by Rob Campbell
“So, let me get this straight. We send one of our Wardens to this Culverton Beck to investigate some unusual activity. He disappears soon afterwards and now we get a message, supposedly from the other side, that the truth is in the very same town?” Turnbull said, summarising the situation succinctly.
“We looked into all this at the time and didn’t find anything amiss,” the Bookkeeper said in his dry rasp.
Nothing amiss. Except for this Phil Duncan, Gooch thought.
“Sounds like we need to revisit this place – it could be promising,” Harry suggested.
“I agree,” Turnbull said. “Any candidates for the task?” He looked at the expectant faces around the table.
“Given his track record in these important matters,” the Bookkeeper said, “I’d say Mr Gooch is the ideal man for the job.”
Gooch looked at his old adversary, surprise written across his face; was this some backhanded vote of confidence?
“Besides,” the Bookkeeper continued dryly, “he could do with increasing his quota.” The stare that he gave Gooch was devoid of any humour. “Yesterday’s heroes still have to pull their weight today,” he spat.
* * *
Later, as the others filed out, Turnbull asked Gooch to stay behind.
“I’m sure that I don’t have to impress on you the importance of this mission, Charles?” Turnbull said in a serious tone.
“I understand.”
“I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done for the organisation, old friend, but you’ve seen the way things are.” Turnbull wore a grim expression as he faced Gooch. “We need a result here,” he said as he made to leave the room.
Gooch nodded soberly and watched his mentor leave with the others. His spectacular success over thirty years ago had been followed by some lean years. It was true that Turnbull did his best to look out for him, but there were only so many poor returns that the council would accept, only so many fallow years that could be tolerated as land was turned over in preparation for fresh beginnings and new seeds to be sown.
No doubt the unfortunate Johan de Wit could attest to that.
Chapter 27
After Dylan’s revelation concerning snake tattoos, I had no option but to text Anja right away. Hindsight was a wonderful thing. It all seemed so obvious now: Ramón’s probing questions on what Lester had Monkey and I doing, and his seemingly inexplicable interest in Monkey and his climbing, particularly when it came to his climb on the church roof. With all the recent activity at the church – parishioners experiencing apocalyptic visions and hundred-year-old letters secreted away by the vicar – I began to wonder how much Ramón knew about what was happening in the town.
His innocent music journalist act had had us all fooled, Anja in particular. We’d all swallowed the lie about his tattoo being in homage to a Spanish band from his youth. At the time, we couldn’t possibly have known the significance.
Despite sending several texts of the please-contact-me-ASAP variety, I’d received no reply and was resigned to having to wait until Monday morning to discover if Anja was okay.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a good reason why she didn’t text you,” Monkey offered as we made our way to the Recorder on Monday morning. The late-October chill frosted our breath in front of us as we huffed our way down the high street. I know Monkey was trying to stay positive, but I’d had nearly twelve hours to imagine all sorts of horrible things that might have happened to Anja. Was Ramón on to us? Did he know that we’d rumbled his secret, and if he had, would he simply slip away, or would he somehow take it out on Anja?
It was with huge relief that we barged into the office to find her sitting at her desk.
A surprised Mick looked up from his desk at the back of the office. “What time d’you call this?”
“Morning, Mick. Anja,” I called.
“Have you two wet the bed or something?”
“No, we just wanted to check… I mean, I just wanted to see Anja.”
Mick puffed his cheeks out. “Well, I’d be careful with that one,” he said, raising his eyebrows knowingly towards his star reporter. For her part, Anja continued staring at her screen, the muscles of her jaw flexing slightly, betraying more than a little tension.
“Lorna, Monkey,” she said sternly by way of greeting.
“Is everything okay, Anja?” I said, approaching her desk gingerly.
“Fine.”
One of those one-word responses that meant the exact opposite. As if to underline the point, she stabbed angrily at her keyboard. “Stupid, bloody thing,” she muttered under her breath.
“Where’s Ramón?”
“If he’s got any sense, he won’t show his face here.”
“Why, what’s happened? I thought you two were—”
“So did I,” she snapped. “He was supposed to pick me up on Saturday night. We had a table booked at Gino’s and everything.”
“And he didn’t show?”
“No. Didn’t respond to the texts I sent him either.”
I considered telling her that I knew how she felt, given that I’d waited for her to respond to my frantic texts last night, but decided that now was not a great time.
“I’m sorry for not replying to your texts last night,” she said, her voice softening slightly. “I’ve been a bear with a sore head since Saturday.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” I smiled.
* * *
“Maybe Ramón’s done a runner after all,” Monkey suggested as we stepped out of the office and into the frigid air.
“Maybe. But telling Anja what we suspect isn’t going to help, is it?” Then we’d have to explain about the Wardens of the Black Heart, and that was a can of worms that I didn’t want to open in front of Anja or Mick.
“Still, at least she’s alright.”
“There is that.”
The relief that I felt knowing Anja was okay was overwhelming. I hadn’t slept well last night, dark images torturing me until the small hours. So much so that I’d almost forgotten that we were due to meet with Gerald May again this morning.
With everything that had happened during the weekend – Goofy’s continuing strange behaviour, the sudden re-appearance of the Reverend Dubois, the mysterious heart-shape burn at the crash site, our unexpected encounter with Gooch and subsequent discussions with Dylan Fogg – Friday’s visit to the antique dealer seemed like a lifetime ago.
Given that it was now after nine, we decided to head over to The Art of Life.
“Look,” Monkey said in a half-whisper as we approached the row of shops that hosted Gerald May’s tiny emporium. He was pointing across the road to a figure who appeared to be examining the walls of the library. “Isn’t that the guy we talked to outside the pub?”
I watched in fascination as the portly figure kicked the wall with his shoe, bending over to pick up the loose crumbs of cement that he’d managed to dislodge. He rubbed his finger and thumb together before bringing the contents of his hand to his nose as if sniffing a fine cheese.
“Certainly looks like him. Harold Larkin, I think he said his name was.” Under his raincoat, I could see his waistcoat and pink bow-tie, and he was once again armed with a camera that hung from a strap around his neck. “This town seems to be attracting some strange sorts.”
“Do you think this is the kind of thing that Dylan meant when he said that things were going to get weirder?”
“I don’t know. We’ve seen stuff that’s a lot weirder than a pink bow-tie,” I laughed. Even so, I didn’t want to be accosted by this strange man a second time when we had far more important business with Gerald May.
We managed to avoid the attention of Harold Larkin and arrived at the antique shop eager to learn if Gerald May was as good as his word. He was serving an old man when we stepped into his shop, and so we set about wasting time browsing his unusual stock.
“Does anybody really buy this stuff?” Monkey asked as he lifted a miniature brass spinning wheel from a stand i
n the corner.
“My gran used to collect stuff like that,” I replied. “I suppose it depends when you were born. Maybe in fifty years, antique shops will be selling old games consoles and mobile phones.”
He shrugged, placing the spinning wheel back on its perch.
We continued to feign interest in all manner of items from the last century, earwigging on the conversation between the proprietor and his customer. I thought that he’d never leave, but finally, he shuffled off out of the shop, the proud owner of a slim metal box that was covered in scratches.
“What was that?” Monkey asked.
“A cigarette case,” Gerald May replied brightly. “Apparently, that gentleman had one just like it when he came out of the army.”
“Why did he want another one then?” asked a puzzled Monkey.
“Nostalgia. I’m in the business of selling people memories, things that connect them to their past, things that help them remember who they were and what they did in their prime.”
When Monkey’s expression indicated that he was entirely unmoved by this noble mission statement, Gerald May smiled wistfully. “You’re too young to understand, my boy, but one day, you’ll get it.”
“Mr May, did you get a chance to check your father’s old receipts?” I asked, as much in hope as expectation.
“I bet you thought that I’d forget,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
“No,” I lied.
He reached beneath the counter, a stray grey hair falling across his face. He swept it back into place as he lifted a small folder onto the surface of the counter, groaning as he straightened up.
“Back takes a bit of time to get moving in the morning,” he said, wincing. Monkey and I smiled, not knowing what to say.
He started to open the folder. “Never let it be said that Gerald May lets down a customer.” He stopped at this point, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You are a customer, aren’t you?”
Once a businessman, always a businessman. I cast an eye over the items on display on the counter. “How much is that pack of cards?”
“To you, three pounds.”
They looked a bit manky, but three pounds seemed a reasonable price to pay to get our hands on the paperwork that we were after.
“We are going to like what we find, aren’t we?” I asked as I dropped three pound coins into his bony hands.
“That depends. But I think you’ll find it interesting for your project.” With the sale secured, he removed an old pink receipt from the folder. “It says here that my father bought a painting from St Stephen’s for the price of nine hundred and twenty-three pounds. The date of the sale is marked here as the seventeenth of February 1968.” I pulled out the receipt that I’d found in the parish records; the date and price matched!
Now for the important question. “Do you know what happened to the painting?”
Gerald May peered over at the receipt in my hand. “What did you say the painting was called?”
“It just says Abram’s Bequest on here, but I don’t think that’s the name of the painting.” No point in mentioning that we suspected that it was really called The Truth.
“Hmm. I suppose if my father didn’t know the true name of a painting, he just made one up. It’s listed on this receipt as The Climber.”
The Climber – how appropriate. I saw the smirk on Monkey’s face.
“Anyway,” the old antique dealer continued, “would you believe that it sat in this shop for five years? An Abram, in here!” He made a comedy tutting sound, shaking his head ruefully before reaching into the folder and removing a yellow receipt. “Now then,” he said theatrically. “I suspect that this is the one that you really want to know about.”
I felt my pulse quicken. “Why? What does it say?”
“Well, it says that your painting was sold to a Mr Bernard Stanley for an eye-watering two thousand pounds.”
“Bernard Stanley? Who’s he?” Monkey asked.
“Used to be a very good customer. He was still buying bits and pieces long after I took over here. Haven’t seen him for quite a few years, mind.” The antique dealer looked like he was reminiscing. “Bernard Stanley,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Last time I saw him, he lived at Fairview.”
“Fairview? Where’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a big house over Bramble Bridge way. On Layton Drive, I believe. You can’t miss it.”
* * *
“He wasn’t wrong,” Monkey commented, adding a low whistle. “That’s a big house.”
“A very big house,” I agreed.
But more than big, the house was impressive. Not on the scale of Lester’s mansion, of course, but for a house in the middle of suburbia, it was about as close to a mansion as you could get.
First off, there was a good clearance of four or five metres to the houses on either side. Most of the houses on Layton Drive looked like they might belong to high-earners – perhaps they were owned by lawyers, doctors or pilots – but Fairview was a class apart. It had an imposing look, situated as it was on a near ninety-degree bend. You couldn’t help but stare in awe at the place as you rounded the corner and its façade came into view.
But as we drew closer, we began to detect the first signs that all was not sweetness and light behind its locked iron gates. For a start, the garden and driveway in front of the house were choked with weeds. I wasn’t talking about a few dandelions sprouting through the gravel here and there; the whole front area was overrun with lush greenery. It was like a scene from a post-apocalyptic film where everybody had died and nature had reclaimed the once-great building.
Or at the very least, a film where some strange virus had claimed all the world’s gardeners.
From a distance, the elaborate ironwork that formed the front fence was a deep green colour, but closer inspection revealed that it was riddled with rust. A large padlock secured the front gates. I put my hands against the bars as I leaned in for a closer look at the house, and when I brought them away, they were covered in a faint brown dust as if the fence was crumbling at the very touch of my fingers.
We stood for several minutes, taking in the haunting scene, shivering from both the cold air and the thought that such a fabulous house could fall into such a terrible state of disrepair. I traced the path of a vine that started near the fence, snaked across the gravel driveway and climbed up to the first-floor window.
“Can I help you?” a voice called, shocking me from my thoughts.
I turned away from the fence to see an old woman holding a pair of gardening shears. I was initially worried about the appearance of a potentially menacing grey-haired woman armed with a sharp gardening implement, but when I glanced towards the garden to the right, I spied a lawn mower and various gardening tools spread out on the path in the front garden. She’d clearly been tending to her roses and had probably come to see what two suspicious-looking teenagers were up to.
“I haven’t seen you up here before,” she said, seemingly confirming my thoughts.
“We were looking for a Mr Bernard Stanley?”
“Really? And who might you be?”
“Oh, I don’t know him. I wanted to ask him a few questions for my college project.”
She seemed to consider this, grinding her teeth as if chewing on an invisible piece of gum. “College project, eh? Well, at least you’re honest. You could have tried to claim you were family or something,” she said, her shoulders relaxing slightly.
“We just wanted to talk to him,” Monkey said, giving his best puppy-dog eyes look.
“Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”
“Why? Has he moved house, or is he…?” I stopped myself saying the ‘d’ word.
“No, he’s not dead. Although that would probably be best for him right now,” the woman said sadly. “Dementia,” she added.
“Ah, I see. But the house…” I gestured at the overgrown paradise behind us.
“Doesn’t do much for our house prices, I can tell you.”
The woman stared grimly at the eyesore that stood mere metres from her well-tended rose garden. “But how can we say anything with what he’s going through, and who could do anything about it anyway?”
I wasn’t sure whether that was a question that she wanted me to answer.
“The fact is that Bernard Stanley is a very rich man. There’s more than enough money to pay the bills on that place until he pops his clogs, whether that’s in five months, five years or whenever.”
“Doesn’t he have any children? Any other relatives?”
“Not that I know of, and I’ve lived next door to him for the best part of thirty years. His third wife died fifteen years ago, and he’s been a virtual recluse since then anyway. Well, until they carted him off three years ago.” She sighed, turning away from the jungle as if the sight was too much for her.
“The fact is that until Bernard Stanley dies, the house can’t be sold, nobody can enter the property legally and all those weeds will continue to grow till the cows come home.”
And we’ll never find The Truth.
I felt a pang of guilt, bemoaning my own situation when a man like Bernard Stanley was probably enduring his own private hell in his final days. All the money in the world by all accounts, but it couldn’t do him much good now, could it?
I glanced back at the decaying house, and I couldn’t help but think that our chances of getting our hands on Abernathy’s masterpiece were decaying with it.
The old neighbour made her way back to her own front garden.
“And they say that we live in a civilised society,” she threw over her shoulder as she walked away. “Life’s not fair.”
It wasn’t. Not by any stretch.
Having been through the painful loss of my father two years ago, you’d have thought that my capacity to be upset or shocked or angry would be vastly diminished, but it was funny how human nature took over.
It started off like a mouse, nibbling away at some corner of your mind, and it didn’t take long before little setbacks started causing feelings of resentment: rising anger at a situation that was suddenly out of control, the feeling of being so close to something and then having it snatched away, the need for an immediate fightback. The swell of determination to set things right.
