Timms turned slightly and leaned back against the hard wood. ‘So where’s the logjam, Red? There’s always a logjam of some kind when you show up here.’
She shook her head. ‘Ah, sorry. Feels too much like cupboard love?’
‘No, no.’ He dropped an octave and looked up at her. ‘Although you’re welcome to participate, spectate, or just plain donate…’ He smiled. ‘No, it’s more that if we meet away from church, it’s not the same thing driving you. I know what it costs you to meet here, instead of anywhere else.’
In the silence that followed Dana’s eyes were drawn back again to the organ in the corner, to the pipes reaching for heaven, to the black pedals with their scuffmarks and ingrained polish. Their walks home had been silent – scuffing steps and the hissing backdrop of her mother’s fuming breath. The walk gathered her mother’s desperation, built the momentum, raised steam. While little Dana – she knew what was coming but could do nothing but clack her patent shoes obediently on the pavement.
‘I’m hardly likely to view this place as sanctuary, am I, Father?’
He gave her a sidelong glance and hastened to cover his tracks. ‘No, you never will. And I respect your courage, still setting foot in here. Especially today. That’s all true, but you do come here to clear away something that’s blocking you. We do serve some purpose for you, Dana.’
She thrust her hands into her coat pockets, to keep finger from thumb. ‘Okay, we’re currently grappling with where this guy might live. Have lived. Since 2004.’ She looked back at Timms, noticing a wrinkle on his forehead that she’d have sworn he didn’t have last week. ‘He’s adamant it’s been his location since then. But he’s not on any database; he’s not showing up anywhere at all. We’re stuck: he’s been living in some kind of camp, but we don’t know where to start.’
‘Hold on, hold on.’ Timms frowned. ‘For fifteen years, he’s been camping? What, winter as well as summer?’
Dana could see that, once again, they were on the same wavelength. It was simultaneously reassuring and spooky that he did this so often. ‘I know. Surely he’d find shelter in winter? He doesn’t look like he’s been camped out that long. He’s got short hair, decent skin, soft hands; he’s clean.’
He leaned forward and rubbed his ring finger absent-mindedly. ‘You’ve considered, Detective, that he may be – oh, I dunno – lying to you?’
She smiled at the altar. ‘Ha-de-ha. Yes, I thought about it. But my instinct tells me he isn’t.’ She put up placatory palms. ‘Might be way off – he’s so unusual he could be throwing my radar. But no, I think he’s holding back something fierce, but he’s not actually lying. I’m not asking the right questions.’
Timms shook his head slightly. ‘So who’s he spoken to; where’s he worked, where’s he shopped? Friends? Relatives?’
Dana stood; her knee was starting to grind. The cold made it worse. She rubbed it as she spoke. ‘Big fat zero. No employment records at all, no friends we can find, hasn’t spoken to his family since 2004, allegedly. Nothing. Totally off the grid.’
He glanced to his left, to a triptych along one candlelit walclass="underline" Moses. ‘Like a hermit?’
She followed his gaze and noticed the images. ‘Like a hermit. Yes, exactly like that. But without the whole tablets-of-stone-God’s-word thing.’
‘Hmmm. And he’s given no clue about the nature of the camp or the location?’
‘No, he’s very reluctant to give any details.’ She thought for a second. ‘Strike that. He actively doesn’t want us to find it, although I haven’t worked out why not. And before you ask, yes, he might have incriminating evidence there, and that might be the reason.’
‘No, no, I wasn’t going to say that. It strikes me there would be other reasons. An acute sense of privacy, maybe – that’s been his home, and maybe his protection, for so long he can’t bear the thought of anyone seeing it. As if it’s a part of him, somehow, and you’d be looking inside him by looking at it.’
‘That was my idea, too. It chimes with his pathology – or what we know of it.’
Father Timms shrugged. ‘Well, it’s just a stray thought. But in the olden days hermits used what they could find as shelter. The easiest – no preparation, no building anything – was a cave.’
Now she stared, open-mouthed. ‘Yes, yes. Good, good thinking, yes.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I’ve got to go.’
She wrapped her scarf around her neck, not quite sure how to end the conversation without simply rushing out. She stood still, caught in the moment. He did it for her.
‘Go. Go, Dana. It’s okay.’
She smiled weakly, half in apology.
‘But remember!’ he shouted at her departing frame. ‘I do know what Day it is. And I am here all Day. In church, on the phone, anywhere you want to meet. I am here for you. Deal?’
Chapter 10
When she got back to the office Dana riffled through some papers in a lower drawer before coming up trumps. The telephone rang so long she was about to give up, and then someone croaked a greeting.
‘Billy Munro? It’s Dana – Dana Russo, from the book club?’
‘Oh, hey there. How’s things? Are you ringing to tell me to finish that Ishiguro? Coz I have to tell you, I was losing the will to live.’
She smiled. ‘No, I’m with you on that one. No, it’s not about the book club, actually. I wanted to pick your brains on something else.’
‘Oh.’ He sounded surprised, disappointed and cautious in one word. Quite a feat, she thought. It flitted through her mind that she seemed to evoke that combination in a number of people and had no idea how.
‘Billy, I have in my feeble brain some notion that you’re a potholer. Is that right?’
She could almost hear him nodding that broad, bald head of his. Billy had a near-permanent blush to his skin, making him look either angry, squeezed or hurt most of the time. ‘Well, I used to be, till the arthritis hit me. Can’t get in and out of gaps like I used to. These young guys are like greased otters.’
‘But you probably know most of the caves around here, yes?’
‘Oh, sure, it’s not like they change from one year to the next, is it? What’s on your mind, Dana?’
She thought about how to frame it. As far as she was aware, Billy wasn’t a gossip, but you never knew these days. She read with horror about people photographing their junk right, left and centre and posting it for the world to see. Not difficult to imagine a middle-aged guy talking out of turn in a bar.
‘Okay, so this is strictly off the record: police business.’
‘No problem. Twenty years a rural firefighter, and SES. I know how the cops work.’
‘Cool. So let’s say someone’s been hiding out in a cave. For quite a long time. Has to be big enough for them to live in, but far enough out of sight that they aren’t bumping into hikers and rubes. And not interesting enough, or unexplored enough, for potholers to show up. Where would I start looking for that kind of cave?’
‘Well now,’ Billy replied. There was a short grunt as – she presumed – he sat down and gave it serious consideration. ‘Let’s see. There’s plenty north of the tri-lakes, but there’s people in and out of there all the time. Tourist central, there, in summer. Those caves are on the ridge above Miller’s Point campground, and there’s that outdoor sports place next to it. You know, with the zip-line and all? So they’re big enough, but you’d probably be noticed. Some people are just plain curious, you know? See caves up on the hilclass="underline" take a look. Plus, it’s also popular for, uh, how to frame it for a lady… courting couples? So I doubt your man picked those. Hmm.’