by J M Gregson
Mephistopheles received the applause he expected and demanded, which he acknowledged with a practised smile. It was a little like a politician addressing a party conference, Dennis Robson thought ungenerously. When you were speaking to those of a like mind, you had no need to convert. He put his hands together politely with the others, though a small, persistent voice within him said that children were not capable as adults were of deciding what they thought about sex with grown men and women, or any of the other things that he and the men around him found desirable in them.
Despite his theme, Dennis decided he didn’t like Mephistopheles, and he took care to keep his distance when others were fraternizing with him after his address. Perhaps, he thought, it was the very fact that his perversion was illegal, as well as outrageous to the majority of people around him from day to day, that gave it an edge. Dennis had never really rejected that word ‘perversion’; he prided himself on seeing other people’s point of view, even when it ran so counter to his own.
Soon they were setting down their glasses and moving downstairs, into the cinema room that occupied the whole of this basement floor. Dennis sat alongside but a little way from his nearest companions, leaving a vacant seat between them, as if intimacy was dangerous, even with these men who had the same sexual preferences as he had.
They were all men. Mephistopheles had stressed in his talk how many women were now involved in paedophilia, how some females were more excited and extreme than their male counterparts, as if that brought a sort of legitimacy to what they practised. Dennis hoped this would not become a mixed group; he thought he would have to withdraw from it if it did.
He could feel the excitement rising around him as the images flashed up on the big screen, as the children removed their clothes and the shots became more brazen and the angles more daring. He was sure that the breathing of the others in the room became more uneven, as his did. Why were they abnormal? Why didn’t everyone react like this to pictures of naked children? It was easy to think in a gathering like this that your tastes were conventional, that it was the wider world around you that was out of step.
There was a hush when the show finished and the lights were put on. The host stood briefly before them and gave them the details of the websites they were to access on their computers for the illegal materials they wanted. Each man in the room made careful notes, as if they were gardeners recording where they could locate favourite plants and specialist growers. And now everyone was suddenly anxious to be away. The show was over, the information recorded, and there was no need to preserve the rituals and illusions of a normal social gathering.
Dennis Robson threaded his way carefully along the minor roads in the darkness. It wouldn’t do to end up in a ditch and have the police asking what had been the purpose of his journey tonight. Especially not in view of the things that were presently going on in and around Oldford. Mephistopheles was immediately behind him in his Jaguar; Dennis imagined him cursing the excessive caution of the man in the Audi in front of him and drove even more carefully. He was glad to see the Jaguar swinging south towards Bristol as he turned north up the A38.
He didn’t need to drive right into Gloucester. He turned west as he approached the ancient city and was within ten miles of home when he twisted suddenly into a lay-by, switched off his engine and put his head in his hands. Dennis hadn’t known he was going to do this. He had been beset by one of the sudden, overpowering bursts of remorse that overtook him from time to time. He supposed it was guilt, but he wasn’t really sure what it was, except that it made him despise himself more completely than he would have thought possible.
It was at moments like this that he ached to be normal, to have those conventional reactions to events and to people that he affected to deride. For a few minutes of searing clarity, he saw himself as the creature that others reviled and he loathed what he saw. The frame within the elegant suit was wracked by a series of violent sobs. Then he lifted his head and stared ahead into the darkness, ignoring the headlights from the other direction as they approached and passed him. Grief was an indulgence. He wasn’t going to change at seventy, was he? He drove home and parked expertly within two inches of the back wall of his garage, as if such precision could make him a part of the normal world.
Then Dennis Robson went indoors to the welcoming warmth of his bungalow, where he busied himself with a series of small domestic tasks. He didn’t wish to settle into his favourite armchair; that would allow him time for reflection. He took his hot drink to bed with him, tried unsuccessfully to read, downed the pill that he nowadays needed to get to sleep.
As he slipped into unconsciousness, he thought of the small, perfect limbs of Lucy Gibson and of what the morrow might hold in store for himself and for Raymond Barrington.
Big Julie Foster would have been outraged by Dennis Robson’s activities on this Thursday evening. Her own evening could scarcely have been more different.
She had come back to work to do two hours’ overtime, from eight until ten. Her male supervisor said, ‘You look tired, Julie. It’s only two hours since you left here. Are you sure you’re fit to do this?’
Julie wasn’t used to such consideration. She immediately suspected that she was going to be denied the overtime if she gave the man an excuse to do that. And she wanted this little slot. It would buy her twenty litres of petrol for the Fiesta, which she needed. She liked overtime. The work was no harder – sometimes easier, with fewer people around to bother you. She didn’t really understand why you got more money for it, but she was very glad you did. She didn’t really know what unsocial hours meant, either, but that was fine by her if they meant more money.
There was often overtime on a Thursday. The manager at her branch of Tesco’s liked to have everything ready for the weekend. Friday and Saturday were the two busiest days of the week; that was when the store took most at the tills. The supervisor quite liked having Julie in for a stint like this. She never complained, even when she was tired, and she would turn her hand to anything he asked her to do. And she was as strong as any man when it came to carrying cartons and stacking shelves.
Julie worked steadily, anxious to disprove the supervisor’s view that she looked tired. Tonight’s work was mostly replenishing shelves, so that they were fully stocked for the Friday and Saturday rush. Julie was amazed by how many tins of baked beans had disappeared since she had left the store at six. There was a special offer on – four tins for a pound – so they were flying off the shelves. She liked that expression – ‘flying off the shelves’. It took her back to her childhood and her love of cartoons, where anything could happen and tins might indeed fly off shelves.
Big Julie stacked her trolley repeatedly with boxes of tins and filled the shelves quite expertly. She knew now exactly how many tins of different sizes each shelf division was meant to hold. She worked steadily, dropping into the rhythm of the task she had done so often before, happy to show Mr Burton that she wasn’t as tired as he’d thought she was. Swiftly and efficiently, she cleared the place in an aisle where a child had dropped and smashed a jar of jam. She made sure that not the tiniest shard of glass remained, then brought her mop and bucket to perform the final thorough cleansing.
Jason Burton watched her surreptitiously through the half-open door of his office and was smitten with a sudden shaft of sympathy for the willing, ungainly woman who so wanted to please. He waited until she finished her cleaning, then brought the sign with large letters ‘PLEASE TAKE CARE – FLOOR DAMP’, which he set at the end of the aisle. As Julie passed him with her mop and bucket, he said, ‘It’s quiet now. I’m brewing a cup of tea in my office. Why don’t you come in and have one with me?’
Julie didn’t know how to say no. She didn’t want the tea, but she didn’t know how to handle the situation. So she was polite. That was what they had taught her in the home twenty years and more ago, and in most situations it served her well. She said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ as meekly as a Victorian maidservant, installed twen
ty tins of mushroom soup on the appropriate shelf, then went into Mr Burton’s office to sit on the chair he had set out beside his desk.
He left the door wide open, so that they could see the few members of the public who were shopping at this hour. That was so that she wouldn’t think he was going to assault her, Julie thought. And so that she couldn’t accuse him of anything afterwards. Julie knew these things, when everyone seemed to think that she knew nothing. She knew because other girls who worked here had told her them. Sometimes, she thought one or two of them would quite like Mr Burton to do these unspeakable things with them. She planted her broad rear carefully on the edge of the chair he had set out for her and sipped her tea dutifully.
They chatted, mostly about work, because they hadn’t anything else in common. Mr Burton had a photograph of his two young children in pride of place upon his small desk. Julie Foster was suddenly jealous of the life he lived, of the part played in it by the wife who was not in the picture, who she was quite sure was very beautiful. She said, ‘Your kids are very pretty.’ Everyone called them kids nowadays; that must surely be all right for her.
Burton looked at them as if they were a part of the fittings he had forgotten about. ‘That was taken two or three years ago. They’re growing up now. Nothing like as angelic as they look there!’
‘Like Raymond Barrington,’ said Julie. She didn’t know why she’d thought of the boy at that particular moment. It wasn’t the right thing to have said; she felt Mr Burton looking at her curiously. She wished again that she hadn’t had to come in here. She was never going to be able to make conversation with people like Mr Burton. She didn’t know how and she didn’t get any practice. She was glad when the tea cooled enough for her to drink it and get back to work.
Half an hour later, she was suddenly conscious of Mr Burton behind her. He said, ‘Your time’s up, Julie. You should get off home now.’
She said awkwardly, ‘I had my cup of tea with you, Mr Burton. I should put in some extra time.’
Burton checked the big square face to make sure she was not taking the mick. But in the same instant he knew that Big Julie wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t know how to do it. He said rather sadly, ‘That was just my little treat for a good worker. You don’t have to work any extra time.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll just bring some more tomato soups and then I’ll go. They always move quickly, don’t they?’
‘They do, yes, but we’re closing now. You should get off home.’
‘I just want to buy a few things. I’ve got visitors coming tomorrow. I want some cereals and some soup and some of our meals for one. Lasagne and cottage pie, I thought.’
‘Better get whatever you want quickly, then. Don’t forget your staff discount!’
Twenty minutes later, Jason Burton went out wearily to his car. It had been a long day. He wondered as he drove home what visitors Big Julie Foster might have. He was pleased but surprised that anyone came to see her.
It was half past eight when Matt Boyd rang the bell beside Anthea Gibson’s door. ‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ he said.
It wasn’t the best of openings. Anthea stared at him for a moment, her blue eyes looking almost black with the light from the hall behind her. ‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ she said, unwillingly, it seemed.
‘I brought a bottle,’ he said apologetically. He realized now that it had been a mistake. You did that when you were invited for a meal, not when you were inviting yourself into a house where you might not be welcome. ‘I can take it away again if you don’t want it. Or I can just leave it here. I don’t have to stay.’
She gave him a brief smile, which disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. The dark roots of her blonde hair were more noticeable than he had ever known them before. She had always looked and acted younger than her twenty-nine years. Anthea had had something girlish about her and she had cultivated it. Now, for the first time since he had known her, she looked older than her years. But what else should he expect, after what had happened in the last five days?
She asked him reluctantly, ‘Have you eaten?’
‘No. I’ve been rather busy. But I don’t need anything.’
She wondered what he’d been busy with, because he wasn’t working. But it wasn’t her place to ask him that. Not any more. She’d been quite close to him, until last Saturday night. But now she wasn’t. Not any more. She said reluctantly, ‘That’s silly. Of course you need something. I’ve got bacon and eggs. Will that do?’
‘Bacon and eggs would be good. But there really isn’t any need.’
His protest must have been feeble, because she was leaving the room, moving away to the familiar kitchen, where he and she and Lucy had so often eaten in the past. He wondered whether he should follow her, should stand behind her and slip his arms round her waist whilst she cooked, as he had often done previously. Even as the thought came into his mind, he knew that he wouldn’t do it. He stayed where he was and looked round the sitting room, registering familiar objects but feeling as if he was seeing them for the first time, in a strange house.
She called him through, nodded towards the two glasses she had set on the table, turned back to the grill. He opened his bottle of Merlot and filled both glasses almost to the top, sensing that they were going to need the wine to loosen tongues and emotions. She clattered the plates noisily upon the melamine-topped table, threw cutlery beside them, turned to get salt and pepper from the cupboard behind her. Almost like a resentful wife, Matt thought, as he set knives and forks beside the plates. He said, ‘I shouldn’t have descended upon you like this, without any warning. I’d lost track of the time.’
‘You and me both, then. I hadn’t eaten myself.’ It was the first conciliatory thing Anthea had said. She took a large mouthful of her wine, shut her eyes, rolled it round her mouth and swallowed it slowly. ‘That tastes good.’ She gave him her first genuine smile, and he thought how much better her small, pretty face looked when she was happy. Matt drank half his own glass of wine in quick time and felt the better for it. He downed bacon, egg and tomato and wholesome quantities of the brown bread and butter Anthea had set between them. He hadn’t realized until now how hungry he was.
He complimented her on the food, made ridiculous remarks about the weather, wondered where on earth he was to go with the conversation if he was not to stray on to dangerous ground. He wanted to let his hand steal across the table and fall gently upon the back of her smaller one, as it had done in happier times. But he sensed that he should not make physical contact. He said awkwardly, ‘How are you getting on, Anthea?’
The first use of her name, the first acknowledgement that they had once been intimates. Both of them noticed it; neither was sure whether it was welcome. He poured more wine and she said, ‘You’ll have to be content with tinned fruit for afters. Do you want ice cream with it?’
Matt felt very stupid as he said, ‘We should drink the wine before that. The red won’t go with the dessert.’ They sipped their way through it in silence. He wondered if she was as conscious as he was of the vacant place where a lively, talkative girl had so often sat beside them.
She said suddenly, ‘They haven’t found that boy yet. It must be the same person who took Lucy, surely.’
‘Yes. I suppose it must.’
‘He’ll be dead, then, like Lucy.’
‘I’ve a feeling he’s still alive.’ Matt didn’t know why he’d said that. Much better to get off the topic altogether. But he didn’t want to deceive her, so he said, ‘They questioned me about it. Because of Lucy, I suppose. It isn’t pleasant to feel you’re still a suspect, when you haven’t done anything.’
He wanted her to sympathize, to say it must be awful for him, to take his hands in hers and say that she’d never ever suspected him. There was a long pause. Then she said, ‘Go back to the sitting room, Matt. I’ll bring some coffee through. It will only be instant.’
It always had been instant. But it felt as though she was distancing h
erself from him when she said that. He sat uncomfortably and waited for her. She brought a tray in with cups and saucers, served him as formally as if it had been his first time here. They made desultory, difficult conversation, resolutely avoiding anything that would take them back to Lucy and to Raymond Barrington. In the old days, they would have put the television on and she would have leant comfortably against him on the sofa whilst he put his arm round her. They would have made trivial comments on the programmes and grown closer to each other. Now they were carefully detached from each other. And careful, always careful.
After one of their longer pauses, she said abruptly, ‘I don’t want you to stay the night.’
‘That’s all right.’ It was a relief, he realized. He’d almost said he didn’t want to stay either, but realized just in time that it would be ungallant. Now he only wanted to get out, and he sensed that she wanted that too. He wished he hadn’t come. And yet he was glad that he had kept up some kind of contact with her. It was a consolation that she was as uncertain as he was about whether she wanted to get together again.
Anthea went with him to the door, less than ten minutes later. He walked away into the darkness. He hadn’t brought his car, because it wasn’t far and he’d wanted to make sure that he wasn’t being followed. She stood at the door until he disappeared, then went slowly back into the house and stared at the seat where he had been sitting.
John Lambert had been right about Matt Boyd being the most elusive of their suspects. Even the woman who had been nearest to him found that there was a part of Matt that was closed to her.
