Untouchable Things (37 page)

“Actor.”

“Eh?”

Rebecca sighed. “Doesn’t matter. Look, I’ll do my best but I’m not promising anything.” Anna had to bite her lip and be satisfied with that.

They emerged from a urine-streaked stairway into sunlight, cobbles and throngs of people.

“Blimey.”

“Ever been here before?”

“Never. I visited Oxford once, when I was a teenager. Full of strange vampire-like creatures in black gowns. Some of my friends were Goths so I felt quite at home. Except for the strange hats.”

Anna chuckled. “My brothers still go on about my gotholescent days. I’m sure I only lasted one bad hair dye but they make it sound like years. Ma’s tears and Da’s lectures were enough for anyone.”

A silence settled after the mention of her mother. Then the King’s College skyline reared up to their left.

“Wow.”

“It’s like a cathedral. Imagine going to university here.”

They gazed for a moment at the blanched, parapetted silhouette gleaming on its azure canvass.

“Which one is this?”

Anna consulted her map. “King’s, I think. As in cute choirboy sings ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.”

“My mum’s favourite.” Rebecca blushed, as if she’d made a faux-pas. Anna kept talking to show she was okay.

“This is John’s now, where Seth went. See that bridge? Remind you of anything?”

Rebecca looked up. “Um… no, not really.”

“It’s a copy of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Look, we’re being watched.” Tourists stared down to the street through huge camera lenses.

“And this is where Seth hung out. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

They laughed. By the time they passed the porter, slagged off the tourists and circumnavigated three imposing courtyards, it had started to feel like a regular day trip. It was amazing how much better she felt just to be
doing
something.

Dr Cuddly was anything but. Anna realised her mental picture of some sort of academic-looking Father Christmas had been entirely based around his name. Faced with a beanpole with eyebrows she felt a little thrown. Maybe he kept himself chronically short of food so he could shatter people’s preconceptions and gain immediate advantage.

He didn’t come across as particularly cuddly by nature either, though the way his eyes were pinging back and forth between the table and Rebecca’s midriff was promising.

“I’ll cut straight to the chase, we’re here to talk about one of our friends who’s disappeared. He was one of your students and we’re hoping you might be able to shed some light on it.”

Dr Cuddly’s eyes glittered. “I see. So your post-graduate interest in George Herbert…”

Anna tilted her head. “Let’s call it… poetic license.”

She returned his gaze until he relaxed into a smile. “Very good. So how can I help you, ladies?” His gaze took in Rebecca again. “I don’t have long.”

Anna sat up straighter. “Do you remember a PhD student called Seth Basildon?”

Dr Cuddly leaned back. “Ah, Mr Basildon, who could forget him?”

“He’s been missing for about a month. We’re talking to as many people as possible who know him.”

“Knew him, Miss…”

“Carmel. And this is Rebecca Laurence.”

The tip of a smile brushed his lips as he acknowledged Rebecca.

“As I said, I knew Seth Basildon but haven’t heard from him in – sorry, one loses track of time in this job – well, I would have thought it was ten years. I’m not really sure how I can help you.”

Anna crossed her legs. “We’ve found a lot of paperwork from his time at Cambridge. I believe he got into some sort of trouble, during his PhD? We’re wondering if that might give us some clues as to his whereabouts.”

Dr Cuddly folded his arms. “Lots of people get into trouble during their student years, Miss Carmel, and I doubt they want those ‘clues’ splashing about amongst their current friends.”

His voice was vacuum-sealed. Anna told herself to stay calm.

“Dr Cuddly.” Rebecca leaned forward urgently, surprising both of the others. “We are not here to snoop. We just want any information that could help us understand. Seth is a very dear friend and we’re extremely worried about him. Please help us.” A tremor rippled her voice. “We’re just desperate.”

The scoop neck of Rebecca’s top pulled slightly as she leaned further. The professor seemed unsure where to look. Anna watched Rebecca in wonder. It was like a masterclass in how to get round a man. Dr Cuddly sighed.

“Well, if it helps I can tell you what I remember, which is not much.”

“Thank you.” They spoke in chorus, earnestly.

“Mr – Basildon owned a house which it seems was a bit of a meeting place for arty types. It had something of a reputation, if you know what I mean.” Anna nodded to urge him on.

“At some point – maybe a couple of years in – one of the group had some sort of breakdown and recounted some rather disturbing stories to her parents, who tipped the police off. They raided it and found Class A drugs. In rather large quantities, by all accounts.”

Anna’s hands stuck to her trouser legs as she tried to move them. “So Seth was prosecuted?”

The professor paused. “Not exactly.”

Anna and Rebecca exchanged a glance. “What happened?”

“Let’s just say that someone influential stepped in and got him off the hook. But he left Cambridge, didn’t complete. Damn shame actually – he had some fascinating, if undeveloped, ideas about George Herbert. Could have been an excellent thesis.” Nostalgia settled around Dr Cuddly. “There’ve been one or two regrettable dropouts in the last few years.”

Rebecca coughed gently and flicked her hair off her face “Do you have any idea who helped him?”

It took a second for the professor to turn a vague face towards her.

“Who? Oh – young Basildon. Or should I say Rothbury.” He raised his eyebrows. “Well, his father, of course.”

ACT 4 - Prologue

The boy taps at the door, wanting his mother. The house is dark and there’s a noise that has woken him up. He thinks it’s a monster. He doesn’t want the monster to catch his mother. He’s not supposed to get out of bed in the night but he can’t go on listening to that groaning noise anymore. He pushes the door, expecting dishevelled hair and sharp words. But the covers are pushed back and the room is empty. Maybe the monster has already got his mother. He hears its noise again, a bit louder now. It’s coming from the Lilac Room. That’s the room he’s not allowed in, the room that is usually locked. He clenches his tummy to stop himself wetting his pants as he creeps past the room where Lucilla sometimes stays, to the other side of the house.

The door to the Lilac Room is clicked closed but there is a light on in the small study next door to it. If he angles himself correctly, he can peep into the small, bright gap where the door snags on the carpet without moving too close. A man glows under the overhead light, almost touching it because he’s standing on his mother’s kitchen stool. The man is his father and he is the one making the horrible noise. He is rubbing himself against the wall, wriggling, grinding his hips like he’s disco dancing. Something tells him not to call out to his father. Something tells him he shouldn’t be watching.

The next day, with the help of his bunk bed ladder, he discovers the secret black window from the study into the Lilac Room with a little door you can open and a perfect view of the inside of the room. He’s pleased to discover that grown-ups like playing spying games too. In time he learns that this type of window has a name. A peephole.

He’s seventeen when he hears the noise again. Coming from the Lilac Room, or maybe the study. He’s been waiting for this but he has to be sure. He lies still as a lizard, listening.

That’s the creaky floorboard. Someone is moving around in that part of the house. He sits up, still foggy from alcohol, sees 2a.m, grabs a dressing gown but not slippers. Bare feet will be quieter. Even in this state he knows where to put his feet to make silent progress across the landing. He has practised many times. He stops to listen outside his parents’ door. Nothing. They’ve been entertaining yet another of his father’s business contacts tonight so he left them to it, sat in a pub, told them he’d probably stay with a friend. The door clicks. He doesn’t need to push it open to know they’re not inside.

The boy – although not really a boy now, not a man either – looks at his arms, streaked with black hair. He is old enough. The house is silent, slumbering like a bear in winter. But he knows. Each step is placed with exaggerated care as he progresses past the bathroom. Then he hears it, a groan, sickeningly familiar. Another step and he can see round the corner to the triangle of light in the study. The outline of his father’s trousers.

He springs forward, smashing open the door of the Lilac Room. The dinner guest is tied up and gagged like a hostage on the bed, naked apart from black socks, eyes bulging as if they will burst. He knows this one, has seen him at the house before. Standing over him in black lace is his mother, facing the peephole, holding a whip in both hands, hair wild and tangled as a filthy gypsy. She screams and tries to cover herself but he is too fast, he has her by the throat and the only way to cope with the sight of her is to keep squeezing. The other man, stranded on the bed, writhes and groans in a parody of his recent pleasure. Hands seize his shoulders and he gives one final squeeze before letting go, hurling her towards the window. His father backs away, belt undone, moving to where his wife lies, retching in a heap.

The boy turns to the room then, tearing pictures from the wall, kicking over furniture. He must destroy it, smash it to purple pulp, or he will have to rip out his own eyes, rip the scene before him into bloody shreds.

When he opens his eyes again he too is handcuffed to a bed. Three men in white coats stare over their noses at him. He runs his eyes around the unfamiliar room, the curtain rail round the bed, the sink in the corner. His body is bound but his mind is now clear. Now he knows how to play it, now he has the leverage he needs to be free of them forever.

He smiles at the men. One of them opens a notebook and starts scribbling.

Scene 1

“His father?”

Rebecca can still feel the tremors of her original shock as she watches the group reaction. How, with the blood banging in her ears, she told Dr Cuddly he must have made a mistake knowing suddenly, sickeningly, that he was telling the truth. It didn’t take long to unravel.

“Oh, he spun you that poor little orphan boy line too? I’m surprised he’s still using it after the truth came out.”

Anna and Rebecca had barely been able to question him, their roadmap for the session now in tatters. Seth had both a mother and a father, alive by all accounts, or at least he did ten years ago. His father was some big shot in the wine trade. Seth had fallen out with them before leaving school and concocted the orphan story.

“Maybe he finds it creates sympathy with – young ladies.”

They left then, stumbled into a jarringly picturesque courtyard. Idling tourists jostled them along King’s Parade.

“His father is alive? He’s not an orphan?” Michael’s eyes are blazing. Catherine looks like she’s going to faint. They are back in Seth’s living room.

“That’s what Dr Cuddly said. There’s no reason why he should lie.” Anna’s voice is flat and brittle.

“The lying, manipulating bastard.” Only Michael seems able to muster a reaction.

Charles looks ill. “No – surely – he wouldn’t lie to me all these years.” His face is greyish-white, the colour of city snow.

Anna bites at her thumbnail. “There could be a reason why he’s had to lie.”

“Like what?” José’s question sounds more hopeful than cynical. Everyone looks at Anna.

“I don’t know, maybe his parents abused him or something and it was less painful to say they were dead.”

“Oh, come off it, Anna, you don’t believe that. It was just another game he played with us.”

“I think Anna could be right. He told me some pretty strange things about his childhood.” Catherine’s voice is small and apologetic, as if it were she who lied.

“What sort of things?”

She shrinks further into her seat.

“I can’t remember exactly.”

“Sorry, you
need
to remember exactly.” Anna looks almost as scary as Michael. “If you know anything, you have to tell us.”

“It was nothing specific – well, he told me he found his parents – having sex on the dining room table,” comes Catherine’s whisper.

A heartbeat’s pause as the others digest this. Charles is pacing backwards and forwards, muttering under his breath.

“Right. And?”

“Well, he implied they did other stuff, but we didn’t talk about it. He did say he’d seen therapists over the years…”

“Just more speculation then.” Charles shakes his head. Michael stands up and stares out of the French windows, his Roman profile accentuated against the blurring daylight. No one speaks for a while.

“We’re sitting here in his house, like we always do, but he’s gone and it feels like we don’t really know anything about him.” José’s voice bends in the middle and he puts his head in his hands.

Rebecca plants her feet on the ground and almost expects to feel it shifting. “Come on, José, that’s not true. Okay, he’s not an orphan but it doesn’t mean that everything else about him is a lie too.”

It doesn’t come out quite right. Somehow words intended to give Seth the benefit of the doubt throw more shadow on him.

Anna looks at her. “So what do we do now?”

“I don’t see that there’s anything we can or should do.” It’s the first time Jake has spoken. “So he hasn’t been entirely straight with us. That’s ’is prerogative. Are you telling me none of you have secrets you ’aven’t told the rest of the group?”

They must hear her heart thumping into the silence as she pictures herself in the white negligee kneeling over Seth. Then she notices that no one else is contradicting Jake either. She is afraid to look up and meet people’s eyes until the cold snap in Anna’s voice shocks her into doing so.

“I’m imagining there’s plenty
you
haven’t told us.” For a second she thinks that Anna’s eyes will be on her. Then she sees them fastened on Jake, the colour of summer sky before a storm. She needs to stop this before everything unravels.