‘I don’t know who this is. Is it him? I don’t know?’
Mathews sat upright, unable to suppress a smile. ‘We’re not entirely sure, but the scars on his face, his travelling close to the border in eastern Turkey, it’s suspicious. At the very least.’
Anne shook her head, caught up in his words. How easy it was to deliver. We can’t allow this to pass, as if she also agreed, as if this decision was something she would naturally follow. ‘I don’t know who this is. What does this have to do with my son? Is he responsible for what has happened to Eric? Does he know where my son is?’
Mark Mathews shook his head. ‘Mrs Powell? Anne—’
She pushed the photocopy away and struggled to remain calm. ‘Please. Explain to me what this has to do with my son. What does this change? Will this get us closer to finding my son?’
Mathews’ face began to redden.
‘You told me that he had no news, he knew nothing. You told me that he has nothing to do with Eric. He said this on your recording. Has this changed?’
‘We have to check, these are our procedures. He might not have been forthright. It’s taken three months to get an interview with him. The only reason he’s here is to look at your son’s notebooks. He might be exactly the kind of man we’re concerned about. He might have other information about Eric. He might not have told the truth.’
‘Might? So you doubt what he told you about my son? What are you saying? Are you saying he has or he has not told you the truth?’
Mathews stood up. ‘I have to be honest. I don’t know. This is looking like something separate. As a witness he’s looking unreliable at this moment, but until we have more information it’s impossible to say. If he’s lying about who he is, then he might be lying about the information he has.’
Anne closed her eyes and asked carefully. ‘Does this change anything he told you earlier today?’
‘What he told us sounds about right. It confirms everything we already know.’
‘But you have suspicions?’
‘About his name. I think he was lying about his name, and he has refused to show us any identification.’
‘But in regard to Eric?’
Mathews’ phone began to ring and he stepped back to answer. While he spoke he looked to Anne. ‘Room nine,’ he nodded, ‘I’ll wait.’ When he cancelled the call he said that the police were coming. The matter was completely out of their hands.
* * *
Anne asked for the phone in the lobby, and called room nine. She spoke quickly and left no room for interruption. Done, she thanked the clerk, and turned to her purse to find a set of car keys. As she breathed out she felt a contraction of something more than breath, a keening sense that she was culpable for a mistake which she wanted to correct.
7.5
‘Please listen to me. My name is Anne Powell. I am Eric Powell’s mother. You spoke today with investigators from Colson Burns, a company I hired to help find my son. I have to warn you that your discussions with them have been recorded, and that they have approached the police. I’m sorry if this is going to cause you trouble. This isn’t what I wanted. I have a car, outside, I will take you wherever you need to go. I think the police are coming now. I think they are on their way.’
* * *
Ford took the notes he had taken during his meeting with the investigators. He checked the numbers on the paper, then thought to write the number elsewhere, on his hand, but realized he didn’t have time. He tucked the paper into his pocket determined not to lose them a second time. Passport. Wallet. Numbers.
Leaving his backpack in the room he came quickly down the stairs and out of the hotel to the street, numbers repeating in his head. His left hand thrust in his pocket on the slip of paper — everything else left behind. The snow had begun to fall in rougher bouts, and he drew a scarf over his mouth, pulled the hat lower, and squinted into the scurry. The storm brought snow and silence to the city. On a side street cut directly up from the hotel he caught a double flash, headlights from a stationary car, and made it across the road only moments before the first police car rounded the corner, soon joined by a second vehicle.
Anne hunched forward, hands braced on the steering wheel. She resisted flashing the headlights a second time as the man came toward the car, as the police were now directly in front of the hotel.
Ford sat quickly in the passenger seat, and she told him to hunch down and stay down. She slowly backed away, the headlights dim. The lights from the two police vehicles wheeled across the front of the hotel in bright loops of red and white. Anne spoke nervously, half-aware of what she was saying: they should leave, she wasn’t sure how, she didn’t know the city. Keep down, she said, keep down. Once they were out of the city she would take him to a railway station, an airport — anywhere he wanted — and then, when she realized that he had nothing with him, she stopped talking, startled that this was all he had, the clothes he was wearing, while the car was over-packed with her son’s belongings.
She drove slowly, an agony. Came to the river and needed to decide a direction. Ford asked if he could sit upright now, and Anne looked up and down the road for police cars, but said no. No. No traffic on the street now. The snow began to fall thicker, obliterated the distance, seeped colour from the night, so they seemed to be enclosed in a bright and intimate world. Simply a car, busy with packages and bundles. A man slumped forward, his hands gripped over the back of his head.
‘I have his clothes,’ she said. ‘Eric’s clothes. I don’t know if they will fit you. It might be worth looking through to see what you can use.’ How vulnerable this man seemed to her, crouched in a car, entirely dependent. ‘I feel that I owe you. I can’t say why exactly.’ And this was not true. She understood exactly what she wanted to express: gratitude that her son had met him, and that it did not matter whether these feelings were reciprocated. She was happy that Eric had felt, what, love? It didn’t have to be love. She suspected it was small, a wayward attachment, one of the intensities of travel, of being loose in the world. She would settle for something lesser, it just needed to be something akin to love. She wanted to explain this, because what matters, what counts, isn’t how well you are loved, but how able you are to give love. Wherever he is, whatever has happened, she can be certain of this.
There was one place she could think of to go. A small village, La Berarde, up in the mountains. A mountain hut above the village, she was not sure how far. La Berarde wasn’t much, just a hostel for climbers and student groups, closed in the winter. She was pretty certain about this.
‘I’ll take you to a place in the mountains.’ She heard herself speaking, and felt surprised at how orderly she sounded. Rational. ‘There is a climbing hut. They should have provisions. Beds. I’m sure. I’m sure there will be something. I can find you there in the morning. I can bring you clothes that will fit. Tomorrow, I can take you somewhere else. I think they will be watching the stations and the airport.’
According to Eric the Glacier du Chardon was a desolate place and one of his favourites. There were some climbs there, good ones, climbs that were complex and testing. She had a box of his climbing gear, and she had wanted to drive to La Berarde, to leave his things there, the CDs, the books, the climbing apparatus. She felt good about this decision. If he came back. If. He would understand the decision. This felt right. She would go there. Leave him. Later they would regroup, figure out what needed to be done. She would help this man out of trouble.
Ford said thank you, and once they were in the suburbs she told him that he could sit upright.