The Revelations (28 page)

‘Slow down, Marcus. I know about the earrings. But this is not the time to be jumping to any conclusions. I need to talk to Mouse. He’s coming here on Friday. Let me get his side of the story and then, if we need to, we can go to the police together. In the mean time, try to take care of yourself. You look very tired.’

Marcus went home and phoned Abby. She didn’t answer. The cold that had been threatening arrived that night. Marcus woke with his throat raw and swollen, his nose blocked and his chest tight. He swallowed down a handful of painkillers and lay in the dark, feeling profoundly sorry for himself. The next day he struggled into work, determined to put thoughts of Lee and Mouse out of his mind until the weekend. He left the office as early as possible that evening and flung himself into bed.

He had forgotten that it was fireworks night. The curtains were open and he saw the bright explosions of light over Holland Park. Darwin crawled into bed beside him and he hugged the little dog against his wheezing chest. The shards of excited light coloured his bedroom walls as he drifted off to sleep. The last he remembered seeing were blue and green, and in his dozing mind they became Lee’s earrings, her face written into the sky behind them in the pattern of a million stars.

On Saturday morning, early enough that Marcus was still asleep, although not so early that he could ignore the call, David Nightingale telephoned.

‘Hello,’ said Marcus, searching for the light switch.

‘Marcus, it’s David. How are you feeling? I thought you looked very ill on Tuesday.’

Marcus had struggled into work on Thursday and Friday, but the cold had established itself in his chest, giving his voice a husky growl.

‘I’m fine. I need to get some rest and then I’ll be fine.’

‘You should come over here. I think it would be a good idea for us to talk to Mouse together. He’s with me now.’

‘OK. I’ll be over as soon as I can.’

Marcus drank a Lemsip as he dressed. His movements were slow and stumbling as he searched through his cupboard for a clean shirt. He realised that he hadn’t put a wash on since Abby had left. Clothes spewed out of the hamper in the corner of the bedroom. He rummaged through them looking for a pair of boxer shorts that were not too filthy to wear. Finally, he made his way out into the bright morning, started the car, and set out for St Botolph’s.

He felt a kind of nostalgia as he turned off the King’s Road and into the high gates in front of the church. So many times he had come here with Abby, both of them full of hope and quiet excitement at the prospect of an inspiring discussion group, or a service, or dinner at the rectory. Whatever happened next, Marcus realised that everything had already changed. Things were not recoverable from here. He imagined himself twenty-three again, tried to steal back the excitement he had felt after his first Retreat, when everything he believed was reshaped by David Nightingale, when the love he felt for Abby and his family was knitted into his love for the church, rather than being twenty-eight and ground down by a boring job, by guilt, by betrayal. He stopped the car and eased himself out onto the familiar crunch of the gravel.

The church clock chimed ten. A robin was singing somewhere. Marcus saw the bird perched on the railings that ran along the edge of the churchyard. The bird tilted his head back, threw out his chest and unleashed a long, liquid stream of notes. Marcus skipped up the steps to the front door and rang the bell.

David answered the door. He was dressed in a blue button-down shirt and chinos. He fixed his pale eyes on Marcus. They were less bloodshot than they had been at the Course on Tuesday night. Marcus took the priest’s hand.

‘Thank you for coming. Gosh, you don’t look well. Do you want a coffee or something?’

‘Yes, that would be great,’ Marcus mumbled. He followed David into the kitchen while the priest made coffee, unwilling to face Mouse alone.

‘Is he here?’

‘He’s in the drawing room, yes. Along with a few others. Let’s go through.’

Marcus followed David across the hall. Mouse was sitting in an armchair directly opposite the entrance. He looked up at Marcus and nodded glumly, then stared back at his feet, which were propped on a velvet pouffe. The Earl was seated in the corner, his fierce eyes fixed on Marcus and David. Marcus stepped further into the room and turned towards the sofa. Abby was there, sitting very upright, a hopeful smile fixed on her wide face.

‘Abby!’

She rose and embraced him.

‘I got the last flight back last night. I wanted to be here for this.’ She took his chin in her hand and looked at his face. ‘You look dreadful, darling. You obviously need me here to look after you.’

Marcus sat down beside Abby. David remained standing, moving behind Mouse’s chair and looking across at Marcus. He carried some of the awful grandeur that had once made Marcus afraid to look at him.

‘I thought we should all sit down together. Mouse has told me everything. We should listen to his story, and then discuss what to do. Mouse has been very brave coming to me like this. Over to you, Mouse.’

Mouse shifted in his chair, leaned forward, and began to speak. He wrung his hands as he talked. He clearly hadn’t slept for a while.

‘Lee’s dead. She died just after five in the morning on the Sunday of the Retreat.’

Marcus felt a wave of melancholy sweep over him. He had imagined this moment so many times that it hardly shocked him. Mouse’s words confirmed something that he felt he had known all along. Abby held his hand very tightly. The priest nodded at Mouse, who was sitting quite still, his eyes full of tears.

‘Why don’t you tell it from the beginning, Mouse? Just like you told me.’

Mouse let out a sigh.

‘It was past four. Marcus and I had come up together from the dining hall around three. I couldn’t sleep, so I wandered over to the west wing. I wanted to find the mermaid frieze that I’d seen the day before. When I came to the top of the winding stairs, I heard the sound of someone crying. I walked down the corridor and the sound grew louder. I came to a further staircase which led to a tower. The one that we saw when we were coming up from the lake. There was a wee room at the top with a desk and a few books.’

‘It’s my study,’ the Earl interrupted. ‘I rarely use it these days, but I like to have a place to work when I’m in the country.’

‘Lee was standing at the window looking down at the moon on the lake and crying. I went up behind her and tried to comfort her, but she was absolutely wild. I couldn’t get near to her. She said that the Course was responsible for her depression. That she had been happy before all the guilt. That was how she put it. She told me what had happened with Marcus on the boat and then she just dissolved in tears.

‘I thought about going to get David or you, Marcus, but she stormed back downstairs and into her room. She started to throw her clothes into a bag, said she was going to walk to the train station at Banbury. She told me that she hated us. That she wished we were all dead.’

A large tear rolled down the left side of Mouse’s face.

‘She ran away from me down the corridor and then started down the stairs. I ran after, she slipped . . . or she jumped. I couldn’t tell. She rose up into the air like she was trying to fly. I almost caught her. I was close enough to catch her, but I couldn’t quite grab hold of her jumper. She thudded all the way down the stairs and landed at the bottom with a horrible crunch.’

Mouse was sobbing now and drew his sleeve across his face. Abby let go of Marcus’s hand and crossed to sit on the arm of Mouse’s chair. She stroked his hair with her large hands.

‘When I got down to her she wasn’t breathing. I tried to give her mouth-to-mouth, but there was this huge dent in her head. I couldn’t believe that falling down the stairs could do that to someone, but she landed so hard, and it was marble at the bottom. I panicked. I don’t know why, but it felt like it was my fault. Like you’d all blame me for it, you know? I carried her down to the lake. I opened the boathouse and wrapped her round with fishing line and attached weights to it. I rowed out in the little boat and pushed her into the water. Then I drove your car up to Banbury Station to make it look like she’d run away. When you came down in the morning I’d just got back, Marcus.’

He stopped and looked down at his hands, then up at Marcus.

‘I’m sorry.’

Marcus was fighting for breath. ‘Jesus, Mouse,’ he said. ‘I mean, really. What were you thinking?’

Mouse looked back at him. ‘I just didn’t know what to do. She was dead.’

Marcus looked over at David.

‘So we’re going to the police, right? I mean, we have to tell them all this. Tell D.I. Farley. Mouse can claim diminished responsibility or whatever. I’m not sure that throwing someone who’s already dead in a lake is even an offence. But we have to tell them, don’t we?’

There was a long silence. Finally, the Earl spoke.

‘I don’t quite see who it helps, telling the police.’ His voice was a whisper.

‘Well, it helps Lee’s family for one. Her parents need to know what happened to their daughter. And surely it isn’t a matter of whom it helps. It’s about doing what is right. Lee died and the police need to know.’

Abby crossed back to sit next to Marcus.

‘David told me about this yesterday. I had a chance to think about it on the flight. I agree that it’s a very complex situation.’

‘I don’t think it is,’ Marcus interrupted her. ‘I don’t think it’s very complex at all. It seems like a very simple situation to me.’

‘Let me finish,’ Abby continued, her voice very calm. ‘It
is
complex. Isn’t it better for Lee’s family to have the hope that she isn’t dead? Isn’t it better that they think she might have gone off to a better life, stowed away on a ship or run off with a billionaire on his private jet? Of course, they’ll always think that she probably killed herself, but I don’t want to be the one who takes their hope away from them. Especially her father. He loved her so much, you know, and Lee was always saying how fragile he was. I worry that taking away this last bit of hope might finish him off.’

‘And more than that is what this would do to the Course.’ David stood in the centre of the room with his hands clasped in front of him. ‘Nothing that we can do will change things for Lee.’

‘She’s lying at the bottom of a lake, David. Of course we can’t change things for her.’ Marcus stood up and faced the priest.

‘Exactly,’ David continued. ‘I want to go up and have a service at Lancing Manor. Just us. Set her to rest properly – that is only right. But I am God’s servant and my obligation is to do what best serves God’s interests. If the news about Lee got out, it would destroy everything we have built here. The Course is about to take off in the States in a very major way. We are now in three hundred churches across the UK. Imagine all the good we’re doing. Imagine what it means to the priests to have their churches full. Imagine how many girls there are like Lee dealing with similar problems who will find a way to peace through God, and all because of the Course. If we go public with this, I will have to resign. The whole thing will come apart.’

‘Why?’ asked Marcus. ‘It’s Mouse’s fault. He can take the blame for this. Not you.’

David looked across at Marcus. ‘Because if Mouse speaks to the police he will have to tell them that one of the reasons that Lee was in such a state was because she had been taken advantage of by her best friend’s husband.’

Marcus sat down next to Abby. She was staring at the floor. The priest continued.

‘Infidelity, lies, a body in a lake. Of course I’ll have to quit if this comes out. Nonsense in a newspaper, I can handle. But not this. I should have seen it. The Devil was working in you and Lee all along, working his evil way through my own Course leaders, and now it is all ruined. Everything I worked to build . . . ruined.’

David marched from the room, climbed the stairs and retreated behind the door of his study. The rest of the Course members sat in silence. After several minutes, the Earl stood up.

‘I must be getting home. The car is waiting outside. I take it we can rely upon your discretion, Marcus?’ He strode from the room.

Mouse fixed his large eyes on Marcus, hopefully.

Marcus turned to Abby and said, ‘I think we should go.’

When they got home, Marcus lifted Abby’s suitcase from the boot of the car and walked with her into the flat. She padded through the rooms, taking deep breaths, nudging the pile of unwashed shirts in their bedroom with her toe. Marcus felt bruised and empty. His head roared and he could barely speak through his swollen throat. He bent down and started to pick up the dirty clothes.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ Marcus began, but Abby threw her arms around him and kissed him long and wet on the lips.

‘I’m pregnant again,’ she said.

Marcus took her hands in his.

‘That’s amazing,’ he said.

‘I started feeling really tired in New York, and I realised that I hadn’t had my period. I know it’s only early days, but I think that if the baby has made it this far, through all this stress, then it must have a pretty good chance. I mean, I’m really not counting on it, but it just feels much more real this time. Much more like something that should happen to us, after Lee and everything.’

Marcus lifted her T-shirt and put a hand on her belly. Her stomach was warm and pudgy and he smiled at her.

‘How far gone do you think you are?’

‘Five weeks, maybe a little more.’

Marcus went out to the shops and bought some vegetables and chicken which he stir-fried in a wok. They sat and ate at the dinner table, facing each other, refusing to talk about Mouse or the meeting earlier. When they were finished, Abby pushed her bowl away and reached over to take Marcus’s hand.

‘Darling, we need to discuss things. Mouse, Lee, everything. But first, there’s something else I wanted to speak to you about.’

Marcus poured himself a glass of wine and sat looking over at his wife.

‘I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be in the States. The Course has just exploded over there. And of course we have only done the North-East. There’s such enormous potential.’