A nice speech, nicely delivered. I extended my hand. "Thank you, Doctor. I'll bear that in mind."
He came around his desk, and I followed him out through the staff room. We said goodbye in the hall. As he disappeared up some stairs, I hurried past the waiting room and the little room with the girl and the phone — the girl was still talking— and levered open the door. Outside, the rain was now falling in dense, slanting sheets. Not encouraging… but then I couldn't see much encouragement anywhere. Trudging unhappily up to Gottingen Street, where I found a cab back to the hotel — one small piece of luck — I began to consider my options. It wasn't a very long list. Florence's children were out; even if you discounted the ethical problem Grainger had raised, and even if she had told them her secret, it was unlikely that they knew the story in the kind of detail I needed. The lawyer Brightman had used for the petition — R. A. Powell— might know one or two things, but it would be impossible, coming straight in off the street, to get him to talk; I'd have to persuade Cadogan to lay the ground for me. Which left only one other choice: James Murdoch… and he was in Montreal. Should I go there? In the hotel room, toweling myself dry, I thought about what Grainger had said just as I was leaving. It made a lot of sense: and yet its effect on me was probably just the opposite of what he'd intended. More than ever, I was convinced that something was very, very wrong. Grainger had given me a much clearer picture of Brightman, at least as he'd been in the past; indeed, I could just imagine the young, progressive doctor — bookish, full of ideals — and the young businessman — well-traveled, with artistic interests — getting together for their chess games. But this was a far different image of Brightman from the one I'd been carrying around in my head. I'd begun with the assumption that Brightman, an old man, had fallen prey to an old man's folly: that his disappearance would have, if you like, some conventionally comic explanation. That assumption had been modified by my visit to his house, and now I discarded it altogether. Grainger, if only by that odd transformation I'd witnessed, had reminded me not to be fooled by appearances; and in his last little speech he'd done it again. If Harry Brightman has chosen to disappear for a time, I suspect he knows what he's doing. I wouldn't tell you to mind your own business, but you might give Harry a chance to mind his. But what was Brightman's business? And if it wasn't the business of an old man in his dotage, but that of a substantial, wealthy man who must possess some kind of courage and imagination — witness those early trips to Russia— why would he have botched it so badly? Because that's what must have happened. He would never, intentionally, have upset his daughter so seriously or created a situation in which the police — however unenthusiastically — were searching for him. Something must have gone wrong. But what? It was impossible to say… but the only clue, so far, was May's original one: the adoption. Which meant seeing James Murdoch. Which meant, in turn, my reserving a seat on the next morning's plane to Montreal.
It was about two-thirty now. Frustrated, feeling at loose ends, I phoned May. no answer. I had a coffee in the restaurant and read the history of the Sambro Light on the place mat. The rain was still teeming down. As I looked out the window, it was easy to decide not to go for a walk.
But then I had an idea; not exactly an inspiration, but it would keep me busy till tomorrow. As a little girl in Cannes, May had been briefly curious about the woman her mother had been; if I decided to tell her who her true father was — and I still hadn't made up my mind — that feeling would likely revive, and at least I could tell her where her mother was buried. Borrowing an umbrella from the doorman, I walked up to the main branch of the Public Library, where I obtained the Halifax Chronicle-Herald on microfilm. Florence Murdoch had died on June 12, 1971. It was a year much as I remembered, full of strikes, hijackings, Palestinians, and plummeting currencies. Among these events, her passing seemed decent, domestic, eminently respectable:
Murdoch, Florence Esther. On Monday, at home, in Halifax. Dearly beloved wife of James Murdoch, and dear mother to John, Devon, June, William and Susan. Service and interment from West Baptist United Church, Old Guysburough Road, Wednesday, June 16. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the church pastoral fund.
I read this through, noted the details; even noted that Florence had been involved in church affairs — the donations — and added the pastor to my list of people to speak with. But that was a long shot, and I had no intention of pursuing it then. Still, as I handed the microfilm back, it occurred to me that I might as well drive out there. I couldn't think of anything better to do, and I'd enjoy seeing more of Kipling's foggy city. Or country, as it turned out. Back at the hotel, the desk clerk showed me Old Guysburough Road on a map, and it was deep in the boondocks. This meant renting a car, but since you could do it from the hotel lobby, I decided to go on, and by four o'clock I'd set off. It was almost dark. Tacking against a modest rush hour, I made my way across town, my eyes shifting along the glistening path of the headlights. Suburbs, as uniform as exit signs, flickered by, and then scrub farms, and then scrub bush. On Old Guysburough Road, the landscape grew even more desolate — rocks, brush, little streams. Blind tracks led off to nowhere; I caught a glimpse of tar-paper shacks in the trees. And finally, coming over a rise, I spotted the church, propped against the side of a shallow valley. Along both sides of the road, fields had been cleared and there were several small houses set up on blocks, each with a stovepipe chimney for its space heater. A line of telephone poles wobbled into the distance, and by the ditch two children played in the rusted shell of a car. Over the entrance drive, a rickety trellis proudly proclaimed: West Baptist United Church.
I turned in, parking on a dirt lawn all churned up and rutted by the parishioners' pickups. No one seemed to be around; indeed, the church looked nearly abandoned. The cement steps leading up to the main doors were cracked and crumbling; rusted metal swings, on one side of the lawn, were tied back with a rusted chain; and a picnic table, missing one leg, had fallen onto its side.
The rain was pelting down, but I still had the doorman's umbrella; getting out, I hurriedly popped it open, then slammed the door shut behind me. I waited a second. No one appeared. I stepped forward, my feet squelching in the mud. A path led around the side of the church. It was very dark in the shadow of the building. Overhead, the rain drummed on the tin roof and water gushed from a drainpipe as I stepped around the corner. The path was graveled here, leading to a side door, but there was no sign of a light: apparently I'd have to give up on the pastor. I stayed on the path, however, for it now swung sharp right, cutting through an open field and then passing among stunted trees which seemed to be the remains of an orchard. The night and the rain pressed down; despite the umbrella, I began getting wet. Head down, I hurried on along through the trees. Beyond them was a fence, with a gate; beyond this, the graveyard and a long stretch of dark fields. Pushing the gate open, I stepped ahead. Now the path branched in a dozen directions, for the cemetery was informal, almost homey, the graves laid out haphazardly. There weren't very many, and most of the stones were modest: many were plain wooden crosses, some were cast from cement. Bending forward a little — the rain deftly trickling under my collar and down my neck — I passed among them. Florence Murdoch, nee Raines, was at the back. And though you could hardly call it pretentious, her stone was more substantial than most of the others — a piece of low, gray granite with a beveled edge and simple lettering: