Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

He stared at this, unprepared for memory, thinking no, no, no. He felt rage and grief make a knot in his chest.

She’d been lying in bed, she’d asked him to open the curtains wide, she’d watched the moon. It was the bloody orange of autumn, a lunar disc so huge it looked within grasp. Harvest moon best, Col, Annie had whispered. And when he turned from the window, she had sunk into the coma that led to her death.

“No,” he whispered. “Not Annie. No.”

“Mr. C. Shepherd?” Rita’s voice, calling imperiously from below, closer than before. She was near the stairs. “You having a bit of fun with me undies?”

He fumbled with the buttons of his woollen shirt, slipped the book inside, flat against his stomach, and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers. He felt dizzy. A glance in the mirror and he saw the high colour smearing palm prints across his cheeks. He removed his spectacles and bathed his face, holding the icy water against his skin until, from out of the pain of the chill, anaesthesia spread.

He dried his face and studied his refl ection. He ran both hands through his hair. He looked at his skin and examined his eyes, and when he was ready to face her with equanimity, he went to the stairs.

She was standing at the bottom, and she slapped the banister. Her bangles rattled. Her triple chin bounced.

“What’re you up to, Mr. Constable Shepherd? This a’nt about shed doors and it a’nt a social call.”

“Do you know the signs of the zodiac?” he asked her as he descended. He marvelled at the calm of his words.

“Why? Want to see if me and you’s compatible? Sure, I know’m. Aries, Cancer, Virgo, Sagi—”

“Capricorn,” he said.

“That’s you?”

“No. I’m Libra.”

“The scales. Nice one, that. Just the thing for your line of work.”

“Libra’s October. When does Capricorn fall in the calendar year? Do you know, Rita?”

“Course I know. Who d’you think you’re jawing, some yobbo on the street? It’s December.”

“When?”

“Starts the twenty-second, runs for a month. Why? Is her up the lane more goat than you thought?”

“It’s just a fancy I had.”

“I’ve one or two of my own.” She trundled her enormous weight around and headed back in the direction of the kitchen where she positioned herself at the door to the service porch and wiggled her fingers at him in a come-tomama gesture made awkward by her care to make certain that the still-tacky nail polish didn’t smudge. “Your half of the bargain,” she said.

The thought of what she might mean made his legs quiver unexpectedly. “Bargain?” he asked.

“C’mere, luv-bunny. Nothing to fear. I only bite fellahs whose sign is the bull. Give us your palm.”

He remembered. “Rita, I don’t believe in—”

“The palm.” Again, she gestured, more come-hither than come-to-mama this time.

He cooperated. She was, after all, blocking the only reasonable access to his boots.

“Oh, nice hand, this.” She ran her fi ngers the length of his and crossed his palm with a feathery touch. She whispered a circular caress on his wrist. “Very nice,” she said, her eyes fluttering closed. “Very nice indeed. A man’s hands, these. Hands that belong on a woman’s body. Pleasure hands, these. They light fi res in the fl esh.”

“This doesn’t sound much like a fortune to me.” He tried to pull away. She tightened her grip, one hand on his wrist and the other holding his fi ngers fl at.

She turned his hand and placed it on one of her mounds of flesh that he took to be her breast. She forced his fingers to squeeze. “Like some of that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Constable-person. Never had anything quite like it, have you?”

There was truth in that. She didn’t feel like a woman. She felt like a quadruple batch of lumpy bread dough. The caress had the approximate appeal of gripping onto a fi stful of drying clay.

“Make you want more, luv-bunny? Mmm?” Her eyelashes were painted thick with mascara. They made a crescent of spider legs against her cheek. Her chest rose and fell with a tremulous sigh, and the odour of onions whiffed into his face. “Horned God make him ready,” Rita murmured. “Man to a woman, plough to a field, giver of pleasure and the force of life. Aaahhi-oooo-uuuu.”

He could feel her nipple, huge and erect, and his body was responding despite the revolting prospect of the two of them…himself and Rita Yarkin…this whale in a turban of scarlet and pink…this mass of fat with fi ngers that slid up his arm, cast a blessing on his face, and began a suggestive descent down his chest…

He pulled his hand away. Her eyes popped open. They seemed dazed and unfocussed, but a shake of her head cleared them. She studied his face and seemed to read what he couldn’t hide. She chuckled, then guffawed, then leaned against the kitchen work top and howled.

“You thought…You thought…Me and you…” Between the words, more laughter spewed forth. Tears formed in the creases near her eyes. When she finally controlled herself, she said, “I told you, Mr. C. Shepherd. When I want it from a man, I get it from a bull.” She blew her nose on a grimy-looking tea towel and held out her hand. “C’mere. Give it. No more prayers to get your poor little bowels in an uproar.”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Don’t you, though.” She snapped her fi ngers for his hand. She was still blocking egress, so he offered it to her. He made certain his expression telegraphed how little to his liking this game-playing was.

She pulled him to the sink where the light was better. “Good lines,” she said. “Nice indication of birth and marriage. Love is—” She hesitated, frowning, absently pulling at one of her eyebrows. “Get behind me,” she said.

“What?”

“Do it. Slip your hand beneath my arm so I can get a better look at this right side up.” When he hesitated, she snapped, “I don’t mean no funny business. Just do it. Now.”

He did so. Because of her girth, he couldn’t see what she was doing, but he could feel her fingernails tracing his palm. Finally, she balled up his hand and released it.

“So,” she said briskly. “Not much to see, after all your grumbling. Just the regular bit. Nothing of importance. Nothing to worry you.” She turned on the tap in the sink and made a project out of rinsing out three glasses on which a residue of milk had formed a skin.

“You’re keeping your part of the bargain, aren’t you?” Colin asked.

“Wha’s that, pretty face?”

“Your mug’s shut tight.”

“’S nothing, is it? You don’t believe in it anyways.”

“But you do, Rita.”

“I believe in lots of things. Don’t mean they’re real.”

“Given. So tell me. I’ll be the judge.”

“I thought you had important stuff to do, Mr. Constable. Wasn’t that you in a rush to be gone?”

“You’re avoiding the answer.”

She shrugged.

“I want it.”

“You can’t have everything you want, sugar pie, much as you’ve been currently getting it.” She held the glass up to the light of the window. It was nearly as dirty as when she began. She reached for some liquid detergent and poured a few drops in. She returned to the water and used a sponge, exerting some rather serious pressure.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t ask ninny questions. You’re a clever enough bloke. You figure it out.”

“That’s the reading? Convenient for you, the phrasing of it, Rita. Is that the sort of thing you tell the twits who pay you for their fortunes in Blackpool?”

“Steady on,” she said.

“It all follows the same pattern, this mumbo-jumbo that you and Polly play at. Stones, palms, and tarot cards. None of it’s anything more than a game. You look for a weakness and use it to benefit yourselves with money.”