The Chinese Takeout (6 page)

‘It sounds to me as if even arrest is safer than staying,’ I said firmly.

Nick nodded with fervour. ‘While some people may consider the police brutal,’ he insisted, ‘believe me, they are mere puny beginners compared with
the snakehead gangs we associate with bringing in illegal workers. And who are not bound by PACE, by Health and Safety at Work Acts and a fundamental belief in
Habeas Corpus
.’

I raised my eyebrows, which Tony used to say were the most expressive part of my face.

Tim turned on him passionately. ‘So what do we do? Betray his trust believing that it’s the best option? He may never forgive us. Never forgive God.’

‘I think God can be relied on to forgive him,’ Andy said, putting a kindly arm round his shoulder. ‘How soon do you think they’ll track him down, Nick?’

‘They’re probably on to it now. Both the police and the folk who brought him here, who, incidentally, probably have agents in the police, possibly the Home Office. These people make the Mafia look like enthusiastic amateurs, Andy. Even if they didn’t know before, from the moment the media carried the story – “Illegal migrant in sanctuary bid” – his death warrant will have been written and ready for delivery.’ I’d never known Nick so passionate, so eloquent. ‘You have to persuade him to give himself up. And also convince the police of the seriousness of the situation. I’ll try to do that,’ he added, ‘though whether they’ll take kindly to a retired officer from a metropolitan force telling them what’s what, I very much doubt.’

Tim was literally wringing his hands. Tang
looked from face to face like a dog awaiting the vet’s final visit. Faces that had been kind, loving even, were now clouded with concern. They boded no good.

Andy looked from one to the other, with a long appraising stare at Nick, when he thought Nick wasn’t looking. Then he turned his eyes to me.

I didn’t submit to inspection, not even from deans, so I asked, ‘Did you have a visit from the church wardens just before we arrived?’

He looked satisfactorily taken aback. ‘Should we have done?’

‘Corbishley turned up on my doorstep with enough flowers for a funeral.’ On reflection I wished I hadn’t used that image. I wrinkled my nose: Andy nodded as if he understood. ‘I told him to bring them here and ask Tim’s forgiveness.’

‘Did you give him yours?’

‘More or less. But it came at a price – I gave him an earbashing. I told him the church needed the flowers, though.’

Did he stop himself saying something? I stepped backwards into the kitchen. ‘Andy, do you think we can shift him?’

‘I wish I knew. It all depends on Tim, who’s taking an idealistic or quixotic stance, according to your view. I’ll work on him. But he may see it as a desperate attempt on my part to sleep in my own bed!’

‘Couldn’t we get one of the younger men in the parish to take your place?’

‘Find one, Josie! What’s the average age of the congregation?’

‘Point taken. Look, Tim seems to be listening to Nick. He’s very good in senior officer to rookie mode, isn’t he? He might do better if we keep a low profile. Have you been up the tower yet?’ I asked. ‘No? Step this way. No, after you.’ I said, thinking about ladders and remembering that I was wearing a skirt. ‘The door opens very easily.’

We looked down on the media mob, shielded from their gaze by the thickness of the castellation.

‘God’s own country,’ he said. ‘All this lushness – so different from Dartmoor.’

‘Dartmoor’s granite, isn’t it? And Exmoor sandstone?’

He looked almost startled. ‘Is that why they have such deep lanes? They’ve been sort of cut into the earth?’

‘I suppose so. By countless generations of farmers. It’s a very old landscape.
Where every prospect pleases,
’ I suggested, ‘
and only man is vile
.’

‘The trouble is, nature needs help from man, no matter how vile, to look like this. And I never really buy the vileness of man theory. I like people too much, that’s the trouble.’

Mine too. But at the moment, lest it remind him of Corbishley’s view of me, I’d just keep quiet about it.

We stayed where we were a few minutes longer in
companionable silence, and then turned as one for the ladder.

When we got down, Nick was sitting beside Tang, sheets of paper on his lap and some of Annie’s felt pens in his hand. A peer over his shoulder showed me storybook chickens and people chasing them, Prince Philip-type slitty-eyed caricatures to be precise. One had a kind smile. Tang, presumably. One, hiding behind a stone, had a very nasty expression. In the next picture, the Tang character was running hell for leather, pursued by the nasty one. Picture three was Tang in a church, with both policemen and the nasty one lurking behind headstones. The nasty one had a knife. The picture sequence involved a great deal of animated gesturing from Nick, whose histrionic talents I’d never even guessed at. He’d given the police big kind smiles. The pursuing Chinese looked positively evil. Nick gestured throat-cutting.

Tang nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

In the next picture, the bad man was handcuffed, the picture of impotent rage.

Another nod.

Nick drew again, Tang and a policeman together, both smiling.

Yes? Would he bite?

For answer, Tang threw himself into Tim’s arms, sobbing a very decided negative.

‘You see: we can’t betray him!’ Tim declared. ‘Whatever the consequences.’

Leaving Andy behind to try to reason with Tim, Nick and I scuttled back over the hills to the car, easily outstripping, despite our middle-aged lungs and legs, the last pursuing media kids – though that might have had something to do with the respective styles of our footwear and theirs. We even had just enough breath to agree, as Nick fired the 4x4 into action, that despite Tang’s obvious reluctance – OK, palpable terror – Nick must talk to the police. Since we couldn’t get a signal on either of our mobiles, we passed the time in pointless debate about whether we should simply ask for the duty CID inspector or use our limited inside knowledge.

It was a good job the police were waiting for us at the White Hart.

Actually, it wasn’t ‘the police’ so much as ‘a policeman’ – our neighbourhood bobby, Ian Strand. If that term implied that every day of the week we saw him walk slowly along greeting one and all, or shovelling kids across the road into school, it shouldn’t have. It meant we were one spot on a
massive map, which he careered over tackling everything from cars burnt out at beauty spots to dogs worrying sheep.

‘Hi, Ian – just the person we need to talk to,’ I greeted him, aunt to favourite nephew style.

He always looked at me sideways, as if I were about to ask him to spit in the street. ‘What might that be about then?’

‘The sanctuary case up at St Jude’s.’

‘Abbot’s Duncombe? They’ve got a problem way up there?’

All of four miles away. But he was a local lad. ‘Yep. Serious, I’d say. But before you get on that radio thing, could you come in and give me a couple of minutes to explain?’

‘I suppose it’s not baking day?’ He sniffed despondently in the direction of the extractor fan, which pumped cooking smells into the air, just like those at some supermarkets. The only difference was that mine were genuinely the result of baking, not some chemicals designed by scientists to tantalise and then disappoint.

‘Monday: day of rest. But I’m sure Robin’ll find you something. Now, come in and sit down and then you can give me your advice about a senior police officer…’

While I waited for Ian’s choice of senior officer to appear, I decided to make a few enquiries of my own. Most of the restaurateurs in the area had
banded together in a mostly social group, the irony being that when we had our occasional
get-togethers
– which was where I’d hooked up with Nigel Ho – we endured far worse meals than any of us would dare to serve. Maybe my colleagues would have a few ideas about Tang and his chicken phobia. Were there dodgy birds about? I sent out a general enquiry to everyone on my email address list. Not wishing to lead them, I left it as general as that. Apart from adding a little
urgent
tag.

There was time for a little sprucing up. And then I remembered what Malins and Corbishley thought of me, and spruced down again.

It turned out that the senior officer responding to Ian’s summons was a woman, Detective Inspector Claire Lawton. She was stern faced, in her later thirties, and could probably transform her face into something like beauty if she smiled. I’d have loved a girlie day out with her, making sure she bought a more flattering cut and colour next time she bought a business suit. And suggesting a good hairstylist.

There were days I really wished I’d had a daughter. Or a son, for that matter. And it wasn’t just for the Mother’s Day cards.

But I should be concentrating on the matter in hand. ‘So you see, Ms Lawton, the complexity of the situation,’ I summed up.

‘I do. But unless we get him out of the church and into custody – even protective custody – I can’t see
that we can do very much. If he won’t come out voluntarily, and Father Martin doesn’t want us to go in and snatch him, what can we do? Especially as far as I can see there’s no evidence to link him with any reported crime. Not even an overdue parking ticket.’

‘A suspected immigration violation?’

‘
Suspected!
That wouldn’t be enough to generate the bad publicity we’d get if we went mob-handed into a church.’

‘Especially with all the TV cameras outside.’

‘It’s as bad as that, is it? I’d better go and have a look.’

‘Why don’t I come along too? See if Tang will talk to you? He might find you less threatening than a man, especially as you’re in plain clothes.’

‘Still one problem though, Mrs Welford,’ she grimaced. Those poor frown lines! ‘I don’t speak a word of Chinese.’

Getting back into the church wasn’t as easy as getting out had been. But it wasn’t the gauntlet of media people we had to run that was the problem. It was smaller, more vocal and distinctly hostile. A pair of geese.

‘What the hell do we do?’ I demanded, locking my car, never having come across anything like them back in Birmingham, on a roasting dish apart, that is.

‘Charge them,’ Nick said. He’d come along, he said, on the off chance. He didn’t say of what. But
he hadn’t reported any useful news from his mates. ‘And flap your arms and hiss back!’

‘Will that work?’

‘Can you think of anything else?’

So, no doubt to the delight of the media mob, the three of us hurtled up the path, pretending to be bigger, better birds.

At least it broke the ice with those inside the church. Especially when I turned back and pointed to the journalists and hissed to the geese, ‘Kill!’

‘Samson and Delilah,’ Andy Braithwaite said, though it couldn’t be classed as a formal introduction.

Once again it was Nick who took the initiative, trying to explain to Tang that Lawton was a good kind lady and a good kind cop. While he talked and drew, I strolled the few yards down into the sanctuary itself, to be joined almost immediately by Andy.

‘Until Tang threw himself at this, I’d never realised that altars were made of stone,’ I said, as the silence started to weigh.

‘Not all by any means. Indeed, they’re quite a rarity. According to the guidebook,’ he said, withdrawing a folded leaflet from his inner pocket, ‘there’s a cross incised on it somewhere. I’ve explored every other corner,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Plenty of time on my hands.’

With what I hoped looked like reverence, I bent to lift the skirt of the altar cloth someone had
ironed into box folds. More used to being on his knees than I, Andy crawled from one side to the other, peering as I hitched up fabric for him.

‘Eureka!’ he said, progressing from his knees to his haunches. ‘Look.’

If I got down beside him, it wasn’t impossible that I should need a crane to get me upright. Still, if God wanted me down there, He’d no doubt provide me with the steam power to get up again.

I traced an incised cross with my index finger. ‘And that’s how old?’

‘Twelfth century. The idea was that the bishop made the cross in holy oil, not unlike a baptism, I suppose, and then a mason would make the exact spot permanent.’

‘So eleven hundred years ago, there’d be all the solemnity of a dedication service and then some guy in a leather apron would squat down and hammer away. And then someone would come and clean up. A woman like those T S Eliot referred to as the scrubbers of the cathedral, no doubt.’

‘I doubt if anyone living his rarified life would know the implications of the term,’ he said, suddenly skipping back from any conversational brink.

I touched the marks in the stone one last time, and let the linen fall. ‘I suppose they keep it covered so that other curious index fingers don’t erode it.’

‘I can’t see many people bothering to touch: Tim tells me the congregations aren’t huge.’

‘Are they in any country church? In many respects, it’s ludicrous to have so many tiny churches functioning in one benefice when people have transport and could get to a central one. It isn’t as if the Church has money to burn, not after those huge investment losses when the Commissioners misread the stock market. But—’ I patted the altar. I forced myself upwards, hoping the creak wasn’t audible.

‘But indeed.’ He didn’t exactly spring upwards himself.

‘It would look nicer with some flowers on it.’

He didn’t reply. I had a sense of a bitten lip, as if I’d committed some solecism. I rattled on, ‘Which is what I had in mind when I told Mr Corbishley to bring round here the flowers he’d bought as an apology for – for earlier. He wasn’t best pleased.’ I waited. ‘What am I saying wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on, Andy. I’m a grown woman. Is there some sort of shibboleth here?’

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Exactly that. You’re not a Gideanite, clearly. The thing is, Josie, some churches don’t have flowers in church in Lent.’

‘The church’s version of my giving up chocolate?’

He nodded. ‘Not until Easter Saturday do they reappear.’

‘No wonder poor Mr Corbishley nearly choked. The thing is, Andy, as you may have gathered, I’m
fairly new to church-going. I trample on corns left, right and centre. Oh, dear—’ I broke off, turning to see what had made Tim’s voice rise in anger.

Nick, hands upraised to soothe passions, was talking. ‘OK, Tim. OK. It’s a fair point, Claire. I don’t think you should attempt to prise Tang’s story out of him until he has legal representation and an impartial translator. I’m not having any part of it, anyway.’

Lawton shook her head. ‘If you want me to protect him, I need to know who from.’ She set her mouth in a stubborn line. Mistake: it would cause even more lines and wrinkles if she did that very often. Still, I suppose she was one of the Botox generation.

You could see the effort Nick was making to be tactful. ‘Yes and no. It’d be nice to know exactly who you were up against, but—’

She spat back, ‘And of course as a serving officer you’d know!’

Children, children!

‘Please don’t argue in here – you can see how it upsets Tang,’ I said, putting an arm round him. ‘Ms Lawton, you will provide some protection, won’t you? It’s not as if we can dial nine-nine-nine and summon instant assistance, the nearest police station being upwards of twenty miles away, and that’s as the goose flies. In any case, the only place you can use a mobile is in the far corner of the tower. And if the Assyrian is already sweeping
down like a wolf on the fold, that’s a bit late.’

‘Though I doubt this particular one will be sporting purple and gold,’ Andy chipped in.

We eyed each other in sudden appreciation. Of what, I wasn’t sure, except our shared knowledge of a poem. Another time, another place, I wouldn’t mind discussing with him the image of the spears resembling the Sea of Galilee.

‘I’ll tell you what: I’ll do my best to get hold of an interpreter. Those on our official list will have been vetted, after all.’

‘Soon?’ I prodded.

I might not have spoken. ‘Plus I’ll ask Uniform to institute regular patrols. After all, he should be all right with all those cameras camped outside. And the geese’ll give plenty of warning. Whose idea were they, by the way?’

‘Annie Hatton’s. One of the congregation. She’s been trying to teach Tang some English, but she couldn’t be here this afternoon. So she sent her friends.’

‘If those are her friends, I’d hate to see her enemies,’ Lawton said.

‘So would we all,’ Nick said, without a trace of irony.

Since Andy had some unspecified meeting he didn’t feel he could miss, Nick insisted on staying behind with Tim. Secretly delighted at the change in him from the passive, inert man of only a few months ago
into someone capable of making decisions, I stayed silent. It was a pity the White Hart wasn’t serving tonight, because I would have liked to invite Andy to eat later with me, and the dining room would have been altogether more neutral than my own apartment. For the first time for years, I was bitterly aware of the effect my sexuality and my enjoyment thereof had on others who wished to find fault. If the church wardens were censorious, how much more right had a rural dean, for heaven’s sake, to condemn? He’d gone out of his way, it seemed, to be friendly with me, but had been equally reluctant to embark on any discussion with me of what Malins and Corbishley had said. Thank goodness.

Or was it I who’d been reluctant to engage in anything more than social chat? I wasn’t about to defend or justify myself. And I certainly didn’t want any examination of my religious feelings. The sole reason I’d started to attend church was that I believed it was vitally important to keep village traditions alive. That was why the White Hart catered for the local gaffers as well as the lucrative diners. It was also why the village cricket team had received a large and anonymous cash donation for a minibus and the football team sported the White Hart sign on their strip. But that didn’t mean I went to many matches. Whereas I went to church every week, pretty well. And it wasn’t for the music, which was dire, or poor Tim’s sermons, which were soporific at best.

‘Are you ready to brave the geese, ladies?’ Andy asked. ‘Josie, I may have to ask you to lead me back to the main road, if you wouldn’t mind. I seemed to spend most of my time on the way here reversing and going back on myself.’

‘No problem. Nick, that pie will microwave in four minutes, but do make sure it’s piping hot inside – give it another minute if it isn’t. Could you establish if Tang likes fish? And lamb? See you tomorrow.’ My wave was cheerier than I felt. I didn’t like the idea of running the gauntlet of those dratted birds, especially in front of an audience.

‘Hang on!’ Andy said. ‘Is there anyone whose cake you can’t recommend? Couldn’t we bribe the birds with that?’

‘A man after my own heart,’ I said, grabbing a few of Mrs Herbert’s all too accurately named rock buns.

Although I led Andy’s car to the A road, he followed me back to the White Hart, parking neatly alongside. ‘I really wanted to pick your brains – ask things I couldn’t in front of Tim,’ he said, smiling disarmingly.

‘Ask away. Or are they questions better asked with a cup of tea in your hands?’

‘I’m so cold I might ask for a mug, so I could wrap my hands tight round it. Your electricity bill will be enormous – and thank you for footing it, Josie—’

‘The church seems to have its own cooling system, doesn’t it?’ I overrode his thanks. ‘Let’s get into the warm, then.’ I led the way upstairs.