by Jason Foss
Every region of Britain has its local society and the Darkewater Valley fitted the pattern. Flint had once travelled there and given a lecture to a group of mainly middle-aged and middle-class amateur scholars who referred to themselves as the ‘Dark Ants’. The library held complete runs of most regional journals, including The Transactions of the Darkewater Valley Antiquarian Society, with volumes dating back to 1879. Over a hundred of the bottle-green hardback volumes were packed on to the shelves, the older journals becoming progressively more faded until the gold lettering could hardly be distinguished from the yellowed spines.
Flint pulled out the latest Transactions and turned to the list of officers. The Hon. Curator of the Society was Piers Plant M.A., Darkewater Valley Museum, Kingshaven. The following ten pages listed the members in close type, including Lucy Gray registered at her home address. The Dark Ants had no more than five hundred listed members, many of whom would be inactive and few of whom would be bright twenty-one-year-old blondes. How could any officer of the society fail to notice Lucy Gray? Flint smelt a whole colony of rats. Kingshaven, where Plant curated the museum and where Vikki Corbett wrote her lurid articles, lay only a dozen or so miles to the east of Lucy’s home town of Durring. Flint remembered Barbara’s remark about £9.60 taking her home. It could also have taken her to Kingshaven.
The day was young and fifteen years based in London had given Jeffrey Flint a bulging address book. Steve Waleweski was already within the bar of The Rising Sun at Euston by the time Flint arrived that lunchtime. The pair had been thrown together as second-year undergraduates, sharing a chaotic terraced house in Fulham with three life scientists. Steve had sat Business Studies and shown an unhealthy interest in trains. Around the time they jointly graduated, Steve became entranced by one of Flint’s former girlfriends and married her within the year. Two common experiences bonded the men together, but otherwise, they inhabited different worlds.
Flint thought of Steve as the sort of solid, dependable type his own mother had always wanted him to be. Steve was time-serving his way to the top in British Rail and always outwardly envious of the freewheeling, if penniless archaeologist. Forty-five minutes over chicken curry and chips was too little to relive the old times, so Flint got straight to the point. A keen thriller reader, Steve was all too willing to help in the fact-grubbing exercise when Flint passed over the information on Lucy’s movements. In return, he had explained the subtle intricacies of the latest mutation of BR’s pricing policy. When they separated they agreed to meet again, and soon.
By late afternoon, the facts were unearthed and Steve telephoned them through. Lucy had bought a train ticket on January 31st. Her cheque had been presented at the correct station and was the correct amount to buy a student return to Durring. She had indeed gone home, or somewhere very close to home.
Chapter 5
The Darkewater Valley Museum was a tall, red-brick building constructed through the munificence of a local Victorian entrepreneur. Its witch’s-hat spires and crumbling gargoyles gave it a forbidding aspect. On another May morning, Flint made his way through the rose garden towards the Gothic monstrosity, enjoying the scent of early summer in the air and certain he was close to solving the mystery. The curator had continued to be evasive when telephoned a second time. Flint had considered giving his name to Vikki Corbett and allowing the reporter to savage Piers Plant with her Jack Russell enthusiasm, but he had rejected the idea. Academia is a closed world; he and this Piers Plant probably spoke the same language.
Within the lobby, the peak-capped attendant was watching television from behind the array of postcards, key-rings and plastic dinosaurs on the sales desk. He stood to attention sharply when Flint leaned his knuckles on the counter.
‘My name is Professor Birch from the Classical Institute, Cambridge. I have an appointment with the curator at ten.’
Subterfuge was a necessary part of the approach. Flint was a trifle young for a professor, but knew at least one academic who had attained the rank by his mid-twenties.
‘I’ll see, sir, but I think someone’s still in with him.’ The attendant’s accent, age and the purple-and-green General Service medal ribbon said ex-army. His upright pose and correct telephone manner confirmed it. He glanced at the clock, only quarter to ten.
‘Would you mind waiting twenty minutes, sir?’ he asked.
‘No, I’ll wander round.’
A broad staircase ran up from the entrance hall, divided at a mezzanine, then came back on itself. At the mezzanine, a large brass Buddha sat cross-legged, welcoming the approach. Beneath the stair was a stuffed lion in a glass case. It was one of those museums, thought Flint; the type they don’t build any more.
The original building had been roughly rectangular, with a nineteen-twenties annexe at the north end lending it an L-shaped plan. The archaeologist wandered past Victoriana, suits of armour, fossil collections, a case of militia uniforms and much else of less interest. Even when he found the archaeology gallery, he was disappointed. Curling cards beside grey burial urns had not been amended for years. Several captions carried dated information, and that beside the Roman coin hoard was downright wrong. A model of one of the valley’s famous megaliths had been allowed to gather dust, whilst one of its plaster stones lay fallen.
Within the new annexe, the museum changed into a place where care and attention had been lavished on the displays. It housed the folklore section, bright with spotlights, shiny glass and vivid text. Twenty minutes passed easily as Flint admired rural handicrafts and read of witch-burnings and bizarre local myths. A video promised a folk-tale recital, but a sheet of paper Sellotaped across the screen proclaimed it to be out of order. It was time for confrontation and Flint moved briskly back to the lobby.
Buddha sat motionless as before, eyes closed, weighing past and future. As Flint waited, Piers Plant came soundlessly around the turn of the stair and halted before the god, one hand supporting himself on the balustrade.
‘Professor Birch?’
The imposter made his way up towards the curator, taking in every detail he could. Plant was a slight, trembling man in his mid-forties, dark haired, with a feeble moustache and goatee. His eyes were reddened, almost bloodshot, and his forehead was creased by successive nights of long study. Flint knew the look, but did not immediately understand his manner.
‘Come this way.’ Plant’s voice was soft, almost effeminate.
At the top of the second flight of stairs, along a passageway, the curator’s office had been shoved into a corner turret. Small windows opened over the rose garden, with the remaining wall space being devoted to shelves of books and box files. Flint took in the scope of Plant’s library at a glance. Most of the books were of local interest, comprising works by minor scholars, the memoirs of the nearly-famous and a set of familiar green-backed journals. It could have been the bookcase of a hundred antiquarians he had known.
‘Have we met?’ Plant edged around his cluttered desk, narrowing his eyes to place the face.
Flint inclined his head, thinking of the occasion he had visited Durring to deliver a lecture to the Darkewater Antiquarians.
‘Possibly. Look, let’s not mess around. My name isn’t Birch, it’s Jeffrey Flint, of Central College London. We spoke on the phone a couple of times.’
Plant’s face showed a flicker of doubt, then almost amusement at the way he had been tricked. ‘Ah yes, Doctor Flint. You lectured the Dark Ants in Durring a couple of years ago. “Celtic mutations of Roman art forms.” I found it very interesting.’
‘Glad to see you remembered it.’ Flint kept up the polite charade, but the air had become tense. He eased himself on to a creaking leather-and-hardwood chair and made Plant the centre of his attention. The man was twitching and had already started to play with a pen with his left hand whilst his right soon began to be rubbed back and forward on the table. Museum work is not noted for its high stress content, yet the curator seemed a tangle of nerves.
‘How well do you know Lu
cy Gray?’ Flint asked, seeing no profit in oblique pleasantries.
Plant’s tongue appeared from those wispy whiskers and licked a drying spot on his lips. His voice set into a neutral, calm tone.
‘Only vaguely, she’s in the Dark Ants – one of our younger members.’
‘It’s just that you couldn’t remember her at all the other day.’
‘No, I was very busy. I need an assistant, they froze the post, you know. The County Council won’t listen…’
Flint interrupted. ‘You know Lucy has been reported missing?’
‘Ah yes, I think I heard.’ The casualness was plainly forced.
‘I found these notes in her room.’ Flint took a wad of photocopied sheets from his briefcase. It was the second draft of Lucy’s dissertation. The quotations from Piers Plant were highlighted in yellow.
‘Familiar?’
Plant moved his head with rhythm as he read successive lines. ‘Ah yes, Mother Goddesses, yes, very interesting.’ He scanned over the words again and again. Flint watched intently, unsure himself how the interview would end. He could see Plant’s mind working over his next feeble excuse.
‘Yes, I remember; she came to see me some time in the autumn.’
The man was such a poor actor, making up his lines as he went along, that Flint grew angry with the deceit. ‘Why wouldn’t you talk about Lucy on the phone?’
‘I’ve been busy, I can’t waste my time…’
‘Have the police been to interview you?’
‘Police? No. Why should they?’
‘Lucy has been missing since February; well over three months. You must have seen the papers or the television reports?’
‘Yes, yes I think so. If I knew something, I’d tell the police straight away.’
‘Really? Well tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘Why you denied knowing her. You must know her, for God’s sake. If I remember that meeting of the Dark Ants in Durring, there were fifty-odd people in the room and not one aged under forty. You’re hardly chock-a-block with college girls, are you?’
Plant said nothing, but his chin twitched and he began to colour. His head moved one way, then switched to the other as if his brain were being overcome with indecision. His interrogator continued to attack.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’ Flint repeated again.
‘I don’t know… I’m very busy here, I can’t remember everyone who comes through.’
‘Have you seen her in the last three months?’
‘No.’
‘Certain?’
‘I don’t know. And I resent this intrusion. I don’t like your tone!’
Flint ignored the protest – his own adrenalin was running rich.
‘This year? Have you seen her this year?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Check your diary, it’s there.’ Flint nodded his head towards a council-issue desk diary. ‘I’m sure she had to make appointments too. You are, after all, very busy.’
Plant moved a hand towards the diary, breathing heavily, his trembling increasing. Flint felt the man was shrinking before him. He was on the offensive, he was winning, Plant was about to crack. He stood up and leaned on the curator’s desk, menacing the man with a pointed finger.
‘I can ask around. I can ask other Dark Ants. I can ask Lucy’s family. I can ask your staff. I can check, the press can check, the police can check.’
‘Who do you think you are!’ Plant stood up to face him, his face bursting with fury. ‘You can’t just act like the Gestapo, insulting people and making threats!’
Flint ceased leaning and tried switching to the fatherly tone he reserved for distressed students. ‘Hey look, I’m not trying to say...’
Plant was beyond pacification and began to rant, red faced and blustering. ‘I don’t care what you’re trying to say, just get out!’
‘Okay, I’ll just pop down the police station and suggest they come and see you. Maybe they’d like to read your diary.’
Piers Plant’s hands clenched on the table top. His pallor had been replaced by a deep red. A letter knife lay only an inch from his knuckles and his fingers were crawling towards it.
‘Get out, you liar, you imposter!’
‘Not until you give me a straight answer.’ Flint noticed the fingers had reached the handle of the knife, and his attack faltered.
‘This is none of your business. What has Lucy got to do with you?’
Plant had used her Christian name, and the intonation was personal. Flint noted it and instantly switched tack.
‘Do you know anyone in Glasgow?’
For a moment, genuine confusion punctured the curator’s pink anger, then he returned to bluster. ‘Get out.’
‘Do you know anything of Lucy’s beliefs?’
The curator started to move around the desk. ‘Get out!’ His hand closed around the handle of the paper knife.
Flint fell back a couple of paces. ‘Oh well, just thought I’d ask.’
He continued his slow retreat towards the oak panel door, keeping his eye on the knife, not wishing to find it thudding between his shoulder blades. When his back was to the door, he opened it and stepped outside, letting fly one final barb. ‘Ah, the black cooking pot in the Roman display. AD 225 or later – it isn’t second century. Read my paper in last year’s Britannia.’
Flint closed the door quickly and trotted down the stairs. Once by the desk, he drew the attendant’s eyes away from the television and proffered a photograph of Lucy.
‘You wouldn’t have seen this girl around here lately?’
‘Ah, Miss Gray. What a charming girl.’
Flint was in a panic to leave the building. ‘But have you seen her lately?’
‘No sir, I can’t say I have, but there was something in the paper about her being up in London.’
‘Did she used to come here often?’
The attendant puffed out his chest. ‘I dare say she just about lived here some weeks.’
‘And she’s a good friend of Mr Plant?’
‘Thick as thieves.’ The man grinned broadly and gave a wink. Flint had no chance to respond. A figure stood beside the brass Buddha, rigid as the statue, but with a complete absence of Buddhist Samatha and powerful anger bubbling within him. Flint said no more, nodded politely to the attendant and left.
The Mason’s Arms had a half-timbered façade, plus an excellent view of the museum across the rose garden. Once through its artificially aged oak door, Flint asked for the telephone and made three phone calls. One to Barbara, one to her mother and one to Vikki Corbett. He then went to the leaded bays at the front of the bar and gazed across at the museum, contemplating his next move.
*
His next move turned out to be a pint of Youngs ESB and a plate of cheese and pickle. When Vikki Corbett burst into the pub, panting heavily, she found the archaeologist crunching French bread and gazing out of the window. She dropped onto the seat beside him, pulling off her sunglasses.
‘Jeff, sorry, Doctor Flint, what’s all this about?’
‘Jeff will do.’ He dabbed away a crumb, and grinned through his beard.
‘What about this story?’ she demanded.
‘I have a lead on Lucy Gray.’
‘I thought you didn’t care about her.’
‘I never said that. I just didn’t take it very seriously at first.’
‘So what changed your mind?’
‘Nothing. Lots of nothing, everywhere I look, nothing. An enigma, a set of questions that need answering...’
She screwed up her nose. ‘You do go on, don’t you?’
‘That’s what they pay me for. Speaking of which, your paper seems to have gone quiet on the story.’
Her aggression modified to become defensive. ‘There hasn’t been anything else to say, has there? The police have found out nothing. No-one has seen her, no-one knows anything about her.’
‘Except me.’ Flint carried a smug expression
of triumph on his face. The last crumb of French stick disappeared between the bearded lips.
Just for a moment, she detected a little charm working its way through his intellectual front. There was more to Doctor Flint than clever theories and fringe politics.
‘Drink?’ he asked.
‘G and T.’
He stood to move to the bar, digging a hand into the pocket of his jeans.
‘No, let me.’ The reporter opened her personal slush fund and passed him a twenty-pound note. Vikki sat impatiently clicking her pen whilst Flint leaned on the bar trying to attract attention. He was soon back, sucking a finger where the beer had slopped from the glass.
‘I’ve been to the Museum, do you know the curator?’
Yes, she thought, an odd geezer with a name to match.
‘Not very well,’ she replied, assuming he was one of Flint’s weird associates.
Flint could talk very rapidly when excited, and he rattled through his reasons for visiting the museum. Vikki felt her enthusiasm pall. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I need a story. This is not very exciting. It wouldn’t even push Twinbridge village fete off page seven. I can’t write a piece all about Lucy missing bits out of her essays and someone saying he doesn’t know her.’
‘Vikki!’ Flint interrupted her sharply. His eyes had narrowed, and for once he seemed to be deadly serious, no longer laid-back, no longer apathetic. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Lucy was a pretty, vivacious girl who would turn most men’s heads. Add the fact that she has a peculiar manner of behaviour...’
‘Peculiar? More peculiar than you originally said she was?’
‘She does lots of bizarre things, but doesn’t take them seriously. She plays around with men, she dips her toes into all sorts of fringe activities without getting wet. She seems to hold life at arm’s length.’