Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

Nick joined her in the doorway of the ladies’. It was recessed about six inches so they gained some ground against the cold. “You believe that, Mag?”

She hung her head. She felt the misery of the knowledge lie across her shoulders, heavy and cumbersome, like sacks of sand.

“You think she killed him because he came for you? Because he was your dad?”

“She never talked about my dad. She wouldn’t ever say.”

Nick’s hand touched her head. His fi ngers made an attempt at caressing, but they were thwarted by the snarls in her hair. “I don’t think he was, Mag. Your dad, that is.”

“Sure, because—”

“No. Listen.” He took a step closer. He put his arms round her. He spoke into her hair. “His eyes were brown, Mag. So’s your mum’s.”

“So?”

“So he can’t be your dad, can he? Because of the odds.” She stirred to speak but he continued. “Look, it’s like sheep. My dad explained it. They’re all white, right? Well, sort of white. But every once in a while out pops a black one. Didn’t you ever wonder how? It’s a recessive gene, see? It’s something inherited. The lamb’s mum and dad both had a black gene somewhere inside them, and when they mated out came a black lamb instead of a white one, even though they were white themselves. But the odds are against it happening. Which is why most sheep are white.”

“I don’t—”

“You’re like the black sheep because your eyes are blue. Mag, what d’you think the odds are of two brown-eyed people having a kid with blue eyes?”

“What?”

“Must be a million to one. Maybe more. Maybe a billion to one.”

“You think?”

“I know. The vicar wasn’t your dad. And if he wasn’t your dad, then your mum didn’t kill him. And if she didn’t kill him, she won’t be trying to kill anyone else.”

There was a that’s that quality to his voice that urged her to accept his words. Maggie wanted to believe him. It would make everything so much easier to live with if she knew that his theory comprised the truth. She would be able to go home. She would be able to face Mummy. She wouldn’t think about the shape of her nose and her hands — were they like the vicar’s, were they? — nor would she wonder about why he had held her out at arm’s length and studied her so. It would be a relief to know something for certain, even if it didn’t answer her prayers. So she wanted to believe. And she would have believed if Nick’s stomach hadn’t rumbled noisily, if he hadn’t shivered, if she hadn’t seen in her mind’s eye his father’s enormous flock of sheep, drifting like slightly soiled clouds against a green Lancashire hillside sky. She pushed him away.

“What?” he said.

“There’s more’n one black sheep born in a fl ock, Nick Ware.”

“So?”

“So those aren’t any billion to one odds.”

“It isn’t like sheep. Not exactly. We’re people.”

“You want to go home. Go on. Go home. You’re lying to me, and I don’t want to see you.”

“Mag, I’m not. I’m trying to explain.”

“You don’t love me.”

“I do.”

“You just want your tea.”

“I was only saying—”

“And your scones and your jam. Well, go ahead. Get them. I can take care of myself.”

“With no money?”

“I don’t need money. I’ll get a job.”

“Tonight?”

“I’ll do something. See if I won’t. But I’m not going home and I’m not going back to school and you can’t talk about sheep like I was so dim I couldn’t figure it out. Because if two white sheep could have a black one then two brown-eyed people could have me and you know it. Isn’t that right? Well, isn’t that right?”

He drove his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t say it wasn’t possible. I just said the odds—”

“I don’t care about the odds. This isn’t like some horse race. This is me . We’re talking about my mum and dad. And she killed him. You know it. You’re just lording it over me and trying to make me go back.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I said I wouldn’t leave you and I won’t. Okay?” He looked about. He squinted against the cold. He stamped his feet to warm them. “Look, we need something to eat. You wait here.”

“Where’re you going? We don’t have even three pounds. What kind of—”

“We can get some crisps. Some biscuits and stuff. You’re not hungry now but you will be later and we won’t be near any shop by then.”

“We?” She made him look at her. “You don’t have to go,” she said a last time.

“Do you want me?”

“To go?”

“And other stuff.”

“Yes.”

“Do you love me? Trust me?”

She tried to read his face. He was anxious to be off. But perhaps he was only hungry after all. And once they started walking, he would be warm enough. They could even run.

“Mag?” he said.

“Yes.”

He smiled, brushed his mouth against hers. His lips were dry. It didn’t feel like a kiss. “Then wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back. If we’re gonna bunk off, it’s best that no one see us together in town and remember for when your mum phones the police.”

“Mummy won’t. She won’t dare.”

“I wouldn’t take odds on that.” He turned up the collar of his jacket. He looked at her earnestly. “You okay here, then?”

She felt her heart warm. “Okay.”

“Don’t mind sleeping rough tonight?”

“Not so long as I’m sleeping with you.”

COLIN ATE HIS TEA AT THE kitchen sink. Sardines on toast, with the oil slipping through his fi ngers and splatting onto the potscarred porcelain. He didn’t feel hungry in the least, but he’d been light-headed and weak in the limbs for the past thirty minutes. Food seemed the obvious solution.

He’d made his walk back to the village along the Clitheroe Road, which was closer to the lodge than was the Cotes Fell footpath. His pace was brisk. He told himself that a need to avenge was what drove him so rapidly onwards. He kept repeating her name in his head as he walked: Annie, Annie, Annie my girl. It was a way to avoid hearing the words love and death three times pulse with the blood in his skull. By the time he reached his house, he was hot in the chest but ice to the bone in his hands and feet. He could hear his heart’s erratic thumping inside his eardrums, and his lungs couldn’t seem to get enough air. He ignored the symptoms for a good three hours but when there was no improvement, he decided to eat. Teatime, he thought in irrational response to his body’s behaviour, that’ll take care of it, must have a bite to eat.

He washed down the fish with three bottles of Watney’s, drinking the first one while the bread was toasting. He pitched the bottle into the rubbish and opened another as he rooted in the cupboard for the sardines. The tin gave him trouble. Curling the metal lid round the key required a steadiness that he wasn’t able to muster. He got it halfway unrolled when his fingers slipped and the sharp edge of the top sliced into his hand. Blood spurted out. It mixed with the fish oil, started to sink, then formed perfect small beads that fl oated like scarlet lures for the fish. He felt no pain. He wrapped his hand in a tea towel, used the end of it to sop the blood off the surface of the oil, and tilted the beer bottle up to his mouth with the hand that was free.

When the toast was ready, he dug the fi sh from the tin with his fingers. He lined them up on the bread. He added salt and pepper and a thick slice of onion. He began to eat.

There was no particular taste or smell to it, which he found rather odd because he could distinctly remember how his wife once complained about the scent of sardines. Makes my eyes water, she would say, that fish smell in the air, Col, it makes my stomach go peculiar.