“Yes, he did disturb me at the time when he talked about his friend who had disappeared.” There was a tremor in her voice and she got up suddenly. “I’m sorry, I’ll put the kettle on.” There was a rattling of cups, then she came back. “Do you know, Vicar, they seem to be such similar people. I mean Dr Corbishley’s friend and Stan. They both wanted to get to that dreadful valley. And that’s not the only thing. The geologist’s friend used to speak out a lot and make people uncomfortable. And I know how rude Stan can be.” Then her eyes lit up. “But Stan’s sometimes right, and I expect Dr Corbishley’s friend might be too. Do you know how you sometimes talk in your sermons about the need for prophets for today?”
He decided to keep to the practical issue. “You must realise, Eleanor, that there’s nothing more that we can do to find Stan – apart from prayer.”
“But why can’t we help Dr Corbishley find his friend? I know it sounds odd, but I feel there’s a kind of link between us all.”
“I don’t really see what I can do.”
“Excuse me.” She went to the kitchen and returned with the teapot complete with cosy. “Please, Vicar, I know just how Dr Corbishley feels.”
“I’m afraid that Dr Corbishley may have a mental health problem. In fact he almost seems to blame himself for his colleague’s disappearance.”
She poured his tea. “I hope it’s drawn enough. Milk and no sugar? Had you thought of asking Randall for help?”
He sipped his tea. “Perfect.” Then he recalled last Sunday. “Of course, Randall met David after church on Sunday. He had a conversation with him about his search.”
She sat down on a small stool opposite him and was looking up at him with those clear blue, unanswerable eyes. “When can you see him?”
He could hardly credit the tenacity of someone who any moment might know that she was bereaved. “It’s not very easy. He’s the only parishioner who insists on an appointment, and, when I ring up, he is so busy he can’t always fit in a time to see me.”
“He’s such a good man. Why don’t you just call in?”
“He doesn’t like me doing that.”
“Please, Vicar.”
He could not resist those eyes.
The same day in the hot midday sun the vicar walked – he rarely used his car in visiting – through the leafy lanes and the flower-filled gardens of Epsom, savouring the scents and the blossoms and the summer song of the bees and the cicadas. At the end of a shady oak-lined street on the slopes of One Tree Hill he found himself outside a large villa with a return verandah.
He knew that Randall looked after a small number of psychiatric patients in his own home.
He knocked at the front door. There was no answer. Dr Richardson’s wife was also a doctor, but had her own practice in South Auckland. He supposed there was no one to answer the door. Almost as if by habit he made his way around the side of the house.
A single-storey annexe had been built on to the house at the rear. So this was the hospital. Still he saw no one. He wondered whether there was someone in the garden. Again, as if by habit, he followed a pathway which ran alongside the lawn. It was a very hot afternoon. The pathway ran into the welcome shade of a woodland copse growing over rocky lava outcrops from One Tree Hill and then mounted up towards the boundary of Cornwall Park. The path was well kept and the steps had been recently repaired.
As he walked up the steps, he realised that Randall had far more land than he had imagined, and there was no other house in sight. The copse was dense and it was a little dark. He wondered whether he should turn back.
Then he heard footsteps behind him, moving fast.
Suddenly he thought about the mental condition of some of Randall’s patients. There was a reason for the notice, and he was trespassing.
He turned quickly off the path, hid behind a large rock and looked out nervously. His pursuer’s head was down, looking at the steps, but as he approached he glanced up. He was a Maori man, stocky with a mop of dark unkempt curly hair. He looked young but his face was old. The eyes stared but did not focus.
The look on that face compelled him.
Poor dear man.
He followed, but still cautiously, to the top of the knoll. At that point, almost half way up One Tree Hill, though still on Randall’s property, he came suddenly out into the open. Straight ahead, rising up against the western horizon, he saw the Waitakere Ranges, hazily outlined in the light blue January sky.
He saw his ‘pursuer’ with his back to him, sitting on a bench looking out to the ranges in an attitude of what seemed rapt attention. Suddenly, the man plunged his face into his hands.
Compulsively, Harry began to move forward.
Then he heard a sound from the bench which caused him to stop in his tracks. An involuntary gasp escaped his lips.
Hearing the noise behind him, the other turned, leapt up like a hunted animal. Then he shot frantically past Harry and stumbled away down the steps.
Harry followed him, as fast as he could but keeping his distance. As he emerged on the lawn, he was just in time to see the patient disappearing into the annexe.
He did not follow.
When Harry reached the road, he resumed his normal gait but walked as if in deep thought and did not give the usual cheery hail to people working in their gardens or getting in and out of their cars. Miss Milliken, one of his most regular parishioners, stared after him in consternation when he did not greet her as she was planting a little plot of climbing geraniums around the telephone pole on the roadside verge.
“Oh dear, what have I done to offend him?”
CHAPTER 24
The relationship between a vicar and his vicar’s warden is one of the foundations of parish life in the Anglican church.
The vicar’s warden is a lay person appointed by the vicar because he has the confidence and respect of the parish. Yet he is the vicar’s own sounding board, his confidential counsellor, his escape route in times of stress, his apologist to the parish if this is necessary.
The parish of St Peter-on-the-Hill was no exception. In spite of all his visiting Harry Mountjoy was at bottom a shy man who lacked confidence in making decisions. Randall Richardson, his warden, could always be relied upon for sound advice and encouragement. Between the two men there was a good working relationship and a personal friendship.
Ask Randall. See what he thinks. There was nothing so easy as picking up the phone.
Yet the evening after his visit to Glenfern Hospital he had picked up the phone several times and put it down without dialling.
“Hallo, Vicar.” At last he had waited long enough to hear the familiar well-modulated tones. “How are you this beautiful summer’s evening? And how is Lavinia?”
“Oh, very well, thank you. Randall, do you recall meeting that young university lecturer at church last Sunday?”
“A very interesting young man.”
“I formed the opinion that he was over-stressed about his search for his colleague. I would like your opinion as to whether he should seek psychiatric help.”
“Get him to see his GP who would refer him to a psychiatrist if there is any cause for concern.”
“You don’t think you could help?”
“No, that’s the best course.”
Randall had a habit of getting to the point quickly, dealing with it briskly, then giving the impression that he had something else to do. The vicar feared that the conversation would be cut short. “Randall, as a matter of fact I was so anxious about him that I walked up to your hospital to see you at around midday today. I am sorry that I did not phone before I went.”