‘In fact, we’ve decided to stay with a friend of Michael’s.’ Knowing that she was accepting another’s offer while rejecting Derek’s made her feel even guiltier.
‘Ah. Well, the offer’s still open.’
‘It’s so kind of you.’ Sally heard the insincerity in her voice and tried to banish it. ‘Do thank Margaret. And – and give her my love.’
‘Would you like a word with her? She’s here.’
‘I’d better not. I’m in rather a hurry. And we want to leave the line free.’
‘Of course. But shall I take your phone number? Just in case something comes up at this end.’
Fortunately the number was on the base unit of the phone. Sally read it out to Derek.
‘Shall I phone you this evening?’ he suggested. ‘Unless you’d rather phone me. Just for a chat.’
‘I’m not sure.’ Sally’s good resolutions dissolved. ‘We may be out. I’m afraid I have to go now.’
She said goodbye and put down the phone. It was much easier to think charitably about Derek when you weren’t dealing directly with him. At least she hadn’t actually lied. Her conscience prodded her: there are silent lies as well as spoken ones.
Thanks to Derek, Sally realized, or rather thanks to her dislike of Derek, she hadn’t thought about Lucy for at least a moment. But now her mind was making up for lost time. Sally stumbled into the hall and followed the sound of rushing water into the kitchen.
The room was clean and tidy, the real heart of the house. It had been recently redecorated. Oliver was washing up the coffee mugs.
‘Would you mind if I went out for a walk?’ she heard herself saying. ‘I’ve been cooped up ever since this happened. I feel I need some air.’
That wasn’t the entire truth, either: she also needed to find a church, to try to put right what had gone wrong inside St Michael’s.
Oliver fussed over her, establishing first that she wanted to go by herself, second that her coat was warm enough and third that she did not need a street map.
‘What happens if you need to phone? You’ve got a mobile, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but I left it at home. Besides, I’m only going out for a few minutes.’
Oliver was treating her like a child, she thought crossly: nanny knows best. Couldn’t he understand that she wouldn’t be long because there might be some news of Lucy?
At last he let her go. Outside the air was raw, the wind cutting at her exposed skin. She turned left without a backward glance, walking briskly down the street in the direction of the church, hands deep in the pocket of her jacket. The road was seedier than she had first thought: the cars were older, the gutters lined with litter; satellite dishes projected from crumbling brickwork, pointing in the same directions like flying saucers on parade; and the curtains in many of the windows were ragged and unmatching, always a giveaway.
A line of railings sealed the far end of the road. A gate, standing open, pierced the railings and on the other side was the churchyard. It was lunch time, so the morning’s services would have finished. The door might well be locked, but with luck the key holder would live nearby.
The church itself was partly masked by a screen of yews and hawthorns which ran parallel to the railings just inside them. The nave and choir were a single, brick-built oblong with an apse projecting from the east end. Early nineteenth century, Sally thought automatically, perhaps a little older. The base of the tower, a mass of weathered masonry at the west end, must have belonged to a previous church on the site; the upper storeys were Victorian gothic.
She slipped through the gateway and into the churchyard. Almost immediately she realized that she had made a mistake. She would find no consolation here. Most of the gravestones had been removed, though a few remained propped up against the wall of the church. Tiles were missing from the roof. Two of the windows near the east end were broken, despite the grilles which covered them. A network of tarmac paths criss-crossed the muddy grass, with black litter bins standing like sentinels at the junctions. Under the drab sky the only signs of vitality and warmth came from the brightly coloured crisp packets and chocolate wrappings that drifted among the dog turds.
Sally followed one of the paths round the east end of the church. On this side of the churchyard there were benches, more trees, more railings, beyond which was the main road, heavily used by traffic even on Sunday. She slowly walked the length of the church, deciding to make a circuit of it before returning to Oliver’s.
The gates of the south porch had been boarded up and secured with two padlocks. In the angle between porch and nave she noticed a pile of what looked like human excrement. Adolescents had been active with their aerosol sprays, displaying their limited grasp of literacy with the usual obscenities and tribal slogans.
Were such people human like herself? And if they were, what about child molesters and child murderers? Or the nurse who killed the children in her charge, or the father who stubbed out cigarettes on his baby’s arm? Or, worst of all, the person who had stolen Lucy to practise unknown obscenities on her mind and body. ‘Christ knows,’ Sally muttered aloud, knowing that old certainties had grown misty and insubstantial.
The path narrowed as it turned into the dark, urine-smelling ravine between the tower and the blank gable wall of the terrace of shops on the western boundary of the churchyard. The shadow of death. Sally accelerated. Just as she was about to emerge into the wider spaces of the churchyard beyond, a man stepped round the corner of the tower and blocked her path. She stopped, her heart thudding.
He was almost six feet tall, with dark hair, a broken nose set in the middle of a pale, lined face, and a long, thin body. Despite the cold, he was wearing a T-shirt, a pair of thin trousers, and muddy trainers. The T-shirt had once been white, but was now stained and torn at the neck. He dug his hand in his pocket.
Sally took a step backwards, nearer the dangerously enclosed space between the tower and the wall. With a speed that caught her unawares, the man moved to her right and then drew closer to her, forcing her back against the wall of the tower. She put her hand in her jacket pocket and felt for the money which Oliver had given her in case she needed to phone: two or three pounds in change.
He was very close to her now. His mouth hung open, revealing the rotting teeth within. For an instant she smelled his breath and thought of open graves. He stretched out his arm towards her. Suddenly she realized that the lips were pulled back into a smile.
‘Do you believe in Jesus? Do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got to really believe.’ He looked in his forties, but was probably younger than she was. He had a Midlands accent and spoke in a near whisper, breathless as if he had been running. ‘Listen, just saying you believe isn’t enough.’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure? Remember, Jesus can see into your innermost soul.’
‘Yes. Do you believe?’
‘He chose me. Look, he put his sign on me.’
The man pointed to the inner edge of his left forearm. Among the scars and goose pimples was a red cross in faded felt-tip, surrounded by a wavering wreath of letters which made up the words JESUS SAVES.
‘He pulled me up from the gutter. He sent an angel to wash away my sins in the water of life.’ The man stretched his arms wide. ‘Look – I’m clean. Like driven snow.’
‘I can see that.’
‘You must be clean, too. Otherwise you’ll never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’
Sally took a step to her left, trying to outflank