Missing Susan

CHAPTER 7

STONEHENGE TO TORQUAY

BREAKFAST ON DAY two of the tour was an eight o’clock buffet in the Wessex Hotel, after which they would be departing for the wilds of Devonshire. Rowan Rover, who had no objections to early hours or free meals, joined the breakfasters and found himself at a table with the smuggest of the party’s early birds: Alice MacKenzie, Maud Marsh, and Susan Cohen. Rowan, in an aging sky-blue pullover and black pants, looked rather like an early bird himself, or perhaps like an insomniac parakeet.

Rowan began the meal with a bowl of shredded cereal, topped with milk and figs. After bidding his tablemates a brisk good morning and noting that they also had plates of food before them, he began to attack this first course in cheerful anticipation of his just-ordered coffee.

“Aren’t you supposed to drink tea?” asked Susan, whose own cup sported a dangling string and a square of cardboard.

“I prefer coffee,” said Rowan, halting a spoonful of cereal inches from his lips.

“But you’re English. I thought Americans drank coffee and English people drank tea.”

“I am a defector.”

“And what’s that stuff you’re eating?” Susan persisted. “Ee-ooo. It looks like the sort of wood shavings they put in boxes of china to keep them from breaking. Sawdust. I ordered an English breakfast.”

Rowan showed his teeth in a parody of a smile. “You must try the blood pudding,” he purred.

“I know all about British customs,” she informed him. “I have all of Upstairs Downstairs on video. And I’ve read all of Dorothy Sayers.”

This remark inspired Alice MacKenzie to a new line of questioning. “I love Dorothy Sayers! Especially Gaudy Night. You went to Oxford, didn’t you, Rowan?”

“Somewhat after Miss Sayers’ own time in residence there, yes,” said Rowan Rover cautiously.

“I’m really looking forward to touring Oxford,” said Alice. “In the footsteps of Peter Wimsey! Are you a Balliol man as well?”

“Ah… no,” said Rowan, balancing another spoonful of cereal within loading distance.

“Christ Church?”

“No, that’s a rather exalted place, and I was just a clever youth without peer.” Rowan smiled at his own pun.

Alice cast about for other possibilities. “Magdalen? Trinity? Merton?”

“Ah!” said Maud Marsh. “T. S. Eliot and J. R. R. Tolkien both went to Merton.” They looked at Rowan expectantly.

He looked longingly at his soggy cereal. “No, actually… I went to Keeble.”

This admission was received with a silence that made it patently obvious that they had never heard of Keeble. They may have been entertaining some doubt as to whether there was such a college. Rowan felt himself redden at this impugning of his credentials.

“It’s one of the modern colleges,” he said petulantly. “Founded in the early part of this century. Not as arty and hidebound as some of the old ones, where they want blue blood instead of brains.”

“I expect it was a lot cheaper, too,” Susan remarked, eyeing his ratty pullover.

At that moment a white-coated teenager arrived, bearing a stainless steel pot which he set before Rowan Rover with a flourish of personal triumph at having remembered both the beverage and the existence of the diner. “Ah, my coffee,” said Rowan, grateful for the diversion. He poured a few drops into his cup and inspected the result. “This doesn’t look like…” He raised the cup to his lips and, seconds later, sputtered out his verdict. “Bloody Earl Grey!”

“Do you want to call the waiter back?” asked Alice.

“No, it took him an age to bring this. God knows how long he’d be if we asked for something else. Since the Americans evidently expect it of me, and the waiters conspire to abet them, I shall drink tea.” He reached for the cream jug.

“Milk in first?” asked Susan, raising her eyebrows. “I thought you weren’t supposed to do that. Isn’t it-what’s the phrase?-non-U?”

“If it’s me, it’s U,” muttered Rowan, stirring the fawn-colored beverage. Suddenly the prospect of doing away with Susan Cohen had become a little less dreadful to contemplate.

First Bernard counted the suitcases, counted them again, and stowed them into the coach’s luggage compartment. Then Rowan Rover took a head count of the passengers, and, satisfied that all were accounted for, he ushered them onto the bus, where they took up their accustomed positions, sitting two by two in a clump at the front.

“Good morning, ladies and Charles!” said Rowan, standing in the aisle and addressing them without benefit of microphone. “Does everyone have sweaters out? It’s a bit chillier today and we are going to do a bit of walking, as our first stop is Stonehenge. Did everyone have breakfast? I hope so, because lunch today is-as usual- on your own, which means that we’ll stop in a pub somewhere along the route.” “Aren’t there any pizza places in England?” asked Susan plaintively.

“Not as many as in Minneapolis,” said Rowan between clinched teeth.

“I went to Stonehenge when I was over on the archaeological dig in ’sixty-eight,” said Emma Smith. “I don’t suppose it has changed much since then.”

From the driver’s seat came Bernard’s short laugh. “Don’t bet on it, miss!”

An hour later Emma had to admit the truth of Bernard’s remark. The coach made its way out of the narrow streets of Winchester; from the A34 to the A303, a large modern motorway that took them across the chalk downs of Wiltshire and straight to Stonehenge. Straight to Stonehenge. As they approached the great neolithic monument, Maud Marsh said sadly, “I never pictured a highway going ten feet past the heelstone.”

“That was there in 1968,” said Emma, studying the scene. “But the fence wasn’t.”

“Vandals,” said Bernard over his shoulder. “Stonehenge draws loonies like a flame draws moths.”

He pulled the coach into the paved car park across the road from the great stone circle. It was already crowded with other tour buses and dozens of private cars. They stood in the lot beside the coach, braving the chill wind, while Rowan consulted his notes. “I have a pass here to get us in as a group,” he announced. “Everyone follow me, please.”

“They sell tickets?” asked Miriam Angel, sounding shocked and grieved. “To Stonehenge? We don’t charge people to go into the Lincoln Memorial.”

Bernard shrugged. “Maybe the Druids need the money.” He got back on board and adjusted his radio to a rock station to while away the tour time.

“It wasn’t built by the Druids,” Emma was explaining to her comrades as they trotted after Rowan across the parking lot. They discovered that the south end of the lot was equipped with concrete steps leading to a subterranean level, containing lavatories, a gift shop, and the ticket booth. In order to reach Stonehenge, tourists had to pass through an iron gate and walk through a tunnel built under the highway, which brought them out near the monument on the other side.

Rowan shepherded the group through the admission gates with his British Heritage tour pass, but he lost control as soon as they were through the gate. Elizabeth MacPherson led a charge to the gift shop, followed by Kate Conway and Nancy Warren.

“I promised a couple of the student nurses that I’d send postcards,” Kate explained to the scowling guide.

“One of my daughters wanted a Stonehenge poster,” murmured Nancy.

“It’s cold out there,” said Elizabeth, when Rowan attempted to round them up. “We’re just getting warm before we walk out to the monument.”

“You have ten minutes,” said Rowan in his most authoritative voice. He then stalked off toward the lavatory.