Rose by Martin Cruz Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

nature as man-made.
    Leveret said, “I heard the story about the Bible Fund. And the, the …”
    “Debauchery?”
    “Fast living. However, it seems to me from a careful reading of the facts that you’ve been a champion of the African.”
    “Don’t believe what you read. People have many reasons for what they do.”
    “But it’s important to let people know, otherwise you’ll be misjudged. It sets an example.”
    “Like Hannay? Now there is one hell of a bishop.”
    “Bishop Hannay is … different. Not every bishop will support costly expeditions to the far corners of the world.”
    “It’s a luxury he can afford.”
    “It’s a luxury you need,” Leveret pointed out gently. “Anyway, no matter how private your reasons for doing good in Africa, don’t let people paint you quite so black.”
    “Leveret, let me worry about my reputation. Why didn’t you mention the explosion at the Hannay pit in the information about John Maypole?”
    Leveret took a moment to adjust to the change in subject.
    “Bishop Hannay felt that information didn’t apply. Except that everyone was so occupied with the explosion that we didn’t take proper notice at first that John was gone.”
    “You read Dickens?” Blair asked.
    “I love Dickens.”
    “Miraculous coincidence doesn’t bother you?”
    “You don’t like Dickens?”
    “I don’t like coincidence. I don’t like it that Maypole disappeared on the same day as a mine explosion. Particularly when the Bishop chose me, a mining engineer, to find him.”
    “It’s simply that we didn’t pay sufficient attention to John’s disappearance because of the explosion. The Bishop selected you, I believe, because he wanted someone from the outside whom he could trust. Your mining background is appropriate for Wigan, after all.”
    Blair was still unconvinced. “Was Maypole ever down in the mine?”
    “It’s not allowed.”
    “He could only preach to the miners when they were up?”
    “That’s right.”
    “But he did preach to them?”
    “Yes, as soon as they came to the surface. And to pit girls. John was a true evangelist. He was of selfless, absolutely stainless character.”
    “He sounds like someone I would cross streets of deep mud to avoid.”
    With red ink Blair initialed the addresses of John Maypole, the widow Mary Jaxon and Rose Molyneux.
    His mind stayed on Rose. Why hadn’t she called for help? Why hadn’t she even dressed? Her clothes were on the chair. Instead she had stayed in her damp chemise. When she had looked toward the door, was she as afraid of being discovered as he was?
    John Maypole’s room was near Scholes Bridge in an alley of brick walls leaning together so acutely that their rooflines almost touched. Between them a slice of gray air dropped onto Leveret and Blair. Maypole was obviously the sort of evangelist who chose to mingle with his congregation day and night, a man who was willing not only to descend to the depths but to sleep there.
    Leveret opened a room furnished with bed, table and chairs, cast-iron range, chest of drawers, washbasin, chamber pot set on linoleum of a dark, indecipherable pattern. Blair lit an oil lamp hanging on the wall. Its wan illumination reached to the glory of the room, an oilpainting of Christ in a carpenter’s shop. Jesus appeared delicate and unaccustomed to hard work, and in Blair’s opinion His expression was overly abstracted for a man handling a saw. Shavings curled around His feet. Through His window was a glimpse of olive trees, thorn-bushes and the blue Sea of Galilee.
    Leveret said, “We left the room as it was, in case he returned.”
    A pewter crucifix hung in the center of another wall. On a shelf leaned a Bible, well-thumbed theological books and a single slim volume of Wordsworth. Blair opened the chest drawers and felt through the black woolen cassocks and suits of a poor curate.
    “John wasn’t interested in material goods,” Leveret said. “He owned only two suits.”
    “And