The Orpheus Trail (20 page)

Could I even discuss it with Hilary? She might think I had flipped completely. Pseudo-philosophical theorising hadn’t been part of our discourse. My decision to tell her everything weakened. After all, nothing had changed. She could still be at risk but I longed for the comfort of her voice. Hildreth was going back to his Julie who would send his suit to be cleaned and him out for a haircut. I both envied and despised their domesticity.

The journey seemed endless. At Waterloo I took the Tube to Embankment, changed for Liverpool Street and then on through Essex. Today I could only see the familiar fields with their painted signs advertising ‘Bonza spuds for sale’ as a featureless continuation of the European plain I had just crossed, and once part of it before the sea flowed in and cut us off.

I put the key in the front door lock, dreading the silence I felt
reaching
out to suck me down. Dumping my overnight bag in the hall, I went through to the kitchen to see if Doris Shepherd had left me one of her enigmatic notes, propped against the pepper grinder. As I stepped through the doorway my eye slid automatically to the tiling in front of the sink. Every day I put down an offering to whatever god of missing persons. At first it was bowls of cat food and saucers of milk that in the evening when I came back, were dried and fly-blown or curdled and with a skin of dust. Lately repelled by scraping and tipping them down the lavatory, I’d left only the hard pellets of Caesar’s favourite brand.

The dish was empty. I stepped forward and picked it up, stifling a
rush of hope. Another cat, a hungry stray could have found its way through the flap while I’d been in Amsterdam, and gratefully gobbled up the contents. Putting the dish in the sink I ran hot water into it and then went through into the sitting room, not daring to call out and moving as quietly as possible so as not to alarm any feral creature that might still be lurking there. There was no one. I went out into the hall again and began to climb the stairs. The whole house must be searched before I could be sure I was alone. Maybe the stray could be persuaded to take up residence. Maybe it would be a she cat with a clutch of kittens.

My bedroom door was slightly ajar. I pushed at it, stood still for a moment in the doorway and looked towards my bed. A small, round, dusty ammonite of black fur was curled up in the middle. I just managed to hold back from starting forward to touch him. Was he still alive? He didn’t seem to be breathing. Was it really Caesar come back or a stranger, looking unnervingly like him?

He must have sensed my presence. I moved gently forward,
stretching
out a tentative hand. He tried to sit up but almost toppled over and sank back again. Clearly I must get a vet to check him over. I stroked the blunt head between his ears with a forefinger. His coat was matted and dirty; one eye was half closed. I wanted to howl with a mixture of grief and sheer relief. He must be alright. He mustn’t die from
whatever
hidden damage he might have suffered.

I shut the door to keep him safe. It didn’t matter if he peed on the bed or worse. I went downstairs to phone the vet. ‘I’ll be over after surgery. Keep him as quiet as possible and give him plenty of water. The worst fear if nothing’s broken or he hasn’t suffered some internal injury, is dehydration.’ I took him up a bowl of water and more food. This time when he looked up, I saw that one ear was torn and there was a gash across his nose. Then I settled myself to wait for the vet, not daring to celebrate yet with a whisky but making myself a comforting cup of coffee instead.

The vet, thankfully the one he usually saw, was gentle and firm, inspecting the injuries to Caesar’s head and lifting him to feel his legs and abdomen. ‘How long has he been away?’

‘Five weeks.’

‘He’s very thin of course and that tear in the ear won’t knit together again. You’ve lost your handsome head, old chap, but nothing actually seems injured. You’ve been very lucky but don’t try it again. Unusual for a neutered animal to go off like that.’

‘I think he must have been shut in somewhere,’ I said defensively.

‘Keep him in for a few days and build him up. I’ll give him a shot of antibiotics just in case. Bring him in at the end of the week, to make sure everything’s going along nicely.’

Alone again I allowed myself my postponed celebratory glass. Caesar had come back and he was going to be alright. He had been courageous and clever. If only he could tell me where he had been. I bolted the cat flap from the inside and left my bedroom door ajar again. Then I sat down to ring Hilary.

‘Caesar’s back,’ I said and felt tears pricking in my eyes and the
proverbial
lump in the throat threatening to choke me.

From the Historia Ecclesiastica Britonem
C
. 580

Those are called the days of the Saints, after St Germanus had utterly defeated the Pelagian heretics, who denied the dual nature of the Lord, the original sin of our
forefathers
and the efficacy of the priesthood, in argument, and after another fourteen years, returned again and without a sword being drawn put to flight the army of the Picts and Saxons in terror with the great shout of Alleluia from the British warriors, and at last the church enjoyed many years of peace, and many monasteries were founded among the Cymri.

First came St Dyfrig to Hertland and after him St Illtyd, the most learned of the Britons in Testaments and all kinds of knowledge. He caused to be built, on the banks of the same river at Llantwit, a monastery, with seven churches, each with seven
companies
, and seven colleges in each company, in all two thousand saints leading a life of godliness, fasting, prayer, almsgiving and charity. Here St Samson was educated and ordained who after went to Caldey Island and lived as a hermit for seven years and then in a vision was commanded by God to cross over to Cornwall and thence Armorica with other Britons where he founded the monastery of Dol.

And after them came other saints as Cadre who founded Llancorfon and Teilo who founded Llandeilo and was with St Dewi in his journey to Jerusalem. In these days there were many comings and goings between all these monasteries and Ireland, Armorica, Cornwall and even Iberia where there was a colony of British Christians.

Yet for all this, as St Gildas says in his Excidie and his Epistolae, the land suffered for the sins of the princes and people, and even the very priests fell under God’s wrath for their wickedness, for all too much throughout all this land men feared not to commit the most heinous crimes as incest and murder, oppression, torture and drunkenness after many droughts of golden sweet honey mead as Aneurin says for which the saints often had occasion to curse them and call down God’s punishments. St Gildas himself calls those princes ‘tyrants’. ‘Britain has judges – they are unrighteous; ever plundering and terrifying the innocent, aye guilty brigands, having a multitude of wives – nay harlots and adulteresses, warring but in unjust and evil warfare, rewarding the brigands who
sit with them at table, despising the humble and guiltless, raising to the stars the bloody, the proud, murderers, comrades and adulterers, enemies of God.’ Especially he names the five princes Constantine of Damnonia, Aurelius Conan, Vortipar, and Cuneglas, but chiefest of all in wickedness is Maelgwn Gynedd, ‘the dragon of the island’ who in his youth murdered his uncle the king. After repenting of this crime and taking the vow of a monk he was led astray by his nephew’s wife, murdered his nephew and his own wife and married his temptress.

So that it was no wonder that the heathen Saxons advanced upon us daily until they had consumed almost all the island for our sins, and that the men of God retired to such places as Illtydd’s Lantwit, for when he first came there the saint found it pleased him well, with a fertile plain with no ruggedness if mountain or hill, a thick wood with trees of various kinds, the dwelling place of many wild creatures, and a river flowing between pleasant banks – Pulcherrimus iste locorum.

Monarchus Ignotus

‘Where were you, Alex?’ Hilary said. ‘I rang you a couple of times, both at home and at the museum. I didn’t leave a message. There didn’t seem any point.’

I felt a rush of relief or pleasure; I wasn’t sure which. I hoped it meant she’d forgiven me. ‘I was in Amsterdam.’

‘Amsterdam? Why? And why didn’t you tell me you were going to be away?’

‘I thought you were, well, angry with me.’

‘That wasn’t the best way to stop me if I was.’

‘No. I’m very sorry. Look, do you think our phones are safe, that no one can hook into what we’re saying?’

‘Are you alright, Alex?’

‘Honestly, I’m not getting paranoid. I went to Amsterdam because Hildreth asked me to go with him to the Dutch police. Only of course he doesn’t really ask. It’s like that old Latin construction, expecting the answer “yes”. Quo or quid or something with the subjunctive. I’m rambling. Okay, what I haven’t told you and why I thought we shouldn’t meet, is that I’m being watched.’

‘Alex…’

‘No, hang on. Caesar didn’t just go missing. He was kidnapped. Whoever took him sent me a note with a piece of his fur.’

‘What did the note say?’ The suspicion in her question made it hard to answer rationally without stuttering.

‘That we’d see if he could find his way back, if he was clever enough. But the point is: someone must have been watching the house to know about him, and me of course, and catch him.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I could hear the doubt in her voice again.

‘I suppose I thought you wouldn’t believe me. I’m not sure you do now.’

‘Did you tell your friend Hildreth?’

‘No. If I didn’t think you would believe me, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t. And now Stalbridge is dead and that’s my fault too.’

‘I don’t understand any of this. Stalbridge is dead?’

‘He took an overdose.’

‘I didn’t see it in any of the papers.’

‘I suppose it wasn’t important enough. Elderly Oxford don takes own life. But it was my fault because I’d met him the day before and told him I was going to the police.’

‘Why? I still don’t understand.’

‘He designed the death sites. Some of them anyway. Apparently he thought at first that they were going to use dummies. Then when he read the newspaper reports he realised they were dead boys. He was in too deep to go to the police. Afraid of losing his job, his reputation, being put on the sex offenders list. All that.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘At the London Library. I thought we could both meet there without any suspicion and, I hoped, without being followed. But I can’t be sure whether we were or not. That’s why I thought you and I shouldn’t risk meeting, in case it put you in danger. If they could take Caesar, what might they do to you.’

‘Is all this true, Alex? You’re not making it up?’

‘It’s all true. I know it sounds far-fetched. It’s not the sort of thing you associate with people like us. But four boys are dead, Jack, and now Stalbridge. They think the boys are being trafficked.’

‘They?’

‘Hildreth and the Dutch police.’

‘Does all this mean that you’re in danger? Next time it might not just be Caesar they take away.’

‘That’s why I thought we shouldn’t be seen together. There’s you, and your daughter.’

‘Beth? But she’s got nothing to do with any of this.’

‘With Caesar it was their way of warning me off. But they didn’t stop at kidnap with Jack. They killed him. I’m sure of it now.’

‘We must keep in touch somehow.’

‘I think, oddly enough, that phone is the best. Email they could hack into, at least I think so. Old-fashioned landline seems the safest.
Think of the royal mobiles that were as leaky as sieves and that was just journalists tapping into them. We’d better phone at home rather than the office where calls go through a common centre.’

‘And technology was meant to be progress!’

I had used the one argument no parent, especially a mother, can ignore: a threat to her child, an instinct basic to our animal nature, shared by lapwings and elephants, with us somewhere in the middle. I hadn’t done it deliberately. I had simply and suddenly realised the danger, the chain of hostages that had begun with Caesar and whose end we couldn’t foresee.

As soon as Hilary put the phone down I realised I had some
necessary
shopping to do. Caesar was still asleep, knocked out by the shot the vet had given or just exhausted and collapsed after making it safe home. I topped up the water bowl and went out into the now rainy afternoon, hurrying down towards the useful parade of shops on the main road for some sort of tray and a bag of cat litter, blessing his annual holiday at the cattery that had taught him what they were for.

The evening still had its summer lightness but dampened and
overshadowed
by the lowering sky. I found myself nervously peering about to see if I was being followed but the road seemed quite empty, apart from occasional passing cars. My neighbours were sensibly at home having post school tea or getting ready to go out to supper, the cinema or theatre. It was the kind of road where you knew the people next door slightly, and they had both been kind to me when Lucy died, and then again when Caesar went missing and they had seen me pinning up the ‘lost, stolen or strayed’ pictures of him. They had rung the front door bell and offered cups of tea with shots of brandy or whisky, and invitations to weekend lunches, after Lucy, and had only given up when they sensed or understood that I preferred to be alone.

On one side was Colette whose husband had died of a brain tumour, leaving her to bring up Darren alone, and on the other Dick and Margery, retired teachers, keen gardeners who had helped me look for Caesar even though he sometimes dug up their flower bed for his lavatory.

Margery was just drawing the sitting room curtains as I passed and I waved at her and she waved back. Everything that had happened in
the past weeks seemed out of place on that road. At home I found a piece of hard elderly cheddar in the fridge and melted it onto a stale slice of Ryvita. Watching an undistinguished evening of summer repeats, I found myself falling asleep, to wake with a start when Caesar pushed open the door and tentatively put his black head round it. He crossed the floor on wobbly legs and sat down on the rug in front of the unlit electric fire.

Next morning I shut him in carefully, rang Doris Shepherd with the news that he was back and to be sure not to let him out, and set off for the museum. The chairman had left a message that I was to ring him as soon as I got in.

‘Ah, Kish, how’s the exhibition coming on? I’ve booked Lord
Rochford
for the opening.’

‘We’re working on it now, chairman,’ I lied.

‘Good, good. We must meet so you can give me a progress report.’

He put the phone down not waiting for my reply, and I went in search of Lisa.

‘I’m in a panic,’ I said as I pushed her door open. ‘I’ve just had the chairman on the phone asking about the seaside exhibition and I’ve done nothing about it, not a single damned thing,’ I went on, hastily adjusting my language, remembering that Lisa had once said she thought ‘the f word’ downgraded something important. In my heart I’d agreed with her.

‘It’s alright, Alex. I knew you were busy so I’ve been working on it. I’ve got some sketches to show you that I did while you were away.’ She got up and opened one long shallow drawer of a cabinet in which maps, drawings and posters were kept flat.

‘Lisa, you’re a star!’

‘We can do most of it from our own collections especially the stuff we can’t usually show because of lack of space. We’ll have to move some other things temporarily to make room. I’ve also tracked down some additional material but I haven’t placed any definite orders until I talked to you about the budget for it.’

‘You’re a supernova!’

‘Aren’t they the ones about to explode or collapse into black holes?’

‘Not before the opening. The chairman’s booked Lord Rochford.’

‘Couldn’t we have had a celeb? Tony Robinson or dishy Tristram Hunt, someone the visitors will have seen on the telly?’

‘Not within my power, I’m afraid. The chairman likes a local and preferably a lord. Now what have you got?’

‘I thought a chronology as the resort developed, starting with a bathing machine, an exhibition focusing on bathing costumes from men’s drawers to bikinis, then the fairground sideshows, food, whelks and so on, candy floss of course…’

‘I can see I needn’t have worried to come back. Let me know if there’s anything you want me to do.’

‘Can we talk about the budget? I’ve got some draft figures here.’

For the next hour we talked money, getting and spending, until Lisa left me convinced I was quite superfluous and ‘everything was under control’. I opened up my computer and began to consider the annual report to the Arts, Libraries and Tourism Committee who were our overlords. Later I held the weekly staff meeting at which Lisa explained her plans for the exhibition and I fielded questions about whose part of our permanent exhibition would have to be mothballed for a few weeks. It all seemed so familiar it was hard to think I had been in Amsterdam yesterday talking to the Dutch Vice Squad, if that’s what they were, if not just Missing Persons. That is until Hildreth rang.

‘How’s everything, Alex?’

‘I don’t think anyone even missed me.’ I knew there must be a reason for his call but I had decided to play it cool.

‘While we were away the techies were looking into Stalbridge’s computer. He was much deeper in than he let on to you. What’s Ganymede, Alex?’

‘You mean “who”.’ I knew I was sounding rather tetchy.

‘Ah. I thought you’d be able to tell me.’

‘One of your techies could have looked it up on Google.’

‘The internet? I don’t trust that stuff. You never know what you’re getting. I prefer a reliable source for my information. So, who’s Ganymede?’

‘He was a beautiful boy carried off by Zeus in the form of an eagle. Greek mythology. Zeus was the most powerful of the gods. A father figure. The Romans called him Jupiter or Jove. So you got: “By Jove!”
meaning, politely, “by God!”’ I heard my own voice taking on its best lecture to the local society tone.

‘The most powerful of the gods was a paedo?’

‘It was accepted as part of Greek society, the pursuit of beauty in men and women.’

‘I’d have been out of a job then?’

‘Something like that. Anyway what’s the significance of Ganymede?’

‘It was the name of some sort of society or ring that Stalbridge belonged to. They all had names you’ll probably tell me came from the same source. I’ll send you a list. A society for swapping pictures.’

‘And the dead boys?’

‘They’re all on his computer. He seems to have been at the centre of it. I hoped we could get some addresses off it but they’re all scrambled in some way. The IT department is working on it but they’re not very hopeful. There’s some sort of customised block, maybe even an auto destruct if it’s tampered with, so we could lose the lot.’

He rang off threatening to keep me informed. My quiet normal day had been destroyed and all my fears for Hilary and even myself, my sense of a darkness waiting to envelop us all flooded back. Was the point of all those myths of rape and abduction, the dark cloud, the shower of gold, the eagle’s claws and beak a metaphor for the ever
presence
of uncertainty, of terror in some shape or form. The Ganymede Society sounded like something the Victorians might have come up with only it would have been tangible, real boys picked up from the dank alleys and yards of the Jago smelling of horse piss, and lured with promises of lucre and the good life. And did it matter? Wasn’t the attempt to ban it, the Labouchere Act, worse than what it tried to stop with the consequent downfall of Wilde and so many others? Did prohibition in any form ever work? I reminded myself that this was different. These boys were dead, possibly murdered and the subjects of gruesome display, a cyberspace of Grand Guignol.

Stalbridge had kept all the pictures of his handiwork on his
computer
. He must have sent the designs off to someone somewhere who had the resources to set up the tableaux, including access to the essential ingredient, dead teenagers or even younger. Hildreth and company must have worked this out and hoped for leads from
Stalbridge’s computer but they’d been unable to break into whatever codes were masking the identities of the Ganymede club. The very name of the club suggested that the members were sophisticated, educated, possibly academics like Stalbridge himself. And there was plenty of precedent for them among my Victorians when the age of consent was thirteen. There were an estimated 80,000 prostitutes in London with virgins at a premium and gentlemen could enjoy rent boys at the Cleveland Street brothel, if you couldn’t get a guardsman, and you were rich enough. Every way I turned there seemed to be questions and no answers.

Perhaps Hildreth suspected me of being involved and was also keeping me under surveillance, keeping me close in the hope I would break or let something slip, and that was why he fed me these gobbets of information and took me with him to see how I would react: I felt like a fly entangled by filaments of web in the corner of the
windowpane
, buzzing and whirling my wings to break free and creating the very vibrations that would bring the spider down on me with her immobilising bite. I couldn’t concentrate on the pile of papers demanding my attention. I had to get out and walk, ‘to clear my head’, as I told Lisa on my way out. Yet even strolling towards the front and down the stairway to the promenade with the open sea beside me I couldn’t relax, the sensation of being observed, spied on, was too strong. Now they, whoever they were, had only me to watch since Stalbridge had escaped them, and added to that, there was now the question of Hildreth and what suspicions he might have. I was sinking into a quicksand of paranoia and I’d deliberately excluded Hilary from throwing a lifeline.