The Arimathea Home

The Arimathea Home is a Catholic home for boys and girls in the Surrey countryside. Its story turns on the gap between its picturesque appearance and Sarah Trafford’s urgent reason for visiting: the home is a place where Gerard Inchon was publicly photographed, and where Sarah hopes Dinah Singleton may have been taken.

Setting and appearance

Sarah reads the sign identifying the home and its Catholic purpose. The building strikes her as unmistakably Gothic but charming, like the houses in old fairy-tale illustrations: unreal in appearance, yet somehow materialized in the Surrey countryside. That atmosphere gives the site a storybook quality, though it offers Sarah no assurance that it holds the answer she seeks.

Gerard Inchon’s connection

Sarah remembers Gerard Inchon standing on a patch of grass at the home while bestowing his largesse on a tall, elderly priest. The priest in that recollection is explicitly not Father Sullivan, whom Sarah encounters during her visit. Gerard’s benefaction has left a visible association between the institution and his public image, but Sarah doubts that retracing the setting of his photograph will bring her closer to Dinah. To her, the visit threatens to be as pointless as searching the office block Gerard had built, room by room.

Sarah’s search

Sarah arrives with Joe, who presents himself as Joe Gold and introduces her as his assistant, Missy; they claim to be passing through and looking at locations. Joe treats the home’s striking appearance as a pretext for asking whether it attracts offers, but the property is not for sale. Sarah lets some of her remembered Brummie accent enter her voice, then redirects the conversation by asking about Gerard Inchon’s connection to the home and mentioning the Singletons as mutual acquaintances.

Sarah eventually states the reason for her visit: she has heard that Dinah was at the home and that this was where she had been taken. Father Sullivan says she is mistaken; Sarah maintains that she does not think she is. The exchange leaves the home’s role unresolved. It is a plausible lead in Sarah’s search, not proof that Dinah was ever there, and its fairy-tale exterior contrasts with the uncertainty and disappointment that accompany her investigation.