“I meant to the concert,” I said.
“You can if you want to,” she said. “Are you sure? It’ll be just the same as last night.”
“You could surely eat the same dinner two nights running?” I said.
“Only if you cooked it.”
“Well, then,” I said, “I want to come and hear you play again tonight.”
“I’ll see if I can find you a ticket.”
“So what do you want to do until four o’clock?” I asked.
She grinned. “We could stay in bed.”
But we didn’t. We decided to get up and go have some breakfast at the restaurant on the ninety-fifth floor of the John Hancock Building, which, according to the tourist guide in the room, was the second-highest building in the Midwest, after the Sears Tower.
I took the elevator down to the lobby while Caroline went to put a note under the door of a fellow violist with whom she had agreed to go shopping, explaining that her plans had changed. As I waited for her, I asked the concierge for a map of the area and found the John Hancock Building clearly marked. I also found O’Hare airport to the northwest of the city center. And something else on the map caught my eye.
Caroline arrived, having delivered her note.
“Are you aware,” I asked, “that the state of Wisconsin starts only a few miles north of Chicago?”
“So?” she said.
“Wisconsin is where Delafield is, and that’s where Delafield Industries, Inc., is based.”
“But how far away?” she said. “Some of the states are huge.”
I found out. The hotel concierge was most helpful. Delafield, Wisconsin, he said, was under two hours’ drive away. Yes, of course, he could arrange for a rental car, all he needed was a credit card. Caroline lent me hers. Better safe than dead.
INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 94 conveniently ran directly from Chicago to Delafield, and, as the hotel concierge had said, it took us less than two hours in our rented Buick.
We turned off the Interstate at the Delafield exit and found ourselves in an urban environment repeated thousands of times across the United States. The junction was surrounded on all sides by flat-roofed commercial and retail development, including gas stations, drugstores, supermarkets and the ubiquitous fast-food outlets, each with an over-tall sign designed to be visible for miles along the highway in each direction. I thought back to when I had opened the Hay Net and the flurry of objections that had been raised by the local planners over the modest sign I had wanted to erect next to the road. In the end, I had been given my permission, on the condition that the top of the sign be not more than two meters from the ground. I smiled to myself. The Cambridgeshire County Council planning officer would have had palpitations in this neck of the woods.
Beyond the retail areas, with their acres of tarmac parking lot, and sitting on a small hill, I could see some substantial industrial buildings with DELAFIELD INDUSTRIES, INC. in big bold black letters on a yellow sign sticking up from the roof. Below the sign, painted large on the wall of the factory in fading paint, was THE FINEST AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY IN AMERICA.
I wasn’t really sure what I hoped to achieve by coming all the way up to Delafield from Chicago. It just seemed to me to be an obvious thing to do, having discovered that it was so close. I had no idea what I would find. Indeed, I had no idea what I was even looking for. But if I was right and Delafield Industries was indeed the intended target, then if anyone knew the motive for the bombing it would surely be Rolf Schumann. Whether he would tell me or not was another matter.
We drove up to the main gate, where a sturdy-looking barrier blocked our path.
“Can I help you, sir?” asked a security guard who appeared from the glass-fronted gray booth on my left. He wore a dark blue uniform, complete with flat-topped cap and a belt around his waist with more gadgets hung from it than I thought was prudent. Surely, I thought, a belt with all that weight would pull his trousers down rather than hold them up.
“I was passing and wondered if Mr. Rolf Schumann was in,” I said.
“And your name, sir?” the guard asked. He himself wore a plastic name badge with BAKER embossed on it.
“Butcher,” I said, deciding against “candlestick maker.” “Max and Caroline Butcher.” I had no idea why I didn’t tell him my real name. If Mr. Schumann was in fact in, then he might just remember me from Newmarket racetrack and wonder why I had given a false name to his security guard. But it didn’t matter.
“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Butcher?” asked the guard politely.
“No, I’m afraid we don’t,” I replied equally politely.
“Then I’m sorry,” he said. “We don’t accept visitors without an appointment.”
“OK,” I said. “But is Mr. Schumann actually here?”
“I couldn’t say,” he said.
“Couldn’t or won’t?” I asked.
“Couldn’t.” He had lost the politeness from his voice.
“Why not?” I asked him.
“Please, sir,” he said, not amused and not wanting to play the game any longer, “turn your vehicle around and leave the premises.” He pronounced “vehicle” as if it were two words, “veerhickle,” with the emphasis on the “hickle.” “Otherwise, I shall have you forcibly removed.”
He didn’t appear to be joking. I resisted the temptation to say that I was still owed some money by his company for having cooked a lunch at which his boss had been blown up. Instead, I did as he asked, turned my veer-hickle around and pulled away. I could see him large in the rearview mirror. He was standing in the road with his hands on his hips, and he watched us all the way down the hill until we disappeared around the bend at the bottom.
“That didn’t seem to go too well,” said Caroline somewhat sarcastically. “What do you suggest we do now? Climb their fence?”
“Let’s go get that breakfast we’ve been promising ourselves.”
We parked the Buick on Main Street and sat in the window of Mary’s Café, drinking coffee and eating blueberry muffins.
Delafield was somewhat topsy-turvy. What was known as Delafield Town was all the new development near the interstate highway, including the shopping malls and the agricultural machinery factory, while the city of Delafield was a delightful old-world village set alongside Lake Nagawicka. Nagawicka, we were reliably informed by the café owner, meant “there is sand,” in the language of the local Native Americans, the Ojibwe Indians, although we couldn’t actually see any sand on the lakeshore.
“More coffee?” asked Mary, coming out from behind her counter and holding up a black thermos pot.
“Thank you,” said Caroline, pushing our mugs towards her.
“Have you heard of someone called Rolf Schumann?” I asked Mary as she poured the steaming liquid.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Everyone around here knows the Schumanns.”
“I understand he’s president of Delafield Industries,” I said.
“That’s right,” she said. “At least, he was. It’s such a shame.”
“What’s a shame?” asked Caroline.
“About his condition,” Mary said.
“What about his condition?” I asked.
Mary looked around, as if checking that no one else was listening. There was only the three of us in the café. “You know,” she said, shaking her head from side to side, “he’s not all there.”
“How do you mean?” I said. Mary was embarrassed. I was surprised, and I helped her out. “Is the problem to do with his injuries?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “That’s right. Due to his injuries.”
“Do you know if he’s still in the hospital?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe so.” She looked around again and then continued in a hushed tone. “He’s in Shingo.”
“Shingo?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Shingo. You know, the mental hospital.” She said the last two words in little more than a whisper.