Ritual Read online

  ‘Yes.’ The sheriff nodded. ‘Just once. I went up to Le Reposoir against the specific instructions of my superiors and I forced them at gunpoint to let me see her. They were so damned polite they gave me the creeps. I mean, they were even humorous about it. They took me into the room and there she was, or what was left of her. I wish to God that I’d never gone. Did you ever see that old movie Freaks? There’s a guy in it who’s just a head and a kind of a caterpillar body in a cotton sock? Did you ever see that? Well, that’s what Susan was like. I never knew that anybody could lose so much of their body and still live. There was her face, that same face I loved so much, still with that wavy red hair, and underneath that face there was nothing at all but a body no bigger than a leg of pork, all wrapped up in a white cotton stocking.’

  Charlie swallowed. His throat was dry; but he knew that if he tried to swallow any coffee he would probably gag.

  The sheriff said, ‘You may not believe me, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was that she lay there in the sunshine and she smiled at me and said, “Daddy”, and I knew that she was completely contented. They called me about two weeks later to tell me that she was gone. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust myself. I took a week’s vacation that was owing to me and I stayed drunk from Friday evening to the following Sunday night.’

  ‘How am I going to get my son out of there?’ Charlie asked him.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve been listening to me, my friend. Your son is there because your son wants to be there, and you’re not going to get him out of that place without the US Marines.’

  ‘And the same thing happened to you, to your only daughter, and you just accept it?’

  ‘Tell me what I can do about it!’ the sheriff said, his jowls shaking. ‘Tell me just one thing that I can do about it! Short of killing the Musettes outright, and burning the whole damned house down––and, believe me, that wouldn’t help either. There are nineteen Célèstine houses in the continental United States; there are more in Europe. If you burn down one, there will always be scores of others. You’d be pissing in the wind.’

  Charlie stood up. He laid one hand on the sheriff’s desk and looked him steadily in the eye. ‘Is this what it’s come to?’ he said. ‘The country that was founded on the principles of life and liberty?’

  The sheriff gave him a defeated, sideways look. ‘Sometimes the price of life and liberty is pretty high.’

  ‘Tell me who else in Allen’s Corners has lost a child.’

  ‘Apart from Mr Haxalt, there must have been eleven or twelve. Some of them know where their children have gone, others don’t.’

  ‘Like Mrs Kemp, you mean?’

  The sheriff nodded. ‘We don’t tell ’em if they don’t find out. We don’t want to cause any more distress than we have to.’

  Charlie rubbed his eyes. He felt as if he were dreaming all this; but the dream was so procedural that he knew it was true. Apart from that, he couldn’t wake up, no matter how hard he tried.

  The sheriff said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go on up to Le Reposoir myself, and talk to them about your son. Martin, is that what you said his name was?’

  Charlie said, ‘You’ve got to get him out of there, sheriff.’

  ‘More parents have said that same thing to me than I like to recall.’

  ‘I promise you––if you don’t do it––then I will.’

  ‘I can’t stop you from making promises, my friend. But it’s my elected duty to uphold the law, and I’m telling you right here and now that if you attempt anything in the way of aggravated assault on those people, or damage or intrude on their property, then I’m bound to give them assistance.’

  Charlie said, ‘What’s your name, sheriff?’

  ‘Podmore,’ he replied.

  ‘I mean your given name.’

  ‘What do you want to know that for? It’s Norman, as a matter of fact.’

  Charlie said, ‘I want to be able to say to you, “Norman, this is Charlie. You’ve lost your daughter, I’m in danger of losing my son.” I want you to think about that, Norman, what that means. And you tell me something else, Norman. That boy’s mother doesn’t know what’s happened yet. You tell me what I’m supposed to say to her.’

  12

  Grey-faced with rage and frustration, Charlie drove back up the corkscrew road to Le Reposoir, the tyres of his Oldsmobile howling and squittering on the blacktop. He swerved into the entrance and collided at nearly ten miles an hour with the front gate, with a noise like the gates of hell being clanged shut. Two or three of the gate’s iron uprights were bent, but the locks held, and all Charlie ended up with was mild whiplash and two shattered headlights.

  He climbed out of the car and stabbed furiously at the intercom button. M. Musette – who must have inspected the damage to his gates through his closed-circuit television camera – answered almost immediately.

  ‘Mr McLean, what can I do for you? You seem to have suffered an accident.’

  ‘Open up,’ Charlie demanded. ‘I want my son back.’

  ‘Mr McLean, you know as well as I do that your son wishes to remain here.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit, Monsewer Musette. I want my son back and I want him back now.’

  ‘Do you always treat your son’s wishes with such contempt?’

  Charlie yelled, ‘Don’t you start getting fancy with me, you Goddamn cannibal! Now open up, and give me my son back!’

  ‘I’m sorry, that’s impossible. If your son has a change of heart, then obviously I shall be glad to let you know. But at the moment he is very happy where he is. Why don’t you talk to the sheriff?’

  Charlie said, with more control, ‘I already did that, thank you.’

  ‘I hope he was sympathetic.’

  ‘Yes, he was. Yes, he was sympathetic. That’s all that anybody seems to be good for, around here: being sympathetic.’

  ‘Well, I quite understand your feelings, my dear sir. You don’t want sympathy, do you? You want your son’s affection.’

  ‘I’ll worry about his affection when I get hold of him again.’

  ‘He’s not a dog, monsieur. He’s an intelligent human being––quite capable of making his own decisions.’

  ‘And what are you?’ Charlie wanted to know.

  The intercom clicked once, and then remained silent. Charlie returned to his car, started the engine, slammed into reverse, then back into drive and collided again as hard as he could with the gates. Then he backed up and crashed into the gates a third time, and then a fourth, until he could hear his radiator fan clattering against its cover, and a grinding sound in the transmission like a Cuisinart full of broken glass.

  He sat in his car and screamed at the gates of Le Reposoir in helpless rage. Then he crossed his arms over his steering wheel and bent his head forward and sobbed. He stayed like that for almost a quarter of an hour, while the emotionless eye of the remote-control camera watched him from the trees.

  Eventually, he sat up and dug out a crumpled handkerchief and wiped his face. It was clear to him now that a frontal assault on the Célèstines was not going to work. Nor was any appeal to the police, or to the media. The Célèstines had won for themselves the kind of charmed lives that only true fanatics seem to be able to achieve. If he wanted to get Martin out of Le Reposoir, he was going to have to do it alone. What’s more, he was going to have to make sure that his plan was properly thought out. Martin would have to be taken someplace secure, where it would be impossible for him to escape and return to the Célèstines. And there was no doubt that he would need deprogramming, either by a psychiatrist or by one of those people who made it their business to deprogram Moonies and other adolescent victims of obsessional cults.

  It was very hard for him, but he reversed his car away from the entrance to Le Reposoir and drove slowly back towards Allen’s Corners with his transmission crunching and his suspension complaining at every bump. The sun, which for most of the day had been enveloping itself in
hazy grey clouds, now suddenly decided to make an appearance, and it lit up the coppery fall leaves for miles around. There was a tang of woodsmoke in the air, and Charlie knew that he would never be able to come up to Connecticut again, in fall, whether he was able to rescue Martin or not. It would always remind him of mutilation, and self-inflicted pain, and the Célèstines.

  He returned to Mrs Kemp’s. Mrs Kemp herself was standing at her front door, almost as if she had been waiting for him; but in fact she was lifting her face to the sun. Her eyes were closed and her fists were clenched and there was an odd little smile on her face as she basked her wrinkles.

  She opened her eyes as Charlie walked up the front path.

  ‘Mr McLean,’ she said.

  ‘How are you doing, Mrs Kemp?’

  ‘I’m enjoying this sunshine. It’ll be winter before you know it. You’re back soon. I didn’t expect you for at least a year; if ever. Your boy not with you?’

  ‘Martin’s... having a break.’

  ‘I thought you said you were taking him to Boston with you.’

  ‘Well, I was.’

  Mrs Kemp frowned at him, and touched his arm. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it? I can tell.’

  ‘Everything’s fine, Mrs Kemp. I just need a place to stay for the next few days. Some place quiet, where I can think.’

  He tried to step into the porch but Mrs Kemp stopped him. ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he? Your Martin?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Kemp,’ Charlie admitted. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Did you have an argument? Did his mother come to take him back?’

  Charlie shook his head. He was about to make an elaborate excuse, but then he thought, What the hell? Mrs Kemp lost Caroline, so at least she’ll understand what I’m going through. And maybe it’s time she knew that Caroline hasn’t gone off to live in California; nor has she been raped and murdered and her body left in some nameless ditch. It’s about time the parents of all those children who have been lost to the Célèstines got themselves together and did something dramatic. If what Sheriff Podmore had told him was true – if the government and the law refused to admit that what the Célèstines were doing was wrong; and if the television and the newspaper people did nothing but turn a blind eye – then it was time for the nation’s bereaved parents to take a stand on their own.

  Because if they had no other rights, as far as their children were concerned, parents at least had the right to see them live.

  ‘Come inside,’ he told Mrs Kemp. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  They sat together in the front parlour and Charlie told Mrs Kemp everything that had happened since he and Martin had left for West Hartford. Then he told her what Sheriff Podmore had said about Susan. He watched her carefully as he explained that Caroline had probably died in the way that all Célèstine Devotees eventually died. Her eyes betrayed no expression at all, as if somehow she had known that this had happened all along.

  When Charlie had finished, she stood up and walked with mechanical steps to the bureau. ‘I think you and I had better have a drink,’ she said. ‘I still have some Chivas Regal left, from the time that Jerry Kogan used to stay here. Everybody used to say, “Do you know Jerry? He’s in alcohol.”’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Charlie. He watched in silence as Mrs Kemp poured them each a hefty three fingers of whisky. Mrs Kemp raised her glass and said, ‘To the ones we love. In memory, and in hope.’

  Charlie said, with a catch in his throat, ‘To the ones we love,’ and drank.

  They shared another drink, and then Mrs Kemp said that she had to go to the market to buy supplies for supper if Charlie was going to be staying. Charlie opened up the sagging doors of her garage for her, and backed out her old tan Buick wagon. He stood at the front door and watched her as she drove off in a cloud of oily smoke on her way to the shopping mall. Then he stepped back into the airless house, and went up to the room in which he had slept only two nights ago with Martin. He knew now that he had lost Martin then, after the dwarf-like David had talked to him. If only he could go back forty-eight hours in time; to that fateful instant when Harriet had let slip the name of Le Reposoir, the resting place, the little altar.

  On impulse he wrestled the Connecticut telephone directory out of the bedside cupboard, and looked up the Litchfield Sentinel. With the directory balanced on his knees he dialled the number and waited while the call tone purred. After a long while, a young woman’s voice said, ‘Sentinel? If you want advertising I’m afraid they’re gone for the day.’

  ‘I wanted the editor,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oh, well, I’m sorry, he’s not here, either. There’s a big business meeting in Danbury.’

  ‘In that case, forget it. I’m sorry I troubled you.’

  ‘Is it news?’ the young woman asked him. ‘I’m a reporter. I can take your story if that’s what you want.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I really wanted to speak to the editor.’

  ‘Okay, have it your way. He’ll be back in the morning. You’re sure I can’t help?’

  Charlie lowered the directory on to the floor. ‘I don’t know, maybe you can. My son’s gone missing in pretty unusual circumstances. I thought it might help if I could locate other parents whose children have gone missing.’

  ‘Well, that’s incredible,’ the woman told him. ‘That’s exactly the story that I’ve been working on. You know the Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigations into the missing children statistics; well, I’ve been assigned to do a follow-up, because we’ve had so many kids missing in Connecticut lately.’

  ‘Do you know any other parents who have lost their kids, apart from me?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Sure I do, dozens. The number of children who have gone missing in the Litchfield area in the past five months is way up – forty-two per cent higher than it was for the comparable period last year, and seventy-eight per cent higher than it was the year before.’

  ‘And the police keep telling you it isn’t a problem – just like the Denver Post won that Pulitzer Prize for saying it wasn’t a problem.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the young woman. ‘How did you know that?’

  Charlie said, ‘For once in my life I seem to have gotten lucky. My name’s Charlie McLean, and I think that you and I ought to meet.’

  ‘Well, sure thing. My name’s Robyn Harris. Where are you calling me from?’

  ‘Allen’s Corners, but I don’t want to meet you at Allen’s Corners. Do you know a restaurant in Watertown called the Loving Doves? How about meeting me there at six-thirty? I’ll book a table in the name of Gunn.’

  ‘Gunn?’

  ‘You know, like Ben Gunn, who was marooned on Treasure Island. You won’t miss me, I’m forty-one years old and I look like I’ve spent my life driving from coast to coast and back again.’

  ‘All right, Mr McLean. You’re on. I look forward to meeting you.’

  Charlie called the restaurant and made the reservation, then cradled the phone and sat for a while in thought. He wasn’t at all sure that he was doing the right thing, in talking to the Press, but if he was careful he might be able to use Ms Robyn Harris to make contact with other parents; and then there was a possibility of concerted action – something to bring the Célèstines to the attention of ordinary people, and to quarantine them for ever, if not kill them off.

  As far as Charlie was concerned, the Célèstines weren’t a religion, they were a disease. They were nothing better than a spiritual form of AIDS.

  He eased off his shoes, then peeled off his socks. The day’s tension had made him feel sweaty and sticky, and he needed a shower. As he stood under Mrs Kemp’s rattling brass shower faucet, he tried to work out a plan for snatching Martin out of Le Reposoir, and getting him clean away. He made himself assume that Martin wouldn’t have started eating himself already. His mind couldn’t cope with the idea that he might already have cut off his own fingers or his own toes, and swallowed them.

  He recognized that he was
going to need help, if only to drag Martin physically out of the building. A man would be preferable, but a woman would do if she were determined enough.

  He also recognized, reluctantly, that he was going to need a gun. Even though Sheriff Podmore had told him that the Musettes had made no effort to stop him when he had rescued his daughter, it was obvious that Le Reposoir had at least two security staff and probably more.

  He would need a third person, too – somebody who was not necessarily involved in breaking into the building and heisting Martin out, but a getaway driver who was waiting to speed them out of trouble and take them to the nearest airport.

  Because that was the last essential. There had to be air tickets ready. First, a flight to somewhere within the continental United States, because Martin hadn’t brought his passport with him, then a car or a boat ride to Mexico.

  After that, exile for both of them, for a while at least, while Martin was deprogrammed, and while Charlie tried to find another way of making a living.

  Charlie stepped out of the shower and towelled himself with one of the rough, cheap towels that Mrs Kemp had left folded on the hot pipe. He knotted the towel around his waist and walked across the landing to his room. He heard the front door open and shut again, and leaned over the banisters and called, ‘Mrs Kemp? That you?’

  Mrs Kemp looked up. She was standing in the hallway looking peculiarly wild-eyed, her hair dishevelled and a button hanging off her coat. She carried no shopping.

  ‘Mrs Kemp?’ asked Charlie. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, tugging her coat tightly around herself. ‘I’m fine. I’ll go fix you something to eat.’

  ‘Did you go to the market?’

  ‘I... forgot.’

  Charlie looked at her sharply. ‘What’s wrong, Mrs Kemp? Where have you been?’

  But Mrs Kemp disappeared into her kitchen without answering; and Charlie heard the door slam behind her as an unequivocal warning that she did not want to be followed.

  Charlie waited for a moment, then shrugged to himself, and went to his room to get dressed. He watched his face in the mirror on top of the bureau. He looked tired, and there was a look in his eyes which he had never seen before. Wounded, but determined. The look of a man who wants revenge.