Singleton studied it. His oval head was covered with coarse brown hair. Despite his jeans and sweatshirt and his scarred face, Singleton looked like the farmer he was, the product of generations of Somerset dairymen. “Marti Roch,” he said. “This is only part of what she wrote.”
“I know. Does the name help?”
“It might.” Singleton got up and limped to the telephone. “This is the best time for me to call. The people who hate me are off duty.”
Joey Singleton’s heroism under fire would have guaranteed him a successful career had it not been for a weakness in his character that cancelled everything his superiors liked about him. He was an honest man and, worse, one who could not keep his mouth shut. Fair enough that he refused a bribe from a well-established Soho call-girl operation. But when he saw brother officers taking the money, Singleton was incapable of looking the other way. He made an official complaint in writing. The authorities had a choice. They could either readjust the whole delicate balance of the system or they could get rid of Joey Singleton.
The former cop hero came back from the phone. “My friend is going to run Marti Roch through the computer. I can let you know tomorrow.”
Singleton made one more call. “Hello, Mum. How are you getting on? I’m just leaving. Your old friend Darius Fenn is here.” He looked at Darius. “She sends you her love. He sends his back to you. Got everything you need? I’ll be home soon.”
“How’s your Mum these days?” They were on their way down the stairs.
“Still cheerful. Her eyesight is almost gone, I’m afraid. I’ve got her a white cane. She’s too old to learn to use a dog. What the hell — she’s got her faithful Joey.”
On the bus ride home, Darius remembered his first meeting with Singleton. He and Sonia were driving home on a Friday afternoon. He was still in the ad business, had drunk too much at lunch, was escaping early. Singleton, off duty and out of uniform, drove alongside the car at a traffic light, smiled, and said, “Are you going to be all right?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Afraid so. How about a cup of coffee?”
Sonia accepted immediately and they followed Singleton’s car to a street in Fulham. They sat for an hour in a tiny living room with the old lady, who could not see very well even in those days. Singleton gave his guest three cups of black coffee and by the time he left, Darius was stone sober and able to drive.
“Why would he do that?” he asked Sonia on the way home.
“There’s only one explanation,” she said, “incredible though it may seem. He’s a decent person.”
The friendship developed. Singleton and his mother came frequently to tea. They stayed for long evenings of Monopoly with the old lady winning as often as not. She had to be told once only where the property was distributed. Then her deals were canny and aggressive. When she had her sight, she had been a successful European guide to coachloads of tourists.
Felicity was Mrs. Singleton’s favorite. The young girl always sat beside “Gran” and insisted on being the one to move her token along the board after the old lady rolled the dice. In those days there was never any problem about Felicity’s whereabouts. If she wasn’t home, she was over in Fulham, reading to Gran from one of the books she collected for her from the public library.
When he got home and saw the state Sonia was in, Darius exaggerated the possibilities of Joey’s computer check. The telephone directory was on the kitchen table, open to the letter R. She had spent the early part of the evening telephoning everybody named Roch, asking to speak to Marti. She had actually uncovered one whose first name was Martin, but he convinced her he was an assistant bank manager and forty years old.
“Joey’s friend will have the results for him tomorrow,” Darius concluded. “I’m to call him at ten.”
He did, with Sonia standing at his shoulder. Joey apologized as he reported the computer had come up empty. If there was such a person as Marti Roch in London, he had committed no crimes or felonies. So far.
“It could be a she,” Sonia contributed. “Marti could be a girl’s name.”
Darius relayed the thought and went on to describe Sonia’s telephone efforts. Singleton thought that was a good move. “Now she wants to run a personal ad in the Times,” Darius said.
“Why not? It might help.” Singleton suggested he would be available tomorrow, his day off, to go into London with Darius and look for the girl. Darius welcomed the idea and they made arrangements to meet.
The Fenns were due at the children’s theater for a performance, but Sonia would not leave until she had composed the ad for the Times and phoned it in. It listed their phone number and asked Felicity Fenn and/or Marti Roch to get in touch.
As usual, the theater was crowded with kids and parents. Darius and Sonia put on their black sleeves and took their places behind the six-foot façade close to a table loaded with hand puppets. With a character on either hand and arms extended above their heads, they paced about to recorded music, pivoted, made exits and entrances. Sometimes Sonia put up a row of “extras” on a frame and, with all four arms in action, they created the illusion of a crowded puppet world.
Darius lost himself in the performance. Much of the dialogue was adlib. He loved keeping four voices going. At one time Sonia had contributed a voice, but it wasn’t the same. The action flowed better when he did it all.
During a fight scene as the caped villain was snatching the baby girl and the mother was fighting to save her, Darius caught a glimpse of his wife’s face. She was grim, only half there, and the sight almost knocked him off stride.
That night Sonia ran the sewing machine, making costumes for the new pirate puppets. Darius went back to carving heads, using the knife for a while, then sanding the features smooth. “Shall I come with you tomorrow?” she asked.
Darius had visualized only himself and Joey. Not that it was going to be fun, but it would be less stressful than if Sonia were there. He began to say it might be dangerous, then realized this would be the wrong thing to tell her. “One of us should stay here,” he said. “What if she calls? Or if this Marti Roch comes through? The ad will be in the paper tomorrow.”
“What will I say to her?”
“Ask her to come home. Tell her she can have all the freedom she wants.”
“I mean Marti Roch. What would I say to her?” The sewing machine went quiet for some time. “I just thought of something. It could be somebody from her school.” Sonia was off to the telephone again.
The Fenns were on good terms with the headmaster at Felicity’s school. More than once they had entertained there with their puppet show. Even though it was summer vacation, he did not mind being bothered at home. He expressed concern about their daughter’s disappearance but gave Sonia reassurance — young girls like to stray short distances before coining home again. He could not recall a Marti Roch, but in the morning he would drive to the school and check the records.
“You’ve decided it’s a girl,” Darius said, putting away his puppet and his knife.
“I suppose I feel that’s safer,” his wife said.
Darius went to bed and had trouble getting to sleep. He kept imagining encounters with Felicity in the company of gangs of aggressive youths. Fighting had never been his style — his past was littered with the wreckage of situations from which he had walked away when he should have stayed and confronted somebody.
He knew he was dreaming when he found himself at a wedding. It was taking place in an ancient church with no roof. There was water running down the walls and the mossy look of a graveyard. The place was full of teenagers, filling the pews, lounging on the floor. Their foul language echoed from the walls, filling Darius with impotent fury.