The Sleeping and the Dead

‘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.