"It's a Monday," he added.
Floundering, she said toiielessly, "I'd love to come."
Then, with passion: "You can't let gossips drive you out with lies."
"It's a fragile job, mine. I can't stay in it without the confidence of my parish," he explained with a steadiness that showed he'd thought it through. "If the back-stabbing gets worse, I'm history. Out of here."
"No!" She moved across the rug to his side, grabbed his hand and gripped it tightly. "Don't. I'll die."
He tensed, clearly surprised by the force of her reaction. "Rachel, what is this?"
"I love you, that's what," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "1 couldn't bear you to go away." She pressed her face into the curve of his neck and shoulder, afraid of her own impulsiveness, mentally pleading with him to hold onto her, and forever.
"Rachel," he said and then repeated her name as if he couldn't think what else to say.
She clung to him, sobbing, squeezing his hand.
Finally he found some words. "That evening I was here before, I shouldn't have-"
"Don't say that," she cried out. "It was beautiful. You made me feel wanted."
"No, it was wrong," he insisted. "I'm in holy orders."
She drew away enough to look at him through the blur of her tears. "I'm not asking you to do anything wrong. Marry me."
Silence.
He was some removes away in thoughts of his own. Eventually he sighed and still said nothing, and Rachel waited for an answer until she knew he wasn't going to give one, this word-spinner who could enthral a church full of people with his eloquence. Her emotions seesawed. This man she worshipped hadn't come here to make love to her, or propose marriage. He wanted to make sure the bloody account books didn't get into the wrong hands.
And she'd poisoned Gary thinking she would free herself for Otis. What an idiot she was.
She pushed herself away from him, got up and ran out of the room.
A little later he followed her into the kitchen and said he couldn't walk out of the house without saying anything. He made coffee for her, and talked, while she was mainly silent. The church wasn't just a job, he explained, or just a section of his life. It was his whole existence. Through it, he came alive. It was more potent and powerful than sex, or relationships, music, sport or anything that drove most men. He liked to interact with people, but through his work as a priest, rather than on a personal level.
Rachel said, "But how can you be a good priest if you don't share the same experiences as other people?"
He understood the point immediately. "My wife used to say the same thing. It's a dilemma. I focus everything on the ministry, you see. I'm wedded to my job. I know I do it well, and I know I couldn't do anything else. I'm not a good Christian-I mean that, I'm damaged spiritually-but I can be an effective priest and I take enormous satisfaction from that. Claudine called it monomania, and I suppose she was right. She felt excluded. I failed as a husband."
She started to say, "It doesn't mean-"
"But it does, it does!" he told her with the passion he usually kept for the pulpit. "I can't tell you the risks I've taken to get to this point in my life. There's no compromise, Rachel."
Soon after, he left.
Twenty
Three days after Christmas, a Renault car with an R registration was examined by the Bournemouth police. It had stood in a minor road near the bus station for about ten days according to people living there. Nobody remembered seeing it arrive. The police checked the national computer records and found the owner was Mrs. Cynthia Haydenhall, of Primrose Cottage, Foxford, Wiltshire.
The local police were informed. After checking once more that no one was inside Primrose Cottage, PC George Mitchell reported Cynthia to Police Headquarters as a missing person.
The news spread rapidly. No one knew of any connection Cynthia had with Bournemouth. She didn't particularly like the sea and it was a long way to go Christmas shopping. Out of season Bournemouth is best known for its conference centre and its concerts, but there had been no conference in the week preceding Christmas, and the only events at the Pavilion were children's shows.
A search operation was mounted in the Bournemouth area. Empty buildings, wasteland, woodland and the beaches were checked. Posters were put up. The local press were informed. Nothing of substance was discovered.
Back in Foxford, there were fears for Cynthia's safety. The fact that she hadn't cancelled her newspaper was taken seriously at last. She wasn't the kind of person who would take off for weeks on end without letting anyone know.
George Mitchell and three officers from Warminster made house-to-house inquiries. It was difficult. Normally ten days is not an over-long period in people's memories, but with Christmas intervening it was like asking about some event that happened six weeks before.
"I wish you'd listened to me," Rachel reminded George when he knocked on her door. "I knew something was wrong when she didn't turn up for the carol evening. She told me she'd be there. She really looked forward to it."
George noticed how pale Rachel was looking, worse, he thought, than when her husband died. He supposed she and Mrs. Haydenhall were closer friends than he'd imagined. "We've got a lot of men and women working on this in Bournemouth," he told her. "Don't give up hope."
Burton Sands had tried repeatedly to get through to Milton Davidson College, Toronto. All over the world everything stopped for Christmas, it seemed. And then for the New Year. It was not until January 3rd that someone picked up a phone.
Usefully for Burton, the most senior staff have to come into college during holidays to deal with urgent business. He was put through to the Deputy Principal. This time he dropped the This is Your Life ploy for something simpler. "I'm checking the records of clergy who came to Britain from abroad," he said as if this was part of a larger project. "I have a name here and I wonder if you'd confirm that he was with you until nineteen ninety-three. Otis Joy."
"I'll bet it is," said the voice on the line. "I don't envy you."
Burton was forced to explain that Otis Joy was someone's name, not a cynical aside.
"You say he came to Britain?"
"Right."
"Wrong-if you mean our guy. We had a student of that name, but he didn't go to England. He didn't go anywhere."
"Why?"
"He died."
Burton gripped the phone and pressed it harder to his ear. "Did you say 'died'!"
"Sure. In ninety-three, the year you mentioned. He drove his car off a mountain road when he was on vacation in Vancouver. A sheer drop. No chance."
"This is Otis Joy?"
"It's not a name you forget, specially in a theological college. He was the only student of that name we had on our books, or ever had."
"Did you know him personally?"
"Otis? Sure. I've been here fifteen years. He was in my tutor group. Nice guy."
"Would you mind describing him? There's obviously some confusion in our records."
"Sounds like it. Let's see. He was short, Afro-Caribbean, rather overweight-"
Burton blurted out his reaction. "A black man?"
"Are we at cross purposes here?"
"We must be. The man I know is white."
"We're wasting our time then. These are two different guys."
"But he claims to have been at your college. It's on his file."
"I don't think so."
"I'm telling you," insisted Burton. "He finished his training at Brighton. Their records show he attended Milton Davidson College. There is only one college of that name in Toronto, 1 suppose?"
"In the world."
As if by consent, they let a moment of hard thinking go by.
"If you had a picture of your Mr. Joy," said the Deputy Principal with a new, suspicious tone, "I'd be interested to see it."