We move on from this to the eclecticism of Japanese religious practice: Shinto shrines for loving Nature, churches for weddings and Buddhism for funerals are the preferred options. Yukiko says it wasn’t till she came to the UK that she realised how odd this pick-and–mix attitude seemed to people who are stuck with the religion they were born into or pick one and stick with it.
This is an endlessly stopping train and we never get up much speed, but eventually we step out into the blustery chill of an eastern sea coast and emerge from the little station to look for the Church of St Photino. Afrodite has drawn me a little sketch of its position and it appears to be right on the sea wall, so we set our faces towards the sea in the teeth of the gale. The force of the wind sets Freda howling and I lean over the buggy to make comic faces at her, which has little effect but amuses Yukiko anyway.
Down on the front, we struggle along the sea wall until we see the church. It is actually the end of a little terrace of cottages and was obviously just a cottage itself until it had a sort of Greek pediment and a couple of pillars bolted onto the front of it to give it a more ecclesiastical appearance. It reminds me of an extraordinary little chapel constructed by Italian prisoners on Orkney during the war. In essence, it’s just a Nissen hut, but it has had a cement façade put on the front so that it looks just like a tiny Italian church, and inside every inch of wall and ceiling has been painted with frescos and patterns. It takes your breath away. We don’t know if the Church of St Photino will take our breaths away, however, as the door is firmly locked.
We are early and the Greeks will be late. We pace up and down and then, to keep Freda from wailing, we take it in turns to run up and down with the buggy, crying wheee with exaggerated enthusiasm. I am hugely relieved to see, eventually, a tall, black-clad figure striding along the wall towards us: the priest. He is, rather puzzlingly, carrying a broom and I wonder if this features in the ceremony – driving out the Devil, perhaps?
We stand back while he unlocks the door and the function of the broom becomes clear: he starts to sweep out the dead leaves that have made their way under the door and accumulated in the lobby. It’s obvious that the little church doesn’t get much use. We hear the Greeks approaching before we see them, like a particularly vigorous flock of gathering birds, and after a hubbub of geetings and embracings we all go inside. I am prepared for dank chill, but it ‘s quite warm. The practical priest has seen to this too.
We sit at the back, which is Yukiko’s inclination and suits me as I can make a quick dive outside if Freda becomes vocal. From where we sit we can see what’s going on in the little lobby, and I’m appalled: they are removing all the baby’s clothes. Surely this isn’t going to be total immersion? That sort of thing is all very well under a Mediterranean sun, but could easily kill a baby off in Dungate.
‘Did you know it was total immersion?’ I whisper to Yukiko.
She nods.
‘I googled,’ she explains.
The baby is now being brought in, wrapped in a large white sheet. His mother and several other women unwrap him and start to rub oil all over him – a precaution against the cold I’m glad to see.
‘It’s extra-virgin olive oil,’ Yukiko whispers.
I think she’s making a joke, so I grin, but she whispers, ‘No, really.’
This makes me quite uncomfortable. It’s all right for Greeks, who no doubt use olive oil for everything, but I can’t get out of my head the image of a fat little baby rubbed all over with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and a bit of oregano, and popped in the oven. I close my eyes and snuggle Freda a bit to clear the picture away, and when I open them again, the baby is going into the font and the priest is speaking.
I don’t understand a word, of course, and I decide that this is good for me. Hooked on language as I am, so pathologically alert to small nuances of feeling and tiny distinctions of meaning, it is therapeutic for me to sit without comprehension, simply taking in the pictures. So I see the baby taken out of the font, swaddled in a white towel that has been warming on a radiator and carried over to a side table, where he is dressed from head to toe in new white garments, each carefully extricated from tissue paper wrappings. Things are said - blessings and pledges, no doubt – but I really enjoy watching this tender little robing ceremony. Then it’s all over and we’re outside and the kissing and weeping, embracing and laughing are redoubled.
As we stand around, waiting to move on to the home of a friend of Afrodite’s, who lives in the town and is hosting the party, I stand on the sea wall and look down onto the beach. A little way along, a group of four lads in hooded anoraks are crouched on the pebbles, smoking. As Freda shouts a greeting at some seagulls, one of the lads looks up towards us and I see his face. It is Laurent.
‘Laurent!’ I shout, waving furiously.
He makes no acknowledgement, but I see him turn back, say something to his companions and pull his hood further over his face.
I shout again but get no response, so I shove the handles of Freda’s buggy at Yukiko and run along the wall to a place where there are steps down to the beach. Awkwardly, in my long coat and high-heeled boots, I clamber down the steps and stagger across the pebbles. I have no breath for shouting again, but they must hear me coming and I’m afraid they’ll get up and run away. I certainly won’t be able to catch them if they do, but I see, as I get closer, that they have a sort of camp here: sleeping bags, blankets, rucksacks, even what looks like a primitive barbecue with a pile of driftwood beside it. They won’t want to risk leaving all that behind.
Laurent’s friends have edged away from him slightly by the time I get to him, but they look at me belligerently enough. I haven’t thought what I’m going to say to him and I’m pretty out of breath, so I just stand in front of him and say, ‘Well?’
‘Well?’ he echoes back, with a shrug.
‘I suppose you realise the police are looking for you?’ I demand.
‘Pouff.’
He makes this little sound of dismissal, then looks round at his companions, who grin back. He is the naughty boy in class, egged on by his mates.
‘You might at least have let your mother know that you were all right,’ I say. ‘Did you know she’s over here looking for you?’
‘Ah, my mother!’
The way he says mozz-air burnishes the contempt that is inserted into the word, but I am not to be deflected.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘and your sister. They’re really worried about you.’
‘My sister!’ he says to the others. ‘You’d like my sister!’ and they snigger on cue.
‘I’ll let them know you’re all right then, shall I?’ I say.
When he says nothing, I turn away. This is fruitless and I need to retreat with some dignity. I want to take a photo of him to show to his mother and to David, but I need to take him by surprise. Walking away slowly, with my back to the group, I get my phone out and switch it to camera, then turn and call,
‘Oh, Laurent, by the way –‘and as he turns to look at me I snap him.
There is an angry roar and a couple of his mates jump up. I see I’ve been foolhardy: they can so easily take the phone off me and may injure me in the process. I realise, though, as I turn to hurry away from them, that some of the baptism party have come down onto the beach to see what’s going on, several large Greek men among them. The lads spit a bit of abuse at me and sit down. I rejoin the party.
‘A runaway student,’ I explain. ‘It’s amazing what some students will do to get out of English classes.’ And we depart for mezethes and baklava.
It is mid-afternoon by the time Yukiko, Freda and I board the train back to Marlbury. The rolling stock used on this line is competing for a medal in the oldest-still-in-use category: the heating isn’t working on our train and we can hardly see out of the windows for the encrusted grime. Freda is exhausted by all the socialising and falls asleep on my lap. In spite of my coat and boots, I’m cold and I’m glad of the extra warmth of her little body in
its fleecy bag. I look at Yukiko, sitting opposite me, and think she must be freezing in her smart little coat.
We are both glad of a break from talking, I think, and Yukiko has the Japanese gift for being comfortable with silence, so we each sit with our own thoughts. I peer out of the filthy window at the flat fields and allow my mind to empty. Lulled by Freda’s steady breathing and the clattering rhythm of the train, I fall into a half-dozing state myself. Images flash onto the screen of my consciousness, seen once but not examined, now retrieved from the recycle bin of my memory. The gift tag on Yukiko’s present, Yukiko’s new coat, Yukiko’s knife; Christiane playing her viola; those conditional sentences on the day of Ekrem’s death and Ceren’s empty chair; Ceren’s tears the next day, which had so puzzled David Scott. The day before, I tell myself. Why had nobody thought to ask what had happened the day before?
It is an epiphany of sorts and I’m afraid I may have spoken the words out loud. I look across at Yukiko, who senses me looking and turns away from the window to meet my gaze.
‘You look frozen,’ I say. ‘What’s happened to that nice tweed coat you were wearing all winter?’
My voice sounds all wrong – husky and tense – and my attempted casualness pathetically fake. She looks back at me, unblinking.
‘I wore it all winter,’ she says calmly. ‘It’s boring, isn’t it?’
‘I hope you gave it to a charity shop. Someone would be glad of it, I’m sure.’
Stop it, Gina. Leave it. You’re not fooling anyone.
Yukiko just smiles and turns back to the window, as do I, but I am seething with an excitement that threatens to bubble up in me like a geyser. I know how it was done and I know why it was done. I do my best to keep my face blank, but the next time I look at Yukiko she is regarding me with an expression I can’t read and don’t like. I’ve never gone along with the cliché about inscrutable orientals. Young Japanese women, at any rate, seem to me to be highly expressive, moving along on ripples of amusement, embarrassment, horror or delight, but I can’t read Yukiko now, perhaps because she is trying to read me. She is watching me fixedly and though she looks away when I catch her eye, I feel her gaze come back to me.
I meanwhile am thinking furiously. If I’m right – and I’m sure I am – about Ekrem’s death, a look at the library rota will confirm it. I have to get into the library office, just for a moment, but the whole library is still locked up. I concoct in my mind a story for the porter on duty in the Social Sciences building: a book, crucial to one of my courses and ordered by me for the library, received by the library before the murder and now lying, waiting for me, in the office. It is, I will tell him, vital for me to have it over the vacation to plan a course for next term. Just five minutes in the office, I will plead, and I shall be able to find it.
You may be asking yourselves why I don’t ring David. He is, after all, in charge of the murder inquiry and he wouldn’t have to fabricate stories about essential books; he could just walk in and demand the library rota, no questions asked. So why am I planning to bumble around in this amateurish way when the cream of the county’s CID is available? The thing is, I love a puzzle; I like solving things; I like being clever. So, I want to solve this mystery, and I think I may have done – at least part of it – and I want to know if I’m right, but if I am right, I’m not going to like the answer and I’m not going to know what to do with it. If I get David involved, then he’ll have no choice about what to do. He’s operational man and he’ll follow standard procedure. Me, I’m just an amateur and I have choices. I can do what I like, though I have the feeling I’m not going to like anything about this scenario very much.
When we arrive in Marlbury it is beginning to get dark and Yukiko says she will take a cab to the college. I tell her I have something to pick up from my office and we share the cab. On the campus, the driver drops Yukiko at Beechwood and Freda and me on the main campus. As I push the buggy towards the glass front of the Social Sciences foyer, however, I can see that I may be thwarted. There is a reception going on. The foyer, with its atrium-like design, is a favourite venue for drinks before public lectures, pre-conference receptions, small celebrations and leaving parties.
On a mission now, I am undaunted. I plunge in with my buggy, windswept and slightly crazy, and manoeuvre through the genteel champagne drinkers, running over a few feet, spraying apologies hither and yon, to get to the porter’s desk. Only there’s no-one there. The booth is dark and closed. It is after five o’clock and term has finished. He has gone off for a break and won’t return until this shindig has finished. With a furtive glance around, I try the door to the library office; it is locked, of course. If I were on my own, I would hang around until the porter returned, but I am encumbered with a weary and grizzling Freda. There’s nothing for it but to swallow my fizzing impatience and come back tomorrow. I push Freda home through the unfriendly gloom.
28
SATURDAY: Investigation Day Seventeen
With the murder of Valery Tarasov, the inquiry had become the centre of a media scrum. As if from holes underground they appeared, running, jostling, snapping, shouting. The Principal had forbidden staff or students to talk to the media, but he was pissing in the wind, Scott knew. Anyone who could claim any sort of connection with Tarasov could be guaranteed to have their words recorded as golden truths by a hungry reporter; it was irresistible.
He had been forced to do a press conference himself, which he hated at the best of times. This was worse because there was so little to say: he knew very little as yet and what he did know he was not prepared to give away. He had resorted to clichés. Was there a connection between this murder and the death of Ekrem Yilmaz? It was too early to say. Was there a connection with the death of Anton Tarasov? It was one of a number lines of inquiry being pursued. Was there a link with organised crime? It was too early to say. Did he believe that other students were in danger? Students remaining on campus for the vacation should stay calm but remain vigilant. Apprehending the killer or killers was a priority and all possible efforts were being made. Here he broke into a small peroration: resources would be expanded, all police leave had been cancelled, no stone would be left unturned.
Scott, chewing his breakfast toast, reflected on his performance of the previous afternoon and winced at the prospect of Gina’s sardonic take on his barrage of banalities. No stone left unturned he could hear her say with her mocking lilt. Oh really, David. As if brought to life by this thought, his mobile rang, bringing the voice of Gina herself.
‘I thought you’d be up,’ she greeted him. ‘Why aren’t you out turning stones?’
‘You read it?’
‘I saw it. You were on the telly. You looked very dashing but you should have let me write your script.’
‘It doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. But thank you for the dashing bit.’
‘Don’t mention it. Now, I’ve got something to tell you.’
Her voice, he now realised, was vibrating with excitement.
‘Yes?’ he asked cautiously.
‘I went out to Dungate yesterday, for a baptism. The details are irrelevant but who do you think I saw on the beach?’
‘Who?’
‘Guess!’
‘Gina, I haven’t got time for –‘
‘Laurent!’
Her tone was so triumphant that his first response was irritation. I found him, she seemed to be saying, when you couldn’t!
‘Where was he?’ he asked, deliberately flattening surprise from his voice.
‘I told you – on the beach. With a group of mates – other druggies, I assume. They seemed to be sort of camped there – sleeping bags and so on.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘Of course. He wasn’t at all pleased to see me though, after I ruined a perfectly good pair of boots walking over the pebbles.’
There was something feverish in her tone, he thought, something more than excitement at spotting Laurent.
‘Whereabouts
on the beach?’ he asked.
‘Near the Greek Orthodox church. I’ve got a photo of him if you want it.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. Will you let his mother know? Meanwhile, I’ll send a couple of officers to pick him up.’
‘I should think they’ll have moved on from there if they’ve got any sense.’
‘We’ll find him,’ he said grimly.
‘But he hasn’t actually committed a crime, has he? He just disappeared. We’re all entitled to do that if we want to. He didn’t deceive anyone – he just walked out.’
‘He wasted my time!’ Scott thundered. ‘And he’ll have drugs on him, won’t he? So I’d like to talk to him about that. Or are you going to tell me that’s not a crime either?’
‘Well, possession is –‘
‘Just leave it, Gina,’ Scott said. ‘Just leave it.’
‘Fine. I may have something else to tell you later. Shall I ring you or would you rather I left that too?’
‘It’s going to be a hectic day. I’ll call you.’
This conversation had held him up. Leaving his breakfast things on the table, he went straight to his car and headed for the station. As he crawled round the ring road, his phone rang again and he heard Tyler’s voice.
‘Where are you, sir? We’ve got a development.’
‘Good or bad?’
‘Good. The best.’
Two overexcited calls before eight o’clock. Some way to start the day.
‘Tell me.’
‘We’ve got him. We’ve just got him.’
‘Got him? Amiel, you mean?’
‘Amiel?’ Tyler sounded confused. ‘No. The killer. We’ve got the killer.’
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