* * *
If you ever decide to dig up a grave in a lonely cemetery in the dead of night allow me to suggest that you really don’t need a ghoulish and unearthly lighting scheme to lend additional drama and atmosphere to the proceedings. I don’t think Tinkler even noticed it, though. It soon got quite warm in the tent and Clean Head stripped down to a tank top, which gave frequent glimpses of her bra as she dug. Tinkler couldn’t conceal his spectacular delight at this turn of events, so Nevada hustled him out of the tent because, as she put it later, it would have been creepy on a night not short of creepiness.
So Nevada and Tinkler went off, ostensibly to keep watch. The notion was that if anyone rumbled us they would give warning. Although how much we could do to make good our escape, even if we abandoned all our gear, was a debatable point. Anyway, it was left to Clean Head and me to do the digging.
Nevada had carefully chosen the biggest tent she could find, but whoever had designed it had been envisioning its happy occupants spending most of their time sitting or lying down. There wasn’t a lot of room for standing upright and wielding a shovel. It was uncomfortable bending and crouching as we worked, and this added to the infernal aspect of our labours.
Luckily it was too early for frost, and there had been several days of recent rain, so the ground was relatively soft. It only took us about two hours before we hit something.
* * *
Nevada and Tinkler stood expectantly at the entrance to the tent where we’d summoned them. “There’s a box in there,” I said.
“Of course there’s a box in there,” said Tinkler. “It’s called a coffin.”
“No,” said Clean Head. “On top of the coffin. A smaller, separate wooden box.” My relief at this discovery was indescribable. Someone had buried something else in the grave. This meant that I wouldn’t necessarily have to open Valerian’s casket itself. But then, as we excavated the box, my sense of relief drained away.
It was a solid, wooden box with cast-iron handles on either side. Rectangular and deep, it was quite large.
Just the right size for a child’s coffin.
25. WHITE MICE
I must be mistaken, but my memory is that no one said a word the entire duration of the drive back to London. We were all too aware of the box in the back of the car, jammed in there with all our gear.
We had refilled the grave in record time. The principle that there’s always somehow too much earth to fit back into the hole you dug up being usefully nullified by the fact that, in this case, there was now a large object missing inside the grave and therefore more space to fill. The hole filled up neatly and we quickly reassembled the squares of turf over it and even lay the artificial rose back in place. It all looked pretty good when we were finished with it.
But then we were working by unearthly tinted light in the middle of the night, with an urgent impulse to get out of there as quickly as possible. So who knows what it really looked like?
When we got back to our house the first pink light of dawn was just showing in ragged bands across the sky beyond the Abbey. We took all the gear out of the car and carried it in through our garden gate, leaving the box until last. Clean Head helped me carry it, which was good of her because I could see she just wanted to get the hell away from here. On the other hand, she could afford to be magnanimous because she was indeed able to just get the hell away from here. It wasn’t her home.
“Hey,” said Tinkler. “The t-shirts! I left them in your living room. Should I get them and hand them out now?”
No one said anything. No one even looked at him. So he just got back in the car. Clean Head said goodnight, although it was now more like good morning, and got into the car with him. They drove off. We closed the garden gate. Nevada looked at me. We put everything in the garden shed, just about managing to wedge the tent in there among the watering cans and cobwebs. The only thing we left out was the box. We looked at it, and then looked at each other.
“I don’t want it in the house,” said Nevada. “I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” I said. She went inside and left me alone with it. I put the box down on the decking outside the back door and kneeled beside it. Fanny peered out of the cat flap, then came out to see what I was doing. Turk followed her. I went back to the shed and searched among the tools and chose a short, steel pry bar. I went back to the decking where the box lay and set to work. Fanny and Turk swarmed around me, fascinated. I tried to shoo them away, but they wouldn’t go.
Cecilia Drummond had hinted that all the answers to our questions would be here.
I looked at the box. I had to do it. We had to know.
I prised the lid off. It screeched like a stricken living thing. The cats flinched and retreated for a moment and then came nosing forward. With the opening of the lid the dark recesses of the box were exposed, an intense smell of cold, damp earth rising from it. Inside was a long, greyish bundle wrapped in what looked like muslin. My heart pinched at the sight of it. The cats stuck their noses into the box and I quickly lifted it up, out of their reach.
I moved so abruptly and jerkily that the contents of the box shifted. It grew suddenly heavier at one end, shifting in my grasp. I lost my grip on it and nearly dropped it. It twisted in my hands and something spilled out, to land on the decking at my feet. The cats shot forward to inspect it.
A notebook.
I set the box back down and hooked a cautious finger inside the muslin. It contained a heavy-duty plastic bag of some kind, which had been sealed with adhesive tape that had long since let go. The plastic bag was jammed full of dozens of notebooks. This explained the weight of the box. Most of the notebooks, like the one that had fallen out, were the kind I used to use in school. A few were more elaborate and expensive. One was even leather-bound. But that was all, just notebooks.
Fanny sniffed at the one on the ground, then wandered back into the house. Turk followed her. Move along now, folks, there’s nothing to see here…
* * *
The Colonel looked at the notebooks piled on the table in front of him. “So am I supposed to pretend that I don’t know where you got these?”
“From a legal point of view that would probably be the best and smartest move,” I said.
He sighed. The bruise on his face had faded to a brownish yellow, still unsightly but less painful-looking. “What happened to the box they were in?”
“Tinkler wanted it for a souvenir.” The Colonel grunted and nodded, presumably indicating that this was all right. I didn’t feel I had to mention that Tinkler planned to turn it into a drinks cabinet.
The Colonel leafed through the notebooks. “What’s in them?”
Nevada came in from the kitchen, “Songs, mostly,” she said. “Lyrics and poetry. Some drawings. Jottings. Daydreams on paper. The sort of thing you’d expect from an artistic and musical young woman.” She sat down with us. “From two artistic and musical young women.”
The Colonel gently prodded the notebooks with his finger, as if he expected them to somehow respond or retaliate. “So they’re not all by Valerian?”
“They’re about half Valerian and half Cecilia,” I said.
“Sometimes they share a notebook,” said Nevada, “writing on alternate pages.”
I picked one up. It was yellow with age but intact and legible. Nearly half a century underground had done it no perceptible harm. “All of their songs are here. The original lyrics. Sometimes in multiple versions, so you can trace their development. Plus some notes about chords and musical sketches. There’s even a few fully written compositions.”
“It’s a treasure trove,” said Nevada.
I nodded. “It’s priceless. Our friend Tinkler…”
“Jordon.”
“Yes. He reckons these will fetch at least seven figures at auction.” He’d actually said it was like finding John Lennon’s original sketchbook or Jim Morrison’s poems. But I felt the point was made.
“I see,” said the Colonel, picking up a not
ebook and looking at it with new respect.
“However,” I said, “what is not there is any kind of journal or diary or letter. Not even a newspaper clipping. So from the point of view of information, the whole thing was a complete bust.”
The Colonel set down the notebook and looked at me. “A complete bust?”
Nevada said, “He just means—”
I said, “I just mean we are no nearer working out the exact circumstances of Valerian’s death, or what happened to her little boy.”
“I wouldn’t call it a complete bust,” said Nevada.
The Colonel shook his head briskly. “Neither would I.” He set the notebook back on top of the nearest stack and began to carefully straighten it, neatly aligning the notebooks. “These are going to prove very useful.”
“How?” I said.
“If Jordon is correct about what they’re worth, and I’m sure he is, then I am going to be able to put a plan into action much sooner than I’d anticipated.”
“What plan?” said Nevada.
The Colonel smiled with grim satisfaction. “To rescue my sister from the clutches of that gold-toothed ghoul.”
* * *
The gold-toothed ghoul, by all accounts, shed more than a few tears when Cecilia walked out of his little house in Castle Row in Canterbury for the last time. They were apparently quite sincere tears, but then he was saying goodbye to his meal ticket.
I didn’t witness the spectacle because I was at her new flat, supervising the installation of a baby grand piano. Its finish was black lacquer, not bright red, but it would have to do. It was a modest, self-contained garden flat with a small lounge and bedroom, a galley kitchen and a bathroom. There was an L-shaped section of garden that was exclusive to the property, and sliding glass doors in the lounge looked out on this. The garden was a strip of grass bordered with flowerbeds and a brick wall providing privacy from the street beyond.
It was part of a complex of similar dwellings, all designed to strike a balance between independence and assisted living for the residents. There was a team on site to look in on and, if necessary, look after the inhabitants. The other units were mostly occupied by the elderly or the seriously invalided. The flat immediately next door housed an old lady who was profoundly deaf.
Very handy, considering the baby grand piano that now stood facing the garden doors.
Nevada and the Colonel and Cecilia arrived just after the piano delivery guys cleared out. The Colonel and Cecilia had been to some kind of induction meeting with the people who operated the residence, and Nevada had tagged along. I wondered how that had gone. Cecilia looked blankly at me as she came through the door and said nothing as the Colonel showed her the place, leading her from room to room in an intricate dance as he manoeuvred around her bulk in the small spaces.
Nevada filled me in on the dissolution of the happy couple and their final farewell. Apparently Cecilia had said goodbye to Ambrose Smith as though he was someone she’d met at a bus stop and exchanged a few words with until her bus had finally come. Good for her, I thought.
Then she showed me the suitcase that contained all Cecilia’s worldly belongings. It was a small suitcase and, despite the bulkiness of the clothing required by a woman of her size, it wasn’t even full.
The Colonel came back into the lounge with his sister, their tour complete. She looked at the piano and promptly sat down at it without comment and began to play. At first I thought she was just playing fragments, but it gradually came together into a sparse, haunting melody. “Satie,” said Nevada. “Erik Satie.”
At the piano Cecilia nodded. “Gymnopédies,” she said. “Number three.” She kept playing. It was as though we weren’t there.
The Colonel gestured for us to come with him and we stepped out through the sliding glass doors into the cool air of the garden. He peered at us so intently that I wondered if I had traces of my breakfast on my face. But Nevada was immaculate as usual and he was gazing at her with equal intensity.
Finally he said, “I’m not sure I’ve done the right thing.” He wasn’t a man given to self-doubt, and certainly not to voicing it, so I was impressed by this disclosure.
“Of course you have,” said Nevada. She gestured at the little flat. “It’s a beautiful place. You’ve chosen really well.” He had, actually. Cecilia would be looked after here only to the extent that she needed or wanted to be, while being granted as much freedom as she could cope with. It was the best possible solution for someone like her and it sure as hell didn’t come cheap. He would have had to drastically restructure his finances to foot her bills here. The discovery of the notebooks and their potential cash value had suddenly moved it from a plan to a fact.
It made me glad I’d found them.
The Colonel shook his head. “I don’t know, I feel like perhaps I shouldn’t have separated them.”
I stared at him. “Who? Her and Ambrose?” He nodded. “You have to be kidding,” I said. “You’re having second thoughts?”
“Not about getting that bastard out of the picture. He was just a leech. Somebody else can pay for his fancy dentistry from now on.”
I was glad to hear this. “How did that go, by the way? What did he say when you threatened him with a restraining order?”
The Colonel gave a thin little smile, remembering. “I didn’t even have to go that far. I just threatened him with a legal challenge to his custody of my sister. He folded immediately.”
“He was a paper tiger,” said Nevada happily. “You completely made him your bitch.”
The Colonel shook his head. “I’m still not sure it was a smart move. I mean, he was a shit. But he was all she had. He was a bastard and a shit and a leech. But he was her bastard and shit and leech. Maybe I shouldn’t have pulled them apart.” He turned and looked through the glass doors at Cecilia bent over the piano, absorbed in her playing. “Now she’s completely alone.” He looked at us. “Maybe all I’ve achieved is to isolate her.”
Nevada suddenly gave a little chuckle. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I have an idea.”
* * *
Cecilia was still playing the piano when we came back an hour later. She didn’t even look up as we filed in. And she paid no attention to the shopping bags or the large cardboard box that Nevada set on the floor.
Until the box moved.
Cecilia got up from the piano and stared at it. Then she came over and squatted by the box, inert on her great hams of legs. She hesitated before abruptly leaning forward and pushing open the top of the box. She peered inside for a moment and then looked up at us. We opened the bags and took out the cat biscuits, the kitty litter, the green plastic tray and the two purple and white polka dot plastic bowls.
She took them from us, stacking everything carefully into the tray, which she carried out of the room. We all filed after her, to the bathroom where she set the tray on the floor with the two bowls nearby. We watched from the doorway as Cecilia hefted the bag of kitty litter. It was a ten-kilo bag but she lifted it in one hand as if it were a sachet of sugar. For some reason it’s a matter of policy that bags of kitty litter aren’t just glued, sealed or folded shut but instead are stitched with a piece of twine and involve a painstaking operation to unthread and open them.
Cecilia just tore the bag open as if she were opening an envelope.
She poured the grey granules of litter into the tray in a dusty plume. Then she opened the bag of biscuits and filled one of the bowls. The other bowl she filled with water from the tap in the sink. Meanwhile Nevada went and got the cardboard box, which she plonked gently down in the middle of the bathroom floor.
She stepped back and waited for Cecilia to open it again. As soon as she did so, the kitten pushed its head out, peered around, then jumped from the box. It was a black kitten with white socks and an asymmetric white smudge on its face. It went immediately to the litter tray, hopped in and took a long, blissful piss. Then it kicked its paws to bury the wet patch under fresh litter. It hopped out, took a
long drink from the water bowl, then set about the biscuits with enthusiasm.
We’re three for three, I thought.
Having eaten and drunk its fill the kitten wandered out of the bathroom and back through the flat, starting comically when it saw its reflection in a floor-length mirror. While it explored, Cecilia went back to the piano and started playing again. She seemed to have forgotten all about the kitten and I wondered if we’d made a terrible mistake.
But the sound of the music drew the kitten into the lounge. It peered curiously up at the piano and then, with the astounding agility of its species, hopped up onto it. It came to the edge of the piano lid above the keyboard and peered down at Cecilia’s hands moving nimbly across the keys. It watched for a while then suddenly stretched its paw out, pursuing the moving hands as if they were big, white mice. It moved back and forth, chasing the hands and reaching down for them.
Cecilia’s big shoulders started heaving and she blurted out a strange sound.
I realised she was laughing.
When we left, she was sitting in a chair with the kitten perched on her chest. They were gazing contentedly at each other, the huge woman and the tiny animal. We said our goodbyes and Cecilia suddenly shot us a fearful look.
“Wait,” she said.
We paused. “What?” said the Colonel.
She nodded at the kitten on her chest. “What am I going to call him?” Her voice was tight with anxiety.
“It’s a her,” said Nevada.
Cecilia relaxed. “Then I’ll call her Nevada,” she said.
* * *
On the train back to London the Colonel looked at us speculatively and said, “That was a smart move.”
“Plus we found a furry little fiend a good home,” said Nevada.
The Colonel looked at me. “I have a question for you. If Valerie is buried in Marnie Valmond Endure’s grave, what do you think is in Valerie’s grave? I mean her official one.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Rocks? If you want us to find out we’re going to have to dig through a rather thick slab of concrete.”
The Run-Out Groove Page 24