Down Cemetery Road

by Mick Herron

  ‘True. He was a soldier, did you know that?’

  ‘I heard he fought in the Gulf.’

  ‘That’s right. But he died off Cyprus, in a helicopter crash. This was about four years ago. There were other soldiers in the ’copter. I think six died altogether. And the crew.’

  Sarah nodded, as if this made sense, or indeed had anything to do with her. ‘And the police told you this?’

  ‘A policeman told me. In return, you understand, for a donation to the charity of his choice, which in his case begins very close to home. Sarah, you should understand this. What he told me, what I’ve told you, this is for your ears only. Two hours after I spoke to him, he’s on the phone suggesting I forget we ever met. Even offering me a refund. This is unprecedented. It’s practically supernatural.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘He didn’t know why. Just, there’s been this information clampdown. His very words. Leaks, he said, would be plugged. He was worried for his pension.’ Joe’s shoulders rose and fell. ‘Don’t expect to read this in the papers.’

  A thought struck her. ‘How much do I owe you, Joe?’

  ‘I gave you two days,’ he said. ‘I spread it over a week, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘None of it matters. I went looking for a child, I found a father. You couldn’t call it a result.’

  ‘It’s odd, though.’

  ‘Life is odd. You should know this, you don’t grow old and disappointed. You owe me one hundred and fifty pounds, since you ask. I would offer a discount for failure, but union rules forbid it.’

  She wrote him a cheque. ‘What will you do next?’

  ‘I thought I’d have a look at the exhibition. This French photographer, are you interested? It’s free before one.’

  ‘I meant about Dinah.’

  He took the cheque, folded it, slipped it inside his wallet. ‘Sarah. You don’t mind? Of course not, you’re calling me Joe. Sarah, like I said, these are muddy waters. A soldier comes back from the dead, even if his visit proves brief. We are not talking about police matters here. We are talking national security. Military Intelligence. Private investigators, they don’t like. Sometimes they throw the book at them.’

  ‘Joe –’

  ‘Have you seen the book, Sarah? It’s very big and it’s very heavy. I promise you, if I wasn’t a coward, I’d help.’

  ‘You’re giving up.’

  ‘If you want to put it that way, yes. You won’t shame me into this, Sarah. You want to know what else my policeman friend told me? Ex-friend. The word is, that house did not blow up by accident.’

  ‘The papers said –’

  ‘The papers lied.’

  ‘You know that for a fact?’

  He raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Facts. A policeman wanted to give me my money back, Sarah. We are beyond facts here. We are in an age of miracles and wonders.’

  ‘But what about the child?’

  ‘Trust me. She’ll turn up. It was a hospital she was in, they won’t have sold her into slavery.’

  He wasn’t about to budge, Sarah could see that. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to insert a wedge. ‘Supposing I found out –’

  ‘How would you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m supposing. Supposing I thought I knew where she was, would you help me look? If I asked?’

  He picked up his coffee spoon and held it lengthwise between index fingers. He seemed to be measuring something with it. ‘You understand what I said? That explosion was no accident. In English, a bomb was involved. It’s a dangerous business.’

  ‘I don’t care about that. I want to find Dinah.’

  ‘Why?’

  Why? Because the child was a survivor: now, more than ever. Before, Sarah had imagined Dinah to have come through an Act of God unscathed. Now, it seemed she had lived through an Act of Man. For that, if for no other reason, she deserved to have someone care about what happened next.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Joe. It matters, that’s all.’

  He considered. ‘You need help, it doesn’t involve policemen or spies or soldiers, okay, I’ll be there. But this is only because I like you, Sarah.’

  ‘And because you don’t think it’ll happen.’

  ‘That too.’ He put the spoon down and reached into his jacket pocket. ‘This doesn’t interest you. But it’s what he looked like, Thomas Singleton. I took it from a newspaper, an old one. The story about the helicopter crash.’

  She unfolded a picture: two men, uniformed, but relaxed and smiling; both about her age, maybe a little older. The one on the left was squinting in the sun. The other, Thomas Singleton, held a cupped cigarette at chest level.

  Joe said. ‘His friend there was in the chopper with him.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Michael something. Michael Downey, I think.’ He scratched his chin. ‘You know, come to think of it, maybe he’s still alive too.’

  ‘Oh, I’d put money on it.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because he’s the man who was waiting for me in the car park,’ Sarah said.

  She finished stripping the ivy from the shed, and piled it in a garden refuse sack. For all her musing she was no nearer finding Dinah Singleton, apart from having established that she wasn’t in the garden. Back inside, Mark was absorbed in cricket, and didn’t look up as she walked past. Sundays were their one guaranteed day together. Looked like they’d blown this one.

  The fight proper, though, didn’t start until the evening. Usually Mark was ready for bed by ten, never failing to make some comment about having to be up early. Meaning lucky old her, who didn’t. Tonight he was in no hurry, pouring another glass of wine as the clock struck. ‘We’ve been invited away next weekend,’ he said.

  ‘Really? Who by?’

  ‘The Inchons.’

  He’d deliberately turned away before dropping this bombshell.

  ‘You have to be kidding.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘Well, forget it. We’re not going.’

  ‘Yes we are.’

  ‘You might be. He’s not my client.’

  ‘But I’m your husband. Be reasonable, Sarah. It goes with the job.’

  ‘That’s my point.’

  ‘Christ, why do you have to be so sanctimonious all the time? You never bleat about my job while you’re spending money.’

  ‘I don’t notice you being particularly supportive about my career.’

  ‘What career?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks a bunch. Congratulations, Mark. You really have turned into one of the shits we used to hate so much in college.’

  ‘I work bloody hard –’

  ‘You spend all day arse-licking on the phone. I tell my friends you sell crack to schoolkids. I don’t want to alienate them.’

  ‘You’ve been a real bitch these past months, did you know that?’

  ‘And you turned into a yuppie prick about three years ago.’

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing herself say; it was like watching somebody have an accident there was nothing you could do to prevent. The damage they did now would be with them long after they’d both pretended to forget it. Later they’d call it clearing the air, but it had more in common with biological warfare.

  ‘. . . Turned into a what?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. But Christ, Mark, what am I supposed to think? This wasn’t what you’d planned.’

  ‘This is news to me?’

  ‘All I meant was –’

  ‘You think I wanted it to be like this? You think I woke up one morning and thought, I never really wanted to fulfil my life’s ambition, maybe I’ll go and work for a bank instead? You think that’s what happened?’

  ‘So what did happen, Mark? You tell me, since I can’t work it out for myself.’

  ‘Things change, that’s all. Is that so hard to take in? You think life’s all straight lines and easy choices? How many people get to live their student daydr
eams? Hell, people we know’d be running the world if that happened.’

  ‘And that’s your answer, is it? Things change. Brilliant.’

  ‘What do you want? An apology?’

  ‘I just want to know what happened to us, Mark! One day you were full of ambition. You were going to write books, for God’s sake. What turned you into a shark instead?’

  ‘I’m not a shark!’

  ‘Your job is making bastards like Inchon richer. What would you call it, radical philanthropy?’

  ‘My job pays for everything we have.’

  ‘I’m not interested in what it pays for, Mark. I’m worried about what it costs.’

  ‘Oh, pardon me while I write that down!’

  ‘I’m being serious here.’

  ‘So am I. You wish I’d made it in academia? Me too. But I didn’t. Shit happens, Sarah. What am I supposed to do, curl up into a ball and spend the rest of my life crying about it? Would that make you happy?’

  ‘Maybe I just didn’t want you to give up.’

  ‘Well, that’s fucking easy for you to say. What did you ever work at?’

  ‘I work at this. I work at us. But you’re never here, and when you are you aren’t interested!’

  ‘Oh, grow up.’

  She didn’t realize until then how loud they’d been shouting. There followed one dull, excruciating moment when she knew the neighbours must have heard them, and another of pure pain as she realized they’d never fought like this, not even back in the early days when everybody fought. How did you get out of a corner you’d just painted yourself into? She fell back on the old; the tried and trusted: ‘I’m sorry.’

  He pretended not to hear that.

  ‘Mark? I said I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that. I didn’t mean it. I love you.’

  He mumbled something she wasn’t meant to catch, and went and locked himself in the bathroom.

  So Monday was hell, even more than usual. She found a space above the airing cupboard she’d never attacked, had always assumed was spider heaven, and spent the whole morning with it, though you’d need a ladder and torch to appreciate it afterwards. Then she cried for a while, skipped lunch, and walked into town to buy something expensive from the butcher’s. This is what good little wifey is supposed to do, a voice in her head informed her, but she was too miserable to pay attention. When you were in hell, you always did what you were supposed to do.

  And in the evening Mark played the good hubby anyway, getting home early with flowers and chocolates, which made them even. They went to bed first, then ate chocolates, and had fillet steak sandwiches for a midnight snack. It was a little like life five years ago; four at a pinch.

  ‘I’ll call him,’ he said, far too casually. ‘Tell him we can’t make it.’

  ‘No, let’s go.’

  ‘You don’t want to.’

  ‘No, but we have to. It’ll be all right.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No. But let’s go anyway.’

  He was pleased, but tried not to show it. ‘I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to mention it,’ she said. ‘I spent three hundred pounds last week.’

  The next few days, Sarah mostly spent gearing up for what she was calling, in her mind, The Inchon Weekend: a name which made it sound like a particularly dire novel. But with a dire novel you could give up half-way, and The Inchon Weekend would have to be lived through minute by minute. It occurred to her, had occurred as soon as Mark had confessed they’d been invited, that this had been the point of having the Inchons to supper; the quid pro quo he’d been angling for from the start. Not much chance of doing business with Wigwam and Rufus about. But with a whole weekend to play with you were away, though what banking business involved, the kind you could do just talking about it, Sarah didn’t know. Presumably, though, The Bank With No Name would be happy that its brightest and best was rubbing elbows with a fat potential client. At the fat potential client’s country seat.

  ‘Which is where, anyway?’

  ‘Out in the Cotswolds.’

  ‘Does London continue to function without him, then?’

  ‘Just try and behave yourself, Sarah. No one’s asking you to enjoy it. But try and behave yourself.’

  He said that in the mock-angry tone they teased each other with, but she wasn’t fooled.

  They drove there, or Mark did, mid-Saturday morning. It was dreamtime weather: a great big blue sky with faint tufts of cloud, like a child’s drawing of summer. To Sarah, it felt like passing through a funfair on the way to the dentist. She kept telling herself that these things are rarely as bad as you expect, but couldn’t help suspecting she invalidated that premise by relying on it. If she wasn’t expecting it to be quite so bad any more, it would probably turn out worse.

  The village was one of the modern kind whose original inhabitants have grown old and died, leaving their houses in the hands of BBC executives. And the Inchons’ weekend cottage, one in a row of similar detached dwellings, had ‘weekend cottage’ written all over it; there was just no way you were looking at anything else. Not that it had an air of neglect: quite the opposite. The whitewash on the walls seemed fresh; the bedspread-sized garden was Britain-in-Bloom standard. But when Sarah tried to conjure an image of Gerard in overalls with a bucket, or Gerard on his knees with a trowel, it faded almost immediately, to be replaced by one of Gerard handing a wodge of money to a man with overalls, a bucket, etc. It was too perfect, and Gerard too much the townie to have made it so. That was what Sarah decided.

  Inside, the story was the same: an interior designer had looked up ‘rustic’, then thrown a lot of money at it. The stone floor presumably matched that of every other cottage in the row, but Sarah doubted there were many more Bokharas thrown casually on top of them, even round here. Eveything gleamed, and a faint smell of polish tainted the air. A wooden staircase looked both old and new at once; a triumphant marriage of conservation and conspicuous consumption, with what appeared to be a mouse carved into the handrail, in imitation, Sarah was pretty sure, of someone famous. In the nook below, on a purpose-built stand, sat a compact disc deck with associated gadgetry; next to this was a row of bookshelves holding neatly labelled videos. Through a diamond-shaped window on the far wall, an untidy countryside mocked these civilized arrangements: the crystal decanter perched smugly in an alcove; the scatter of pristine lifestyle magazines on the glass-topped coffee table. For no reason she could positively pin down, Sarah found herself recalling Britt Ekland on Desert Island Discs; how, when asked for her favourite book, the former celebrity explained that she never got much time for reading, and would just like a few magazines please. It was the nearest Sarah had come to throwing a radio through a window. Meanwhile Inchon, in brown cords and white sweater despite the weather, played Mein Host: a triumph of method acting. She’d not have been surprised if he’d said Welcome To Our Humble Abode, or practised a sweeping bow as he’d ushered them in.

  What he was in fact saying was, ‘You’re here, you’re here. How about a drink?’

  It wasn’t the words or the manner; they had nothing to do with it. But afterwards she pinpointed that as the moment she decided it had been Gerard Inchon who planted the bomb that blew the Singleton house away.

  III

  Asking Mark to remind her what the Trophy Wife was called would have been asking for it: divine inspiration descended in time. The name was Paula and, unlike her husband, she was making no concessions to her environment; her lilac number, matching skirt and jacket, could have graced a West End opening without alteration. So could her air of boredom. But this, like the suit, didn’t seem to have been put on for their benefit: a weekend in the country, Sarah reflected, was one of those relative terms. Under different circumstances, she’d have been looking forward to it. For Paula, it looked like a phrase followed by With No Hope Of Parole, in block capitals.

  Still, she didn’t labour the point; positively unwound, in fact, once Sarah a
nd Mark had accepted Gerard’s offer of drinks. Or spoke, anyway. ‘Did you have a good journey?’

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ Mark said. ‘Absolutely no . . . problem.’

  It was like listening to people remembering a phrase book they’d glanced at. A suspicious mind would have assumed they were having an affair.

  But Sarah’s suspicious mind was otherwise occupied at that moment; was trying desperately to send the right signals to her body, her limbs. Act natural. Smile. Talk about the weather. Don’t, for instance, mention Gerard turning up late the night of the explosion, leaving his briefcase in the car. (His briefcase? At a dinner party?) Don’t ask why he’d been so sure it was a bomb. Don’t ask where he keeps his gun collection. Just take, which she now did, the proffered cocktail and smile, act natural, talk about the weather.

  ‘Brilliant piece of sunshine.’

  ‘Splendid.’

  ‘Great summer in fact.’

  ‘Greenhouse effect.’

  ‘More power to it.’

  ‘Too hot, really.’

  ‘Well, yes, I’d say so.’

  ‘They say it’ll break soon.’

  ‘But they always say that,’ concluded Gerard, ‘don’t they?’

  Mark fetched their bags, and Gerard showed them the guestroom. It was more of the same: an illustration from a catalogue; a backdrop to a tweed collection. The double bed had a bolster, and through the window sheep posed placidly beneath a spreading chestnut tree, probably. Gerard showed them how the wardrobe worked: it had a sliding door. Left to themselves, she and Mark would have cracked this fairly soonish. You could take the host business too far, she thought, but you couldn’t fault his geniality.

  Except you had to see it as an act. If you had decided he was responsible for the deaths of a young widow and her curiously extant husband, and, by logical extension, the kidnapping – or at any rate disappearing – of their surviving daughter, you had to take this newly jovial front with a quarryload of salt. Sarah had, of course, no evidence. For the moment, though, she wouldn’t let that get in the way; with a weekend on the premises to go, she could have him bang to rights by Monday.

  ‘Not too shabby,’ Mark said, once Gerard had left them.