Past Praying For

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Anything to report, sergeant?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Nothing interesting that I can see, sir.’ She hesitated; his own state of high tension was obvious.

  ‘Er – has something else come up?’ she could not resist asking, though she was not sure it was wise.

  He gave his brief, mirthless grin and stretched out his hand with a seesaw motion.

  ‘It’s just possible. Keep me in touch, if anything comes in,’ he said, and vanished again.

  When he returned, Moon was methodically covering a sheet of paper with his neat, precise handwriting.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he said without looking up. ‘It’s not very accurate, but I think I’ve got the gist. There are probably things you can add that you’ve remembered and I haven’t.’

  ‘I’ll have it photocopied whenever you finish, and then we can both have a look at it.’

  Vezey got out the mugs and coffee. ‘Milk and sugar?’

  Moon had finished by the time the coffee was ready, and they sat with their copies on either side of the desk. Vezey was able to add one or two points; it was certainly not wholly accurate, but there was enough information to be useful.

  ‘What does this do to your profile – that’s the first point, isn’t it? Anything that helps to fill it out?’

  Moon scanned it again. ‘Curiously enough, I’m not sure that in psychological terms it’s added a great deal to what we had already surmised. It’s mainly confirmatory, in fact. But it’s interesting to see the connection with Christmas; that’s probably always been a tricky time for Missy. Most women seem to get themselves to the verge of collapse by the time the turkey reaches the table, and in her mind it would be inextricably linked with stress already. If a crisis of some sort arose at this time, she would be particularly vulnerable.

  ‘But I must say, it’s fascinating to have chapter and verse. I’d like to write this one up; I can’t think of a case where there is such a clear description of the factors contributing to dual personality.’

  ‘Let’s cut the theoretical crap, shall we, and get down to the investigation?’

  Moon blinked but said nothing, only surveying him owlishly over his spectacles, and Vezey had the grace to look abashed.

  ‘Oh – sorry, Robert. But it’s just – oh, I don’t know. It seems as if while we’re groping along in a mental fog, anything could be happening in the fog out there, anything.’

  They both glanced automatically at the impenetrable blankness outside the uncurtained window.

  Vezey persisted. ‘Well, what do you reckon?’

  ‘In practical terms? There, of course, you know as well as I do what questions to ask tomorrow. It’s all down here.’

  Moon tapped the copy on his knee with his pen. ‘It’s as straightforward as the most exigent detective could wish, surely. Who had a mother who died when she was a small child, whose brother died shortly afterwards? And who was aged, say, between six and nine in 1967?’

  Vezey nodded. ‘Yes, simple enough, you would think, wouldn’t you? I’ll buzz them just now and get ages from the statements. And even if she won’t come straight out and tell us herself, all we have to do is go to the public records to find out about her family – no nasty fiddly conversations with relatives and friends. Always supposing there isn’t a curved ball, like her having assumed another name, or something like that.’

  ‘Surely not!’

  Vezey sighed fatalistically. ‘It’s always when you think you’ve got it in the bag that things decide to go wrong. Still, assuming that for once the gods are merciful, as soon as we’ve nailed her, surely we’ll be able to get proof?’

  ‘Psychological proof? Probably; I should think her state must be pretty volatile by now.’

  ‘I was thinking in terms of nice ordinary physical proof. The courts like that an awful lot better. We may get prints off the book, or off the wrapper anyway, and given a search warrant it’s awesome what forensic can come up with.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  Vezey hesitated. ‘I have –’ he said, and then stopped, as if reluctant to say something which approached the intimacy of a personal confession. He got up, went across to the blank window and stared pointlessly out.

  ‘I can’t explain it. I just have an irrational feeling that something’s going wrong out there. I don’t know why and I don’t know where, and I can’t justify it. But I feel I should be doing something. Perhaps only something high profile, with lights and sirens, that might make somebody think again...

  ‘But on the other hand...What time is it now? Well after eleven? How the hell can we go out ringing doorbells, without solid evidence as support? Look,’ he picked up the list that had been brought in, ‘these are the women who would have been between six and nine in 1967 – eighteen of them! OK, we’ve homed in on four, but given your sister’s intransigence all we can claim is that it’s a hunch. And we’ve interviewed them all recently, each of them more than once and one of them three times. Despite what my gut is telling me, my head says we have to wait either until we have something concrete or it isn’t the hour of the night that has people screaming about Stasi tactics. You never know, it’s possible Prints might turn up something.’

  Moon sighed in his turn. ‘I’m sure you’re absolutely right, but I confess to sharing your sense of unease. When do you think you might get information through from your HQ?’

  Vezey looked at his watch again impatiently, though he knew perfectly well what it would say.

  ‘By the time he’s got there – and the fog would make it slow – got it set up, fingerprints taken and compared with known prints – another half hour at least. And even then, we’re unlikely to be any further forward.’

  It was three-quarters of an hour, in fact, but when the phone-call did come, the result took him completely by surprise.

  ‘Minnie Groak?’ Vezey repeated blankly, taking a note of the address then replacing the receiver.

  ‘Is there anything you can tell me about Minnie Groak, whose prints we seem to hold for some reason?’ he demanded.

  ‘Minnie?’ Moon echoed. ‘Minnie’s my sister’s cleaner, if you could dignify her with that title. You’d have her prints for elimination after the fire.’

  ‘Good God. And what age is the woman?’

  ‘Hard to say. She’s one of those grey women who look middle-aged from puberty on, but she’s probably around forty-five, I would guess. And her mother is very much, but very much alive, according to Margaret. How does she come into this?’

  ‘That’s what I’m going to find out. Her prints are all over everything – the book, the wrapping, everything. Where does that leave our profile now?’

  It did not take Robert long to make the connection.

  ‘I think that what has happened is that Minnie has just demonstrated yet again her contempt for Marcus Aurelius’s dictum that one should not waste what remains of one’s life in speculating about one’s neighbours. I think that speculation, in this case, has become investigation. She has taken matters, quite literally, into her own hands.’ ‘Opened your sister’s mail, do you mean?’

  ‘Without a doubt, I should say.’

  ‘Right.’ It was the excuse for action Vezey had been looking for, and he leaped to his feet. ‘If you’re right, she’s going to get the sort of fright that will make sure she wouldn’t read a love letter from the Prime Minister to Princess Di if she found it lying face-up on the pavement.’

  In minutes they were in the police car, with blue light flashing and siren wailing, making surprising speed through the fog to Minnie’s door. The turn that it gave her this time made all her previous palpitations insignificant by comparison.

  When, after half an hour, they drove off to the district headquarters, leaving behind a hysterically-sobbing Minnie snivelling her statement to a policewoman, they took with them in the statutory plastic bag the crumpled wrapping with its pathetic message, stained now with tea leaves and potato peelings from the Groak dustbin.r />
  Moon smoothed out the covering. ‘ “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” ’ he read out. ‘Poor creature.’

  ‘Yes, poor creature,’ Vezey said grimly. ‘But thanks to that repellent apology for a human being back there, we’ve lost twenty-four hours. And as we know, nothing happened last night; if she hadn’t indulged her nasty little habit, we could have had Missy safely under lock and key by now, and I wouldn’t be worrying about the pricking of my thumbs.’

  ‘Do you still feel you can’t take any action tonight?’ Vezey bit savagely at a rough edge on his thumbnail, then tapped it against his teeth in frustration.

  ‘I suppose you have to accept that the arguments still apply. They’ll fingerprint this at once, of course, but as far as I can make out we haven’t taken other prints, apart from yours and your sister’s. And now the arachnoid Mrs Groak.’

  Robert said, with an optimism he did not feel, ‘It was probably the police presence that stopped her last night, you know, and tonight you can’t move in Stretton Noble without falling over one of your lads. It will probably be another quiet night and we’ll feel foolish in the morning.’

  Rod Vezey grunted what might have passed for agreement, but Robert did not think he had convinced him and the knot of tension in his own stomach was becoming a definite pain.

  ***

  Above the bar in the Golf Club house, the clock was showing five minutes past one. The barman, with his clearing up finished and all the glasses washed, polished and put away, was yawning as he leaned against the bar counter.

  The room was deserted, apart from the four men at the table in the far corner, still at their bridge game.

  There was money on the table, most of it in front of James Ferrars and his partner. This was not by design; James had been trying hard to lose for more than an hour now, but with the usual perversity of fortune had been dealt nothing but winning cards.

  He had tried to bring the evening to a close earlier, but Piers – whose idea it had been to have some money on the rubber ‘to give it a bit of interest’ – had snarled, ‘You’re going nowhere till we’ve had a chance to win it back. Typical lawyer – grab the money and run.’

  Colouring, James had sat down again, with a bad grace, for another interminable hour while the other pair’s losses only mounted. The sums involved were trivial enough, but Piers hated to be the loser in any game. He had been drinking steadily, though there were no obvious signs that he was drunk, apart from the mottled red of his complexion and his dull and bloodshot eyes.

  At last Newton, the Club secretary, appeared, and after a word with the weary barman came over to them. He was a stout, fussy little man who had been a captain in the Pay Corps and insisted on retaining the title. He thought in clichés and was much given to the sort of heavy-handed jocosity which was intended to be ingratiating.

  ‘ ’Ello,’ello,’ello, what’s all this?’ he declaimed as he reached the table. ‘Still at it, are you? I’m afraid I’m going to have to call time, gentlemen, please. Have none of you lot got homes to go to?’

  It was an ill-judged pleasantry. Piers’s lip curled and he swung round belligerently in his seat, but before he could say anything James was on his feet and standing between the two men.

  ‘I was just on the point of throwing in my hand anyway. Getting far too old for late-night card sessions, I’m afraid. What about the rest of you?’

  The other two men, trapped like himself by Piers’s determination, agreed with alacrity and also rose. Piers alone remained seated, glaring resentfully at them all.

  The money still lay on the table, at the places where James and his partner had been sitting. Piers looked at it, then at them, and sneered.

  ‘Come on, James, you two had better trouser your ill-gotten gains. Next time remind me to choose my partner a bit more carefully.’

  The fourth man, with a vindictive look at Piers, muttered a surly good-night and departed. James picked up his share – some fifteen pounds – and turned to the secretary.

  ‘Put that in the staff box, will you please? We’ve kept you all far too late tonight,’ he said, and his partner, as he had done all evening with such inconvenient success, followed his lead.

  With little alternative, Piers at last got up, lurching slightly as he pushed his chair back from the table.

  ‘I can’t think why I bother with you lot,’ he said contemptuously, and made his way through the glass doors to the foyer, allowing them to swing to with a crash behind him.

  Captain Newton looked after him. ‘Oh dear,’ he said worriedly. ‘He’s more than a touch the worse for wear, isn’t he? I really don’t think he should be let loose behind the wheel.’

  ‘I’m sure he shouldn’t,’ James said sombrely. ‘I’ll go after him, and try to persuade him to let me give him a lift.’

  But by the time he and his bridge partner reached the carpark, Piers’s car was gone. There was not even a glimpse of his tail-lights in the fog; he must have moved with considerable speed for someone in his condition.

  Newton had followed them out. ‘Should I phone the boys in blue, do you think? Not that I’m ever one to want to shop a member, but citizen’s duty, and all that – ’

  ‘Yes, I certainly take your point. But he hasn’t far to go, you know, and he’ll be home before the police could track him down, in this fog. He’ll be crawling along anyway. Drunk or sober, Piers won’t want to damage his precious car.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there,’ Newton agreed with a laugh, glad to feel that the responsibility had been shifted to other shoulders than his. He had to be careful about his licence, but it wouldn’t do to get a reputation for being a copper’s nark. ‘Good-night, both.’

  James followed the tail-lights of the other man at a cautious distance, and they inched off down the golf-course road. Captain Newton, yawning himself, went back inside with some relief to lock up for the night and get home at last.

  Swearing at the fog, at bridge partners and club secretaries, at life in general and one woman in particular, Piers edged his car safely home. He had drunk a great deal and his blood-alcohol level would have been off the scale, but habituated to it as he was, it did not incapacitate him and he drove the car into the garage and locked up without noticeable difficulty.

  When he came in, the light on the stairs was on as usual – Milla was afraid of the dark and slept with her door open – but that was the only one burning in the quiet house. He did not notice the soft rustles and sighings of his family in bed upstairs, though crossing the hall he heard one of the children coughing in its sleep. Milla, probably; she had kept Lizzie up half the night last night. Or so she said; he had slept through it, himself.

  He wasn’t ready for bed yet. He’d have played on at the club for another hour, from choice, if those stupid sods hadn’t wimped out. He decided to have a nightcap before turning in, and went into the games room.

  This was his favourite room. He was proud of the furniture and paintings in the drawing room – he had paid enough for them, God knew – but this was where he felt most comfortable. It was a real man’s room, with card table, billiard table, drinks cupboard and a couple of leather wing chairs. He had a small TV there too; he settled himself in the chair opposite with another large Scotch, and searched for the sports channel. He found it; baseball, they were showing, for some unfathomable reason. He zapped it in disgust.

  He was being forced back on his own thoughts, thoughts he had been attempting to escape all evening. They gave him no satisfaction. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t realize that he would have been wiser not to tell the woman to her face that she was nothing but a common whore. But how else would you describe someone trying to blackmail you on the basis of favours received? It had wounded his pride, above all; he had been gullible, and now he felt a fool.

  He was also very ill at ease. Hayley Cutler was bright enough and hard enough and vicious enough to make sure he paid for that remark, and he found himself speculating uneasil
y on what form her vengeance might take. He should never have started this; he had known he was playing with fire, but the intoxicating notion that this glamorous woman fancied him – him! – had turned his head. And that was what had flicked him on the raw; whenever he had spelled out that a permanent relationship wasn’t on offer, it had become clear that, after all, it had only been about money.

  And when you got right down to it, how many relationships did he have that didn’t come down to money in the end? How many drinking cronies would he have, if he didn’t pick up the tab? How many friends, if he didn’t pay for the parties?

  Even his wife. She’d never been much interested in the money as such, but did she stay with him only because she was afraid of what his money could do?

  He leaned back in his leather wing-chair, swirling the Scotch morosely in the heavy crystal glass, brooding. Perhaps he fell into a light doze. Certainly, he did not hear the door, which he had left ajar, edge cautiously and silently open.

  13

  It had been oddly easy to break out tonight. Missy wasn’t in the habit of considering Dumbo’s frame of mind, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that her heart hadn’t been in the struggle. It seemed almost as if Dumbo actually wanted her to win, to take over. As if Dumbo didn’t want her life any more.

  Well, no wonder, considering the mess she had just made of it. Missy giggled as she thought about how badly Dumbo had handled the whole business, then smothered the sound with her hand clamped across her mouth like a child. She surely couldn’t afford to be discovered now.

  Because it had come at last, the moment for the grand finale. There had been a mistake last time – she frowned at the thought that the witch had escaped – but that didn’t matter any more. There would be no mistake tonight.

  When it all started, whenever that was – she somehow couldn’t quite remember – she had felt like a little girl, frightened and helpless in a world where no one cared.

  But it wasn’t like that any more. She had got her revenge on that hostile world; she, Missy, had everyone terrified and bewildered, and had summoned up all these policemen who were chasing their tails like clumsy puppies as they tried to find her, making themselves look ridiculous because she wasn’t there, was she? She had proved to herself, and to everyone else, that she wasn’t helpless or vulnerable any more. They were. It was a wonderful sensation.