Lois, on her hands and knees, finally found the little flashlight. She shook it, pushed it, twisted it—and amazingly, it came back on.
This time, Lois went into the room first.
“Look on the back wall and corners,” said Siger. “It’s the file cabinet that we want.”
Lois scanned the back wall with the light until she found it—a double file cabinet in the corner to their right.
“Do you really think they have the X-rays that far back?” asked Lois.
Siger went to the file cabinets eagerly.
“They might well have,” he said. “The film is very thin.”
He opened the first drawer, and Lois aimed the light into it.
Empty. Not a film, not an envelope, not a hanging folder.
“Nothing,” said Lois.
Siger tried the next drawer, with the same result. Then the next. And then the next.
“Blast,” said Siger. “I had hoped to find either Ms. Rankin’s original X-ray or an indication that it had been deliberately removed. But this tells us nothing.”
Lois lowered the flashlight, almost dropping it.
“I told you there was no hope,” she said. She turned away and went back into the corridor, toward the lobby, not even bothering to raise the flashlight, and bumping into walls as she went.
“Please,” said Siger, following. “At least raise it up a bit.”
She did so. They’d reached the waiting room now, and she had to raise the flashlight to find the door.
As she did, the light glanced on something else.
“What was that?” said Siger.
“What?”
“In the corner.”
“Oh,” said Lois. “I saw that earlier. They tried to make it very comfortable here for the students, I think. Gave them something to look at while they waited. Magazines and such.”
“But that hardbound one on top, with photos of the school—”
“A yearbook, of course,” said Lois.
“A yearbook,” repeated Siger. “Of course. That could show us. Where would the school have kept its older yearbooks, do you suppose?”
“The library?” said Lois. “But show us what?”
“The fourteen-year-old Laura Rankin,” said Siger. “Would you expect that the library would be located toward the center of the building, to be close to all the classrooms, and to be a centerpiece for visitors?”
“I would,” said Lois.
They started out in that direction through the main corridor, moving as quickly as they could with their limited light, and taking it more or less on faith that the estate agents had kept the corridor clear of debris.
Some ten minutes later, they reached the main lobby, and adjacent to that was the library. It had wide double doors, heavy and ornate, like the lobby itself, and they were open.
They found the yearbooks—three shelves of them—on the wall behind the reference desk.
“We want one from the same year as the dental records,” said Siger. “Back twenty years, to the fourteen-year-old Laura Rankin.”
Siger quickly sorted through and pulled that volume from the shelf. He placed it open on a table, and Lois held the flashlight over it and they flipped through the pages.
They turned to the galleries of student photos for each grade level, and went through them in alphabetical order until they found Laura Rankin’s head shot.
There she was—no more than fourteen years old, and all red hair, freckles, and a wide smile of beautifully straight teeth.
“Hmm,” said Siger.
“What?”
“The same teeth as in her wedding photo.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Siger hesitated.
“It’s … well … it means that the naturally perfect roots of the teeth I saw in the X-rays from the dental work are consistent with the general shape of the perfect teeth in this shot and in the wedding photo.”
“Oh,” said Lois, and she realized from his tone of voice, as much as the words, that it was not good. “You are saying … that it is indeed Laura.”
Siger did not answer immediately.
“These head-shot galleries,” he asked after a moment, “at what point during the year do you suppose they were taken?”
“At the very end, usually,” said Lois. “Just before graduating from that particular grade level.”
Siger nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “And that was many months later, because the date on the X-rays was September of the year. We need an earlier comparison.”
He began to flip through more pages, passing through the section of head shots and into the activities sections.
He reached a two-page spread decorated with cheery white and gold snowflakes and headlined WINTER HOLIDAY DANCE.
He stopped. Lois followed his hand as it moved across to the second page of the spread and stopped on one particular photo.
“That’s her!” said Lois. “That girl caught slow-dancing with that chubby boy!”
“Yes,” said Siger. “And look closely!”
Lois did so.
“You know,” said Lois, “he does look vaguely familiar somehow, but I just can’t quite—”
“No, not him!” said Siger. “Laura! Look at her mouth!”
Lois did. It was that same wide smile—except just a bit wider perhaps, due to astonishment and embarrassment, and except for something shiny and—
“Braces!” cried Lois.
“Yes,” said Siger. “The perfectly aligned teeth that Laura Rankin happily displays in her wedding photo were not at all perfect twenty years ago. I don’t know whose perfect teeth we see in the X-ray and in the remains from the plane, but they are not hers.”
24
Lois and Siger exited the building in the same way they had come in—but in much better spirits, especially for Lois.
Siger noticed. He smiled slightly but made no comment. Lois had been so focused on Laura—standing in, in effect, for Laura’s aunt—that they had not had time to talk about Reggie.
Hope was one thing, but Siger was still a realist—and his instinct told him something remained dreadfully wrong.
He had learned over the years, sometimes at great cost, not to ignore his instinct. Perhaps that inner voice was the sum of so many subtle and subconscious bits of experience and knowledge that it simply wasn’t possible to pick one out by itself and identify it as the reason for concern. Or perhaps it was some sort of inherited genetic instinct, or something more.
But the source of it wasn’t important. Siger paused for a long moment after they emerged, standing between the main building, from which they had just come, and the gymnasium building a few feet away.
“Your hearing is excellent, is it not?” he said to Lois.
“Yes.”
“Did you hear anything just now, after we shut the door?”
Lois paused. She listened carefully. She heard nothing.
“No,” she said. “I thought you said you are partially deaf?”
“I am,” he said.
“Oh,” said Lois, looking at her watch. “It is nearly seven. We promised Roy and Nancy we would meet them for the play. I suppose we could cancel.”
“No,” said Siger. “No, I think we should go. Mustn’t be rude.”
25
The road back to town was not long, but it was a country road at night, with no streetlamps at all. Lois tried the high beams, which weren’t adjusted well, then the low beams, which didn’t illuminate far enough ahead, and then she went back to the high beams again.
Siger had the yearbook in his lap as she drove; he flipped through the pages, trying to look closely at them with Lois’s flashlight.
“What about Reggie?” asked Lois quite suddenly.
“I don’t know,” said Siger. “But I’m convinced that someone switched Laura’s X-rays at the dental office. Or at the coroner’s, if the picked lock at the dental office was faked to throw us off. Either way, someone wants it to seem that they both di
ed in that plane crash.”
“Then they are both still alive?” said Lois.
Siger did not respond immediately, then said, “There is always hope.”
They drove silently for several moments. A wind had come up, driving clouds in front of the moon, making the road and surroundings darker yet. It was nearly pitch- black.
“We haven’t seen a single other car,” said Lois.
Siger looked up from the yearbook.
“Interesting,” he said. “Nothing in either direction?”
“No,” said Lois. “Nothing.”
“Not so much as a pair of taillights ahead of us at any point?”
“No,” said Lois. “I suppose I could drive real fast and see if we can find some.”
“No,” said Siger.
But now he closed the yearbook and began to pay attention to the drive.
No vehicles ahead. None behind. None approaching from the opposite direction.
Not all that unusual, really, for such a country road, late at night.
But it really wasn’t all that late.
Siger tried to peer into the dark terrain on the side of the road where he had seen some distant farmhouses on the drive out. For more than a mile, he saw nothing but black night. Then, finally, he saw one single whitish stationary light—a porch light, probably—at the base of a distant rise. It was just the one light, though—no interior light that you would expect to see in an occupied farmhouse so early in the evening.
“I suppose I’ve been living in the city too long,” said Siger. “These country roads seem dark to me now.”
“Did you ever live in the country?” asked Lois.
“Certainly,” said Siger. “I had a little farm once.”
“Of course. I don’t know why I wondered.”
“But even after my most exhausting days, I would stay up for a while in the evening. Not immediately turn out the lights. It feels as though it’s midnight, but it’s barely after seven.”
Now, far off on the opposite side of the road, something caught his eye. A yellow-orange flicker. Just one, quite distant, all by itself.
A flame?
But it was in lateral motion. And now it was gone. Whether extinguished, or gone behind some obstruction, or whether it had just been some figment of Siger’s blinking vision, he could not now tell.
They came over the final rise above Bodfyn. The town was immediately identifiable by its two streetlamps, one at each end. As they drew closer, Siger saw the same oddity that he had seen in the countryside. Everyone seemed to have called it a night.
Lois noticed it, too.
“Has everyone gone to bed or something? Even the Fish and Chips looks closed.”
“I don’t know,” said Siger. “Let’s stop at the pub and ask.”
“I think even they are closing,” said Lois as they pulled up.
Indeed, the bartender was outside, just now shutting the front door.
“Are we too late for a pint?” asked Siger, jumping out of the car.
“You’re late, period. Everyone is already at the theater.”
“We’re heading there, too,” said Siger, “but I’ve never seen an entire town shut down for that purpose.”
“It’s bloody nonsense if you ask me,” said the bartender with undisguised irritation. “They’ll never reopen that school. It’s too far away from everything, and costs have gone up too much. And they can’t raise enough money to buy it by putting on a play, either. It’s like having a bake sale to buy the crown jewels. It’ll sell to some toff for his country estate, and that will be that.”
“For what it’s worth, I agree with you,” said Siger. “Why do you think they’re trying it, then?”
“How should I know? What I do know is, the pub is the true heart of a village; everyone knows that. Yet here it is Saturday, we’re the only pub in town, and we’re closing for this?”
“It’s your pub,” said Lois. “Why don’t you just stay open?”
The bartender shook his head.
“Wouldn’t do any good. Everyone in town is at the play. Or will be, as soon as you two get there. Not that I blame you for dallying. Macbeth? Could they have picked anything more of a downer? Damn long play, too, I hear. I wouldn’t mind so much, though, if they still had their guest star.”
“Guest star?”
“Laura Rankin. Beautiful woman. Came in the other night with her husband—some legal wanker.”
“Reggie Heath was a QC,” said Lois defiantly. “And he was only a wanker when the duties of his profession required him to be. And besides that, he loved Laura.”
“Just married they said, if you can believe that,” said the bartender. He shook his head in longing and disapproval of the choice the lady had made. And then, uncharacteristically observant for some reason, he added, “Did you say ‘was’?”
“No,” said Lois. She certainly had not intended to use the past tense.
“I knew her, you know. Back in my school days,” continued the bartender. “We were both in the eleventh form, when she was still Laura Penobscott. Much better looking than her surname suggests, even then. I mean, once the braces were off. I took her out in the meadow once and showed her how much she meant to me by carving her initials in one of the rocks. I was going to carve mine in, too, but we got interrupted, and I didn’t want to put my signature on something I hadn’t completed, if you know what I mean.”
Lois rolled her eyes.
“I’ve never forgiven that teacher, spoiling my action like that. He’s still hanging around, you know, comes into the pub now and then, fluffing his white hair out, acting like he’s better than the rest of us. But I’ll tell you, back in the day, if he hadn’t come along when he did—well, I used to give lessons, too, if you know what I mean.”
Siger suspected that Lois might be annoyed by that remark, and he wouldn’t blame her, but he wasn’t quick enough to caution her to stay on point.
“Please stop ending your statements with that phrase,” said Lois. “Everyone knows what you think you mean.”
The bartender didn’t pick up on her tone of voice.
“Chemistry is chemistry, as far as I’m concerned, and I say it never goes away. If she had only stayed around to do the play, there’s no telling what might have—”
“Nonsense,” said Lois. “I don’t believe you ever had a shot at Laura Rankin or Laura Penobscott, either one. You are entitled to your fantasies, of course, but you needn’t inflict them on us.”
Lois glared; the bartender finally knew to shut his mouth, and he began to turn away.
“Wait,” said Siger. “What did you mean about staying to do the play?”
“The play,” said the bartender. “That Macbeth thing, I told you, what they’re shutting the town down for.”
“Yes, yes, but—you said she was to be in it, but now isn’t?”
“Right, like I said.”
“Do you know what happened? Why Ms. Rankin is no longer in the play?”
The bartender shrugged.
“Beats me. It’s just what I heard. Excuse me, I have to go lock up in back.”
“One moment,” said Siger. “I notice you have a viewing deck in the back. That is a telescope I see near the railing, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“We had very much hoped to have a look. Could we do so perhaps, before you close up?”
“Sorry, no. I’m closing up, as I said.”
“Very well, if you must. But could you at least tell us, though, what the view is?”
“Nothing, if you ask me,” said the bartender. “Just a couple of hills and a bit of the valley between, and you can’t see anything at all in the dark.”
“Understood,” said Siger. “We’ll just try another time.”
The bartender nodded, glad to be rid of them, and went back inside.
“Why do we want to see the view?” asked Lois as they went back to their car.
“I’m still working on that,” said Si
ger. “What seems clear to me is that someone has gone to some trouble to make sure that no one at all sees it tonight.”
They drove on to the theater.
The modest car park next to the onetime church was full and overflowing, with a number of sedans and small farm trucks parked on the shoulder of the main road. Lois backed the car up, turned it around, and parked along the shoulder, as well.
They hurried up to the entrance.
Standing at the entrance, peering around like sentries, were Roy and Nancy. They both smiled broadly when they saw Lois and Siger.
“Glad you could make it!” said Roy, coming down the steps to greet them.
“We were about to send out a search party!” said Nancy.
“We were a bit worried we’d be late ourselves,” said Lois.
“What kept you?” said Roy.
“Nothing of importance,” said Siger as he and Roy shook hands. And then, when he released Roy’s hand, Siger said, “I think you should fire your manicurist.”
“Excuse me?”
“Personally, I would find it inconvenient, perhaps even painful, to have my nails cut back that short.”
“Ah, yes,” said Roy, looking at his own fingertips as though he had just discovered the issue. “I wish now that I hadn’t tipped her.”
“Hmm,” said Siger.
“Well, come on in, then!” said Nancy. “We saved seats for you, front row!”
“Thank you so much,” said Lois. “Front row for Macbeth. I do hope the witches spit carefully!”
Lois gave Siger a look to indicate her true feelings, but she dutifully started forward.
Siger stepped behind to let her go first.
“Owww!” said Lois.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Siger.
“You stepped on my foot!”
“Oh dear,” said Nancy.
“Very clumsy of me, no doubt,” said Siger.
“Oh my,” said Nancy. “Do you need to come in and get a bandage?”
“No, no, I’m fine. But he broke my heel.”
“So sorry,” said Siger again. “We’d better just go back to the car and get your other pair.”
“What other—”
Lois caught Siger’s glance, and she stopped.
“Oh. Yes. The pair I stowed in the boot. Well, lucky I did that.”
A Baker Street Wedding Page 16