by Mark Morris
Instantly he looked playfully reproachful; it was an expression that made my skin squirm. ‘No, he hasn’t,’ he said, his voice matching his face. ‘He’s rather a naughty boy, taking time off without offering any explanation.’
‘I’m a bit worried about him,’ I admitted. ‘It’s not like Alex to be so unreliable.’
‘I’ll have to take your word for that,’ Rudding said.
I looked at him, but his eyes, though watchful, were unreadable. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Simply that I’ve only known Alex for a few weeks. It takes time and effort to develop a level of trust between two people. I’m afraid Alex has rather jeopardized that already.’
I felt anger at the back of my throat, though what Rudding was saying was reasonable enough. ‘Did my brother seem happy here, Mr Rudding?’ I asked. ‘Or rather, what I mean to say is, had he settled in OK to his new job?’
Rudding steepled his fingers as though about to pray. ‘My staff and I made every effort to ensure that he was comfortable.’
Comfortable. It was an odd choice of word. It made Alex sound like a hospital patient. I had the feeling that I was losing the grip of this conversation, that there was a hidden meaning behind Rudding’s words. Could it have something to do with Alex’s sexuality? Had he been ostracized because of it? In a place like Greenwell it was easy to imagine that he had.
Treading carefully, I asked, ‘Is Alex popular with the other staff? And with the pupils too, come to that?’
Those oily, watchful eyes. That slight smirk. ‘Is there a reason why he shouldn’t be?’
I was getting annoyed, but I didn’t think it would do me any good to show it. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Alex is a lovely person. But that doesn’t answer my question, Mr Rudding.’
Rudding’s steepled fingers meshed together. It was like watching some probing sea creature suddenly withdrawing, retreating into itself for protection. ‘I certainly find him a very pleasant young man,’ he said almost primly.
‘And the rest of the staff? No problems there?’
‘None that I’m aware of, though you’d have to speak to them about it.’
‘And what about Alex’s pupils? Have any of them caused him any trouble?’
‘Enough to make him flee, you mean?’
I scowled at his obvious amusement. ‘Of course not. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of things. There must be some reason why Alex has disappeared. As I said, it’s not like him to do something like this. He’s a very conscientious person.’
Rudding cocked his head to one side and looked at me condescendingly. ‘Miss Gemmill,’ he said, ‘or is it Ms? You young women are so touchy about such things these days.’
I flapped a hand. ‘Whatever.’
‘Miss Gemmill,’ he resumed, ‘as far as I am aware, your brother is a good and popular staff member. In my limited dealings with him, I have, until these past few days, found him reliable and efficient. Now, why he has suddenly decided to leave us in the lurch like this, I have no idea, but rest assured, when he does deign to turn up I shall listen to any explanation he might care to offer with a sympathetic ear.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘good. And if he does get in touch with you, you’ll let me know?’
‘If he wishes us to do so, certainly.’
I wrote down where I was staying and the number of my mobile and gave it to him. He glanced at the slip of paper, then put it in the top right-hand drawer of his desk. Then he stood up, leaning forward slightly as though to kiss me. ‘And now, Miss Gemmill, I really must excuse myself. I have assembly in five minutes.’
‘No problem,’ I said and stood up too. ‘Thanks for your time.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said obsequiously. He jabbed a hand towards me and I responded automatically. He caressed my fingers for a moment until I pulled my hand away. ‘Try not to worry, Miss Gemmill. I’m sure Alex will turn up.’
‘I’m sure he will too,’ I said.
I walked away from his office fast, as if afraid he might come after me. My meeting with Rudding had left me with a sense of distaste, disquiet. There were not many people in the corridors now. A few children making their way to their classrooms or assembly, that was all. My sandals clopped like hooves on the floor. I passed posters carrying warnings about drug and alcohol abuse, about AIDS. I walked out into bright sunshine and headed for the car park. As I turned the corner at the side of the building and my car came into sight, I saw three children standing by the driver’s door.
At first I thought they were up to no good, and was about to call out, but then I realized that they were just standing there as if waiting for someone. There were two girls and a boy. They couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. One of the girls had ginger hair and freckles, the other had blonde hair kept neatly in place with an Alice band, and the boy was stocky with an unruly mop of dark hair.
They reacted when they saw me, looked at each other and nodded, and I realized with a little jolt of alarm that they must have been waiting for me. The girl with the Alice band strode forward. ‘Excuse me, miss,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I replied warily.
‘Sorry, miss, but are you Mr Gemmill’s wife?’
I smiled, relaxing a little. ‘No, but you’re the second person who’s made that mistake today. I’m his sister.’
‘Oh,’ the girl said, ‘but are you looking for him?’
Taken aback, I said, ‘Yes I am. Do you know where he is?’
The children looked at each other, the boy raising his eyebrows at the girl with the Alice band, as if to say, You tell. ‘What is it?’ I said, alarmed for a different reason now. ‘Please tell me.’
The girl with the Alice band looked at me, her face solemn. ‘He’s been taken by the grey man,’ she said.
‘What—’ I began, but could get no further. A bellowing voice behind me made me jerk my shoulders so violently that a bolt of pain shot into my neck.
‘You three! What are you doing out of school? Didn’t you hear the bell?’
The children looked suddenly terrified. Still recovering from the shock, I turned and saw the skinny, watchful, self-assured Mr Rudding, now crimson-faced, apoplectic with rage. Before any of them could respond, he screeched, ‘Get to assembly this instant!’
The children turned and fled, footsteps like a receding hailstorm. I glanced at them, then turned back to Rudding, my heart pounding. ‘I hardly think that was necessary,’ I said.
The rage was leaving him as abruptly as it had appeared. His face was paling, the terrifying bolt of emotion he had unleashed retreating back beneath his composed facade.
‘The children should have been in school,’ he said. ‘I was concerned that they were intimidating you.’
‘Well, they weren’t,’ I snapped. ‘They were just trying to be helpful.’
‘Oh? In what way?’
I considered, briefly, telling him what they had said, then decided not to. He seemed too eager, and at the same time too calculating. He seemed, in fact, like a man who was keeping secrets, which was why I decided that I would keep mine. ‘It’s not important,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Mr Rudding.’
I got into my car and drove away.
seven
I was half a mile from the school before I realized that Alex was truly missing. Until now I had expected to catch up with him somewhere, had imagined myself walking into a cosy, homely staff room to see him slouched in a tatty old armchair, sipping a mug of tea, engrossed in his Guardian. I had even envisaged what he would be wearing: his blue Ted Sherman shirt, his mustard-yellow moleskins, his black suede Rugged boots. He would look up and a grin – half astonishment, half delight – would appear on his face.
‘Ruthie!’ he’d say. ‘What are you doing here?’
I had expected to come away from the school with everything all right again, with all of yesterday’s dislocating strangeness diminished to nothing more than an unusual sequence of events to relate over an uproarious supper. But instea
d I had come away in turmoil, scared and disturbed not only by the confirmation that Alex had gone AWOL, but by my encounter with Rudding and the children.
He’s been taken by the grey man.
What had the little girl meant by that? Was it some childish epithet for an actual person? Some village bogeyman?
I had the vague but disturbing impression that all of the odd occurrences since I had arrived here yesterday slotted together into a kind of pattern that nevertheless made no sense.
Omens. Omens and signs. But of what?
Something wicked, I thought. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.
I shuddered, then laughed, a brittle sound. I was getting ridiculous. Tiredness, anxiety, the disorientation of being in a strange place, that’s all it was. I needed to do something positive, something real. I decided it was time to report Alex’s disappearance to the police.
The station, which I found after a bit of driving around, having vaguely remembered seeing one on my way into town yesterday, was parochial, unimpressive. It was a low, squat building with pebbledashed walls blotched with patches of damp. It crouched behind a car park with space enough for two dozen cars, but which at this moment contained less than half that. I parked my own car and got out. The unseasonably warm air was undisturbed, giving me the impression that the place was poised, as I walked up to the only door I could see and entered the building.
The entrance vestibule was tiny, allowing no more than three steps in any direction before encountering a wall. Opposite the door was what looked like a ticket window in a local railway station, a perspex screen behind it and a canvas blind pulled down behind that. There were a few dog-eared posters on the walls about drink driving and the like. One poster showed a chubby, dark-haired girl grinning out beneath the word MISSING, printed in red block capitals. I skim-read the text and noticed that she had been gone from home, having disappeared while on an errand, for over five years.
I tapped on the perspex screen and the canvas blind shot up, making me jump. The police officer who’d been standing out of sight behind it had short, prematurely grey hair and a stern expression. ‘What is it?’ he said, as if I were trespassing.
‘Um … I’ve come to report a missing person.’
He stared at me, unblinking and thin-lipped, as though he thought I was taking the piss, as though weary of the same punchline. And then, so flatly that I didn’t know whether it was a prompt to continue or an acknowledgement of something he’d been expecting, he said, ‘Oh yes.’
‘Yes. It’s my brother. Alex Gemmill. I haven’t been able to get in touch with him for about four days now. He’s not in his flat, he’s not been to work, he’s just disappeared. He’s a teacher at Solomon Wedge School, he hasn’t lived here long. It’s not like him to disappear like this. I’m really worried about him.’
The officer stared at me without expression for a moment longer, then bent down behind his desk. As he did, he muttered what sounded like, ‘Fucking queer.’
I leaned forward so I wouldn’t lose sight of him. ‘Excuse me, what did you say?’
The policeman straightened with a white form in his hand. ‘Pardon?’
‘I just wondered what you’d said just then, when you bent down.’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘Yes you did. I heard you.’
Though his face was set, I saw contempt in the policeman’s eyes. I could almost see the sneer curling behind his fixed mask. His lips barely moved as he said, ‘What did you think you heard me say, madam?’
I hesitated, was on the verge of saying that it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t important, and then I said, ‘I thought I heard you say “fucking queer”.’
Still the policeman’s expression didn’t change. ‘Really? And why would I have said that?’
I licked my lips. ‘It doesn’t matter. I was probably mistaken. It’s not really relevant, is it?’
‘You obviously think it is, madam,’ the policeman said.
I was silent for a moment, trying to decide whether an explanation would help or hinder my cause. Then I thought of Alex and of how he was never ashamed of his sexuality, was always open about it.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Maybe it is relevant. It’s just that my brother’s homosexual. I thought you were making a prejudicial comment about him.’
‘I’ve never met your brother, madam,’ the policeman said.
‘Yes. Look, I realize that. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit wound up.’
I wanted the officer to laugh it off, to tell me that it was all right, but he didn’t. He pushed the form through the two-inch gap at the bottom of the perspex screen and said, ‘If you could just fill this form in, madam. Let me know when you’ve done.’
He pulled the canvas blind down before I could reply.
I was angry enough to want to do something childish, like stick two fingers up at the blind, but I didn’t in case there were security cameras recording me. Instead I took the form and filled it in, giving them four pages’ worth of information about Alex. When I’d finished I rapped hard on the perspex screen, hoping the policeman would be the one to jump this time. The blind went up and there was a younger man there, a bit horsey-looking, thick wet lips, freckles at the hairline.
‘Yes?’
Taken aback, I held up the form as if it were homework or lines. ‘I’ve filled the form in,’ I said.
The young man barely glanced at the sheets of white paper. ‘What form’s this?’
‘The form your colleague gave to me. Information about my missing brother.’
‘Oh, right,’ said the young man, indifferent. ‘Pass it here, then.’
I slid the form beneath the gap in the perspex screen. The young policeman took it (I noticed a rash of pimples where his collar rubbed against his throat as if he had not long started shaving) and shoved it somewhere under the desk without really looking. This did neither my confidence nor my temper much good.
‘So what happens now?’ I asked.
The young officer shrugged. ‘You can leave it to us. We’ll sort it.’
‘You’ll start looking for my brother straight away, will you?’
‘If we think it warrants it.’
‘What do you mean, if you think it warrants it?’ I said, trying to keep my anger under control. ‘My brother’s missing. Something bad could have happened to him. It’s your job to deal with things like this. It’s what you get paid for.’
The young policeman sighed as if I was some minor irritant. ‘You don’t need to tell me what my job is, madam. We’re extremely busy here. We have to look at each individual report on the strength of its merits. We have to prioritize.’
‘Extremely busy doing what? Finding lost cats? Ticking kids off for scrumping apples? Handing out parking tickets?’
For the first time the young policeman looked me square in the eye, his indifference changing instantly to cold hostility. ‘What do you know?’ he said. ‘You don’t live here. You’re just a stuck-up bitch with no idea what goes on in this town. So why don’t you stop interfering in our business and fuck off back to where you came from.’
He pulled the blind down hard. For a moment I stood there, stunned, as though he’d reached out and slapped me. I felt the sting of his words in my head, the sour jolt of unexpected, vitriolic confrontation in my gut. I shouldn’t have taken it, I know. I should have bashed on the perspex screen, demanded an apology, an explanation, the right to see a senior officer and make a complaint. But instead I got a sudden and no doubt irrational feeling that the young officer was coming to get me, that the reason he’d yanked the blind down was so that he could engage me not only verbally but physically. Shaking, on the verge of panic, I turned to the door that led outside and yanked it open. I staggered out into a pearly daylight that hurt my eyes and half-ran to my car, expecting him to appear from around the side of the building, fists clenched, maybe wielding a truncheon. It seemed to take an age to fumble my keys from my bag,
fit them into the lock of the door, get in, start the engine. I drove out of there, glancing all around me, and as I picked up speed, still looking in my rear-view mirror, I thought of the smiling dark-haired girl who’d disappeared over five years ago, gone missing while on an errand.
eight
For the moment all I could think about was retreating to the relative comfort of my room at the Solomon Wedge to lick my wounds. I couldn’t believe what the policeman had said to me. The words he had used kept running through my head, and each time they did they seemed to become more sinister, more laden with meaning.
You’re just a stuck-up bitch with no idea what goes on in this town. What the hell did that mean? What did go on? And was the town really small enough for him to be so certain I wasn’t local? Evidently so, which suggested word had got around that I was here looking for Alex. But why? What did the people of Greenwell have to hide? Although I tried to stop myself, to tell myself I was going way over the top, my racing mind was nevertheless making me wonder whether Alex had been scared off, got rid of in some way. The possibility that the whole town may be in cahoots, involved in some plot or vendetta, was surely too far-fetched an idea even to contemplate.
I had to brace myself before entering the pub. It was barely mid-morning, but I couldn’t help thinking that the place would be full and that my antics at the school and then the police station would somehow have preceded me. I sat in my car in the car park for a good ten minutes, trying to regain my composure. Eventually, the trembling in my stomach seeping into my legs and hands, I got out of my car and forced myself to walk across the car park and in through the main door of the pub.
Conversations stopped; the sound of chinking glasses ceased; heads turned to look at me – but only in my imagination. It took me maybe two uncomfortable seconds to realize that, apart from two old ladies sitting drinking tea at a table in the corner, the pub was empty.
Neither of the ladies looked up as I stepped inside, and nor did jovial Jim, who was idly feeding money into one of his own fruit machines. I slipped behind him, walking almost on tiptoe so as not to make any sound on the carpet, when he turned and saw me.
