Under the Downs Chapter 2
A/N: Thank you to everyone who commented on the first chapter, especially Mirith, who pointed out that FF net redacted my tumblr address. It's "evenlode dot tumblr dot com" or for livejournal, " evenlode1967 dot livejournal dot com" . If you plug these into your machine with the dots in the right pace, you will find me. For those who are asking, do please friend me on LJ, I am 'evenlode1967'.
Incidentally, I'm adding photographs of some of the places described on the livejournal publications, so you can see how beautiful they are. They really do exist – and the hotel is especially good. ( Also, for anyone interested, the local treacly bitter mentioned is called 'Dark Star', and two pints caused my husband to believe he could walk through walls... not for the faint-hearted!)
Mr and Mrs Allen are a quiet, soberly dressed couple who look older than their years. They both have faces like Lancashire cheese, and I don't know whether this is as a result of worry about the loss of their only child, or their normal appearance. They live in a tiny cottage on the hillside, set back above the luxurious villas of the incomers who have populated the village. Their front garden is devoted to vegetables, not flowers. They seem a fiercely practical couple.
Sherlock sits on their nubbly sofa and listens to their lament. Their son, John-Matthew, a hyphenation which must have caused him a great deal of torture at the hands of his schoolmates, was a good boy, they say. I ask them to describe that that means. They detail an apparently endless list of church related activities that he undertook. Sunday school, bible studies, prayer groups, healing services, visiting the sick, and youth praise events are among those which feature prominently. John-Matthew was joyfully involved in his school's church fellowship, and was busy promoting abstinence amongst his fellow pupils when he disappeared, just before the start of his GCSE exams. They attend not the local Anglican village church, but the Baptist chapel in Arundel. It must be hard being a Baptist in such an aggressively Catholic town, I point out.
'We are called upon to witness to lost souls, that they might be redeemed,' Mr Allen says righteously. His wife nods in sweet agreement.
They have heard all the rational reasons why the boy might have run away – exam stress, adolescent depression, peer pressure, worries about his sexuality (which makes Mr Allen go purple in the face when mentioned). When I ask if he ever argued with them, they look at me like I am the village idiot.
'Honour thy father and thy mother,' Mrs Allen says in disbelief.
Sherlock, tellingly, says nothing.
When we are walking back down the hill towards the main road, Sherlock looks at me out of the corner of his eye.
'Well, I don't know about you, but I'd have run away,' he says.
We stop off at the pub and lean against the bar with pints of the local treacly bitter in our hands. Neither of us is inclined to talk much. Our sympathy is, probably unjustly, with the absconded son.
Back at the hotel, we eat dinner in the dining room by candle light, the pub having been too busy to fit us in – we have booked at table there for tomorrow night.
'Though I doubt we'll need to stay another night,' Sherlock huffs, when I suggest it as a sensible precaution.
The food at the hotel is good. The crystal glasses sparkle and the roses gleam waxy in their little vase between us. Jasmine and nicotiana cluster around the open French windows, filling the room with their heavy evening scent.
The waitress, a girl probably no older than John-Matthew, is attentive. I ask her if she knew the lad. She makes an awkward face.
'Not in your group of friends,' I suggest.
She goes rather pink. 'He was a bit weird, if you know what I mean.' Her heavy blonde hair flops over her face.
'How so?' Sherlock asks.
'Well, like, all that religion and stuff. And he was, well, he smelled a bit.'
'Not popular then?'
She giggles uncomfortably and slips back to the kitchen, leaving us to draw our own conclusions.
'Thank God I never have to be 16 again,' I say, digging into my steak. It is rare, perfectly done for my taste. Sherlock purses his lips as he watches me eat the bloody meat.
'I don't know how you can,' he says.
'This, from the man who doesn't know the meaning of the word "squeamish".'
He has chosen the chicken with parma ham. It is suitably abstemious.
After our meal we take our coffee on the terrace. The garden slopes steeply down towards the meadow beyond where I watched the tractor earlier. The hedge that separates the two is heavy with bramble blossom and dog rose. The sun has set behind the Down, and bats are hunting, whirring over our heads as we sit in comfortable wicker chairs.
'So what do you think?' I ask my friend. 'About the boy, I mean?'
'Oh, undoubtedly he ran away. But I am intrigued to know where he has gone, aren't you? I think he is with someone he knows. I doubt a boy with so little experience of the world would be willing to step out into it without help.'
'So we go and see the police tomorrow?'
'And examine the area where he was last seen.'
'Lucky I hired a car then,' I say, and crunch on the rattafia biscuit that came with my coffee.
'Hmmm,' he responds, and I know that he is miles away, as usual, somewhere deep in the velvet shadows.
Tomorrow, John and Sherlock spend their first night together…