Memory and Desire (18 page)

Diana appeared in Claire's peripheral vision, tossed a folded piece of paper onto the table, and took up a position at Alec's shoulder.

“Unfold it, please,” Alec said to Claire. He reached into his pocket.

She spread the map on the table. It was a very nice pen and ink schematic of the village, every structure from the Hall and the church down to the Jackman's garden shed precisely drawn, every place of interest neatly labeled. The word “Somerstowe” crowned the drawing, its “S” an intricate Tudor spiral. She wasn't surprised to see the initials “RCL” at the bottom.

“Nice work,” she said to Richard.

“Thank you.” His smile grew a little more personal.

Producing a length of fishing line, Alec tied it to the ring.

“Oh no,” groaned Elliot. “Spare us the parlor tricks, there's a good chap."

Claire leaned forward. Surely Alec wasn't going to try what she thought he was going to try. Parlor tricks, indeed.

The muscle jumped in his jaw. He closed his eyes and breathed in and out. His lips moved, as though he silently repeated words. Claire found herself breathing with him. His jaw relaxed. Hers didn't.

Alec opened his eyes. Bracing his elbow on the table, he raised his hand in a gesture that on stage would have produced a rabbit from a hat. The ring, suspended from the invisible fishing line, seemed to hover weightlessly above the map. It turned in quick glints of light, and then, although Alec's hand remained rock-steady, began to swing back and forth.

Claire was reminded of the Ouija board games she and Melinda used to play. Either they'd be giggling so hard they'd get only gibberish, or one or the other of them would obviously be manipulating the planchette. But Alec wasn't giggling, and if he was making the ring move it was through muscle control subtler than Claire had ever been able to achieve. Weird, she thought. Not that she wasn't getting used to weird, here in Somerstowe.

The voices in the room murmured like the distant sound of the ocean. Behind the bar Rob wiped a mug, the faint squeak of cloth on glass oddly loud. “Use the force, Luke,” Elliot jibed.

The ring's arc grew shorter and shorter. Claire half-expected Alec to intone, “You are getting sleepy.” But he didn't speak. And she wasn't getting sleepy. Her nerves prickled as though she touched a low-voltage wire.

Richard was utterly still. Elliot turned away disdainfully, watching from the corners of his eyes. Diana straightened from her slouch, her mouth hanging open. And there was Pakenham, elbowing Diana aside, his already small eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Beads of sweat broke out on Alec's forehead but his hand remained steady. The ring stopped, quivering gently, then jerked. It began to sketch a circle in the air. The fishing line was a quick glimmer, extending at an angle from his fingers as though pulled by some invisible force toward the edge of the map.

Then, abruptly, the ring stopped swinging and thudded onto the paper. Alec dropped the line and bent his face into his hands, but not before Claire noticed how pale he'd gone. She laid her hand on his shoulder. Whatever he was doing—whatever he thought he was doing—she'd goaded him into it.

“Constable,” Pakenham demanded, “what're you playing at?"

Alec looked up. “We have to have a body before we can move the investigation any forwarder."

“Yes?"

“I've located it."

“Get a grip, man. You can't be serious."

“I've never been more serious,” Alec said.

“It's like searching for water with a forked stick,” said Richard quietly. “Dowsing, water-witching, divining—whatever you call it."

“When one of our girlfriends was pregnant,” Claire added, “Melinda and I dangled her wedding ring over her stomach to see whether the baby was a boy or a girl. It was right."

“You had 50-50 odds of being right,” Pakenham told her. “This is nothing more than jiggery-pokery."

Warily, Richard extended a finger to the map and touched the ring. Since he didn't jump back, Claire assumed it didn't shock him. “Is it? The ring's lying on the store of old stones and the new rose garden behind the Hall. We were working on the wall and the garden when Melinda disappeared."

“So you were,” said Alec, and to Pakenham, “We should turn over that pile of stones and have a shufti round the garden, Sir."

“This is not accepted procedure,” Pakenham stated, loudly enough that Fred looked around.

“We've tried accepted procedure.” Alec stood slowly, wearily, as though whatever gravity had pulled the ring onto the map was pulling him back into his chair. He bumped against Diana. “Sorry."

She stared at him, not reacting.

Elliot stretched. “I take it you intend to waste the evening in a macabre treasure-hunt, Alec? How entertaining. I vote we stay here. It's my shout this time roun..."

“I'll come with you,” Richard said, getting to his feet.

“Me, too.” Claire untied the ring, put it into its box and the box into her pocket.
In for a penny, in for a pound.

“They think they know where the body is,” Fred said to Susan and Janet.

Trevor overheard. “Alec, I've already closed the crypt..."

“Not there,” Alec assured him. He moved toward the door, Richard at his back. Claire detoured to the bar so she could hand Rob a five-pound note.

First Fred, then Janet and Susan, then everyone else in the room got up and headed toward the door. So did Diana, in spite of Rob's irate, “Eh! Where do you think you're going?” Pakenham had to hustle to get to the front of the procession.

Richard muttered to Alec, “Are you sure it's worth it?"

“Melinda never liked being on her own. It's time she was found.” Alec opened the door and headed purposefully up the street.

Claire looked at Richard. “You don't think it's worthwhile finding Melinda's body?"

“Of course it's worthwhile finding her body,” he returned. “Alec's not doing himself any favors finding it is all."

What?
Reminding herself that if no crime had been committed to begin with she wouldn't have slugged that beehive, Claire hurried to catch up.

The sun slipped coyly along the horizon, stretching the shadows longer and thinner. A faint aroma of smoke hung in the air. The baroque roofline of the Hall, gabled, turreted, and balustraded, wrote intricate script across the pale golden-blue sky. Its huge windows shone so brightly with the westering sun it looked as though the rooms behind them were on fire.

“We'll need crowbars, shovels, trowels,” called Pakenham.

“This way,” Fred said, and led the way toward the tool sheds.

By the time Richard had darted into the Lodge and emerged again, the small group of people from the pub had become a crowd alerted by some sort of village telegraph.

Everyone surged around the side of the Hall, Richard making sheep dog-like parries to keep them away from the scaffolding. The pile of old masonry anchored the end of the lawn exactly as it had the evening before. Beyond it the wall of the new garden gleamed like gold jewelry against the velvet green of the grass. On the opposite hillside the one standing stone strained upward, on tiptoe. Cawing crows exploded from the trees—cued, thought Claire, by the special effects crew.

Shouting commands, Pakenham organized the people with tools into several squads and ordered the watchers to stand back. Elliot, caught up in the crowd, lurked along the side of the lawn making witty if disparaging remarks. Diana stood with her arms crossed, her red lips parted. Susan kept up a commentary directed at the Digbys, who smiled politely and said nothing. Rob, having followed his customers, stood with his hand knotted in his dog's leash. The animal butted its head into Janet's stomach. Absently she tickled its ears. The adult Nairs held back Derek and Trillian as though the teenagers, too, were on leashes.

Alec, Fred, and others began shifting the small antique stones. With thunks and clacks they came tumbling down. The walls of Jericho, Claire thought, undermined not by a trumpet blast but a gold ring.... It'd take a whole crew of people to make a hole in those rocks big enough for a body and then cover it up again, wouldn't it? And what of—she shuddered and yet followed her thought to its end—what of the smell of a decomposing body?

Richard was standing in the gateway of the garden, flipping through a small notebook. Claire walked up to him. “You were planting roses the weekend Melinda disappeared?"

“Yes,” he said, his eye flashing between the book and the lines and parabolas of rose bushes, boxwood, and other plants. His forefinger targeted one line of his own precise handwriting. “Those red ones just there, the Souvenirs de Malmaison. We spent most of June preparing the beds and working in the compost, and we'd just begun the planting when The Play opened. I had to shower off before rehearsals, I stank like a farmer's midden."

“So that entire long bed was just dirt, smelly dirt, the night she—well, the last night anyone saw her."

“Oh aye. When we came to plant the roses on the Sunday I ticked Fred off for leaving the tools out overnight, but he'd been late for the cast call ... Jesus, we didn't miss her until the Monday and Blake didn't set up a proper search until the Thursday, and by then the roses were all planted.” Richard made an about-face. “Here, Sergeant, this row of bushes needs moving."

“What? Why?” Pakenham demanded. Richard explained his reasoning. Pakenham glared at him. He glared back. Pakenham shouted, “You, Wood—you and you—into the garden. Just there."

Richard pocketed his notebook, pushed up his sleeves, and started slotting a shovel around the roots of the rose bushes. Fred or Alec picked up each one and set it aside. A couple of other men waded in with shovels of their own. The blooms bowed and swayed, raining red petals on the dark earth.

Minutes elongated like rubber bands. Some of the watching people hung back, others jostled for space along the garden walks. Pakenham stood in the gateway like Napoleon, head back, hands on hips. Claire waited just outside, her arms clasped across her chest—in spite of the glowing light the air was cold. Her mind stuttered,
I sometimes think that never blows so red the rose as where some buried Caesar bled ...
Melinda wasn't Caesar. She wasn't even Cleopatra.
She was my friend.

Then, suddenly, Richard shouted, “Stop!” Everyone stopped in a cinematic freeze-frame.

The dog's head went up. Whining, he jerked Rob several steps across the lawn. Pakenham jostled Fred aside. Alec leaned on his shovel.

Richard went down on his knees in the dirt. Picking up a trowel, he dug and scraped as delicately as an archaeologist. Then he sat back. A long scratch on his forearm welled with blood but he didn't notice. Compared to the sudden pinched pallor of his face, Alec's had been positively florid.

Pakenham produced a penlight, peered, then straightened. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Right. PC Wood, set up a perimeter. Where's the Godwin woman? We need a preliminary ID."

Grimacing, Alec hurried past Claire, then doubled back. “Are you all right? Here, sit on this bench."

His sturdy hands tried to ease her down. Her knees were locked. Sparks wafted across her eyes. Her face felt as though she'd rubbed an ice cube over it. She wrenched away. “I want to see her."

“She's wrapped in dustbin liners,” Alec said. “All you can see is black plastic and..."

“Get to it, Wood!” bellowed Pakenham, his fingers playing a series of chirps on his phone.

Richard materialized from a surrealistic swirl of shapes and colors. His eyes were tarnished, his lips thin. “I'll take care of her."

Making an apologetic gesture, Alec disappeared.

Claire's auto pilot said, “I can take care of myself."

“Of course you can,” Richard said gently. “Pakenham wants you to have a look. Can you do it?"

“She's my friend. She's my sister. Of course I can look at her."

Richard's arm closed strong and reassuring around Claire's shoulders. The clumsy hole—the grave—was filled with shadow. The lump of black plastic at its bottom was bunched and brittle. A breath of cold, dank air emanated from the opening, adding a hint of something sweetish-rotten to the odors of dirt and roses already filling Claire's nose. She swallowed fiercely.

Pakenham's voice said, “I've found the body, Sir. Send a forensics team.” The thin, pale beam of his flashlight moved up and down the plastic. Through a rift appeared a desiccated brown fan. A hand, Claire realized. A withered hand. With something gleaming muted and dusty on one bony finger.

She sank to her knees, Richard's arm following her down. She saw the three diamonds flashing on Melinda's finger. She saw the same diamonds dull and stained in the depths of her grave. The hand which wore them seemed to have thrust aside its wrappings—trash bags, the very idea—Melinda deserved an Aubusson tapestry at least ... Claire blinked stupidly upward and croaked, “It's her ring. It's still on her finger."

“Yes, Sir, it's hers. PC Wood knew where she was,” Pakenham said. And, “Lacey, take her somewhere and stay with her."

The firm arm around Claire's shoulders lifted her and turned her into the cool, polished, indifferent light of evening. Faces stretched and smeared around her. Voices ebbed and flowed in her ears. Trevor was praying. Tears shone on Janet's face. Sarita's face sagged with horror. Rob and Diana Jackman stood shoulder to shoulder, his face stunned, hers twitching like a rabbit's. The dog plunged at the end of his leash, barking and whining. Elliot looked faintly green. Fred stood driving his shovel into the turf, leaving ugly divots.

We're all on stage,
Claire thought.
A full cast call. End of act one.

And she couldn't help thinking, Alec may have pointed the way to Melinda's body, but it was Richard who'd planted rose bushes on her grave while she was still bleeding.

The walls of the Lodge were so thick that the sills of the windows in the sitting room were two feet wide. Claire sat on one and Richard on the other, watching the official flood flow into the Hall gardens.

The sun sank red into the west, its glow making the passing faces seem feverish. Night coagulated around the Hall. It past midnight by the time the tide of photographers, investigators, and constables ebbed. A van carried the black-wrapped bundle into the night. Reporters clustered before the gate. When Pakenham emerged he paid his passage through them with a few tidbits of information.