By Monday evening there was still no sign of Burble, although the weather had improved enough for him to do more work in the garden had he been that way inclined. Without exactly telling us that he was postponing his departure, Dave let it be understood that he’d mind our house again while we took our precious day off.
No one, least of all me, said anything about Burble’s protracted walkabout, but I was certain the men were as worried as I. Mazza and Sian had condemned him roundly for pushing off (or words to that effect) just when he was needed, and for refusing to answer his hamster-wheel phone, but hadn’t evinced any concern, either for his safety or for the fate of my camera. Burble was clearly doing what Burble did.
But Burble didn’t usually have a nice cashable asset with him. He’d probably not get the full value if he sold it, but a kid with nothing wouldn’t mind if he got a cool thousand, would he? Even five hundred.
Halfway through Tuesday afternoon, just as we emerged from an overcrowded British Museum exhibition, Theo said, ‘You’d rather be back home, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?’
Yes, yes, yes – even if it wasn’t home. ‘To prepare for tomorrow evening’s meeting about the shop in the church?’
‘Uh, uh. To see if Burble’s back. You’ve been checking your phone every half hour; I take it you’re hoping against hope for a message.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sometimes one has to face unpalatable truths – I did when I was a teacher, and I still do. Humans are weak and fallible. Sometimes they reward our trust a thousandfold; sometimes they let us – and themselves – down badly. I’m sorry, I truly am. All I can suggest is that you put it down to experience.’ He kissed me. ‘Have you got enough Monopoly money for us to go and buy a replacement camera?’ He gestured: as we stood on the BM steps, we were surrounded by expensive cameras round the necks and in the hands of people from all over the world. Some had seemed to see the whole exhibition through a lens, with accompanying raised elbows or extended arms almost designed to stop others seeing anything.
I smiled at a tourist who was glaring at me for standing in her way. She backed off as sharply as if I’d flourished a machete. ‘I could put it on my credit card,’ I said mock-seriously. ‘The one that makes a donation to Oxfam every time I use it. No, let’s give Burble a few more days … How long is it before he becomes a missing person?’ I tucked my hand into his and set us in motion.
‘You’d have to ask Dave. But I suspect that if he’s eighteen, he can go where on earth he wants. And with his mother, who could blame him? Provided he’d got hold of some cash legally, of course,’ he added gloomily.
I tried to think positive. ‘You’re assuming he has flogged the camera. He might just have lost it or broken it and be too ashamed to confess. Though I did tell him I could claim on insurance if he did. Big mistake, eh – I practically told him he could nick it.’ Clearly this wasn’t the place to stand stock still with your hands covering your face. ‘Let’s go and have a coffee and forget about all this. And assume he’ll be back tomorrow, anxious to show off his handiwork. After all,’ I added, recalling Theo’s new-found love of chamber music, ‘there’s that Cadogan Hall recital this evening by my old friends; we wouldn’t want to miss that.’
Missing an exquisite performance of the first Brahms sextet and the Schubert octet wouldn’t have saved Sharon Hammond’s life, either.
Mazza and Martina-Sian were sitting at our kitchen table when we got back home. Although Mazza’s running had brought a healthy outdoors glow to his skin, today he looked pale. Sian, who was usually exemplary in her make-up, hadn’t so much as a slick of mascara and looked as waiflike as her brother. It was all I could do not to gather them to me in a group embrace, but I was sure it would unleash emotions both would rather keep in check.
Dave was watching coffee from our new machine bubble into first one mug, then another. The toaster was working overtime. Passing them butter and jam, he nodded Theo and me back into the hall, and thence into Theo’s study.
‘They decided they’d had enough of Burble dossing around in bed when he should have been helping with the website. So Mazza broke in. Poor kid. Found the body – no, not Burble! No sign of him. His mother. According to a mate of mine up in Maidstone, there’s a load of bad heroin come into the country all of a sudden. Looks as if she might have taken some.’
‘When did they …?’
‘Late last night. They spent a lot of it talking to … the police.’ He smiled sourly. ‘Strange to call them that. Eighteen months ago it might have been me who was the SIO. Senior Investigating Officer,’ he added, in case either of us was un-familiar with the term. ‘If I were, I’d probably be telling the coroner it’s not really a suspicious death. I wouldn’t be setting in motion a huge investigation. Anyway, they both decided that here was where they wanted to be, so they kipped down in the living room and—’
‘What time did they arrive?’ Theo asked.
‘About three. Apparently their mother works nights and they didn’t want to be on their own. And before you ask, their mother needs the job and they didn’t want her to take time off. So they nominated me as the adult they wanted with them.’
Theo made little rewinding gestures. ‘So they rang here as soon as they found … Mrs Hammond?’
‘Yes. I called the police for them. And went to the police station and stayed with them through everything. Don’t look so guilty, Theo – I’ve probably forgotten more about the procedure than you even know. But it’s over to you now – I need to shower and shave.’
He was halfway out of the door when Theo asked what I found I couldn’t: ‘There’s no suggestion, is there, Dave, that Burble could have had any part in this?’
‘Not on the basis of what I saw and heard. But one thing’s certain – whatever he’s up to, wherever he’s gone, we need to find him. I suspect there’s no love lost between him and his mother – was no love lost – but I’d rather he heard the news from one of us, not from one of my overworked mates. Former mates.’ Still in the doorway he added, ‘Theo, it’s none of my business, but I reckon those kids would be better off occupied. It’s a sin Sian’s not in school, Mazza too, because counsellors apart, there’d be plenty to keep their minds off last night.’
‘I’ll get on to her head teacher,’ Theo said.
‘If that’s what she wants,’ I said, raising a cautionary hand. ‘And her mother, of course. But what about Mazza? I don’t think he’s seen the inside of a school for months. I can’t imagine anyone … you know, league tables and attendance figures and A-starred GCSEs …’
‘What about Mazza indeed? You could be about to run a lot of miles, Jode – and if you don’t mind my hanging around a bit longer I can get him using those walking boots, too.’
‘Mind you hanging round?’ Theo said. ‘My dear Dave, you’re a godsend.’
Dave shrugged off the compliment. ‘Burble’s mates, Jode. Did you ever meet any? I gather from Sian they weren’t the sort you’d invite to tea on the rectory lawn. Not the average rector’s wife anyway.’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘I was just wondering if he might know a few drug-dealers, you see.’
‘He must know at least one. The one he bought his cannabis from. A mate, he said. As far as I know he only tried to smoke it here once,’ I assured Theo, who’d literally gone white. ‘I told him off when he tried to dispose of it in the green bin in case the media got hold of the story.’
‘You knew! And condoned it?’
I’d never thought to tell him about my pot-smoking activities when I was younger, because everyone in my group had done it. They’d all have grown out of it, just as I had. Though I might confess later, now certainly didn’t seem the time.
‘Keep your hair on, mate. It’s what kids do, for heaven’s sake,’ Dave said, putting a very policemanly hand on Theo’s arm. ‘Come on, you’ve got a druggy mother, you’re likely to be a druggy kid. But nothing Class A, Jode? Come on, it could be important.’
‘He certainly didn’t take any drugs here, not after the aborted spliff,’ I said, stung. ‘As for it being a symptom of something more serious, I didn’t even realize what was wrong with his mother, did I?’ I protested.
‘I need you to remember everything – anything – you might have known about his mates. Was he the sort of lad to show off the camera to them? One of them might have … well, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.’
Theo said, ‘I’ve got friends in the Salvation Army – far better than the police for running missing people to earth. I’ll phone them now.’
I needed something to do too. ‘And I’ll go and talk to Violet. I know Sharon Hammond was only distantly related to her, but even so … I’ll ask her if she knows anything about Burble’s absent dad while I’m at it.’
Dave nodded approvingly. ‘And I’ll talk to an old mucker of mine – but I think I’ll do it face to face. I’ll have to tell him about your camera, Jode,’ he said, almost apologetically.
‘I know just what he’ll say. I was daft to hand it over, and Burble’s just done a flit with it. But you know something,’ I said rather too loudly, ‘I don’t believe he’s nicked it. I really don’t.’
Dave shook his head kindly. ‘Know what I think? We find the camera and we find Burble.’
‘It’s just surprising she lasted so long, to be honest, God rest her soul,’ Violet said briskly, in response to my murmured words of sympathy. ‘As for Bernard – Burble – she used to say he was born to be hanged. You know, his own mother says something like that! So God alone knows where he is, and He isn’t telling. If only the lad had met someone like you a bit earlier – if only he’d got a few exams behind him.’
‘Did no one ever try to improve his life? Social Services? I’d have expected them to worry about his living with a drug addict.’
She looked genuinely shocked. ‘How would they have known? No one from the village would have let on – and look at all the mistakes they make, anyway, these social workers.’
I wasn’t at all sure which sentiment to tackle first, so ended up giving a feeble – possibly feeble-minded – smile. Yes, I was ashamed of myself. At least I managed, ‘I don’t suppose you know what happened to his father.’
‘Si? Drank himself to death long since, I’d imagine. Or drugs. Total waste of space. We all heaved a sigh of relief when he left the village. Ten years ago it must have been. Maybe longer.’
So poor Burble had been on his own with his mother since then.
‘And no one kept in touch with this Si?’
‘Why should they?’
If Theo had the Sally Army, for all my ignorance when I saw a real drug user face to face, at least I had a few contacts in drink and drugs rehab: there was one charitable trust I supported that might provide information that wouldn’t necessarily reach the authorities. So I fired off a few emails.
When I could drag the kids from the TV they’d colonized, I floated the idea of school. If either was interested, I’d phone their head teachers myself. Sian grumbled, but secretly, I think, was relieved. I left her tweaking the website while I made the call. She didn’t need to know the choice words I said to the headmaster about his staff’s failure to recognize her IT skills, though she might have been impressed that it was possible to make a strong point without raising one’s voice or using a single swear word.
As I’d feared, Mazza had no school to return to, so I was glad when Theo lent Dave his car so they could head off to a coastal path to walk their boots in; Theo retired to his study to pray. Borrowing Dave’s newly arrived large-scale maps, I went for a drive in my new toy. But not just any drive, of course.
At one level I was doing what I ought to have done long ago – I was exploring what everyone agreed was one of the most beautiful counties in the country, the Garden of England, no less. Parts of the coast gripped even me, not just the stirring White Cliffs, but places more subtle in their appeal, like the shingle banks round Dungeness. Today, however, I was staying much nearer to home. I picked my way purposefully through blossom-filled lanes, narrow and narrower still, around the steep-sided valley the other side of what I was coming to think of as ‘my’ hill. To my uneducated eye, there was nothing to show that anything other than farming might be taking place, and plenty to show what I assumed was proper agricultural behaviour. There were picture-book sheep in one field, and horses, all in their own taped-off mini-fields in others. I couldn’t pick up any birdsong over the rumble of the low-profile tyres, but I was sure that if I’d stopped and rolled down the window I’d have heard a veritable pastoral symphony of avian melody.
But Mazza, Dave and I had all seen alien activity in that valley. Seen it. Industrial, not agricultural activity. I needed to investigate further. However, I couldn’t just drive up the tracks in the right direction, could I? I couldn’t press the entryphones of Double Gate Enterprises or Elysian Fields to enquire about illegal building activities. Could I?
Not without someone to watch my back. And not, come to think of it, with all those CCTV cameras ready to take snaps of anyone crossing their path. They’d probably taken mine already, come to think of it. Reversing cautiously, as if I’d simply taken a wrong turn, I headed whence I had come, embroidering the mime a little more by pulling over and peering in furious disbelief at the satnav screen.
On the way home – and funnily enough I found myself checking my rear view mirror just in case, though I never admitted to myself what it was just in case of – I called in to see Mazza and Sian’s mother, Carrie, a woman of about forty whose plumpness owed more, I suspected, to the wrong food than simply to too much. I’m sure Merry would have known exactly what to say. And bring. Of course, I hadn’t got a cake or anything. Should I have done? Or would bringing one have seemed patronizing? We smiled at each other appraisingly as I introduced myself.
‘I was just wondering if Sian is OK, Mrs Burns? And Mazza, of course,’ I began. Give me a PowerPoint presentation to make to a CEO any day. ‘After last night.’
‘They could have called me. Should have. You’d best come in. Cup of tea?’
‘Only if you’re making one.’
I braced myself for the sort of cliché that some of the media tell you to expect in social housing homes, or even the Dickensian poor-but-honest converse. In the event it was neither foul with unwashed pots nor so clean you could have eaten your supper off the floor. There weren’t many books, true, but neither was the living room dominated by a huge TV. There was one, but it was smaller than ours, and she switched it off as she moved a pile of freshly ironed sheets from the sofa and asked me to sit.
The ensuing conversation was no more inspiring than the opening lines, but we somehow established a mutual trust. She was afraid her kids were bothering me; I assured her they weren’t, that I really liked their company. We talked a bit about Mazza’s running; she worried about clubs and the cost of shoes and so on. Clubs! He really had got the bug then. Lying through my teeth I told her most clubs had sponsors who paid for the gear for talented members; I made a mental promise to keep him in footwear wherever Theo’s job might take us. As for Sian, I could reassure her that the girl had academic and technological ability the school must develop. I suspected, I said, that she’d only played up so much because she was bored.
We parted with a cautious hug. It was only as I headed down the path to the car that she said, ‘That Burble. Any news of him yet? Only I hear on the grapevine that one of the local dealers has taken off fast.’
‘Burble deals?’ I asked, too horrified to keep my voice down.
‘Not that I know of,’ she said, motioning me back to the house. ‘I’m just worried – you know what they’re like, these bastards. If they thought he couldn’t pay, or that all this time he spends at the rectory means he’s going to blab … Well, you never know, do you?’
‘Did you see much of him?’
She gave a crooked smile. ‘Too much, sometimes. But before I got this job, there were times – well, to be honest, I couldn’t always put food on the table. And he brought all sorts of strange foraged stuff. A lot of it went in the bin, mind you, but it was the thought, wasn’t it?’
‘It was indeed. When did you last see him?’
‘Let me think … A week ago? And him not knowing about his mum. Not that he’d care much, I dare say.’
‘Did he ever talk to you about her?’
She pulled a face: what was she about to say? But then she looked beyond me, and I turned to see Sian, in what I can only call a vague approximation of school uniform, coming round the corner. ‘Look at that muck all over your face, my girl – I’m surprised at the school letting you in like that. You go and get yourself cleaned up, missy, or I’ll know the reason why. And before I go to work we’ll go to Tesco’s and buy a skirt that’s halfway decent.’
Now was obviously not the time to ask Sian about her afternoon – but I sensed a great deal of love in that ongoing rebuke.