The porter beamed. “She’s a gem, this one.”
“A diamond,” Jacob said.
“I think of her as my own.”
“Aw, you’re sweet, Jim.”
“Sweet nothing,” Smiley said, corralling his pint. He jabbed a finger at Jacob. “You be polite to her.”
Priscilla said, “I can take care of myself, thank you, Mr. Smiley.”
“I know you can, I want him to know it, too.” Smiley winked. “She might hurt you otherwise.”
As predicted, ned was the first to depart; the other three wandered out a few minutes later, each one in turn stopping by the booth to clap Smiley on the shoulder.
“Good night, boys.”
“G’night, Jimmy.”
Once they were gone, Smiley reached under his folded coat and brought out a weighty leather-bound book with an elaborate coat of arms stamped into the cover.
“Had to smuggle it out, I did,” he said, propping the book against the wall. “Mr. Mitchell wouldn’t be pleased.”
The frontispiece clarified, somewhat: being the annual pictorial chronicle of The Dean, Chapter and Students of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry the Eighth.
Smiley ran his finger down the table of contents, pausing twice, then flipped to page 134.
Rows of students.
The photo of Heap was the same one Jacob had seen at the house.
Reginald Heap
History of Art
“Him you know.” The porter paged ahead to the third-year students. “And that’s the git who grabbed Wendy.”
Having referred to Mr. Head as Mr. Head for so long, Jacob wasn’t sure he’d be able to start using his real name.
Terrence Florack
Fine Art
Snub nose. Beetle brows. Scarred chin.
Perry-Bernie.
Terry? Could MacIldowney have been mistaken?
Jacob said, “Was he American, this Florack?”
“No, that was the other one,” Smiley said.
“What other one?” Norton said.
Smiley turned more pages, his palsied hands fumbling. “Quite a threesome, they made.” Finally, he reached his goal, a section headed CLUBS AND ACTIVITIES.
Yearly summaries, assorted group portraits: the Music Society, the Boat Club, the Chess Club, and, not last and certainly not least—
The Christ Church chapter of the Undergraduate Art Society had an exciting year. Two exhibitions of new work were put forth. It would not be inaccurate to call these unqualified successes. Here’s to more! Ladies, from left: Misses L Bird, K Standard, V Ghosh, S Knight (sec), H Yarmouth, J Rowland. Gentlemen, from left: Messrs D Bowdoin, E Thompson III (pres), R Heap, T Florack, T Foster.
“That’s him, that’s the one,” Smiley said, placing his finger on a sinewy man with a penetrating stare, set off from the students. “Like a big brother, he was.”
Graduate student advisor: Mr R Pernath.
“Quite the charmer,” said Smiley. “You can see why all the lasses fancied him.”
It wasn’t so much that Pernath was handsome. His smile was a touch lopsided, his nose too small for his face. A well-moussed shelf of hair, drastically cantilevered over his brow, cast a shadow over his eyes. They were the eyes of Rasputin, or Charles Manson, or the Reverend Jim Jones. Hard dark gems in a polished preppy setting. Even in grainy black-and-white, a quarter century later, they exerted a queer hypnotic power, and Jacob had to force himself to look away.
He said, “I need to make a copy of this.”
Without hesitation Smiley folded the page at the binding and tore it out.
Norton said, “You’re not going to get in trouble for that?”
Smiley slid the page to Jacob. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Chapter forty-eight
“Back at the station, Jacob said, “I’m an idiot.”
“Now, now,” Norton said. “Let’s love ourselves.”
“Rule number one. Value the crime scene. I didn’t.”
“The evidence said he was killed elsewhere. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the crime scene.”
“The head was there,” Jacob said. “That’s scene enough.”
Norton whacked the side of her laboring desktop. “Come on, you. Load.”
“I had his name at the outset. I met with his father.”
“You’re being a mite hard on yourself, don’t you think?”
“No. I don’t. Because it was his family’s house. I met the father. The father was a weirdo. I should have at least talked to the son.”
“I said load... Bloody BT.” Norton glanced at him, pacing behind her cubicle, grinding his fist into his temple. “Fancy a soda?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, then fetch me one, please.”
He found the squalid nook that served as the station’s snack bar, selected a minimally chilled cola. When he brought it to Norton, she was grinning and pointing at the screen.
Richard Pernath’s curriculum vitae, a neat capsule bio.
Combined BArch/MArch, UCLA, 1982.
MSt History of Design, University of Oxford, 1987.
Jacob said, “He’s an L.A. native. He met the other two here and brought them back. Now he’s cleaning house. What MacIldowney told us, Perry-Bernie — it’s a nickname. For Pernath. Perry, Pernie, or something like that. Look up Florack.”
“I’m typing.”
“Type faster.”
“You know what,” she said, abandoning the chair to him, “you take over, you’re going to shout my ear off.”
Jacob could feel his eyeballs vibrating in their sockets while the page loaded. “This is so fucking slow I want to put my head through the wall.”
“Don’t do that, please. Here we are.”
Terrence Florack: Freelance Draughting Services.
After graduating from Oxford with a second in fine art in 1988, Florack had worked for three years in the Los Angeles office of Richard Pernath, AIA.
“Yes,” Jacob said, punching the air. Then he looked at Norton, her mouth puckered.
“What,” he said.
It came out a challenge, far harsher than he’d intended.
“Not to tinkle on your parade,” she said. “But. Who’s the woman who phoned in your emergency?”
“Another partner. Pernath — he’s a delegator. These other people are disposable. For all we know he never touched the vics, just stood there directing.”
“Or your revenge theory applies to him, as well, and he’s lying somewhere with his head cut off.”
“A hundred bucks says he’s just fine. A hundred more says he, or someone he knows, was in Prague last spring, right when Reggie Heap was.”
“That’s two hundred dollars. Should I be writing this down or is your word good?”
Jacob hunched over, rubbing his head. “The period between 1989 and 2005 is an awfully big blank for a bunch of sexual psychopaths. I can’t see them just taking a vacation.”
“Agreed.”
“Be nice to know their whereabouts.”
Norton reclaimed the mouse, squinted at the screen. “London, in Florack’s case. His page still lists an address in Edgware.”
“What brought him to L.A. recently?”
“An airplane, I presume.”
“What’s the CV say?”
“For God’s sake, please, chill out. It doesn’t detail his every movement for the last twenty years,” she said. Then her expression turned grave. “I should contact Scotland Yard.”