She’d tried gendy asking friends and colleagues whether they’d detected anything different about Stuart and they’d all said no. But even if someone had been prepared to humour her, diey would surely have thought the changes were for the better. Stuart had seemed happier recently. In fact he had seemed positively serene. In theory he had no less than the usual number of worries but they no longer threatened or disturbed him. He looked like a man who had achieved wisdom and contentment. No wonder she was terrified.
She realized that the few pages she’d been reading on the screen explained very, very little. Stuart had, of course, always been a great fan of London, had always gained energy from the city. But this strange poetic ramble did nothing to justify his serenity, nor her feelings about him. However, she had read only one file. She knew that the disk contained a great deal more information, apparently a great many more of her husband’s words. She looked at the other file names. They were intriguing but unrevealing: WRAPAROUND, DISCOVERY, V&D. She knew she would have to read them all. She always hated reading screens. She wanted hard copy. She found another file, set up the printer, then went downstairs to make coffee while the machine churned out the next instalment of Stuart’s diary.
PARTICULARS
Two lost, frustrating days passed before Mick Wilton returned to the London Particular, days in which he came to fear that he might be making a fool of himself in this alien, overpopulated capital. They were days in which he’d not even known where to start. He had drifted the streets, aimlessly, idiotically, a man without direction. At last he’d decided that the bookshop was his only hope. He found it using the A — Z, and the address on the paper bag the book had come in.
Again the bookshop contained few customers and Mick was pleased to see the same assistant behind the counter. It was odd to think this complete stranger was the person he knew best in the whole city. She recognized him and half-smiled.
“Hello there, Judy!” he said quickly. “I need some assistance.”
“Yes, sir, what were you looking for?”
“Don’t call me sir. It’s Mick.” Then he hesitated, embarrassed to be admitting need. “Hey, are you really English?”
“It depends what you mean by English. It depends what you mean by really.”
“OK,” he said, happy to accept that there were any number of things that might be meant by those words. “But how well do you know London?”
“I know London,” she said.
It was the answer he wanted. He moved closer to the counter and leaned on it conspiratorially.
“This assistance that I need, it’s not really very complicated,” he said, and he took a deep breath. “You see there are some friends of mine who I’ve lost contact with, old college pals kind of thing. And obviously I know their names but I don’t know their addresses any more. I mean they’ve moved since I last saw them. So like, for example, I look them up in the phone book and there’s maybe six Graham Pryces and four Justin Carrs, and the addresses mean nothing to me because I’m not a Londoner, and I don’t want to have to go round to every single address looking to see if I’ve got the right one. So I need some local knowledge.
“You see, I happen to know that these old friends of mine have done pretty well for themselves. And I’m sure somebody like you, who is a Londoner, could check these addresses and say, yeah, that’s the sort of place a well-to-do person would be living.”
He finished, took another breath, and looked at her hopefully.
“Why don’t you just ring all the different numbers until you find the right person?” she said.
“I want it to be a surprise.”
Her glance told him she was completely unconvinced.
“That’s why I wanted to be sure you really knew London,” he said.
“I know London,” she repeated.
“So are you going to help me or not?”
Out of his pockets he pulled a list of names and several folded pages torn from telephone directories.
“It sounds fishy,” she said.
“I realize that, but it’s not. Honest. What can I do to convince you?”
“Frankly, I don’t know.”
He looked around as though the setting itself might offer some chance for him to prove himself. Then he caught sight of one of the other customers in the back of the shop and the opportunity came straight to him.
“You see that guy over there,” he said very quietly, nodding towards a bald, skinny man in a raincoat. “He’s hiding a hundred quid’s worth of atlases underneath his coat.”
“You saw him?” she said, shocked.
Mick nodded and the man turned his head a little towards them, just enough to indicate that he knew he was being talked about. He waited a moment then started for the door, his progress marked by an elaborate casualness. Mick took two steps away from the counter and stood blocking the exit.
“Put the books on the counter,” he said to the shoplifter.
“What books?” the man asked.
“Don’t get me angry, you little twat,” Mick said, and the man immediately produced the atlases and placed them on the counter.
“All right,” he said, and he shrugged. “You can’t have me for nicking them ‘cause I hadn’t left the premises.”
Mick stared at him with bored contempt. “Now pay for them,” he said.
“I don’t want to pay for them,” the man said.
“I know you don’t, but you’re going to.”
The man decided to make a run for it, and he launched a determined effort to get past Mick and through the door. Mick made only a perfunctory attempt to stop him, apparently letting himself be shouldered out of the way. The shoplifter accelerated down the street in a panic and Mick turned to Judy who asked, “How did you know he was stealing books?”
“Well, I could tell you it was because I used to be a store detective.”
She did not look convinced, even less so when Mick placed a wallet on the counter and offered it to her.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The guy’s wallet.”
She shook her head in disbelief, amused despite herself.
“It’s OK,” said Mick. “He won’t be coming back for it.”
“You’re a pickpocket as well as everything else.”
“What’s everything else?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Surely I’ve earned myself something,” he said winningly. “A bit of help? A bit of information?”
Half an hour later Judy Tanaka was on her break and they were drinking coffee in an Italian caff and she was doing her best to help him. She turned back and forth between the list of names and the torn pages of telephone directory, and occasionally she consulted the index of her A — Z.
“This isn’t as easy as it looks,” she said.
“It doesn’t look easy at all.”
“Like here you’ve got a Jonathan Sands, and there are six people called J or John Sands in the phone book. Four of them I think we can rule out but that still leaves one in Hampstead, one in Chelsea, both pricey addresses, you know? It could be either.”
“I can see the problem,” Mick said.
She continued to concentrate on her task, but she asked distractedly, “What are you going to do when you track down these people?”
“We’re going to have a reunion party.”
“Are you a private detective or something?”
“Something,” he said.
“Are you some sort of criminal?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“I don’t know. Would I be an accessory?”
She smiled as she said it. The idea didn’t particularly displease her.
“Accessory to what? Partying?”
She smiled more broadly. She knew he had no reason to be honest with her, and that was probably for the best. She found the prospect of his criminality intriguing but she didn’t necessarily want to know any detail.
“Really,” she said, and she sounded disappointed, “there’s only one of these people I can be absolutely certain about: Philip Masterson. For that name there’s only one address that fits the bill at all. It’s in Maida Vale, whereas all the other Philip Mastersons live in Walthamstow or Peckham or areas like that. He has to be the one.”
Mick looked at her unsurely. These were all place names he’d never heard before. They evoked nothing for him, had no ring to them, no connotations. But he nodded willingly enough. He believed her. He trusted her to the extent that he had to. She was his only ally, his only source of favours and information. She handed back the pages of directory and pointed out the address that fitted.
“You’re good,” he said.
“Not bad for someone who looks like a foreigner, eh?” she said. “Do you know where Maida Vale is?”
“It’s OK,” he said triumphantly. “I’ve got a map, remember.”