Good Morning, Midnight

22

As the last drinkers began to drift away from the Dog and Duck, St Cuthbert’s clock struck eleven.

It was a rather splendid chime, fit for a cathedral or a town hall, the old Cothersleyans used to boast. A man a mile or more away, tending a sick beast in the dead of night or ploughing a heavy field in heavy mist, need never be uncertain of the right time with Cothersley clock to set him true. But one man’s boast is another man’s burden and a couple of years earlier after petition from light-sleeping incomers, outvoting the native opposition by five to one, the quarters had been silenced between the hours of ten in the evening and seven in the morning. The objectors would have been glad to silence the hours too, but David Upshott (it was the first big test of his ministry) had offered this compromise, saying that anyone who could not get to sleep within an hour ought to consult his doctor or his conscience.

Dolly Upshott, rather to the surprise of the pub regulars who weren’t used to seeing her so late and alone, had come in at ten, ordered a large vodka and tonic and sat in a corner, nursing her drink and her mobile phone. She had replied politely but shortly to attempts at conversation and shown no desire to have company at her table. So the regulars had returned their attention to the less edifying but more entertaining sight of Sue-Lynn Maciver, who was more than happy to share the sorrows of her new widowhood with anyone who cared to buy her a drink.

Dolly was the last to leave the pub.

“You all right, Miss Upshott?” enquired the Captain, who was in a benevolent mood brought on by the realization that, far from being a turn-off, the presence of the grieving widow had actually bumped his takings right up.

“Yes, thank you. Fine,” said Dolly, looking across the green to where the bulk of the church stood black against a gloriously star-spattered sky.

The church getting in the way of the heavens. It was a conceit that pleased her.

But the stars were out of her reach and in times of trouble we turn to whatever comfort is most readily to hand.

When the pub door was closed behind her, she walked over the green and up the path towards the church.

Moscow House too loomed dark against the sky as Kay Kafka walked up the drive. She recalled taking the same walk two nights before. She hadn’t been frightened then and she wasn’t frightened now. She had surfeited on fear all those years ago when she’d gone running to the creche with Emily’s poem beating through her mind and by the time she stood two days later looking down at the still form of her daughter, so incredibly small it seemed impossible that life had ever informed those tiny limbs, those of her neural circuits that recorded fear had been burnt out.

Only on very few occasions since then had they shown any flicker of life. Once when after her first husband’s death it had seemed possible they might find a way to take Helen away from her. A second time when Helen had shyly but at the same time so hopefully confided in her that she was desperately in love with Jason Dunn. And yet again, here at Moscow House when Helen went into labour.

But such conventional terrors as might be expected to accompany a solitary visit to a house which held the memories this one did had no power over her.

This time the front door was shut but she had Helen’s key, the key Helen insisted on having when the house went on the market. And this time she did not need to rely on finding a stub of candle and a book of matches. Providently she had a pencil torch in her pocket.

Its thin beam led her up the staircase to the study door. She turned the handle and pushed. It swung open and without even a second’s hesitation she stepped into the room where her husband and her stepson had both died.

Now her mind did register something, but it was surprise not fear, caused by the room’s emptiness. She let the torch beam stray hither and thither. Everything had gone. Furniture, picture, even the books. How very thorough. Andy had told her DCI Pascoe was a man for fine detail but she hadn’t expected anything like this.

But their thoroughness had not taken them quite all the way. They had not attempted to remove the gun cabinet from the wall.

She went to it and opened it.

The dust that had gathered inside looked undisturbed.

She reached in, took hold of the gun-retaining clip, twisted it anticlockwise and pulled. It swung out easily on well-oiled hinges and she let the torch beam play into the revealed chamber.

At the same time the room’s central light came on and a voice said, “Once saw a movie where there was a safe hidden behind a safe. Should have thought of that.”

For a second she froze but when she turned, her face showed nothing but the pleasure of a welcoming hostess.

“How nice to see you, Sergeant,” she said. “I’m so glad to have been of assistance.”

“You’ve certainly been that,” agreed Wield. “So what brings you here, Mrs Kafka?”

“It was Mr Pascoe, actually. He asked me if I knew anything about another gun. I said no, but later I got to thinking, and I had this recollection of seeing my husband, my first husband that is, closing this cabinet one day. It struck me as odd that it should swing out completely but I never really thought there might be another cabinet behind it, not till Mr Pascoe made me think, that is. And once I got the notion in my head, that was it. I found I couldn’t rest until I’d seen for myself.”

“Didn’t think of just ringing Mr Pascoe?”

“And send him on a wild-goose chase? No, I thought I’d come down here myself and ask the policeman on duty if I could test out my theory.”

“And when you saw there wasn’t a policeman on duty?”

She smiled at him.

“But of course, there is, Sergeant. You. So here you are. One little mystery solved. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be getting home. My husband’s away and he will probably try to ring me from his hotel. Good night to you, Mr Wield.”

She walked towards him.

He watched her approach, his face giving away nothing.

Then he stood aside and said, “Good night, Mrs Kafka.”

In St Cuthbert’s church Dolly Upshott had no idea how long she’d been sitting.

It was cold in here, but not cold enough to mask the unique smell of the place, what her brother called the odour of sanctity. It comprised wood and leather and cloth and stone and dampness and the ghost of incense and hyssop (David was quite “high”). The stained-glass windows, beautiful with the sun behind them, were too heavily tinted for starlight to penetrate. Only to the south-west where a gibbous moon glanced on a high narrow window did a diffused light pass through, and she’d taken her seat here.

She didn’t move, not even when she heard the church door, which she’d left ajar, creak fully open and footsteps come up the aisle.

“I saw the door was open as I drove by,” said Kay Kafka. “It seemed like an invitation. But if I’m disturbing you…”

“No more than life. Have a pew.”

Uncertain if this was an English joke or not, Kay sat down and looked up at the window where the moonlight set the stained glass glowing. The design showed two haloed figures walking towards each other across a stretch of water. This was usually interpreted as Herbert of Derwentwater visiting his chum Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, or maybe vice versa. One of the figures (probably Herbert) looked a lot less certain than the other, as if not quite able to get it out of his mind that the slightest flicker of faith could have him plunging to a weedy grave.

“I know how he feels,” said Kay.

“Sorry?”

“The picture in the window. Walking on water’s fine till something comes along to remind you it’s water you’re walking on.”

“Like a ship, you mean?”

“Or a shark.”

They shared a moment of humour, but soon they moved beyond sharing, each into some private space where they looked for whatever it was that had brought them into this place at this time.

It was the church clock striking midnight that brought them out of their reveries.

Even now neither spoke nor moved till the twelfth note had sounded across the green, rolling out beyond the sleeping cottages and farms, past the near meadows, over the still streams, finally fading to nothingness in the neighbouring valley-glades.

Now they rose and walked down the aisle together.

Outside they stood for a moment looking up at the brilliant stars above the dark unheeding village.

“Looks set fair for tomorrow, doesn’t it?” said Kay.

“You think so?” said Dolly. “Doesn’t matter. Even if it rains, water’s not the end of the world, is it? We can always swim.”

“So can sharks,” said Kay.