‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘I didn’t ask, did I? He just went off and I stayed around, helping Mum tidy the wagon.’
‘So you were here all evening?’
‘Most of it. I might have taken a bit of a walk.’
‘By yourself?’ Sister Joan looked surprised.
‘Hagar and me went for a bit of a walk. We was arguing.’
‘Oh?’ Sister Joan gave him an enquiring look.
‘The point is that it’s not fair, not fair at all, that I help Mum and do an evening job three times a week while Hagar sits on her ass — sorry, Sister, while Hagar never washes a cup. She’s twelve and a girl and she ought to help out.’
‘Indeed she ought and it is very good of you to do so‚’ Sister Joan said warmly.
‘Well, it ain’t appreciated‚’ Conrad said, pronouncing the word with a kind of gloomy pride. ‘I’m thirteen and a man and I ought not to be doing female jobs. I’ve got to be the man of the house now that Dad’s run off, and I can’t do everything.’
‘So you told your sister that she ought to be doing more to help. What did Hagar say?’
‘She argued‚’ Conrad said. ‘She thinks she’s going to be a model or something daft like that. I told her she’d end up mochte.’
He used the Romany word for dirty with great vigour. Sister Joan who had hopefully read a book about the Romany tongue with some idea of getting closer to the children looked at him thoughtfully. She had abandoned the idea when she realized that everybody spoke English anyway, but she had noticed that in moments of stress they came out with the ancient words.
‘Where’s Hagar now?’ she asked.
‘Gone shopping with Mum. Mum took her part in the end. Said Hagar might go far because she’s so pretty. A pair of twerps both of them.’
‘Not a very respectful way to talk about your mother‚’ Sister Joan said mildly. ‘Do you think anyone would mind if I took a look inside Petroc’s wagon? He might have left a clue.’
‘You’re not working for the police, are you?’ Conrad looked at her suspiciously.
‘No, of course not. I’m just here to help.’ She spoke reassuringly and, after a few seconds, he nodded.
‘Over there. It ain’t locked. I’ll wait outside.’
Inside everything was neat, shabby and reasonably clean. Evidently Padraic took care of his nephew as well as his own small daughters. There was a hooked rag rug on the floor and a coloured poster of the Princess of Wales on the wall alongside a mirror and a clumsily embroidered text that stated confidently, ‘God is Love’. The double bed had been neatly made as had the low bunk pushed beneath it, and there were dishes in a draining rack on a plastic tray. Garments were hung on a steel frame and bulged out of two large plastic bags. She pulled them out and went through them swiftly but there was nothing to give the smallest clue except for a leather money box stuffed in the bottom of one bag. When she took it, it rattled and from its weight she guessed it to be almost full. If Petroc had been running off to try to see his father surely he’d have taken his money with him.
Pushing money box and garments back in the bags she stood up and looked round in some perplexity. There was absolutely nothing here to suggest that Petroc hadn’t simply gone off for a ramble. Gone off and not yet returned.
When she came outside again she stood for a moment, watching the other members of the camp as they moved about their daily chores, women pegging out washing with anxious glances skyward, a small group of men lifting pieces of scrap iron on to a pick-up truck. A twelve-year-old boy was missing and nobody seemed to care. By now they ought to have organized a search party.
‘You’m finished poking and prying then?’
Old Hagar had approached, black eyes inimical, finger and thumb rounded in the sign against the evil eye.
‘Someone besides his uncle has to care,’ Sister Joan said curtly.
‘They’ll be looking later.’ The old woman jerked her shawled head towards the others.
‘Why not now?’ Sister Joan demanded. ‘He might have had an accident on the moors, be lying with a broken leg or something on the wet grass.’
‘There’s men already out checking. The rest have their work to do,’ old Hagar said. ‘It ain’t no use anyways. There’s evil here — I’ve felt it since the night afore last when you and the other one came — no, I’m not saying it came with you so don’t bridle up at me. It was here already, creeping and crawling.’
‘Do you mean someone was here? A prowler?’ She spoke sharply.
‘Evil,’ said the old woman provokingly, ‘looking for something to feed on. Go and pray about that.’
‘You leave Sister Joan alone, you hear?’ Conrad came loping up, his fists clenched. ‘You don’t want to take no notice of her, Sister. Half-crazy she is ever since her old man died.’
‘At least I had a man,’ the old woman said slyly and shuffled away with one last vindictive look at Sister Joan’s trimly belted waist at which her rosary hung, its beads cool drops of ebony wood, its crucifix of polished copper. Every Daughter of Compassion had an exactly similar rosary presented when she made her final profession. The old woman’s taunt had said clearly. Other females carry babes on their hips. You have a string of beads and a little instrument of torture that you twist into something holy.’
Instinctively Sister Joan crossed herself and saw Conrad staring at her.
‘She don’t really mean any harm,’ he said, correctly divining her agitation with unchildlike shrewdness. ‘She’s a crazy old bat always going on about doom and death and evil.
