Outside the BBC I watched a well-known politician sweep through into the building, with his entourage. I’ve seen a few well-known persons going in there over the past twenty odd years.
I did some nondescript shopping in Oxford Street. I didn’t see Joseph.
Before I walked back to the hotel I went into Lang Gardens and called Lewis Rybourne on my mobile.
They told me he was in a meeting.
“Please get him to phone me. I’m at the Belmont Hotel until tomorrow afternoon.”
I was just getting up from the bench when the phone made its noise. I don’t have a piece of music. It simply imitates the old fashioned sound of a phone ringing.
The call was from Rybourne.
“Roy – oh, good, good. Sorry about that. She didn’t know I was back. Did your boy catch up to you?”
I said, carefully, “Which boy?”
“Ah. Joseph, I think he said.”
“Joseph? I don’t know a Joseph.”
“Oh, lord, Roy, I think maybe you do. He said he was – a relative.”
“No. I don’t have any relatives left.”
“Oh come on, Roy. Your…” There was a long, dramatic pause. His voice had dropped and become intense, “…son.”
I now left the interval.
“Hello?” he said. “Are you there?”
“Yes, Lewis. I thought you said son. Obviously you didn’t.”
“Of course, I shan’t tell anyone. Strictly confidential.”
“What are you talking about, Lewis?”
I could hear him breathing. Then he said, “A young man called us, said it was an emergency, insisted on speaking to your editor. Me. He told me he was your son, Joseph, and he was concerned as there’d been a family problem and he wanted…”
“I don’t have a son. Who was this man?”
“I told you, Roy. He gave his name as Joseph – Joseph something or other. It sounded foreign. She has a note of it I think, but she’s not in the office…”
“I have no son.”
“All right. OK, Roy. The thing is, you’d already called me and you sounded – upset.”
“I was.”
“And then I spoke to this Joseph, and he wanted to know how he could trace you. He was already at your home. I made sure of the address. He knew you, and your house. Well.”
“Really? That’s news to me. What did you say to him?”
He breathed now like an obscene caller.
“I – er – I told him the hotel you were at.”
I left a space. Then I shouted “You did what?”
“Roy, Roy, listen…”
“You told a complete stranger, who claims to be my son, and over the phone, which hotel I’m staying in?”
He said, with an awful meaningless contrition, “Have I done the wrong thing, Roy? I’m so sorry. I was just…”
“I’m being stalked, Lewis. Yes, I know, it’s crazy. I don’t know who he is, but he turned up at my house and gave the neighbours the same yarn – that he is my son. I threw him out. And yes, he has been at my hotel. Now I know who to thank for that.”
“Christ. Roy – have you told the police?”
“Yes. They don’t believe me, or they think something else. And you have informed this lunatic of my hotel.”
“God – Roy…”
“Think of something, Lewis. He may be dangerous. I need your help. This is your fault.”
“Christ. Oh, Roy. What shall I do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I suggest you come up with something.”
I broke the connection.
To be truthful I wasn’t sure how much, if any, use this would be. But the fact of Sej’s pursuit of me had been established at last, with an independent and non-vulnerable source. Potential?
Having attended to that, however, I sat down once more on the bench.
The phone went again.
I looked at it.
I let it ring. I’d check any message later. Let Lewis Rybourne stew, if he was capable of it.
Meanwhile the images of the afternoon revolved slowly in my mind. I kept thinking of the women he’d helped, and the dog, its sad tail hanging out of his shirt – now ruined by blood and lost. And the piano. How he played. And how he had gone so suddenly away.
Bells were ringing from various places, including the nearby church. It was six o’clock.
I got up and walked to The Belmont. In the foyer a young woman came straight up to me, all smiles.
“Excuse me, but that guy who played the piano – you know him?”
“Didn’t he give you a card?”
“Well, yes. Only I called the number and there was no answer.”
I would have to bear in mind, Joseph was not only brilliant, but good-looking. This young woman was clearly smitten. I said, with a stiff smile, ‘I don’t know him well. Just keep trying the number. I think he’s out until later.” And walked to the lift leaving her there, crestfallen. Another stalker. This time of Joseph?
Tonight was my last night here. I couldn’t afford any others. The entire excursion would already make quite a hole in what I call my Emergency Fund, that is my building society savings.
Would he come back to The Belmont? If he did, what then would happen?
I ordered dinner in my room and watched TV. Now I thought more solidly of my house and the possible damage that could have been done to it. Strangely, I didn’t think he had caused damage. Partly too I wished not to go back. But I hadn’t anywhere else to go. Perhaps, now Rybourne had some idea that Joseph was a danger, if the police confronted him at Gates he would have to tell them what had gone on. And any DNA test would show Joseph was nothing at all to do with me.
Unless…
Had he been Lynda’s child? Hers and mine. That would make him only twenty-eight. Less? He didn’t look quite that young, did he, or only when unconscious.
He wasn’t Lynda’s. He was neither like her, nor me.
The TV, even with its multiple channels, seemed all one chaos of unreal inanity, or desperate, unassuageable realness.
I turned in about eleven. Check-out tomorrow was noon.
I would go back, see to the house, pack a few extra things, then maybe myself head up north. I’d said I had nowhere to go, but it’s cheaper there, out of the main northern cities. And Matthew lived there, all on his own without adulterous Sylvia. I could go and commiserate with him.
Before leaving however I would get some extra security added to the house. Duran, the electrician who fixed my kitchen lights and the thermostat last November, had a side line in villain-proofing. I’d gathered, from various hints, he’d been a competent burglar once, and now put former knowledge to good use for the other side. I hadn’t taken him up on any of that, last time. Now I’d better. He was a tough guy too, Duran. He might have some brainwaves.
I slept well. Seven straight hours, waking at a quarter to eight, feeling drugged and out of kilter.
At reception, while paying, I heard of the manager’s coming to see who played the piano yesterday. I had a last drink at the bar.
All the time I kept looking up at the mirror, looking for Sej to walk in. But he didn’t. And I thought, Is it over? And a tide of relief swirled through me. And after the tide, a sort of pause. I can’t describe it. It was still and quiet, without shadows, quite empty.