Silently, Dave bent down and began gathering up the pictures as if to shield Jessie from the eyes of strangers. Gallantyne waited until they were all returned to their folders. Then he said, “You asked me before, Mr. Brant, if I had any news. I told you I hadn’t, and that’s true enough. I do have something new, though. A man claims to have seen Jessie at 10:30 last night.”
“Where?”
“Coming out of the Arlingtons’ house. Would you know anything about that, Mr. Brant?”
“Yes.”
“What, for instance?”
“It’s not... not true.”
“Now why do you say that? You weren’t anywhere around at that time, were you? I understand you were out searching for Mr. Arlington, who’d left here after a quarrel with his wife.”
“Yes.”
“Where did you go?”
“A few bars, some cafés.”
“And after that?”
“Home.”
“Whose home?”
Dave turned his head away. “Well, I naturally had to check in at Virg — at Mrs. Arlington’s house to tell her I hadn’t been able to find Howard.”
“This checking in,” Gallantyne said softly, “was it pretty involved? Time-consuming?”
“I told her the places where I had looked for Howard.”
“It took you exactly two seconds to tell me.”
“We discussed a few other things, too. She was worried about Howard, he’d been acting peculiarly all evening.”
“In what way?”
“He seemed jealous of the attention Virginia paid to Jessie.”
“Did he have any other cause for jealousy?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“It’s a simple enough question, surely.”
“Well, I can’t answer it. I don’t know what was going on in Howard’s mind.”
“I’m talking about your mind, Mr. Brant.”
“I’ve... I’ve forgotten the question. I’m... you’re confusing me.”
“Sorry,” Gallantyne said. “I’ll put it another way. How did you feel when Mr. Arlington walked out of here last night?”
“We were all upset by it. Howard had never done anything like that before.”
“What time did he leave?”
“Between 9:30 and ten.”
“What happened after that?”
“I took Virginia home. Then I decided I’d better try and find Howard.”
“You decided, not Mrs. Arlington?”
“It was my idea. She was too depressed to be thinking clearly.”
“Depressed. I see. Did you attempt to cheer her up in any way?”
“I went looking for her husband.”
“And you returned to her house at what time?”
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t wearing a watch.”
“Well, let’s try and figure it out, shall we? You know what time you discovered Jessie missing from her room.”
“Eleven. She has a clock beside her bed.”
“Very well. At ten, your wife retired for the night. Half an hour later Jessie was seen leaving the Arlington house.
Dave kept shaking his head back and forth. “No, I told you that’s not true. It’s a... a terrible impossibility.”
“Impossibilities can’t be terrible, Mr. Brant. By definition, they don’t exist. Possibilities are a different matter. They can happen, and they can be quite terrible, like the one you’re seeing now.”
“No. I don’t, I won’t.”
“You have to,” Gallantyne said. “I suggest that Jessie went over to the Arlingtons’ place between ten and 10:30. The house was always open to her, she could come and go as she liked, according to Mrs. Arlington. She entered by the back door —”
“No. It was locked, it must have been locked.”
“Did you lock it yourself?”
“No.”
“That was a pretty serious mistake, wasn’t it, Brant? Or are you so casual about that sort of thing you don’t mind an onlooker?”
“She didn’t see us, she couldn’t—”
“I think she did. She saw her father, and the woman she called her aunt, in an attitude that shocked and frightened her so badly that she dashed out into the street. I don’t know what was in her mind, perhaps nothing more than a compulsion to escape from that scene. I do know there was a man waiting for her in a car. Perhaps he’d been waiting a long time, and for many nights previously, but that was the night that counted because Jessie’s guard was down. She was in a highly emotional state, she didn’t have sense enough to cry out or to run away when the man accosted her.”
Dave’s body was bent double, his forehead touching his knees, as though he was trying to prevent himself from fainting.
Mac crossed the room and leaned over him. “Are you all right, Brant?”
“Aaah.” It was not a word, merely a long, painful sigh of assent: he was all right, he wished he were dead but he was all right.
“Listen, Brant. It didn’t necessarily happen the way Lieutenant Gallantyne claims it did.”
“Yes. My fault, all my fault.”
“Tell him, Gallantyne.”
Gallantyne raised his eyebrows in a show of innocence. “Tell him what?”
“Can’t you see he’s in a bad way and needs some kind of reassurance?”
“All right, I’ll give him some.” Gallantyne’s voice was quiet, soothing. “You’re a real good boy, Brant. You had nothing to do with your daughter’s disappearance. A little hanky-panky with the dame next door; well, Jessie was nine, old enough to know about such things. She shouldn’t have been shocked or scared or confused. Don’t they teach these matters in the schools nowadays? The birds and the bees, Daddy and Aunt Virginia... Now, you want to tell me about it?”
Slowly and stiffly, Dave raised his head. “There’s nothing to tell except it — it happened.”
“Not for the first time?”
“No, not for the first time.”
“Did you plan on divorcing your wife and marrying Mrs. Arlington?”
“I had no plan at all.”
“What about Mrs. Arlington?”
“If she had one, I wasn’t the important part of it.”
“Who was?”
“Jessie. Jessie seems to be a projection of herself. She’s the child Virginia was and all the children Virginia will never have.”
“When did you find this out?”
“Today. I started thinking about it today.”
“A bit late, weren’t you?” Gallantyne said. “Too late to do Jessie any good.”
“You — are you trying to tell me Jessie is — that she’s dead?”
“The man who was waiting for her in the car has a history of sexual psychopathy. I can’t offer you much hope, Brant.” Not any hope except that the other child in his history managed to survive.
(23)
He was moving toward the sea as inevitably as a drop of water. There were stops for traffic lights, detours to avoid passing places where Ben or Louise sometimes went; there were backtrackings when he found himself on a strange street. These things delayed him but they didn’t alter his destination.
He passed the paper company where he worked. A light was burning in the office and he went over and peered into the window, hoping to see Mr. Warner sitting at his desk. But the office was empty, the light burning only to discourage burglars. Charlie was disappointed. He would have liked to talk to Mr. Warner, not about anything in particular, just a quiet, calm conversation about the ordinary things which ordinary people discussed. To Mr. Warner he wasn’t anyone special; such a conversation was possible. But Mr. Warner wasn’t there.