London Calling (19 page)

THE HAUNTED CITY

Dad and I spent the rest of that day together. By silent agreement, we did not mention the events inside James Harker’s flat after we left there. Instead, at Dad’s suggestion, we studied the history of the medieval city of York. We toured its Viking museum and climbed its Roman ruins. Dad clearly wanted to stay as busy as possible, so we kept up a rapid pace. By six o’clock, the city was dark and we were exhausted.

When I woke up in the morning, though, the bottle of Napoleon brandy, still half full at bedtime, was completely empty. I looked over at Dad’s sleeping body and felt a deep, bruising disappointment.

I brushed my teeth, got dressed, and hurried out the hotel door. I ran to James Harker’s flat on Stonegate, stood in the street, and stared up at his windows. I could see the back edge of the table and one corner of the Queen Anne wing chair, but that was all. I thought about pushing his buzzer, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If James Harker answered the door and told me to get my stupid bloody radio out of there, then I would go right back to being crazy. So I took off running again, sprinting all the way to the York Minster.

I had to wait at least fifteen minutes until the door was unlocked. As soon as it was, I squeezed in past a volunteer who said, not too kindly, “Aren’t you the eager one today?”

I hurried past the donation desk without paying. I walked to the top of the nave, turned, and saw Sylvia sitting at the desk by the stairs. She greeted me with a smile. “First customer of the day.”

I plunked down a one-pound coin. “Yes, ma’am. Can I go up?”

“You can. Helen is already up there.”

“All right. Thanks.” I threw myself into the 275-step climb with great urgency, taking the steps two at a time, arriving at the top red-faced and gulping for air.

Helen was sitting in the small office. As soon as I caught my breath, I walked up to her, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Good morning.”

“Good morning to you. You’re up here bright and early.”

“Yes, ma’am. Do you know if Mr. Harker is working today?”

“I believe he does work on Saturdays. He prefers to have the weekdays off. I do, too. It helps to get things done.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s just that I saw him last night. My dad and I saw him at the pub.”

She arched her eyebrows.

“Outside of the pub, really, nearer to the gutter, and he said he was not feeling too well.”

“No?”

“Anyway, I’m worried about him. I’m worried that maybe he has overslept?”

“Maybe.”

“I wouldn’t want him to lose his job.”

“No. Certainly not.”

“Perhaps you should call him?”

“He doesn’t have a phone. He can’t abide them.”

I persisted. “You said you help him out sometimes, when he doesn’t show up for work. How do you do that?”

“I walk over there. It’s not far.” She looked at her watch.

I prodded her. “Could you walk over there now?”

“Well, yes. I suppose I could do that and get back in thirty minutes. Don’t you think?”

“I think so.”

“All right, then. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll tell Sylvia on the way out. But if anybody else asks, say I’ll be right back.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will.”

Helen grabbed her purse, walked to the stair entrance, and disappeared.

I waited a moment and then slipped into the office. I checked under the counter and found the pair of binoculars. Then I ran across the roof to my previous spot, the spot where I could see Stonegate and a blue door.

I was watching that door when Helen arrived. I watched her push the buzzer and wait patiently. Then I watched her back out into the street and look up.

I turned when I heard a sound. A group of tourists had joined me on the roof.

I looked back through the binoculars and watched Helen pull out a cell phone and make a call. A few moments later, she made another one.

Sylvia arrived on the roof and announced, breathlessly, that the tourists were free to go back down. She stayed in the office after that, and I stayed at my spot until another group of tourists arrived.

I looked again through the binoculars, and I saw the lights of a police car parked on Stonegate. The policeman and Helen had been joined by the large gray-and-black figure of the landlord. At that point, I knew what was happening at James Harker’s flat, and I began to cry.

Five minutes later, an ambulance pulled up to the blue door. I focused as best I could through my tears as two men carried a stretcher inside. Then I dried my tears on my coat sleeve, turned, and ran back to the office. I spoke loudly to Sylvia. “Here! I borrowed these. Please, I have to go down. Now!”

“Sorry, love. You’ll have to wait.”

“No! I can’t wait. I have to go.” I ran to the door and hurtled myself back down the spiraling steps. I made it halfway down before I encountered a clump of tourists. I forced myself past them, and then past a second group, before I arrived at the bottom. There, I slowed from a run to a brisk walk through the nave and out the heavy door.

Once on the street, I sprinted full out all the way to Stonegate. I arrived just as the stretcher bearers were coming back out. I stood and watched as they lifted up James Harker’s body and placed him in the ambulance. He looked very calm and collected, like Nana had at her viewing. He looked like he had died at peace.

Helen walked out right after that. Her eyes were red and puffy and filled with tears. She looked at me and shook her head sadly. “Did you hear what happened?”

“No.”

“He died in his sleep. Poor man.”

“He did look peaceful.”

“Yes. They say that’s the best way to go. In your sleep.”

“Yeah.”

“He prayed every day. I’m sure he has gone on to his reward.”

“So am I.”

“Forgive me, now—” The woman stopped and looked at me. “What is your name?”

“Martin, ma’am. Martin Conway.”

“Forgive me, Martin. There’s much to be done. I need to speak to a solicitor. And I need to get back to the Minster.” Helen hurried off in the direction of the cathedral.

I turned and looked at the blue door. It was ajar. Someone had placed a wooden stick between the door and the doorjamb, propping it open so the police and ambulance guys could get in.

And it was still there.

I checked left and right and then slipped inside. I took the stairs two at a time to James Harker’s flat. The door was wide open, and I could hear someone inside, moving.

I stepped quietly into the doorway and looked around. There was the landlord, big and menacing, and still in his black jacket. He was huffing around the flat, checking in drawers, touching things, moving things. But the most troubling sight of all was right in front of me. He had dragged the Queen Anne wing chair to the center of the room. The Philco 20 Deluxe was perched awkwardly on its leather cushion. So were the World War I medals and the six-volume set of
The Second World War.

I barked at him, “What do you think you’re doing?”

The landlord whirled around, startled. His hand shot involuntarily to his heart. Then he growled, “Who the devil are you?”

“I’m a friend of Mr. Harker’s.”

“Mr. Harker don’t live here no more.”

“I know that. He just died, about five minutes ago. What are you doing touching his property?”

“I’m collecting money he owes me. Now bugger off.”

“Money he owes you? For what?”

The landlord looked me up and down. Then he turned away and muttered, “I caught him smokin’ in here. He owes me a cleaning fee for the drapes and the rug. They all stink of smoke, don’t they?” He pointed at his pile of loot. “These’ll fetch something. To cover my expenses.”

“No! You have no right to steal his property!”

“I’ve heard about enough from you. Back off, my boy, or you’ll get hurt.”

I wasn’t about to back off. “That radio isn’t even his, it’s mine!”

“Is it, now? It has no identification on it.”

I stepped into the flat and walked to the radio. “Yes, it does. It has my identification number right here: 291240.” I clutched the sides of the Philco 20 and spun it around. “Look!”

Instead of replying, though, he suddenly reached over and grabbed the front of my coat, up near my neck. “I don’t need to look at nothing. And you’re leaving, boy, now!”

He dragged me two steps toward the door before I could dig my heels in and stop. Then I grabbed his thick wrist in both of my hands and twisted it with all my might. That made him let go of my coat, but he managed to grab the back of my neck with his left hand. We lurched around the room together like that, twisting and snarling, until I heard a shout: “Take your hands off of him!”

I looked up and saw Dad standing in the doorway, with a horrified expression on his face. He flushed bright red with anger and tightened both of his fists.

The landlord was so startled by the sound of Dad’s voice that he let go of my neck. I changed my stance and gave his wrist one more mighty twist, turning his whole body toward Dad. Dad took one step forward, reared back, and hit him with a right-hand punch, full in the stomach, his hand disappearing momentarily into a roll of flab. The landlord exhaled a short, loud, sickening sound, like he was about to throw up.

I pushed him toward the door as hard as I could. At the same time, Dad grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled. The landlord’s doubled-over body pitched out into the hallway and partly down the stairs. He grabbed at the wall with one hand to keep from plummeting the rest of the way. He slid down the wall like a wet slug, all the way down to the doorway and out into the street. Dad yelled after him, “Don’t you come back here!”

Dad stared at the door a few moments longer. Then he turned and asked, “Are you all right, Martin?”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah. He was all blubber. A big nothing.”

“What on earth happened here?”

“Mr. Harker is dead, Dad.”

His face turned pale. “Dead?”

“Dead. The ambulance just took him away.”

“My God, Martin.” He stared toward the empty bedroom. “Did we . . . did we do this?”

I answered confidently, “Yes. We did. I believe we did this.”

Dad leaned heavily against the doorjamb. “God in heaven.”

I waited for him to speak again, but he seemed totally lost in thought. After a few minutes, though, he finally looked back at me, and the Queen Anne chair, and the mess in the room. “But why did that man attack you?”

“I caught him stealing Mr. Harker’s stuff. He was trying to steal my radio, too.”

“And you fought with him?”

“Yes. Or I’d say
we
fought with him.”

Dad straightened himself and looked around. “Yeah. Well, we should take that radio with us now. If you want to keep it.”

I thought about the harrowing times I had had with Jimmy—the terrors, the night sweats, the petit mal seizure—but I told him, “Yeah. I want to keep it. Definitely.” So we packed up the Philco 20 once more. After a last look around, I pulled the door to Mr. Harker’s flat closed and we returned to the hotel.

Back in our room at the Wayfarer, Dad set the box with the radio down very gently. Then he opened the top of my suitcase, rummaged for a few seconds, and pulled out the sheaf of papers. “I hope you don’t mind, but I was looking at these papers of yours.”

“No. That’s okay.”

“There’s one in particular.” He extracted one from the pile. “This. It looks like you started out with some doubts. Right?” Dad showed me the paper. It was my original list, done on the computer the morning after my first time travel to Jimmy Harker’s, the one I had edited and re-edited in red ink with
Rights
and
Wrongs
and
Maybes.
He pointed some of those out. Then he said. “In the end, they all became
Rights,
didn’t they?”

“Yeah. In the end.”

“Even though no one believed that you could possibly be right. Not even me.”

I shrugged. “I can’t blame people for that. It was pretty crazy.”

Dad pressed the paper between his hands. “Martin, can I keep this paper? Or a copy of it, if you don’t mind?”

“You can keep the original. I don’t mind.”

He put it into his own suitcase. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

I waited a moment before adding, “Dad, a higher power was at work here. I think you know that.”

He gulped. “Yeah.”

“But I thought you knew that last night, too.”

“I did.”

“Then why did you have to drink?”

“I didn’t.”

“I saw the bottle.”

Dad shook his head. “No. No. I didn’t drink that brandy, Martin. I dumped it out.”

“What?” I looked at the mantel and the bottle was gone.

“I did. Last night, before I went to sleep. I dumped it down the bathroom sink. The bottle was too big for that little trash can in there, so I tossed it out downstairs.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really. I’ve made up my mind, son. I’ve had my last drink. I don’t expect you, or your mother, or anyone else to believe me, but it’s true.”

I believed him. I believed that he would do exactly what he said. But I also thought it best to keep us very busy after that. So first Dad and I went for a walk to the Internet café. I wrote to Margaret:

Our next stop was at an old inn on the river Ouse where we had a late lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. We talked a lot about James and Jimmy Harker, and fathers and sons in general.

Then we talked about fathers and sons in particular, about him and me.

We took a rambling walk after lunch that led us into different parts of the historic city. However, wherever we were, the skyline was dominated by one sight, the York Minster. Inevitably, we arrived at its door.

Dad and I paid our donation to Sylvia. I apologized for my behavior that morning. She said, “Think nothing of it, love. Helen told me what happened. Of course you were upset about Mr. Harker. We all are.”