He said he was tied up all day and that he’d come to The Old Rectory in the evening. She sensed he was preoccupied and wondered if there’d been a development in the case. Perhaps he’d discovered Michael’s background without Arthur’s help.
Later she phoned Sally and asked if she could put the two of them up for the night as paying guests.
‘A double room?’ Sally asked mischievously. ‘The honeymoon suite?’
‘Of course not!’ Hannah thought her humour hadn’t developed since they were children. She’d always been a tease about sex.
Arthur hadn’t quite finished his class when she arrived at his room at lunchtime. Some form of role-play was going on. Hannah walked back down the corridor so she wouldn’t be tempted to watch. She found that sort of exercise embarrassing enough without spectators, though she’d come to realize that Arthur liked play-acting and games.
He admitted as much in the car. He’d been asking about the people who’d been around at the time of Michael’s death. She described Roger Spence, Sally and her disc-jockey boyfriend, Stephen and Sylvia Brice. By the time they arrived at The Old Rectory she had the feeling that he knew them as well as she did and probably understood them better.
‘What’s all this about, Arthur?’ It was her librarian, who’s-been-turning-down-the-page-corners voice.‘I really think we should leave it to the police.’
‘Come on, girl. Don’t spoil my fun.’ She was about to say tartly that it wasn’t fun for her when he added, ‘I might leave it to them if I could be certain they’d get it right.’ He paused. ‘You must have met men inside who don’t deserve to be there.’
‘I’ve met men who say they don’t.’
‘Well, I don’t want any cock-ups in this case.’ He smiled but she wasn’t reassured. He worked for the Home Office. He should have had more faith in the system.
It was just after two when they arrived. Hannah had expected Sally to be at work but she was there to meet them. Curiosity about Arthur, Hannah thought, and a nose for a story. Sally hustled them into the dining-room and organized a late lunch. Later, over coffee, Roger joined them too.
They talked about Michael Grey. It was Arthur’s doing, but perhaps the Spences were eager to talk about him anyway. Sally had her own agenda.
‘I had the impression he’d come from the private system,’ Roger said, ‘but his Latin wasn’t up to much. Hardly prep-school standard. Not what you’d expect.’
‘Was he doing Latin A level?’ Arthur gave the impression he was just being polite. Hannah knew better.
‘No, but I dragooned him in to help with one of my first-year groups. In the end I let him go. He wasn’t any use at all.’
‘Perhaps he just wanted his free period back.’
‘Perhaps. I don’t think so. It’s quite hard to fake genuine ignorance, isn’t it?’
‘How did you get to know him if you didn’t teach him?’
‘Through the school play. I coached him. Individual rehearsals.’
‘Were you surprised when he disappeared?’
‘Not very surprised. Not at first. He liked mysteries. I remember one session when I talked about him bringing his own experience into his acting. He said he was already doing that but he refused to discuss his past with me. I was more surprised when he never returned. I kept expecting him to turn up out of the blue to astound and amaze us.’
Arthur turned lazily to Sally. ‘How well did you know him?’
‘Only as Hannah’s boyfriend. And I’m sorry, pet, but I didn’t really take to him. He was a bit arty-farty for me. There was too much pretence.’
‘Whereas you…’ Roger interrupted, ‘you had your own bit of rough.’
She laughed, not offended in the slightest. ‘Quite right,’ she said. ‘And very nice it was too. You’ll be able to meet him tonight, Arthur. Chris. My ex-bit-of-rough.’
She narrowed her eyes. Hannah thought Sally knew what he was up to. Perhaps journalists and psychologists had similar techniques when it came to ferreting out a story.
Sally continued, ‘There’s a wedding party in the annexe and Chris is doing the disco. He’s still playing the same sort of gigs. I think it’s a bit sad that he’s never moved on.’
In the afternoon they left the car at the hotel and walked to the lake. There was a footpath through an old deciduous wood and then a strip of forestry-commission plantation. The footpath was overgrown and looked as if it must have been there in Hannah’s time, but she couldn’t remember having used it, and at the lakeside everything was so different that she found it hard to get her bearings. A group of teenagers in orange life-jackets stood where once Chris had bought her vodka. A woman was spelling out the rules of safety on the water, shouting to get their attention. Hannah thought that if they capsized they’d be able to walk back to the shore. The water level was even lower than she’d expected. The beach, which she’d remembered as a narrow strip of sand, had widened to an unsightly expanse of mud, rock and shingle. The trainee sailors had to push their dinghies to the water on trolleys, lifting them occasionally over the larger rocks. A new island had been formed at the north end of the lake.
She didn’t know what Arthur hoped to gain by the walk. A sense of place perhaps. She’d told him about her first romantic encounter with Michael by the bonfire on the beach. But this scene, on a sunny afternoon, with the giggles and squawks of the school party coming to them over the water, had nothing in common with the night after the exams. She felt it was an anticlimax. She’d waited so long to come back and now it meant nothing. Arthur seemed dissatisfied by it too, because he sat for a moment in the sun then suggested that they return to The Old Rectory by the lane. On the walk back she started to fret about what Porteous would want from her and how she would explain her failure to pass on the information about Maria’s grave. She said nothing to Arthur. How could she tell him she felt like a schoolgirl, waiting for one of Spooky Spence’s beastly tests?
Outside the hotel a battered white transit was parked. One headlight seemed to be held on by gaffer tape. Chris was standing by the sliding door, shuffling a loudspeaker towards him so he could get his arms around it. Hannah didn’t want to face him yet and touched Arthur’s arm to stop him from approaching. Chris shifted the balance of the speaker so he was taking all the weight and walked slowly with it round the side of the building. His hair was a lot shorter and he was a bit thicker round the waist but he hadn’t changed much. It could have been the same black T-shirt as the one he’d worn to the party after Macbeth.
‘I don’t suppose you recognize him,’ Hannah said.
‘No. Why should I?’
‘He’s been done for dealing. He might have ended up in our place. If he did he never used the library. I wondered if you’d come across him.’
‘No. Look, why don’t we talk to him now? Once all the wedding guests turn up it’ll be impossible.’
‘I wouldn’t know what to say.’ Again she regretted starting all this. But Arthur was unstoppable.
‘Just introduce us. Leave the rest to me.’
The party would take place in a room Hannah hadn’t seen before, a large one-storey annexe built on to the back of the house in stone. It had a polished wood floor for dancing, a bar at one end and a scattering of small tables around the walls. It was quite different from the rest of the hotel – more up-market working men’s club than country house – but she supposed that in the winter the dos held here would make up most of the Spences’ income. Chris was setting up his equipment on a low stage. He was bending over so his T-shirt had ridden up his back. He heard their footsteps and turned round.
‘Hannah Meek,’ he said. ‘Well, well, well. The police haven’t locked you up yet then?’
She blushed. She’d always known Chris was hostile. He’d thought her stuck up and prudish. But she hadn’t expected such an obvious display of rudeness.