An Act of Evil (4 page)

Jackson
shook his head. “Nothing at all so far, although it’s early days yet. There’s no known pattern it fits into that we can see. I’m just hoping we’ve closed all possible exit routes out of the country.”

Maltravers
’ attention was distracted by the Bishop calling his name and he joined him and Diana. They were standing with the Mayor and Mayoress and assorted clergy.

“
I understand you wrote tonight’s work, Mr Maltravers,” the Bishop said.

“
With a little help from the Bible, Bishop.”

“
Well, we must congratulate you as well. Some very remarkable interpretations. Tell me, have you ever considered entering the church yourself?”

Maltravers
heard Melissa, who was standing nearby, splutter into her coffee.

“
No,” he replied. “I think I would have difficulty with some of the teaching.” To his relief, the Bishop did not pursue the point. Even though Maltravers had spent many years deliberately arguing with, trying to undermine and even mocking his brother-in-law’s beliefs, the Bishop was not family. The Dean, who had just joined the group, began congratulating Diana, which gave Maltravers the opportunity to withdraw.

“
Very self-controlled,” Melissa murmured. “The Bishop is much too gentle a Christian for your astringency.”

“
He approved of what I wrote,” said Maltravers.

“
Yes, but you trod very softly for once. Incidentally, don’t look now, but there’s a man just behind you to your right who keeps staring over this way. By the door. I’ve been watching him for several minutes and he can’t seem to keep his eyes off Diana.”

“
Well, she is the star attraction,” said Maltravers. “You know what people are like with the famous. Remember Miss Targett.”

“
Yes, but it’s…I don’t know. I just don’t like the way he keeps looking.”

“
I take it you don’t recognise him.”

“
No. I’m sure he’s nothing to do with the cathedral. I wondered if you might…oh, damn, he’s gone.”

Maltravers
turned instinctively and looked towards the Refectory door which had been left open.

“
What did he look like?” he asked.

Melissa
shrugged. “Oh, quite ordinary. I was probably imagining things. Didn’t like it though. More coffee?”

It
was nearly eleven o’clock when they left the cathedral for the short walk through a velvet summer night back to Punt Yard, where they had a final drink before going to bed.

“
When do you have to leave tomorrow?” Melissa asked Diana.

“
Oh, sometime in the afternoon. What time are the trains? As long as I’m back in town by Monday morning.”

“
Fine. Michael’s taking morning service at St John’s tomorrow, so perhaps you three would like to take Rebecca out while I do lunch. And you are coming to the Dean’s garden party in the afternoon?”

“
Of course,” said Diana. “He was very insistent. It doesn’t matter which train I get back.”

*

Maltravers and Tess stayed up after the rest had gone to bed and talked.

“
She crossed a few frontiers tonight,” Tess remarked.

“
She did indeed. And just think what she’s got to do. Desdemona, Juliet, Cleopatra, Ophelia. She’s going to find things in there that even the blessed William didn’t imagine.”

Tess
looked at him as he stared reflectively into the empty fireplace, still attracting the gaze even without winter coals, and knew his mind was full of rich imaginings. For nearly three years she had felt secure with him because she had learned that one part of him would always be under the witchcraft of words, written or spoken, and had recognised she must not invade that private world. And these feelings she could share; she was an actress herself and had seen her art performed at the highest level by a woman who was also her friend. They sat for a while recalling Diana Porter’s greatest performance, then went to bed.

Chapter Four

PLUMP AND WELL-FED ducks paddled at the water’s edge as Tess, Diana and Rebecca dropped torn pieces of bread into an ill-mannered splatter of beaks. A quarter of a mile away the cathedral bells rang mathematically, their tones mixing discordantly with the electric chimes of an ice-cream vendor’s van playing a syncopated snatch of
Greensleeves
as it drew to a halt in the car-park at the edge of the Verta’s water meadows. While Rebecca laughed at the antics of the ducks, a kestrel hovered against crystalline blue, high across the river, while swifts flashed low over the surface of hammered silver water.

“
The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” remarked Maltravers. “I cannot share the unhappy Gerard’s beliefs, but I’m with him there.”

They
had attended morning service in the cathedral among a congregation filled with turning heads, nudges and whispers as they took their places. Michael was still at the distant St John’s and Melissa was producing dishes concomitant with various beds of rice.

Tess
took Maltravers’ arm and a now adoring Rebecca held Diana’s hand as they walked upstream to the remains of a derelict Saxon church, abandoned when the cathedral was built. Misshapen sections of wall still stood, including one entire arch which must have encompassed the door. Once through it, there were enough remains to assess the dimensions and general shape of the original building.

“
It was very tiny,” said Diana.

“
Well, between the Romans departing and Etheldreda coming all over in a religious faint, Vercaster was not exactly a metropolis,” said Maltravers. “You could probably have accommodated about eighty people in here which would have been quite adequate.”

“
Is it still hallowed ground?” Tess asked.

“
It may be. I’m never sure how one dehallows places. Or is it unhallow? It’s certainly still on cathedral land but with great lumps of the Roman wall of the city remaining, it doesn’t even rate as a tourist attraction.”

They
sat on the grass with their backs against the remains of one wall and Diana made a daisy chain for Rebecca, placing the tiny circlet of flowers on her brown shining hair.

“
One for you as well,” Rebecca demanded.

“
All right. Go and find some more daisies.”

Maltravers
watched the attractive proceedings with interest. “This maternal instinct is something new,” he said. “I’ve never known you take any interest in children before.”

“
I’m very fond of them,” Diana replied, carefully poking one daisy through the split stem of another. She turned to Rebecca. “And if I ever have a little girl, I’m going to call her after you. There.” She placed the completed chain of flowers on her hair. “Titania, perhaps?” Distantly they heard the cathedral clock.

“
I shall forgo the obvious quote, but it’s time we were getting back for lunch,” said Maltravers. “Then it’s the Trollopian gathering at the Dean’s.”

Over
lunch he speculated on finding a Slope, Proudie or Septimus Harding at the event.

“
You will behave,” Melissa told him sharply. “You are our guest.”

“
Yes, big sister,” he replied meekly.

“
And I’m not your big sister. I’m five years younger.”

“
Perhaps. But you always
seemed
like one.”

The
Dean’s house was in Cathedral Close which ran parallel with Punt Yard from opposite the Chapter House. Maltravers waited on the front doorstep for the others before they set off for the short walk and noticed a man on the opposite side of the Yard looking closely at the house. He had thinning, swept back hair and wore an open-necked check shirt. He suddenly realised Maltravers was staring back at him and walked briskly away towards the main road at the opposite end of the Yard from the cathedral.

“
Queer bird. I wonder who he was?” Maltravers said as Tess joined him.

“
Who?”

“
Chap just going round the corner. Another of the Vercaster starers.”

“
He’s just a tourist. The place is full of them. Come on, here are the others.”

They
were greeted by the Dean’s formidable wife, a woman, Maltravers whispered to Tess, of remarkable bosom who shepherded them straight through the house and out of the French windows into the garden, already adorned with sundry clerics either stationary or moving with slow and seemly tread. The garden was enormous — Maltravers learned later that it was nearly three quarters of an acre — with a massive, impeccable lawn between two lines of towering dark rhododendron bushes set behind flower beds. Other smaller bushes and beds dotted the grass which ran down to an assorted collection of mature trees and associated undergrowth that had been left to its natural devices and formed the last third of the garden. The whole effect was of total privacy, the similar adjacent gardens behind the terrace of homes quite invisible. Maltravers pondered its possibilities as a suitable gathering place for Vercaster nudists and amused himself by mentally stripping its present occupants of cassock, purple waistcoat or dignified gaiter but stopped abruptly when his gaze reached the Dean’s wife.

As
he had anticipated, the occasion was Barchester revisited, the conversations polite and muted, the acknowledgements of clerical seniority subtly observed. He and Tess spent some time talking to a very young curate and his wife who suddenly confessed a nervous craving for a cigarette but feared the wrath of the Dean’s wife at a stub despoiling the pristine perfection of the grass. Maltravers sympathetically suggested a stroll to the sanctuary of the woods at the end of the garden and they made their way through the trees to the boundary fence which looked over some twenty yards of river bank to the Verta. They returned to be separated by the Dean’s wife who clearly held the darkest suspicions about what they had been up to. Tess and Maltravers were firmly escorted to meet the rector of a distant parish who had apparently expressed a desire to talk to them, while the curate’s wife was withered by a look that augured little prospect of her husband’s advancement in the diocese. As they talked, Maltravers saw Diana, escorted by their host, circulating among the guests, each group opening up with released anticipation as she approached. Wherever she went laughter filled that part of the garden.

“
Such a charming young woman,” said a voice at Maltravers’ elbow and he turned to face the horizontal mountains of his hostess. “We are so delighted she could attend. Are you enjoying yourselves?” There was no time to reply; having acknowledged their presence as the unavoidable price to pay for having Diana there, the Dean’s wife moved formidably on.

Tea
was naturally served in fine and thin china, with slender sandwiches with sliced summer fillings carried on matching plates. It was an exquisitely mannered, civilised gathering of clerical gentlefolk which Maltravers, although he might later mock it unmercifully, found thoroughly enjoyable.

“
The only thing that puzzles me is, isn’t this your working day?” he asked a rector who was juggling cup, saucer and plate with some dexterity. “I know the Founder made it a day of rest but don’t you all have to go and preach somewhere or some-thing?”

“
Yes. Most of us have evensong and some of those who have to travel a fair distance have already left.” Maltravers realised that the numbers had been slowly thinning out.

“
In fact,” the rector gulped his remaining tea with unseemly haste from such a container, “…if you will excuse me, I’d better be off.”

Evensong
at the cathedral was at half past six and by five past the garden was deserted again, its occupants having left no visible trace of their presence. Tess, Maltravers, Michael and Melissa were on the terrace saying goodbye.

“
Thank you so much, Dean,” Michael said. “It has been delightful but I really must get over to the cathedral.”

“
Of course,” replied the Dean. “But I must say goodbye to Miss Porter. Where is she? I had to leave her a little while ago when the Bishop left and…” He looked at them with polite inquiry and there was an air of slight puzzlement as their glances swept over the empty garden.

“
I saw her a few minutes ago,” said Tess. “She was down there.” She pointed towards the trees at the bottom of the garden.

“
Who was she with?” asked Maltravers.

“
I don’t know. I think she was on her own but I didn’t really notice.”

“
Perhaps she’s in the house,” said the Dean’s wife briskly. “No, you stay here and I’ll go and find her.”

As
they waited on the terrace, a bank of cloud drifted across the slow-falling sun and brightness went out of the garden. Tess took Maltravers’ arm and shivered slightly.

“
Chilly,” she said with a small smile.

“
Well, she’s not in there.” Returning through the French windows, the Dean’s wife sounded slightly put out; one of her guests was behaving badly.

A
search of the gardens by Maltravers and an increasingly impatient Michael revealed nothing and finally, with suitable apologies, they left, the Dean dismissive and understanding, his wife clearly far from pleased.

“
Where the hell is she?” Maltravers demanded as they left the house.

“
Perhaps she’s gone back to Punt Yard,” said Tess.

“
Not without saying goodbye,” he said firmly.

Diana
was not at Punt Yard although her suitcase, ready packed for her return to London, was still in the hall. One of Melissa’s friends, who had brought her own daughter round to play with Rebecca while they were out, had not seen her. They waited for a quarter of an hour before Maltravers became impatient and set off to look without having any real idea of where to go. He walked round to the cathedral but the verger on the west door assured him that Diana had not been there. Then he went back to the river and the ruined church. Diana had never been to Vercaster before and there were very few places she had seen.

“
This is getting ridiculous!” he snapped when he returned to Punt Yard and found she had not turned up in his absence.

“
Where’s Diana?” Rebecca asked suddenly, looking up from where she was playing on the floor.

“
Did Diana say bye-bye to you?” Melissa asked her.

“
No,” said the child simply and the three adults stared at each other.

Maltravers
took a drink proffered by his sister and lit a cigarette, exhaling the smoke noisily and agitatedly through his teeth.

“
Now, let’s get this straight,” he said. “You say you saw her, Tess, standing near the trees at…what?...sometime after six o’clock. None of us saw her after that. And you say there was nobody with her.”

“
I don’t remember seeing anyone. But they could have been hidden by the trees.”

“
What was she doing?”

“
Just standing there.”

“
Talking?”

Tess
thought for a moment. “No. But if there had been someone I couldn’t see, she might have been listening.”

“
All right,” said Maltravers. “Can she have gone back to town? Her case is still here.”

“
She had her handbag,” said Tess. “Her train ticket was in there along with her purse.”

“
So…no that’s stupid. She’s not said goodbye to anybody. Not even Rebecca. Where the devil is she?”

Nobody
had any answers and Diana’s disappearance lay about them as Rebecca was put to bed. Michael returned and they ate a cold supper at the end of which Maltravers announced he was going to ring Diana’s London flat. He returned after a few minutes to say there was no reply.

“
Do you think we should tell the police?” Melissa asked.

“
What are they going to do? Not launch a manhunt for what appears to be no more than inexplicable bad manners.”

“
Her case is still here,” observed Tess.

“
Precisely. She could just be wandering round the town somewhere. It’s totally unlike her, but I don’t think the police are going to get too excited.”

They
spent the rest of the evening watching television in an abstracted sort of way with Maltravers making regular calls to Diana’s flat and various friends without success. Finally, at nearly midnight, he did call the police.

The
duty sergeant listened to everything he had to say, then asked a series of questions which took them over the same ground again.

“
Have you tried all her friends?” he asked.

“
Well, that’s a lot of people and I don’t know them all. I’ve tried about a dozen so far.”