The Four Last Things (10 page)

‘They’ll find her, Sally. We’re pulling out all the stops.’ Again a hesitation, a hint of calculation. ‘Doctor left some medicine. Something to help you not to worry. Shall I give you some?’

‘No.’ The refusal was instinctive, but the reasons rushed after it: if they tranquillized her she would be no use to Lucy when –
if
– they found her; if they turned her into a zombie, she wouldn’t be able to find out what was happening, they wouldn’t tell her anything; she needed to be as clear-headed as possible, for Lucy’s sake. Sally leant back against her pillows. ‘Where’s Michael? My husband?’

The eyes wavered. ‘He’s out. He’ll be back soon, I should think. I expect you’d like to freshen up, wouldn’t you? Shall I make some tea?’

Sally nodded, largely in order to get the woman out of her bedroom. Michael – she needed to think about him but she couldn’t concentrate.

Yvonne stood up, her face creasing into an unconvincing smile. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ She added slowly, as if talking to a person of low intelligence, ‘I shall be in the kitchen, if you need me. All right, love?’

No, Sally wanted to say, it’s not all right; it may never be all right again; and I’m not your love, either. Instead, she returned the smile and said thank you.

When she was alone, she pushed the duvet away from her and got out of bed. The sweat cooled rapidly on her skin and she began to shiver. They had given her clean pyjamas, she realized, clinging to the security of domestic details. She was ashamed to see that the pyjamas were an old pair: the material was faded, a button was missing from the jacket, and there were undesirable stains on the trousers. The shivering worsened and once more the impact of what had happened hit her. Her knees gave way. She sat down suddenly on the bed.
My baby. Where are you?
The tears streamed down her cheeks.

She dared not make a noise in case Yvonne came back.
This is all my fault. I should have kept her with me
. She fell sideways and curled up on the bed. Her body shook with silent sobs.

Water rustled through the pipes. Sally, familiar with the vocabulary of the plumbing, knew that Yvonne was filling the kettle. The thought galvanized her into changing her position. At any moment the policewoman might return. With her hand over her mouth, trying to prevent the terror from spurting out like vomit, Sally scrambled off the bed and pulled open the wardrobe. She avoided looking at the accusing faces in the photographs on the chest of drawers. She selected clothes at random and, with a bundle in her arms, sneaked into the bathroom and bolted the door.

Boats, ducks and teddies had colonized the side of the bath. One of Lucy’s socks was lying under the basin. Automatically Sally picked it up, intending to drop it in the basket for dirty clothes. Instead she sat on the lavatory. She held the sock to her face, breathing its essence, hoping to smell Lucy, to recreate her by sheer force of will. Did Lucy at least have Jimmy, her little cloth doll? Or was she entirely without comfort?

Tears spilled down Sally’s cheeks. When the fit of crying passed, she sat motionless, her fingers clenched round the sock, and sank into depths she had not known existed.

There was a tap on the door. ‘How are you doing, love? Tea’s ready.’

‘I’m fine. I’ll be out in a moment. I might have a shower.’

Sally brushed her teeth, trying to scour the taste of that long, drugged sleep from her mouth. She dropped the pyjamas on the floor, stepped into the bath and stood under the shower. Making no move to wash herself, she let the water stream down her body for several minutes. Last night, she remembered dimly, she had given way. She remembered shouting and crying in Carla’s house and later at the flat. She remembered Michael’s face, white and accusing, and police officers whom she did not know, their expressions concerned but somehow detached from what was happening to her and to Lucy. The ginger-haired doctor had been tiny, so small that he came to below her shoulder. She must not let them give her drugs again.

She turned off the shower and began to dry herself. There was another tap on the door.

‘How about a nice slice of toast, love?’

Seeing if I’m still alive.
‘Yes, please. There’s a loaf in the fridge.’

The thought of food disgusted her but she would be no use to anyone if she starved herself. She dressed quickly in jeans, T-shirt and jersey. In her haste, she had provided herself with two odd socks, one with a hole in the heel. She ran a comb through her hair. As an afterthought she pushed Lucy’s sock into the pocket of the jeans. The routine of showering and dressing had had a calming effect. But as she unbolted the door the fact of Lucy’s disappearance hit her like a flail, making her gasp for air.

She could not face Yvonne. She staggered back to the bedroom. Directly opposite the doorway was the crucifix on the wall above the mantelpiece. She looked at the little brass figure on the cross and realized as if for the first time how terribly pain had contorted the miniature face and twisted the muscles of the legs, the arms and the stomach. How could you forgive God for inflicting such suffering? But God hadn’t forgiven God. He had crucified him. And if he had done that to his own child, what would he do to Lucy?

The unmade bed distracted her. She pulled up the duvet and plumped the pillows. After making the bed, she reminded herself, she normally tidied the room. But it looked tidy already. Usually there would have been Michael’s dirty clothes flung over the chair, a magazine or a book on the floor by his side of the bed, a glass of water and his personal stereo on the table: he was a man who left a trail of domestic chaos behind him.

A pile of books on the chest of drawers caught her eye. They were small, shabby and unfamiliar. She picked up the first of them, a prayer book, and as she did so she remembered where they had come from. She turned to the flyleaf. ‘To Audrey, on the occasion of her First Communion, 20th March 1937, with love from Mother.’

Audrey Oliphant’s suicide seemed no more real than a story read long ago and half-forgotten. Sally could hardly believe that she had seen the woman dead on a hospital bed less than twenty-four hours earlier. She remembered the cheerless bedsitter, a shrine to lost beliefs. Most of all she remembered the woman standing up in St George’s as Sally began to preach her first sermon.

She-devil. Blasphemer against Christ. Apostate. Impious bitch. Whore of Babylon. Daughter of Satan. May God damn you and yours.

She dropped the Prayer Book as if it were contaminated.
May God damn you and yours.
She almost ran from the room, shutting the door behind her. Yvonne was no longer someone to be avoided but a potential refuge.

This feeling vanished as soon as Sally reached the living room. Yvonne had laid the table in the window; usually Sally and Michael ate breakfast in the kitchen, often on the move. She had managed to find the wrong plates, the wrong mugs and the wrong teapot. There were paper napkins, a choice of both jam and marmalade, and a tablecloth which the Appleyards had last used on Christmas Day. Sally thought of little girls playing house and tried to suppress her exasperation. She also wished that she had remembered to wash the cloth.

‘Perhaps you prefer honey?’ Yvonne was poised to dash into the kitchen. ‘And is there any butter? I can only find margarine. That’s what I have, but perhaps –’

‘That’s fine,’ Sally lied. ‘Margarine’s fine. Everything’s fine.’

She drank a glass of fruit juice and then sipped a mug of sweetened tea. The first mouthful of toast almost made her gag. She allowed Yvonne to pour her a second mug of tea and used it to moisten her throat between mouthfuls. Yvonne made her feel a guest in her own home, confronted by an overanxious hostess.

Parish reflexes came to Sally’s rescue: automatically she asked questions. Yvonne told her that she worked at Paddington, that her boyfriend, also a policeman, was a sergeant in traffic control, and that they had a small flat in Wembley, but were hoping to move to somewhere larger soon. The illusion of intimacy lasted until Yvonne used the phrase ‘living in sin’ to describe what she and her boyfriend did.

‘Sorry.’ A blush crept up underneath her make-up. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be talking like this. What with you being a vicar and all.’

‘Before I decided to become ordained, I lived with two men.’ Sally inserted a practised pause and then slipped in her usual punchline: ‘Not at the same time, of course.’

Yvonne tittered, and the mask slipped, revealing the youth and vulnerability behind. Usually, Sally thought, she would not have talked so readily to a stranger. But Michael was a police officer, which made Sally an honorary insider, at least on a temporary basis. And Yvonne was nervous – perhaps she had not done this job before. The flail of memory slapped her again:
baby-sitting
, they might call it, or
child minding.
For the next few seconds Sally fought the urge to bring up her breakfast over Great Aunt Mary’s linen tablecloth.

The telephone rang.

‘I’ll get it.’ Yvonne was already on her feet. She picked up the phone. She listened, then said, ‘I’m a police officer, sir … Yes, Mrs Appleyard is awake … I’ll ask her.’ She covered the mouthpiece of the handset. ‘Someone called Derek Cutter. Says he’s your boss. Do you want to talk to him? Or he says he’d be pleased to come over.’

Sally opened her mouth to say that she didn’t want to see Derek, or talk to him; and if she never did either again, she for one would not waste any tears. Instantly she restrained herself. This wasn’t Derek’s fault. She had a duty both to him and to the parish. And, more selfishly, it was important to create the illusion that she was in control; otherwise they might starve her of information.

‘Ask him to come over if he can spare the time.’ Sally decided to kill two birds with one stone: Derek could take Miss Oliphant’s belongings.

Yvonne relayed the message and put down the phone. ‘He won’t be long. He’s over at the community centre in Brondesbury Park.’

‘What’s that phone doing? It’s not ours.’

‘No. We’re taping and tracing all calls.’ Yvonne stiffened. ‘It’s standard procedure. Nothing to get worried –’

Sally pushed back her chair and stood up. She was shaking so much that she had to support herself on the table. ‘You’re sure Lucy’s been kidnapped. Aren’t you?
Aren’t you?’

Derek took both Sally’s hands in his and said how very, very sorry he was. He had ridden over from Kensal Vale on the Yamaha. Sally thought he fancied himself in motorcycle leathers. As she introduced him to Yvonne, he loosened the white silk scarf around his neck, revealing the dog collar beneath.

With unnecessary tact, Yvonne retreated to the kitchen, leaving Sally unwillingly alone to savour the experience of Derek in full pastoral mode.

‘We are all praying for you, my dear.’

‘Thank you.’ Sally didn’t want prayers, she wanted Lucy.

Still holding her hands, Derek went on to say that there must be no question of her coming into work until Lucy was safe and sound. She need not worry, they could manage perfectly well.

‘Would you and Michael like to come to stay with us? Margaret and I would love to have you. The bed’s made up in the spare room.’

Sally’s mind filled with an unwanted picture of Derek in his pyjamas. Would the hair of his chest be as white-blond as the hair on his head? Had he any hair on his chest at all, or just pink skin stretched over his bony ribcage, with the two nipples as the only points of interest to break the monotony? She wanted to giggle and she felt sick. She heard herself thanking Derek for his (and Margaret’s) kind offer, and promising to discuss it with Michael. Certainly, she said, they would bear it in mind.

‘Lots of people send their love. Stella in particular.’

‘Stella.’ It was little more than twenty-four hours since Sally had driven her to the hospital. ‘Has her daughter had her baby?’

There was a pause. ‘Yes. Last night. It’s a girl. Mother and baby are doing fine, I gather.’

Sally concentrated very hard on Stella’s joy. ‘Lovely. Tell Stella how pleased I am.’ She made an intense effort to blot out the rising hysteria and the knowledge that Lucy needed her. ‘Audrey Oliphant?’

‘Eh?’ Derek released her hands. ‘Who?’

‘The woman who tried to kill herself. You remember? You asked me to see her yesterday.’

‘I remember.’

‘She died before I reached the hospital.’

‘Was she one of ours?’

‘Yes. In a sense.’ Sally sat down. ‘She was the woman who made a disturbance when I preached my first sermon.’

‘Oh, yes. Poor woman. Where did she worship?’

‘I don’t know if she went anywhere. Her landlady thought not. But I think we should see she gets a proper burial.’

‘Better make sure it’s a man who conducts the service.’ Derek began to smile, then stopped, remembering why he was here.

‘Anglo-Catholic for choice. Her room was like an oratory. I’ve got a bag of her clothes.’ She looked wildly round the room, wondering where the bag was. ‘And also some books.’ Had she taken the books out last night? If so, why?

‘It doesn’t matter now. We’ll sort it out.’

Derek’s voice was so soothing that Sally realized she must be sounding overwrought. She made an effort to turn the conversation back to the parish and the arrangements which needed to be made.