Down Cemetery Road

by Mick Herron

  ‘You’re a very good man.’

  ‘I’m a schmuck. You know the expression?’

  ‘It doesn’t apply.’

  ‘I’m a sucker for a pretty face.’ He glanced at her sideways, but she didn’t register the compliment. ‘I need a tougher contract. No refunds, no guarantees. That way, I wouldn’t be taken advantage of.’

  ‘Is that what I’m doing?’

  ‘If the cap fits . . .’

  ‘You’ve probably got it in upside down,’ she finished, and immediately regretted it. ‘Joe, you’re kind to do this. But I’ll pay for your time.’

  ‘I promised,’ he sighed. ‘Remember?’

  She did. And thought she was pretty good, actually, not to have reminded him herself. ‘At least let me pay for the petrol.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They had set off early, no more than ten minutes after Mark left for work: as long as she was home before him, he’d never know she’d been gone. Except he might wonder why there was no supper. That was a problem she’d shelved; meanwhile she savoured the fact of setting out on what might be an adventure. With a real live private detective, authentically grumpy to boot. Though he thawed once they were under way; showed an alarming tendency, in fact, to wax nostalgic.

  ‘I remember when I first came to Oxford –’

  ‘Where were you born, Joe?’

  He thought about it. ‘Croydon.’

  ‘Nice part of the world?’

  ‘You don’t want to hear about Oxford?’

  ‘I live there.’

  They were jammed up already: lots of cars going God knew where on a midweek morning. Reps, Sarah supposed. Spare shirts on hangers hooked above back-seat windows. A sense of purpose to journeys like that: hers didn’t bear too much thought. If she pondered it too long, she began to see just how much weight she was hanging from a thin thin thread.

  ‘He said he was an orphan.’

  ‘Said it or suggested it?’

  ‘Well, suggested it. But there were pictures of him with this couple, they had to be his parents.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t get to be an orphan. Everyone’s an orphan eventually.’

  Which was not entirely accurate, but Sarah let it pass.

  ‘What’s his business anyway?’

  ‘Inchon Enterprises.’

  ‘Sounds suitably vague,’ Joe allowed.

  ‘I’m not sure what they do, exactly. Something financial.’

  ‘There was an Inchon at Oriel,’ he began.

  ‘Is that a kestrel? Over there?’

  Joe’s mouth set in a hard straight line, but Sarah suspected there was a smile in it somewhere.

  They listened to the news: Oxford made the headlines. A local girl, thirteen, had died at what was still, apparently, called a rave; had died of dehydration, after taking Ecstasy. There followed one of those short interviews with an angry, grief-stricken parent which, as much as anything, were a hallmark of the decade.

  ‘Tragic,’ was Joe’s only comment. He turned the radio off.

  They stopped for coffee and a strategy session at a service station: the coffee was okay but the strategy didn’t pan out. They could pretend to be prospective foster parents, but weren’t sure how the system worked; they could pretend to have money to donate, but didn’t think they could do a convincing rich. Or they could tell the truth, but this had all sorts of drawbacks.

  ‘Not least being,’ Joe said sourly, ‘that it’s a fools’ errand.’

  But once they were back on the road he cheered up again, as if simply working towards a destination were enough for him, and the problems of what to do once he arrived could wait. Probably a good attitude for a detective, Sarah thought: concentrate on the mystery, not the solution. Though Joe, as he said himself, had never solved a mystery; just ironed out the odd problem.

  ‘So why this line of work?’

  ‘Lots of holiday. I only work one day in ten.’

  ‘No wonder you charge so much.’

  ‘Also, I’m a romantic.’

  ‘How nice for you.’

  ‘It’s a cross I bear. Women, they don’t want romantic men. Have you noticed this?’

  ‘No. But thanks for the tip.’

  ‘They want practical, they want plumbers and chefs. Not dreamers.’

  ‘Are you a dreamer. Joe?’

  ‘When I was at Oriel –’

  ‘What was your tutor’s name again?’

  ‘Morris. Abel Morris.’

  ‘And what years were you there?’

  ‘Ah, ’70 to ’73.’

  ‘Which staircase did you live on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What was your scout’s name?’

  ‘Sarah –’

  ‘That’s what they’re called, isn’t it? Scouts.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said glumly. ‘That’s what they’re called. Scouts.’

  But when she started laughing he joined in, and after a while seemed to enjoy the joke more than she did.

  And now they’d arrived, still with little idea of what they were doing. ‘It’s your party,’ he said, locking the car.

  ‘I want to explore. They’ll have records, files.’

  ‘They’ll say, Sure, go ahead. Look all you like.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning on asking.’

  ‘You’re a dangerous woman, Sarah Trafford.’

  ‘Can you distract their attention?’

  ‘Only because it can’t hurt. It’s an orphanage, Sarah. Stolen children, you’re not going to find. Likewise explosives and plans for world domination.’

  ‘You’re no fun.’

  ‘But you’d best take this,’ he said, handing her what, for one absurd moment, she thought was his asthma inhaler.

  ‘A rape alarm?’

  ‘Not that I imagine the fathers, they’re Catholic priests here, will be overcome with lust at the sight of you.’

  ‘Thanks, Joe.’

  ‘But if you meet any trouble, whistle and I’ll come.’

  Already coming was a man who could only be a priest: not just for the black trousers, black shirt, white collar, but for that certain air of bland superiority Sarah remembered from her youth, much of which had been spent listening to withered virgins explaining how awful sex was. From the corner of an eye she registered the sign from Gerard’s photograph. Before she could take it in, the priest was upon them. ‘Can I help?’

  A young man, twenty-two or -three, he had shiny cheeks and square black glasses as unflattering as anything Sarah had seen on a face, including acne and brush moustaches. Unfortunately, that was all she could think of, and saying it didn’t seem a fine idea. But before she could pretend to be sick, Joe spoke: ‘You see, honey? I told you there’d be priests.’

  Everything but the accent was American.

  The priest was understandably hesitant. Joe was smiling in such an open, friendly way, he looked deranged. ‘This is an orphanage,’ he said.

  ‘Of course it is, of course it is. And you are – ?’

  ‘My name’s Sullivan, Father Peter Sullivan.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘I’m an administrator.’

  ‘Ah, the man in charge.’

  ‘Well, not exactly –’

  ‘You hear that, honey? I told her, I said, you want something done, go straight to the man at the top. And here you are.’

  ‘I’m not in charge here, Mr – ?’

  ‘That’s a good idea, let’s leave it plain Mister.’ He winked loudly. ‘Let’s not stand on ceremony. Mr Gold, Joe Gold. You can call me Joe.’ He put out a hand. ‘This is my assistant, Missy. We were just passing.’

  Sarah had been reading the sign when she heard her new name: it read The Arimathea Home, and under that, in smaller lettering, For Catholic Boys and Girls. Gerard had stood there, on that patch of grass, bestowing his largesse on a tall, elderly priest – not this one – whose expression suggested it was he who was doing Gerard Inchon the favour. And now she was here, the pointlessness of it hit her: so this was
where Gerard had his photograph taken. So what? She might as well have gone to that office block he’d had built, gone through it room by room. Looking for Dinah. Who would never be found.

  ‘Missy?’

  ‘It sure is a nice place,’ she said, letting some remembered Brummie creep into her voice.

  It sure was. Spooky, true; deafeningly Gothic, but charming the way illustrations in old books of fairy tales were charming: the kind of houses that never existed, but ought to. This one had obviously found a loophole in the laws governing the fabric of reality, and had materialized in the Surrey countryside, presumably wreathed in fog, never to find its way back to Goblin Land. Which was what Joe was basing his pitch on, in fact. ‘You must get lots of offers.’

  ‘The property isn’t for sale, Mr Gold.’ With just that degree of irritation the Pope allowed when speaking to a Jew. ‘Now if you don’t mind, this area –’

  ‘Lord, man, I didn’t mean to buy it. You hear that, Missy?’

  ‘Certainly did, Goldie.’ Damned if he’d get to stay Joe.

  ‘I’m talking about an afternoon’s use, two days max. Just the frontage. Couple of good exteriors in the bag, we’re away down the road, you’re fifteen hundred richer. Never know we were there, otherwise.’

  Sarah picked it up. ‘Interiors would be on the elevated scale, of course. That’d be two thousand and up. But only if we could use it. Depends on the ceilings, what do you say, Goldie?’

  ‘We need a boom rig in there, you’re talking twenty foot. Eighteen minimum. How big are the rooms, padre? Excuse me, Father.’

  Father Sullivan was groping towards the daylight Joe let in with the mention of money. ‘You’re in television?’

  Joe laughed. ‘Television, movies, video. All in the best possible taste, of course. Our properties win awards.’ He made like he was reaching for a cigar, but remembered in time he didn’t use them. ‘It’s like Missy says. We shoot interiors, the rate rockets. I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

  ‘Our ceilings are, um, spacious.’

  ‘We’re a ways from town, Goldie. You add catering costs, you’re looking at megabucks.’

  ‘Point.’ He grimaced. ‘Shame. Excellent frontage. Classic.’

  ‘Those turrets. They’d die for them, Stateside.’ Having lost all shame, Sarah was starting to enjoy herself.

  ‘Yeah, but they’re not as high as the overheads. Out-of-town is out-of-pocket, that’s what Quentin always says.’

  The priest could see fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand, taking wing. ‘Would you like to see inside? The ceilings really are rather special.’

  ‘Missy?’

  Sarah shrugged. ‘Come this far.’

  ‘Thanks, Padre. That’d be real.’

  ‘Quentin?’ she whispered, as they followed the priest through the main door.

  ‘Quentin Taylor. Runs the deli next to the office.’

  Inside, the building lost a lot of charm, felt like a school: plenty of corridors, peeling paint. A smell of overcooked carrots and powdered custard. But strangely quiet, as if the children were kept sensibly gagged, or had been pied-pipered away; she asked the obvious as Father Sullivan led them into what must be the main hall and he explained, as you would to a primitive, about school hours in England. ‘There’s a good school two miles down the road. We bus them in.’

  Joe was looking at corners through a little square he made by joining fingers and thumbs together. Perhaps, somewhere in the world, real people did this when sizing locations for filming. Even if they didn’t, Father Sullivan thought they did.

  ‘Are the ceilings high enough?’ he asked, a little anxious.

  Sarah wasn’t much of a judge, but thought you could safely have juggled elephants.

  ‘We could squeeze in,’ Joe allowed doubtfully.

  ‘What’s your film about?’

  ‘Is there a little girls’ room?’ she asked.

  ‘Um, through that door, second on the right. No, third.’

  ‘Spare no details, Goldie,’ she urged as she left, intending to get lost.

  Which she did. The first door she chose, neither second, third, nor on the right, took her into a chapel: a cold, tidy, chapel, with the peculiarly religious air of being older than the house which contained it. Two rows of benches flanked an aisle; eleven deep on one side, seven on the other to accommodate the pulpit, a thoroughly traditional little chamber from which its doubtless thoroughly traditional incumbent could harangue his flock without needing a microphone. On its panels was embossed a strange device, which Sarah could not make out clearly. The only light, barring the small red altar lamp, came from two stained windows, each too high to help much, though she could see, around the walls, the Stations of the Cross glaring down: a particularly stern accounting of what was, she supposed, a particularly stern journey. No attempt here to gloss over the barbarism of judicial murder . . . For a moment childhood felt so close she could taste it, then shimmered away into the cold, faintly incensed air; a ghost of something that had not yet died, or at least not been laid to rest.

  Funny that the air was so cold, though. On a day so warm outside.

  . . . She had not told Joe what had happened in the market; nor would she tell him about this. But the chapel’s atmosphere reached into her, feeding its ache to her bones, and while she did not feel it as a presence, something in it spoke to her nevertheless, and nothing it had to say was welcome. It spoke of raw Catholicism; of threat not faith, death not resurrection, and all the accoutrements on view, from the First Station of the Cross to the last blade of glass in a painted window, seemed tricks for the propagation of a fundamental error. For as long as she’d had thoughts on the matter, she’d known religion meant nothing if it did not preach compassion. What she discovered now was that she’d always been wrong about this; a lesson learned at last in a chapel made of stone, built on rock, and hard as nails.

  None of which was much use. What she had been hoping for was an empty office, an administrative nerve centre, a helpful register open on its desk with a brand new name inked in. Even if it hadn’t actually read Dinah Singleton, she’d have been prepared to accept the clue. The next door she knocked on, and when an elderly female voice responded hurried along the corri- dor, ducking into the first unoccupied room. Not a nerve centre. More like the staffroom of a second-rate public school – there was no rule that said such judgements had to be based on experience. What she saw: a worn three-piece suite; a little table with bottles of scotch and gin and a soda siphon. Bookcases around the walls, their contents all bound in drab leather; to the side of the one window was a little glass display case with more of the same. The view from the window showed the grounds to the rear: a well-mannered garden, a playing field, then just fields. The carpet beneath her was threadbare, the curtains dusty; the floorboards squeaked. The door creaked too, and opened now: she felt her heart thump as somebody entered. Caught.

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘Joe!’ You nearly killed me she was about to add, but Father thingy, Sullivan, was just behind him. ‘Third on the right going meant third on the left coming back. Right?’

  ‘Doubtless.’

  ‘Ah, miss, um, Missy.’

  ‘Did Goldie give you the rundown?’

  ‘He seems to think we might, ah, come to an arrangement. E.M. Forster, he tells me.’

  ‘A Passage to India,’ said Joe. Sarah raised an eyebrow. ‘Just for the flashbacks.’

  ‘You know, I’m sure I’ve already seen a film of that.’

  ‘This is a mini-series,’ Joe said firmly.

  She turned to look out of the window, worried she’d start giggling, just as a phone rang which Father Sullivan answered. Joe sidled to a bookcase and began fingering spines; the phone call was about dinners; not the faintest hint of a clue. Which did not surprise her. The heart-stopping seconds when the door opened had given way to something deeper than anticlimax. There were no clues here; there was nothing to be found. If she’d wanted wild geese, she should have liste
ned to Joe.

  The phone call droned on. Sarah too plucked a book from the shelf; opened it at random. So the first angel went and poured his bowl on the earth, and foul and evil sores came upon the men who bore the mark of the beast and worshipped its image. She nearly dropped it when Sullivan spoke behind her: ‘Find something interesting?’

  Joe strolled over. ‘Your books, they’re very nice. A worthwhile library.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m speaking as an educated man. Oxford. Perhaps you –’

  ‘Oriel,’ Father Sullivan said shortly.

  ‘Jolly good. Jolly good.’ Oddly, Joe didn’t pursue this coincidence. ‘So, Missy, time we were off? Scout some more locations?’

  Admit defeat, in fact. She ignored him. ‘I believe Gerard Inchon’s a benefactor of yours.’

  ‘Mr Inchon. You know him?’

  ‘Just through friends,’ Sarah said. ‘The Singletons?’

  The priest went through a phony memory search. ‘I can’t say I do.’

  ‘They’re dead now,’ Sarah said. ‘They were blown up.’

  He looked pained. Joe said, ‘Missy?’

  ‘Just Dinah left now,’ she said. ‘Dinah. Singleton.’

  ‘What is this about?’ Father Sullivan asked.

  ‘Just one of those things,’ Joe said. ‘You’re in a new place, you suddenly remember being told about it –’

  ‘I’d heard she was here, you see. I’d heard this was where they’d taken her.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken.’

  ‘I don’t think I am.’

  ‘Sarah –’

  Father Sullivan said, ‘You’re not making a film at all, are you?’

  ‘Sorry about this, padre, but we’re –’

  ‘I think you’re lying. I think she’s here.’

  ‘Jesus, Sarah – sorry, Father – you can’t accuse him of –’

  ‘I think you should leave,’ the priest said. ‘Both of you. Right now.’

  ‘We’re going,’ Sarah said. ‘But we’ll be back. And you can tell Gerard bloody Inchon I said so.’

  Outside the weather was calm and unruffled; what few clouds there were hovered motionless above them.