Should I now go to the police? But would they believe me? It all seemed so unreal, even to me. Would they take me seriously enough to give me protection? It was not worth going to the police if they simply took a statement and then sent me away to my death. It wouldn’t help if they only believed me after I was dead.
I used my new cell phone to call the Hay Net. Martin, my barman, answered, and I asked him to get Carl for me.
“He’s in the kitchen, Chef,” said Martin. “I’ll get him.”
I waited.
“Hello,” Carl said finally. “Everything OK?”
“No, not exactly,” I said. “I’ve got to go away for a few days.”
“Where to?” he said.
Where to indeed? I thought. “Er, I’m not sure.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said. “My mother is unwell, and I need to be with her. Can you cope without me for the rest of the week?”
“Sure,” he said rather uncertainly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll be fine. But has anything arrived for me, by messenger?”
“Yes,” he replied, “about half an hour ago. Do you want me to bring it somewhere?”
“No, it’s all right. I’ll come and collect it.”
“How about your stuff at my place?” he said. I had left my overnight bag and shaving kit at his house.
“Don’t worry about them,” I said. “I’ll buy myself a new toothbrush and razor.”
“I can fetch them, if you like,” he said, still sounding a little unsure.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I have to go right now. Leave the package by the front door, will you?”
“All right, if you say so.” He clearly thought I was crazy.
I drove down the familiar road to the restaurant, looking left and right for any danger. There was none, at least none that I could see. I left the engine running as I jumped out and dashed inside the restaurant. The package was where I had asked Carl to leave it, and I grabbed it and went straight back out to the car.
“Max,” called Carl, following me outside. “Max, wait.”
I stood by the open door of the car.
“I’m sorry, Carl, I’ve got to go.”
“Call me, then,” he said.
“Later,” I said. “I’ll try to call you later.”
I climbed in and drove off, checking my rearview mirror every few seconds to see if I was being followed. I wasn’t. I was running away, and even I wasn’t sure where I was going.
THE FOLLOWING morning, I ran farther away. I caught the ten-fifty a.m. flight to Chicago.
After leaving the restaurant the previous evening, I had driven aimlessly down the A14 to Huntingdon and had stopped in the deserted parking lot of a closed carpet store.
Someone once told me that it was possible to trace the location from which a cell phone call was made. I had taken the risk, and first called my mother. Second, I called Caroline.
“Have you told the police?” she’d asked after I had told her everything.
“Not yet,” I’d said. “I’m worried they won’t take me seriously.”
“But someone has tried to kill you twice. Surely they will take that seriously.”
“Both attempts were designed to look like accidents. Maybe the police will think I’m irrational or something.” I was beginning to suspect as much myself.
“How could someone have got into your house to tamper with the smoke alarm?” she’d asked.
“I’m not sure,” I’d said. “But I’m absolutely certain that someone did. My front door key was on the fob with my car keys that went missing after the crash. Whoever removed the battery and set light to my cottage must have it.”
As I had told her the full story, it had all seemed less and less plausible. I had no firm idea who the “someone” could be who was trying to kill me, or even why. Would the police believe me or dismiss it all as some crazed, circumstantial conspiracy theory? I would have had to tell them I believed that the someone may be a Russian polo pony importer that I suspected only because he hadn’t turned up at a lunch to which he had been invited. If that was a crime, then half the population would be in court.
“You can go and stay at my flat, if you like,” Caroline had said. “My upstairs neighbor has a key, and I can call her to let you in.”
“I’m not sure that’s safe either. Suppose someone has been following me. They would have seen me go there last weekend. I’m not taking that chance.”
“You really are frightened, aren’t you?” she’d said.
“Very,” I’d said.
“Then come here. Come to Chicago. We can discuss everything through. Then we’ll decide what to do and who to tell.”
I had driven to one of the hotels on the northern edge of Heathrow and had booked myself in for the night under a false name, using cash to pay in advance for my room. The staff raised a questioning eyebrow, but they accepted my fictional explanation that I had stupidly left my passport and credit cards at home and that my wife was bringing them to me at the airport in the morning. Maybe I was being rather overdramatic, but I was taking no chances that I could be traced through my credit card. If someone really had been in my house at three in the morning to start a fire at the bottom of my stairs, then it didn’t stretch the imagination much further to realize they might have taken my old phone and credit cards, with all the access that the numbers could bring to my accounts, and maybe my whereabouts if I used them. I had turned off my new phone just in case.
On Wednesday morning, I had left the rented Mondeo in the hotel parking lot, where, according to the hotel reception staff, it would be quite safe but would incur charges. Fine, I’d said, and I had paid them up front for one week’s parking with the remains of my cash. I then had taken the hotel shuttle bus to the airport and had reluctantly used my new credit card to purchase the airline ticket. If someone could then find out I was at Heathrow buying a ticket, that was too bad. I just hoped that they wouldn’t be able to get to the airport before my flight departed. If they could further discover that the ticket was to Chicago, well…it’s a big city. I planned to stay hidden.
I had decided not to sit in some dark corner of the departure lounge while I waited for the flight. Instead, I’d sat in the open next to an American family with three small children who played around my feet with brmmm-brmmm noises and miniature London black taxis, souvenir toys of their trip. It had felt safer.
Departure had been uneventful, and I now dozed at forty thousand feet above the Atlantic. I had not slept particularly well in the hotel, and three times during the night had checked that the chair I had propped under the door handle was still there. So as the airplane rushed westwards, I lay back and caught up on my lack of sleep from the previous two nights, and had to be woken by one of the cabin staff as we made our final approach to O’Hare airport in Chicago.
I KNEW that Caroline would not be waiting for me at the airport. She had told me that she had a rehearsal all afternoon, ready for that evening’s first night, and I had told her not to try to come anyway. I had somehow thought it might be safer. However, I still looked for her when I emerged from immigration and customs.
She wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t there. I hadn’t really expected her to be there, but I felt a little disappointed nevertheless. There were several couples greeting each other with hugs and kisses, with I LOVE YOU or WELCOME HOME printed helium-filled balloons attached to their wrists or to the handles of strollers full of smiling babies. Airport arrival concourses are joyful places, good for the soul.
However, the source of my particular joy was not there. I knew that she would be deep into Elgar and Sibelius, and I was jealous of them, jealous of long-dead composers. Was that another example of irrational behavior?