Death on Lindisfarne (5 page)

“I
DON'T LIKE LEAVING YOU ALONE
.” Lucy stood at the door of the garden bedroom, tense with indecision. “At least come and get something to eat.”

“I'm not hungry.” Rachel's voice was muffled.

“I'll get Mrs Batley to keep something for you and I'll bring it back with me.”

“You've got things to do. Never mind about me.”

“I
do
mind about you. I mind a great deal.” Lucy longed to go back and put her arms round the girl again. None of the comfort, the coaxing, the prayers she had offered seemed to be doing any good. Rachel still sat curled in a tight ball on her bed, hugging her unhappiness to her.

Holy Island, which Lucy had hoped would cast its healing spell over her, seemed to have had the opposite effect. Rachel had been quite animated in the car, joking with Peter and singing songs as Lucy drove them north. But now it seemed as though a door to her soul had slammed shut. Nothing Lucy did or said could get past it.

Had something happened to upset her? James? Had the golden-haired pastor taken Rachel off this afternoon? Lucy's nails dug into her palms as she clenched her fists. It was one thing for James to openly challenge her leadership of this course. But if he had done anything to undermine Rachel's fragile rehabilitation…

She took a deep breath, trying to still her anger. She looked back into the twilit room. As so often, Rachel's long brown hair hung forward, obscuring her sallow face. Lucy's heart ached with pity for her.

She shaped a silent prayer.

She stood for several moments, letting this picture of the girl imprint itself on her mind. Then she straightened her shoulders and headed for the dining room.

Back in the house, Aidan and Melangell were getting ready for their first supper with the group. Dusk was thickening. Aidan went to close the curtains of his bedroom.

There was a movement in the garden below. He saw Lucy come out of one of the chalet bedrooms. She turned her head to speak to someone inside. Was it Rachel?

Yet hadn't he met Rachel earlier, bounding up the stairs to these single bedrooms? Who else was on the top floor?

He watched Lucy make her way into the house. Then a larger figure came out of another door into the shadows of the verandah. Aidan flipped through his memories of the afternoon. Wasn't that the room Valerie Grayson had stood outside? It could only be Elspeth Haccombe. She disappeared into the room Lucy had just left.

Aidan felt his eyebrows rise. It had not occurred to him to think of Elspeth as a motherly person who would go out of her way to comfort a troubled teenager. It was definitely not her style. Perhaps there was a softer side to her she kept well hidden. Maybe that was what attracted the gentler Valerie to her. He might be too ready to spring to conclusions about people.

“Daddy!” said Melangell's reproving voice from the door. “Aren't you ever coming? I'm starving.”

He turned, rearranging his face into a smile. “I don't believe it. After all that cake?”

The meal was finishing. Lucy found herself growing uncomfortably nervous. She had imagined herself sharing her enthusiasm for the stories of the Northumbrian saints with a circle of eager listeners. The
reality was proving more difficult. Elspeth was clearly sceptical. James didn't want to be here. He showed every sign of trying to wrest the leadership out of her hands. If he had his way, he would take the course down a more evangelistic road than she had planned. She doubted that the Cavendishes were really interested in seventh-century history.

Had she made a mistake in beginning with that bloodthirsty story of Urien's murder on the sands? She could have started with something more attractive, like St Cuthbert's playing with otters on the beach.

But she did not want a Christianity wrapped in cotton wool. It was the messy reality of life as it had been lived that attracted her. Conflicts within the Christian community and without. There had been plenty of those in Northumbria.

She stood, with what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

“Coffee in the lounge. Then you have a free evening. I've put out a collection of reading material about the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Church in the north and Lindisfarne in particular. Feel free to borrow stuff, as long as I get it back before we go. Tomorrow morning, I've got permission for us to hold our own service in the ruins of the abbey when it opens at nine-thirty. The causeway's closed until noon, so there shouldn't be too many visitors about. I'd be happy to see any of you who would like to join me for that. We'll start our next session for everyone there at ten, to go on with the story I started this evening.”

“You haven't said anything about prayers tonight,” James's voice challenged her. “If that's too much for you, I'll lead them.”

Lucy felt the blood mounting in her cheeks. She tried to keep her voice level and friendly.

“Thank you, James. That's a kind offer. As it happens, I have an order of evening prayer from the Northumbrian Community I was going to use. Mrs Batley's given us the room across the hall for a chapel. Perhaps you'd like to read the lesson?”

She felt his pale blue eyes on her, cold, assessing. Was this going to be the pattern for the week? This struggle for control of the group?

As the others slipped away for a comfort break, all Lucy really wanted to do was to step outside into the cool of the night and spend a few minutes in prayer. Another pull of conscience told her she ought
to look in on Rachel, to take her the supper Mrs Batley had promised to put aside.

She walked into the kitchen. There were two covered plates on a tray.

“Is this for Rachel?”

“A piece of pie and some apples and custard. I hope she's all right.”

“Thanks. Yes. She's had a bad time recently. She needs time to herself.”

Lucy hoped that was all it was.

She carried the tray along the verandah and tapped at the door. No answer from inside. Manoeuvring her burden precariously, she tried the handle. The door was unlocked. It was only then it struck her that there was no light on inside. She felt for her own bed and set the tray down there, then turned for the light switch. There was a tension in her throat. She could not have said what she feared to see.

The spacious bedroom was empty. The covers on Rachel's bed were rumpled, where she had been curled up when Lucy left her. Fighting down her growing alarm, she moved to the bathroom. The door was closed. She knocked gently.

“Rachel? Are you in there? It's me. Lucy.”

It took a moment to summon the willpower to open the door. She was praying she would not find Rachel in the bath, with blood from her wrists turning from shocking red to pink as it emptied away into the water.

Her first reaction was enormous relief that there was no one there. Then renewed alarm. It was dark outside now. She had no idea where Rachel might be.

For a moment, she leaned against the doorpost, feeling dizzy. Then the practical training for the life she had led before she became a minister asserted itself. Rachel had gone missing this afternoon. She had come back on her own. At the first meeting she had looked more upset than when she had arrived, certainly. But her emotions had been in a fragile state ever since Lucy had known her. It was part of the reason for bringing her to Holy Island. It was too soon yet to panic, wasn't it?

She stepped outside into the cool of the garden.

“Rachel?”

The girl might be sitting on one of the seats on the lawn, unseen. But there were lights along the covered verandah that led to the house. There was no sign of a hunched figure on any of the benches. No one replied.

Again, Lucy wrestled with her duties. Inside the house, nine other people would be gathering in the lounge. They would be expecting her to join them. She could slip away again for a while before evening prayers. Rachel would be back in their bedroom by then, wouldn't she?

She turned reluctantly for the house.

T
HE LOUNGE WAS ALREADY HALF-FULL
of people when Aidan and Melangell entered. Aidan crossed the carpet to the coffee table with a sense of trepidation. He had been hoping that he could tuck himself away in a corner sofa again and listen to another of Lucy's stories about Northumbria's past. There would have been no compulsion on him to say anything. He would not have to join in the discussion, or reveal anything more about himself.

Now he felt exposed. He faced a wall of almost-strangers, any one of whom might turn an interested face to him and engage him in conversation. Aidan was not by nature unsociable, but he knew from recent experience that even the most innocent of conversations could soon turn to the question of why he and Melangell were here without Jenny.

Without Jenny
.

That one irreversible reality that was a wound too dreadful to touch.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and took it quickly to a chair beside the window where no one was sitting yet.

Melangell helped herself to a chocolate biscuit and came to curl up on the carpet at his feet. A tug of conscience told him he ought to find something to amuse her. There was a cabinet in the corner with books on shelves and a cupboard below which might contain games.

Peter, the archaeology student, was bending to open it. His floppy dark hair fell forward as he searched inside. After a moment, he straightened up. He came towards the Davisons, waving a chessboard and a box of chessmen. His grin was directed at Melangell, not Aidan.

“Do you play chess?”

“Of
course
I do.” Melangell scrambled to her feet.

“I thought you looked as though you might.”

He laid the board on the floor and settled his ungainly bulk beside it. Melangell took up her favourite position, flat on her stomach, with her elfin face propped up on her hands. Aidan felt a rush of gratitude towards Peter.

His relief was cut short when the Cavendishes settled themselves into the sofa next to his chair. Frances took out some white knitting. A baby jacket, by the look of it. She turned to him with what he was sure was meant to be a friendly smile.

“It's lovely to see the kiddies playing, isn't it?” She nodded to Melangell. “She's a bright one, your Mel…”

“Melangell.”

“We said to ourselves, Dave and me, it's a pity her mum couldn't be here as well.” Her pale eyes turned to him enquiringly.

There it was. Hardly three sentences into the conversation and the wound was gaping wide.

“Yes.” He took a gulp of his coffee. He had a sudden wish that he smoked, so that he could make an excuse to escape into the garden.

The best defence was to turn the questioning back on her.

“Where was the children's home you ran?”

“On the Kent coast, near Broadstairs. We always liked to be beside the sea, Dave and me.”

“Can't keep away, can we? Seaside holidays,” her husband joined in.

Aidan sat back and let the reminiscences of the pair wash over him.

A detached part of his mind roamed over the rest of the room. He sensed an absence. Lucy still hadn't returned. He had seen her coming out of the kitchen with a tray of food, presumably for the missing Rachel.

His photographer's gaze framed James and Sue sitting on a sofa across the room. They were physically together, but with a tension in their body language that made the gap between them seem wider than it was.

Valerie Grayson sat alone in another corner. Belatedly, Aidan wished he had gravitated towards her, rather than being cornered by
the garrulous Cavendishes. He sensed a delicate reserve about Valerie. She would not have pressed him for information he did not want to give. She had one of Lucy's books on her knee, but she was not reading it. She looked slightly worried.

There was no Elspeth Haccombe. The room seemed emptier without her large presence.

The moment Lucy entered the room, Aidan could see that something was wrong. She threw a distracted look around the group, as though she had forgotten they would be here. Then he saw her make the physical effort to gather herself together. Her rounded chin went up. She shook her head so that her fair curls danced for a moment. She squared her shoulders. Then, with a smile she succeeded in making look more genuine than professional, she headed for the only person sitting alone: the grey-haired Valerie.

“If you ever want us to do some baby-sitting, don't be afraid to ask,” Frances was saying at his elbow.

“What? Oh, that's very kind of you. But really, Melangell's no trouble.”

“Still, we'd be glad to take her off your hands. Play some games with her,” David Cavendish put in.

“We miss the children,” Frances agreed. “And they do need someone to mother them, don't they?”

He could stand it no longer. “Excuse me.” He got up. “I think I could do with a breath of fresh air.”

Melangell's clear voice cut across the room. She had lifted her tousled head from the chessboard and was looking up at Valerie.

“My mother wrote that book you've got. It's the one about St Cuthbert, isn't it?”

Aidan flinched.

Both Valerie's and Lucy's heads shot up.

The image of the small, glossy-covered book on Valerie's knee burned on his brain.

Lucy exclaimed, “Jenny Davison? I never realized.” She looked more closely at the cover. “Of course! Photographs by Aidan Davison. Aidan, I'm so sorry! I never made the connection.”

Aidan felt as though a storm was churning in his head. He couldn't handle this.

Valerie smiled. Her quiet voice spoke the words he dreaded: “What a pity Jenny couldn't be here as well.”

Lucy laughed. “She could have led this course better than I can.”

He could stand it no longer. The words were torn from him, in a voice so harsh he hardly recognized it as his own: “I didn't come here to discuss my wife!”

He found himself standing outside the house, hardly knowing how he had got there. He was shaking.

The road was quiet now. A string of lights beaded its way towards the village, still hardly visible beyond the trees that lined this street. The sky was not completely dark. Stars shone hazily through the slight mist. The air was welcomingly cool and damp on his cheek, as though someone were pressing a satin cloth against his skin.

“Are you all right?” He jumped as a voice spoke beside him. He had not heard Lucy's light step in those trainers.

He felt his hairs prickle. She was the last person he wanted to talk to. He knew what she must be thinking – what everyone in that room would assume – a broken marriage. It happened all the time. It would be her job to show a pastoral concern for him.

He could not bring himself to tell her the truth.

“Yes,” he said curtly.

He ought to apologize for his outburst, but he wasn't going to. The words stuck like a hard knot in his throat.

It felt threatening to have her stand beside him in the half-light. He tensed, waiting for the next question that would probe beneath the armour of his reticence.
Please don't ask about Jenny,
he prayed.

“Sorry! I guess I put my foot in it back there,” she said quietly.

He didn't answer.

“You probably don't want me crowding you.” She moved away towards the road and drew a deep breath of night air. “I feel the same.
I'm fairly new to being a minister. Sometimes I think I can't hack it. Then I come to somewhere like Holy Island and the spirits of all these marvellous people who worked and prayed here come out of the mist to hold me up and give me peace. I think of all that they had to suffer: invasion, betrayal, violent death, the loss of everything they held dear. And somehow my own problems don't seem quite so insurmountable.”

He clung grimly to his silence. Whatever problems she had, they could be nothing like his own pain.

Lucy sighed. “I ought to be getting back to see to the rest of my flock. I'll leave you to the night and the peace.”

“Yes.” He turned an ungracious shoulder.

He heard the whisper of her rubber soles fading towards the door. A solitary seagull ghosted between the street lights.

It was only the thought of Melangell in the room behind him that made him turn.

He thought he was far enough behind her, but Lucy was waiting in the hall. He stopped abruptly at the front door. He tried to avoid the probing blue eyes. All he wanted was to be left alone.

“I'd better see if Melangell's beaten Peter yet,” he said gruffly.

“She's special, isn't she?” Lucy paused by the lounge door.

“Yes,” he said, again abruptly. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that Melangell was all he had.

“And I need to see if Rachel's back. She wasn't in our room. It's probably nothing. She goes off sometimes when things get too much. She's had a lot to put up with. The sort of damage no one can ever quite heal.”

He saw her square her shoulders and lift her head as she pushed the lounge door open, like a soldier preparing for combat.

“I hope she comes back soon,” he said with a stiff attempt at politeness.

She threw him a brief smile over her shoulder. “There's a voice in my head telling me the things I used to say in my previous existence, when other people reported a teenager missing. She's eighteen, an adult. Lots of teenagers walk out when things get too much. They usually turn up pretty soon. It's too early to send out a search party yet.”

As she took a step into the crowded room Aidan's mind caught up with what she was saying.

“Your previous existence?”

“A policewoman. In this area, actually. I haven't been a Methodist minister very long. It probably shows.”

Aidan halted in the doorway. He did not think he could face the rest of the group tonight after that dreadful cry of pain. All those curious eyes.

Melangell's head shot round. She scrambled up from the chessboard. Her smile was bright with excitement.

“Did you say you were in the police?”

Faces turned, all around the room. The murmur of voices stilled.

Lucy laughed uneasily. “That's a conversation-stopper, isn't it? My sister's a maths teacher and she gets the same response. But it was a few years ago now. My guilty past. I'm not going to be checking up on you all. My work now is less about crime, more about forgiveness.”

“We'd better watch ourselves, though,” David Cavendish laughed. “Once a copper, always a copper, I'd say. Better mind our Ps and Qs.”

“Oh, please!” Lucy had coloured. “Being an ordained minister can be barrier enough. Don't hold that against me as well.”

There was a disturbance behind Aidan. He saw all the eyes in the room swing past Lucy to the newcomer.

Elspeth Haccombe strode into the room. She clapped a hand on Lucy's shoulder. “You can stop worrying. There's a light on in your room. She's back.”

Lucy felt a flash of joy. In spite of her confident words to Aidan, she felt that Rachel was on a knife-edge.

Then, as the pressure of Elspeth's hand on her shoulder lifted, a thought struck her. How had the Oxford don known that Rachel was missing? Lucy had told no one except Aidan. Others might have read anxiety in her body language, but Elspeth hadn't been in the lounge after supper to see it. Hers and Valerie's room was next to Lucy and
Rachel's. Had she simply seen the darkened windows and made her own assumption?

She was aware that Peter had hoisted his bulk from the chess game on the floor and was looking at her with consternation and reproach. Should she have told him? Peter was always so sweetly protective of Rachel. But Lucy had not wanted to spell out her greatest fears before the whole group. She had just prayed that Rachel would come back soon. Apparently she had.

With a quick word of apology, she made for the door before she could meet Peter's accusation.

Melangell had run to throw her thin arms around Aidan. Lucy brushed past them both. Aidan Davison was a prickly customer. The way he had shouted at her made her wonder if he might even be violent. Was that why his wife had left him? A memory of her own past made her shiver.