Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

“What?”

“Cambridge. Partially filled out. Doctor of theology.”

“And?”

“It isn’t that. It’s the application, any application. Partially filled out. It reminded me of what Deborah and I have been…Never mind that. It brings to mind SS. What about Social Services?”

Lynley saw the leap his friend had made from his own life. “He wanted to adopt a child?”

“Or to place a child?”

“Christ. Maggie?”

“Perhaps he saw Juliet Spence as an unfi t mother.”

“That might push her to violence.”

“It’s certainly a thought.”

“But there hasn’t been the slightest whisper of that from any quarter.”

“There usually isn’t if the situation’s abusive. You know how it goes. The child’s afraid to speak, trusting no one. When she fi nally finds someone she can trust…” St. James refolded the carton’s flaps and pressed the tape back down to seal them.

“We may have been looking at Robin Sage through the wrong sort of window,” Lynley said. “All those meetings with Maggie alone. Instead of seduction, he might have been trying to get to the truth.” Lynley sat in the desk chair and set the diary down. “But this is pointless speculation. We don’t know enough. We don’t even know when he went to London because you can’t tell from the diary where he was. It has names and times listed, scores of appointments, but aside from Bradford, there’s no place mentioned.”

“He kept the receipts.” Polly Yarkin spoke from the doorway. She was carrying a tray on which she’d assembled a teapot, two cups and saucers, and a half-crushed package of chocolate digestives. She put the tray on the desk and said, “Hotel receipts. He kept them. You can match up the dates.”

They found the file of Robin Sage’s hotel receipts in the third box they tried. These documented five visits to London, beginning in October and ending just two days before he died, 21 December, when Yanapapoulis was written. Lynley matched the receipt dates to the diary, but he came up with only three more pieces of information that looked even marginally promising: the name Kate next to noon on Sage’s first London visit of 11 October; a telephone number on his second; SS again on his third.

Lynley tried the number. It was a London exchange. An exhausted end-of-the-workingday voice said, “Social Services,” and Lynley smiled and gave St. James a thumb’s-up. His conversation was unprofitable, however. There was no way to ascertain the purpose of any telephone call Robin Sage may have made to Social Services. There was no one there by the name of Yanapapoulis, and it was otherwise impossible to track down the social worker to whom Sage had spoken when, and if, he had made the call. Additionally, if he had paid anyone a visit at Social Services on one of his trips to London, he took that secret with him to his grave. But at least they had something to work with, however little it was.

Lynley said, “Did Mr. Sage mention Social Services to you, Polly? Did Social Services ever phone him here?”

“Social Services? You mean about taking care of old folks or something?”

“For any reason, really.” When she shook her head, Lynley asked, “Did he speak about visiting Social Services in London? Did he ever bring anything back with him? Documents, paperwork?”

“There might be something with the odd bits,” she said.

“What?”

“If he brought anything back and left it round the study, it’ll be in the odd bits carton.”

When he opened it, Lynley found that the odd bits carton appeared to be a hotchpotch display of Robin Sage’s life. It contained everything from pre-Jubilee-Line maps of the London underground to a yellowing collection of the sort of historical pamphlets one can purchase for ten pence in country churches. A stack of book reviews clipped from The Times looked fragile enough to suggest they’d been gathered over a period of years, and going through them revealed that the vicar’s taste tended towards biography, philosophy, and whatever had been nominated for the Booker Prize in a given year. Lynley handed a stack of papers to St. James and sank back in the desk chair to peruse another. Polly moved gingerly round them, realigning some cartons, checking the seals on others. Lynley felt her glance repeatedly resting upon him then fl itting away.

He looked through his stack. Explanations of museum exhibits; a guide to the Turner Gallery at the Tate; receipts for lunches, dinners, and teas; manuals explaining the use of an electric saw, the assembly of a bicycle’s basket, the cleaning of a steam iron; advertisements extolling the benefits of joining an exercise club; and handouts one collects when strolling along a London street. These consisted of offers for hairstyling (The Hair Apparent, Clapham High Street, Ask for Sheelah) ; grainy photographs of automobiles (Drive The New Metro From Lambeth Ford) ; political announcements (Labour Speaks Tonight 8:0 °Camden Town Hall) ; along with assorted advertisements and solicitations for charities from the RSPCA to Homeless Relief. A brochure from the Hare Krishnas played the roll of a bookmark inside a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. Lynley flipped it open and read the prayer marked, from Ezekiel: “ When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive .” He read it again, aloud, and looked up at St. James. “What was it Glennaven said that the vicar liked to discuss?”

“The difference between that which is moral — prescribed by law — and that which is right.”

“Yet according to this, the Church seems to feel they’re one in the same.”

“That’s the wonderful way of churches, isn’t it?” St. James unfolded a piece of paper, read it, set it to one side, picked it up again.

Lynley said, “Was it logic chopping on his part, talking about moral versus right? Was it a form of avoidance in which he engaged his fellow clerics in meaningless discussion?”

“That’s certainly what Glennaven’s secretary thought.”

“Or was he himself on the horns of a dilemma?” Lynley gave the prayer a second look. “‘…he shall save his soul alive.’”

“Here’s something,” St. James said. “There’s a date on the top. It says only the eleventh, but the paper looks at least relatively fresh, so it might match up to one of the London visits.” He handed it over.

Lynley read the scrawled words. “Charing Cross to Sevenoaks, High Street left towards…

These appear to be a set of directions, St. James.”

“Does the date match up with one of the London visits?”

Lynley went back to the diary. “The fi rst. The eleventh of October, where the name Kate is listed.”

“He could have gone to see her. Perhaps that visit set in motion the rest of the trips. To Social Services. Even to…what was that name in December?”

“Yanapapoulis.”

St. James cast a quick look at Polly Yarkin and finished obliquely with, “And any of those visits could have served as instigation.”

It was all conjecture, based upon air, and Lynley knew it. Each interview, fact, conversation, or step in the investigation was taking their thoughts in a new direction. They had no hard evidence, and from what he could tell, unless someone had removed it, there had never been hard evidence in the fi rst place. No weapon left at the scene of the crime, no incriminating fingerprint, no wisp of hair. There was nothing, in fact, to connect the alleged killer and her victim at all save a telephone call overheard by Maggie and inadvertently corroborated by Polly, and a dinner after which both parties became ill.