He kept walking. He had studied the handbook. The road widened and became a parade ground. The wind threw up grainy dust from the tarmac. On the far side of it stood an ivyclad pavilion and, enfolding it, three purpose-built blocks of steel and concrete. Long neon-lit windows sliced them into layers. A signboard in green and gold — Mrs. Dawes's favorite colors, thus the handbook — proclaimed in French and English the University Hospital for Clinical Research. A lesser sign said Outpatients. Justin followed it and came to a row of swing doors overhung by a curly concrete canopy and watched over by two bulky women in green topcoats. He wished them good evening and received a jolly greeting in return. Face frozen, his beaten body throbbing from the walk, hot snakes running up his thighs and back, he stole a last surreptitious glance behind him and strode up the steps.
The lobby was high and marbled and funereal. A large, awful portrait of George Eamon Dawes Jr. in hunting gear reminded him of the entrance hall of the Foreign Office. A reception desk, staffed by silver-haired men and women in green tunics, ran along one wall. In a moment they're going to call me "Mr. Quayle, sir" and tell me Tessa was a fine, fine lady. He sauntered down a miniature shopping mall. The Dawes Saskatchewan bank. A post office. A Dawes newsstand. McDonald's, Pizza Paradise, a Starbucks coffee shop, a Dawes boutique selling lingerie, maternity wear and bed jackets. He reached a convergence of corridors filled with the clank and squeak of trolleys, the growl of elevators, the tinny echo of quick heels and the peep of telephones. Apprehensive visitors stood and sat about. Staff in green gowns hurried out of one doorway and back through another. None wore golden bees on his pocket.
A large notice board hung beside a door marked Doctors Only. With his hands linked behind his back in a manner to denote authority, Justin examined the notices. Babysitters, boats and cars, wanted and on offer. Rooms to rent. The Dawes Glee Club, the Dawes Bible Study Class, the Dawes Ethics Society, the Dawes Scottish Reel and Eightsome Group. An anesthetist is looking for a good brown dog of medium height not less than three years old, "must be an ace hiker." Dawes Loan Schemes, Dawes Deferred Payment Study Schemes. A service in the Dawes Memorial Chapel to give thanks for the life of Dr. Maria Kowalski — does anyone know what sort of music she used to like, if any? Rosters for Doctors on Call, Doctors on Vacation, Doctors on Duty. And a jolly poster announcing that this week's free pizzas for medical students arrive with compliments of Karel Vita Hudson of Vancouver — and why not come to our KVH Sunday Brunch and Film Show at the Haybarn Disco too? Just fill in the Please Invite Me form available with your pizza and get a free ticket to a lifetime's experience!
But of Dr. Lara Emrich, until recently the leading light of the Dawes academic staff, expert on multi- and nonresistant strains of tuberculosis, sometime KVH'-SPONSORED Dawes research professor and codiscoverer of the wonder drug Dypraxa, there was not a word. She wasn't going on vacation, she wasn't on call. Her name wasn't included in the glossy internal telephone directory hanging by a tasseled green cord at the notice board's side. She was not in search of a male brown dog of middle height. The one reference to her, perhaps, was a handwritten postcard, relegated to the bottom of the notice board and almost out of sight, regretting that "on the Dean's orders" the scheduled meeting of Saskatchewan Doctors for Integrity would not be taking place on Dawes University premises. A new venue would be announced a.s.a.p.
* * *
His body screaming blue murder from cold and exertion, Justin relents sufficiently to take a cab back to his characterless motel. He has been clever this time. Borrowing a leaf from Lesley's book he has sent his letter by way of a florist, together with a generous bunch of lover's roses.
I am an English journalist and a friend of Birgit at Hippo. I am investigating the death of Tessa Quayle. Please could you telephone me at the Saskatchewan Man Motel, room 18, after seven this evening. I suggest you use a public call box a good distance from your home.
Peter Atkinson
Tell her who I am later, he had reasoned. Don't scare her. Pick the time and place. Wiser. His cover was wearing thin but it was the only cover he had. He had been Atkinson at his German hotel and Atkinson when they beat him up. But they had addressed him as Mr. Quayle. As Atkinson nonetheless he had flown from Zurich to Toronto, gone to earth in a brick boarding house close to the railway station and, with a surreal sense of detachment, learned from his little radio of the worldwide manhunt for Dr. Arnold Bluhm, wanted in connection with the murder of Tessa Quayle. I'm an Oswald man, Justin… Arnold Bluhm lost his rag and killed Tessa… And it was as nobody at all that he had boarded the train to Winnipeg, waited a day, then boarded another to this little town. All the same he wasn't fooling himself. At best, he had a few days' march on them. But in a civilized country you could never tell.
* * *
"Peter?"
Justin woke abruptly and glanced at his watch. Nine at night. He had set a pen and notebook beside the telephone.
"This is Peter."
"I am Lara." It was a complaint.
"Hullo, Lara. Where can we meet?"
A sigh. A forlorn, terminally tired sigh to match the forlorn Slav voice. "It is not possible."
"Why not?"
"There is a car outside my house. Sometimes they put a van. They watch and listen all the time. To meet discreetly is not possible."
"Where are you now?"
"In a telephone kiosk." She made it sound as if she would never get out of it alive.
"Is anybody watching you now?"
"Nobody is visible. But it is night. Thank you for the roses."
"I can meet you wherever suits you. At a friend's house. Out in the country somewhere, if you prefer."
"You have a car?"
"No."
"Why not?" It was a rebuke and a challenge.
"I don't have the right documents with me."
"Who are you?"
"I told you. A friend of Birgit's. A British journalist. We can talk more about that when we meet."
She had rung off. His stomach was turning and he needed the lavatory, but the bathroom contained no telephone extension. He waited till he could wait no longer and scurried to the bathroom. With his trousers round his ankles he heard the phone ringing. It rang three times but by the time he had hobbled to it, it was dead. Head in hands he sat on the edge of the bed. I'm no bloody good at this. What would the spies do? What would crafty old Donohue do? With an Ibsen heroine on the line, the same as I'm doing now and probably worse. He checked his watch again, fearing he had lost his sense of time. He took it off and set it beside his pen and notepad. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Thirty. What the hell's happened to her? He put his watch back on, losing his temper while he tried to get the damned strap home.
"Peter?"
"Where can we meet? Anywhere you say."
"Birgit says you are her husband."
Oh God. Oh earth stand still. Oh Jesus.
"Birgit said that on the telephone?"
"She did not mention names. "He is her husband." That is all. She was discreet. Why did you not tell me you are her husband? Then I would not think you were a provocation."
"I was going to tell you when we met."
"I will telephone to my friend. You should not send me roses. It is exaggerated."
"What friend? Lara, be careful what you say to her. My name's Peter Atkinson. I'm a journalist. Are you still in the phone box?"
"Yes."
"The same one?"
"I am not observed. In winter they observe only from cars. They are lazy. No car is visible."
"Have you got enough coins?"
"I have a card."