Dover Beach (24 page)

Kathy was stunned. "Of course not. Why should I? I'm as puzzled as you are, Inspector. I don't know my father very well, you see. I haven't lived with him for years, and when I did he was quite secretive. I—I had the impression that he might not have been telling the entire truth when he spoke with Winfield. The resemblance was so strong there had to be some kind of relationship, yet my father denied everything. But I don't know why. I honestly don't know why."

Grimby rubbed his mustache and made a note. "Very well. Since this is Christmas Eve, I'm afraid little immediate progress will be made. But we shall keep on it. We don't like people burning down houses in our city. And if either of you finds out anything, I trust you'll let me know."

We promised.

"What next?" I asked when we left the station.

"I suppose we can return to London," Kathy said. She seemed distracted, ill-at-ease.

"Don't you want to check out your father's house? There might be valuables or something."

"Oh. Of course. How stupid of me." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm still not quite right, I'm afraid. I spoke to my mother this morning, and that always puts me into a state."

We started walking toward her father's house. "You don't get along with your mother?"

Kathy shook her head. "It's as if we're from different planets, Walter. There's no common ground."

"What does she say about this business? Does she think Winfield could be a clone?"

"All she says is that she wouldn't put anything past my father. She knows even less about his work than I do."

"No idea where he might be?"

Kathy shook her head. "She thinks maybe—maybe he's off on a binge. My father drinks too much, you see."

"Strange that he'd take a bus to London and switch to another bus, just to go to some small town so he could get drunk."

"Yes, that's what I think."

"But if he knew somebody there—"

"I can't imagine who, and neither can my mother." Kathy said this with a finality that precluded further discussion. We were silent until we reached her father's house.

We smelled it before we saw it: the acrid, overpowering smell of destruction by fire. It brought back a few unwelcome memories. We fought off the smell and walked up to the remains of the house.

Two men were inside, poking through the icy rubble. "No trespassing, please," one of them said when he saw us. "It's quite dangerous in here."

"It's my father's house," Kathy said.

"Ah, of course," the man replied. "We're from the fire brigade, you see. Investigating. The fire appears to be of suspicious origin." He had one of those lower-class British accents that made bureaucratic clichés sound newly minted.

"May we come inside?" I asked.

"You may, but I don't recommend it. It's dirty and dangerous, and there's not much to be salvaged."

Nevertheless, we felt obliged to take a look around. The man from the fire brigade was right. The room where we had enacted our little scene the day before was just a pile of debris surrounding a lonely and useless chimney. "Any clues?" I asked the man.

"The official verdict will have to await our final report," he replied. "But I'd say an empty petrol can in the livin' room's a pretty good clue, wouldn't you, sir?"

"Not bad," I agreed.

Kathy reached into the wreckage and pulled out something dark and shapeless. It was the dressing gown she had given her father.

"You'll have to look into having the place pulled down," the man said. "It's a public menace right now. The kids'll be into it in no time, no matter how much it's boarded up."

Kathy nodded, still staring at the dressing gown. Then, abruptly, she dropped it and rushed outside. I followed.

"I'm sorry," she said when she reached the sidewalk. "I'm afraid the place was too much for me."

"That's all right," I replied. "Anyway, I think you should stop apologizing."

She attempted a smile. "I'll try." She took a couple of deep breaths. Two kids riding bicycles stopped on the opposite sidewalk and stared appraisingly at the house, trying to figure out a way to make it fall on top of them. I waited for Kathy to calm down. "Let's go," she said finally, and we headed off along the now-familiar route to the railway station.

The wait on the platform was short and pleasant this time; there were no interruptions, and the train arrived on schedule. We boarded it, found seats in an empty compartment, and left Oxford behind.

Kathy seemed enormously relieved.

"I get the feeling the past couple of days have not been among your favorites," I said.

She managed a real smile this time. "You're very perceptive." And, after a pause: "You've been a big help, Walter. Thank you."

I couldn't see that I'd done much of anything, but I shrugged graciously.

"I have to spend Christmas with my mother," she said, abruptly changing the subject. "It's not the sort of thing one can get out of. You know how it is."

I nodded in sympathy. I didn't really know how it was.

"But anyway, I have a feeling you've nowhere else to go, so I was wondering if you'd like to spend Christmas with us."

I must have been a very good boy. This was better than coal in my stocking. "That would be wonderful," I said, "but I'm sure your mother wouldn't want—"

"Oh, but you see she was the one who suggested it. I told her about you when I phoned this morning. She's rather sweet on Americans, actually. That's what attracted her to my father, I think. Anyway, she's frightfully dull and not a very good cook and the two of us are likely to have a fight before the day is through, but we'd both love to have you."

"Well," I said, "I suppose I could ask her about your father. Maybe I could help figure out what's going on."

"Yes, of course. Does that mean you'll come?"

I smiled. "Of course I'll come. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers."

Kathy looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned and squeezed my forearm, just a little.

Chapter 22

Kathy left me at Russell Square. Our plans were set for Christmas, but there was no mention of Christmas Eve, of the long, lonely day and night that stretched ahead of me. I guess you can't have everything.

Maybe she had a date, I thought with a pang. She had to have a boyfriend, of course. Maybe her Trigorin: I pictured a bearded, serious type who would use her for his pleasure, then discard her when he became bored. Well, we'd see how he would stack up against the dashing, enigmatic American.

But we wouldn't see today. I walked back to the hotel, alone.

"Wot's yer mate been up to, then?" the desk clerk demanded before I had a chance to ask for the room key.

I hadn't had to deal with the day clerk before. He was fat and had a crew cut and wore suspenders. He was reading a newly published dirty magazine that Art would have lusted after. "Dr. Winfield hasn't shown up here by any chance, has he?" I asked.

"No, and if 'e does the police wants to know about it too. We don't like 'avin' the police nosin' around."

"I understand, but I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it."

"There's sumfin' I can do about it, though, and that's to kick both of you out. You owe us forty quid anyway."

"Look," I tried to explain, "the police in Oxford want to speak with Winfield. He may have witnessed a crime there yesterday. But that's got nothing to do with me. Now could I have my room key, please?"

"Wot about the forty quid?"

"It's Christmas Eve, for God's sake! Would you give me a break?"

The desk clerk grimaced, but he handed the key over. "Americans," he muttered as I headed upstairs.

I felt almost as if I had returned home when I entered the dreary room. The first thing I did was to search Winfield's stuff to see if he had left any money. I wasn't going to steal it, understand, just pay the room bill and take the per diem he owed me.

My scruples didn't matter, in any event; there was no money to be found.

I began to feel depressed. And hungry. I counted up my money, and decided I should give myself a little treat. I went to a McDonald's and had a Big Mac. It was everything I had hoped it would be.

The restaurant was crowded with last-minute shoppers resting from their exertions. So much to buy. About all I could afford, in addition to the Big Mac, was a newspaper. I read it while I ate.

PM Promises Prompt Action on Budget. Two Tots Die in Brixton Blaze: Christmas Decorations Blamed. Sixteen-Year-Old Found Murdered in East Norton. Corruption Alleged in City Inspection Services. Sutton United Sack Manager.

To Have and Have Not
and
The Petrified Forest
were playing at Notting Hill Gate. No money to see them.

There was no mention of a house burning down in Oxford. More important things going on in the world, I expect. They didn't particularly interest me at the moment, however. I counted up my remaining money, and tried to figure out how I was going to buy Christmas presents for Kathy and her mother.

I realized with a start that I had an untapped source of funds—considerable funds. But as soon as the realization came I pushed it away. I wasn't ready for it yet; I would know when I was. Meanwhile, I would make do. I would have to make do.

I left McDonald's and wandered the streets of London. So much to buy—and so little time. I thought of Dickens: "The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant, with which it was impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do." It was exciting and depressing. The shops were closing early. Time to go home, sit with your family around a roaring fire, sing carols, read Dickens, reminisce.

Ah, well. Using all my ingenuity, I picked out a couple of gifts finally, and I trudged back to my lonely hotel room with them.

The Indian desk clerk was on duty by then, thank goodness. He smiled knowingly at me, and his smile seemed to say:
Yes, you and I are two loners in an alien world.
I smiled back and went upstairs.

I took a bath. I reread the newspaper. I reread the Gideon Bible. I stared out the frosted window of my dreary room and gazed at the ruddy faces passing by in the dark, alien world. And I waited for a visitor.

It was the Ghost of Christmas Past. I knew he would come. He always came, so why should he make an exception now that I was in London, in his hometown?

"Rise, and walk with me!"

There was no refusing him, of course. Some nights, perhaps, but not on Christmas Eve.

Through the window, across the frigid London sky, over the fierce, churning ocean—to the awful abode of memories, still alive, still waiting to claim me...

"Why, it's old Fezziwig!"

Not likely. It was a solemn, gaunt man—too gaunt, far too solemn—his bony hand resting on my shoulder, light as a leaf. I was warm—the wood stove was kept well filled. But I was hungry. Always hungry. The man's eyes glittered, reflecting the oil lamp's flickering flame. "Tomorrow is Christmas," the man said. "Least, Mrs. Simpkins says so. I've kinda lost track myself. Thing is, well, there's nuthin' to give you. I've tried—you've seen how I've tried, haven't you? But everything's gone. The entire world is gone. Oh, I'm so sorry."

The man's glittering eyes turned liquid and overflowed, wetting his leathery skin, his gray beard. His hand moved down onto my back and pulled me toward him. He held me against his chest, and I heard the
ka-thump ka-thump
of his heart beneath the frayed flannel shirt. The intensity of the sound scared me. The sudden strength of the hand scared me. I stayed there, listening, and eventually the hand loosened its grip, and I stepped back. The man looked at me—looking (I know now) for forgiveness, and if not forgiveness, at least some sort of understanding. But he was looking for something I was far too young to offer.

"Daddy," I said, "what's Christmas?"

"These are but shadows of things that have been," said the Ghost.