An Affair to Remember (28 page)

Time now to light the candles; as many as he can see; he wants there to be a proper feeling of ceremony about the proceedings. It takes a while, and as he goes round with his box of matches; first lighting the tall silver candles on the altar, then those in the sconces at the bench ends of the choir pews, every now and again he looks back to make sure Tavey is still where he left her. She is, and although it seems unlikely, it looks as though she might be praying. Finished at last, he surveys his handiwork and it looks really good. Candle grease now mingles with the faint, autumnal scent of the chrysanthemums, and there’s something else too. If he hadn’t known it couldn’t be, he would have said it was incense: vividly remembered from a school trip to Seville Cathedral when he was a boy. Whatever it was it seemed appropriate to the proceedings, and therefore all to the good. Now for the final step. To place the casket and its contents on the altar and fetch Tavey.

Chapter 15

“Sel! Sel wake up. Something’s happened, I think the house has been struck by lightning.” Clarrie, frantic, is trying to rouse her sleeping husband. There’s a strong smell of burning and from outside the window comes the cry of terrified rooks. What was the matter with the man – it must have been all that unaccustomed sex. “Sel – will you wake up!” He does at last, and sits up yawning.

“Must you, darling, I was having such a brilliant dream… Oh my God, what’s happened.” Dragging on his pyjama bottoms – the top’s lost somewhere in the bed clothes – he’s out of bed in a flash; hurrying over to the window, he draws back the curtains to reveal the carnage outside. Oh my God indeed! For a brief second he actually believes he’s still asleep; that his brilliant dream, as brilliant dreams sometimes do, has turned into a nightmare. Then he hears Clarrie’s voice, as she struggles into her dressing gown, asking him what’s going on, and knows it isn’t. The yard below him, so peaceful looking despite the rain, when they went to bed only a few hours earlier, has become a seething sea of fallen branches, bricks, beams and assorted debris. Lumps of mortar, the dust of centuries and flying leaves combine to create a sort of smog through which it’s difficult to see what exactly has happened, not helped by the rooks flapping hysterically above it all; but it looks as if Tavey’s tree has been struck by lightning – which would account for the smell of burning – and fallen on to the barn, whose roof in turn has collapsed into the yard.

“The electricity’s off, but everywhere seems OK, no smell of burning in the passage.” Clarrie joins him by the window. Sees. “Oh crumbs!” Always one to come out with schoolgirl expressions in times of stress, Sel thinks, aware that at a time like this such thoughts are totally irrelevant, but also aware, with a certain feeling of unease, that not only is his wife smiling, but she sounds triumphant. “I suppose,” she goes on, pulling her scarlet dressing gown more tightly round her – she’d been sleeping in the nude so there’s nothing underneath – “something like this was bound to happen.” Her husband looks at her in astonishment. About to make a sarcastic comment on the lines of: well, he can’t see why, and he’s glad she’s taking it so calmly, and at least they can be thankful the house isn’t on fire; he decides against it. Sel Woodhead has never been a superstitious man: mostly mumbo jumbo he’s always thought, never had time for it, but for a moment, just for a moment, he’s aware that something’s happened he cannot fully account for, and despite himself he shivers. Only for a moment, but Clarrie has seen the quickly banished look of fear and been glad for him. It did not do to be too sure of everything in life.

After that it’s all go. Exchanging her dressing gown for a sweater and a pair of jeans, Clarrie hurries off to see if their guests are OK, rouse Juan, if he’s not already roused, and light a few candles. And Sel, the phone being dead, envelops himself in a waterproof cape left behind in the cloakroom by the previous occupants of the house, and ventures into the yard to assess the damage and see if anything can be done. The storm is definitely on the wane, which is something, but bits of the now roofless barn are still coming down, and it looks as if for safety’s sake the entire building will ultimately have to be demolished. Josh Bogg’s tractor’s a goner; his own car, probably a write-off, lies drunkenly on its side; and a massive branch blocks the yard gate. Narrowly avoiding an ugly looking wedge of flying concrete (where the hell did that come from?) he becomes aware of a hooded figure who appears to be surveying the grisly scene from the top of the pile of rubble that a few hours earlier had been the wall bordering the paddock.

Oh God, what now?

“Hullo?”

To his considerable relief – of course he hadn’t really thought it was a being from another world, had he – the figure turns out to be Ron Head.

“Oh hi, Sel. Come to join the party, have you?” Ron, jumping lightly down from his perch, hurries over. “What a night, eh?” Like Clarrie, the fellow looked almost triumphant. Had everyone in the place gone mad?

“I’d hardly call it a party,” he says stiffly, “if it is, it’s managed to put paid to a Grade I listed barn, and I don’t imagine there’s much left of your dig.” In answer Ron bends down and picks up a small panel of wood, decorated with what looks like vine leaves, and puts it carefully in the pocket of his jacket.

“We got what we came for, mate, though, didn’t we, and you said you wanted rid of the rooks…”

“Tavey’s tree’s been struck by lightning and fallen on the barn,” Clarrie, not without a certain relish, informs a shivering Philippa, discovered at the foot of the front stairs, wrapped in a blanket, vainly trying to use the telephone. “Lucky you had your dig when you did. And don’t bother with the phone, the lines are down.”

“Are you sure the house isn’t on fire?” Philippa asks through chattering teeth. Bare footed, wrapped in a blanket, her normal svelte persona temporarily submerged by the night’s events, she bears a striking resemblance to someone fleeing from a third world revolution, and appears to be steeling herself for further disasters. After all, the powers of darkness having been unleashed, who knew what would happen next. How are the mighty fallen! Clarrie, surprised at herself, can’t help feeling a little sorry for her.

“The house is fine, darling. I’ve checked,” she says, putting a comforting hand on Philippa’s shoulder. “Leave the phone alone and come and have a cup of tea. Juan, bless him, has managed to get the emergency calor gas burner going so at least we can all have a hot drink. What’s happened to Dr Moss?”

“Slept through it,” Philippa, adjusting her blanket, follows her hostess down the passage to the kitchen. “God knows how, he must have overdone it with the sleeping pills, and Ron’s gone out to view the damage.”

Halfway along the passage they encounter Sel looking distinctly white about the gills. He’s taken his boots off and discarded the mackintosh cape, but his hair is powdered with damp lime dust, there’s mud on his cheek and his jeans are soaking wet.

“Something rather odd has happened –”

“And there was I thinking everything was hunky-dory!” Philippa is beginning to recover and unable to stop herself. Apart from giving her a glance of dislike, Sel ignores the sarcasm.

“Someone’s broken into my office and taken the casket.” They look at him unbelievingly.

“You mean the baby, someone’s taken the baby?” This time even Clarrie seems surprised.

“Yes.”

Ron, meanwhile, unaware of Sel’s discovery, having discarded his boots and soaking outer garments, decides it’s time to check their patients – it seems that in all the excitement no one had. He assumes from his non-appearance on the scene, Izzy has slept through the commotion, and is not surprised Beatrice, dosed up as she was, is still out for the count, but surely Mallory should be up and about? He’d have thought an emergency like this would be just up the guy’s street. Perhaps he too had been given a sleeping pill, although it seemed unlikely. Poor old Pippa, though! He couldn’t help smiling as he hurried up the stairs, his soaking socks leaving damp footprints on Clarrie’s brand new, pale cream stair carpet. The woman was such a drama queen, why did she have to wrap herself in a blanket, couldn’t she have put on a dressing gown like everyone else? But he’d never seen her brought so low, and in one way and the other they’d been through many a cliff-hanger together. He’d kept on telling her the crash that woke them had almost certainly been merely a tree coming down in the storm; there was nothing to worry about, but she wouldn’t believe him, just stood there shivering and begging him not to leave her.

Upstairs, Mallory’s door remains closed. Surely the guy couldn’t be still asleep? No answer to his knock, but the door’s not locked and he lets himself in. Inside the curtains are drawn back and the light from the moon, at last beginning to emerge from behind the black density of cloud, illuminates the room, rendering his torch superfluous. Somehow he’s not surprised it’s empty; part of him, God only knew how, knew that it would be. The bed unslept in, clothes folded neatly on a chair. Carefully polished brown brogues side by side under another. Where had he gone? Where had he bloody gone?

Heart beating uncomfortably, but a strange feeling of exhilaration sweeping over him, Ron hurries along the passage to Beatrice’s room. Once there, he’s just remembered Izzy had told them he’d locked her bedroom door last night, which of course meant he’d have to rouse him to get the key, when he sees he won’t have to. The door’s been broken open – one push and he’s inside. No sign of Beatrice or Mallory, but crikey what a mess! Clothes all over the floor, a chair upturned, mattress half off the bed, a cupboard door half off its hinges. In the bathroom, puddles on the floor; a tap left dripping, broken tooth glass, overturned laundry basket. What in hell’s name had been going on? Only one explanation; Mallory must have abducted the wretched girl and, by the looks of it, she’d put up a pretty good fight. But why, and where had he taken her?

Turning off the tap off in the bathroom, he picks up the fallen bedside lamp and one or two other things, while he tries to think what to do next. No phone, no light, currently no transport, so no chance of getting hold of the police, anyway not until morning. Besides which it might, under the circumstances, be better not to be too hasty about invoking the law: they’d have to of course if the pair didn’t turn up fairly soon, but reporting their disappearance could surely be left for an hour or two. He still finds it hard to understand why no one in the rest of the household, and that included himself, had heard anything. They must have made it before the storm took hold, when everyone was still deep in an alcoholically induced stupor, and would be long gone by now. The birds, God bless ‘em, had well and truly flown.

Mallory hadn’t taken his car, though, he’d seen it parked under the lee of the barn, windscreen smashed and a lump of what could possibly be Roman infilling embedded in the roof. So they couldn’t have gone that far. First light a search party would have to be organised. And then they’d see. Shutting the bedroom door on the chaos inside, Ron hurries back downstairs to report the latest development.

*

Dawn is beginning to break. Above the trees bordering the Grove grey, scudding clouds part to reveal a misty looking sun: spreading fast, patches of limpid blue. A shadow crosses the great yard and, slipping through the fallen branches blocking the gate, trots down the lane towards the bridge. His brush is draggled with mud; coat sleeked with rain. Watched by a solitary rook, many of whose brothers lie dead in the ruins of the barn, the fox pauses for a moment’s rest before climbing the hill to the Grove. It’s been a rough, if fruitful night’s hunting, and the rabbit he’s carrying is a plump one and heavy. Then, refreshed, after a quick shake of his ears to rid himself of those irritating raindrops, he hurries on up the hill to bed…

Seven o’clock: in the church the candles, so carefully lit by Sam, are burning low; they won’t last much longer. It doesn’t matter, though, as now a long shaft of sunlight shines through the east window on to the altar, lighting up the silver crucifix and the tiny bones in the open casket lying beneath it. The two recumbent figures, arms entwined, at the altar rails, stir at the sudden warmth, but sleep on.

Chapter 16

The Reverend Richard Bolton climbs stiffly out of bed, every muscle aching from his work at yesterday’s dig. Woken by the alarm clock’s angry buzz, after what had turned out to be a virtually sleepless night – indeed he hadn’t finally dropped off until gone five, and it was now only seven fifteen – he could easily have slept on until lunchtime.

Unprepared for what was to come, he and Millie had stayed up late last night talking over the day’s exciting events and, most unusually, hadn’t retired to bed until gone eleven. He then read for a bit, as was his habit – a rather poorly written detective novel he was pretty sure he’d read before – and had only just dropped off when the storm started. What actually woke him, though, was water dripping on to the bedside table from that damp patch on the bedroom ceiling. The vicarage, despite being comparatively new – it was built in the 1950s to replace the eighteenth century rectory thought to be too large for modern day needs and now an old peoples’ home – had nevertheless turned out to be a maintenance nightmare. What with chronic damp, ill-fitting window frames, and tiles that blew off the roof with depressing regularity, he had sometimes wondered why Mr Dovehouse, the local builder, didn’t take up residence. He’d actually mentioned to Mr Dovehouse on his last visit a month or so ago, that he thought there were a pair of roof tiles beginning to work loose in the area above their bedroom ceiling, but after some discussion, they’d decided to let things be as no water was coming in. Well, it was now!

Reluctantly leaving the warmth of his bed, without bothering to put on a dressing gown, he’d padded along the passage to the bathroom for the plastic bowl Millie kept under the wash basin, to place under the leak. The drops of water, as they landed in the bowl, made a highly irritating plopping sound, but there was nothing he could do about that. Job done, he’d just climbed back into bed when, following a more than usually loud clap of thunder, the light went out. The thunder woke Millie, and after some discussion – luckily he always kept a torch in his bedside cupboard so they weren’t completely in the dark – as sleep now seemed out of the question at least for the duration of the storm, they decided the best thing to do was retreat downstairs, light a few candles, put the kettle on – their Rayburn providentially wasn’t dependent on electricity – and sit it out.