Maestro Page 6

  Sara dutifully handed Mag fifty-two pence to cover the stamps, then waited to hand her twenty pence extra for the newspaper.

  Mag handed the stamps to Sara, their hands touching briefly.

  "Mag? Can I have a word?"

  "What about? You been with that Gillane then?" blurted Mag crossly.

  Mag's vitriolic words stung Sara's ears. She was stunned by the undisguised curiosity behind the question.

  Sara's cheeks went flaming red with anger and embarrassment.

  "Look here, Mag," she started, then changed her mind, "Can we talk? I've found out a few things..."

  "Why'd you want to be telling them to me then?" replied Mag sullenly.

  "Because I want to know what you think, Mag. Now, can we talk or not?"

  "Go round the back then."

  Mag gave in although her expression did not improve.

  Mag was filling the kettle as Sara let herself into the kitchen.

  Without saying a word, Mag finished preparing the tea. She put the teapot on the table and sat down. She handed Sara a cup of black tea, remembering that she took neither milk nor sugar.

  "Mag, I went to see Inspector Jay yesterday."

  "The Inspector! I'm surprised he isn't dead by now!"

  From her tone, she clearly wished he was.

  Sara continued to tell Mag most of what she had learned from the Inspector. She left out the part about whether the Inspector knew if Sarah and Gillane had been romantically involved.

  Mag listened carefully to her every word. Occasionally she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. At other times, she stared into her teacup, her face completely blank.

  "Mag, did you know that Sarah's parents had told the police that she had gone away?"

  Sara chided herself for not anticipating Mag's reaction. Mag covered her face with her hands and started crying loudly.

  Sara understood at once, the reason for this fresh set of tears. Mag had fallen out with Sarah's mother because of what she had told the police. Sarah's mother had been happy to dismiss her disappearance, probably even grateful to be rid of the girl.

  "Is that why you haven't spoken to your sister in all these years?" Sara asked gently.

  Her face hidden in a crumpled handkerchief, Mag nodded her head.

  Sara stood up and placed her arm across Mag's shoulders. She realised that there was nothing more that Mag could tell her.

  "Mag, is Sarah's mother close by?"

  "Nar. I don't know where they've gone. John bought the farm from them fifteen years ago."

  "Would John know?"

  Mag shrugged her shoulders, the rift between her and her own sister too great to care anymore. *********************

  Sara did not relish needling John Sheeley for information but she had little choice. John might remember something Sarah's mother had said. For example, why had they left Glymeer?

  Deliberating as she took each step, Sara walked slowly from the post office to John's shop at the other end of the street.

  John was standing behind the counter in deep conversation with a young man. He didn't notice Sara come in, pick up a hand basket and return outside to the fruit and vegetable stands.

  Outside, Sara couldn't help looking at John through the glass facade of the shop. The young man’s back was towards her so she couldn't see his face. John was standing rigidly, his arms hanging at his side. The young man began to gesticulate, banging his fists on the counter. He was speaking loudly but he was too far for Sara to hear what he was saying. John didn't move.

  Intrigued, Sara craned her neck closer to the glass. Suddenly the young man swung around and began walking towards her.

  Thinking he had seen her, Sara began to fill her basket with the first thing she could lay her hands on.

  "These will make lovely jam," she said out loud, choosing a fistful of burgundy plums, aware that the young man was standing in the doorway looking at her.

  The man stared at her, his jaw dropping. He pulled his hat down over his ears and walked quickly past her.

  Basket in hand, Sara stood on the edge of the pavement watching him walk away. Barely twenty yards ahead of her, the young man stopped, turned around and caught her looking at him. Their eyes met.

  Seconds later, he was gone, running towards the opposite end of the street.

  It was John's turn to be startled as he found Sara shaking like a leaf, outside his shop.

  Sara gathered her wits about her, enough to notice that John's face appeared strained and pale.

  John composed himself sufficiently to acknowledge her.

  "What'll you have then?" he asked gruffly.

  "Just these...just these." Sara stammered.

  "Come in, then." he said pushing the door so powerfully that it almost slammed in her face.

  Once behind the counter, the usual sullen expression returned to John's face. Sara handed him the plums, which he diligently weighed.

  "Five pound," he grunted, scowling.

  Sara legs were shaking beneath her. She leaned against the counter, fearing they would give way.

  With one hand, she rummaged in her bag for the five pounds. She was able to extricate the money and hand it to John, her hand trembling.

  John took the money and slammed the till drawer back into place.

  The bag of plums sat in the middle of the counter protecting Sara just barely from the scowling grocer. It was now or never.

  "John.....I....need to ask...you something.."

  Sara wrapped her hands firmly around the bag of plums, ready to defend herself with it, if need be.

  "John, do you know where Sarah Lunn's parents live now?"

  John reacted with a grace Sara hadn't seen before.

  He pulled out a pen from under the counter and began to write on a brown paper bag. The pen moved rhythmically across the paper. John handed the bag to Sara. On it was an address in Wales.

  Sara read the address out loud.

  "Angels Rest. Cymru."

  She folded the bag John had written on and slipped it in her pocket.

  "Thank you," she said smiling gratefully.

  The scowl etched permanently into his face, John did not respond.

  **********************

  Sara returned to Downswold and emptied the bag of plums onto the kitchen table. If she ate nothing else, she calculated it would take three days to finish them.

  She removed her jacket and sat down. Drained by the day's encounters, she considered that she had never, ever, in all her life, come across such a surly, sad bunch of individuals. Mag. John. The strange young man who had forced her to buy the surfeit of plums.

  To her surprise, Sara began to laugh. A loud guffaw. Her chest seized up painfully and the laughing stopped. She became petrified at the thought that she might be going a bit mad.

  She went into the bathroom and pulled the mirror off the wall. She stared at her reflection. Her skin looked supple and smooth but her eyes were dull. Not sparkling, like they used to.

  Sara sat on the laundry box, her head in her hands. She felt wretched. Insecure, unattractive, overwhelmed by what, she didn't know.

  The cottage was stuffy and dark. There was no pleasure in being there alone. She had spent little of her time between the four walls of her "ideal getaway." Most of her "holiday" so far had been spent pursuing a senseless, young girl, long forgotten.

  A perfect stranger, the search for whom was becoming her cause célèbre.

  Every day thousands of families in Britain argue, quarrel, fight. Sarah Lunn didn't get on with her mother. Did it matter?

  Still remembered when she should have been forgotten, the thought of Sarah made people scared, afraid, sad, desperate.

  Why?

  Women die, are killed in crimes of passion all over the world. In rousing that passion in another, Sarah would have lived a full life.

  Sara drew her breath in sharply, horrified at the perversity of her thoughts.

  Sarah deserved to die. She had swung so out
of control that she endured a terrible fate. But she was only a young girl with hardly any understanding of life. How could she have known how to control her own destiny? One never controls destiny. The present is inevitable.

  Sara walked back into the kitchen, her head bowed with regret and pain. She needed comforting. She made a cup of tea. A beverage that she secretly despised drinking outside of a breakfast routine. It was something to do, drink tea all day. Like smoking.

  She stood at the kitchen sink, drinking her tea. The fruit trees at the bottom of the garden were covered in leaves. In another few months, their branches would be laden with fruit. Sarah Lunn collected those apples once and experienced the wrath of her aunt.

  Sara opened the back door and walked towards the copse of trees. The stones and pebbles were cold and pinched her bare feet. The trees were clustered together, their sturdy trunks upright, though gnarled with age. The biggest of them all was the walnut tree. The base of its trunk raised above the ground as if the roots had pushed the earth away, wanting to grow up towards the sky. The earth had resisted and what was left of the wayward roots made the tree trunk look as if it had collapsed on itself. Three ridge-like structures protruded out of it, each providing a space wide enough to sit on.

  The rain of that morning had turned the bare earth into mud. Sara ran her hand along the bark of the walnut tree. It was rough, cracking in parts towards the base of the trunk. The higher her hand went, the smoother the bark became. Her feet sinking into the squidgy mud, she caressed the old bark with her hands.

  "Old tree, old tree, what secrets do you possess?"

  Her hand stopped. The bark felt perfectly smooth, like a shiny, varnished tabletop. But the tips of her fingers felt something else. Something that went against the grain, against the nature of the bark.

  She climbed onto the protruding base of the trunk and saw it right away.

  Etched into the bark of the tree, she read: SARA LUNN 12.3.68

  Sara's first thought was that Sarah Lunn had been very tall. Or she had balanced precariously, a sharp instrument in one hand. It also struck her that it was a childish thing to do. She half expected to see SARA LOVES G. up there too but was relieved not to.

  She almost fell over when she realised the full extent of what she had just seen. 12.3.68 was the day Sarah Lunn had disappeared.

  Chapter Nine.

  Sara bolted into the kitchen. Oblivious of her muddy feet, she ran through the cottage searching for her notepad. Her notes from the article in the Goldarn Voice confirmed the date. 12.03.68 was the day Sarah disappeared. The newspaper had reported her missing on the 14th, two days later.

  The engraved date in the tree proved that Sarah had been at Downswold on the very day she had vanished into thin air. She must have been bored, waiting for someone maybe and had passed the time, dawdling aimlessly away.

  But do young girls walk around with knives in their pockets. Very sharp knives, with long pointed tips? Unless, it was something that Sarah had found lying in the cottage. Which meant that she had free rein, not just to collect apples but into the cottage as well.

  Sara sat down facing the cellar door. She lit a cigarette.

  She knew intuitively, the sensation which defies reason or logic, that something in that cellar would lead her to Sarah Lunn.

  She would have to go to Goldarn and buy herself a torch, powerful enough to explore the cellar. She couldn't rely on the flickering light globe to show her the way.

  Tomorrow. First thing, tomorrow.

  A knock sounded at the front door, forcing her to abandon thoughts of both past and future.

  She opened the door to find Gillane standing there.

  "Hello," he said looking down at Sarah's bare feet. "Am I disturbing you?"

  "No..er..yes. I was just going to take a bath."

  "I won't keep you. I wanted to invite you for dinner at the house tonight. To thank you for driving me home, bleeding head and all."

  The word "bleeding" ran a chill up Sara's spine.

  "It’s very kind of you. But really not necessary." she replied starchily.

  Gillane was having none of it.

  "I insist. It’s the least I can do. Shall we say 7.30?"

  Sara resigned herself to his wishes.

  "As you wish. See you then."

  ***********************

  Sara took a long bath, a contemplative soak to prepare for dinner with Gillane.

  He had a way of popping up when least expected. And when he did, he was impossible to ignore: the towering athletic body, the black piercing eyes.

  An invitation to his house for dinner seemed odd coming from a man who hardly ever spoke.

  Their previous encounters had been uncomfortable. Sara had come away from them, relieved that they were over. Gillane's idea of conversation consisted of a few choice words divided by long intervals of silence. By anyone's standards, Gillane was no life of the party.

  At twenty-five past seven, Sara stepped into her car.

  The atmosphere outside felt humid and oppressive. All afternoon, the sky had been obscured by dense clouds. They were gathering with renewed urgency, the gods' wrath close at hand.

  Sara looked down at the light cotton dress and strappy leather sandals she was wearing. A crocheted blue shawl thrown around her shoulders coordinated with the darker blue of her dress. An invitation to dinner had given her the opportunity to put on some makeup and tidy her hair, two things she had neglected to do since her arrival in Glymeer.

  As she parked the car outside Gillane's house, the rain started to fall. Barely out of the car and the single drops turned to a torrent, unleashed from the sky. Had she arrived one minute later, she would have been drenched to the bone.

  The rain had brought the wind with it, howling along, for company.

  Sara was already shivering in her flimsy dress as Gillane opened the door, umbrella in hand.

  "There you are, Sara. And on time. Please come in."

  He hung the umbrella on the coat rack near the door, then led the way down the hallway into the sitting room.

  Sara handed him a bottle of Vin de Table.

  "I'm embarrassed to offer you this but it was all they had in the village shop."

  "Thank you." Gillane replied, "Please sit down. What can I get you to drink?"

  "A scotch would be nice. With soda if you've got it."

  Gillane seemed slightly amused by her request.

  "Scotch it is. With soda."

  A crystal glass was placed beside her.

  Gillane took his place opposite and raised his glass to his lips.

  "Cheers. To your health."

  His long legs stretched out in front of him, Gillane was observing Sara over the rim of his glass.

  "How is your holiday going Sara? Are you enjoying yourself?"

  Sara hesitated before replying, sensing the question was rife with innuendo.

  "The important thing," she ventured, "is that I'm getting a lot of rest. But I must ask you how you manage to live here. The community is so closed."

  "It suits my needs. And I travel when I can."

  "Really? Where to?"

  "Europe. As often as possible."

  Sara jumped out of her chair, caught off guard by a sudden, loud clap of thunder.

  "Dear me," remarked Gillane, his voice crisp and low, despite the roaring thunder outside. "This weather is usually reserved for August. Shall we proceed to dinner to take our minds off it?"

  Evidently, eating appeared a better option than talking.

  Sara followed her host into the adjoining dining room.

  An oval wooden table and six chairs were squeezed into the room. The table had been laid with two settings only. Knives pointing inwards, three of them and a soup spoon on the right of the dinner plate. Two forks on the left. White wine, red wine, water, liqueur crystal glasses, north east of the plate. A side plate, due west with a blinding white cotton napkin laying across it.

  Two large paintings adorned the walls
. Subdued, the hues cloudy rather than bright as if eating for Gillane must be a relaxing experience. Overwhelm the palate not the vision.

  "Sara, please sit down."

  Gillane led her by the arm to the head of the table.

  Somewhat surprised at being given the seat normally reserved for the head of the household, Sara also observed that it was farthest from the door.

  Gillane disappeared into what Sara assumed was the kitchen and returned with a plate in each hand.

  Smoked salmon on thickly buttered wholemeal slices garnished with capers and a slice of lemon. Lime green blades of chive arranged artistically across each plate.

  A dry white wine accompanied the first course.

  Gillane impressed. That was another of his weapons. Sara sat there embarrassed. To compliment her host on either the presentation of the meal or the quality of the wine would have been gauche.

  Gillane hardly spoke throughout the meal except to excuse himself as he disappeared to collect the next surprise to come out of the kitchen.

  He moved the evening along with a certain precision, which kept him firmly in charge. When he did speak, his conversation was polite, even cordial although tinged with a pronounced note of indifference.

  The second course was a velvety leek and potato soup with which they drank another glass of the white wine.

  Following the soup, Gillane carved a roast chicken at the table which he served with french beans sautéed in garlic and butter.

  This being the most substantial course, Gillane refilled Sara's glass more than once. As the chicken left the table, so too did an empty bottle of Bordeaux.

  Gillane refused all of Sara's offers to assist in the to-ing and fro-ing back and forth to the kitchen. Secretly, she was enjoying being waited on by a man but she had to admit as well that she was charmed by his efforts at having prepared such a lavish meal.

  Gillane returned yet again, this time thankfully, with coffee.

  "Shall we have this in the other room?" he asked, nodding towards the door.

  Sara was grateful for a change of scenery; the sitting room would be more suitable for relaxed conversation over coffee.

  She settled into a comfortable looking chair whilst Gillane poured the coffee. Very dark espresso in demi tasses.