Guilty Waters

by Priscilla Masters

  Martin’s face was contorting with the effort of not laughing out loud. Pompous little fellow, he was thinking. And the picture was awful. Dreadful. That completely unrealistic stylized face, the blue-green tinge of the skin and the ridiculously exotic costume – it couldn’t be a kimono, surely? It was repulsive. Sickly.

  The way Barker was looking at her was practically lascivious. ‘Chinese girl,’ he added. ‘That’s what they call her, but I believe she’s Burmese. Like the girl in “Mandalay” – Supi-yaw-lat.’

  Something in the way he spoke made James’s flesh crawl. ‘The poem,’ he said, suddenly understanding.

  ‘That’s right. Kipling. Clever man,’ Barker said in his soft voice. ‘That’s why I chose the name.’ He glanced, almost surreptitiously, as though asking permission from the picture and changed his voice to estuary English Mockney. ‘“’Er petticoat was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green.’ He laughed. ‘“I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner greener land! On the road to Mandalay.” He turned back to the brothers. ‘One day,’ he said, ‘I’d like to go there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Mandalay. Burma. Myanmar they call it now, but it doesn’t sound quite the same, does it?’

  It was difficult to find a response to this wish. ‘I daresay it’s a bit different these days from Kipling’s time,’ James said stiffly.

  Barker bored into him with his sharp little gimlet eyes. ‘Oh, I doubt it,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll find it little changed.’

  The brothers simply shrugged. They were bored with him now. James moved over to the window and gazed out across the lake. ‘You’ve got a lovely view here,’ he said.

  ‘Ye-es,’ Barker responded. ‘I’m very lucky. There were some trees in the way, you know. They cut them down last year and I got my view back. We have a lot of visitors here and they all want to see the lake. It’s a popular place of pilgrimage.’

  ‘Pilgrimage?’

  ‘Ye-es. Pilgrimage,’ Barker said.

  The brothers frowned, their faces suddenly announcing their consanguinity.

  Barker waited for a response and when he got none moved to leave but hesitated in the doorway. ‘I prefer to be paid upfront,’ he said pointedly.

  ‘Yeah. Of course. We’ll just get our stuff out of the car.’

  The brothers were both thinking the same thing. Shower, change, the Rudyard Hotel, food and drink. Sleep and pursue their hunt for the two girls.

  ‘And what time will you be wanting breakfast?’ It was Barker’s Parthian shot.

  ‘Half eight?’

  Barker nodded and left. When they were alone in the room Martin couldn’t resist mimicking him. ‘“The kitsch Mona Lisa,”’ he said in an Estuary accent, hand on hip, mincing around the room. ‘“And isn’t she …”’ He stood in front of the picture and searched for a word. ‘“’Er petticoat was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green,”’ he mocked in a gothic tone.

  ‘Ssh,’ his brother warned. ‘He might hear you.’

  But Barker hadn’t needed to. He had seen the look in the boys’ eyes as they had first of all regarded him and then her. Why oh why did he always feel the need for people to appreciate her? What did it matter? He descended the stairs, shoulders slumped. Men like them, the hearty sort, always despised him. It had started in school – possibly even before that. He had a vision of his mother keeping the hood up on his pram, omitting to enrol him in nursery, to shield him for as long as possible from the taunts of other children, knowing that in the end he would be an object of derision. Always the odd one out. Barker reached the bottom of the stairs and glanced up. He could hear their door opening. They would be tumbling down the stairs at any minute in their galumphing great boots, banging doors and making the entire house shake.

  Why hadn’t they camped for a second night? He’d seen their equipment in the back of their car. The weather was still fine. They weren’t being rained off. So why had they come here?

  He went into the kitchen, determined not to worry too much, and shut the door firmly behind him. People still made fun of him, recognized within minutes that there was something different about him, that he was the odd one out, a misfit. Perhaps it was his mother’s fault. Perhaps she shouldn’t have shielded him with her constant presence. She’d been so overprotective, and it had only served to draw attention to his inadequacies, his short legs and large head, his pale-fish skin and podgy middle, even as a child. The other kids had pointed the finger at the little boy who peeped from behind his mother’s skirts. Sometimes he wished he could stick pins in a wax effigy of her. Why, knowing he would be a misfit from birth, had she given him that awful name? That label.

  It wasn’t even as if he could substitute his middle name. In this area that would have caused even more leg-pulling.

  And yet he knew he had Dora to thank for all this, for the rebranding of Mandalay and the tourists that it drew in. Yes, thanks to her he, Horace Gladstone Barker, was a rich man.

  He busied himself with cleaning the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher and checking that he had the ingredients for the following morning’s hearty full English, and listening out for the two men who had just booked into Mandalay.

  Ten minutes later they knocked on the door and held out four twenty-pound notes before returning to their room.

  He heard the sound of water running, felt the shake of their heavy footsteps overhead, heard their boots clattering downstairs. The door slammed and Barker was alone again.

  The Rudyard Hotel was quiet that evening and the barmaid was different – a ginger-haired girl called Cheryl who’d looked at them blankly when they’d mentioned two French girls, friends of theirs, who’d been on holiday here a couple of months ago. Her only, unhelpful response had been a grudging, ‘We get a lot of visitors round here. It’s a popular spot, you know.’ As with Sarah Gratton, they’d had to be content with that.

  So they ate their meal wondering whether the overnight stay at Mandalay had been a waste of time. The girls had gone. The question was had they left a forwarding address?

  Martin, as usual, was upbeat. Not so, as usual, his brother.

  Walking back up the hill to the guest house they reflected that so far their quest had not exactly been successful. Tomorrow they’d pump Barker for information.

  But the room was comfortable, even if they did feel watched by the strange eyes of the girl in the picture. They tried to turn her around, but she was screwed to the wall. In the end Martin draped a pair of trousers over her face.

  They waited until Barker was serving their breakfast before broaching the subject of the girls. ‘Do you remember two French girls staying here?’ James asked idly. ‘A little while ago?’

  Barker took a step back. ‘What were their names?’ Buy time. Tread carefully. He eyed them suspiciously.

  ‘Annabelle and Dorothée,’ James said casually. ‘They’re friends of ours. We promised to catch up with them.’

  Barker knew his voice would squeak. ‘What makes you think they stayed here?’ He felt an instinct to conceal the truth.

  ‘They emailed us a little while ago.’ James had made it up on the spur of the moment. A brainwave to flush out the truth. ‘They were hitchhiking and suggested we meet them here. They said they’d stayed here before and could recommend it.’

  Barker made one desperate attempt at getting his voice under control. ‘When exactly was that?’ He felt sick. He’d known these two were trouble.

  ‘At least a month ago. Maybe longer.’ The two brothers exchanged glances.

  ‘Well, they’re not here now.’ His mother, Dora, had taught him this mantra. ‘Attack,’ she had said in her deep voice, both mother and father to him, ‘is the very best form of defence.’ It had been advice that Barker, the child, had taken on board, only for it to result in a succession of bruised ribs and bloody noses. ‘And in fact, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any French girls.’

  Martin spoke up. ‘But they did stay here. The barmaid a
t the hotel told us.’

  ‘She could be wrong,’ Barker said quickly.

  James’s voice was calm as he continued as though Barker had not spoken. ‘Do you know where they went after here?’

  Barker shook his head and managed to face them. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re mistaken. I’m sure I haven’t—’

  ‘Let’s look in the visitors’ book,’ Martin suggested. It was a line they had already practised.

  Barker was tempted to protest that he didn’t keep a visitors’ book but had a feeling that the brothers would have noticed it on the table that stood in his hall.

  He stomped out of the breakfast room, the brothers so close behind him they practically nipped his heels.

  They flicked back the pages and soon found what they wanted.

  Annabelle et Dorothée, 18 Juillet, 2014. Merci. C’est Magnifique. Nous aimons le lac et son lien avec Rudyard Kipling, le plus grand de tous les poètes.

  And … the jackpot. A mobile phone number.

  James eyed Barker. ‘So where did they go next?’ he enquired innocently.

  Barker felt faint. He could taste bile rising up in his mouth and hear a rushing in his head. Signs of panic, Dora used to call them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he managed to squawk, his throat as dry as the Gobi desert. In desperation, he called on his mother’s advice. Attack! Attack, Horace. ‘How should I know?’ he almost shouted. ‘People don’t tell me where they’re going next. I have lots of people here. Coming and going all the time. Are you going to tell me where you’re going next?’ Then he realized he was shouting.

  James and Martin looked at each other. This seemed a bit of an overreaction to an innocent enquiry about the whereabouts of two supposed friends of theirs.

  ‘Maybe,’ Barker continued in the same voice, ‘they didn’t know where they were going next. They were hitchhiking, you know. They would have to arrive where they were taken, wouldn’t they?’ It seemed a wizard of an idea to him.

  But not to his two adventurers. The brothers simply exchanged more puzzled looks. The silence dropped between them like a curtain of iron mesh.

  It was James who finally broke into the awkwardness. ‘I expect you’re right,’ he said. ‘They would have to go where they were taken. Let’s finish our breakfast.’

  SEVEN

  Joanna looked at Mike. He appeared to be bending over his work a little deeper, concentrating harder, as though wanting to shut her out. She sighed. This is how life is. One little hiccup, one trauma, a decision and the ripples spread far and keep on spreading. You can never gather them back into your arms. Somehow the small confidence about parenthood had distanced him. He was a devoted father. And husband, too. Although he would never have admitted it his fiery wife, Fran – a petite, attractive and energetic nurse – was his perfect partner. She eyed his dark hair, cut a little shorter these days, almost army regulation, the square shoulders and thick neck, the bulky arms in his Polo shirt, and wondered how to break the silence. With DS Korpanski there was really only one way – head on.

  She caved in. ‘OK, Mike,’ she said, ‘forget the tetchy, awkward subject of parenthood. It’s my business anyway – not yours. Let’s do what we’re paid for. Work. Two French girls who seem to have vanished. Last known location the lovely Rudyard Lake.’

  He fixed his dark eyes on hers, waiting for her next comment.

  ‘They’re in their late teens,’ she said. ‘Seventeen years old. Very attractive, possibly a bit mischievous.’ She frowned. ‘There isn’t anything really worrying about their disappearance at the moment,’ she caught his eye and added, ‘is there?’ She stopped. Of course there was. When do you ever see a teenage girl without a mobile phone glued to her ear? And how would they live without money?

  Korpanski blew out his lips. ‘We-ell,’ he began in his slow way. ‘We’d better hold fire at that, Jo. We’ll need to recheck bank details from over here, mobile phone records, et cetera. But I agree with you. Let’s start nice and slow. A couple of girls none too anxious to go home after a holiday, trying to avoid parental interference. It sounds as though both come from broken homes and it’s only Madame Bellange who’s actually chasing this up. Maybe we should talk to the other girl’s mum. Just to check – you know?’

  ‘In French?’

  Korpanski simply grinned at her and she had her ally back. A friend, a colleague, someone who would make no demands on her. ‘In French,’ he said. ‘I do have an A-level, Jo.’

  She smiled back at him, feeling happy. ‘You take Dorothée and I’ll take Annabelle.’

  ‘OK. That’s fine.’ Then, turning around, he added, ‘but if this doesn’t come to a swift conclusion you’d be much better using DC Alan King. He’s positively fluent.’

  ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed we don’t need to,’ she said.

  Tuesday, 10 September, 8.30 a.m.

  Barker had a problem: two hulking great big rucksacks. He sat at the kitchen table and pondered. What on earth was he going to do with them? He hadn’t bothered up until now because he hadn’t thought he needed to. No one was looking for them. But now these two men had turned up asking questions. Barker wasn’t a person to panic; rather, he worked his problems out slowly and carefully. He’d thought he had plenty of time. He’d deal with it later. Always later – if at all. Barker was a procrastinator and also a person who shied away from unpleasantness, tried to pretend it wasn’t there. Convinced himself that if he only looked the other way any nasty things would simply melt away. His mother had lectured him more than once on this. ‘Face up to your problems, Horace,’ she’d said sharply. ‘Running away from them only makes them bigger, you know.’

  But now … he gave an anxious glance at the kitchen door, which was very slightly ajar. He could hear the brothers at the breakfast table, the sounds almost pricking his senses: the dry rattle of cereal being poured into a round bowl, the soft sound of the milk splashing over it. Coffee. He could smell it from here. Poured and drunk. He shifted in his seat. He’d better ask them if they wanted a full English. He already knew they would. Two hearty climbers? Of course they would. He stood up, and felt a little shaky. He couldn’t ignore them. They were there, an undeniable physical presence. He was apprehensive and nervous.

  Somewhere in the depths of his character Barker was a superstitious man, and this had the tinge of terror around it. At the back of his mind sat a prescience of impending doom. Something hung over him, just out of sight, something that even Supi-yaw-lat couldn’t put right. Not even her soft (imagined) fingers could smooth away this worry, this black crow, wings a-flapping, warning him. He had often wondered why black is the colour of evil when it is simply an absence of colour. Is colour good, then? All colour? Muddy green and khaki? Shit brown and blood red? He scooped in a deep breath. He had to acknowledge that this was not a big problem. It was huge. And the items that currently stood in the corner of his kitchen wouldn’t simply go away. They wouldn’t vanish or self-destruct however much he ignored them. He was going to have to do something with them. And for once he couldn’t think what. Barker rubbed his hands through hair so thin so you could not only see his scalp but a couple of throbbing veins lying like worms over his skull. He was worried. More than worried.

  He stood up and went into the dining room.

  The two brothers were shovelling cereal into their mouths as though they hadn’t eaten for a month. Barker almost shuddered. It was OK for people to enjoy food but something about these two men’s heartiness troubled him. They had too much energy, he thought.

  He almost extruded out a kind, conciliatory voice. ‘Good morning. I hope you slept well?’

  The brothers looked at each other and smirked. Barker knew they had been talking about him last night. He’d seen them through Supi-yaw-lat’s eye. They had been laughing at him. Mocking him. Mimicking his accent, stealing his phrases. Even doing a ridiculous walk. He’d felt affronted. He didn’t walk like that.

  The taller one responded casua
lly, ‘Very. Is it OK if we stay another night?’

  Barker felt his face stiffen. No, it bloody well wasn’t OK if they stayed another night. He didn’t want them to. He felt like shouting, no, I want you to go away and never come back. I don’t like you. I feel you are my nemesis. I don’t want you here. You’re worrying me.

  What he actually said was, ‘Of course,’ in a voice deliberately soft as velvet. ‘Now, then. Cooked breakfast? Two full Englishes?’

  They nodded.

  ‘And have you enough coffee?’

  The brothers exchanged glances and Barker remembered last night. Have you enough coffee? And, The shower is new. I put it in myself. Hand on silly hip.

  He returned to the kitchen to grill the sausage and bacon and fry the bread, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms. When he said full English he meant exactly that. He took pride in this. A bed and breakfast, he sometimes reflected, must take pride in both – the bed, comfortable and clean, and the breakfast well-cooked, made with local ingredients and well presented. Barker loved cookery programmes – and the one where two people who have a bed-and-breakfast business swap places and pull each other’s establishments to bits. He would love to take part in that programme.

  As he cooked, he dreamed. But as he put the bacon, sausage and other items on the plates his unease grew. How he wished he could wave a magic wand, say abracadabra and make those two objects vanish in a puff of smoke, as well as the men who were going to tuck in to his poisoned breakfast. He made a face. Poisoned? I wish, he thought and stomped through, giving one brief glance behind him.

  He put the plates in front of them without a word, gave a vague smile when they acknowledged their appreciation of his cooking and tucked in, and returned to the kitchen.

  The question was now obsessing him. How was he going to get rid of them? Get rid of the evidence? He felt a creeping uneasiness.

  He’d procrastinated for too long, and for some reason hadn’t anticipated that people might come to Mandalay searching for the girls. They were far too huge to simply hide, and they’d been far too big for the girls, who had hefted them so easily on to their slim shoulders. He’d thought that at the time. He should have got rid of them weeks ago, he now realized. Not waited. Leaving them here looked even more suspicious. And now their friends had come to look them. Like hunters, guns levelled, they were tracking the girls’ movements, following their footprints, searching for markers, indicators, as to where they were now.