As the afternoon Lufthansa flight to Kennedy lifted over London’s far western suburbs and headed out across the Midlands to leave the coast of the British Isles north of Glasgow, Max settled back with a glass of wine, his mind lulled by the low throb of the engines, his thoughts on Nan Luc.
He opened his briefcase and looked down at the papers he had scooped quickly from his mother’s desk. Some, he saw, went back to his father’s childhood in Germany. Photographs of a family picnic beside a river in the 1920s; of family holidays in Italy. Medical certificates from Heidelberg belonging to his grandfather, Doctor Rolf Lutz Benning. Pictures of a blonde-haired, middle-aged woman, his grandmother, sketching in the mountains with a small boy, Max’s father, posed intently watching beside her. The few remaining traces of a family his mother had always claimed to know absolutely nothing about.
She had never really relented. Even on her deathbed she had given him only the barest facts. He thought for a moment of how much she must have hated his father. Or loved him.
He opened a grey cardboard fold with a French Police Judiciaire stamp on the front cover. A letter addressed to his mother said, without further explanation, that, at the conclusion of police investigations, the writer was forwarding the enclosed material to her as the next of kin of Peter Lutz Benning.
Photographs. Of his father holding up a large ivory statue as a fisherman might proudly display a fish. Of his father and a Vietnamese woman in uniform… The powerful current of dismay passed through him like an electric shock.
‘Is anything wrong?’ the flight attendant was asking.
He shook his head and looked back down at the photograph. He was looking at the smiling face of the woman and the small Amerasian girl, slightly out of focus, but unmistakably Nan Luc, running towards his father’s outstretched arms.
Chapter Thirty-Five
In San Diego it was a cold, brilliantly sunny afternoon. Edward Brompton had invited his sister and brother-in-law and their family over. The descent of his sister Susan and the Garrat family for lunch was always something he dreaded in anticipation and enjoyed when the time came round. Four children under twelve years old were never likely to provide a quiet afternoon.
By the time he had arrived back from the dockyard Susan and her family were already in occupation. Children ran screaming along the terraces and through the house. As Ed got out of his car he had to remind himself that this was his own place.
But now lunch in the long terrace room was going well. The children, Edward reflected, were at last reaching a tolerable age, or a tolerable level of exhaustion.
His sister could never long conceal her curiosity about Nan Luc. Before the Vietnamese maid had cleared the first course, Susan had steered the conversation in the direction of her always intriguing sister-in-law. ‘So tell us about Nan Luc,’ she said. ‘What’s she doing in New York?’
Edward surrendered his plate to the maid. ‘You know her obsession with finding her father. She’s in New York to see if there’s more to be found out there.’
‘Even though she’s no memories of him as a child?’ Garrat said.
‘The Vietnamese don’t have that same casual view of ancestry most of the West has today,’ Edward said. ‘Knowledge of your ancestors, particularly honour of your father is part of your birthright.’
‘She feels it’s been taken away from her. That seems reasonable,’ Susan Garrat said, ‘given the premise.’
‘I suppose so,’ Edward said. ‘I’m just sorry it takes up so much of her time.’
Susan sat up straight. ‘Talking of Nan Luc,’ she said, ‘someone called for her before you got back.’
‘Who was that?’
‘A young man named Max Benning.’
Edward placed his knife and fork carefully on his plate. ‘Was he calling from here, San Diego?’
‘New York City. I wrote down the number of his hotel on the pad. I said you’d pass it on to Nan next time you called her.’
‘Thank you.’ He reached forward and poured Garrat some wine. ‘What did he sound like, this young man?’ he asked feeling sick with apprehension.
‘Very charming. Very anxious to get hold of Nan Luc. He’d met her in Vietnam, apparently.’ She paused. ‘He seemed to think you were her American guarantor.’
Ed nodded. ‘I was, of course.’
‘I mean,’ Susan said patiently, ‘that he didn’t seem aware you were also her husband.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘No. Should I have? Nor did I tell him Garrat is my husband, that I have four impossible but talented children and that, though of mature years, I’m still capable of creating a sensation in the La Scala lobby. Or would be if ever I got there.’
‘Do you know him?’ Garrat asked Ed. ‘This young man who called?’
Edward shook his head. ‘Never met him of course. Nan Luc mentioned him once or twice, that’s all.’
The room was green and gold: the walls a drab ivy green, the carpet a worn nylon gold. The curtains, bedcover and lampshades were also either green or gold. In the room next door a man and woman could be heard. The deeper rumbling of his voice was punctuated every now and again with a shriek of her laughter.
Louise stood with her back to the French doors, her hands deep in the pockets of her short coat. She detested the seediness of the room, the obviousness of it. The green candlewick was stained in three or four places. She knew the stiff stain of semen. She had seen it too many times in her life.
Her fury at Nan Luc rose. It was her doing. It was Nan Luc who was responsible for her being here. Waiting in a seamy motel off Sawmill River Parkway, determined to protect the happiness she had had in the last twenty years, determined to protect her family, her American family, Ben and the boys, from the truth about her past. Just as suddenly the anger flowed out of her. Was Nan Luc right? In the Eros there were rumours that Cy Stevenson was into all sorts of things. Was it possible?
The door opened and Cy came into the room. He nodded to her and closed the door behind him. His eyes wandered round from curtains to bed. ‘Pretty crummy place,’ he said. She nodded. ‘I didn’t realise. I should have suggested a bar somewhere.’
‘This is better,’ she said. ‘Cops visit bars. I wouldn’t want to be seen by friends of my husband.’
‘No.’ He was trembling. He sat on the edge of the bed. Excitement overwhelmed him. He found it hard not to laugh. If Nan Luc presented herself at Meyerick, he was lost. The laughter rose in him again, drunken hysteria. He rubbed hard at his face and looked up at Louise, controlling himself. ‘I brought the money.’ He reached into his inside pocket. His hand froze as he saw the expression on her face.
‘She doesn’t want the money,’ Louise said. ‘She won’t take it.’
‘Ten thousand dollars. You told her I owe it to her?’
‘She doesn’t believe it.’
‘Jesus.’
‘She knows Pham wasn’t a bar-girl. She knows her father wasn’t a passing lay.’
‘What else?’ he asked carefully.
Louise looked at him with that strange indifferent loathing he had seen on so many Vietnamese women’s faces. ‘What else? She believes you’re responsible for her mother’s death.’ He went pale. ‘She still thinks you’re her father.’
Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. ‘What can she do?’
‘If she finds you, she’ll kill you, Mr Stevenson,’ Louise said. ‘You have to understand. She’s here to kill you.’
He was brought up short. ‘The bitch, she will,’ he said.