door.

  ‘And now I seem to have missed her as well.’ Joe looked around as if searching for her even now. ‘Jenna. You know who I mean?’

  ‘Jenna,’ the priest repeated contemplatively, his hand on the open door. ‘I would say that you’ve certainly missed her.’

  ‘But she was here?’

  The father cast another glance over Joe. Beneath the thick grey hair, which stood short and bristly as a brush, were fierce eyebrows and sharp eyes that missed nothing. ‘Would that be Jenna Macintyre now?’

  If it was a trick question, the father carried it off well.

  Joe took a gamble and said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case you didn’t miss her because she wasn’t here today.’ With a small salute - and possibly a gleam of disapproval the father got into his car and drove away.

  Joe wandered back to his car, now alone in the road. His restlessness had given way to indecision and despondency. To trawl the streets, to question strangers, to give up now and drive back to London, to find a bed for a couple of hours: just then, he could have taken his pick.

  Driving up the lane, he found a place to turn, and headed back into the centre of the town. The sky was darkening steadily, and pinpricks of snow settled and melted on the windscreen. Parking near the clock tower again, Joe was in time to see a couple hurrying down the lane to St Peter’s, ten minutes late for the eleven o’clock service.

  He began to walk back towards the Royal Oak. At some point in the last few minutes, he’d decided quite arbitrarily that if they had a room available he’d stay another twenty-four hours, but if they were fully booked he’d leave town in the evening, no later than six.

  Crossing the square, Joe glanced across to the opposite side of Broad Street and registered the fact that some of the shops had opened. A “woman was coming out of one that sold woollens or general clothing or both, a couple were going into another, which looked like crafts. He registered the presence of more people on the periphery of his vision: a strolling window shopper, a bustling figure with a pushchair, a pensioner with a stick. Then, with a sense of deja vu, or maybe it was premonition because the two things seemed the same just then, he jerked his head up and stared.

  She was some way off, diagonally across Broad Street on the higher level, walking rapidly away. Momentarily she was hidden by a tall vehicle, then by a couple of men walking; but there was no mistaking her. Joe’s heart gave a thud of recognition, he felt an idiotic excitement, a great leap of joy, quickly damped by the fear of losing sight of her.

  Not daring to call out, he half ran across the road and, reaching the upper pavement, half ran along that too. She was still quite a way ahead, a slim figure in a long tweed coat, with a hat that could have been wool or fur, a rucksack on her back, a cream scarf over one shoulder, and a plastic carrier bag in each hand. Suddenly she was going down steps to the road and leaning down to unlock a car. She unlocked it the old-fashioned way, with a key not a remote, because it was an old-fashioned car, an ancient Volvo a bit the worse for wear.

  She chucked her bags onto the back seat and got into the front fast, and it was this, along with the fact that the Volvo was facing in the opposite direction, that warned Joe against running after her. In a tiny snapshot of possibilities, he saw her looking into her rear-view mirror, spotting this frantic running man and feeling, if not panic, then something pretty close to it.

  Whichever way he played the scene - whether she recognised him or not - he saw her starting the engine and shooting off before he could run back to his car and follow.

  Ducking his head slightly, wheeling rapidly around, he strode back in the direction of the market square, like one more parishioner late for family service. He didn’t look back until he was safely inside the car, when he spotted the Volvo at the far end of Broad Street, turning towards the bridge.

  Driving as fast as he dared, he reached the bridge and, starting across, spotted the Volvo heading away towards the west along the opposite bank. He felt a surge of elation that was quickly overtaken by an emotion altogether less comfortable, something closer to shame. He was following her like a spy.

  At first he was cautious, hanging so far back that he lost sight of her at the bends, then, fearing he might lose her, he closed the distance to thirty yards or so. They were driving along a valley side that was first gentle then steep, then gentle again. To their left the river had lost its placidity and was rippling angrily over a stony bed. They came to a small village, grey-stoned and grey-roofed. The Volvo slowed to under thirty, and Joe remembered a time when Jenna had been entirely careless of speed limits.

  Suddenly the Volvo was indicating right and slowing still more. Joe lowered his sun visor and also began to indicate.

  The Volvo stopped on the crown of the road for an oncoming car. Joe checked his mirror and braked, eking out the time before he must pull up behind her. The oncoming car was some way off and travelling slowly: the Volvo could easily have turned across it. As it was, the Volvo waited for what seemed an age but was probably seven or eight seconds before the oncoming car dawdled past. By the time the Volvo finally began to turn, Joe was within five yards of it, driving at a trickle. To gain distance again, he took his time with his own turn, stopping on the crown of the road as if to wait for another car. The precaution was almost certainly unnecessary; he’d watched her eyes in the mirror and not once had she looked his way. He’d watched her eyes and had no doubt they were Jenna’s.

  She turned again at a fork, left this time. Now, they were on a smaller road, which rose steadily onto higher land, where hardy sheep grazed between patches of snow. The river was lost to view to the south. Ahead, the flat-topped mountains, now darkened with cloud, suddenly looked quite close, and he wondered how far they were going. The pasture was wide and open, with only an occasional farmhouse snugged down against the wind, which fanned and rippled across the exposed tussock grass. One car passed
them, otherwise there was nothing. The sky was blackening steadily, the land too, and it began to snow, abruptly and heavily. He could make out the Volvo only by its tail lights.

  After a while, the road dropped down to a hamlet at the mouth of a deep valley, and he saw a seething river, maybe the same one as before, maybe another. He followed the Volvo over a hump-backed bridge then right, onto a road that led, he thought, west or a little north of west. For no reason he could have named, he hung back a little further.

  The snow was falling steadily, and settling. The valley was steep on one side, less so on the other, and heavily wooded; where trees overhung the road, the curtain of snow would momentarily vanish, the road surface turn black, and the Volvo seem much closer. They passed a sign to some priory ruins, then to a castle, also ruined. There was a hamlet on the far side of the river, just three cottages, then another beside the road, barely much larger, and all the rooftops were white with snow. This, with the Welsh place names, added to Joe’s growing sense of unreality.

  He lost all sense of distance, but after what might have been ten miles, they came to a bridge with a village on the far side, then a fork in the valley where two tumbling rivers converged over stony beds. He thought they were taking the northerly fork but, coming to another bridge, the Volvo crossed over and almost immediately they were entering a third valley, hidden in the cleft of the fork. Here the snow was thick on the trees and the road, as if it had. been falling for some time. The road had not been gritted, and he was glad when the Volvo slowed right down.

  The road ran low in the valley, to the right of a boisterous river; sometimes the leaping water seemed very close. He glimpsed the occasional dark-stone cottage among the trees or huddled low on a promontory where the river swung wide, but H for the most part there were no houses and no turnings, so that when the Volvo lost speed it caught him by surprise. He could see no reason for her to slow down; no signpost, no gate, no break in the trees. He slowed uncertainly, wondering whether to pass or stay behind and risk alarming her. Then she was indicating left and, slowing to a crawl, pulling in towards the river side: it was an invitation to overtake.