Ritual Read online

  He was tying up his shoelaces when he heard the scuffing of tyres outside in the street. A moment later, there was a ring at the doorbell. Then another ring. He finished tying his shoelace and went out to the landing. ‘Mrs Kemp?’ he called, but there was no reply. The doorbell rang again and so he went downstairs to answer it.

  It was Sheriff Podmore, and he didn’t look pleased. He pushed the door open wide and stepped into the hallway without being invited. ‘What did you tell her?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Don’t play the stiff with me, my friend. You told Mrs Kemp what happened to Caroline, didn’t you?’

  ‘So what if I did? She has a right to know.’

  ‘Jesus, McLean, what kind of a cretin are you? The reason I didn’t tell her before was because she doesn’t have the mental strength to accept anything like that. At least she used to have hope that Caroline might still be alive. Don’t you understand that? Until they know what’s happened to their children for sure, all parents believe that they may still be alive. Hence the great myth about them all running off to California to become go-go dancers or whatever. One per cent of one hundred per cent stay away for good. One per cent of that one per cent make a living as exotic dancers or porno stars. The rest of them get killed, one way or another; or else they end up as Célèstines and kill themselves.’

  Charlie said, ‘I still think she has a right to know.’

  ‘Is she here?’ Sheriff Podmore asked him.

  ‘She just came in. She’s in the kitchen.’

  Sheriff Podmore stomped down to the end of the hallway and rattled the door handle. ‘Ida!’ he shouted. ‘You in there?’

  ‘Go away!’ Mrs Kemp shouted back. ‘You lied to me, Norman, I don’t want to see you and I don’t want to talk to you ever again!’

  ‘Ida, will you be reasonable?’ said Sheriff Podmore.

  ‘Go away! I don’t want to be reasonable!’

  Sheriff Podmore waited outside the kitchen door a little longer and then came sashaying back down the hallway again, all belly and gunbelt. He lifted his hat to adjust it, and said to Charlie. ‘You know what she did?’

  ‘I have the distinct feeling that you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘She came down to the sheriff’s office while I was out and she ripped the place apart. Broke the windows, emptied out the file cabinets, and then she wrote ‘Norman Podmore Child-killer’ on my wall. So, what do you think about that?’

  ‘I think maybe you deserved it,’ said Charlie, in a level tone.

  Sheriff Podmore looked at Charlie thoughtfully. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of causing me any trouble,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll soon find out if I am.’

  Sheriff Podmore jerked his thumb back toward the kitchen. ‘All I’m asking you to do is keep your eye on her. She’s pretty overwrought. There’s no knowing what she might do.’

  Charlie opened the front door. ‘I think you’d better leave,’ he told the sheriff.

  At that moment, however, the kitchen door opened and Mrs Kemp appeared, ‘Norman!’ she screeched. The sheriff turned around. ‘Norman, you be warned! This isn’t going to be the end of it! I’m going to kill those people if it’s the last thing I do! They took my Caroline, and I’m going to kill them!’

  ‘Ida,’ said Sheriff Podmore, ‘you have to know that it’s illegal to make threats against people’s lives.’

  ‘And it’s not illegal to let people slaughter your children, is that it?’ Mrs Kemp shrieked at him.

  ‘Ida, you take care.’ Sheriff Podmore turned to Charlie again. ‘I’m just telling you, my friend, anything happens here and I’ll hold you responsible.’

  Charlie said nothing, but let the sheriff out and stood by the door as he walked down the path. Mrs Kemp stayed where she was, wringing her hands. Her cheeks were running with tears. Charlie said, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Kemp. It looks like I made a mistake.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ she said shakily. ‘You were right to tell me. Up until now, I’ve been feeling grief, but there was no way of telling if I had anything to grieve about. I’ve felt angry, but I’ve never known who to be angry with. Now I know, and now I can do something about it.’

  ‘You’re not going to try to kill the Musettes, not really?’

  ‘Try?’ she said. ‘I’m going to succeed.’

  ‘Can I dissuade you?’

  For a fleeting moment, Mrs Kemp almost smiled. ‘You wouldn’t want to dissuade me, would you? You want to see the Musettes dead just as much as I do, if not more.’

  Charlie came up close and laid his hand on Mrs Kemp’s shoulders. ‘Can I ask you just one favour? Don’t do anything without telling me first. I’m going to try to get Martin out of there before anything happens to him. If you get in there on your own, all you’re going to succeed in doing is make them tighten up their security. At the moment, they’re complacent. They’re inside the law, however much you and I may hate them, no matter how disgusting we think they are. Let them stay complacent, huh? – at least until I’ve managed to get Martin out.’

  Mrs Kemp reached up and touched his cheek. ‘Is this a punishment, do you think, for the way we treat our children?’

  Charlie tried to smile. ‘Maybe. Maybe some people have a different way of looking at life and death.’

  ‘Will you want supper?’ she asked. ‘I’m afraid that I didn’t quite make it to the market. I got overtaken by the impulse to wreck Norman’s office.’

  ‘I’ll go out to eat,’ said Charlie. ‘Do you think the sheriff is going to press charges against you?’

  ‘Norman? He’d better not. I’ve known him since he was a big, fat, unpopular kid. He gave me cough-candy once and asked me if he could marry me. Thank God I didn’t.’

  Charlie spent the next half-hour straightening out his car – scraping the clumps of grass from underneath the wheel-arches and bending back the cover that protected the radiator fan. He managed to kick the front bumper reasonably straight, and fit new bulbs in the headlights. The Oldsmobile still looked as if he bought it second-hand from a family of deranged Mexicans, but at least it went along without making too much noise. The transmission was okay provided he drove in second.

  He left Mrs Kemp sitting in her parlour with the last of her bottle of Chivas Regal, and drove over to Watertown. Once the sun had gone, the evening was unexpectedly cold. The Oldsmobile’s climate control had been damaged, and he wished he had worn a sweater underneath his coat. It occurred to him as he drove that it was time he called Marjorie to tell her what had happened – or at least to tell her that Martin was missing – but he couldn’t even begin to think of what to say.

  ‘Marjorie, listen, we’ve got a problem here. Martin wants to eat himself.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Marjorie, but Martin has decided to join a society of cannibals.’

  ‘Marjorie––’

  He arrived at the Loving Doves. It was a small self-conscious restaurant in the centre of Watertown, with gilded lettering across the facade and two gilded doves pecking at each other’s beaks perched on the porch. Its style was New England nouvelle cuisine, if such a thing were imaginable. Perhaps its most characteristic dish was a dinner that consisted of three thin slices of brisket, four baby onions, three miniature carrots, two tiny beets, and a decoration of tenderly cooked cabbage, all laid out on a circular pool of delicate broth.

  Charlie went inside. The decor was candlelight, brass, and dark green tablecloths. ‘You have a six-thirty reservation for Mr Gunn,’ he said. The tall, blonde waitress smiled at him as if life were still ordinary, as if restaurants still mattered, and led him across to a table in the corner. There, a young woman was waiting – a handsome young woman with long well-brushed brunette hair and wide dark eyes and big dangling earrings. She wore a fashionable suit in pale grey, with a white cotton sweater underneath it. The multi-pocketed purse slung over the back of her chair was the only give-away that here was a career woman pur
suing her career.

  ‘Mr Gunn?’ she said, rising from her chair and extending her hand.

  13

  It was almost eleven o’clock when they left The Loving Doves. They stood in the entrance for a while, sheltering from the wind.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Robyn asked Charlie.

  ‘Go back to Mrs Kemp’s, I guess. I feel I have a duty to keep an eye on her.’

  ‘You won’t come back to my place for a drink? I still want to talk to you some more.’

  Charlie tugged up the collar of his coat. ‘I’m not sure there’s any more to say. The Célèstines have got hold of my boy, and I want to get him back. End of story.’

  Robyn took her spiral-bound notebook out of her pocket and leafed through it. ‘I’ll talk to two other parents in the morning. I may be able to get hold of one of them tonight. Then I’ll talk to my editor.’

  ‘Remember the agreement, though,’ said Charlie. ‘No publicity until Martin is safe. If M. Musette gets the idea that I’m going to try to break him out of there, he won’t even let me through the front gate.’

  Robyn closed her notebook and put it away. ‘I hope I haven’t been too sceptical this evening.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The whole thing. The Célèstines. It is pretty hard to believe.’

  Charlie made a face. ‘I guess the answer is that the Célèstines are absolutely no different from any other fanatical religious sect. They all have a magnetic appeal for young people, and the reason they do is because the way of life their parents lead has absolutely no appeal at all. If these sects flourish, it’s our fault, the parents’ fault. I mean, what have we given our children that has any spiritual value whatsoever? I’m not just talking about materialism, either. I’m talking about a lack of spirit. A lack of self-respect.’

  Robyn eyed him over her red mohair scarf. ‘You’re talking like somebody who’s been there.’

  Charlie took her arm. ‘Let me walk you back to your car.’

  ‘I didn’t bring my car. My photographer dropped me off. I was hoping maybe you could give me a ride. I don’t live far: Waterbury.’

  ‘What if I’d turned out to be a seventy-year-old hunchback with halitosis and axe-murderer’s eyes?’

  ‘In that case, I would have called for a taxi.’

  They walked across to the parking lot under the trees. ‘I was telling you the truth about driving into their gates,’ Charlie remarked, pointing to the front-end damage. He helped her into the car.

  ‘I didn’t doubt that you were.’

  ‘But you find the Célèstines difficult to believe in?’

  ‘I accept what you’re telling me, but I find it hard to accept that so many people know about it, the government, the FBI, and yet they let it carry on and nobody says a word.’

  Charlie drove out toward Waterbury. ‘It’s nothing unusual, when you think about it. The Scientologists and the Moonies and the Masons are all run openly – to the extent that they don’t try to conceal their existence. But who knows what they really do? Provided it’s nothing overtly illegal, they’re going to be left alone. And it’s the same with the Célèstines. The media don’t want to touch the story because it’s too grisly and the risks of a libel action are too high. The police don’t want to know because they don’t believe that they’ll get a successful conviction. And the government certainly isn’t interested because too many people in high places have embarrassing connections with them.’

  ‘It’s such an incredible news story,’ said Robyn.

  Charlie made a face. ‘Sure it is. But what’s the story? That some psychopathic sect is encouraging our children to eat themselves in the name of the Lord? – or that this nation has such a low regard for human life that they’re letting them get away with it? Do you know something, there comes a time when the principle of liberty for all has to be circumscribed. The right to bear arms is one example. I don’t mind people exercising that right just so long as it doesn’t intrude on my right to a safe existence, free from fear. And I don’t challenge anybody’s right to worship whatever God in whatever way they choose – except when it threatens my son’s life.’

  They drove into the outskirts of Waterbury, and Robyn directed Charlie to a small frame house painted white and green. There was a bronze station wagon parked in the driveway, and there were lights on in the living room window.

  ‘You live with your parents?’ Charlie asked her.

  ‘That’s right. I came back home to recuperate after a spectacularly messy love affair. My mom wants me to stay for ever, but I guess I’ll be looking for my own place pretty soon. You can’t be somebody’s child all your life. Sooner or later you have to be yourself.’

  ‘Maybe I won’t come in,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oh, do, they won’t mind. And I do have a room of my own, kind of an office. They’re very proud that their only daughter is a newspaper reporter.’

  Charlie blew out his cheeks. ‘Okay, then, just for a while.’

  Mr and Mrs Harris were sitting in front of the television when Robyn brought Charlie into the living room. Mr Harris was skinny and unsmiling; he ran a dry-cleaning business in the centre of Waterbury and, according to Robyn, thirty years of other people’s dirty clothes had permanently crippled his sense of humour. But Mrs Harris was warm and motherly and fun, and Charlie could see where Robyn had gotten her looks and her figure from. She asked them if they wanted coffee, or maybe some fresh-baked pound cake, but Robyn smiled and shook her head, and said, ‘This is work, mother. W-O-R-K.’

  ‘Still,’ said Mrs Harris, beaming at Charlie as if he were a potential son-in-law. ‘It’s always good to meet the people that Robyn works with.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t work with her, Mrs Harris. I’m just a news story.’

  ‘Good news, I hope?’ said Mrs Harris.

  ‘I hope it’s going to turn out that way.’

  Robyn took Charlie through to the small converted bedroom at the back which she called her office. It was decorated in pale beige colours, and furnished with a modem pine desk, an angular couch, and two cheese-plants in basketwork jardinières. There was a large Mucha poster on the wall, of the kind that used to be popular in the days of flower-power and ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’.

  ‘Can I tempt you with a glass of wine?’ asked Robyn.

  ‘Just half a glass. I don’t want a hangover tomorrow.’

  Robyn took off her jacket and hung it over the back of her chair. Charlie sat down on the couch and watched her as she went across to her cupboard and took out a bottle of Stag’s Leap chardonnay. Under happier circumstances, he would have been very interested in her. Her personality was incisive and bright; she had an irrepressible sense of humour; and she was very good-looking indeed. She poured out two glasses of wine and Charlie found himself wondering about her ‘spectacularly messy’ love affair. It seemed axiomatic that nice girls like her always got themselves involved with brutes.

  ‘You said you might be able to contact one of the other parents tonight,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Surely. I’ll give him a try.’ Robyn checked through her Roladex to find the number, then picked up the phone and punched it out. ‘His name’s Garrett,’ she said, covering the mouthpiece with her hand. ‘He lost his daughter just after the Christmas holiday. She was eighteen or nineteen, if I remember rightly. She was driving through Allen’s Corners to visit her brother in Bethlehem. They found her car abandoned by the side of the road.’

  At that moment, the phone was picked up at the other end. Robyn waved to Charlie to pick up a second phone next to the couch, so that he could listen in.

  ‘Hallo?’ said a deep, slurred voice.

  ‘Is this Mr Robert Garrett?’ asked Robyn. ‘This is Robyn Harris from the newspaper. Do you remember me? I came up to your house about four weeks ago to talk about your daughter.’

  ‘I remember,’ the voice replied, guardedly. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Well, Mr Garrett, it seems like we may poss
ibly have some kind of new theory about your daughter’s disappearance.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Still the voice was defensive.

  ‘Mr Garrett, I was thinking today about what you told me... the way you described your daughter’s disappearance... and I remember being puzzled.’

  ‘What do you mean, puzzled? She disappeared, that’s all. They found her car and she was gone.’

  ‘But you said to me––here, I have it in my notebook––you said to me, “She’s at peace, anyway.” And––do you know something?––that isn’t at all characteristic of the parents of missing children.’

  There was a pause, and then the voice said, ‘What in hell are you talking about? I hope you didn’t call me up after eleven o’clock at night just to tell me that, because if you did––?’

  ‘Mr Garrett, I’ve been working on this story for weeks, and so far I’ve talked to two dozen parents of missing children. Apart from one other parent, you’re the only one who hasn’t shown any signs of hope whatsoever that your daughter is still alive, and you’re the only one who has categorically said, “She’s at peace”, even though no body has been recovered and you haven’t been able to give her a proper funeral.’

  ‘What are you trying to suggest? Are you trying to suggest I killed her or something? Is that it? You’re trying to say that I murdered my own daughter?’

  Robyn said, ‘No, sir, Mr Garrett, I am not. But what I am saying is that you know what happened to her.’

  ‘This is bullshit,’ the deep voice growled. But its owner didn’t put down the phone. Charlie glanced across at Robyn and Robyn gave him a little wave of her hand which meant, This is it, we’re making headway.

  ‘Mr Garrett,’ said Robyn, ‘have you ever heard of a religious order called the Célèstines?’

  Charlie kept his eyes on Robyn. From the other end of the phone, there was a silence, followed by a quick, sharp intake of breath, that was almost an admission in itself.