The Children's Book

“His family and those who know him do not appear to be much disturbed.”

“They do not. It is true he was always wandering off, just walking out, sometimes for weeks.”

“And you think you have cause to think this is different.”

“I am not a Catholic, Major Cain. I am an Anglican, of a liberal kind. Confession is not part of the way of my Church. It isn’t a recognised sacrament. But people do tell me things. Things they expect me to remain silent about. I believe it is my duty to listen. And to keep silent.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I am afraid Benedict Fludd may be dead. I am afraid he may have walked into the sea, down there at Dungeness, where the currents are thick and violent and the water is deep.”

“And you think this for a particular reason?”

“He came to see me, just after his talk to the camp. He said he meant to do away with himself. I should add, this was by no means the first time he had expressed such an intention.”

“He confessed to you, you are suggesting—”

“He was in the habit—fortunately not very frequently—of telling me things about himself—about his former life—about his life—I don’t know much of the world, Major Cain, I suppose, professionally, I should be surprised by nothing human. I shouldn’t say this, I know. I should keep quiet. But he told me things—he told them—not so that I might be able to offer him the Church’s forgiveness—but so as to hurt me. I don’t even know if what he said was true. I just know—it harmed me to listen to it. And it was meant to harm me. I’m sorry. I’m agitated. I do think he is dead. But we have one boot.”

“I am going to marry Benedict Fludd’s daughter Imogen,” said Prosper Cain. “So this concerns me, as a member of the family, so to speak.”

Frank Mallett’s face worked, as though he was about to dissolve into tears.

“I have known old Fludd for many years,” said Prosper. “Nothing he could do, or say, would surprise me. You are a good man, and a generous man and have done what you should—including telling me. Let us go to see this angler.”

They went on foot, in the thickening last light. They walked past the military camp near Lydd and across the Denge Marsh, and then the bleak shingle banks of Dungeness, skirting the Open Pits where the birds were settling for the night on the islets. This stony, shifting land supports a colony of caulked wooden huts, for the most part sooty black, some with boats beached before them, some with curious agglomerations of winches and pulleys. Lanterns were already glittering inside some of the small windows. Frank carried a storm lantern himself, but had not yet needed to light it. They came to the lighthouse, striped black and white, with its oil-fired, mirrored shaft of brightness searching the dark. Barker Twomey, said Frank, would not have left his rod; that was why he had sent Mick. They crunched on, over the stones, paler than the sky, towards the high shingle bank on which the anglers perched, black silhouettes like the golfers, their lanterns, next to their stools, ready for complete dark. They were both fit, and went lightly up the ridge, into the air off the sea, full of salt and the sound of the incoming tide throwing wave after wave at the stones, sucking them, grinding them, turning them over and over. A line quivered against the creamy tongues of the incoming surf, tautening, dripping with spray. “That’s Barker,” said Frank Mallett. They looked to see what he was hauling in; it was neither human, nor manmade, but a live fish, arced in protest, turning on the hook. Barker Twomey caught its body in his hand, and killed it with a professional twist and crack. “Mr. Mallett,” he said. “Good evening.”

He was weathered and oily, not unlike the boot, which he produced from under his bags of tackle. He wore an oiled sou’wester, and an oiled jacket with the collar up.

“I reckon I seen this on someun’s feet, last week,” he said. He turned the boot over. It dripped. Its laces were still fastened. It was old, but had once been expensive. Its tongue lolled.

“I think so,” said Frank Mallett.

Prosper Cain took it in his hands and turned it about.

“I think so, too,” he said. “God help us, it’s got clay in its eyelets and under the tongue. And it hasn’t been decently cleaned, it’s cracking. I think we know whose it is. Any further findings, Mr. Twomey?”

“No, nor very likely to be. The current here is powerful strong. It would pull things—pull a man—deep under and away fast, round the Ness. You won’t find by searching, too hard to know where.”

“Where this came, more may come to the surface,” said Prosper. “Can you ask your friends to keep their eyes open?”

He took the wet boot, rewarded the man, and set out to walk back to Purchase House. The Channel was darkening. The colour of the crashing foam was indescribable—you knew it to be white, but it was the ghost of white, light itself with silver sifted in, and the dark swell of the sucking water.

“I can see him,” said Frank Mallett. “Just walking out into it. He knew how it would take him, what it would do to him.”

They were walking back past the huts. They stopped, whilst Frank lit his lantern. Stars were showing, pale on the blue-black. The sudden beam of the lantern lit up a kind of clothes-line, stretched from the eave of one of the black huts to a mast-head, from which fluttered a narrow St. George’s cross, on a pennant.

“What’s that?” said Prosper.

It was shredded, and crumpled, and mangled. It was stained, and soaked, and it appeared to be the overall- robe Benedict Fludd had worn for his lecture. Flotsam, jetsam, retrieved from the sea.

“Mr. Mallett,” said Prosper Cain, as they walked slowly back towards Purchase House with a brown paper parcel. “Mr. Mallett—these thoughts may be premature—though I think both you and I think not. If my old friend has done away with himself, we may yet find him. He could hardly have chosen a more final place to disappear. The uncertainty will be very painful for his wife and daughters, very. Now I, too, am confiding my private anxieties to you. I wish to marry Miss Fludd as soon as possible—this event has both made me more anxious to do so, and rendered it harder to arrange. I do not know what would be appropriate mourning for a dead man—where no body exists. I do know that his family would live more easily if I were in a position to look after them with a right to do so. I should like you to marry us, Mr. Mallett. Quietly, but not surreptitiously. With flowers in the church, and a decorous feast. How soon could this be done, do you think?”

“If—if nothing floats in to shore—if he does not suddenly walk up the drive—maybe in a month?”