The Sandpit

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  The tune of the wheels on the straight flat road removed them from the present.

  ‘Sorry not to see you at the Asselins’ the other evening,’ said Dyer.

  ‘Something came up,’ Updark replied in a grave voice.

  ‘You’d have liked the person who took your place.’

  Updark made no response. Dyer thought of Miranda assessing Updark through squashed glasses to encapsulate him in eighty words.

  ‘How’s Beatrice?’ asked Dyer after a while, and receiving no reply, ‘Spassky?’

  Ignoring him, Updark said in a retrospective tone, ‘Did you see that Slimy has died?’

  Only to Dyer out of all the parents at the Phoenix would this name have resounded. It was as if, in an obituary in the Phoenician, Updark sought a trench in which the pair of them could shelter, before hostilities resumed.

  ‘I did read that. A miracle he evaded Yewtree.’

  ‘Remember Parkhouse?’ said Updark, investing the name with respect and authority. Hair was springing out of his nostrils. He was touching a plaster on his wrist.

  Dyer thought back. He would play the game. ‘Robin Parkhouse?’ There came to him a round face in a blue-and-yellow striped blazer. ‘Captain of cricket?’

  ‘I saw him not long ago,’ Updark went on. ‘He told me how he took his son round a prep school in Dorset, all set to enrol him, when, just as they were leaving the headmaster’s study, a door opened along the corridor – and out stepped Slimy!’

  Dyer couldn’t hold back his smile. ‘That would have been a shock. Although, I have to say, he never beat me.’ Slimy Prentice had merely hurled Dyer’s math’s prep into the bin, saying: ‘This, Basil, is damned unamusing.’

  ‘Nor me,’ reflected Updark, rubbing a distracted finger up and down his wrist. ‘He wasn’t such a bad teacher, actually. Remember him telling us, “Knowledge is power”? Of course, Slimy didn’t let on he was quoting Bacon. Still, it’s quite true.’ Then: ‘Seen any of the others recently?’ He meant from Upper One.

  ‘I’ve been living abroad – like you,’ Dyer pointed out. It was a bit too early for such cocktail-party banter. He had gone out of his way to avoid Updark at the gathering in January, because this was just the kind of conversation they might have had.

  ‘I did go to the last reunion,’ Updark said. It was where he’d met Parkhouse. His face had a scorer’s concentration as he recollected the gathering at the In and Out Club. ‘Funny how we all recognised the strong impact the school made on us, how vividly we recall it even now, and how difficult it is to communicate much of what we experienced then to our wives.’

  Dyer had declined the invitation; this club was where his newspaper editor had taken him for lunch when recruiting him. But he could picture the get-together. The long polished table like the deck of his uncle Hugo’s yacht, the partridge with bread sauce, the club claret, the white heads in black tie, the souffléd features of accountants, lawyers, civil servants, bankers, teachers, all scrambling to recall each other’s nicknames for the chance to voice them once again. What fates had they found, Splash and Boggy and Wiggy? Leaving the gate, up Bardwell Road, with their Latin and Greek, their not-bad maths and indeterminate ambitions. Did they unify themselves, or fall on the trail? Did they find their Guineveres?

  ‘Who else was there?’ Dyer asked dutifully. ‘Finnock, I suppose.’ The former head boy who was eternally coming back.

  ‘Finnock died. Poor Finnock. Forty-six. Cancer.’

  Dyer thought of the others in his dorm. ‘Garridge?’

  ‘Garridge is in Perth.’

  ‘Doing?’

  ‘I think he makes outdoor garden furniture.’

  ‘Rougetel?’ said Dyer impulsively. Once you started, how hard to stop.

  ‘No idea. Though I can’t say I knew him well, being as he was in the year below.’ His eyes narrowed at a recollection. ‘Friend of yours, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He was a friend.’ One who possessed what Dyer, aged twelve, had only read about in Jane Eyre: the attribute of stainless truth.

  ‘Didn’t he live in South America?’

  ‘That’s right. Bolivia.’

  ‘I remember him running away …’

  Where was he now? All of a sudden, Dyer wanted to rescue Rougetel from time, before Updark got to him first. His pale freckled face swam back. Halfway through his first term, Rougetel had asked his grandparents to collect him at a given hour from the postbox outside the boarding house, and when they didn’t, he caught a train to London where he was picked up by the police, who were waiting on the platform.

  ‘… It caused a great impression. A rebellion!’ Updark laughed uncomfortably, shaking his head. He himself had never rebelled. He had followed the path laid by his parents and grandparents. ‘Ever see him, do you, Rougetel?’

  ‘Not since I was twenty,’ Dyer calculated. On a rainy summer afternoon beside the Thames near Hampton Court. A slim figure stood on the riverbank, watching Dyer and his crew lift their boat out of the water. ‘Hello, Basil.’ Dyer, glancing up, recognised the person in black jeans with a backpack. The two of them had talked in an awkward way over the upturned shell, but by the time Dyer had finished loading the boat on the rack and returned to the river, the towpath stretched up and down, blank, like an old telephone number. ‘I’ve no idea what became of him.’

  Not quite true. There’d been one other sighting, bizarre and unsatisfactory, in a letter from Trundle who had started a business selling outboard motors in Benin. ‘You won’t believe this, but guess who I spied in a voodoo procession in the centre of Ouidah?’ Trundle had shouted his name and the man had looked up and hurried on. ‘I’m positive it was Rougetel.’ That was eighteen years ago.

  Updark was still at the reunion dinner. ‘Funny how someone you thought was a complete dunce becomes head of Unilever, yet the one you’d put your money on to do well …’ He examined Dyer. ‘But you’ve done well. In your field.’

  ‘Quite a small field it was.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Updark with that indulgent tone he had, ‘but a field is a field is a field. Now who was I talking to about you …?’ He picked another hair off his trouser leg. ‘Whoever it was reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to ask. Why were you called Basil? You’re so not a Basil.’

  The driver’s eyes were listening in the mirror. Dyer gave a defeated smile. How many years since he had heard that name? Not, probably, since his encounter with Rougetel outside the Molesey Boat Club. He could still see his black jeans and the side of his head.

  Dyer began to tell the story. ‘It was that physics master.’

  ‘… Jumbo?’

  Dyer nodded. ‘He asked us a question in class. I stuck up my hand. “Yes, you, Basil.” “Sir, my name’s not Basil.” “Well, it is now!”

  ‘For a long while I used to wonder why he chose to call me that. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now.’ By the end of that term everyone was addressing him as Basil – even the headmaster. Dyer mused: ‘It was probably Jumbo’s way of striking back – for the nickname we’d given him.’

  ‘I don’t believe I ever had a nickname,’ Updark said after a pause. He looked out of the tinted rear window. The light falling on his cheeks emphasised the shiny nodules on his skin, the red welts, swollen and scaly with damp patches, like Ezequiel’s psoriasis. ‘But it’s funny how things stick. I still think of you as Basil.’

  They were turning into Eynsham.

  ‘There’s something I’d like to ask you,’ said Dyer.

  Updark rotated his head in a slow arc, and looked at Dyer with a groundless grin. ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘Whatever happened to your face?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  UPSTAIRS, THEY SAT ON WHITE plastic cubes at the side of a neon-lit open room. In the space around them, a dozen or so figures, some casually dressed, some in ties, were hunched over computer screens or talking by the large window which overlooked the car park. The screens were mounted on long narrow tables. From time
to time someone wheeled out from under one of these tables a box-shaped white cabinet with drawers, and pushed it towards a colleague.

  Dyer’s quick eyes took in: potted plants by the window, a message pinned into a sound baffle, ‘Remember your neighbours, please no curry’, no clutter, hardly any paper, and despite all the knots of conversation, an overall feeling of soundlessness.

  Updark waved at a woman working at a desk in the area they were sitting in to bring two coffees.

  ‘Milk?’ raising her eyebrow at Dyer. She could have stepped from one of Vivien’s fashion magazines, in a short navy skirt with scarlet dots on it, and dark stockings. Her auburn hair was piled up in a dated bun, and two loose strands trailed over her ears.

  ‘None for me,’ said Dyer.

  ‘The usual splash, thanks, Lorna.’

  They were waiting for someone to join them. He arrived at the same moment as their coffees. A younger man, lean, unshaven, open-shirted, in a green tweed jacket. His short brown hair looked recently cut. He had a small mouth.

  Updark introduced him. ‘Roland Hissop. Iran desk.’

  ‘Hi,’ with a firm grip. His other hand held a clipboard.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘John and I were at school together,’ Updark explained. ‘We’ve been catching up.’

  Hissop, too, it appeared. He knew of Dyer’s work in Rio, he said. His first posting had been Venezuela.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your wife,’ settling onto a cube.

  ‘Which one?’ asked Dyer, more sharply than he intended.

  ‘Oh, I thought there was only the one.’

  ‘Not really. But you haven’t brought me here to discuss my marriages.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Updark said. He had hardened back into a stern and watchful administrator, as self-contained as the biscuit tin which he now scraped open and offered round. ‘Flapjacks, anyone? Lorna made them.’

  Dyer shook his head.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Hissop, taking two.

  Updark started to reach for one, but decided against. ‘We have brought you here,’ returning the tin to the top of the white cabinet between them, ‘to talk about Rustum Marvar.’

  Of course. This kidnap. It could only be about him.

  Dyer took a procrastinating sip of lukewarm black coffee. ‘What about Marvar?’

  ‘Interrogation session,’ said Updark, ‘coming up.’ He produced a notebook and pen from his jacket. ‘You and Marvar are friends, I understand?’ He looked at Dyer enquiringly.

  ‘Friends is too strong. We each have a son who was bullied.’

  ‘Ah, yes, by that Russian boy. A malevolent lump of lard, Beatrice informs me.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s been sorted.’

  ‘Agam quam brevissime potero – I wish to be as brief as possible.’ He drew out his cuffs. ‘Do you know where Marvar might be at this moment?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘He’s gone missing. So has his son.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘They left an address in Ward Road shortly after midday yesterday. Neither has been seen since.’

  ‘That’s the Asselins’ house …’

  Dyer felt sick in his vitals. He could hear the creaking of plastic. Updark’s face was furrowed as he lowered his head.

  ‘Your son was there, too, I believe.’

  ‘Yes. It was Pierre’s birthday. He’d invited Leandro and the rest of the team for a sleepover.’

  ‘Mrs Asselin says that Marvar turned up before lunch and whisked Samir away without so much as a hi or a thank-you. She was downstairs at the time. Didn’t even see him.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Dyer, who distinctly now recalled Marvar arranging to collect Samir at six. Leandro hadn’t mentioned that Samir had left the party early. Then again, if Leandro was submerged in a computer game, he wouldn’t have noticed anything. ‘Could it have been someone else who picked him up?’

  ‘The butler described a man who did resemble Marvar, and we’ve asked to see the security tapes.’

  They were taking a lot of trouble for someone who had only been missing for half a day.

  ‘Why do you think Marvar arrived so early?’ asked Hissop.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I know he was worried about an injury to Samir’s leg. But it didn’t sound serious.’

  ‘We need to speak to the last person who saw him,’ Hissop said.

  Updark pressed the tips of his fingers together. ‘Silvi Asselin said he’d been with you.’

  ‘That was on Saturday.’

  ‘Talk us through that, would you?’ said Hissop.

  ‘I bumped into him outside the OUP.’

  ‘When exactly?’ asked Updark, notebook open, pen poised.

  ‘It would have been shortly after one p.m.,’ said Dyer. ‘He came home for a coffee. We went for a walk on Port Meadow.’

  ‘How long a walk?’

  ‘Oh, a couple of hours.’

  Hissop looked at Updark.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He came back to St Barnabas Street. We had a pizza, two bottles of wine, and he stayed the night. He was worried he had drunk too much, so I offered him a bed. He was gone by the time I got up.’

  ‘Weren’t your sons playing football on Saturday afternoon?’

  ‘They were.’

  ‘Am I correct, John, in thinking you would normally go and watch Leandro?’ Updark’s politeness was self-willed. Until two months ago, he and Dyer had known each other only by their surnames. His use of Dyer’s Christian name took Dyer back to the emotion he felt when in a novel the author addressed him as ‘Dear Reader’; it was disconcerting, unearned.

  Stick to the truth as close as you can had been Dyer’s rule whenever detained by the Policia Militar. He replied: ‘We got talking, and suddenly it was too late to drive to Winchester House.’

  ‘Talking about what?’

  ‘His wife and baby daughter, mainly.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘He said they’d been arrested in Tehran. And worse.’

  ‘Talk about his work, did he?’

  Dyer looked at Updark. ‘He’s a physicist. It’s not my subject. I’m a South American hand, remember.’

  ‘But you ask questions, you’re curious.’

  ‘Exactly, you’re a journo,’ said Hissop.

  ‘Was.’

  ‘You’re always an ex-journo,’ in a knowing voice.

  ‘Did he talk about his work, John?’ said Updark. He was fretful, like a desk-bound colonel.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘How much is a little?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Seem excited, did he?’ said Hissop.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t say that,’ said Updark. ‘“Little” pulls no man off his horse. Did he talk of magnetic confinement or plasma focus? Did he tell you about that? You spent a couple of hours chatting, remember. You’re the one person who seems to have had anything resembling a conversation with him.’

  ‘Like I said, he was worried about his wife and daughter.’

  ‘So how could you tell he was excited?’

  ‘I can see you’re excited by your work, but I don’t expect you to talk to me about it.’

  Updark exchanged an impatient glance with Hissop. He had gone beyond Dyer and it was irksome to be treated as still in the same class. The muscles in his jaw tensed, as if he had clamped his teeth on a nut.

  ‘Look, I can’t force you to tell us. Only you know what Marvar said to you. But if you are willing to tell us, then we’d very much like to hear.’

  ‘I really don’t have anything to add.’ ‘I know I can trust you not to say anything.’ It wasn’t only what he’d promised Marvar. He was unsure, suddenly, of their motives.

  Already, this was too much for Updark. ‘You were always a quick boy, John,’ in a tone suggesting that Dyer was no less rebellious than his best friend Rougetel. ‘But you’re not doing yourself any good. You may end up wishing your ears were a little d
eafer.’

  Dyer gave him a sturdy smile. ‘Now why, Lionel, should I wish that?’

  ‘Let’s put a few cards on the table, shall we? Long story short, it is conceivable that your friend Rustum has made a scientific breakthrough.’

  ‘A revolutionary breakthrough,’ echoed Hissop, taking another bite.

  Dyer looked from Hissop to Updark, who would have to be calmed down and outwitted. ‘I’m sorry, but what are you talking about?’

  ‘You know, John, I have a little problem with stupidity above a certain temperature.’

  ‘You’ve just praised my intelligence.’

  Updark looked at him severely. ‘I don’t think we’re hearing each other.’

  Dyer only smiled. ‘I’m all ears, Lionel.’

  ‘Let’s start with: I am going to take everything you’ve told me so far cum grano salis.’

  ‘But I haven’t told you anything. Plus, I’m not sure what I’ve got to say. And if I did have something to say, you have reminded me I am under no obligation to say it. Actually, I will have a flapjack.’

  The mask of affability had definitely slipped by the time Updark resumed.

  He said to Dyer – it was important this was made clear, ‘This is D-notice, right? Right, John? National security. You tell no one. But no one.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘There is a possibility – I stress possibility – that Marvar has bypassed the whole bunny game and found a new way to solve our energy problems.’

  Dyer tried to consider this calmly. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘You’d hardly expect me to reveal sensitive information. Let’s say that data has been discovered on one of the machines at the lab, and our cuckoos in the Clarendon seem to think it points to a result. Just how Marvar achieved this result is the mystery that is confronting us.’

  ‘It sounds,’ Dyer said, ‘as though you were already monitoring him.’

  ‘We’ve found his computer,’ said Hissop, sidestepping. ‘We’ve found a safe he used. We’ve searched his rooms. He’s been crafty. He’s left no trace.’

  ‘Apart from this,’ said Updark, and flicked his fingers. ‘Give us that napkin, Lorna, will you?’

  She opened a drawer in the cabinet and brought something out and put it down next to the biscuit tin.