Evidence, he thought, as ruddy sparks of indignation and outrage began to glow far down in the dark tangles of his mind. If I ever have to give evidence about this I want to get it right. I’m a murderer and I may deserve everything that’s coming to me—but that’s no reason to let the Gypsy Queen and her pals get away with a thing like this.
He turned and looked for the number of the house he had just left, and saw a diagonal row of metal digits screwed to the pale blue door—2224. Slightly surprised by the magnitude of the number—he had never known house numbers to rise above the low hundreds—Redpath directed his attention towards a massy metallic object which was projecting upwards from the edge of the footpath beside him. The letters GFD were embossed on its green-painted surface. He stared at the object for a moment, perplexed, before identifying it as an American-style fire hydrant, a piece of street furniture which was known to him only through imported movies.
Admonishing himself not to be distracted by trivia, Redpath set off towards the nearest intersection in search of the street’s name-plate. He had passed three parked cars before it dawned on him that there had been something unusual in their size and styling. That’s odd—three American jobs in the one street. Don’t tell me Billy Graham’s here again!
Perhaps there’s a foreign car club in the area… There were four more large saloon cars parked between Redpath and the intersection and, his awareness of them suddenly heightened, he noted in advance that all were of American design, sleek and roomy vehicles such as he only saw on television. Cannon cars, Rockford cars, Kojak cars. The licence plates of the first three proclaimed that they were from Illinois; the fourth was from Iowa. Bemused, drugged by the heat and the intense sunlight, Redpath reached the corner and looked up at the street sign. It said: 13 AVE S.E.
That’s another weirdo. You’d almost think…
Redpath’s thought processes ground to a shuddering halt as he glanced along the cross-street he had reached. It was a major thoroughfare which dwindled into the distance in a perfectly straight line, aiming at a remote blue mountain which was deckled with snow and which was totally unlike anything he had ever seen in Britain. Telescoped into that single perspective was a seemingly endless series of buses, cars and trucks, all of American design, all driving on the right-hand side of the road.
You’d almost think this was…
The sign above the small shop on the corner said, Gruber’s Delicatessen, and its window was almost completely blanked off with hand-printed offers of food bargains. The prices were quoted in dollars and cents. Next to the delicatessen was a bar named Pete’s Palace, which had a half-curtained window and a small neon tube advertising Budweiser. Men and women walking past Redpath wore clothing which was different to the clothing he was accustomed to seeing in Calbridge, or even London—not very different, but unmistakably different.
You’d almost think this was the United States!
Redpath pressed the heels of his hands to his temples and swayed from side to side, staring at the incomprehensible scene through slitted eyes. An elderly woman in a yellow one-piece suit halted nearby, regarded him suspiciously for a few seconds and then hurried on her way, lips moving silently.
“Can I talk to you, please?” Redpath said, going after her. She broke into a scampering run without looking back at him. He quickened his pace for two strides, then realised he was being watched by a pudgy, grey-suited man who was leaning against the window of the bar. Redpath changed course and approached the man, who was about fifty and had an irregular pattern of black and white stubble on his cheeks. The man eyed him with a mixture of uneasiness and derision.
“Where is this place?” Redpath said.
“Don’t you know?” The man spoke with what Redpath took to be an American accent.
“Look, I need help—can you tell me where I am?”
“You need help, that’s for goddamn sure.” The man shot a knowing grin to a nonexistent companion. “What sort of stuff you trippin’ out on, anyway?”
“I’m lost—that’s all. Where am I?” Redpath brought his hands down from his temples and closed them into fists.
The man’s grin faded. “Gilpinston.”
“Gilpinston what? Gilpinston where?”
At that moment a taller and younger man with a folded newspaper under his arm came out of the bar and positioned himself beside the first, a questioning expression on his face. His presence seemed to embolden the pudgy man.
“What are you hangin’ round me for? Go pick on somebody else.”
“I only asked you…” Redpath exhaled sharply, faced the younger man and made himself smile. “Do you mind if I look at your newspaper? Just for a second.”
“Get lost.” The younger man turned his back on Redpath and began to discuss horse racing odds with his companion. Frustration and anger seared through Redpath as though a furnace door had been flung open in his mind. He swore and grabbed the newspaper at the precise instant in which its owner decided to withdraw it from under his arm, and an absurd tug-of-war ensued for a few seconds. It ended when the pudgy man, his panda-pattern face working with indignant fury, closed in and kneed Redpath in the groin. Redpath, folding up around the centre of pain, found himself now clinging to the newspaper for support. It tore easily and he dropped to his knees, dimly aware that a number of passers-by were pausing to watch what was happening. The pudgy man, assuming the guise of a disinterested observer, moved back a few paces with his hands in his pockets. Redpath looked up at a tear-distorted world of unsympathetic giants.
“What’s the matter with that guy?” a man said. “Is he sick?”
“Stoned out of his gourd, if you ask me.”
“Is he English? Say, he isn’t one of those characters that moved into the Rodgers’ house around the corner, is he?”
“Somebody send for the cops.”
“No…” Redpath focused his gaze roughly in the direction of the last speaker, intending to reassure him that the police would not be necessary, but by some fluke of perception he picked out a more distant and oddly familiar figure in a brown boiler suit. The man, who had an abnormally large chin and hands, was standing at the street corner, well clear of the little knot of spectators, but he was staring in Redpath’s direction and his whole attitude was suggestive of furtive anxiety.
“Albert?” Redpath struggled to his feet and forced his way through a barricade of bodies. The corner was deserted. He ran to the intersection, looked along the street from which he had emerged a short time earlier, expecting to see a fleeing brown figure. The street was empty except for some small children absorbed in games. Redpath frowned, trying to think amid a tidal interplay of pain, nausea and shock. Could Albert—assuming it had been Albert he had seen—have reached the house so quickly? Could he have travelled a hundred yards in the time it took Redpath to cover fifteen?
“Where are you goin’, fella?” somebody called out behind him.
“It’s all right,” Redpath mumbled. “It’s all right.” Clutching his lower abdomen with both hands, he ran towards the house along a sunlit footpath which seemed to be rocking like the deck of a ship. He had a hazy impression that he was being pursued. He reached the house in which he had found himself earlier, identified it almost by instinct, and lurched up the steps. The front door was slightly ajar. He ran into the hall, slammed the door behind him and locked it, all the while breathing in raucous gasps. The house was as quiet and lifeless as before.