I had no idea what to expect when I opened them, and for the past fifty miles had been bracing myself for something completely banal. Travin's girl in the buff… his last fishing trip… sunsets… Still, even as I took them from the woman in the store, I knew that I hadn't entirely wasted my time. The two envelopes were stapled together, and scrawled across the first was: M. Travin, RFD 2, Berlin, tel. 236-6454. This, I thought, was more likely to be his real address than the one on the driver's license. But that piece of information was only the consolation prize. When I opened the first envelope itself I hit the bonanza. Twenty-four five-by-seven enlargements spilled onto my lap. Each shot was different, but they all had one subject: May Brightman.
Which was about the only thing I hadn't expected.
Detroit had canceled out Halifax. The past twelve hours, and my discovery of Travin's body, had carved a great gulf between the present and everything that had gone before: May's adoption, Dr. Charlie, Florence Raines, that lawyer in Toronto… They were figures from a vanished age — but now they were alive again.
Almost in bewilderment, I began sorting through the photographs. By checking the negatives — they were all 35mm — I was able to arrange them in the order in which they'd been taken, and judging by the backgrounds, this must have been during the summer. All of the photos were "candid": May, clearly, had no idea what was happening. Three had been shot from a car as she came out her front door, another strip caught her in a crowd, probably shopping in that market near her house, and a third consisted of three frames showing her sitting on a bench in a park. One of these was very overexposed, but the other two were perfect, very crisp and clear. Her expression was calm and composed as she enjoyed the sun; and though you could see her age in the wrinkles around her eyes, there was still something girlish about her — a patter of freckles high on her cheeks, the way her loose blond hair spread across her rough-knit sweater. The next set, almost by design, was a direct contrast to this. Two frames: in both she was wearing a white business suit and looking rather awkward, somewhat as she had yesterday morning inside the police station. Her hair was pulled into a bun; she might have been wearing a shade too much lipstick. Altogether, she reminded me of a proper suburban matron — an English matron — dressed up for her monthly visit to town. In fact, there was something English about her, or at least European. But then the next four shots reminded me that her special quality wasn't national at all, for Travin had crept down her lane, just as I'd done the day I arrived in Toronto, and photographed her working in the garden. I could guess just where he was standing — it was hard to imagine that she hadn't heard the click of the shutter. But the results had been worth the risk, for one of these shots was actually a very fine photograph, and all three caught precisely the quality I'd seen that first day: there was something essentially anachronistic or otherworldly about her. Bloomsbury girl and hippie, princess and peasant — she contained contradictions that removed her from this time and place. In Travin's photos, she was wearing a large straw hat that partly shaded her face and a long, high-necked dress worked with lace, and draped around her neck and over her shoulders was a long, tasseled shawl. The effect of all this was attractive, but undeniably odd: it was like looking into the past and watching a highborn Edwardian lady at play. What an enigma she was. And Travin, I finally concluded, would have agreed. As I flipped back through the prints, it was obvious that his principal interest had been her face, as if he'd wanted to compare this face, her face, with another. Travin had also been asking the question: who was May Brightman?
Naturally, when I opened the second envelope, I was hoping to find the answer inside. And maybe it was there, if I'd only been able to see it.
This envelope held only three prints: six-by-eight enlargements that were all identical except for slight differences in the developing. I saw at once that they'd been made from a copy negative; that is, they were photographs of a photograph. Travin had done this reasonably well — the lighting was good, and he'd used a tripod or maybe even a copy stand. But they were undoubtedly copies; even the best of the prints was subject to a sort of translucent blurring, as if a very thin coating of egg white had been painted over the image. In addition, the original must have been very small and also a trifle underexposed, which the developing had tried to compensate for, though not very successfully. Nonetheless, there was no problem making out what the photographs showed. Fourteen men were standing in the backyard of a house, with a large wooden shed or garage in the background. Their attention had clearly been called to the camera, but they were very informally posed: they'd just stood still, looked up, smiled, and one had crossed his arms over his chest. The yard looked very bare and unkempt. The shed in the background was weathered and a border of grass and weeds was growing in front of it. The sun, shining into the yard from the upper left, cast the shadow of the house across some of the group, obscuring their faces. On the far right stood a picnic table covered with bottles and dishes; one corner of the tablecloth flapped in the breeze. A few canvas deck chairs had been placed around the table, and two of the men were sitting in them, one with a plate on his knee. Nine of the men wore suits, or at least jackets and white shirts, while the remainder were more casually dressed: sweaters, a checked lumberjack shirt, a white shirt but no tie (the man with his arms crossed). It was evident from these clothes (baggy trousers, fat little ties) that the photograph must have been taken in the late thirties or forties. But then this would have been obvious anyway. Two of the men had been circled with white marking pencil and, in the same way, a single line had been written across the bottom of the photograph. Halifax, 1940, it read — or, more exactly:
ГАЛИФАКС, 1940.
Tilting the photograph to catch the light better, I stared hard at the smaller of the two circled figures. It was Brightman. It had been impossible to connect the bloody stump in the Wayne County morgue with the face in the photo May had taken "with her own Brownie," but there was no doubt about this. He was standing at the back, his shadow stretching up the wall of the shed. A big, barrel-chested man. Thick hair, receding a little and pulled straight back from his forehead as if he'd just run his fingers through it. He was dressed in a dark suit; his hands were thrust down into his pants pockets and his jacket was open; his tie had been flopped up by the wind… Harry Brightman, as he'd looked when he'd adopted his daughter. Had he been thinking about her at that very moment? It was almost possible to imagine this, for his face showed an abstracted, impatient expression as though he wished to be elsewhere. Why? Who were these people around him? Friends? Colleagues? Could one of them be May's real father?
Fascinated, I moved my eyes over the photograph, examining all the other figures but especially the second man who was circled. Even without this mark of special importance, something singled him out. Well away from Brightman, he was standing in the foreground, near the picnic table: a short but powerful man, with a broad, fleshy face and heavy lips turned down in a sulky scowl. Perhaps he too wished to be elsewhere. I let my glance wander a moment, then looked back, hoping such a heavy, determined face might ring some bell; but it didn't. Nor did the others. And yet…