Walking into the Ocean (9 page)

“I'm with New Scotland Yard, but yes, I am on the Lasker case.”

“Then I can tell you a lot about André.” In fact, the police notes, which Peter had read an hour earlier, showed that Symington had disclosed very little to Ron Hamm the first time around. Peter had been looking for someone to offer a full portrait of Lasker. He remained an indistinct figure at the emotional level — that is, his motivations and yearnings. None of the witnesses had provided real insight into the mechanic's secret ambitions. The family home had been an advertisement for banal existence in modern England. What had made André Lasker so desperate that he befouled his old life with blood and rage? Any coherent story, whether melodrama or farce, would be refreshing.

Symington unlocked the front door of the theatre and led Peter through the lobby. The performance space contained about three hundred seats, recently upholstered in scarlet fabric. The two men walked up to the proscenium stage and Symington took a seat on the edge of the apron, the red seats arrayed before them.

“Here we are,” he said, a small note of pride in his voice. There was a bit of an echo in the big room.

Peter Cammon parked his old bones beside the teacher and shared his actor's perspective. The space was ideal for a small regional theatre. The playbill for the winter season was mundane, but he could already tell that the man worked hard to make the program a local success.

“I like your theatre.”

“Thank you. The
WCT
survives and sometimes thrives, I frequently tell people. Summer season does better than winter, due to tourists. We've been around since World War II. Of course, we never get too ambitious. I suppose if the town grew appreciably we would raise our game and might try Pinter or Brecht. Our city fathers have generalized notions of reviving the waterfront and creating a tourist Neverland. Doubtful.”

Peter looked around the room and up at the grid holding the lights while Symington finished his introduction. “We get a lot of abattoir jokes and, yes, suggestions that we mount a
Slaughterhouse Five
production. But I think we used our subsidy well.”

Symington realized that his speech had taken on a singsong quality. “I'm sorry. I sound as if I were debating with myself.”

“The acoustics seem good,” Peter said.

Symington sang out in a resonant baritone:

If music be the food of love, play on,

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken and so die.

Peter, surprising himself, tried to match his projection:

That strain again! It had a dying fall:

It came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets.

“Very nice. We could use a good Fagin in our January
Oliver!
By the way, did you know that some scholars say it's ‘south,' not ‘sound'?”

In fact Peter did know this. On the other hand, he had forgotten it. “Are you sure?”

Symington laughed out loud at this pedantic trivia and Peter laughed with him.

“English major?”

“Absolutely. But a long time ago.”

“What do you want to know about André Lasker?”

“I feel that I lack a clear picture of him. Of what made him do what he allegedly did. Did you know him well?”

Symington didn't so much hesitate as ponder the question for a long moment. “I knew him and we did have a few talks, but I never guessed at his motivations, his deeper feelings.”

“Was he active in the theatre?”

“He's been a regular in our productions over the last three years. We're an amateur operation relying on the good graces of the townspeople. I cultivate local talent whenever I find it.”

“Lasker?”

“He was an excellent Perchik in
Fiddler
. Worked hard on his lines and his lyrics and made his own, very authentic costume. I think his wife helped. She's Romanian.”

“She never took part?”

“No. Not her thing. I could see her in
Mother Courage
or
Les Miz
. Kind of a gypsy look, perfect for climbing the ramparts. But she wasn't the type for the stage.”

“Did he ever get the lead in a production?”

Symington became thoughtful, wanting to be precise. “No, he always had self-doubts. Though I would have welcomed a tryout. In a place this size, rarely do you find anyone who can fly over the cuckoo's nest successfully or climb every mountain. The biggest role he ever had was in
Our Town
, I guess.”

“Did he ever miss a rehearsal?”

“No.” Symington seemed amused, overly so. “Is it Detective or Inspector?”

“Chief Inspector, but you can call me Peter.”

“Okay. Didn't you discover that? André is a diagnosed insomniac. He'd often show up here at odd hours. I gave him a key to the theatre at one point, although I recall that he gave it back before . . . you know.”

“When exactly did he give it back?”

“Six months ago.”

“I'm surprised that, if he liked being here that much, he didn't go out for bigger parts.”

“Amateur actors who come out for these things often have a fixed view of what they are suited for. André thought he should only play serious roles but I wanted to see him try comedy. He wasn't there yet.”

“Did he have a good sense of humour?”

Symington hesitated. No one had asked him this question before. “No. He was serious.”

“Did his participation decline over the last year?”

“He was active, did some backstage work, but yes, I think his interest was waning.”

“What do you think of him? What motive would he have had for disappearing?”

Symington understood that Peter wasn't asking about extramarital affairs or financial woes. “I liked André. He had an intellectual, cultured streak and that was part of what led him to the theatre. In my opinion there was nothing seriously wrong with his life, his job, his marriage, and I told him that, but he aspired to something more.”

It was Peter's turn to take care to be precise. “In my experience, men who go on the run, who try to disappear, have a very specific image in mind of their new life. It's the reason so many fugitives are found in Thailand living on the beach, or in placid villages in the Andes.”

Symington frowned and folded his arms; a mildly defensive posture, Peter thought. “Well, whenever I see
The Tempest
, I think every man in the audience probably secretly wishes he could flee to that island.”

But Peter was no longer discussing theatre; he wasn't seeking an assessment of a stage character. Something in Symington's mood and tone made him suspicious. He pressed on. “It amazes me that more men don't leave home.”

“I suppose,” Symington said, noncommittally. “But don't you live in the same place, perhaps the same house, you've inhabited for years?” The director was guessing here but Peter didn't mind.

“Twenty-eight, in fact.”

“So, then?”

Peter often drew out witnesses by revealing a bit about himself — but not on this point. In effect, Chief Inspector Cammon, semi-retired, who lived so much of his life inside the lives of others, “left home” every time he took on a case. In his way of thinking, this was the perfect template for an adventurous life, and indeed it had been. But he wasn't about to betray this to Symington and he was too experienced, never mind dogged, an investigator to let a witness take over a conversation.

“It's my view that Lasker already had a plan,” Peter said. “The fight with Mrs. Lasker may have been spontaneous, but that doesn't mean the escape was equally spur-of-the-moment.”

“I'm not so sure,” Symington said. “We may be talking about the impulsive reaction of a generally unspontaneous man.”

“I don't think so,” Peter said. He recognized that he risked sounding argumentative, and he liked Symington. He converted to a mildly confessional tone. “The battle with Anna may have been spontaneous, but not the overall scheme of it. I believe we're talking about a man with a detailed scheme who invoked it when prompted by events. Was he visibly unhappy?”

“Yes, I'll concede that much. In the sense of frustration, sure. But I never believed his unhappiness with Anna would have led him to kill her. Sometimes he came here at night to think. I'd drop in and find him drowsing, or pacing the stage at other times. We talked occasionally. He said he wanted to travel. I told him there was little stopping him. He had enough money, I knew. But he would go silent when I said that.”

“Was there an image on the horizon? The impossible dream, if you will?”

“God, Peter, don't you start talking in show tunes. He said he'd like to see Tahiti. He was reading the journals of Captain Cook at the time, so take it with a speck of salt.”

“His father was in the Dutch Navy. Did André ever want to be a sailor?”

“I don't imagine. His father was never in the picture. I never met him, though his mother came to a few productions. And
she
never idolized André's father, that's certain.” Symington stepped down to the orchestra pit and walked up the ramped centre aisle to one of the rear rows. He was bothered by one seat that had been left down. He straightened it and came back.

“I think André wanted to find some intellectual pursuit that would carry him into middle age. And, even more important, that would gain him respect. He said that he lived a dull life. The theatre was an aspect of that need.”

Peter shrugged. “But people who want to be respected for their intellect believe that they're already intellectual. Did Lasker expound on any particular areas?”

“Funny you should say that. The answer is yes and no. André was interested in geography, British history, the weather, all kinds of things. He may have taken a university course or two in one of those disciplines. But, no, he never engaged in any academic debates with me. When we did
Fiddler on the Roof
, he immediately began researching the pogroms. He was like that. He would begin to experience something and then dive into the topic. Yet I don't think he ever allowed curiosity to lead him towards radical changes in his humdrum life. He wasn't a man of action. Sorry to be harsh.”

They both understood that André had taken action to effect the biggest change possible in his life.

“Is there anyone else you would call a close friend of his?”

“No. That's important, I think. André did not have close friends. But you should probably talk to the priest at the Romanian church in Weymouth. He knew Anna.”

“The secrets of the confessional?”

“Yes. ‘Say but the word, and I will be his priest.'”

Peter recognized
Henry VI
. “Thank you. You've been very helpful.” He prepared to go.

Symington smiled. “If we do
Twelfth Night,
I'll be calling.”

They walked back up to the main door, and Peter said goodbye on the pavement. Symington took out his dog-eared address book and flipped to the back.

“You won't find the Romanian church easily in Weymouth. Here's the number of the priest. Best to call him. Father Vogans.”

Symington wrote down the number on a theatre programme and handed it over. As he was walking away, Peter turned.

“By the way, do you know Father Salvez?”

“Yes, we met once.”

Symington closed the theatre door. Peter left unsure whether or not he had begun a friendship here. A few minutes later, it occurred to him that he had never learned Symington's Christian name.

Peter kept a leisurely pace as he headed downhill. He had decided to hire a car to visit Father Vogans in Weymouth, and he would drop by Lasker's Garage on the way. He recalled several car hire places not far from the Lasker house itself. Within a few blocks, he realized that he wasn't feeling all that well. His stomach had knotted and he was perspiring. On Daubney Street, he encountered a decent restaurant and, since it was noonish anyway, he decided to grab lunch and a pint before proceeding to the car outlets. All he needed was a short rest.

The place was empty, except for a salesman sitting at the front. He took a table in the back and the waitress brought the lunch menu and, he was pleased to see, a lengthy beer list. She graciously offered to bring him a St. Peter's; it was a traditional ale and it was a long time since he had had one. The special was fish and chips and he ordered it. He was a little out of breath. He forced himself to relax, and thought about home, the garden, his children, and everything except murder and mutilation. Let the evil rhythms of Lasker and the Rover vibrate in the back of his brain, unarticulated.

The food pacified his stomach but the pint made him mildly woozy. He beckoned to the waitress for his bill. When she arrived he said, “Are the car hire places much farther down the hill?”

She considered the question. “Yeah, they're mostly there. But you can get a much better deal at Sam's.”

“Where's that?”

“That's the bonus. He's only two streets down, one over. You can't miss it. It's where the
IRA
let off its bomb.”

A bit light-headed from the beer, Peter strolled down the hillside and did an automatic left turn where the waitress had indicated, although she might have been pointing to the right, he thought. He was bad with maps, worse with verbal directions. As he walked, he said to himself:
I need a SatNav in order to find the place where I can hire a car with a SatNav.
It reminded him of the old joke that defined existentialism. Existentialism is going to the shops, buying a rubbish bin, putting it into a paper sack, taking it home, taking it out of the bag, crumpling up the bag and tossing it into the bin. Then again, the joke wasn't hilarious to anyone but Jean-Paul Sartre.

He found the garage pocketed between two ancient brick buildings. The
IRA
might have bombed the structure that had been there before, but Peter doubted it. Now, a one-storey shed-like office stood back from the street, and cars of varying age were slotted at conflicting angles in front of it. By Peter's estimate, most of the cars would have to be moved in order to free any of the others. The simple sign,
Sam's
, which was bolted to the roof of the shed, was as weathered as everything else. Peter entered the office. Behind the desk, the eponymous owner-manager of Sam's Auto For Hire — Peter guessed that the full corporate name didn't fit on the outside sign — a fleshy Armenian with the profile of a barrel, looked up and arched an eyebrow at Peter's official
ID
, half impressed by, and half suspicious of, any police-derived document. He came out from behind the battered desk and made a point of shaking Peter's hand. “Greetings, Inspector. Welcome to Whittlesun. More importantly, welcome to Sam's.”

Peter thanked him. He felt a bit nauseated. His tweed coat felt heavy and hot; he had already loosened his collar.

“You are here for the Rover? Not the car the Rover!”

Peter, confounded, could only manage: “Not really.”

“We hope the Rover soon will be over.”

Peter looked at him blankly but Sam, undeterred, continued. “You have the Rover covered.” “Rover” and “covered” rhymed, and Peter understood that the man was practicing his English.

“This here is Mayta,” he continued, moving to unblock Peter's view. He wondered how he had missed Mayta in the confines of the shed. She was the definition of a bombshell. Five-foot-ten, add a foot for the black bouffant, with a tight dress of some satin substitute, high heels and a necklace of beads, the thirty-something woman towered above the two men. She must be the bookkeeper, but if Sam were smart, Peter thought, he would add front desk duties to her job description. Mayta smiled, nodded and said nothing. She didn't need to speak.

“So,” said Sam, “You want a car for the week? Three days? See the sights?”

“Only until tomorrow afternoon. Something with a SatNav?”

“I have a Subaru with the latest SatNav. It's preprogrammed with the longitude and latitude for the spot we're standing on. Like a housing pigeon.”

“Homing pigeon.”

“Whatever. In Armenia we eat pigeons. Just have to cook them right.”

“Not the pigeons from around here,” Mayta said in a silky voice, as Sam and Peter went out to the yard. She watched from the doorway.

Sam walked directly to a black late-model sedan. It shone propitiously in the only ray of sun that had managed to reach the yard between the brick buildings. The Armenian kept his vehicles clean, Peter remarked. Sam tossed him the keys, which Peter dropped; he bent down and picked them up. Since Peter hadn't seen him take the keys down from the punch-board in the office, he supposed that Sam had somehow chosen the for-hire vehicle before Peter even entered the office. He was still bothered by the man's instant deduction that he was involved with the Rover case; the murders had a broader public profile than he had imagined.

“While you get the feel for the Subaru, I will move everything else.” Peter then understood that Sam had simply brought the keys for
all
the cars on that side of the yard; there was bound to be one of whatever kind of vehicle a customer desired.

“Mayta will do the paperwork. She is fine with paperwork. You don't look like a man who wants extra insurance. You want extra insurance?”

“No.” Peter peered into the car. It seemed clean, acceptable. The SatNav was built into the instrument console. Sam started to walk away.

“Excuse me, Sam, but could you include a road map? I need to get to Weymouth, the Romanian church.”

Sam turned. “Belt-and-suspenders. I include the map and a SatNav.”

“And do you know André Lasker's garage?”

This time the Armenian offered a sharp look. He halted, rattling the ring of keys like worry beads.

“Lasker is dead. That's sad.”

“But his shop is still open. Is it an honest place?”

Sam held up a finger. “Give me a minute to free up your car.”

There followed a stop-and-start conversation as Sam moved a vehicle, paused to offer a comment, then moved another. The street was soon lined with rental cars. Only the Subaru remained on the left side of the space. The two men stood by the driver's-side door.

“Put it this way, Inspector,” he said. “It was an honest business before and even more honest now. Do you want directions there?”

“Did you know Lasker?”

“Met him one time. We competed in the hire business, I suppose, but I deal in quality motorcars. He rented more, what do you call it?”

“Down-market?”

“Exactly. Cheaper cars. Bought them, repaired them, put them out to let.” He jangled his ring of keys, waiting. How do you ask the owner of a cash business how to skim the till? Peter wondered. He was having trouble finding diplomatic words. He could find no way to gloss over it, and so he said to Sam: “Don't get the wrong impression, but if you wanted to keep your cash off the books, how would you conceal it?”

Sam shrugged like a man quite comfortable with the magical properties of cash. “My advice is, hire an honest bookkeeper. It's, what do they call it?”

“A contradiction in terms?” Where did that come from, Peter thought? He was sweating through his shirt now, and felt a weakness in his chest.

“Here is what I am trying to say,” Sam continued. He tilted back against the Subaru. “The woman you want to see is Sally, who runs the office at the front, the books, and so on. She is honest, if honest means keeping accurate ledgers. Now that the boss, Lasker, has disappeared, she is even more honest. You understand?”

Peter merely nodded.

Mayta glided out from the office with the papers. She seemed even taller in outdoor daylight. He signed where she had X-ed. She ripped out the second copy of each form, clipped them to the SatNav manual, and made sure that Sam had handed over the right keys. She favoured him with a sly smile.
Did she hear the discussion about Sally, the bookkeeper, roughly her counterpart at Lasker's shop?
Both men watched her walk back to the office.

“Right,” Sam continued. “An honest accountant does what you tell him with what you give him. He's stupid, and that is good. You want to skim, you never let the cash come near the books in the first place. That way the honest accountant stays honest and everybody is convinced by the books he, or she, keeps.”

Not that he needed the lecture, but Peter had never heard such a succinct explanation of the challenge facing forensic accounting.

Mayta had paused at the entrance to the shed, and now turned to face Peter. She walked directly back to him, looming above, and peered into his eyes, like a censorious hypnotist.

“You look unhealthy, Inspector.”

She moved in even closer and held up a flat palm to within an inch of his right cheek. For him, it was as if the fever in his face was extruded into her hand. She looked into her palm as if it were a mirror reflecting his shining, perspiring aura.

“You're running a fever, Inspector. Come with me.”

Peter was unwilling to be led — he had a schedule to follow. But that didn't matter, for he followed her magnetically, despite the turmoil in his head. He fought his delirium. He thought of Gwen, of Symington. He imagined a single murderer of both Anna Lasker and the four girls. He conjured up huge crows, harpies, flying out over the Whittlesun Cliffs.

Mayta herded him into the office. As he entered, she whirled and stared into his face again, like a mesmerist anxious to get started. A filthy coffeemaker stood on a cabinet against the wall. She began to root in the cupboard underneath.
This is ridiculous
, Peter told himself. He leaned back on the desk, even though he dislodged a stack of papers in the process, and grimaced from the bruise on his elbow where he had fallen; his left shoulder ached too. Mayta had her back to him but somehow sensed his pain. She paused in her search for her elixir and turned to dart him a look of motherly disapproval. She returned to her search.

Peter closed his eyes against the dizziness.
How did I end up in a smelly car-hire shed with the owner's voluptuous girlfriend preparing to pour some homemade formula down my throat? The small portents are the same as the big ones
, Peter mantra-ed, and tried to relax.
No-matter-where-you-go-there-you-are
. He found himself hoping that there would be real magic in that elixir.

She emptied the coffee in the sink attached to the lavatory and filled the flask with water. She poured in black tea, flipped the switch on the coffee machine and stood back to watch it boil. She joined Peter in leaning against the desk, either in some kind of covenly solidarity or to catch him if he toppled. Taking a towel from behind the desk, she wiped the sweat from his forehead and neck, at once making him her patient. He didn't resist. He was dysfunctionally delirious. He thought of women. Guinevere. Joan. His daughter Sarah. And then he had a fevered premonition: Sarah would somehow be drawn into the investigation. The image was clear: Sarah, her shell collector's rucksack over her shoulder, walking on the Channel strand.

Satisfied with her necromancy, Mayta poured a cup of the chai and added sugar to it. “It's hot, but drink it as soon as you can stand it.”

Peter, barely confident that he wasn't ingesting poison, downed the tea in a series of small sips. The heat and the steamy spices — he identified cardamom and cinnamon — broke through his fever like a compact tidal wave, seeming to flush the sweat right out the top of his head. Mayta rubbed his head again with the towel, like a hairdresser or a swimming coach would. His temperature dropped within seconds. His vision cleared and he found himself staring at Sam, who stood in the doorway grinning. By this time, Mayta was brushing Peter's tweed coat. She even looked down to check the polish on his brogues.

“You're better,” she pronounced. And he was. He thanked her and walked out to the parked vehicles.

“How about I drop you off at Lasker's, then you take the car?” Sam said.

Peter rubbed his eyes, and shook his head to clear it. “Then how will you get back?”

“Don't worry, don't worry about that.” He got in the driver's side. Peter gratefully occupied the other.

Sam slalomed through the streets of Whittlesun, with no need for the SatNav. In five minutes they were in the neighbourhood of Lasker's Garage, but then Sam halted in an empty lane and began tapping new coordinates into the very device. “Here, I'll leave that for you, the Romanian church in Weymouth. An hour and a bit away.”

Peter looked at the vacant cobblestones ahead. “Forgive me,” Sam said. “It's probably better I don't show my face at Lasker's.” They got out of the Subaru and Sam tossed the keys to Peter. “Keep the car as long as you need it.” He walked away before Peter could comment. There must be some Armenian sales practices he didn't understand, he mused.

Lasker's Garage lay a half street along and around one corner, on a dead end stretch. Like Sam's, the office was a shed set back from the road, but it was also bigger than the Armenian's operation, with a closed-in garage to one side, from which the sounds of mallets and drills reverberated. Cars were brought into the work bay area from a square portal out at the street; a typical pull-down garage door controlled access. A sign had been posted:
Honk to Enter
. He knew from the files that before André Lasker's desertion, the business employed four full-time mechanics. Judging from the traffic, the garage seemed to have moved along nicely. But there was no Mayta, only an elderly bookkeeper-receptionist in the office, with copper-wire hair and glasses suited to a bored librarian. She looked up as Peter entered. He flipped open his Scotland Yard credentials, which utterly failed to impress her. A doorway led from the office into the repair zone and the banging and grinding formed a constant backdrop to conversation in the office. This was Sally.