The Lazarus Tree

by Robert Richardson

  Several people looked towards him, then someone said, ‘He’s late,’ before they all turned away again.

  ‘Nobody seems very bothered,’ Maltravers commented quietly. ‘Now who’s getting neurotic?’

  ‘Not me,’ Stephen said firmly. ‘They should be talking about nothing else.’

  Maltravers gazed casually round the bar, noting heads close together like plotting revolutionaries, talk muted, backs forming secretive enclaves. He could only guess by how much Medmelton had inflated the significance of his presence, but it appeared to have been enough to drive everything else from the communal mind. As he wondered how they were going to deal with it, Henderson took on the role of tacitly elected spokesman. He gave a slight, almost conspiratorial, nod to the men he had been talking to, straightened up from where he had been leaning against the bar and came back, covering the manoeuvre by picking up a blue and white chequered linen cloth and starting to polish glasses from the shelf next to where Maltravers was sitting.

  ‘Hear you’re from London,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right.’ Maltravers nudged Stephen’s leg with his foot, indicating he wanted him to stay quiet. ‘Down for a visit.’

  ‘Business as well?’

  ‘You could call it that.’ Now the bar had gone silent.

  ‘What sort of business?’

  ‘Personal.’ Maltravers had spent the afternoon rehearsing responses to possible conversations, designing them to make anyone who might question him reveal the nature of their interest.

  ‘Personal,’ Henderson replied. ‘In Medmelton. Been here before?’

  ‘No.’ Maltravers smiled. ‘Lovely village.’

  ‘Thought I saw you in Exeter the other week.’ Henderson held a glass up to the light, then looked back at Maltravers inquiringly.

  ‘Not me. I was still in London.’

  ‘You’ve got a double then.’ Now Henderson sounded challenging, daring further denial.

  ‘I must have.’ As Maltravers refused to be goaded into what could be made into an argument, Henderson’s silent audience was almost tangibly willing him to continue.

  ‘Anything to do with the village, is it? Your business?’

  ‘There could be a connection. I’ll have to see.’

  It was mildly offered minimal information that revealed nothing definite and showed that Maltravers was not to be drawn. Henderson appeared uncertain how he could press any further and gave up.

  ‘Well, if there’s anything you want to know about Medmelton, not much misses my ears.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind ... Can I buy you a drink?’

  ‘I’ve already got one, thanks.’

  Disappointment followed the landlord as he retreated to the other side of the bar and there could have been an uncomfortable silence if Gilbert Flyte had not arrived at that moment. People who had been uninterested in his absence minutes earlier were suddenly full of excited questions.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Stephen muttered.

  ‘Tell you later,’ Maltravers murmured back. ‘Anyway, now that the ice has been broken, introduce me to a few people.’

  The reception was near enough hostile to make no difference. Several offered only reluctant grunts of greeting and the best responses were little more than the most basic comments, spoken as though under police questioning. Storing away names and what little information accompanied them, Maltravers remained amiable, making the intelligent small talk of a harmless visitor, giving no indication of being offended. Gilbert Flyte was the only one who revealed any suggestion of positive apprehension at being approached.

  ‘Gilbert, I’d like you to meet Gus Maltravers, a friend of mine from London.’ Under normal circumstances, Stephen would have left Flyte out — any encounter with him inevitably led to conversations of mind-numbing tedium — but resistance everywhere else left him with no option. ‘Gilbert’s an assistant bank manager in Exeter. Lives in the cottage just along from here on the corner of the green.’

  ‘Hello,’ Maltravers hoped his smile was wearing well. ‘I gather you were unexpectedly late this evening.’

  ‘What?’ Flyte appeared to be considering endless threatening motives behind the comment. ‘Oh, yes. Got held up. Nuisance.’ He turned to his dog. ‘Stay, Bobby.’ Immobile as a rock by his master’s bar stool, the terrier looked confused.

  ‘I noticed your cottage when I arrived,’ Maltravers added. ‘It looked very attractive at a distance. What is it? Eighteenth century?’

  ‘Late. Seventeen nineties.’ Flyte finished the remaining half of his pint in three hasty gulps, and spluttered. ‘Anyway, nice to meet you, Mr ... er ... Mr ... Mallory, but I have to go. Come on, Bobby.’

  For the first time ever, Gilbert Flyte left the Raven eight minutes early. Already amazed at Maltravers not being subjected to a never-ending narrative either of his journey home or the detailed history of his cottage, Stephen Hart waited for the uproar that did not come. Knotted into separate groups again, nobody appeared even to notice.

  ‘We ought to be getting back as well,’ Maltravers said. ‘Dinner will be ready.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Stephen looked blank. ‘Yes, of course.’ Maltravers drank the last of his wine and put his glass down, nodding towards a man who happened to be looking in his direction.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he called loudly enough for everyone at the bar to hear. ‘Probably see you tomorrow.’

  Stephen controlled himself until they were twenty yards from the pub. ‘What the hell is going on? What have you been up to?’

  ‘Very little, but obviously enough,’ Maltravers replied. ‘I made a few casual comments to Mildred Thomson this morning and Medmelton has done the rest.’

  ‘What sort of comments?’

  ‘Just enough to suggest that I had more than a passing interest in Patrick Gabriel’s death. I assumed the word would get around ... and now I don’t seem to be a welcome stranger in the camp.’ Maltravers looked back at the Raven. ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall in there at the moment.’

  ‘What are you hoping to achieve?’

  Maltravers shrugged. ‘Flush somebody out of cover? Nobody’s going to talk to me willingly, so the pond has to be stirred. I have mixed metaphors for all occasions. First concrete results are that one Gilbert Flyte appears strangely resistant to the pleasure of my company.’

  ‘You don’t know how unbelievable that was,’ Stephen told him. ‘Arriving late was one thing — all right, so he was held up — but him not telling you the story of his life and walking out early was like the sun rising in the west.’

  ‘And all because you introduced him to me?’

  ‘I can’t think of any other reason.’

  ‘Not a bad start,’ Maltravers remarked. ‘Tell me more about him. Out here. Let’s keep this between just the two of us for the moment.’

  There was a flash of sudden alarm in Stephen’s glance. ‘You mean you don’t want Veronica to know?’

  ‘Not yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suspecting her of anything. But she’s very much a part of Medmelton and might not be ... detached enough.’

  ‘You mean in relation to Michelle?’

  ‘You said that, not me,’ Maltravers replied evenly. ‘You’ve asked me to try and help and I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do it my way.’

  ‘Are you keeping something from me?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘Frankly, yes,’ Maltravers admitted. ‘Because it’s no more than a bizarre theory and I don’t want you worrying unnecessarily. Trust me. If there are things you have to know, I’ll tell you.’

  Stephen stared at him closely, then accepted. ‘All right. But don’t keep me in the dark too long. Too many people are doing that.’

  ‘You’ll have chapter and verse when the time comes,’ Maltravers promised. ‘Now let’s have the potted history of Gilbert Flyte, neurotic of this parish.’

  ‘There isn’t much to tell. He wasn’t born in Medmelton, but has lived here for more than twenty years. Married,
no children, mother lives with them. He could bore for the planet, but otherwise he’s harmless.’ Stephen paused. ‘There’s hardly anything else to say about him. Churchwarden, scorer for the village cricket team ... oh, and writing an endless biography of Nelson.’

  ‘A Thoreau life of quiet desperation?’ Maltravers suggested.

  ‘He’d not see it like that. He’s perfectly contented in his little rut. A lot of people are.’ Stephen shrugged. ‘But there could be other hang-ups below the surface. Still waters run deep.’

  ‘Still waters stagnate,’ Maltravers corrected. ‘And nasty things breed in them. The fact is that your Mr Flyte starts acting completely out of character the moment he meets me.’

  ‘So did everybody else,’ Stephen pointed out. ‘Medmelton may be insular, but if anyone local turns up at the Raven with a visitor people are friendly enough. They treated you as though you’ve got the plague.’

  ‘Well, I have been ringing my leper’s bell.’ Maltravers looked across the empty green to the pub, windows glowing crimson in the darkness. ‘I must try ringing it again — -a bit louder next time.’

  As they walked on, Gilbert Flyte instinctively turned off his desk light as he saw them from his upstairs study, as though invisibility would protect him. He watched as they passed under a street lamp illuminating the ford, Maltravers making some gesture with his hand, Stephen walking with his head bowed. From nearly a hundred yards across the green, it was impossible to interpret anything from that momentary glimpse, but as they disappeared into the darkness and he turned the light back on, his fingers left a smear of sweat on the switch. Then he stared at St Leonard’s churchyard and the dim outline of the Lazarus Tree for a long time as guilt and the terror of exposure with which he had lived for months returned to consume him again.

  NINE

  Behind the activity of Medmelton Stores with its changing stock and constant passage of people, the sitting room was a slow, quiet ruin of Mildred Thomson’s childhood and her parents’ lives; heavy oak dining suite and sideboard with yellowing linen runner, mahogany case clock in the centre, metal-bound wooden biscuit barrel and stuffed magpie, perched alert in death on a branch under a glass dome, at either end. The bulbous sofa was infested with dust, the Axminster time-worn as a medieval tapestry, the mantelpiece over the blacklead fireplace covered with ornaments from another age: a pair of Chinese dogs, a boy perpetually holding cherries above a rosebud mouth, a grim bronze bust of Gladstone, a George VI coronation mug. Behind decorative plates and faded imperial images — the death of Gordon and Indian tiger hunts — the wallpaper her father had hung thirty years earlier was still cream; what could be seen had darkened to dirty mustard. Old and musty as the room itself, Mildred was watching television when she heard the back kitchen doorlatch click; it was never locked until bedtime.

  ‘Is that you, Michelle?’ A remote control — one of few contemporary touches — killed scenes of sophisticated America and the screen became a blind eye. Mildred turned and looked over the humped back of the sofa as the girl appeared in the doorway. ‘I’m glad you’ve come. I need to talk to you.’

  Michelle rocked slightly on the wooden chair, sitting on a knitted patchwork cushion made by Mildred’s mother limp from countless washings, original colours blurred into muddy pink and yellow. The room depressed her with its sluggish corruption and sense of maggot decay; but Mildred gave it the fascination of the repulsive, the thrill of a horror film.

  ‘Who’s this man visiting you?’

  ‘What?’ The immediate question caught the girl unawares. ‘You mean Gus? He’s a friend of Stephen’s. Why?’

  ‘He came into the shop this morning.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He said he was investigating the murder.’

  The girl looked startled. ‘That’s stupid. It’s nothing to do with him.’

  ‘He says it is ... has he spoken to you?’

  ‘A bit.’ Michelle looked away at smokeless flames weaving like shadows of wild dancers in the grate. ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Not much ... London — he lives there.’

  ‘Did he mention Patrick?’

  ‘No.’ The girl looked back at Mildred. She had her toad face on, unblinking eyes, sagging flesh beneath her chin stretched as she held her head forward. Michelle began to feel defensively angry. Mildred didn’t own her — nobody did — and if she wanted to talk to anyone about anything that was her business. ‘What did he mean by investigating? He’s not a policeman. I can tell you that. He’s a writer. Stephen’s known him for ages. Mum knows him as well.’

  ‘He didn’t say why he was investigating. Just that he was.’

  Michelle suddenly remembered seeing Stephen and Maltravers near the Lazarus Tree shortly after his arrival — where he had later spoken to her. Had he been watching her? She tried to recall what had been said. He’d asked what she was doing in the churchyard, but had not pressed her. They’d talked about London and how she wanted to go there ... and she’d mentioned Blackheath. The way her mind had been working at the time, it had been an almost inevitable question. If he was really investigating, surely he would have used that as an excuse to say something about Patrick. But he hadn’t. What had he said? Ignored at the time because it wasn’t important, it was now gone.

  ‘You didn’t tell him anything, did you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’ Mildred looked at her pityingly. ‘I just wanted to warn you to be careful with him.’

  ‘He’s hardly taken any notice of me.’ She could persuade herself that was true; one chance conversation didn’t mean anything. ‘Don’t worry. He’s only here for a few days.’

  She dismissed Maltravers from the conversation; he was just another irrelevant grown-up in her life, vaguely interesting because he lived in London, but finally as boring as all the others.

  ‘I want to talk about what I do next. I’ve done all the other things like you said.’

  Mildred Thomson’s smile showed crooked teeth and inflamed gums. This was the obedient Michelle Dean, feeding her need to be wanted by another human being, acknowledging qualities that made her unique.

  ‘You’re nearly there,’ she said. ‘Come on. We’ll ask the glass. You lay everything out.’

  Michelle took a pack of cards, creased with repeated use, from the sideboard drawer. There were all the letters of the alphabet, figures from zero to nine and two with the words ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. Cracked backs bore a picture of a crystal ball filled with swirling smoke around a spectral, slightly menacing face. She laid them out in a precise circle on the polished dining table, the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ cards opposite each other, then placed a glass tumbler upside down in the centre. Mildred eased her flabby body off the sofa and they sat opposite each other, forefingers of their right hands resting on the bottom of the glass.

  ‘Wait,’ Mildred warned as she saw the glitter of anticipation in Medmelton eyes. There was a silence broken only by a tumble of coal and the ticking of a clock on the sideboard. Michelle’s eyes never left the glass as her expectation grew into tenseness.

  ‘Is anybody there?’ Mildred Thomson’s voice was very low. For a few seconds nothing happened, then the glass began to slide towards ‘Yes’. Michelle had deliberately placed the card in front of the old woman on the far side of the table. She was not pushing the tumbler and Mildred Thomson’s finger was barely touching it.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The glass returned to the centre and stopped for a moment, then began to pick out letters one at a time: ‘P ... A ... T ... R ... I ...’

  ‘Is it Patrick?’ Mildred interrupted. The glass diverted to ‘Yes’.

  ‘Did you find the flowers?’

  ‘W ... H ... A ... T ... F ... L ... O ... W ... E ... R ... S?’

  ‘Under the tree.’

  ‘The glass’s movement to ‘Yes’ seemed hesitant, as if confused.

  ‘They were for you.’

  ‘W ... H ..
. Y?’

  ‘Don’t you know.’

  ‘No’ was directly in front of Michelle and her body jerked as the glass slid to it so quickly that it knocked the card slightly out of the line of the circle.

  ‘Yes you do,’ Michelle murmured soothingly.

  Now back in the centre, the tumbler oscillated in tiny circles then stopped. Mildred breathed in and out very deeply.

  ‘You speak to him,’ she whispered.

  Michelle had to swallow to clear her throat before she could speak. ‘Are you all right?’

  For half a minute nothing happened, then the glass suddenly whipped around the table. ‘H ... E ... L ... P.’ Michelle went very pale as it returned to the centre and immediately repeated the word.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Mildred assured her hastily. ‘Let him rest for a moment.’

  The girl could hear her heart beating as they both waited. Once the glass seemed to try to move, and she could almost feel agitation, even a sense of pleading, emanating from it.

  ‘Be at peace,’ Mildred repeated softly. ‘What is this girl called?’

  When it had first happened, this had been the most chilling moment and even now Michelle felt a sense of terrified wonder as her name was obediently picked out letter by letter.

  ‘And she is your friend, isn’t she?’ Mildred added. The movement to the ‘Yes’ card seemed very slow. ‘And I am your friend.’

  Michelle let out a tiny scream as the glass jumped beneath their fingers, cracking back on the table top and quivering violently. It skidded across the polished wood, first to ‘No’, then to ‘Yes’, then shot back to the centre where it moved rapidly from side to side before streaking out at a crazy sequence of letters, ‘H ... E ... L ... A ... T ... R ... O ... N ... P ... O ... E ... G ... A ... B ... R ...’ The girl tried to pull her fingers away, but they seemed glued to the glass. She looked desperately at the old woman, whose features were twisted with what looked like fear or anger.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Michelle cried. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ She did not know if she was speaking to the glass or to Mildred. The tumbler was still hitting the cards violently, pushing them further and further towards the edge of the table until one fluttered on to the girl’s lap. The finger of one hand still captured, she used her other hand to brush the card away in frantic revulsion, as though it was a spider. As she screamed, the glass shot away as though someone had thrown it, flying across the room and shattering against the wall. Mildred Thomson’s body shuddered and the stillness was like phantom peace after a thunderclap.