The dream Sterling remembered that Sunday morning was unusually optimistic. He had been in some kind of art class, though he had never had much talent, as far as he knew, for painting or drawing or any creative activity of that kind. The class had to put on some kind of exhibition. He was open with the teacher, a young woman he had never met in any conscious state. He couldn’t draw or paint, so he was going to do some photos and make a montage with connecting text. She was very pleased. It was going to be a perfect solution, and Sterling was pleased in turn about her unconditionally positive reaction. He was no dream interpreter – he generally left that to Angela – but he associated it with progress in the case. He was anxious about the night before, but as things had been cut short, of course any subsequent awkwardness would be avoided as well, and probably regret.
In the breakfast room, the clink of cutlery and the rising sound of conversation seemed to show that a new intake of customers had come in late last night. It was much busier than yesterday. An American woman in a floral blouse asked loudly where the ketchup was. Christina, on breakfast duty with the kitchen staff, looked flustered, and perhaps a little tired. She was back in jeans and green top, and her hair had lost a little of its lustre. Sterling wanted to see how things were between them. When he caught her eye with a small grin and an even more discreet, waist-high thumbs up, she smiled and returned the thumbs up.
As he was eating his bacon butty, he felt her presence by his table.
‘Tea or coffee, sir?’
‘Coffee, please. Busy this morning.’
‘New people in last night.’ Then she whispered. ‘I don’t think my mother was very pleased with me for going out.’
‘I had a good time.’
Then, the status of the friendship confirmed as healthy, she was gone, emerging a few moments at the other end of the room with a high chair for a baby and her hard-pressed parents. Sterling finished his breakfast and coffee, and slipped away.
The Grote Markt had been vibrant the night before. In the gritty, breezy morning, it looked like the aftermath of a wedding reception. Chip papers eddied and plastic bottles clattered around the cobbles. There was the occasional stain of what looked very much like vomit. There was a general air of bedragglement. The older local crowd picked their way to worship. Sterling could see the noses of a grey-haired couple in their Sunday-best black suits near him wrinkle in prim disgust as their steps grew daintier to avoid the rubbish.
He had forgotten his map, and Christina had forgotten to tell him where St George’s was located. He couldn’t be bothered to go back to his room, and was unwilling to upset the delicate equilibrium they had established this morning. He strolled over to the In Flanders Fields museum to look at the town map there. He was sure it would be in the centre, and he was right. Elverdingsestraat was just down the road from t’Ganzeke, about five minutes’ walk away. He gave the square a quick sweep. He had not been followed since Lennon’s murder. He did not think that made him safe, but it looked as though he had Sunday off, as well.
At St George’s he knew straight away that he was back on the trail, and felt the familiar surge. The gold lettering on the red-painted noticeboard had the title St George’s Memorial Church, Ypres. StGMCY. He muttered his thanks to Christina.
It was time for the early morning service, and a meagre crowd of churchgoers was trickling inside – excellent cover for a man away from home and needing to worship. Some kind of lay officer, lanky and grey, welcomed Sterling as he went through the heavy doors. Given Ypres’ associations with Britain and the Commonwealth, he was sure the congregation was used to strangers. As he entered, he looked all around and felt for his notebook. There were seats and not pews, in the continental style. He chose one halfway up from the altar at the far end, needing a panoramic view.
He tried to remember when he had last been to a church service, and failed. Was it as far back as school? Maybe a funeral. It didn’t really matter. What mattered just then was that all over the brightly lit, richly carpeted church, with its generously whitewashed walls and vaulted arches, were coats of arms and pennants, hanging everywhere, arranged around the sanctuary and embroidered on the hassocks themselves. There were hundreds of them. He knew he was in the right place. On the other hand, Keith Etchingham had chosen his hiding place well. No one was going to waltz in here and find what they were looking for straight away. His coat of arms was almost as well disguised as Sterling’s bicycle at Ypres station.
Sterling was the youngest person in the congregation. He was the youngest person in the whole church, including the choir. It was a disadvantage, because he was attracting attention. Attracting attention meant that he had to concentrate on participating in the service and not looking on walls or hassocks for the coat of arms or pennant whose description he had in his notebook. He needed to be patient through hymns and psalms and liturgy and sermon, and when everyone was invited for coffee and cakes in the hall next door, he began to think he’d never be able to get on in peace.
But the home-baked cakes were light and sweet, with a still lingering warmth from the oven, and the coffee was freshly ground and just brewed. This was not Anglicanism as Sterling had known it. The lay officer who had seen him in and the vicar who led the service were both happy to chat, but not intrusive. Sterling got the impression that odd visitors were received courteously, but there was no investment. They’d be going back to their own congregations, or in his case, his local. He asked if the church would be open for the rest of the day – he would like to explore it for a little longer. Even on Sunday, they told him, closing time was not till at least 6 o’clock, according to who was on the rota.
So back in the church, under the lights that were still on, Sterling looked again at his sketch. He needed to be methodical in his search, from walls to hassocks and altar area in manageable lines. He began at the wall on the left of the church. The shield he had was so distinctive he did not really need to keep referring to his picture. Nothing on the left wall matched it, and nothing on the chairs on the left of the aisle. He moved to the right of the aisle and from there to the right wall, his eyes getting used to the gloom. Moving around the cool church kept him relatively warm. He finished scanning the hassocks and the shields and pennants on the right of the church. He had found nothing, but was not discouraged. Etchingham’s previous riddles had yielded up their answers. Sterling knew that he was in the right place, and was being careful enough not to gloss over any of the heraldic evidence in front of him.
He started to move up towards the altar. Perhaps it was a breath of air from the door opening at the back of the church that caused a momentary stir in the still atmosphere under the whitewashed vaults. Perhaps a slight new smell provided a contrast to the mustiness shared by all churches. It wasn’t the Holy Ghost, but Sterling felt a presence that prickled the hairs in his neck. He turned around, hunching slightly in the movement. Just by the inner door, a man slouched on the wooden partition, hands behind his back, looking like a football coach supervising training from beneath a baseball cap. The baseball cap with jacket and slacks, and the gloomy interior, meant that Sterling could not clearly see his face, but what he could see lacked all expression. He assumed that it was one of the pursuing posse. The man stared for a good few seconds. Sterling felt the force of malevolence. Then the man slipped away.
If he had aimed to intimidate, he’d succeeded. Sterling sat down on one of the chairs, jittery. It was one thing to be in a group of police officers in a ruck outside a pub on a Saturday night and breaking up a fight, or sorting out a Fascist march that has been infiltrated by the Anarchists and Socialist Workers. You got stuck in without thinking. You were with your colleagues, who were also your mates, and you felt that no one could get you, even while the missiles were flying. It was quite another thing to be doing all this creeping around Ypres, alone, with people in the shadows, the odd sneak attack, and then murder. It wasn’t just the fear, but how Sterling was dealing with it. He was learning things about himself that he did not like, in addition to things he already knew. Resting his arms on his thighs and clasping his hands, he looked down at the hassock in front of him. There are elements in you that indicate a tendency to cowardice, he thought. No, be honest – you are a coward. You should scuttle back to England and get a safer life.
It was a minute or two before he could get started again. Some trainer in the police had said that confronting your demons was halfway to getting over them. Sterling had come this far, so he should keep going. He moved up towards the quire and the aisle. This was the only part left.
‘Bingo,’ he whispered. His sketch was in black and white, but there they unmistakably were in full colour: the ear of wheat, yellow on a rich blue background, the white rectangle and the horizontal red bar, embroidered on a cushion amongst a line below the altar rail. Good old Keith. Sterling felt warmly disposed to him, whatever the circumstances. He’d played fair up to now, like a decent crossword setter. But surely there wouldn’t be too much more of this. Sterling did a quick check to make sure that he was still alone, and then knelt by the cushion. Along with the others, and next to another set to the right of the entrance to the altar, it was set in a long, rectangular tray. He simply eased it from its place. There was nothing in the tray, but a slip of paper was taped on the reverse of the cushion. He eased off the black tape and looked at the business card he’d just found.
Marc Mehrtens, Chocolatier, 7 Grote Markt, Ypres.
There was a phone number and even a website.
In a biro on the back had been printed ‘Pay the bearer on demand’. Sterling shook his head, ruefully. He had traipsed about the whole Ypres district day after day, from cemeteries to museums to execution posts to churches. He had been followed and menaced and threatened. And now he would be ending up at a chocolate shop a few doors down from the hotel, having come full circle. If Etchingham had just disappeared, and wasn’t decaying in the cold ground or scattered as ashes somewhere in the wind, he’d surely be chuckling at the circularity he had engineered. It was now that Sterling began to believe that this was not about any of Keith Etchingham’s ancestors, not about a death in the trenches or in front of a firing squad, and not about putting right a family wrong. There was no issue of honour or disgrace here. The coat of arms had no significance, except as a hiding place for the latest clue. Etchingham had probably picked it because its design was so plain and easy to scratch onto stone. Something else was behind Sterling’s treasure hunt.
He left the church with excitement and fear grappling in his head. It was Sunday, about midday. He wondered if Marc Mehrtens’s chocolate shop would be open. Surely, if there were tourists, it was likely. He set off back to Grote Markt, scanning the street in a way that had become automatic. As he passed the hotel, with the cluster of chocolate shops a few metres on, he decided to duck in to reception. Maybe Christina would be free for a moment, and he could congratulate her for that midnight moment of insight. He wanted her to carry on thinking well of him, too. He pushed through the doors and entered the lobby. Straight away, he wished that he hadn’t.