by Morag Joss
Inside the door, almost a third of the nave had been sectioned off and carpeted in bright blue and looked, at first glance, like an underfunded kindergarten. Floor mats, probably useful for prayer and meditation as well as for the Mothers’ Union yoga, were stacked in a corner. Three trestle tables of papier-mâché models and children’s paintings, in which bearded men and rainbows featured prominently, lined one side. On the other, posters depicting the smiling beneficiaries of various Third World ‘projects’ spoke of outreach and global community. Everywhere, display boards bawled about the relevance and dynamism of the Church today and invited everyone, but everyone, to get to know their vicar and the pastoral team, whose scrupulously informal portrait photographs grinned out in a collective rictus of quite terrifying Christian welcome.
Sara escaped swiftly through the glazed partition doors into the proper gloomy church where at least she could feel unworthy in peace. But it was not empty; she made out a dark, rather solid female figure near the altar, deadheading the flower arrangement next to the pulpit steps. The grey-haired woman half turned round from the flowers, gave a faint nod and smile in Sara’s direction, and turned back. Sara hoped the woman would carry on ignoring her, because although she wasn’t at all sure exactly what she was looking for here, she knew it wasn’t one of the parish flower team.
‘I’m, er...just looking,’ Sara said, moving towards one of the stained-glass windows.
The woman was concentrating on the flowers. ‘What? Oh, yes, do. You carry on.’
After a moment she asked, without turning round, ‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’
‘Well, I was wondering,’ Sara replied. ‘I mean, it’s nothing particular. I think there was a memorial service here ten days ago, for Graham Xavier.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ the woman said. She stepped back from the altar step and studied the arrangement. ‘How does that look to you? Have I gone and made it all uneven on the left?’
‘No, it’s fine. They’re lovely. Do you, er...do all the flowers?’
The woman burst out laughing and came towards Sara, holding out her hand. ‘No, I just get told off for fiddling with them. I’m the vicar. Maggie. How do you do? I took Graham’s service. Were you there?’
‘No, I didn’t know him. But a friend of mine did, and this friend, well, he couldn’t make it to the service and, I’m not sure, I think he may have come here later on, on the same night. And I need to know if he did. Actually’ – Sara looked hard at Maggie, unable to predict the effect of her next words – ‘he’s sort of in trouble. It’s the police who need to know.’
Maggie raised her eyebrows and nodded. ‘Really? Well, if you’re not in a hurry, come on over to the vicarage, and I’ll see if I can help.’
BOTH MAGGIE’s instant coffee and study were hideous, but within ten minutes Sara was so dazed with gratitude that she had no spare capacity to notice either.
‘No, I didn’t really see anyone in the church that night.’
They were sitting in shabby chairs in a slightly damp room so stuffed with papers and books that there was hardly enough room for their feet.
‘But I heard someone. It was my turn to lock up. I was a bit late going over, nearly quarter past midnight. I always go in through the vestry and through the church, and lock the front door from inside. That way I can see if anyone’s kipped down in the front.’
‘But could you tell who it was? I mean, was it someone’s voice? What did you hear?’
Maggie shook her head and laughed. ‘Some people would have freaked out. I had just got to the outside door leading into the vestry when I heard the piano. The one at the back of the church. It’s a grand, terribly out of tune though.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Well, my first reaction was to barge in and stop it, thinking it was kids or something bashing about on it. Then I realised it was being played properly, so I slipped into the vestry very quietly, because then I thought, you see, that it must be our organist practising something for Sunday, and I didn’t want to disturb him. And then I realised it couldn’t be our organist, not in a million years.’
‘Why not?’ Sara sipped some of her acrid coffee from the thick stoneware mug with IONA etched on it in lumpy letters.
‘Well, I’m no musician, but the playing was just too good. Our Rodger could never play like that, bless him. And it was what was being played. Rodger’s a traditionalist, you see, even Lord of the Dance raises his blood pressure. And this, well, this was just about every song from Cabaret.’
‘You’re sure? What did you do?’
‘Oh, I’m quite sure, I saw the film four times. Anyway, I opened the door from the vestry into the church, really quietly. There were lights on, but you can’t see the piano from there. And then I’m very glad to say that something stopped me from barging in. I just listened for a bit and then I remembered something from the service. One of Graham’s friends had talked about how he’d always been crazy about Liza Minnelli.’
Sara hardly dared breathe.
Maggie went on, her voice very quiet. ‘Then that really sad one started, and it was almost like she was there. And I remembered the words: All the odds are right in my favour, something’s bound to begin, Maybe this time, maybe this time, maybe this time I’ll win. Remember?’
Sara nodded and Maggie looked up.
‘I’m no musician, but I could feel the words, it was almost like the piano speaking. And I reckoned that whoever it was, it was someone who had something to say, something for Graham. There was such longing in it. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I just waited. Then when it stopped there was a little pause, and then I heard footsteps going back down the aisle to the front door. So I stepped into the church and I saw the back view of a man. Dark hair, with prominent ears. Not tall, and in a white jacket and black trousers. He didn’t see me.’
‘Maggie, thank you. I can’t tell you, you’re a saviour. Will you come and tell this to the police?’
‘Well, I will, of course,’ Maggie said, rising with a sigh. She beamed at Sara. ‘But I’m not the saviour, actually. I do hope you’ll come again. We’re open on Sundays.’
CHAPTER 12
SHE HAD NOT planned to go to the Pump Room. But the woman in the dry cleaners was saying that Sara’s dress would not be back until after five o’clock. Surely, Sara protested, Wednesday was Wednesday whatever the time, and they had said Wednesday. Oh, but they had meant after five. It was not yet half past three.
‘Haven’t you any shopping you could do?’ the woman asked patronisingly, as if Sara were barely fit to be at large and might be incapable of filling an hour and a half without guidance.
She did not much feel like shopping, so when she arrived at the Pump Room an hour later and in need of tea she had acquired only an oversized white cashmere jersey (half price), some huge, fresh langoustines (very slimming), a Cadillac pink lipstick (to go with the jersey) and three copies of the Big Issue (guilt). As she entered she could hear above the tinkle of teaspoons the trio on the platform, swinging laboriously through a medley of airs from Gilbert and Sullivan. George was stationed on his high stool just inside the doorway.
‘ ’Ello, my darling,’ he said, routinely lascivious. ‘You’ll have a bit of a wait today, I’m afraid.’
Sara looked in dismay as a party of two dozen or so Japanese tourists were ushered in past the queue and took their prebooked places, occupying nearly half the seats in the room. Four waiters strode back and forth around the choreography of small, dark, nodding heads, as jackets and cameras were settled on chair backs, tablecloths were fingered and the flowers pointed out as real. Plates arrived. Cups, saucers, spoons, knives and napkins followed, as did tea, milk, jam, scones, sugar and cream. After several trips to each table, the waiting staff eventually left the tourists furnished with all the arcane trappings of the English Cream Tea ceremony. Except the instructions. A little tentative nibbling began amid much sniffing of the cream and peering into teapots. Finally, a
n elderly lady recognised the obvious link with cappuccino and, showing some leadership, planted a healthy dollop of thick cream in her cup, where it floated greasily on the surface of her tea. Undeterred, she lifted her cup. The others followed, and soon they were all sipping appreciatively at their frothing teacups, leaving moustaches of clotted cream on their upper lips and nodding happily in time to the ‘Lord High Executioner’s Song’ from The Mikado.
‘Aw, would you look at that, Gawd love ’em,’ George said. He looked kindly at Sara. ‘Looking for a cup of tea? Look, I’m just off on my break, soon as Jackie comes. You fancy a cup with me up the back? It’s not very smart, but I won’t charge you too much.’
When Jackie arrived to take George’s place a minute later, she followed him with her bags as he swung through the throng of visitors entering and leaving by the revolving door of the Pump Room. Between here and the entrance to the Roman Baths further along was a wide, wood-panelled corridor with a slippery floor, tiled in a bold black and white geometric pattern. On one side large windows looked out onto Abbey Churchyard. To the right was a solid wall, on the other side of which was the Ladies and beyond that the Concert Room, where visitors queued and bought tickets for the Roman Baths. What George meant by up the back was a mystery.
Suddenly, he broke into a run. Still following him, Sara looked ahead towards Colin who, on duty by the Roman Baths door, gripped a young girl by the shoulder. She was dressed in a dishrag of a skirt with black leggings, at least two T-shirts, and a jumper knitted out of ends of wool. Her nose was pierced in four places and her dreadlocks were orange. A skinny dog trembled on the end of a string tied to her wrist and a clapped-out-looking baby dribbled into a sling round her neck. The girl was shouting in a pathetic mixture of pleading and invective, ‘Aw, don’t give me this, man!’ followed by, ‘Uptight bastards, I just want to change my bloody kid, don’t I, you fucking uptight bastards!’ Young Colin, agitated and unhappy, was trying unsuccessfully to placate her.
But George was an old hand. He had attended every Interface with the General Public in-service training course that the council had ever run in his thirty-three years of employment and in a matter of seconds he summoned everything he had ever learned on the subject of Confrontation Management, and ignored every word. He shoved his way between the girl and Colin and thrust his jaw in her face.
‘Right! Right, Colin, if you would just step outside and hold the door open, please,’ he said, without taking his eyes off the girl. Colin obeyed. George grabbed the barking dog by the jaw, silencing it, and swung it round so that its muzzle was pointing towards the door.
‘Now, young lady, perhaps you’d like to take your canine friend and your offspring off the premises?’ He shoved the dog forward. The dog squealed as it was propelled through the door and the girl stumbled after, protesting, very nearly falling, still attached to the string. George sauntered out after them. The busker playing his bagpipes by the railings stopped as the knot of people around him turned to watch the unscheduled performance. On the pavement the girl turned, her mouth twisted to deliver another stream of abuse, but George got in first.
‘Get right out of here, you piece of filth. We don’t welcome your sort of scum in here. So you take your stinking baby and your stinking dog out of here. Now. You hear me? And don’t come back, or I’ll get the police. ’The girl was crying quietly as she walked away, her lips stroking the top of the baby’s downy, impassive head. The piper struck up with ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ and a wave of laughter rose from the crowd. Change was rattling into the busker’s hat as George marched back inside, rubbing his hands.
‘Can’t stand those filthy junkies,’ he said affably. He turned to Sara. ‘Come along then, I’m gasping for me tea.’
George, old George, dear old George was ugly with petty triumph, cheered and revitalised by bullying that sad creature out onto the street. Considering the matter satisfactorily closed, he went on ahead to the foot of a tiny staircase, its entrance cut out of the panelling on the corridor wall between the Roman Baths and the Pump Room doors. Sara followed silently. She had never noticed the little door before. George went up first, explaining that the stairs led up to the gallery of the Concert Room, where the musicians used to play. About halfway up, the stairs branched out to the left and another four steep steps led into a room of the same length and width as the corridor below. Both it and the contents had a forgotten air; presumably once a too-long, too-narrow, inconvenient office, it had been abandoned and then quietly, unofficially requisitioned as a den for the museum attendants. There were no windows; the room was lit by fluorescent strip lights hung from the ceiling and one old anglepoise lamp. In a far corner was a deep sink with one tap and no draining board, and the floor was covered with a red carpet that had had odd rectangles cut out of it here and there, obviously to fit round long-departed office furniture. Pubic-looking underlay curled indecently from the edges. There was a notice-board studded with faded holiday post-cards, cartoon cuttings, a few typed lists and a dusty First Aid notice. The room was slightly chilly, despite an ancient electric fire with a brown, illegal-looking flex, around which were grouped various small tables on which lay ash-trays, scattered newspapers and a Bush radio, and an assortment of chairs looking like squatting fugitives from the council’s office refurbishments of yesteryear. George, after a moment’s hesitation, offered Sara what he apparently considered the best chair. It had a modernistic frame of chrome tubing that had been bent into a series of twisting shapes, resulting in an oval base to which the circular seat and curved arms were attached by a single steel stem. Sara discovered, sitting down, that whoever sat on it bobbed idiotically every time any weight was shifted. The seat was upholstered in a greyish lime herringbone material, probably of interest to a sixties’ textiles design historian but best overlooked by anyone else.
She was still burning at the humiliation of the girl with the baby.
‘Was she doing any harm, George? Babies have got to be changed, after all,’ she ventured, bouncing in her chair. ‘Looking revolting doesn’t make you a bad mother, necessarily, does it? We can’t all be Jane Asher.’
George turned round from the tray where the kettle and teapot sat among the mugs, spoons and biscuits on a small table whose surface was whirled with ringed stains.
‘Bloody junkie. Nipping into the Ladies to shoot up. I hate them. It’s the ones with kids that really makes me wild. What’s she doing with a baby? You think she’ll be looking after it properly?’
He brought tea, offered her biscuits out of the packet, and stirred two sugars into his mug before sitting down on a grubby Ercol chair with brown paisley stretch covers.
‘My own daughter turned into one of them. First she’s off to Glastonbury; that’s fine, we said, just don’t get into anything. That was it. She’s into the lot. Goes off doing that travelling, gone over four months, then rings up. In a mess, broke, boyfriend gone off, wants to come home.’
‘How old was she?’
‘Nineteen, at that time. Working at BHS before that. Did a lot of dancing, ballet and tap. Twenty-four now. Well, I wasn’t having her back home. Her mum’s soft, forgave her and that. Gave her money and all sorts.’
‘Is she all right now?’
‘No, she’s ruined herself. Can’t get a job of course. She’s got MS now; all to do with that drugs nonsense. Oh, she says, there’s no connection, none at all, but you tell me, a healthy girl, medals for dancing, goes off, gets into all the drugs and boom, two years later she’s falling about all over the place and she’s got MS. Can’t tell me there’s no link. I won’t have her home. She did it to herself.’
He slurped at his tea and sighed. ‘I needed that. Yours all right?’
‘George, that’s terrible. Five years later, and she’s ill, and you haven’t forgiven her for four silly months?’
‘That’s what the wife says. You’re all soft,’ he said breezily. ‘How’s your cup?’
In silence he topped up their mugs fr
om the dull metal teapot. The sounds of buskers rose from Abbey Churchyard. Sara was uncomfortable, not at the thought of their remoteness from the hub of people below them, nor even the slightly sinister hideousness of the room, but because she suddenly knew herself to be sharing it with a stranger. A stranger, she recalled, who was a prime suspect in a murder case. In a slight panic, she cast around in conversation looking for the George she knew.
‘So, are things getting back to normal for you now? Open again, busy?’
‘You could say so.’ He took another biscuit. ‘Quieter at night. We’ve had cancellations right, left and centre for the evening functions. Can’t say I’m sorry. We never used to have that many, years ago. Toga parties, of course. Different now.’
Suddenly he looked tired. He must be over sixty, Sara realized.
‘What was Matthew Sawyer like to work for?’ she asked. ‘It must be hard for you, whatever he was like, to have him killed like that,’ she added.
‘He was better than some. I’ve seen them come and go, of course.’ He looked hard at her. ‘The ones I can’t stand, they’re the ones comes in and tells me what’s what before they’ve been here ten minutes. I’ve been here longer than they’ve been born, some of them. Mr Sawyer was one of them.’
He dunked a biscuit and let it collapse into his mouth like a sugary avalanche. ‘Trying to prove himself. Rubbed certain people up the wrong way.’
He swallowed. ‘To tell you the truth, he was on my back. Giving me some hassle. Mind you, don’t you think my conscience isn’t clear. As a matter of fact I’m the only one with witnesses. I left here at ten to eleven the night he was killed, and there were people who saw me go. Mr Sawyer says he’ll lock up the Pump Room, and will I go over and do the Assembly Rooms. So off I go, locks up just before quarter past, take the keys to the safe at the Circus and I’m off home. Get there at twenty to twelve.’