Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

Maggie had said, “Mummy?”

Mummy had placed her fingers on Maggie’s chin, had turned it gently to expose the bruises, had then released her and climbed the stairs. Maggie heard her door click shut softly behind her. It was a sound that hurt more than the slap she deserved.

She was bad. She knew it. Even when she felt warmest and closest to Nick, even when he loved her with his hands and his mouth, when he was pressing It to her, holding her, opening her, saying Maggie, Mag, Mag, she was black and she was bad. She was fi lled with blame. She was becoming every day more used to the shame of her behaviour, except that she had never expected to be made to feel it over her friendship with Mr. Sage.

What she felt was like the prickles from nettle leaves. But they scratched at her spirit instead of her skin. She kept hearing the detective ask about secrets, and that made her feel dry and itchy inside. Mr. Sage had said, You’re a good girl, Maggie, don’t ever forget that, believe it completely. He said, We get confused, we lose our way, but we can always fi nd our way back to God through our prayers. God listens, he said, God forgives everything. Whatever we do, Maggie, God will forgive.

He was comfort itself, was Mr. Sage. He was understanding. He was goodness and love.

Maggie had never betrayed the confi dence of their times together. She had held them precious. And now she was faced with the London detective’s suspicions that what was most special about her friendship with the vicar was also what had led to his death.

This was the slug that writhed beneath the last stone of implication she turned over in her mind. The fault was hers. And if that was the case, then Mummy had known all along what she was doing when she fed the vicar dinner that night.

No. Maggie argued the point with herself. Mummy couldn’t have known she was feeding him hemlock. She took care of people. She didn’t hurt them. She made unguents and poultices. She mixed special teas. She brewed decoctions, infusions, and tinctures. Everything she did was to help, not to harm.

Then the whispers of her schoolmates rising round her made delicate fissures in the shell of her thoughts.

“She poisoned the bloke.”

“…didn’t get away with it after all.”

“The police came from London.”

“…devil-worshippers, I heard and…”

Maggie was startled into sudden comprehension. Dozens of eyes were on her. Faces were bright with speculation. She clutched her rucksack of schoolbooks to her chest and looked about for a friend. Her head felt weightless, oddly and suddenly divorced from her body. All at once it was the most important thing in the world to pretend she didn’t realise what they were talking about.

“Seen Nick?” she asked. Her lips felt chapped. “Seen Josie?”

A fox-faced girl with a large pimple on the side of her nose became the group spokesman. “They don’t want to hang about with you, Maggie. They’re not so dim they can’t see the risk.”

A murmur of approval lapped round the girl like a small wave, then receded in kind. The faces seemed to move closer to Maggie.

She held her rucksack tighter. A book’s sharp corner dug into her hand. She knew they were teasing — didn’t one’s mates always like to tease whenever they could? — and she drew herself taller to meet the challenge. “Right,” she said with a smile as if she herself approved of whatever joke they were trying to make. “Quite. Come on. Where’s Josie? Where’s Nick?”

“They’ve gone off already,” Fox-face said.

“But the bus…” It was sitting where it always sat, waiting for departure, just a few yards away, inside the gate. There were faces at the windows, but from the steps of the school, Maggie couldn’t tell if her friends were among them.

“They made their own arrangements. During lunch. When they knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Who you were with.”

“I wasn’t with anyone.”

“Oh right. Whatever you say. You lie about as good as your mum.”

Maggie tried to swallow, but her tongue got stuck on the roof of her mouth. She took a step towards the bus. The group let her go but closed ranks right behind her. She could hear them talking as if to each other, but all of it intended for her.

“They went off in a car, did you know?”

“Nick and Josie?”

“And that girl who’s been after him. You know who I mean.”

Teasing. They were teasing. Maggie walked faster. But the schoolbus seemed farther and farther away. There was a shimmer of light dancing in front of it. It started as a beam and turned into bright speckles.

“He’ll stay clear of her now.”

“If he’s got any brains. Who wouldn’t?”

“It’s true. If her mum doesn’t take a fancy to her mates, she just invites them for dinner.”

“Like that fairy story. Have an apple, dearie? It’ll help you sleep.”

Laughter.

“Only you won’t wake up real soon.”

Laughter. Laughter. The bus was too far.

“Here, eat this. I cooked it up special. Just for you.”

“Now, don’t be shy about second helpings. I can see you’re just dying for more.”

Maggie felt a hot ember at the back of her throat. The bus glimmered, got small, became the size of her shoe. The air closed round it and swallowed it up. Only the wrought iron gates of the school were left.

“It’s my own recipe. Parsnip pie, I call it. People say it’s dead good.”

Beyond the gates lay the street—

“They call me Crippen, but don’t let that put you off your dinner.”

— and escape. Maggie began to run.

She was pounding towards the centre of town when she heard him calling her. She kept going, dashing up to the high street and then across it, tearing towards the car park at the base of the hill. What she was planning to do there, she couldn’t have said. It was only important to get away.

Her heart was slamming into her chest. She had a folding and pulling pain in her side. She skidded on a patch of slick pavement and wobbled, but she caught herself against a lamppost and ran on.

“Watch yourself, luv,” warned a farmer who was getting out of his Escort next to the kerb.

“Maggie!” shouted someone else.

She heard herself sob. She saw the street blur. She kept rushing forwards.

She passed the bank, the post offi ce, some shops, a tea room. She dodged a young woman pushing a pram. She heard the thud of footsteps behind her, and then another shout of her name. She gulped away tears and plunged on.

Fear pumped energy and speed through her body. They were following her, she thought. They were laughing and pointing. They were only waiting for the opportunity to encircle her and begin the whispers all over again: What her mum did…do you know, do you know…Maggie and the vicar…a vicar?…that bloke?…Cor, he was old enough to be…

No! Drop the thought, trample it, bury it, shove it away. Maggie hurtled down the pavement. She didn’t stop until a blue sign hanging from a squat brick building brought her up short. She wouldn’t have seen it at all had she not lifted her head to make her eyes stop watering. And even then the word swam, but she could still make it out. Police . She stumbled to a halt against a rubbish bin. The sign seemed to grow larger. The word glittered and throbbed.

She shrank away from it, half crouched on the pavement, trying to breathe and trying not to cry. Her hands were numb. Her fingers were tangled in the straps of her rucksack. Her ears felt so cold that steel spikes of pain were shooting down her neck. It was the end of the day, the temperature was dropping, and never in her life had she felt so alone.

She didn’t, she didn’t, she didn’t, Maggie thought.