In Pursuit Of The Proper Sinner (3 page)

Still, grateful as Julian was for Sam's help, he wished his cousin hadn't assumed so much. He'd felt guilty about the amount of work she was doing purely from the goodness of her heart, and he'd been casting about aimlessly for some form of repayment. He had no available money to offer her, not that she would have needed or accepted it had he done so, but he did have his dogs as well as his knowledge of and enthusiasm for Derbyshire. And wanting to make her feel welcome for as long as possible at Broughton Manor, he'd offered her the only thing he had: occasional activities with the harriers as well as conversation. And it was a conversation about the eclipse that she had misunderstood.

“I hadn't thought …” He kicked at a bare patch in the gravel where a dandelion was shooting up a furry stalk. “I'm sorry, I'm heading over to Maiden Hall.”

“Oh.”

Funny, Julian thought, how a single syllable could carry the weight of everything from condemnation to delight.

“Stupid me,” she said. “I can't think how I got the impression that you wanted to … Well, anyway …”

“I'll make it up to you.” He hoped he sounded earnest. “If I hadn't already planned … You know how it is.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Mustn't disappoint your Nicola, Julian.”

She offered him a brief, cool smile and ducked into the hollow of the wisteria vine. She hooked a basket over her arm.

“Another time?” Julian said.

“Whatever.” She didn't look at him as she walked past, slipped through the gateway, and disappeared into the inner courtyard of Broughton Manor.

He felt the breath leave him in a gusty sigh. He hadn't realised he'd been holding it back. “Sorry,” he said quietly to her absence. “But this is important. If you knew how important, you'd understand.”

He made the drive to Padley Gorge swiftly, heading northwest towards Bakewell, where he spun across the old mediaeval bridge that spanned the River Wye. He used the journey for a final rehearsal of his remarks, and by the time he'd reached the sloping drive to Maiden Hall, he was fairly assured that before the evening was out, his plans would bear the fruit he wanted.

Maiden Hall sat midway up a slope of woodland. Here the land was thick with sessile oaks, and the incline leading up to the Hall was canopied with chestnuts and limes. Julian cruised up this drive, negotiated the serpentine turns with the skill of long practise, and chugged to a stop next to a Mercedes sports car in the graveled enclosure that was reserved for guests.

He skirted the main entrance and went in through the kitchen, where Andy Maiden was watching his chef put the flame to a tray of créme brulée. The chef—one Christian-Louis Ferrer—had been brought on board from France some five years previously to enhance the solid if not inspired reputation of Maiden Hall's food. At the moment, however, with culinary blow lamp in hand, Ferrer looked more like an arsonist than un grand artiste de la cuisine. The expression on Andy's face suggested that he was sharing Julian's thoughts. Only when Christian-Louis had successfully turned the coating into a perfect, thin shell of glaze, saying, “Et la voila, Andee” with the sort of condescending smile one gives to a doubting Thomas who's once again had his doubts proven groundless, did Andy look up and see Julian watching.

“I've never liked flame throwing in the kitchen,” he admitted with an embarrassed smile. “Hello, Julian. What's the news from Broughton and regions beyond?”

This constituted his usual greeting. Julian made his usual response.

“All's well with the righteous. But as for the rest of mankind … Forget it.”

Andy smoothed down the hairs of his greying moustache and observed the younger man in a friendly fashion while Christian-Louis slid the tray of créme brûlée through a service hatch to the dining room. He said, “Maintenant, on en a fini pour ce soir” and began removing the white apron that was stained with the evenings sauces. As the Frenchman disappeared into a small changing room, Andy said, “Vive la France” wryly and rolled his eyes. Then to Julian, “Join us for a coffee? We've one group left in the dining room and everyone else in the lounge for the after-dinners.”

“Any residents tonight?” Julian asked. An old Victorian lodge once used as a hunting retreat by a branch of the Saxe-Coburg family, Maiden Hall had ten bedrooms. All had been individually decorated by Andy's wife when the Maidens had made their escape from London a decade previously; eight were let out to discerning travelers who wanted the privacy of a hotel combined with the intimacy of a home.

“Fully booked,” Andy replied. “We've had a record summer, what with the fine weather. So what's it to be? Coffee? Brandy? How's your dad, by the way?”

Julian winced inwardly at the mental association implied in Andy's words. Doubtless the whole blasted county paired his father with one type of booze or another. “Nothing for me,” he said. “I've come for Nicola.”

“Nicola? Why, she isn't here, Julian.”

“Not here? She's not left Derbyshire already, has she? Because she said—”

“No, no.” Andy began storing the kitchen knives in a wooden stand, sliding them into slots with a neat snick as he continued talking. “She's gone camping. Didn't she tell you? She set out mid-morning yesterday.”

“But I spoke to her …” Julian thought back, reaching for a time. “Early yesterday morning. She wouldn't have forgotten that quickly.”

“Looks like she has. Women, you know. What did you two have on?”

Julian sidestepped the question. “Did she go alone?”

“Always has done,” Andy replied. “You know Nicola.”

How well he did. “Where? Did she take the proper gear?”

Andy turned from storing his knives. Obviously, he heard something worrying in Julian's tone. “She wouldn't have gone without her gear. She knows how fast the weather changes out there. At any rate, I helped her stow it in the car myself. Why? What's going on? Did you two have a row?”

Julian could give a truthful answer to the last question. They hadn't had a row, at least not what Andy would have considered a row. He said, “Andy, she should've been back by now. We were going to Sheffield. She wanted to see a film—”

“At this time of night?”

“A special showing.” Julian felt his face getting hot as he explained the tradition behind The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But Andy's time undercover in what he always referred to as his Other Life had exposed him to the film long ago, and he waved the explanation off. This time, when he reached for his moustache and stroked it thoughtfully, he frowned as well.

“You're certain about the night? She couldn't have thought you meant tomorrow?”

“I should have preferred to see her last night,” Julian said. “It was Nicola who set the date for tonight. And I'm certain she said she'd be back this afternoon. I'm certain.”

Andy dropped his hand. His eyes were grave. He looked beyond Julian to the casement window above the sink. There was nothing to see but their reflections. But Julian knew from his expression that Andy was thinking about what lay beyond them, in the darkness. Vast moors populated only by sheep; abandoned quarries reclaimed by nature; limestone cliffs giving way to screes; prehistoric fortresses of tumbling stone. There were myriad limestone caves to entrap one, copper mines whose walls and ceilings could collapse, cairns whose hotchpotch of stones could snap the ankle of an unwary hiker, gritstone ridges where a climber could fall and lie for days or weeks before being found. The district stretched from Manchester to Sheffield, from Stoke-on-Trent to Derby, and more than a dozen times each year Mountain Rescue was called to bring in someone who'd broken an arm or a leg—or worse—in the Peaks. If Andy Maiden's daughter was lost or hurt somewhere out there, it was going to take the effort of more than two men standing in a kitchen to find her.

Andy said, “Let's get on to the police, Julian.”

• • •

Julian's initial impulse also was to phone the police. Upon reflection, however, he dreaded the thought of everything phoning the police implied. But in this brief moment of his hesitation, Andy acted. He strode out to the reception desk to make the call.

Julian hurried after him. He found Andy hunched over the phone as if he intended to shelter himself from potential eavesdroppers. Still, only he and Julian stood in Reception while the Halls guests lingered over coffees and brandies in the lounge at the other end of the corridor.

It was from this direction that Nan Maiden approached just as Andy's connection to the Buxton police went through. She came out of the lounge bearing a tray that held an empty cafetiére and the used cups and saucers of coffee for two. She smiled and said, “Why, Julian! Hullo. We weren't expecting …” but her words petered out as she took in her husband's surreptitious appearance—huddled over the phone like an anonymous caller—and Julian's accomplice-like hovering nearby. “What's going on?”

At her question, Julian felt as if the word guilty were tattooed on his forehead. When Nan said, “What's happened?” he said nothing and waited for Andy to take the lead. Nicola's father, however, spoke in a low voice into the phone, saying, “Twenty-five,” and completely ignoring what his wife had asked.

But twenty-five seemed to tell Nan what Julian wouldn't put into words and what Andy avoided. “Nicola,” she breathed. And she joined them at the reception desk, sliding her tray onto its surface, where it dislodged a willow basket of hotel brochures that tumbled to the floor. No one picked them up. “Has something happened to Nicola?”

Andy's answer was calm. “Julian and Nick had a date this evening, which she's apparently forgotten,” he told his wife, left hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “We're trying to track her down.” He offered the lie ingenuously, with the skill of a man who'd once made falsehood his stock-in-trade. “I was thinking that she might have gone to see Will Upman on her way home, to pave the way for another job next summer. Everything all right with the guests, love?”

Nan's quick grey eyes darted from her husband to Julian. “Exactly who're you talking to, Andy?”

“Nancy …”

“Tell me.”

He didn't do so. On the other end of the line, someone spoke, and Andy looked at his watch. He said, “Unfortunately, we're not altogether sure … No …. Thanks. Fine. I appreciate it.” He rang off and picked up the tray that his wife had placed on the desk. He headed towards the kitchen. Nan and Julian followed.

Christian-Louis was just leaving, his chef's whites changed for jeans, trainers, and an Oxford University sweatshirt with its sleeves cut off. He grabbed the handlebars of a bicycle that was leaning against the wall, and taking a moment to measure the tension among the other three people in the kitchen, he said, “Bonsoir, ` dermain,” and he quickly left them. Through the window, they saw the white glow of his bicycle lamp as he pedaled off.

“Andy, I want the truth.” His wife planted herself in front of him. She was a small woman, nearly ten inches shorter than her husband. But her body was solid and tightly muscled, the physique of a woman two decades younger than her sixty years.

“You've had the truth,” Andy said reasonably. “Julian and Nicola had a date. Nick's forgotten. Julian's got himself into a twist and he'd like to track her down. I'm helping him out.”

“But that wasn't Will Upman on the phone, was it?” Nan demanded. “Why would Nicola be seeing Will Upman at—” She glanced at the kitchen clock, a functional and institutional timepiece that hung above a rack of dinner plates. It was eleven-twenty, and all of them knew that the hour was unlikely for paying a social call on one's employer, which was what Will Upman had been to Nicola for the last three months. “She said she was going camping. Don't tell me you actually think she stopped to have a chat with Will Upman in the middle of a camping trip. And why would Nicola fail to show up for a date with Julian? She's never done that.” Nan shifted her sharp gaze. “Have you two had a row?” she asked Julian.

His immediate discomfort came from two sources: having to answer the question another time and concluding that Nicola hadn't yet told her parents of her intention to leave Derbyshire permanently. She would hardly have been seeking her next summer's employment if she'd been planning to leave the county.

“Actually, we talked about marriage,” Julian decided to say. “We were sorting out the future.”

Nan's eyes widened. Something akin to relief wiped the worry from her face. “Marriage? Nicola's agreed to marry you? When? I mean, when did all this happen? And she never said a word. Why, this is wonderful news. It's absolutely brilliant. Heavens, Julian, it makes me feel giddy. Have you told your dad?”

Julian didn't want to lie outright. But he couldn't bring himself to tell the full truth. He settled on the precarious middle ground. “Actually, we're just at the talking stage. In fact, we were supposed to talk again tonight.”

Andy Maiden had been watching Julian curiously, as if he knew very well that any talk of marriage between his daughter and Julian Britton would be as unlikely as a discussion on raising sheep. He said, “Hang on. I thought you were going to Sheffield.”

“Right. But we planned to talk on the way.”

“Well, Nicola would never forget that,” Nan declared. “No woman is likely to forget she has a date to talk about marriage.” And then to her husband, “Which is something you ought to know very well.” She was silent for a moment, dwelling—so it seemed—on that final thought while Julian dwelt on the uneasy fact that Andy still had not answered his wife's questions about the phone call he'd made. Nan reached her own conclusion about this. “God. You've just phoned the police. You think that something's happened to her. And you didn't want me to know about it, did you?”

Neither Andy nor Julian replied. This was answer enough.

“And what was I to think when the police arrived?” Nan demanded. “Or was I just supposed to keep serving coffee?”

“I knew you'd worry,” her husband said. “There may be no cause.”

“Nicola could easily be out there in the dark, lying hurt or trapped or God knows what else and you—both of you—didn't think I should know? Because I might worry?”

“You're working yourself into a state right now. That's why I didn't want to tell you till I had to. It may be nothing. It's probably nothing. Julian and I agree on that. We'll have it all sorted out in an hour or two.”