Chapter 5 One of our council officials is missing.
Once again Christopher found himself making his way through the narrow cobbled streets near the Queen of Scots, and on up the main road with Amaryllis. The others had all gone in different directions. It was getting towards dusk, and there was a spring drizzle in the air, and the smell of fallen cherry-blossom that had been trodden into the pavement. He tried to say something that didn't mention the kids, and failed miserably.
'I've got to get back and help Faisal with his history.'
'So - how many kids have you got? And other appropriate questions,' said Amaryllis.
'I wasn't even going to mention the kids,' said Christopher, blushing. 'Are you doing anything nice this evening?'
'Not really, unless you count curling up by a log fire with a book and a large glass of Australian wine,' she said. 'And a box of Belgian chocolates within reach in case I feel like a nibble.'
He smiled.
'That sounds good. What kind of book? Let me guess - a thriller.'
She gave an unexpected start then shrugged her shoulders and replied, 'No, anything but that actually. Chick lit, history, satire.... No, I don't usually enjoy thrillers. Too much blood.'
That surprised Christopher: she seemed like exactly the kind of cool, detached, analytical person who would like the puzzle element of thrillers. And the danger, surely. It was slightly odd but there you go. They said goodbye at the school gates and went their separate ways. Christopher for his part went straight home, following a well-trodden route past the bowling-green and down the long avenue with the beech trees on either side.
Amaryllis's route was more circuitous.
Dodging behind a parked car in a street just round the corner from the school, she ran along the pavement bent almost double, shielded from view by two of the four wheel drive monsters the street was notorious for, then stood upright again to saunter down a lane leading into the next street, politely greeting an old man walking his fox terrier. Running lithely in the manner that had made Christopher think of Atalanta earlier in their acquaintance, she made her way down towards the shore: she could have been a jogger, or just someone in a hurry to catch a bus, or to get home in time to see 'Strictly Come Dancing', except that halfway down the road, after a quick glance round, she left the pavement, climbed over a garden wall and then made her way through a series of gardens. She was mostly unobserved but was shouted at once by a protective mother whose toddler strayed into her path. Emerging at the other end of the terrace, she took off her jacket, turned it inside-out and put it back on again, took a scarf out of her bag and tied it round her head, then sauntered back along the front of the houses, in no hurry at all.
Amaryllis was, in private life at least, quite an incurious person who didn't tend to wonder about other people's lives. She had spent too much time on her own to be interested. But as she sauntered round the corner and back up away from the shore again, she found herself picturing Christopher, this evening clad staidly in a green parka with a fake fur-trimmed hood worn over a tweedy sports jacket, making his way steadily home to his family. She wondered vaguely why he had discarded the worn leather jacket that had made him look so much like a teacher or youth worker.
Her information was that he lived in an unconventional setup, but she hadn’t bothered to memorise all the details. How old were the children? Had he mentioned teenagers? Was he married or not? Did he, his sister and the problematic children share a house with a wife who looked like a female version of Christopher himself? Did she have wispy hair and a round shiny face; did she wear tweed a lot? Did she resent the sister’s presence and nag at him constantly to get rid of his troublesome sibling? No wonder he chose to be so involved in PLIF and spend so much time at the Queen of Scots!
Amaryllis almost regretted not doing more research into this setup – but she would only have been doing it out of idle curiosity in any case. It was really nothing to do with her. Christopher and his life were on the periphery of her sphere of interest. It was only because she was going soft and had let herself get out of practice that she was even thinking about them.
Damn! She had been walking in the same direction for too long. Amaryllis glanced round to check out who else was on the street. Two old people hobbling along away from her - no, it was just Big Dave and Mrs Stevenson, probably sharing their physical woes or debating the finer points of the allotment hierarchy. A teenage boy on a bicycle endangered himself and others by stunt-riding to and fro across the road just behind her. Was he following her? If so, it was probably just out of aimless malevolence towards people of her age, and not for any more sinister reason. It wouldn't do any harm, though, to disappear now just in case.
Amaryllis turned sharply on her heel and ran across the road and in through the side gate of the nearest house.
The boy on the bicycle spoke into a mobile phone. But she was already gone, over the back fence of the house and into the scrubby little park that was the only place in town for people to exercise themselves, their children and their dogs. It was a constant battleground among these different user groups. In a better world, thought Amaryllis, jogging along the main path with the air of someone who did this every evening in all weathers, there would be more parks, and walks, and dedicated play areas where kids were safe. And nobody would be cruel to fluffy bunnies, and nobody would ever try and blow anyone else up for any reason, real or imaginary. This world was far from ideal.
The fair-haired man in grey walked towards her.
Amaryllis’s pace slowed as they got closer to each other.
‘You’re not meant to make contact with me,’ she hissed crossly. ‘I’ve retired.’
‘It’s an emergency,’ he hissed in a passable imitation of her tone.
‘We need more cover,’ she said. ‘Wait five minutes and then come round the back of the Sports Centre.’
‘Ooh, sounds a bit dodgy,’ he mocked. ‘Will we be smoking round there – or doing something more interesting?’
She didn’t dignify these suggestions with an answer, but speeded up again, continuing to run along the main path through the park. Seven minutes later, they made their rendezvous behind the Sports Centre, by the dustbins. There was a lingering smell of cigarette smoke in the air. The Sports Centre didn’t entirely live up to its name, having been converted from an old cricket pavilion and with space only to offer a few lockers and the choice of table tennis or snooker. Amaryllis had noticed there were usually more young people hanging around at the back than she had ever observed entering the building. Fortunately the smoking area was deserted today. She diagnosed football on television as a probable cause.
‘Nice ambience,’ he commented, leaning on the wall by the back door. Why did he always appear so nonchalant, so unruffled by events around him, even when he had engineered them himself and their explosiveness had got out of hand? She remembered that she had never liked him.
‘OK, Simon, what have you done with Steve Paxman? And why? He wasn’t part of the deal.’
‘I know that now! I can’t help it if he’s a dead ringer for the woman’s brother.’
‘He isn’t a dead ringer. As you would know if you’d been paying attention. He was just wearing a similar jacket, and it was getting dark… You weren’t meant to snatch the target on his own anyway. It’s the woman that needs protecting. And the kids.’
Amaryllis paced up and down. She opened one of the bins and glanced inside. She replaced the lid, frowning.
‘That was just Phase One,’ he said with dignity.
‘Where is he, anyway?’
‘In a safe place.’
‘This could put everything in danger. Everyone.’
‘I’ll sort it. I just need you to do one tiny thing.’
‘Ha!’
‘Just try and calm him down. The brother, I mean – he keeps staring at me as if he’s suspicious. I don’t like it. It’s going to make him jumpy when the time comes. Tell him I’m from HMRC
or something.’
She snorted with laughter. ‘That’s supposed to set his mind at rest, is it?’
‘He doesn’t have anything to hide, so it won’t bother him. He has all the hallmarks of a pathetically honest law-abiding citizen.’
‘All right, I’ll try,’ she said, preparing to resume her jog through the park by re-tying the lace on one of her trainers, and pretending to do a few stretches. She didn’t entirely trust Simon Fairfax. But that was all part of the game she thought she had left behind.
Amaryllis knew she would be on a high by the time she got home, unable to relax or sleep, still expecting the phone call that brought bad news, or the electronic call to action. She really should try and finish the process of training herself to live like a normal person, but after years of high-powered activity it was proving to be extremely difficult.
As she let herself in through the front door of the first floor flat that overlooked the river and carried out the sequence of checks that would show whether an intruder had been in there while she was out, triple-locked the door behind her and drew the curtains before opening the windows, Amaryllis thought again about Christopher and his cosy little life. She didn't know whether to feel envious or disdainful. Was it possible to feel both at once? She prowled around the flat, twitching once or twice at the curtains to watch the moonlight turn the tops of the waves silver against the blackness of the night river.
Christopher opened his own front door with a certain amount of trepidation. He never knew what sort of mood Caroline might be in. Or Marina, for that matter. There were a lot of raging hormones around the place these days, and he was very wary of them. At least Faisal was straightforward and easy to understand. He didn't ask much either, poor boy, just a bit of help with his homework now and then. Faisal had been quick to appreciate that Christopher was more use with things like history and English and up to a point French, than with maths, although at random times Christopher found his school arithmetic came flooding back to wash over him, along with unwanted memories of other aspects of his school career. He had spent most of his teenage years hiding from various people, school bullies both pupils and staff, and his parents. And his sister, of course.
No shouting tonight. So far, so good.
It was slightly too quiet if anything. Sinister, almost. For a moment he had the ignoble thought that maybe they had all gone, and his spirits lightened fractionally. Then Caroline came down the stairs.
'Hi,' she said. 'Faisal's stuck with his history again. How can they expect them to know about the Stuart succession? He knows more about Iranian history than he does about Scotland.'
Don't say 'and whose fault is that?' Christopher told himself sternly. He couldn't think of anything else to say.
'There's something for you in the freezer, I think,' said Caroline off-handedly, and carried on into the sitting-room, where, he noticed, the television was on. Marina must have started the evening’s viewing early tonight. He suppressed a pang of longing for the times when he had been able to call his house his own, when he could have had a quiet meal in the kitchen with a book, or carried his plate through to the sitting-room and put Shostakovich on the cd player. And he could have had a glass of wine without worrying that it would start Caroline off again.
He hung up his jacket and went to look in the freezer. Hmm. OK, he was a carnivore whereas the others were all vegetarians, but Bird's Eye frozen roast beef in gravy? Honestly, he did have certain standards. He looked in the fridge for an egg, and ate it scrambled on toast, while sitting at the kitchen table and reading the local free newspaper.
'You haven't eaten the last egg, have you?' said Caroline, coming into the room and looming over him. 'Marina needs it for breakfast.'
'I'll go and get some more,' he said.
'You'd better hurry, the Co-op closes in ten minutes.'
'Oh, God.' He got up from the table, wondering why kids weren't trusted to run errands like this nowadays. He had a distinct recollection of being sent out to the local shop for bread at quite a young age - seven or eight, perhaps. Maybe Caroline had similar memories.
On the way back from the Co-op - they hadn't had any free range eggs so he had had to buy battery ones, which he disapproved of, battery chickens reminding him of school children and office workers in so many ways - he looked down the road towards the shore. It was tempting to go on down there and just to keep on walking, away from his home and the life that had grown so restrictive - but towards what? Freedom? He was inclined not to believe in the concept. Was it the empty space that was left when everything else had gone? Or was it something more positive than that - something that gave you an adrenalin surge and made you want to leap and shout?
He put the eggs in the fridge and sat back down with his newspaper and a cup of tea. Caroline came into the kitchen.
'Have you helped Faisal with his homework?'
'I will in a minute,' he said.
It was worse than being married! There must be some dynamic about a man and woman living in such close proximity that made them nag and squabble and score points off each other.
He stared at the front page of the paper. It was the local West Fife daily. He had bought it for the jobs page: not that he really expected to find anything suitable in it, but he had a compulsion to keep looking. Christopher knew well that anyone advertising for an archivist would probably use ‘The Scotsman’ or the media section of ‘The Guardian’ or perhaps these days an online facility; in any case the chances of a part-time archives job cropping up in Pitkirtly were miniscule, yet he couldn’t go full-time or move away while the kids still needed him.
He was putting off the inevitable moment when he would turn to the jobs page and find nothing there again, when a photograph on the front page caught his eye. Surely that was –
He read the headline next to the photo and a shiver went down his spine.
‘West Fife community worker missing,’ proclaimed the larger headline and, underneath in smaller print, ‘Police appeal for information.’
He read on down the column.
‘Community worker Steven Paxman, 43, has been missing from his home in Aberdour and from his office in Auchterderran for several days after failing to turn up at a meeting with colleagues on Tuesday.
‘Police are puzzled by Mr Paxman’s disappearance and concerned for his safety. They have appealed for witnesses who may have seen him at any time on Tuesday. He was not known to have any family or work problems, was in good health and apparently in good spirits when he last contacted colleagues by phone on Tuesday afternoon.’
Christopher pushed the paper aside. He had to ring the police; he was somewhat surprised they hadn’t already been round, but perhaps Steve Paxman hadn’t told his colleagues his plans for Tuesday evening so nobody knew he had been meeting the people from PLIF. He pictured Steve putting on his jacket and picking up his briefcase at the end of their meeting. Where had he gone? What could possibly have happened to him after leaving that sterile conference room?
Caroline came into the room again.
‘What about Faisal’s homework?’
‘I’ll do it now.’
Christopher wondered what Caroline would say if she knew what a shock he had just had. Probably nothing, unless she could find a way in which it related to her. He decided not to tell her anything about it. She would only mock him later when Steve Paxman turned up large as life, having in the mean-time won the lottery and gone on a luxury cruise, or having fallen down the stairs on the way out of the Holiday Inn and been sent, no doubt, to a private clinic for treatment to make sure he didn’t take legal action against the hotel company.
He would be better to get Faisal’s homework out of the way before calling the police.
By the time he and Faisal had wrestled with the Stuart succession it was past ten. Coming downstairs, Christopher wondered if it was too late to ring the police. They would probably think it was an emergency, and it wasn’t. The right people might not even be on dut
y. He had just decided it could wait until the next day when the front door-bell rang.
Caroline emerged from the living-room, glass in hand, grumbling away either to Christopher or to herself.
‘It’s OK, I’ll get it,’ said Christopher quickly.
This was enough to encourage Caroline to lurch towards the front door and fling it open.
Accelerating down the stairs, Christopher raised his eyes and saw two policemen standing on the doorstep. Before Caroline could speak, he called,
‘Are you here about Steve Paxman?’
He reached the door at last, sliding past Caroline as he did so.
‘Mr Wilson? May we come in, sir?’ said the older of the police officers, displaying identification. Sensing that there was only one possible answer, Christopher stood aside and made what he hoped they would interpret as a welcoming gesture.
‘Come in,’ he said, to make it absolutely clear. ‘We can sit in the kitchen.’
‘Do you need me for anything?’ said Caroline, surging into the path of the younger policeman as he entered the hall. Christopher willed her just to go away quietly; he tried not to let that show in his face, but concentrated on leading the way to the kitchen.
‘I don’t think so, Mrs Wilson,’ said the older policeman, giving her a passing glance. ‘We’ll let you know if we do.’
‘It’s Mrs Hussein,’ said Caroline, and headed for the living-room again, perhaps recalling that she had left a bottle there.
Christopher sat at one side of the kitchen table with the two police officers at the other. The older one nodded to the younger one, who took out his notebook and pencil. He seemed nervous; his eyes darted from side to side, and he frequently shifted in his chair, twisting his body as if he wanted to see if there was something creeping up behind him. The older one did most of the talking.
‘You are Mr Christopher Wilson? Chair of an organization known as Pitkirtly Local Improvement Forum?’
Christopher nodded. ‘Is this to do with Steve Paxman?’
‘We’re trying to establish the current whereabouts of Mr Paxman, yes, sir. One of his colleagues mentioned that he might have been meeting you on Tuesday evening.’
‘Yes, we had a community strategy meeting at the Holiday Inn,’ Christopher admitted, trying not to let his scepticism about the exercise seep into the words. He didn’t want them to think he had been in any way hostile to Steve Paxman although in many ways he had indeed felt like that.
‘Community strategy, eh?’ said the older police officer with a sceptical grin. Christopher was wary of a trap, so he remained silent and poker-faced. A few seconds later he began to worry that his failure to return the policeman’s grin would be seen as a sign that he had something to hide. But it was too late to change his reaction by then.
‘So Mr Paxman was at the meeting, was he? What sort of time would that be?’
‘Yes – from about six-thirty to eight-ish, I suppose,’ said Christopher, trying to remember when the great escape to the Queen of Scots had begun.
‘And you all left together?’
‘Yes – well, no. The others left, then I had a few more words with Mr Paxman, then we both left. No, he left the room first and I closed the windows and then went too.’
‘You don’t seem all that sure. It’s only a couple of days ago.’
‘I’m sure now I’ve thought about it. The others were in a hurry to get to the pub, and I thought I’d better have a word with Mr Paxman about what had happened at the meeting – what would happen next, that kind of thing – and I stayed on a couple of minutes longer to speak to him. He asked me to close the windows because he was running late. I think he said he was expected in Auchterderran.’
‘And then?’
‘Then? – I closed the windows and left. I went to the pub – the Queen of Scots. That’s where we go.’
‘And you didn’t see Mr Paxman again on your way.’
‘No,’ said Christopher, mentally replaying the walk from the Holiday Inn to the Queen of Scots. It would have been a pleasant walk if the veiled threats of Steve Paxman hadn’t still been hanging around him like a swarm of midges, small but intensely irritating. An avenue of trees led from the Holiday Inn, which was situated in a converted minor stately home known locally as the Castle, to the main road. Come to think of it, it was quite surprising that he hadn’t at least glimpsed Steve Paxman at some point – but the man probably had a fast car or even a souped-up motorbike.
‘You didn’t see his motorbike then?’ said the younger police officer suddenly.
‘Motorbike? I don’t think so.’
Christopher replayed the walk in his mind for the second time. He had wandered off the hotel drive and into the trees to avoid being mowed down by Range Rovers or whatever was the current car of choice for the kind of people who stayed at the hotel, and he had a vague memory of a black car passing him at a fair speed on the way down to the main road. He started to open his mouth to mention it, then he realised he would seem silly if he had no idea what make of car it was, never mind not having memorised the number-plate in case it turned out to be relevant. He realised that, despite having a good eye for detail in his working life, he would make a useless witness in court.
‘No. No motorbike,’ he said at last. ‘Do you think he had an accident somewhere?’
‘Not on his motorbike, sir,’ said the older policeman. ‘He left that in the car park at the Holiday Inn.’
‘Strange,’ mused Christopher.
‘What about the others?’ said the older police officer.
‘Others?’
‘The other members of your group. Are they all well-known to you? Local people?’
Christopher’s thoughts flew to Amaryllis. He couldn’t claim to know her well, exactly – and yet. And yet in another sense he felt as if he had always known her, which was such an odd feeling that it rendered him temporarily speechless.
‘Mr Wilson? Can we have the names and addresses of those present on Tuesday?’
He complied as far as he could, only now realising he didn’t really know the people he thought of as friends. Out of all of them, he could only provide addresses for Jock McLean and Mrs Stevenson.
‘I’m afraid that’s all,’ he said. ‘But of course, only a handful of people are keen enough on doing things for the community to take part in PLIF at all. People can be amazingly apathetic.’
‘We understand that,’ said the older policeman. He nodded to the younger one, who snapped his notebook shut so loudly that it made Christopher think, in an unfortunate mental leap, of a guillotine. They warned him he would have to make a formal statement at the police station the following day.
‘Don’t leave the country,’ one of them joked as they left. From the hall they could all hear Caroline enthusiastically joining in with a late edition of Top of the Pops.
‘Good voice,’ one of them commented.
Christopher closed the door behind them with relief, and leaned on it for a few moments. Don’t leave the country? If only he could!
He contemplated the nature of freedom again later that night as he lay in bed trying to block out the noise of the television from the room below. He was even tempted to abandon the house - his own house - to Caroline and her offspring and go and live elsewhere. It might almost be worth it....but every time part of his mind strayed down that primrose path, a more rational part reminded him of how much he had always liked the house, with its sunny situation and view of the river from the top windows, and the garden he and his father had worked in together. It didn't mean as much to Caroline: why should she have it?
A prisoner in his home and even in his thoughts, Christopher at last fell asleep.