Cold Light

Seventeen

Robin Hidden put through a call to the police station at ten-thirty-five on Boxing Day Night. He had been sinking a pint of Boddington’s in a pub in Lancaster; earlier that day he had been climbing on the east side of the Lakes and then driven back, muscles pleasantly aching, to his friend Mark’s place near the university to dump their boots and change their clothes. They were sitting in the small bar, in front of them plates that had once held pie and chips and gravy, now wiped clean with doorsteps of bread and butter. The beer was going down a treat, backs of their legs just beginning to stiffen. The television set had been on in the other bar, attached to a bracket high on the wall, and Mark had chanced to glance over his shoulder as the picture of Nancy flashed on to the screen.

“Hey! Isn’t that …?”

By the time they had hobbled through into the main room, Robin fumbling with his glasses, the program had moved on and scarcely anyone they asked had paid much attention to what had gone before.

“Christ knows, pal,” someone had said, “but whatever it was, it weren’t good, you can bank on that.”

“That lassie,” the barman said, pulling a pint, “gone missing. Didn’t know her, did you?”

Robin Hidden pulled a five-pound note from his trouser pocket and placed it on the counter. “Ch-change please, as m-much as you can. For the phone.” The constable who took the call wouldn’t give a lot of detail, only the facts, such as they were known, simple and unadorned. He listened when Robin said that he had known Nancy, known her well, wrote down his name and asked a few questions of his own.

“When would it be convenient for you to come into the station, sir? I’m sure one of the officers dealing with the case would like to talk to you, face to face as it were, possibly make a statement.”

Robin’s first reaction had been to drive back down there and then; but he’d had two pints of beer, as Mark pointed out; and driving all that way in his condition, he’d be lucky not to get cramp in his legs.

“You’ll fall asleep at the wheel,” Mark said. “What’s to be gained from that? Far better to sleep now, set the alarm for half-five, get an early start.”

“Mid-morning,” Robin Hidden told the officer. “I’ll be there by mid-morning at the latest.”

“Very well, sir. I’ll be sure to pass that on. Goodnight.”

Mark gave his friend’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. Not that he wanted anything awful to have happened to Nancy, of course, but the way Robin had been mooning on about her all the time they were walking … Besides, they’d never really been suited, anyone who knew Robin could tell that.

James Guillery’s parents had tried contacting their son in Aosta, but the hotel he was supposed to be staying at denied all knowledge of him; there had been a mix-up with the travel agency, overbooking. They were given two other numbers, one of which seemed to be permanently engaged, while dialing the other resulted in a high-pitched, unbroken tone which suggested it was unobtainable. The travel agency was closed and its answering machine swallowed the Guillerys’ message halfway through.

“I don’t know how he met her,” Mrs. Guillery said. “Nancy, that is. Wherever it was, he went out with her a few times …”

“More than a few,” Mr. Guillery put in.

“Do you think so? Yes, well, I suppose it was. Though I don’t think it was ever what I’d call serious.”

“He wasn’t going to marry her, that’s what she means,” Mr. Guillery interpreted.

“No, what I mean, James seemed to like her well enough, that is, he spoke well of her, but, as I said, it never occurred to me they were what I’d call serious.”

“What she doesn’t understand,” Mr. Guillery confided, “young people today, it’s not the same. Not like it was even in our day. Young people today, they can be serious without being serious. If you see what I mean.”

Eric Capaldi’s neighbors in Beeston Rylands knew very little about him, beyond the fact that he was an engineer for BBC Radio Nottingham. Or was it Radio Trent? He owned a sports car, not new, one of those little jobs, close to the ground; forever stretching an old blanket and a piece of tarpaulin on the street, he was, then crawling underneath the engine.

One person thought he might have recognized Nancy Phelan from her photo as someone he’d once seen Eric with, but he couldn’t swear to it. How could he? Late evening it had been and the street lights down there, all very well for the council to be saving money, but when you could hardly see a hand in front of your face without there was a moon, that couldn’t be right, could it?

The woman on the switchboard at Radio Nottingham confirmed that Mr. Capaldi was on a fortnight’s leave and she had no idea where he had gone. Yes, certainly, if it was important she would try to find out. Who was it calling?

Andrew Clarke kept a half-size snooker table in the room that was still called the breakfast room and he shut himself in there with a bottle of sherry and practiced running through the balls on the table, all the reds and then the colors, right up to the black. Steadying each shot, remembering to bend low, eye along the cue, right hand firm.

“You don’t think, Andrew,” his wife said when she found him there, “you ought to go back down?”

“Whatever for?” The brown was a fraction too close to the cushion and he chipped it back next to the D.

“Well, you are sort of involved.”

“Nonsense.” Better shot now, let the cue ball spin back for the green.

“It was your affair …”

“Affair?”

“Your do, that she disappeared from.”

“That hardly makes me responsible.”

Audrey wished he would look at her when he spoke, not keep wandering round the blessed table all the time, squinting down at all those balls like a general poring over a battle plan. “Besides,” she said, moving herself so that she was close to his eye line, “isn’t she your librarian’s best friend or something?”

“Dana, mm. Live together, I believe. Flat-share, not you know …” He made his shot and the green rolled slowly towards the pocket and hovered there, close to the rim, refusing to drop out of sight.

“Not what, Andrew?”

With something of a sigh, he straightened and reached for the chalk. “I mean they’re not-what-d’you-call-it? — gay.”

“Really? However would you know?”

“Surely you can tell?”

“I don’t know. Can you? I shouldn’t have thought it was that easy. Especially nowadays.”

“Likes the men, too much, Dana. You’ve met her, seen the way she dresses. Christmas Eve, for instance, more out of that frock or whatever it was than in.”

“Andrew, I don’t think all lesbians have their hair cut short and wear motorcycle suits.”

For a moment, he stared at her, he didn’t think he had ever heard his wife say the word lesbian before.

“Anyway,” Audrey Clarke tasted the tip of her forefinger, she had been making tartlets with lemon cheese.

“It’s just not like you, that’s all. You’re so anxious to be on top of things. As a rule.”

“Audrey, if I thought my presence would make the least difference, I should be there already. As it is, I’m on holiday and I intend to enjoy it. With you.”

There had been a time when Audrey Clarke had found that somewhat anxious smile of her husband’s attractive, skin furrowing deep between his eyes; she supposed she must have.

“I’m popping out,” she said, “stroll down by the sea.”

He watched her walk away, a middle-aged woman in a long tweed skirt, a barbour jacket, and green Wellington boots, a Liberty print scarf tied about her head. When she was well clear of the house, Andrew Clarke looked up Dana Matthieson’s home number and dialed it from the hall.

The answerphone clicked on first and Andrew was lowering the receiver when Dana’s voice broke through. “Nancy? Nancy, is that you?”

“It’s Andrew,” he said, more high-pitched than he had intended. “Andrew Clarke. I was just wondering how you were. I mean …”

But Dana had hung up and he was left talking to the air.

“Bastard!” she whispered softly to herself. “Bastard!”

Dana was squatting by the low table where she had taken the call. She had been getting out of the bath when Andrew Clarke had phoned and she had two towels carelessly round her, water trickling on to the floor. Every time she looked in a mirror and saw her mascara smeared down her face again, she told herself she was through with crying, she had no more tears left. Shivering, she clasped her arms across her chest and rocked lightly heel to toe, forwards and back, crying again.