The Graveyard Position

by Robert Barnard

  “Oh yes. Aunt Clarissa was a typical Northerner: she thought the customers wouldn’t value anything they hadn’t paid for. I imagine she charged the going rate—I was never interested enough at the time to go into things like that. She was comfortably off herself, and her earnings were in the nature of icing on the cake.”

  “What did she actually do?” Charlie’s expression as he asked this was almost comical, as if he felt himself totally out of his depth.

  “Mostly what the client or customer wanted: crystal balls, palms, tarot cards, whatever. She was really a sort of Agony Aunt with supernatural appendages. If the client was happy to do without those appendages, she would just sit him down, talk with him, offer him a character analysis, a forecast, advice, and that would be that.”

  Charlie thought.

  “So that’s your aunt Clarissa as seen by herself. What about as seen by you?”

  “Not so very different…Remember, I never saw her in action when I was an adult, with adult experience, only when I was an adolescent, living with her on and off. But looking back I’d put the emphasis on the commonsense side. For example, if a new customer rang her up out of the blue, she always tried to keep him talking, rather than simply making an appointment. That way she had an idea about him, and some concrete information about his past and what he was looking for before he ever came to the house. Similarly when he did come there would be tea and biscuits as a preliminary, before any of the serious business began. She would say that she learned as much in those apparently casual chats as she did when the more probing sessions began.”

  “So the ‘prediction’ would be based on a straight character assessment such as a teacher might make of a pupil?”

  “I think that formed the basis. Clarrie would say there was much more, that her occult ‘gift’ gave her special insight into the future, but then she would, wouldn’t she? She saw things in palms, in star conjunctions, in cards—I don’t think she ever stooped to tea leaves. But if she got a reputation—and she did have a very good local one, among people who went in for that sort of thing—I’d say it was based first and foremost on common sense, and an insight into character. Though I might add that she only half realized this herself, and really did imagine she ‘saw’ things in palms and cards.”

  Charlie took a hefty swig of his beer, and thought for a while.

  “That’s a real piece of demystification that you’ve gone in for. But I’ve got to say that I still think of clairvoyants as frauds and charlatans.”

  “So are used car salesmen and peddlers of insurance policies. Some of them probably believe their own patter. Aunt Clarissa made no claims for what she was doing, and she was always careful how she put things: ‘there could be’; ‘you may be approaching’; ‘there is a danger of’—that sort of thing. She was as honest as most, no more self-deceived than many.”

  “You may be right. She was your aunt, so I won’t run her down. Almost a stand-in mother—am I right?”

  “On and off, after my mother died. That was her sister Thora. She died when I was eight. Life was always better when I was with Clarissa rather than my father. More orderly, everything in place, clean clothes when I needed them, and meals at set times. Children appreciate that sort of thing. So you can see Auntie wasn’t a madcap in everyday life.”

  “She sounds quite a character. My mum is one too, so I appreciate the sort of interest that gives to a child’s life—though it can be an embarrassment too.”

  “You’re telling me!”

  “Now—you need a DNA test,” said Charlie, becoming businesslike, having filed all Merlyn’s information and impressions away in his police brain. “The people to go to are the Forensic Science Service. Here’s their address and telephone number. You can ring and arrange a preliminary meeting in advance, and then leave it all up to them. They won’t be cheap. They’re about to be privatized.”

  “What difference will that make?”

  “If you go by the railways they’ll be slower and more expensive.”

  “I’ll slip in before that happens, then.”

  “Well, the truth is that they’ve never been cheap. If we use them it has to be a last resort. That’s partly because of the number of samples that have to be analyzed in important cases, to cover every possibility. Your business should be a lot simpler than that, but it will still cost you. And if you want the job done quickly, you could offer them a bit more than the basic charge.”

  Merlyn thought about that.

  “I don’t know that I will. One quite enjoys stringing the family along, leaving them in uncertainty.”

  “That could be dangerous,” said Charlie seriously.

  “Could it? When all the estate is willed to the NSPCC? I don’t think so.”

  “What if the hostility displayed to you by some members of the family has nothing to do with money?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that…. But the hostility comes from a reluctance to believe I am me. They—well, Rosalind mainly—are hostile to me as an impostor, not as Merlyn Docherty. Surely that must spring from money, from Aunt Clarissa’s will.”

  “I don’t know….” Charlie paused for thought. “You could be in danger as an impostor, you know.”

  “Not once my DNA sample has been taken. Then it’s in all of our interests to await the results. They could kill me and then find that all the money still went to the NSPCC because I am who I claim to be.”

  “Well, it’s your business, not police business at this point. Are there any questions?”

  “I don’t think so, though some may occur to me later.”

  “Here’s my card if any do.”

  Merlyn took it and slipped it in his wallet.

  “I’m at the Crowne Plaza if you need to get in touch.”

  “I don’t imagine I’ll need to.” The pair of them got up and made for the door. As they left their glasses at the bar, Charlie said, “There’s one thing you haven’t told me.”

  “There’s a lot I haven’t told you,” said Merlyn. “The details of the Cantelo family for a start. A very odd bunch. I haven’t told you because you’d get all the different oddities muddled in your mind.”

  “I don’t think I need to know about them. But I am curious as to why you disappeared in the first place. Was it your idea to put your family behind you, be rid of them, all except your aunt?”

  “Oh no, it was my aunt’s idea, not mine. She more or less sent me away.” Merlyn hesitated a moment, obviously wondering whether to confide in this sympathetic young man, or to keep this hidden, as he had with the solicitor. Then he made a decision.

  “You see, Clarissa sent me away because she was afraid that someone would try to murder me.”

  He raised his hand, went through the door, and walked quickly in the direction of the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

  Chapter 4

  Mincing Malachi

  Merlyn drove away from his interview with the Forensic Science Service with an expression of satisfaction, shading off into one of unmixed pleasure, written on his features. He had not only been interviewed about the nature of his problem, he had had blood and saliva samples taken, and the interviewer had made a promise that if necessary they would seek access to number fifteen Congreve Street. Then he had been asked the name of his father.

  “John Jacob Docherty, known as Jake.”

  “And where was his last place of residence?”

  “The last that I know of was in Sheffield. Twenty-one Cutlers Avenue.”

  “When was this?”

  “Nineteen eighty-one.”

  “And is he still alive, so far as you know?”

  Merlyn shrugged.

  “For all I know. Or dead for all I know. He just went out of my life, or rather, as I’ve told you, I went out of his.”

  “And did—does—your father have a criminal record?”

  “I have no idea. I should think it’s quite possible.”

  “And your mother? You’ve told us she died when you were quite young.
When and where did she die?”

  “Nineteen seventy-four, I think it was. In the big hospital in Sheffield—I forget its name.”

  “That should be useful. Hospitals keep samples for a very long time.”

  Now, driving back to Leeds, he thought seriously about John Jacob Docherty for the first time in many years. He wondered whether his father had gone to pieces, in the common phrase, when his mother died, or whether even before that he had been unsatisfactory, erratic, inclined to go off the rails. He thought that perhaps mingling with his wife’s family could have inclined him to indulge in manic periods, but at that date Sheffield was far enough away from Leeds, and was served by a sufficiently slow and unreliable train service, to ensure that contact with the in-laws was occasional, and at times of his father’s choosing. Merlyn certainly never remembered being visited by any of the relatives at home, only visiting them here in Leeds. He did remember that Clarissa was rather fond of his father, and he had registered that it was as a sort of covering-up for the vagaries of her dead sister’s husband that she had first started taking in her sister’s son, himself.

  Merlyn, having thought it through for some time, concluded that the serious breakup had started when his elder sister died of leukemia, two years after her mother’s death. She had been the apple of Jake Docherty’s eye, and the loss of her had left him ravaged by grief. Merlyn himself came nowhere near Deborah in his affections, and it soon became a matter of course, as soon as one of his father’s drinking bouts started, that Merlyn would raid the little cache of money that Clarissa had provided for him and take the train to Leeds, to clean clothes and a warm bed, and in particular to a regular supply of nourishing and rather delicious food.

  Was Jake still alive? Leaving aside the DNA investigation, Merlyn neither knew nor cared. It did occur to him that when he came into his aunt Clarissa’s house, its contents, and her money, his father might come shambling back into his life. Only to shamble straight back out of it, he thought grimly. Still, it might be as well to be prepared. He wondered who, among the rich array of family members he had already remet, would know what had happened to poor old Jake. He had always liked his children to call him Jake. Perhaps he didn’t like being reminded that he wasn’t much of a father.

  As Merlyn showered and changed in his hotel room he went through the family members in his mind. All in all he thought it likely that the one who would know most about all of them would be Rosalind. But she would be the last person to give out information to him, since she believed—or affected to—that he was an impostor. Finally he decided on Cousin Malachi: he was, or seemed, well disposed toward him, he was the oldest of his cousins, and he had sometimes been his father’s drinking companion on his occasional visits to Leeds. Malachi would, for all he knew, have kept in touch with Jake.

  It was by now early evening. Dinner in a hotel restaurant did not appeal. He rang Directory Inquiries, got Malachi’s number, and rang it.

  “Leeds 2658-421,” the high, precise, rather epicene voice answered.

  “Malachi, it’s Merlyn Docherty here.”

  “Oh—er—Merlyn.” After a hesitation there was a chuckle. “Rosalind has issued strict directives that we are not to call you Merlyn Docherty.”

  “Oh really?” said Merlyn. “Do people in the family take notice of Rosalind’s directives?”

  “Hardly any notice at all. In my case, none. You look like Merlyn. You walk like him, which tells even more in your favor in my eyes.”

  “I think you’re probably right. I once saw Prunella Scales on television trying to do the Queen. Everything was right except the walk, which was a hundred miles off. But anyway, I’ve just set in motion a full DNA test, so when that’s completed you will know.”

  “Oh, don’t blind me with science, dear boy. I’ve heard of these things, and I know that long-ago murderers keep being arrested because of them, but I really have very little idea what they are. I’ll stick with your walk.”

  Merlyn laughed.

  “In that case why don’t we walk to a pub and have a drink together? Or what about a restaurant?”

  A little silence for thought ensued.

  “Ah well, normally I’d say let’s go to a pub. But funds have been very low recently, and meals rather basic. I’ve never been much of a cook, and I get rather tired of bangers and hamburgers and fish fingers and that kind of thing. And oven chips are quite horrible, aren’t they?”

  “I don’t think they have oven chips in Belgium,” said Merlyn. “Is there a recommendable restaurant near you?”

  “There’s the Belle Provence, but it’s rather pricey.”

  “That sounds just the place. What about your brother, Francis?”

  “What about him?”

  “Would he like to come too, do you think?”

  “I have no idea. I shouldn’t think he’s been in a real restaurant since he took Mother to the Mitre in Oxford and they had poached eggs on toast. Francis can be an awful bore. He’ll probably want to talk about proposed liturgical changes in the Anglican Communion service.”

  “He’ll talk about what I want him to talk about,” said Merlyn grimly.

  “Oh, masterful!”

  “Being one of the European Union paymasters makes me feel masterful, when it’s necessary. What’s his telephone number?”

  Francis sounded surprised to be invited, but without Malachi’s enthusiasm he agreed to meet his cousin and brother at the Belle Provence.

  “You’ll have to forgive me if I do things wrong,” he said, rather touchingly. “I’m only really used to school dinners.”

  Malachi lived in his old home, a small stone cottage still blackened by industrial smoke, on the borders of Kirkstall and Horsforth, in a narrow side street with ten or twelve similar dingy houses. Malachi, clearly, had not prospered in Merlyn’s absence. When he knocked on the door Malachi sidled out, obviously not wanting the mess in his front room to be visible to his visitor. He clearly didn’t have the courage of his bohemian convictions, Merlyn thought. They got into the car and Malachi directed him back to the main road, talking in his nonchalant way the while. Francis was already at the restaurant, put in an obscure corner very near the kitchen, but Merlyn managed to get them all seated at a table by the window, well away from any of the other diners. The restaurant proved to be French in its menu but Spanish or Portuguese in its waiting staff. Malachi ordered lavishly and enthusiastically, but Merlyn had to order for Francis, choosing soup and fish, afraid that overbloody meat would lead to a disquisition on vegetarianism and the spiritual dangers of complacency or pride on the part of its practitioners.

  “This is a treat, this,” said Malachi, looking around him appreciatively. “Times are hard, dear boy. Sometimes I don’t know where the price of my next pint is to come from.”

  “I should have thought that with a stable economy, low inflation, low interest rates, and so on, things would be booming at the bookmaker’s,” Merlyn said.

  “There speaks the EU mind,” said Malachi bitterly. “I must admit business isn’t too bad at the bookie’s. But the money doesn’t seep down to the mere hirelings…And I’ve had one or two bad investments in the communications market.”

  “You and thousands like you,” said Merlyn. “But I am sorry times are hard for you. And of course, you and Aunt Clarissa weren’t the best of friends, were you?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say…No, we weren’t. I never could stand that sort of fakery. Clarissa was no better than a quack doctor, and anyone who paid her for her so-called predictions was getting nothing better than a quack’s colored water.”

  “You always were antireligious, I remember,” said Merlyn. “I suppose this is part of the same thing.”

  “Probably, dear boy. You’d have been antireligious if your father had been a Peculiar Person.”

  “He was, but not in the religious sense,” Merlyn replied with feeling.

  “And I had the same father,” said Francis. “No one could call me antireligious.”


  “You should be fair to Clarissa,” Merlyn insisted. “She always made it clear to her clients that she wasn’t making predictions, merely estimating probabilities based on the positions of the planets—”

  “And the fall of the tarot cards or the lines on the palm. You’re not a boy any longer, Merlyn. I don’t have to mince my words. Your aunt Clarissa was a charlatan, and you don’t have to shut your eyes to that out of gratitude. She was very good to you, that we all know, but you’re much too old to pretend there could be anything in that sort of nonsense.”

  “Well, maybe,” admitted Merlyn. Food seemed to be stimulating Malachi to his remembered liveliness. He was tucking into his pâté, waving his knife, and taking copious drafts from his glass of Burgundy.

  Francis, on the other hand, though apparently enjoying his soup, was losing much of it down his tie.

  “You mentioned my father—” began Merlyn.

  “Just in passing, dear boy,” said Malachi. “Just to show you that you had nothing to complain of, compared to mine. What’s a mild addiction to alcohol, evidenced by the occasional binge, compared to my father’s madnesses: a slavish addiction to the Authorized Version as the word of God and a belief in faith healing comparable to the beliefs of Clarissa at their barmiest? Your father and I used to go on the occasional pub crawl—”

  “I remember.”

  “—and you can say what you like about him, but he wasn’t barmy.”

  Merlyn nodded.

  “Oh no. Not barmy. In fact, quite on the ball when he was sober. I’d just quarrel with the word binge to describe his drinking. At what point does a binge become a bender? Three weeks? Four weeks? Five? He had drinking sprees as long as a teacher’s summer holiday from when I was eight onwards. In the end it was easier to stay with Aunt Clarissa and save on the train fares back and forth. We said it was so I could keep going to just one school, but really, Clarissa was afraid I would come to serious harm.”

  “Ah—well, I never knew that, old chap.”

  “He came up occasionally on token visits, but really he wasn’t interested.”