Dying to Tell, page 22
‘Oh yeh.’ She sat back, then slowly picked up her cappuccino and sipped it, patently playing for time. ‘Well, the wording was just to get his attention, of course.’
‘It got mine.’
‘Yuh. So it did.’
‘Look, Maris—’
‘Could we go outside?’ She glanced around. ‘You know, away from . . . people.’
Out we went, into the clean, cooling air. Stifling the observation that the choice of rendezvous had been Maris’s, not mine, I followed her through a pillared and pedimented archway into a courtyard in front of a white-faced mission-style building. Benches, most of them unoccupied, were arranged round a central fountain. Sunlight was dancing in the plashing water. Maris made for the bench furthest from anyone else and sat down.
‘Sorry about having to get out of there,’ she said as I joined her. ‘I don’t want everyone knowing my business.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘I especially don’t want Clyde hearing about the ad.’
‘Clyde?’ I raised my eyebrows to strengthen the impression of ignorance it seemed important to convey.
‘My boyfriend. Clyde Ledgister. Did Rupe ever mention him to you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Only I got the impression . . . well, that Rupe had come here to see Clyde. Specifically, I mean.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I don’t know. That was the whole point of . . .’ She lowered her voice, though the only people within earshot were absorbed in their own conversation. ‘The Arabs were the ones who standardized the incorporation of fountains in architectural design, you know. Odd, when you consider how little water they had to spare. But fountains weren’t considered luxuries by your average Middle Eastern potentate. The sound of the water made it kind of hard for eavesdroppers. An early anti-bugging device, I suppose you could say.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I don’t have all that long, I’m afraid.’
‘Why not just tell me why you’re so keen to speak to Rupe, then?’
‘OK. But if Clyde ever finds out . . .’
‘Mightn’t he see the ad?’
‘Not really. He’s out of town at the moment. His uncle’s died.’ (And was no doubt being buried in Berlin. Yes, Clyde was well away.)
‘That’s why you put it in today?’
‘All this week, actually. Clyde won’t be back till next week.’
‘Right. So, this was a good opportunity to see if Rupe was still around.’
‘Yuh. I mean, OK, it was a long shot, but . . . I’m worried about Clyde. What else could I do to find out what in hell’s going on?’
‘Why are you worried about him?’
‘Because he’s not been the same since that day – September fifteen. I knew there was something wrong when I walked in on them in Clyde’s room. Your friend, Rupe, well, he was pleasant enough. But the . . . atmosphere . . . was all wrong. I had the feeling . . . he was threatening Clyde. After he’d gone, Clyde just tried to brush it under the rug, said there was nothing wrong, nothing I needed to bother about. But he wouldn’t say what Rupe had wanted or how they’d met. And anyhow . . . I can read him like a book. He couldn’t fool me. He was scared of something. Something Rupe had said to him, or told him about, or asked him to do. He was real scared. And then . . .’
‘What?’
‘After Rupe’s visit, I couldn’t get so close to him, you know? There was a part of him sealed off. We’d always told each other everything. So I’d thought, anyhow. But that all changed. He got to be . . . secretive. And oftentimes absent, without explanation. Most everyone lives on campus here. Stanford’s a self-contained community. San Francisco’s a long way off and feels even further. Clyde and I never went into the city much. But after your friend’s visit, that altered. I wouldn’t be able to find Clyde in the usual places at the usual times. Then someone would tell me they’d seen him heading for the train station. When I asked him where he’d been, he’d just get mad and shout at me to stop interrogating him. So, I stopped.’
‘But you went on wondering.’
‘Yuh. The more I thought about it, the more it led back to the quietly spoken Englishman I’d met in his room that Friday, September fifteen – Rupe Alder. He didn’t say much about himself. At the time, I wasn’t interested. But I am now. So, what can you tell me about him, Gary?’
‘Nothing that’ll answer your questions. He’s a professional guy, single, thirty-six years old. Lives in London. Works for a shipping company. Did work for a shipping company, I should say. Resigned at the end of August. Nobody knows why. Nor why he came here. What he was up to – what he wanted with Clyde – is a total mystery.’
‘There must be some clue to his intentions.’
‘Not really. Except . . .’ I sensed the moment had arrived when, if I volunteered something, however meagre, I might get a little more in return. But what to volunteer? I couldn’t mention Townley. If Maris knew that was the surname of Clyde’s recently deceased uncle, it could set some unhelpful alarm bells ringing. ‘There’s a photograph he seems to have been interested in, pinned up in his kitchen, of someone nobody close to Rupe recognizes. It’s possible, going on odd remarks he made to his lodger, that he’s, well, looking for the person in the photograph.’
‘Do you have the photograph with you?’
‘Er . . . yeh.’ I burrowed in my bag and produced the snap Rupe had taken of the picture of Townley with Loudon and another man at the Golden Rickshaw. ‘It’s the guy on the right that Rupe was interested in.’
‘How do you know that?’ (A fair question.)
‘Ah, well, there was another photograph. I mean, there were two on the wall. I didn’t bring the other one with me. Only this fellow’ – I tapped at Townley’s face with my finger – ‘appears in both.’
‘Where was it taken?’
‘Not sure. But, er, the other one . . . was taken at a railway station in Somerset, near where Rupe and I grew up. Now, the station closed – the whole line closed, in fact – in nineteen sixty-six, so the pictures obviously predate that.’
‘By how much?’ (Another fair question.)
‘Well, our friend’s in civilian clothes in the station shot. The fashion looks to be . . . early to mid-nineteen sixties.’
Maris’s expression suggested such reasoning wouldn’t pass muster with her tutors. But she didn’t seem inclined to make an issue of my failure to bring the other photograph with me. ‘So, how old would this guy be now?’
‘Oh, sixty-five, seventy.’
‘Sixty-five, seventy.’ The computation had given her food for thought. ‘That’s kind of interesting.’
‘Why?’
‘Because . . .’ She looked away, chewing her thumb pensively, the first thing I’d seen her do that was less mature than she evidently wanted to appear. ‘God, this is difficult.’
‘What is?’
She glanced at her watch again. ‘I really should be going soon.’
‘Do you know who the guy in the photograph is?’
‘No. Not . . . exactly.’
‘But you know something about him?’
‘Kind of. I mean—’ She shook her head irritably in a flame-red flurry, then said, ‘OK. No sense starting down this road if we don’t go to the end. One day, a couple of weeks after Clyde had started going missing, I . . . followed him. I saw him getting on the Marguerite – that’s what we call the shuttle bus. Well, it goes out round by the children’s hospital and the shopping mall on its way to the station, so I knew if I cycled straight down Palm Drive I’d get there first. I also knew – because I’d found the used tickets a couple of times in his waste basket – that these trips of his were all the way into San Francisco. I kept out of sight when the Marguerite pulled in and stayed that way till the train arrived. Clyde was on foot, so he got straight on, without paying any attention to me and a few others boarding the bike car. I didn’t really know how I was going to keep track of him at the depot, with the bike and all, but I only lost him for a few minutes. He was waiting for a bus. When he got on one, I tagged along behind. I guess you don’t know the city well?’
‘Not at all.’
‘OK. Well, with the number of stops plus the traffic congestion, it’s no problem to keep up with a bus on a bike. We crossed Market – that’s the main downtown street – and headed north into Chinatown, where Clyde got off and hopped onto a California Street cable car. He rode that all the way to the terminus on Van Ness, then walked up into Pacific Heights. That’s a pretty exclusive neighbourhood, with views of the ocean. I had to hang back quite a lot, so as not to be seen. But Clyde obviously didn’t think he was being followed, least of all by me. He crossed Lafayette Park and went into an apartment block. A smart-looking place, portered and all. I couldn’t follow him in without giving myself away. And I was too far back to see which bell he’d rung.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I sat in the park, sheltered by the trees, with a good view of the entrance to the block, waiting to see how long Clyde would stay. After about twenty minutes, he came out. But he wasn’t alone. There was this . . . old guy with him.’
‘How old?’
‘About the age you said this guy here’ – she pointed to the photograph – ‘would be now.’
‘Did he look like him?’
‘Maybe.’ She peered at Townley’s face. ‘It’s hard to say. People change. My grandfather’s in his seventies and I’ve seen pictures of him as a young man in which he’s barely recognizable. So, it’s possible. That’s about all I can say. They crossed over to enter the park, so I had to hightail it out of there. I never got a close view of the guy. He looked old – white hair and beard, cut short – but he looked good for his age: upright, neither fat nor thin, holding himself together well. That’s as much of a description as I can give you.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
‘No. I went up there a few days ago – after Clyde had gone away – and hung around the park for a couple of hours, hoping I might see him coming or going. But he never showed.’ (Maybe, it occurred to me, because he too had gone to a funeral.) ‘That’s when I decided to place the ad and see if I got an answer.’
‘Well, you did.’
‘Yuh, but not quite the one I was hoping for.’
‘Don’t be so despondent, Maris. Seems to me I can do something you’re not really in a position to do.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, if you started asking questions at the apartment block, word might get back to Clyde, right? Which I gather you’re anxious to avoid.’
‘I sure am.’
‘So, let me ask the questions for you.’ I smiled benignly at her. ‘All you have to do is give me the address of the block.’
The autumn light was failing by the time I got off the train back in San Francisco. According to Maris, the bus Clyde had caught from the station was the number 30, so I hung around the crowded stops until a 30 showed up, got aboard and stayed on while it traversed the centre and climbed the hill into Chinatown. The rush hour was in spate and nobody was going anywhere fast. When we crossed the cable-car tracks I got off, faithfully retracing the route Clyde had taken the day Maris had followed him.
The California Street cable car, crammed with tourists and home-going commuters, lumbered its up-and-down way west through Chinatown and Nob Hill towards Pacific Heights. It was slow-going all right, but the gradients would have been too much for me to manage on a bike, even at Maris’s age. I could only thank God for Californian gym culture. Without it, we’d have had no idea where Clyde had gone.
Why he’d gone there was still something of a mystery, though less of one to me than to his sorely puzzled girlfriend. I got off at the end of the cable-car tracks on Van Ness Avenue and, finding myself at the door of the Holiday Inn, trailed in after a clutch of tourists and booked a room. From there I called Maris to let her know where I was staying. Her number was unavailable again, so I had to leave a message. Then I headed back out, armed with a complimentary street map from reception and walked the two blocks to Lafayette Park as night closed over the city.
Egret Apartments stood close to the north-western corner of the park. It was a tall, slender, softly lit Art Deco block, presenting a broad and handsome frontage to Laguna Street and a high, narrow flank to the night-blanked vista of San Francisco Bay.
There was a gleaming brass bank of numbered bell-pushes beside the double-doored entrance, but no list of residents by name. Since I took it as certain that Townley – if he was Townley – would be living there under an alias, such a list wouldn’t have told me much anyway. And the porter, who I could see leafing through an evening newspaper behind a lacquer-topped counter in the lobby, wasn’t going to volunteer information about the residents to a stranger for no good reason. I wandered on west, turning the problem over in my mind.
Three blocks took me to the neighbourhood shopping street, where the scents of coffee and cinnamon wafting out of a wayside café reminded me that I was more than a little hungry. I sat on a stool near the door, munching a waffle and sipping a super-heated hot chocolate while I formulated a tentative plan. If I was going to strike any kind of terms with Townley, I first had to contact him. The chances were that he, like Clyde, was out of town. When he returned, I had to be ready for him. And finding out what he called himself was the obvious way to start. But how?
An answer came to me as I watched customers coming and going at the bookstore next door. After I’d panted down the last of my chocolate, I went in and bought a glossy tourist guide to Japan. A plastic bag bearing the name of the shop came with it. Then I dug out the Tokyo street map I’d been given at Narita Airport, marked with the names and locations of the Golden Rickshaw and Eurybia Shipping, and slipped it inside the cover of the book. I reckoned that was sure to get Townley’s attention.
Back at Egret Apartments, the porter was still absorbed in the sports pages of the San Francisco Examiner. He looked up as I entered and laid the paper aside. ‘Good evening, sir.’
‘Good evening. I wonder if you can help me with a tricky little problem. Last week, I got chatting to a guy in a café down on Fillmore Street who happened to mention that he lives here. We’d both bought books at the bookstore next door and, when we left, well, our books got mixed up. We took the wrong ones. He got mine, I got his.’ I flourished the bag. ‘Easy mistake to make.’
‘You want to do a swap, right?’
‘That’d certainly be neat. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the gentleman’s name.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Well, knocking on, but in good nick. Short white hair and beard. Carried himself well. Sixties, seventies – that sort of age.’
‘Sounds like our Mr Duthie. He’s out of town right now. Back in a few days. If you care to leave his book, with a note of your name and phone number . . .’
‘OK. Do you have a piece of paper?’ He handed me a sheet and I scribbled on it: I know who you are. I guess you know who I am. We need to talk. I will phone after your return. I slipped that in beside the map and passed the bag to the porter. ‘I can’t be reached on the phone, I’m afraid. Maybe I could call Mr Duthie when he’s back. Do you know when that’ll be? You said a few days.’
‘By Friday, for sure.’
‘OK. And the number?’
‘Here’s the general number.’ He gave me a small card. ‘There’s always someone here.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ I’d hoped for Mr Duthie’s personal number, but perhaps I’d hoped for too much. I’d got a toe-hold in his life and that was enough. Smiling, I made my exit.
Back at the Holiday Inn, I checked the phone book, but found no Duthie listed at Egret Apartments. Somehow, that wasn’t really a surprise. Then I called Maris again. This time, her phone was switched on.
‘Clyde’s friend is called Duthie. He’s also away at the moment. I’ll speak to him when he gets back, which I’m assured will be by the end of the week.’
‘How will you explain tracing him without dragging me into it?’
‘I’ll say Rupe mentioned his name.’
‘And then?’
‘I’ll see what he says in response.’
‘What if he says nothing?’
‘I don’t plan to give him that option.’
The brave words were partly attributable to my febrile state of mind. Chronic stress and a haywire body clock were playing havoc with my normally acute instinct for self-preservation. I angled round the corner in search of a congenial bar, settled for an uncongenial one instead, and, two-thirds of the way through my second Ragin’ River, was hit by a runaway lorryload of accumulated fatigue. A totter back to the hotel was swiftly followed by a descent into sleep several levels deeper than the norm.
Half of Wednesday had vanished when I rejoined the ranks of the conscious. Since my itinerary wasn’t exactly clogged, this represented no problem whatever. After a large lunchtime breakfast, I became a tourist for the afternoon, riding the cable cars to Fisherman’s Wharf and shelling out for a boat trip round the Bay.
As the boat nosed out through the swell towards the rust-red span of Golden Gate Bridge, I thought some more about the cut-and-run policy Shintaro Yamazawa had tacitly recommended to me. It was still tempting, but now only in principle. I was going to see this thing through – whatever it was, wherever it led.
On my way back to the hotel, I stopped off at the uncongenial bar. All the talk there was of sensational developments in the presidential election that I dimly recalled noticing some mention of in the paper. They might as well have been discussing the presidency of Mars for all I cared. I was engaged in my own brand of politics, but the time for counting votes hadn’t yet arrived.
It is, however, as they say, always later than you think. At the Holiday Inn, Maris was waiting for me. And it was pretty obvious from the expression on her face that she didn’t want to reassure herself that I’d enjoyed the sights.
‘I got another answer to my ad.’
‘Who from?’
‘Mr Duthie.’ There was an accusation detectable in the anxiety that I could hear bubbling in her voice. ‘He wants to meet me.’
