by S. T. Haymon
“I am also sorry I didn’t leave Arthur’s glass eye in his blazer pocket after all, because if it is magic it doesn’t seem to work for me, perhaps because Arthur’s father did not leave it to me in his will, and if Mr Harbridge hadn’t found it in my pocket he would not have kidnapped me and made me go up into the spire which was very frightening. Anyway I think now that Little St Ulf is better than a glass eye any day, because more than once I thought Mr Harbridge was going to chuck me over the edge of that platform and in the end he didn’t, and I hope Little St Ulf will always protect me as long as I live.
“I am glad that you know everything now, because now you know how hateful Arthur was and how it was all an accident anyway.
“Being dead Arthur couldn’t sing the solo part at the morning service and Mr Amos chose me to sing it instead. I want to say that I enjoyed singing it very much and afterwards several people came up and said I sang like an angel, so I am pretty sure that God does not mind about Arthur because otherwise He would have made me sing flat or forget the words or something.
“I think that is all except what I told you about the dog do and Arthur eating it to show what a crush he had on me. I am being honest now about everything and I am sorry to say I told you a fib about that. Actually it wasn’t Arthur who ate the dog do. It was me and Arthur made me do it. I didn’t want to, I can tell you, which is another example of how horrible he was.”
Chapter Thirty Four
“I knew all along there was something that didn’t fit. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.” Affronted by his own stupidity, Jurnet jumped up from his seat and strode heavily about the room. The gilt chair on which he had been sitting—itself a token of his state of mind in that he had been so unthinking as to entrust himself to it in the first place—teetered on its inadequate legs. Taleh, whose nose had been resting on the detective’s knees, sat up and watched his coming and going with anxious eyes.
“What gets me is, if only the blasted penny had dropped when it ought to, none of the rest need have happened.”
Rabbi Schnellman joined his hands over his paunch and inquired comfortably, “Since when did the truth ever stop those who live by lies from going on lying? Calm down. It would have happened. It will go on happening.” He spoke without regret or self-pity. “You have nothing to reproach yourself for. You couldn’t be expected to think the unthinkable.”
“I could, you know! Ask the Super. He’ll tell you it’s all part of the job.” Jurnet came to a halt, and stood looking down at the fat man slouched in the absurd chair. “D’you want to know the truth? What really riles me isn’t so much that I missed a tiny but vital bit of evidence until it was almost too late. I shouldn’t have; but that’s water under the bridge. It’s why I missed it that gets me all churned up inside.”
“You mean, it never occurred to you to suspect a child?”
“Do me a favour, will you! I’m a copper, not trailing-clouds-of-glory Willie Wordsworth. I’ve known kids the very thought of whom sends cold shivers up my spine. Arthur Cossey was a kid too, wasn’t he? That didn’t stop me from accepting that he was also a blackmailer and a drug-pusher. But after all my years on the Force, to be so taken in by a mop of curls and a winsome smile—!”
“Oh, I see!” Leo Schnellman exclaimed. “It’s not the case we’re discussing, then, but your offended vanity?”
For a moment Jurnet stared in anger, then burst out laughing. Taleh, relieved that the problem, whatever it was, had resolved itself, sprang to the detective’s side and nuzzled him enthusiastically.
The Rabbi continued, “When all’s said and done, was your estimate of this Christopher of yours so far off the mark? Admittedly, there’s a certain discomforting adroitness about the measures he chose to cover up his tracks. But self-preservation is a very powerful instinct, and Arthur Cossey’s death, after all, was accidental.”
“But was it? That’s the whole point.” No laughter now. “Christopher writes us out a confession which we swallow whole, partly because we’re beguiled by the sheer charm of it, partly because, when you come down to it, we’ve no other choice. It accounts for Arthur Cossey’s death satisfactorily, so fine! Close the file and go on to the next thing. But how can we be sure we haven’t all been led by the nose? Can we really be certain, as Christopher repeatedly assures us, that there was no explicit sexual element in the two boys’ relationship? Was Arthur the evil little manipulator Christopher makes him out to be, or was it in fact Christopher who made the running? In Arthur’s drawer we found a drawing of Little St Ulf with the title crossed out and ‘Little St Arthur’ substituted for it. We now know that the writing is Christopher Drue’s. So is it possible that he had it all planned long before it happened, and was only waiting for his opportunity? When that kid comes to court, you’ll see, he’ll dazzle everyone in sight, just like he’s done the Angleby CID. They’ll dish out some token punishment that won’t mean a bloody thing—and who’s to say we won’t have loosed on the world some heartless little monster who hugs to himself the knowledge that if you’re as clever and fascinating as he is you can get away with anything, even murder.”
“Mm.” The Rabbi pondered. “You’ll have to keep a continuing eye on that young man.”
“And how are we to do that?”
“Have you spoken with his mother? Has she glimpsed the possibilities?”
Into Jurnet’s mind came an image of Mrs Drue’s face as he had last seen it, hag-ridden by fears she would never be able to put into words.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure she’s glimpsed them all right, but I certainly haven’t discussed them with her. One can hardly, without a tittle of proof, go to a mum and say you think her kid may be a cold-blooded assassin.”
“May be. That’s the crux. And maybe not. Personally, I’m still inclined to think you should have a chat with Mrs Drue. She might find it an inestimable relief to discover she doesn’t have to bear alone the guilt of suspecting her own child of an abominable crime.”
Jurnet shook his head decisively.
“Not on. After a bit, when all this has died down, she’ll think she was imagining things. After all, she loves the boy.”
“Ah!” said the Rabbi. “Love!”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“What indeed?” echoed the Rabbi, settling his yarmulke more firmly on his head. “Incidentally, I have some good news for you. I was at the hospital this morning. They’re flying Mort home today.”
Filled with a great thankfulness, Jurnet did not feel called upon to explain that, in the interests of self-preservation, he had stopped inquiring after the young American. “Is he OK, then?”
“Far from it. But there’s hope. He opens his eyes and he recognizes his wife.”
The golden princess in the English mackintosh. There is hope, thought Jurnet.
“That’s not all.” The Rabbi went on, as if what he had to say further was of some slight interest. “Miriam’s back. She says, don’t phone her, she’ll be in touch. As a matter of fact, she’s been back in Angleby a couple of days.”
“Miriam!” cried Jurnet. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why the hell didn’t she tell me?”
“Ah, love!” said the Rabbi, for the second time.
From the synagogue, Jurnet had told the Rabbi, his next stop was the Close: a valedictory visit, though this he did not say. It sounded foolish, since Angleby was his home and he had no plans to leave. Instead, once in the car, he drove yet further into the suburbs, to the shabby Victorian house embedded in laurels which was Willie Fisher’s new address. On the way he passed without stopping at the psychiatric unit where Millie Fisher cultivated oblivion. One could not visit all one’s family graves at one go.
Mrs Longley, the house mother, greeted Jurnet with that special brand of institutional cheerfulness which he always found utterly dismaying. Still, inside, the house was better than one could have guessed from without: sparkling with colour, warm and homelike.
Except to Willie Fisher, to w
hom home was a scrapyard, and a trailer coated with grease.
Beginning to wish he had not come, the detective followed Mrs Longley into a room where several children were busy spreading finger-paints on paper and themselves. The conversation was loud and animated.
Jurnet’s heart sank when he saw Willie, apart, a small lonely figure burrowed deep into an armchair as into a makeshift womb. The detective approached and stood quietly, waiting. The child had a book in his hands, and presently Jurnet moved, so that his shadow fell across the open page.
At that Willie Fisher looked up, and immediately down again.
“Jim and Jane are in the field,” he read aloud, in a voice that trembled with pride immeasurable. “There is grass in the field. There is a cow in the field. The cow eats the grass. ‘Look!’ says Jane, ‘The cow is eating the grass.’” Willie looked up again, and his peaked little face blossomed like the rose. “Mr Ben! I can read! I can read!”
The Close was unchanged. More tourists than usual, that was all, milling about between the generals, seeking a better viewpoint from which to photograph the spire where the wicked verger had held that poor little boy hostage.
The warm weather seemed to have brought spring and summer simultaneously. There were flowers everywhere. As if the earthen beds could not contain them, they flamed along the tops of the old walls, or discovered rootholds in crannies where a flint had fallen away, or whence tits or house-martins had nibbled the mortar.
What was it the doctor, Haim HaLevi, had said, so long ago, dying upside down on a cross? “Water my plants.”
On the top of the cathedral spire, at the point where parallel lines met as in infinity, the golden weather-cock swung gently against the sky.
Jurnet hesitated: then moved briskly towards the West Door and so into the nave, the great stone ship anchored in the Angleby water meadows where time flowed past, an unending sea. He waited impatiently for a Women’s Institute outing to pass through the small door in the north-west corner so that he could read once more what was carved there in the shadows.
At last they were gone and he could look his fill, unimpeded, at the words incised with such simple eloquence into the ancient stone.
Miriam my wyf,
Joy of my lyf—
Someone behind him was repeating the epitaph aloud. Jurnet wheeled round, and there she was, smiling.
Copyright
First published in 1982 by Constable
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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Copyright © S T Haymon, 1982
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