White Corridor Part 4

'At least you won't need to pack costumes.' May chuckled.

'Oh, we will. There's Ganesh and s.h.i.+va, Buddha and Mohammad, plus robes, hats and props for their followers. We take a quick canter through all the major myths and legends. We usually manage to incorporate Arthurian and Celtic tales, too, if we've room to take the dragon. Sometimes we chuck in a bit of Hans Christian Andersen. It's all for charity, you see, Children in Poverty. We get the local school to help out, although never the Catholic ones, as they're not keen on having their Lady of Grace sharing the stage with half a dozen trolls and an elephant-headed G.o.d covered in sparklers. Those who take their religion too literally can be very narrow-minded about such things. We try to show that whether you're pagan or Protestant, you can still learn something from those who draw strength from faith.'

'Are you telling me you've discovered faith in your old age?' asked May.

'Good heavens, no.' Bryant readjusted his spectacles and squinted up at his partner with watery wide eyes. 'I just like a nice bit of theatre. Doesn't everyone?'

'When are we leaving?'

'Just as soon as we get these doors shut and I remember where I left my hearing aid batteries. We should be able to reach Plymouth by late afternoon, which will give us time to unload the van and set up for the start of the convention on Wednesday morning. It only lasts two days, climaxing with the awards ceremony and the show on Thursday evening. We can either stay overnight and set back first thing Friday morning, or leave the night before. Can I trust you to be captain of our supply team? I've got enough to do just sorting out my pills.'

'What do I have to do?'

'Alma has manufactured a hundredweight of sandwiches for us to take along, and some of her special "thick" pea-and-ham soup that might come in handy for fixing radiator leaks. She'll give you the full list of comestibles.'

'Good heavens, we're not going to the North Pole, Arthur.'

'Just as well, because it's not there anymore,' said Bryant gloomily. 'Global warming. I read in the paper that it's melted clean away. I don't suppose I'll see a frozen landscape again in my lifetime.'

'You're wrong about that, Mr Bryant.' Alma Sorrowbridge had come into the yard behind their home waving a copy of the Daily Mail Daily Mail. 'Blizzards, it says here, turning very nasty. Look at the forecast, the coldest winter in fifty years. It's snowing in Somerset, and going to get worse. The gritters are going on strike and the roads will be like ice. Decent people will freeze to death in their beds.'

'Always the bearer of cheering news, aren't you?' Bryant sighed, slamming the van doors with finality. 'She just wants me to cancel the trip because she doesn't approve of my multifaith approach to spiritualism. That, and the fact that last year we made a chapter of her evangelists' gospel choir share their dressing room with a pair of Brahmins and some Hasidic Jews.' Bryant neglected to mention that the choir had brought a family bucket of pork ribs into the dressing room and had almost started a war.

'The doctrine of salvation by faith is the essence of gospel teaching,' said Alma hotly. 'It's Protestant, not Pick 'n' Mix. I don't approve of throwing all these religions together with nonbelievers.'

'There's no such thing as a nonbeliever,' Bryant stated. 'Everyone believes in something, whether it involves alien visitations or simply being nice to each other and repairing a fractured world with good deeds, a cabalistic lesson you might learn the next time you consider torturing me with your culinary experiments. Now be so kind as to go and finish packing my warm clothes.'

It was a little after 8:15 A.M A.M. when they embarked on their journey. John May had agreed to come along partly because his partner was not to be trusted with directions, but also because he had never shown an interest in Bryant's enthusiasms, and had decided it was about time he did.

'I've planned our route,' said Bryant, settling into the pa.s.senger seat and pulling the collar of an enormous astrakhan overcoat up around his ears. 'We need the A38, possibly via Bittaford and Moorhaven, a.s.suming those villages are still there after two world wars. Perhaps we should stop and buy a more recent map. Do you think I should put a satellite navigation system in my Mini Cooper?'

'You are the last person in the world to be trusted with SatNav,' May retorted. 'Remember what happened when you borrowed Dan Banbury's car?'

'Oh, er, vaguely.' Bryant sank further into his overcoat, recalling his fl.u.s.tered response to the insistent electronic voice warning him to turn right. It had led him into a closed street where work on the London Underground system was under way. Bryant surprised the railway workers by shooting Banbury's vehicle into a trench filled with exposed electrical cabling for the Northern line. He had managed to shut down the City Branch during rush hour, and since then none of the electronic readouts in Banbury's car had ever worked properly.

'So what's our route?' asked May.

'We make our way to Hammersmith and get onto the M3 as far as Winchester, then head for Salisbury and Yeovil on the A30, switch to the A303, past Exmouth and Newton Abbot, skirt the southern edge of Dartmoor on the A38 and hit Plymouth by teatime. If we're running ahead of schedule, we could visit my Auntie Dolly in Weymouth. She just had her telegram from the queen, and still does her own shopping, although some of the things she comes back with take some explaining.'

'All right, I'll handle the M3 and you can take the back roads. Let's find a garage first. No doubt you'll want to stock up on boiled sweets.'

'No, I've taken to buying them wholesale. I've got a pound of Rhubarb and Custards in the back, some Jelly Tots, and a half of Chocolate Limes. Do you want a Pear Drop?'

'No, acetone takes the roof off my mouth. You think Janice can manage looking after the PCU? We've never left her in charge before.'

'She'll probably be better than you or I,' Bryant told him. 'We'll only be away for a couple of days. What could go wrong in that time?'

'What about April? Do you think she'll be all right? I mean, now that we've talked about her mother's death.'

'I don't see why not. For heaven's sake, stop fretting about everyone.' Bryant's thoughts were generally so abstracted that he found it hard to empathise with other people's personal problems. 'April can call you if there's anything on her mind. Put your foot down, I have my heart set on a pint of scrumpy tonight.'

May turned the ignition key. There was a grinding noise beneath the hood, then a peculiar squeaking sound.

'Wait!' Alma came running out. 'Open the bonnet!' May did as he was told, and the landlady reappeared from beneath the hood with an armful of mewling kittens. 'They were keeping warm under there. I'm minding them for a neighbour.'

This time, the van started.

'I'm sure I'm going to regret this,' muttered May as he pulled out into the peristaltic column of traffic pa.s.sing slowly through Chalk Farm.

'Look at it this way,' said Bryant, leafing through pages of villages that no longer existed. 'For the next three days you won't have to think about solving a single crime.'

11

REVELATION 'Come with me, I want to show you something.'

'Are you sure it's safe?' Madeline asked. 'Isn't it private property?'

'A rich old guy used to own it, but he died. Now some Swiss property developers want to turn it into a hotel, but the mayor won't allow them. He's probably holding out for a bigger bribe, and until he gets it, the place stays empty. Give me your hand.' He outstretched his arm and hauled her onto the granite wall beside him. 'Be careful of this plant,' he warned, indicating the purple bougainvillea that had overgrown the garden of the chateau. 'It has pairs of sharp thorns.' He placed his hands around her waist and lifted her into the long gra.s.s. 'The ground slopes down to the sea. Hold onto me.'

The sun had just sunk behind the cliffs, and Ryan had pa.s.sed out in his hotel room, exhausted after a day spent racing up and down the s.h.i.+ngle beach with Johann. Madeline allowed Johann's hand to stay on her waist even after she had steadied herself.

The chateau's vermilion tiled roof had partially collapsed. Olive trees and agaves had broken through the plaster on the ground-floor walls. The grand old house had been empty for many years. Between the pines and date palms she could glimpse an indigo triangle of ocean. Rotting tangerines littered the gra.s.sy slope. Their sharp citrus scent made her mouth water.

'Over here, you have to see this.' He pushed back the branches and allowed her to climb through. There, in a small clearing behind the chateau, was a white stone summerhouse, its roof decorated with stencilled fleurs-de-lis clipped from green tin. A band might have played there on warm summer evenings. He climbed up the steps of the rotunda and swayed from side to side, his head tilted. 'Listen, you can almost hear the accordion playing.'

'I don't hear anything.' She laughed, joining him.

'No, really, there is music all around us. There are ghosts in the trees. Look.' He pointed upward and she smiled in surprise. 'Fireflies. They always gather here at dusk.'

'How do you know this place?' she asked.

'I came here as a child. I was forbidden to visit the chateau-the old man was still living here then. He was a wealthy member of the old Monaco family, a genuine Grimaldi, but-' He tapped the side of his head. 'Crazy, you know? One day I found a crack in the wall and climbed through. My mother could not find me. It became my secret place. Everyone needs such a place, where they can be alone with their thoughts.'

In London she was hardly ever alone, pa.s.sing her days in the steam of tumble dryers and nights in the warm beery fug of the bar, rus.h.i.+ng from the Laundromat to pick Ryan up from school or coming in at midnight to release her neighbour from guardian duty. She had never made enough time for herself. Now, though, perhaps there was a chance. She picked up his hand and held it in hers. They sat beside each other on the dusty bandstand floor, and he lightly touched the nape of her neck with tanned fingers. Great grey-blue clouds hung low, leaving a golden ribbon of light above the line of the sea. Their backs p.r.i.c.kled with cold. He wanted to give her his jacket, but she refused.

'Let's go back, Johann.'

'It is early yet. I think one day I will come to your hotel and you will have moved back to England.'

'Then let's not go to my hotel. Ryan will be fine for a while. Let's go to your place.'

His hesitation made her wonder if she'd been too forward, but she had not felt a man's touch for a long time, and she sensed a need in him matched by her own. Finally he seemed to reach an agreement with himself and rose, hauling her to her feet. They climbed back to the car, and headed away from the Ba.s.se Corniche Ba.s.se Corniche into the hills. High in the Savaric cliffs the roads were covered with plumes of gravel, stones washed down from the rocks above. Gradually the route narrowed, until it was little more than the width of a car. He stopped before a tall steel gate, tucking the Mercedes beneath the overhanging pine boughs, and helped her out. The long-stemmed birds-of-paradise surrounding the house had lost their tough orange petals, but the plant borders had been meticulously maintained. No lights showed in the single-storey building of peach stucco that lay ahead. into the hills. High in the Savaric cliffs the roads were covered with plumes of gravel, stones washed down from the rocks above. Gradually the route narrowed, until it was little more than the width of a car. He stopped before a tall steel gate, tucking the Mercedes beneath the overhanging pine boughs, and helped her out. The long-stemmed birds-of-paradise surrounding the house had lost their tough orange petals, but the plant borders had been meticulously maintained. No lights showed in the single-storey building of peach stucco that lay ahead.

There was something clandestine about his behaviour, and she was compelled to ask, 'Are we supposed to be here?'

'It's fine, really, it's not a problem. The house belongs to an old friend who only stays between June and September. The rest of the year it's empty. He let me have the keys. Come on.'

He had trouble remembering where the lights were, and then only turned on one of the lamps in the lounge. The walls were covered with stag antlers. There were a pair of leather wing-backed armchairs and a bearskin rug on the floor that she suspected had been cut from creatures tracked by the owner. She smelled pine and polish and old leather. It was hard to imagine that a young man like Johann would know anyone who lived in this way; this was an old hunter's house. He left the window shutters closed, and flicked on a gas fire filled with artificial logs.

While she warmed herself, he found cut-crystal gla.s.ses arranged on a walnut drinks cabinet and poured out two brandies. 'Soon I think the snows will come,' he told her, 'even here.'

'And I'll have to go back home,' she admitted. 'The first part of my support money came through today. I was expecting more, but it's enough for me and Ryan to live on for a little while.'

'So you will stay?'

'No, it wouldn't last long if I did that. I have to go back to my flat in London. I don't have any wealthy friends like you.' She looked around the shadowy lounge and drew her legs up, feeling the warmth of the fire on her skin.

When he kissed her, she tasted brandy on his tongue. It remained in her mouth as his lips moved down to her neck, his hands avoiding the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s but slipping around her back in a tight grip, as if he was scared of ever letting her go, as if he might never be able to find her again. He removed his s.h.i.+rt without thought, shrugging it from his shoulders as though the material was burning his skin.

He lowered himself onto his knees before her, taking her to the floor, moving smoothly, almost gracefully above her. His arms were tanned darker below the biceps, and she could discern a faint scent of sweat released by the warmth of his chest. He was so tender and careful that she wondered if he had somehow guessed her past suffering at the hands of men.

The intensity of her arousal surprised her, because it was caused by another's desire. She had not expected or even wanted this, but now that her need had been unmasked, she gave way to it. It was absurdly picturesque, making love on the floor of a stranger's house, lying on an animal skin before a fire, a scene made even more artificial by the fact that the flame effect was fake, but his anxiety to please her was real enough, and she relaxed, closing her eyes as he placed a hand at the base of her spine, raising her hips to slide down her jeans. Water dripped metronomically somewhere far above them. She heard the wind rising outside, and rain falling softly in the pines. Her senses felt heightened. A shudder of air pa.s.sed between them, as if the spirits of earlier inhabitants were crossing the room.

He made love to her in silence, his smooth dry hands guiding, moving, pressing down firmly, as though every action had to be performed in a certain manner. The rain fell harder. The house creaked. The heat within her raised the pulse of her heart, shortening her breath. The steady rustle of leaves sounded like static. He held her gaze, never breaking the link he had established between them, holding her in place, the entire act controlled for her benefit.

Some time later, when he pulled away from her, she felt cool air returning to the room as a diagonal bar of light widened across the floor, and a shower tap was turned on. It was an old man's house, where everything was within easy reach.

She sat up slowly, gathering her thoughts, looking around for her clothes. He had folded them neatly on the edge of the sofa while she dozed. She rose and dressed, waiting for him to finish, but the sound of the shower continued. He had folded his own clothes, too, topping them with the satchel she had never seen away from his side.

She had no intention to pry, simply wanted to understand more about him because he had told her so little, and then the satchel's flap was at her fingertips. Inside she saw nothing unusual at first: a wallet, small change, some loose sc.r.a.ps of paper with scrawled phone numbers, a small monochrome photograph of a stern old woman, a bundle tied with a rubber band and seated in an open envelope.

She took the bundle out and tipped it to the firelight.

Almost too frightened to look, she opened her fingers to see what she was holding. A French pa.s.sport and a matching ident.i.ty card bearing his photograph, two French credit cards, a chequebook, all in the same name, Johann Bellocq Johann Bellocq. She turned back to the pa.s.sport and read Date of Birth: 1966, pa.s.sport issued in Ma.r.s.eilles Date of Birth: 1966, pa.s.sport issued in Ma.r.s.eilles. Johann had been raised here in the Alpes-Maritimes, he had told her so himself.

She had faintly suspected from the outset that he might not operate within the boundaries of the law: his reluctance to reveal so little hard information about himself, the clandestine way in which he seemed to move around, the changing cars, the borrowed houses-nothing added up. Johann kept his pa.s.sport in his jacket at all times. He had shown it to her. This had to be another one. In that case, whose ident.i.ty was he carrying about with him?

A dropping sensation filled her stomach. Bellocq was not his real name at all. He was...who? A liar, a thief. The credit cards were issued from two different banks. Suddenly his absence of character started to make sense. The betrayals had been small, a slip about his childhood, the corrected mention of a place, an interrupted recollection, the hasty dismissal of a memory, the constant guarding of his feelings-perhaps the only real part had been his desire for her. He saw something in her, some damage, some sense of kindred spirit...

A familiar rising panic sent her to the stack of photographs lying beneath the pa.s.sport in the bundle. She flicked through them with widening eyes and horrified realisation, until she became aware that the shower had stopped running. He would dry himself and come to find her.

She rose to her feet and desperately looked about for her purse, surprised to discover how shaky she felt. He would not be able to stop her leaving. Uncertain of what to do, she hesitated, listening as the shower door opened and shut. The upper half of the room was deeply shadowed. He had turned off the light, so that the false flames of the fire provided the only illumination. She would have to get out of the village. It was dangerous to stay a minute more.

For a second she thought she saw an outflung arm clad in brown wool, the palm turned up, fingers splayed, lying behind the sofa. Unable to look, she prayed it was just a log that had rolled from the fire. Whose house was this? Not Johann's, nor any friend's. He had stolen the car and found house keys, had entered a stranger's home and come back for her. For all she knew he had murdered someone in their bed, made love to her while the corpse lay upstairs...

She had not meant to cry out, but she did, and he came running for her. He sat beside her, gripping her hand. He tried to calm her fears, then told her of his childhood, how he had come to kill his mother, how even the local gendarmes had turned a blind eye because they had known what the old woman was like and how he had been sent away to the nuns for five long years, until he could come to terms with the weight of his crime.

For the first time in his life he was completely honest, telling her everything, because he loved her and wanted her to forgive him. Because he wanted to be with her forever, no matter what she thought of his past, even though it meant telling her how he survived from day to day, moving from town to town, from life to life...

Then he stared into her eyes.

She knew all about his past even before he told her; for a certain kind of man, the problems always began with a bad childhood. She listened to his story very carefully, because she was afraid of him. He was an amalgam of every damaged soul she had ever met. She knew that if she managed to get away, she would have to tell someone about him, and his history would become part of her story.

As she sat before the great stone fireplace in the Villa de l'Ouest, s.h.i.+vering with fear and cold, listening intently, she forced herself to imagine how terrible his childhood had been, and tried to forgive him for what he had become, but found she could not. Matricide, Matricide, she thought, she thought, the ultimate crime against woman the ultimate crime against woman. The idea, coupled with the knowledge that she had made love to him, sickened and shamed her. She thought of the photographs, and bile rose in her throat.

He had taken her hand and was saying something about her being the only woman he could ever trust with his burden, and never wanting to let her go. She tried to wriggle her fingers free, panic shortening her breath, terror soaring in her heart. But even as she tried to escape, she suddenly saw that she might never be free of him.

12

LACUNA 'Where on earth are we?' asked Arthur Bryant.

'You're the map reader, you should know,' suggested May, switching on the windscreen wipers. 'It's starting to snow. That could slow us down a bit.'

Bryant dug into his astrakhan coat and withdrew a crumpled bag. 'You're always going on about what a good driver you are. Now's your chance to prove it. Have a Milk Bottle. Or there are some pink sugar Shrimps.' He rattled the bag at May.

'No, thank you, they get stuck in my teeth. What was the last sign you saw?'

'Windlesham. Or possibly Bagshot. Hang on, there's one coming up on the left.' Bryant wrapped his spectacle arms around his ears and squinted. 'Hawley, Framley, Minley Manor, Hartley Wintney. The names of English towns are more like elocution exercises than real places. Listen to this: Tinkerton, Tapperton, Topley. Sounds like a ping-pong ball falling down a flight of steps. I say, look at that.' He pointed through the windscreen. 'Not often you see a green sky. Is that some kind of shepherd's warning, I wonder?'

'Not much traffic,' May noted in puzzlement. 'Turn on the radio.'

Bryant rolled the dial through a range of staticky channels, each less distinct than the last, but got a refres.h.i.+ng blast of Respighi on Radio Three and, on a local station, several women holding an urgent discussion about b.u.t.ter. 'This isn't Alma's original radio,' he explained. 'I had to buy it from an Armenian man in the Caledonian Road who ran away with my change. There was a time when being a police officer used to count for something.'

'I don't understand.' May took his eyes from the road, confused. 'What happened to the original radio?'

'Oh, it melted.' Bryant sucked his sweet pensively. 'I borrowed it from the van and wired it to a car battery for a party back in 1970. We were celebrating the anniversary of the Messina brothers being sent down, remember them? Five Maltese racketeers who ran an empire of brothels and streetwalkers across the West End after the war. The senior officers at Bow Street were full of stories about them running around armed with razors, hammers and coshes. The Messinas introduced the "short time" rule for London prost.i.tutes, reducing their time with punters to ten minutes, working them from four P.M P.M. to six A.M A.M. until they were half dead. Eugenio Messina used to drive around Piccadilly in a yellow Rolls-Royce, checking that his girls weren't leaning against walls, not that the gesture made him a gentleman. He just wanted to make sure they were working hard.'

'I don't see what this has to do with your melted radio-'

'Some of the call girls heard we were holding a bash, and threw a Molotov c.o.c.ktail through the window of the station house kitchen to remind us that we had ruined their livelihoods.'

'So that's how the radio-'

'No, I'd put the radio on the cooker, not realising the grill was on. We almost choked to death on the fumes. Oh, we had a laugh in those days.' He peered out at the pa.s.sing fields. 'Look at the snow falling in the trees; it's so postcard-pretty out there. I'd forgotten how much I hate the countryside. All those rustic views and seasonal changes give me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s.'

'That's because you've never spent time there,' May replied.

'Why would I? My family came from London. None of us had any business out here. Rural folk think they're so superior, just because they have a village pub and a duck pond.'

May knew that his partner's antipathy to the countryside stemmed from the lean times his parents had endured following the war, when their only work came from long days spent hop-picking in Kent. Locals had hated rowdy East-Enders piling down to disturb the peace in their charabancs. 'The engine doesn't sound quite right to me.'

'I had it checked over only recently.'

'A fully qualified mechanic, I hope.'

'More of an astrologer,' Bryant admitted.

'He must have thought you were born under the sign of the mug, charging you to tie string around the distributor. Do me a favor and call Janice, would you?' asked May. 'Make sure everything's all right.'

Bryant thumped away at his mobile and listened. 'Janice?' he shouted. 'Are you there?'