A Private Haunting (10 page)

A thump on Jonas's shoulder. He turned to Eggers and Eggers was smug, smugly intense.

‘I know how this works, they're gonna make a list of people and talk to them one by one at their homes, not here, imagine that, traipsing off one by one to be asked questions, fuck me that'd be
full-on
, what if everyone got exactly fifteen minutes then someone else, say you, Jonas, were in there for twenty-five? People would notice, they'd think you'd
done
something.'

The media ran out of different ways to ask the same questions that still had no answers. They turned their attention to the locals, absent-mindedly scribbling down the same comments, eyes seeking the next person, the next, that elusive bombshell quote. Apart from the police, hardly anyone had left the hall. People wanted to talk and speculate, as if to do so was to make very clear, very publically, that they, personally, had nothing to hide.

But Jonas of the
bushcraft eye
. He could see the moorings straining hard. Just beyond the communality and camaraderie everyone was looking at each other that little bit more closely. Because how can we all be in it together when only
I
can have certainty about having nothing to do with Lacey Lewis's disappearance? Y
ou
, my friend, you I know nothing about
.

So Jonas left the hall and headed down the street to the supermarket. He loaded up with beer, wine, and lemonade, wheeling the trolley back to circulate with drinks that some took and some refused, the lemonade going first and only slowly the beer and wine, as if to be the first to start boozing was to undermine the gravity of the situation but hey, it's a stressful time, take off that edge, as at a wake, that mysterious watershed when it is realised by everyone
at exactly the same time
that they can now crack a relieved smile and get safely drunk.

Mary spoke to him, setting butterflies dancing in his stomach that he tried not to think about. She said he was doing a
good thing
. Eggers too gave a grim, appreciative smile. He downed a Staropramen and opened another. Two more and he shouted for quiet, raising his bottle.
Here's to you, Lacey, we'll see you soon
enough
.

Ah Jack, Jackie Eggers. The immersive man. Li Po would approve. If you're going to watch naked women on your laptop, do it shamelessly. If you believe that a disappeared teenager will return, then shout that certainty to the whole world. For a while the volume level increased, the alcohol loosening the tension. The afternoon teetered on the edge of enjoyment until a tremor of discomfort travelled round the hall and reminded everyone of the context.

People started looking at Jonas's tray with distaste. But he was only trying to help, doing his
good thing
. That was the thing about misjudgement, nobody liked to admit it. Much better to pin it on some sap, who couldn't read the situation, who kept on circulating, an OCD waiter with a goofy grin, Mary now with a gentle hand and a look that said
that's
enough now
.

He watched her wander round the hall. Pats on the shoulder, a few cuddles. She'd lived here all her life. Liked because she was known. Maybe under all the fuss that blows through our days like skeleton leaves that's all we need. To be known. No one wants to be the headstone name disappearing under lichen. Even Jonas, the cultivator of non-attachment.

It was after three. Jonas thought of Lacey and the stranger and if you could ever decide you truly knew someone. He did not want to leave this village. He saw his possessions piled on the street and a squad car pulled up because of course there would be police, whatever the stranger said, police looking for details, asking questions Jonas didn't hear.

Fletcher studied the girl's picture in
The Sun
then put the paper down on the grass. It was a pity she had to disappear.

It was simpler to see the world as a film, a series of more or less believable set-pieces but all of them still fabrications. If everything was made up then there was no need to get involved. A mind-frenzy may still arise, it depended on the actual absurdity you were facing. Like finding a Norwegian hippy in your house and realising he had no intention of leaving.

He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. For five hours he'd been lying on a sun lounger found in the shed. The hot sun had stunned him like forty mg of paroxetine, the anger he woke with now broken up. Fletcher liked the heat, even the furnace of Iraq and Afghanistan. He didn't mind the rash, the hot prickle in the crotch and armpits. All that viscous junk, oozing out like oil. It made him want to abuse himself, just so he could feel the purge.

He'd positioned the sun lounger very carefully. Given the height of the fence, it was impossible for anyone on the ground floor of the two houses adjacent to End Point and the one facing it to see into the garden. The first floors offered the only vantages. He could do little about the view of the immediate neighbour but the line of sight from the top windows of the next house along could be cut off by moving the sun lounger closer to the fence. Doing so had the disadvantage of opening a view from the house facing End Point, although the rhododendrons and cypresses at the bottom of the garden partially obscured it. He could obscure it slightly more by moving the lounger away from the fence, though not too far to re-open the view from the upper floor of the second house along. It was all a satisfying question of geometry. When Fletcher finished, he was sure that the only eyes that could spy on him were those of the young family next door. He'd already seen a young woman at the bedroom window. She stared at him after shouting at her kids, playing in the garden below.

They were still splashing and yelping. As he pictured the paddling pool the sun suddenly swelled, bringing a surge of connection that made every detail of that moment in time simultaneously ultra-clear.

‘What a great day! I get it from my grandfather, this sun-worshipping. First ray of sun it was off with the t-shirt. Know what he died of...? Heart attack. On the bog. You were expecting me to say skin cancer, yeah? You shouldn't jump to conclusions, always better to wait.'

Fletcher turned. Mortensen was staring at him from the sun room. ‘Am I burning? I kinda drift away and forget. Maybe I'll be the one to get skin cancer but I doubt it. Do you ever get the feeling you know what you're going to die from? I reckon it's going to be something – '

‘You're still here.'

‘Seriously, bro, who's writing your dialogue? Hard to find the words though. Maybe the goodie should get angry, I take it you're the goodie? A fight scene's good for drama. You want a fight?'

‘Whatever you say.'

‘How'd it go at the hall? You work with kids, Jonas. Think the cops will come knocking?'

‘Fuck you.'

Fletcher stood up very quickly. ‘This should be easy. Don't make it difficult.'

‘You want me out? Then go get the police.'

‘What, you still think I'm lying?'

‘Why not?'

‘You're a parasite.'

‘Then go to the police.'

Fletcher raised his face to the sun, looking for another shot of tranquillity. He let his fists unclench. If he wasn't going to the police, then he didn't want GBH to make it an option for the Norwegian either.

‘
Jonas
?'

Fletcher recognised Mary's voice inside the house. Jonas had almost winced.

‘
Jonas
?'

‘Looks like your girlfriend's here.'

‘She's not – '

He smirked, watching Jonas try to settle a calmer look on his face as Mary appeared behind him.

‘Oh sorry, I didn't know you had company. I knocked at the door but no one answered so I just…'

‘That's ok,' said Jonas.

Fletcher watched their smiles become uncomfortable. Mary's eyebrows raised a questioning centimetre.

‘This is...
Adam
,' said Jonas, and another pause. ‘My cousin. My aunt married an Englishman.'

‘It's why you came here,' said Fletcher. ‘Isn't it, Jonas, why you came to End Point? Family connections and all that. The pleasure's all mine, Mary. Get her a beer, cuz, one for me too.'

Jonas stared dumbly. While he was getting the beer, Fletcher got two camping chairs from the shed.

‘Cheers.' He took a bottle from Jonas and sat down on the lounger, legs spread. He'd positioned the camp chairs to face him. If she wanted, Mary could reach out and touch his thigh.

They sat in silence, Jonas picking at the label on his bottle and Mary looking round at the houses. When she caught his eye Fletcher smiled. ‘Hot eh?' He loved the sun, fuckin loved it.

‘Certainly is.'

‘How do you know my cousin then? He's never mentioned you but he's always been a secretive bastard.'

‘C'mon,
Adam
– '

‘I'm the cleaner.'

‘The cleaner?'

‘Well. A friend too, I mean – '

‘You've got a
cleaner
?'

‘It's nothing you – '

‘Helluva house to keep clean, isn't it, Mary? I mean, if it was my house I'd take better care of it. Some people have no domestic sense. Know what I mean, Jonas, some people don't have any – '

‘I thought you were leaving?'

Fletcher wrinkled his nose. ‘You're absolutely right. Stay out here any longer and I'll fry like a sardine. Hey, that's a pretty good idea. We should have a barbecue. I could go some sardines, something nice and fishy. Fancy it, Jonas? Let's get something
fishy
on the barbie.'

‘You've been in the sun too long, you're starting to gibber.'

‘You're right.' He stood up. ‘Who knows what I'll say next, eh Jonas?' And smiled, the rising awkwardness mirrored by the growing panic in Mortensen's eyes as he waited for him to tell Mary that
she was being lied to
. He gave it several more strung-out moments then walked away.

 

Jonas watched Fletcher go.
For why
, his mother used to say when he was pestering her.
For why do you ask
all these questions, little Jonas?
He heard her voice again as the stranger disappeared inside the house.
For why has
this beardy man appeared in your life, little Jonas?

Who knows? Not Jonas and not his mother, she a presence not quite as inexplicable as Fletcher's but not far off, mostly forgotten if randomly remembered, like a synaptic twitch, caused today by alcohol, no food, and the unsettling after-trails of Fletcher's departure.

For why is this happening
, little Jonas?

But nothing as yet
was
happening, no pile of possessions on the street, nothing as yet but a stranger whose face was becoming familiar, a man sunbathing in his garden,
settling in
.

He pictured Fletcher's grinning face. He'd be back, of course, unreal as it all was, as unreal, he supposed, as Fletcher turning up at his grandfather's house and finding a Norwegian living there.

Meanwhile, Mary Jackson cleaned. She'd insisted. Said she wanted to avoid sitting at home staring at the news because it's disgusting how an entertainment is being built from this.

‘So, I'm sorry, Jonas, it'll have to be you.'

It'll have to be you
. The words revolved as he glanced at her, sweat on her neck and the top buttons of her shirt undone, now and then a glimpse of her breasts. It was exciting, a bit pervy, but what was one without the other? She was staying for dinner. It was so normal, like all the other sounds of the evening, shouting children and clattering dishes, music drifting from an opened window. It almost made him forget about Fletcher, but not Lacey.

Her parents might be sitting in their own back garden, the same chairs, the usual colours and sounds. Everything was everything apart from her. Jonas had tried, he had only tried to help, but teenage girls never listened. He smiled again and Mary smiled back, a sudden lawnmower and Lacey was shimmering, then a shriek from next door's kids and she was gone.

So set the table and welcome Mary's delight at his
puttanesca
chicken, a rare outing for the only dish he could cook well and yes, it
was
a triumph, she was quite right, he accepted the compliments and basked in the glow, maintaining his self-satisfaction until midway down the second bottle of Sauvignon Blanc when he looked at her and suddenly saw another smile.

Estrangement was an express train, still accelerating. I exist at great distances, he thought. From my wife. From this evening.

‘How long do you think it'll last?' Mary asked.

‘What's that?'

‘The weather.'

‘Careful, you'll jinx it.'

‘I'd be happy with sun like this every day for the rest of my life.'

The weather?

Yes, the weather, they were actually talking about the weather
.
But so what, Jonas having decided to
enter the narrative space
as Eva would have said, a movie obsessive who chided Jonas for the way he scoffed at terrible films
because there's always
something to see, you just have to learn how to
look
, leaning towards him the way Mary just had, an evening like this in another life, the two of them babbling on, probably laughing because the sentimentality of memory insisted on it, turning to see Anya waddling across the garden, the first time she'd walked, big green eyes and hands a-clapping, one, two, three steps before falling over and quick as it opened up that space was closing and what remained was only complication.

‘Penny for them?' Mary asked.

Jonas had slipped into silence but hadn't noticed, as he only now registered Mary's smile, which wavered the longer he didn't smile back. ‘Do you like films?'

A slight frown but still the smile. ‘Sure. Why?'

‘Me too.'

‘O-
kay
!' And looked away, perhaps wondering where he'd suddenly gone, her smile finally disappeared. In a moment she stood up from the table, crossed to the lawn and lay down.

He watched. A
moment
, he decided, one of those moments. So what to do, what to do?

Ah Jonas, the master of over-projection. But each day was connected to all previous, was it not, now to then to Eva to Mary? So he got up and joined her on the lawn, warm with the day's stored heat, both looking up to the swifts, darting and soaring as if conducting their thoughts, a scroll of detail but not too fast for Jonas to keep up, high but not too high, he could still hear the old wandering song line that hadn't yet been lost among all the other chatter.

‘Fast little things,' she said.

Jonas turned to her. Mary's hair had fanned onto the grass, a cascade of red on green. She was smiling again.

‘It's like they're writing something,' she added. ‘Maybe with the right eyes we'd be able to read it.'

‘If we could read... bird.'

‘Bird?'

‘Bird language,' he said. ‘I know bird.'

‘You know bird.'

‘I know bird.' And he started making odd tweets and chirrups, noises through his teeth and little pursed lip whistles because she was trying and he would too, drawn by that smile.

She was laughing. ‘But what does it
mean
, Jonas?'

‘It means the wine's empty and I'm going to get some more.'

‘Birds drink wine?'

‘Yes, they drink wine. Everyone knows that.'

‘Mal-beak, I suppose,' and Mary rolled over on the lawn, cackling with laughter. ‘I want to hear some music,' she said, sitting up with grass in her hair, suddenly serious. ‘Let's get out of the village. It's been a really awful day, I'm a bit drunk and I feel like getting plastered.'

‘Sounds like a plan.'

They looked up as if choreographed into Fletcher's beaming face. He wore shades, and had changed into black cotton trousers and a tight black t-shirt, a silver chain around the neck.

‘I could do with getting out of Dodge too,' he added.