Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

“She knows about Nick.”

“Never! Not from me. I never said a word and I never will.”

“Then why does she ask?”

“Because she thinks she knows something. She keeps hoping she can make you say.”

Maggie scrutinised her friend. There wasn’t much light, but in what little shed itself upon Josie’s face from a single street lamp that stood at the drive of the Crofters Inn car park across the road, she looked earnest enough. She looked a little odd as well. The eyeliner hadn’t dried thoroughly when she opened her eyes after having applied it, so her eyelids were streaked in the way ink runs when water pours over it.

“I didn’t tell her about Nick,” Josie said again. “That’s between me and you. Always. I promise.”

Maggie looked down at her shoes. They were scuffed. Above them her navy tights were speckled with mud.

“Maggie. It’s true. Really.”

“He came over last night. We…It happened again. Mummy knows.”

“No!” Josie grasped her arm and led her across the street and into the car park. They side-stepped a glossy silver Bentley and headed down the path that led to the river. “You never said.”

“I wanted to tell you. I was waiting all day to tell you. But she kept hanging about.”

“That Pam,” Josie said as they went through the gate. “She’s just like a bloodhound when it comes to gossip.”

A narrow path angled away from the inn and descended towards the river. Josie led the way. Some thirty yards along, an old ice-house stood, built into the bank where the river plunged sharply through a fall of limestone, sending up a spray that kept the air cool on the hottest days of summer. It was fashioned from the same stone used in the rest of the village, and like the rest of the village its roof was slate. But it had no windows, just a door whose lock Josie had long ago broken, turning the ice-house into her lair.

She shouldered her way inside. “Just a sec,” she said, ducking beneath the lintel. She fumbled about, bumped into something, said, “Holy hell on wheels,” and struck a match. Light flared a moment later. Maggie entered.

A lantern stood atop an old nail barrel, sending out an arc of hissing yellow light. This fell upon a patchwork of carpet — worn through here and there to its straw-coloured backing — two three-legged milking stools, a cot covered by a purple eiderdown, and an up-ended crate overhung by a mirror. This last made do for a dressing table, and into it Josie placed the bottle of eyeliner, new companion to her contraband mascara, blusher, lipstick, nail polish, and assorted hair-goo.

She hustled up a bottle of toilet water and sprayed it liberally on walls and floor like a libation offered to the goddess of cosmetics. It served to mask the odours of must and mildew that hung in the air.

“Want a smoke?” she asked, once she made sure the door was closed snugly upon them.

Maggie shook her head. She shivered. It was clear why the ice-house had been built in this spot.

Josie lit a Gauloise from a packet she took from among her cosmetics. She fl opped onto the cot and said, “What’d your mum say? How’d she fi nd out?”

Maggie pulled one of the two stools closer to the lantern. It gave off a substantial amount of heat. “She just knew. Like before.”

“And?”

“I don’t care what she thinks. I won’t stop. I love him.”

“Well, she can’t follow you everywhere, can she?” Josie lay on her back, one arm behind her head. She raised her bony knees, crossed one leg over the other, and bounced her foot. “God, you’re so lucky.” She sighed. The tip of her cigarette glowed fire-red. “Is he…well, you know…like they say? Does he…fulfi ll you?”

“I don’t know. It goes sort of fast.”

“Oh. But is he… you know what I mean. Like Pam wanted to know.”

“Yes.”

“ God . No wonder you don’t want to stop.” She squirmed deeper into the eiderdown and held out her arms to an imaginary lover. “Come ’n’ get me, baby,” she said past the cigarette that bobbed in her lips. “It’s waiting right here and it’s all — for — you.” And then squirming on her side, “You’re taking precautions, aren’t you?”

“Not really.”

Her eyes became saucers. “Maggie! I never! You got to take precautions. Or he does at least. Does he wear a rubber?”

Maggie cocked her head at the oddity of the question. A rubber? What on earth…. “I don’t think so. Where would he…? I mean, he may have one in his pocket from school.”

Josie bit her lip but didn’t quite manage to catch the grin. “Not that kind of rubber. Don’t you know what it is?”

Maggie stirred uneasily on the stool. “I know. Of course I do. I know.”

“Right. Look, it’s like this squishy plastic stuff he puts on his Thing. Before he puts it in you. So you don’t get pregnant. Is he using that?”

“Oh.” Maggie twisted a lock of her hair. “That. No. I don’t want him to use it.”

“Don’t want…Are you crazy? He has to use one.”

“Why?”

“Because if he doesn’t, you’ll have a baby.”

“But you said before that a woman needs to be—”

“Forget what I said. There are always exceptions. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m Mr. Wragg’s, aren’t I? Mum was panting and moaning with this bloke Paddy Lewis, but I came along when she was cold as ice. That’s pretty much proof that anything can happen no matter if you get fulfi lled or not.”

Maggie thought this over, running her fi nger round and round the last button on her coat. “Good then,” she said.

“ Good? Maggie, bleeding saints on the altar, you can’t—”

“I want a baby,” she said. “I want Nick’s baby. If he tries to use a rubber, I won’t even let him.”

Josie goggled at her. “You’re not yet fourteen.”

“So?”

“So you can’t be a mummy when you haven’t fi nished school.”

“Why not?”

“What would you do with a baby? Where would you go?”

“Nick and I would get married. Then we’d have the baby. Then we’d be a family.”

“You can’t want that.”

Maggie smiled with real pleasure. “Oh yes I can.”

LYNLEY MURMURED, “GOOD God,” AT the sudden drop in temperature when he crossed the threshold between the pub and the dining room of Crofters Inn. In the pub, the large fireplace had managed to disperse enough heat to create pools of at least moderate warmth in its farthest corners, but the weak central heating of the dining room did little more than provide the uncertain promise that the side of one’s body closest to the wall heater would not go numb. He joined Deborah and St. James at their corner table, ducking his head each time he passed beneath one of the low ceiling’s great oak beams. At the table, an additional electric fire had been thoughtfully provided by the Wraggs, and from it semisubstantial waves of heat lapped against their ankles and floated towards their knees.

Enough tables were laid with white linen, silverware, and inexpensive crystal to accommodate at least thirty diners. But it appeared that the three of them would be sharing the room only with its unusual display of artwork. This consisted of a series of gilt-framed prints which depicted Lancashire’s most prominent claim to fame: the Good Friday gathering at Malkin Tower and the charges of witchcraft that both preceded and followed it. The artist had depicted the principals in an admirably subjective fashion. Roger Nowell, the magistrate, looked suitably grim and barrel-chested, with wrath, vengeance, and the power of Christian Justice incised upon his features. Chattox looked appropriately decrepit: wizened, bent, and dressed in rags. Elizabeth Davies, with her rolling eyes uncontrolled by ocular muscles, looked deformed enough to have sold herself for the devil’s kiss. The rest of them comprised a leering group of demon-lovers, with the exception of Alice Nutter who stood apart, eyes lowered, ostensibly maintaining the silence she had taken with her to her grave, the only convicted witch among them who had sprung from the upper class.