In The Presence Of The Enemy (12 page)

Whatever the case, whoever had taken Charlotte Bowen off the street had to be someone who either knew the child’s movements intimately or had spent some time studying them before her abduction. If the former was the case, a family member had to be involved, however remotely. If the latter was the case, it was a good possibility that Charlotte’s kidnapper had stalked her first. And a stalker attracts notice eventually. The likeliest person to have noticed a stalker was Charlotte herself. Or her companion, Breta. It was with Breta in mind that St. James drove north to Devonshire Place Mews after leaving his wife and Helen Clyde in Marylebone High Street.

A cappella singing was going on behind the closed door of Eve Bowen’s house. When he rang the bell, St. James could hear the kind of steady male chant one expects to encounter in a monastery or a cathedral. In response to his thumb on the bell, the singing stopped abruptly. A moment later, the bolts were drawn on the other side of the door and it opened.

He’d expected to see either Eve Bowen or her husband. But standing before him was a red-faced woman shaped much like a pear.

She wore a bulky orange sweater over crimson leggings, which bagged at the knees.

She said briskly, “I want no subscriptions, no witnessings of Jehovah, and no readings from the Book of Mormon, thank you,” in a brogue that sounded as if she’d arrived from the Irish countryside only last week.

St. James decided that based upon the MP’s description of her, this would have to be Mrs.

Maguire the housekeeper. Before she could close the door, he identified himself and asked for Eve Bowen.

Mrs. Maguire’s tone immediately altered from dismissiveness to quiet intensity. “You’re the gentleman who’s seeing about Charlie?”

St. James said yes. The housekeeper quickly stepped back from the door. She led him into the sitting room, where a sombre
Sanctus
was issuing from a tape player at a much subdued volume. The player stood next to a coffee table on which a make-shift altar had been assembled. Two lit candles flickered on either side of a crucifix, themselves f lanked by a slender statue of the Virgin with her chipped hands extended and another of a bearded saint with a green shawl thrown over saffron robes. At the sight of this altar, St. James turned back to Mrs. Maguire and noticed that her right hand was closed round a string of rosary beads.

“I’m doing all the mysteries this morning,”

Mrs. Maguire said obscurely with a nod of her head in the direction of the altar. “Joyful, sorrowful, and glorious, all three of them. And I won’t be getting up off my knees till I’ve done my part to bring Charlie home, small part though it be. I’m praying to St. Jude and the Blessed Mother. One of them will take care of this business.”

She seemed oblivious of the fact that she was off the same knees which she had just declared she would remain on. She moved to the tape player and punched a button. The chanting ceased. “If I can’t be in a church, I can make my own. The Lord understands.”

She kissed the crucifix at the end of the rosary and laid the beads lovingly at the sandal-shod feet of St. Jude. She took a moment to arrange them so that no bead touched another and the crucifix lay carefully corpus-side up.

“She’s not here,” she said to St. James.

“Ms. Bowen’s not at home?”

“Nor Mr. Alex.”

“Are they out looking for Charlotte?”

Mrs. Maguire touched her blunt fi ngers to the rosary’s crucifix again. She looked like a woman who was sifting through a dozen possible responses for the most favourable one.

She apparently gave up the search because she finally said, “No.”

“Then where—”

“He’s gone in to one of his restaurants. She’s at the Commons. He would have stayed home, but she’s wanting to have things appear as normal as possible. Which is why I’m here and not kneeling in St. Luke’s as I’d like to be, saying my rosaries in front of the Blessed Sacrament.”

She seemed to sense and expect St. James’s surprise at this business-as-usual reaction to Charlotte’s disappearance because she continued quickly. “’Tisn’t near as harsh as it seems, young man. Miss Eve phoned me at quarter past one this morning. Not that I was asleep—

not that she had even
tried
to sleep, God protect her—as I didn’t as much as close an eyelid from dark to dawn. She told me you’d be looking into this terrible business with Charlie and while you were doing that, the rest of us—Mr.

Alex, herself, and me—would need to keep ourselves calm and busy and as close to normal as ever we could. For Charlie’s sake. So here I am. And there she is, God love her, going off to work and trying to pretend that the only concern she has in the world is passing another piece of legislation on the IRA.”

St. James’s interest quickened at this bit of news. “Ms. Bowen’s been involved in IRA legislation?”

“Has been from the fi rst. No sooner was she at the Home Office two years back but she was up to her knickers in anti-terrorism this, anti-possession of Semtex that, and this bill and that bill on increasing prison terms for the IRA. Not that there wasn’t a simpler solution to the problem all along than nattering about it in the House of Commons.”

Here was something to gnaw upon mentally, St. James realised: IRA legislation. A high-profile MP would not be able to keep her political position on the troubles a secret, nor, probably, would she be interested in doing so.

This—in addition to the Irish involved however peripherally in her daily life and in the life of her child—was something to consider should Breta not be able to give them the assistance they needed in fi nding Charlotte.

Mrs. Maguire gestured in the direction Alex Stone had taken upon leaving the sitting room on the previous night. “If you want to talk, then it’s best I go about my business while we do it. Perhaps acting normal will help me feel it,” and she led him through the dining room and into a high-tech kitchen. On one of the work tops a mahogany case containing silver cutlery gaped open. Next to it stood a squat jar of polish and a handful of blackened rags.

“Normal Thursday,” Mrs. Maguire said. “I can’t think how Miss Eve holds herself together, but if she can do it, then so can I.” She uncapped the jar of polish and set its lid on the granite work top. Her lips curved downward. She scooped up a green wedge of polish on a rag. She said in a lower voice, “Just a babe. Dear Lord, help us. She’s only a babe.”

St. James took a seat at the bar that extended from the cooktop. He watched Mrs. Maguire fiercely apply the silver polish to a large serving spoon. He said, “When did you last see Charlotte?”

“Yesterday morning. I walked her to St.

Bernadette’s like I always do.”

“Every morning?”

“Such mornings as Mr. Alex doesn’t take her. But it isn’t exactly walking
with
the girl that I do in the morning. It’s walking
after
her. Just to make sure she gets to school proper and doesn’t end up where she oughtn’t be.”

“Has she played truant in the past?”

“Early on. She doesn’t like St. Bernadette’s.

She’d prefer a state school, but Miss Eve’s not having any of that.”

“Ms. Bowen’s Catholic?”

“Miss Eve’s always done her proper service to the Lord, but she’s not Catholic. She does a Sunday regular at St. Marylebone’s.”

“Odd that she would choose a convent school for her daughter, then.”

“She thinks Charlie needs discipline. And if a child needs discipline, a Catholic school is where to fi nd it.”

“What do you think?”

Mrs. Maguire squinted at the spoon. She applied her thumb to the bowl of it. “Think?”

“Does Charlotte need discipline?”

“A child brought up with a firm hand doesn’t need discipline, Mr. St. James. Wasn’t that the case with my own fi ve? Wasn’t that the case with my brothers and sisters? Eighteen of us there were, sleeping in three rooms in County Kerry, and never a slap on the bum was needed to keep us walking the straight and narrow. But times have changed, and I’m not one to cast stones at the mother-ing done by an upstanding fine woman who gave in to a moment of human weakness.

The Lord forgives our sins, and He’s long since forgiven hers. Besides, some things come natural to a woman. Other things don’t.”

“Which things?”

Mrs. Maguire gave her attention to the polishing of the spoon. She ran a clipped thumbnail along its handle. “Miss Eve does her best,”

she said. “She does the best she knows and always has done.”

“You’ve been with her long?”

“Since Charlie was six weeks old, I’ve been with her. And such a squaller that baby was, like God sent her to earth to try her mother’s patience. She never did settle into life proper until she learned to talk.”

“And your patience?”

“Raising five children on my own taught me patience. Charlie’s fussing was nothing new to me.”

“What about Charlotte’s father?” St. James slid the question in easily. “How did he deal with her?”

“Mr. Alex?”

“I’m talking about Charlotte’s natural father.”

“I don’t know the black heart. Has there ever been a word or a card or a phone call or a sign from him that he fathered this child? No.

Not once. Which, Miss Eve says, is how she would have it. Even now. Even
now
. Just think of it. Blessed Jesus, how that monster hurt her.” Mrs. Maguire raised a bulky sleeve to her face. She pressed it first beneath one eye and then beneath the other, saying, “Sorry.

I’m feeling that helpless, I am. Sitting here in this house and acting at everyday Thursday business. I know it’s for the best. I know it had to be done for Charlie’s sake. But it’s mad.

Mad
.”

St. James watched her lift a fork, doing her duty as Eve Bowen had instructed. But her heart appeared to be elsewhere, and her lips trembled as she rubbed the polish into the silver. The woman’s emotion seemed genuine enough, but St. James knew that his expertise lay in the study of evidence and not in the evaluation of witnesses and potential suspects. He directed her back to the morning walks to the school, asking her to recall anyone on the street, anyone who might have been watching Charlotte, anyone who appeared to be out of place.

She stared at the case of silver for a moment before replying. She hadn’t noticed anyone in particular, she finally told him. But they walked along the high street, didn’t they, and there were always people out and about there.

Delivery men, professionals on their way to work, shopkeepers opening up for the day, joggers and cyclists, people hurrying to catch the bus or the tube. She didn’t notice. She didn’t think to notice. She kept her eyes on Charlie and she made certain the child took herself to school. She thought about the day’s work ahead and she planned Charlie’s dinner and…Dear God forgive her for not being aware, for not keeping an eye open for the devil’s work, for not watching over her Charlie like she was meant to watch, like she was paid to watch, like she was trusted to watch, like she was…

Mrs. Maguire dropped the silver and polish. She fished a handkerchief out of her sleeve.

She blew her nose mightily on it and said, “Dear Lord, don’t let a hair of her head come to harm. We will try to see Your hand at work in this business. We will come to understand Your meaning in it all.”

St. James wondered how the child’s disappearance could have a greater meaning beyond the simple horror of her disappearance. Religion, he found, did not explain the mysteries, the gross cruelties, or the inconsistencies of life in any way. He said, “Prior to her disappearance, Charlotte was apparently in the company of another child. What can you tell me about a girl called Breta?”

“Little enough and not much of it good.

She’s a wild one from a broken family. From Charlie’s chatter, I’ve taken the impression that her mum’s more interested in disco dancing than in putting her thumb on Breta’s comings and goings. She’s done Charlie no service, that child.”

“She’s wild in what way?”

“Up to mischief. Always wanting Charlie to be part of it.” Breta was an imp, Mrs. Maguire explained. She pinched sweets from the vendors on Baker Street. She sneaked past the ticket takers at Madame Tussaud’s. She wrote her initials in marking pen in the tube.

“Is she a schoolmate of Charlotte’s?”

She was indeed. Charlie’s days and nights were scripted so tightly by Miss Eve and Mr.

Alex that the only opportunity she even had for making friends was at St. Bernadette’s.

“When else would the child have time to be with her?” Mrs. Maguire asked. She herself, she went on in further answer to his questions, didn’t know the girl’s surname, and she had not yet met her, but she was willing to bet that the family were foreigners. “_And_ on the dole,”

she added. “Dancing all night, sleeping all day, and taking government assistance without a blush of shame.”

St. James considered the disturbing oddity of this new fact about Charlotte Bowen’s young life. His own family had known the names, the addresses, the telephone numbers, and probably the blood types of all his childhood companions and their parents.

When he had chafed under their scrutiny of his acquaintances, his mother had informed him that such inspection and approval was part and parcel of their job as his guardians.

So how did Eve Bowen and Alexander Stone do their jobs in Charlotte’s life? he wondered.

Mrs. Maguire seemed to read his mind, for she said, “Charlie’s kept busy, Mr. St. James.

Miss Eve sees to that. The child’s got her dancing lessons after school on Monday, her psychologist on Tuesday, her music lesson on Wednesday, after-school games on Thursday.

Friday she goes directly to Miss Eve at the constituency office for the afternoon. There isn’t time for friends anywhere but at school and that’s under the supervision of the good Sisters, so it’s safe. Or it ought to be.”

“So when does Charlotte play with this girl?”

“When she can snatch a moment. Game days at school. Before her appointments. Children can always make time for a friendship.”

“At the weekends?”

Charlie was with her parents at the weekends, Mrs. Maguire explained. Either with them both, or with Mr. Alex in one of his restaurants, or with Miss Eve at the office in Parliament Square. “Weekends are for the family,”