Ritual. Part 10

'You've talked to the police?'

'I talked to two deputies at West Hartford. They weren't exactly the Brains Brothers. They said that most runaway kids returned to their parents after seventy-two hours.'

Mrs Foss took off her spectacles and studiously polished them on the bodice of her pinafore. 'You have some suspicions, don't you?'

Charlie said, 'I'm probably crazy. I feel like I'm crazy.'

'Let me say it for you,' said Mrs Foss. 'You think that the Celestines may have had something to do with it, don't you? Those folks at Le Reposoir.'

Charlie hesitated. He had already reached the stage where he didn't quite trust anybody. After all, if Velma and Arthur and the manager of the Windsor had all been deliberately deceiving him, why shouldn't Paula Foss be deceiving him too? It seemed quite possible that the moment he had walked into the Iron Kettle, he had entered unwittingly into a con- spiracy to take his son away; and to make him believe that he was mad.

He decided to put Paula Foss to the test. 'Tell me about the Celestines,' he said. 'The truth about the Celestines. I mean, what are they? Because they have something to do with Martin's disappearance, don't they? Or don't they?'

'The Celestines are secret,' said Mrs Foss, with considerable emphasis. 'People used to pa.s.s on all kinds of stories about them, down in New Orleans. The story goes that they came from France, originally, but they were forced to emigrate during the French Revolution. They were a dining society, that's what I heard. But they were something else besides. They were religious, too. Not religious in the way that you or I might think of it, but mystical.'

Charlie said nothing, but stood and listened with a face that couldn't devise any kind of expression.

Mrs Foss continued. 'They had a restaurant on St Charles Avenue, two doors down from Kolb's, but it wasn't a restaurant in the regular sense. You couldn't walk in there straight off the street, the way you could with Kolb's or the Pearl, or the red beans and rice place that I used to run. They had blanked-out windows, and a locked door, and n.o.body I knew ever got to eat there. They were select. They were secret. People used to whisper about them, all kinds of stories: how they were eating live monkey brains, how they were eating Pomeranian dogs. But the story most people used to tell was that they were taking stray children off the streets and fattening them up, so that they could eat them too.'

'That,' Charlie said, 'has got to be a fairy tale. I haven't heard anything like it since Hansel and Gretel.'

'All right, it's a fairy tale,' said Mrs Foss. 'But people used to tell it, all the same.'

'Why did you call them the Celestines?'

'Everybody did. It means Heavenly People, in Cajun French. I don't know where they first acquired it, but that's 104.

105.

what they used to call themselves. The Heavenly People. They was Cajun from centuries back, right from the time that the Spanish granted them land in the bayous. Everybody called them the Celestines. But it doesn't just mean Heavenly People, it means something else besides. It means this secret eating society; and whether it's true or not, it means anyone who eats something they are not supposed to.'

Mrs Foss p.r.o.nounced 'supposed to' in an unadulterated Deep south accent, like 'sah postah'.

Charlie said, 'I keep feeling that something's going on here and everybody's trying to explain it to me, but I still can't understand it. These Celestines - you're not seriously trying to tell me they eat children?'

'One and one makes two. Maybe one and one makes three.' 'And what does that mean?'

'That means every time the Celestines appear, children start to disappear. The Celestines have peculiar eating habits, so one and one makes two, or maybe it doesn't. n.o.body can prove it.'

'Children are disappearing all the time. It's a national crisis.' 'Sure they do.'

Charlie said, 'I'm sorry, I can't believe any of this.' 'Can't you?' asked Mrs Foss. 'In that case, why did you come back here?'

Charlie covered his eyes with his hand. He sat for a long time in silence, thinking about Martin, and the very last moment when he walked out of the door of his room at the Windsor Hotel. Martin had quoted Groucho Marx back at him. / do not wish to belong to the kind of club that accepts people like me as members. How ironic that comment would provo to be if the Celestines really had taken him.

But the whole idea of a secret society that ate children was preposterous. How could they get away with it? and they would certainly have to be a whole lot more careful about their secrecy than the Celestines had proved to be. Velma had 106.

appeared almost to be recruiting him to join them, and that didn't seem like the way a private society of cannibals would behave.

Mrs Foss must be prematurely senile, or suffering from overwork. 'Is that waitress of yours around anywhere?' he asked. 'What was her name?'

'Harriet. No, she hasn't been in. She wasn't in yesterday, either.'

'Do you think you could give me her address? There's just a chance that she might be able to tell me something helpful.'

'She lives with her parents on the Bethlehem Road, about three miles east of the Corners. You can't miss it. It's a square white house with a red roof almost on the road. A big maple growing right close to it.'

Charlie nodded. Mrs Foss stood quite still. 'Was that really what they say about the Celestines?' Charlie asked her. 'They ate children?'

'Maybe it was just a bogey story,' said Mrs Foss.

'I think maybe it was,' Charlie told her.

He left the Iron Kettle and drove back to Alien's Corners. The day was windy and the trees waved at him frantically as he pa.s.sed the sloping green. The two old men whom Charlie and Martin had met yesterday were sitting on their customary bench, Christopher Prescott and Oliver T. Burack. Charlie parked his car not far away from them and walked across the green with the wind in his face.

'Well, well,' said Christopher Prescott, lifting his brown fedora hat.

'Good morning.' Charlie looked around. The green was deserted except for a stray brown-and-white dog sniffing at one of the garbage baskets. 'I was wondering if you might have seen my son.'

'We certainly did,' said Christopher Prescott.

Charlie's chest tightened. 'You saw him? When? This morning?'

107.

'Yesterday, with you,' Christopher Prescott said. 'Fine-looking boy he is, too."

Charlie tried not to show his anger with Christopher Pres-cott's imbecility. 'He's gone missing,' he said. 'I was wondering if you might have seen him today.'

'Missing, huh? What's he done, run off to make his fortune? You know, that's what I did when I was a boy. I ran off to make my fortune, didn't come home for five years and two months solid, and by that time I was old enough and wealthy enough to buy my father's house out from under him. Every boy should do that. If that's what your boy's done, then good luck to him I say.'

Charlie said, 'He's only fifteen years old. He doesn't know this part of the country at all. And he left without any kind of warning. No note, no nothing.'

'Doesn't want you to find him, then. That's obvious.'

'Will you do me a favour and keep a look out for him?' Charlie asked them.

'Weather-eye open,' said Oliver T. Burack.

Charlie left them with a wave and drove out on the Bethlehem Road until he reached the white house with the red roof where Harriet lived with her parents. The house looked badly in need of paint and repair. The shiplap boards were flaking, and most of the windowsills were rotten. An avalanche of shingles had left one side of the verandah roof exposed, like bones seen through decayed flesh. From one of the overhanging branches of the big old maple tree, an old tyre swung from a fraying rope. Chickens pecked around the back door.

Charlie parked his car and climbed the creaking wooden steps to the porch. He pressed the doorbell and waited, rubbing his hands to warm them up. Dust and chaff blew in the wind; chicken feathers clung to the screen door.

After he had pressed the bell a second time, Charlie called out, 'Harriet! Are you there? Harriet!'

Without warning, the front door opened, and Charlie was 108.

confronted by a fiftyish man of slight build with thinning hair. He was wearing a carpenter's ap.r.o.n and he was carrying a clamp in his hand. He frowned narrowly at Charlie, and said, 'Yes?'

'I'm sorry to trouble you, sir. I'm looking for a girl called Harriet. She works at the Iron Kettle with Mrs Foss.'

'Used to work there. Not anymore.'

'Oh? I didn't realize that. Mrs Foss didn't tell me.'

'That's no surprise. Mrs Foss doesn't know yet.'

Charlie said, 'My name's McLean, Charlie McLean. Is Harriet here? I'd like to talk to her, if I could.'

'I'm Harriet's father, Gil Greene,' said the man. He wiped his hand on his ap.r.o.n and held it out. 'Been glueing a chair.'

'Is Harriet here?' asked Charlie.

'Haven't seen her since yesterday. Come on in. Would you care for some coffee? There's a pot on the stove.'

'No, thank you. It's important I talk to Harriet. Well, it could be important. Do you know where she is?'

Gil Greene shrugged, and twisted his clamp around. 'Her mother lets her do what she likes. Much against my better judgement, believe me. Gone off to see those French people again, that's my guess.'

'French people?'

'Them Musettes, up at the restaurant. She's always talking about them, you'd think they was crowned heads of Europe or something like that. Every now and then, they call her and she goes up to the restaurant to help out with the serving, or whatever they want her to do. Odd jobs, washing dishes, that kind of thing. She never gives Mrs Foss no notice, she just goes. She never gives us no notice neither. Sometimes she's gone for two or three days at a time, no explanations, nothing. So what can you do? Well, the point is you can't do nothing.' Gil Greene cleared his throat, and then he added, 'The last time she went, Mrs Foss said she was going to sack her if she did it again. And you can see what's happened.'

109.

'Does Mrs Foss know where she is?' asked Charlie.

'She probably suspects. But Harriet made her mother and me promise not to tell, on account of the fact that Mrs Foss was always dead set against the Musettes right from the very beginning. I don't know whether it was anything personal but there seemed to be real bad blood between them.'

Charlie said, 'Did Harriet ever tell you what goes on at that restaurant? What they do there, or what the place is like?'

Gil Greene looked at Charlie and smiled wryly. 'You don't know Harriet. Sometimes she could talk the rear wheel off of a forty-ton truck, other times you can't get a word out of her.'

Charlie checked his watch. 'Listen,' he said, Til take a drive up to the restaurant myself, see if I can get to see her. If I can't, or if I miss her, would you ask her to look me up? I'll be staying at Mrs Kemp's.'

'Didn't know Mrs Kemp was still in the boarding house business.'

'She's not. But I have to stay somewhere.'

'Rather you than me, pal.'

Charlie turned his car around and drove straight back through Alien's Corners and out on to the Qua.s.sapaug Road. A few drops of rain freckled his windshield, although it didn't look as if it were going to come down heavily. Cherub's tears, Marjorie always used to call those light sporadic showers, an occasional reminder that even the life hereafter could be unhappy, too.

The gates of Le Reposoir were locked. Charlie climbed out of the car and pressed the intercom b.u.t.ton. There was no reply, so he pressed the b.u.t.ton again, and kept his finger on it for almost half a minute. At last, a detached, metallic voice said, 'Please - we are closed. If you have anything to deliver, leave it at the post office in Alien's Corners. We will collect it from there ourselves.'

Charlie said, 'This is Charles McLean. I want to speak to M. Musette.'

no 'M. Musette is not here.'

'What about Mme Musette?'

'I regret, sir, that Mme Musette is not here, either.'

'Is there a manager? Somebody in charge?'

'Only myself, sir. I am the caretaker.'

'I'm looking for my son,' Charlie insisted, trying not to let his voice tremble.

'Your son?' asked the disembodied voice. 'I regret that I do not understand.'

'My son, Martin McLean, is missing and I have reason to believe that somebody at Le Reposoir may be able to help me locate him.'

'Sir - you must be making some mistake. There is n.o.body here who could possibly help you with such a matter. If your son is missing you would be advised to contact the police.'

Charlie said, 'Is Harriet Greene there?'

'I beg your pardon, sir, there is n.o.body of that name known to us. You seem to be suffering from some kind of misapprehension.'

'Can I come inside and talk to you? It's darned windy out here.'

'I regretthatwouldservenoconstructivepurpose, sir. Besides, in M. Musette's absence, I have been requested not to admit anybody at all. There is much valuable property in the house, sir, and we have to be exceptionally careful about security.'

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck. He was feeling very stiff and very tired. 'All right,' he conceded. 'I'll go talk to the police. But I would like to see M. Musette when he comes back. Is it possible to make an appointment?'

'M. Musette has no appointments free before the end of the month.'

'The end of the month? But it's only the fourth now!'

'M. Musette is a very busy man, sir.'

Charlie controlled himself. 'I understand,' he told the voice on the intercom. 'I'm sorry if I disturbed you.'

in 'You are quite welcome, sir.' The voice was as faultlessly polite as it was faultlessly unhelpful.

Charlie returned to his car. For the first time he saw the remote TV camera watching him from the trees just inside the gates. He climbed back into his car, and made a showy three-point turn before taking a right along the north-west side of Le Reposoir's extensive grounds, in the opposite direction to Alien's Corners.

He drove slowly, peering between the trees that lined the roadside to see what kind of fencing protected Le Reposoir from the outside world. Every now and then he glimpsed spiked steel railings, painted green, with ceramic conductors on them. Electrified, he thought. That's how much they want to keep people out. Or maybe that's how much they want to keep people in.

After a little over a mile, however, he came to what he was looking for: a place where the grounds of Le Reposoir dipped downwards, while the verge of the road remained high. He stopped the car and got out, walking up the verge a little way to make sure that he would be able to do what he wanted to do. The wind blew across his ears like a ghostly mouth blowing across the neck of an empty bottle. He returned to his car, started up the engine again, and shifted it into first.

Carefully, he turned the Oldsmobile off the road and drove it on to the gra.s.s. The suspension bounced and bucked, and he heard the m.u.f.fler sc.r.a.pe against the gravelly ground. But then he was able to drive at a sharp angle down towards the green spiked fence, and pull to a halt with the automobile's front b.u.mper only an inch or two away from it. He switched off the engine and climbed out. Then - looking quickly all around him - he heaved himself up on to the hood. The sheet metal dented under his weight, but he walked without hesitation right to the front of the car to find that the green fence stood only two feet proud of the hood. He took two steps back, and then jumped right over the spikes and into the tangled bushes on the other side, tumbling over and over and tearing the elbow of his suit.

Winded, he sat up, and listened. All he could hear was the leaves rustling, and the low humming of the voltage in the electrified fence. He got up to his feet, brushed himself down, and then began to make his way through the undergrowth in the rough direction of the house.

It appeared that the woods which screened Le Reposoir from the Qua.s.sapaug Road curved in a horn shape towards the north-west side of the house; so that it would be possible for Charlie to approach the building very closely without being seen. Behind the house there were wide lawns, looking unnaturally green in the morning light, with sombre statues of naked Greek G.o.ds standing beside them, their shoulders heavy with moss, their eye-sockets blind with mildew.

The house itself was as forbidding as Charlie had remembered it. It still possessed that peculiar quality of seeming to be suspended an inch above the ground, of having infinite density, like a black diamond, but at the same time being weightless. Window upon window reflected the grey fall clouds as they hurried past, giving the extraordinary illusion that the sky was inside the house. Charlie came as close to the edge of the lawns as he dared, stopping and listening every few seconds in case he was being observed. The house, however, looked silent and empty. Perhaps the voice on the intercom had been telling the truth, and there was n.o.body here.