Authors: Jonathan Coe
‘How do you know?’
‘Please, Michael,’ he said, with an indulgent glance. ‘Either that, or it was his truncheon I’d had between my teeth for the last ten minutes. Allow me some credit for my reading of the situation.’
Chastened, I waited a moment or two before asking: ‘So then what happened?’
‘I was brought back here, and now it appears they can have me banged up in a day or two. Which is why I wanted to see you as soon as possible.’
There were footsteps in the corridor outside. Findlay waited until they had gone by, then leaned towards me conspiratorially. ‘I have made,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘some startling discoveries. You will be pleased to hear – though not especially surprised, if you are at all acquainted with my rate of success in these matters – that my hunch has proved to be accurate.’
‘Which hunch is that?’
‘Cast your mind back, Michael, to that discussion we had the last time we met. At one point, I seem to recall, you made an assertion to the effect that you had merely “drifted in” to this business, and I ventured to suggest that it may have been a little more complicated than that. I was right.’ He left an impressive pause. ‘You were chosen.’
‘Chosen? Who by?’
‘By Tabitha Winshaw, of course. Now listen carefully. Hanrahan will give you a spare set of keys to my flat, and you will find all the relevant papers in the top drawer of my desk. You should go up there as soon as you can and take a good look at them. The first thing you’ll find is Tabitha’s letter to the Peacock Press, dated the twenty-first of May, 1982, putting forward the idea of a book about her family. Immediately, then, a question comes to mind: how had she found out about these particular publishers?
‘Answering this question turned out to be simple enough, and involved nothing more devious than some research into the chequered history of McGanny’s entrepreneurial career. I found documents suggesting that he had, over the last thirty years, been involved in the formation of no less than seventeen different companies, most of them having gone into receivership and several having been the subject of criminal proceedings under the tax laws. He had run night clubs, drug companies, dating agencies, insurance firms, correspondence courses and had set himself up, finally, as a literary agent: no doubt it was this which gave him the idea of establishing the Peacock Press – having learned that if there is one class of person, out of all of society’s most naive and defenceless members, who is simply crying out to be conned, it’s the aspiring but untalented writer. Now it seems that one of McGanny’s enterprises, in the mid 1970s, was a chain of bingo halls which ran foul of the authorities in Yorkshire, among other places: and who should have taken charge of his defence on that occasion but our old friend Proudfoot – solicitor to none other than Tabitha Winshaw herself – who continued to provide him with legal representation until meeting with an untimely end, so I gathered, in 1984. So there we have our connection. Tabitha approaches Proudfoot, asking him to locate a suitable publisher, and Proudfoot, miraculously, is able to produce just the man.
‘He would also have known that Tabitha’s proposal had a good chance of being accepted, because the state of the company finances at that time was fairly desperate. You will be able to see that yourself from the year’s accounts, which I took the precaution of including in my haul. Add financial insecurity, then, to McGanny’s proven willingness to engage in unscrupulous transactions, and you will see that he could hardly be expected to refuse Tabitha’s generous terms. And he would not even have baulked, as most men would have done, at her one extraordinary precondition.’ He looked up at me sharply. ‘You can guess what it was, of course?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
Findlay permitted himself a dry laugh. ‘Well, from her letter, it seems that she insisted –
insisted,
mind – that the book could only be written by you.’
This made no sense at all.
‘But that’s ridiculous. I haven’t even met Tabitha Winshaw. Back in 1982 we didn’t even … know of each other’s existence.’
‘Well, she obviously knew of yours.’
Findlay sat back against the wall, examining his fingernails and clearly relishing the confusion into which his information had thrown me. After a while – and, I suspect, more out of mischief than anything else – he speculated coolly: ‘Perhaps news of your literary reputation had reached her, Michael. She may have read a review of one of those widely admired novels of yours, and decided that here was a man whose services she could not afford to do without.’
But I scarcely heard this remark, because a number of new questions, distinctly uncomfortable ones, had just occurred to me.
‘Yes, but look, I told you how I came to be offered that job. There was this woman called Alice Hastings, and I met her on the train, quite by chance.’
‘Quite by arrangement, I think you’ll find.’ Findlay had produced a toothpick from somewhere and was now scraping out the dirt from beneath his thumbnail.
‘But I’d never seen her before in my life.’
‘And have you seen her since?’
‘Well no, I haven’t – not to speak to, anyway.’
‘That’s rather curious, isn’t it, in – what? – eight years of dealing with the firm.’
‘Actually,’ I said, on the defensive, ‘I caught a glimpse of her outside the office only a few months ago, getting out of a taxi.’
‘I seem to remember,’ said Findlay, now pointing at me with the toothpick, ‘that when you first told me this story, you furnished me with a brief description.’
‘That’s right: long dark hair, long thin neck —’
‘– and a face like a horse.’
‘I can’t believe those were my exact words.’
‘Equine, then. That was the detail that stuck in my mind. Or rather, that was the detail which came back to me when I broke into the house the other night and first saw a photograph of’ (bringing the toothpick even closer to my face)
‘McGanny himself.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Did you know that Hastings is the maiden name of McGanny’s wife?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘And that he has a daughter called Alice – an actress?’
‘Yes, I did, as a matter of fact.’
‘You knew her name was Alice?’
‘I knew she was an actress. She phoned him up the last time I was in there, a few months –’
I stopped short.
‘The same day,’ Findlay suggested, ‘that you thought you’d seen Miss Hastings getting out of a taxi?’
I didn’t reply to this; just got up and walked to the window.
‘If the name Alice McGanny,’ Findlay continued, ‘is not one which is widely known in theatrical circles, this is because the young lady’s career has, from what I was able to piece together of her CV, obstinately refused to take off. She’s understudied, she’s dressed, she’s ASM-ed, she’s had walk-on parts, one-line parts and no-line parts, and in between these triumphs she’s been in and out of a drug rehabilitation centre and posed naked for one of the sleaziest magazines in the business. (There was a copy in McGanny’s safe, which I was considerate enough to retrieve on your behalf: it did nothing for me, I’m afraid, but they tell me that this sort of thing can sometimes provide a small
frisson
to those who share your rather sad and routine inclinations.) And so it’s hardly surprising, given all of this, that she’s repeatedly been obliged to borrow large sums of money from her father; and I dare say that on this occasion she was willing enough to undertake a little role-playing on his behalf, if the price was right.’
I stayed over by the window. It was too high up in the wall for me to be able to see anything, but that didn’t matter: my mind’s eye was focused on our meeting in the railway carriage all those years ago. I replayed it again and again, fast-forwarding, rewinding. They must have found out my address somehow – from Patrick, maybe, or from my literary editor at the newspaper – and then she must have kept watch on the flat for hours, perhaps even a day or two, while I sat inside writing my precious review … Followed me to the tube station, followed me to King’s Cross, and then that stupid story about going to visit her sister in Kettering, and not needing her own suitcase. How could I have fallen for it: what, precisely, had been blinding me?
‘Well, you’re not the only man who would have walked into that trap, I’m sure,’ said Findlay, appearing to read my thoughts. ‘She is rather attractive, after all; even I can see that. Still, they were taking a bit of a gamble, when you think about it, if her looks were all they had to rely upon. I’m surprised they didn’t try to bait the hook with something else while they were about it.’
‘They did.’ I turned, but was still unable to look Findlay full in his questioning face. ‘She was reading one of my novels. It had never happened to me before. She didn’t have to approach me. I introduced myself.’
‘Ah.’ Findlay nodded wisely, but there was no mistaking the amusement in his eye. ‘Of course. The age-old appeal. And McGanny would know more about authorial vanity than most. After all, he had built a whole business on it.’
‘Quite.’ I paced the cell briskly now, anxious for the conversation to be over as quickly as possible. I waited for what seemed like an age for Findlay to break his silence, and then could contain my impatience no longer. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘So what’s the missing link?’
‘Missing link?’
‘Between me and Tabitha. How had she found out about me, why did she choose me?’
‘I’ve already told you, Michael: unless your name had become a watchword, in those days, among Yorkshire’s many discerning readers of contemporary fiction, I haven’t the vaguest notion.’
‘But you’re a detective: I thought that’s what you were trying to find out.’
‘I have found out a great deal,’ said Findlay sharply, ‘much of it on your behalf and all of it at considerable personal risk. If some of my discoveries have upset you then perhaps there are lessons to be learned from your own conduct in this affair. Don’t blame the messenger.’
I sat down beside him and was about to apologize when the cell door opened. A constable popped his head round and said, ‘One more minute,’ and there was something about his manner as he did this – the sense of a token civility pared down to its absolute minimum – which, combined with the fearsome clang of the cell door when it slammed behind him, suddenly brought home all the injustice of Findlay’s predicament.
‘How can they do this to you?’ I stammered. ‘I mean, it’s crazy, putting you away like this. You’re an old man: what do they hope to achieve?’
Findlay shrugged. ‘I’ve had a lifetime of this sort of treatment, Michael. You stop asking questions. Thankfully I remain sound in mind and body, so I shall survive the ordeal, you can be sure of that. But talking of survival’ (and here his voice sank to a whisper again) ‘I hear on the grapevine that the members of a certain eminent family are steeling themselves for a tragic loss. Mortimer Winshaw is fading fast.’
‘That’s sad. He’s the only one who was ever nice to me.’
‘Well, I smell ructions, Michael. I smell upheaval. You know as well as I do the nature of Mortimer’s feelings towards his family. If he leaves a will there may be some nasty surprises for them in it; and of course, if there’s a funeral, Tabitha will be expected to attend, and it will be the first time
she’s
seen any of them for a very long time. You should keep your ear to the ground. It might make for an interesting chapter in your little chronicle.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I mean, thank you for all your help.’ There was a valedictory feeling in the air, suddenly, and I found myself trying to make a speech. ‘You’ve been to a lot of trouble. I – well, I hope you got something out of it, that’s all: you know, whatever it was you wanted …’
‘Professional satisfaction, Michael. This is all that the serious detective ever asks from his work. This business has been nagging away at me for more than thirty years: but all my instincts tell me that it will be unravelled soon, very soon. I’m just sorry that the forces of law have intervened to stop me from playing an active part.’ He took my hand and held it in a fragile but determined grip. ‘For the next two months, Michael, you’re my ears and eyes. Remember that. I’m relying on you now.’
He smiled bravely, and I did my best to smile back.
3
Christmas Day dawned cloudy, dry and without character. As I stood at the window of my flat overlooking the park, I could not help thinking back, as I thought back on this day every year, to the white Christmases of my childhood, when the house would be swathed in my mother’s homemade decorations, my father would spend hours on his hands and knees trying to locate the one faulty bulb which was preventing our tree from lighting up, and on Christmas Eve I would sit by the window all afternoon, awaiting the arrival of my grandparents who invariably drove over from their neighbouring suburb to stay with us until the New Year. (I mean my mother’s parents, for we had nothing to do with my father’s; had not even heard from them, in fact, for as long as I could remember.) For a few days the atmosphere in our house, usually so quiet and contemplative, would be lively, boisterous even, and it’s perhaps because of this memory – and the memory of the fabulous whiteness which could always be relied upon, in those days, to blanket our front lawn – that there was still an air of unreality about the grey, silent Christmases to which in recent years I had become numbly resigned.
But today would be different. Neither of us could stomach the thought of eight hours’ Christmas television, and by mid-morning we were in a hired car heading down towards the South Coast. I hadn’t driven for ages. Luckily South London was more or less empty of traffic, and apart from a close shave with a red Sierra and a bruising encounter with the edge of a roundabout just outside Surbiton, we managed to get out into the countryside without serious incident. Fiona had offered to drive, but I wouldn’t hear of it. Maybe this was silly of me, because she was feeling (and looking) better than she’d done for weeks, and if anything I think I’d been more upset than she had by the absurd mix-up over the results of her tests at the hospital, when she’d turned up for her appointment only to be told that it had been cancelled, and somebody was supposed to have telephoned her about it, and the specialist who was supposed to be dealing with her case was at a protest meeting to complain about the administrator’s decision to close down four surgical wards immediately after Christmas, and could she please come back in a week’s time when everything would be sorted out. I couldn’t contain my frustration when she told me this story, and no doubt my frenzy of shouting and foot-stamping had shaken her far more badly than her nervous taxi ride and wasted three-quarters of an hour in the clammy hubbub of the outpatients’ waiting room. I suppose I was out of practice when it came to dealing with a crisis. Anyway, she’d recovered – we’d both recovered – and here we were, gazing in rapture at the barren hedgerows, the converted farmhouses, the diffident rise and fall of dun-coloured fields, like two children from an inner-city ghetto who had never been let out into the countryside before.