Chapter 12

Following Bathmore

July 2: London

The next morning I woke early. The cat had greeted me at the bottom of the steps when I returned the night before and was sleeping now—a dappled lump half buried in the blankets on the foot of the bed. I had started thinking of him as Belka. Belka was a dog of course—one of the two dogs sent into space by the soviets in the early days of the space race. Still, something about the cat made me think of the name Belka. He had an air of faded grandeur, like a strongman who had spent his life on high alert, taking on all challengers, and now just wanted to rest.

I was careful not to jostle him as I rolled out of bed. My plan was to watch Bathmore’s door and follow him if he went out. I had gone around to the back of his building again the night before and seen a light in his apartment. So, unless he had left in the middle of the night, he should still be there. I wanted to figure out what he was up to and tailing him seemed like the best option.

I also needed to get in touch with Petru Ortoli but it was too early to call. Instead, I made coffee, got dressed, and sat down by the window with my laptop. I kept an eye on Bathmore’s front door while I wrote a quick email to Ashna, catching her up on what had happened so far in London. Stake outs were not my favorite activity to say the least. In my old career I had done a fair amount of watching and waiting. It was excruciating but sometimes it was the only way to establish the pattern of another person’s life. Once you have the pattern you can slip into the absences. I was less practiced at following people but I assumed I could probably manage it. I was good at blending into a crowd.

I watched Bathmore’s door for two hours as the street began to come alive. I saw the neighbors put out garbage, walk dogs, leave for work on foot or by vehicle. The sky was clear and the sun, once fully risen, was bright on the roofs of the cars still parked along the street. I watched for another hour, then two. My eyes were blasted. My brain drifted off into unrelated musings. I had set out to wait all day if necessary but now I was consumed with doubt. It snuck up on me and I didn’t realize what was happening until suddenly I found myself thinking about why I was in London, what I thought I was doing, why I had taken on this job. I felt like a fake. Self-doubt was an old companion of mine. It attacked when I was bored. Sometimes it spurred me to action without regard for consequences. I just needed to do something instead of sit. The sunlit street outside began to go white like an overexposed photograph. Objects had halos. I had been staring out the window for too long. I was on the verge of giving up. I had decided to go to Bathmore’s office, break in, and see what I could find when the door of his building banged open and there he was. Without thinking, I jumped up, grabbed my backpack, and was out the door within seconds.

I crouched on the steps, watching him go by, then darted down and followed. He turned the corner in the direction of the tube station. I stayed right behind him this time. His black jeans and a bleu de travail French worker jacket blended into the muted colors of the weekday crowd on the street but he also had a burgundy backpack which I was able to track visually as it bobbed along, momentarily hidden then appearing again in a flash. As I had suspected, he was headed for Hammersmith station. I followed him down. On the platform there were double benches with a tall sign in the middle advertising the station name in the instantly recognizable blue and red bullseye logo of the London underground. I lurked behind one of the benches, trying to watch Bathmore unobtrusively. There were two buskers further down the platform, one with a violin, the other an accordion, playing a slow, sad klezmer tune in a minor key. Bathmore seemed oblivious. He stared blankly at an advertisement for vodka. When the train arrived, I boarded the same car but from the rear door. It was crowded but I could see him, legs braced, swaying with the movement of the train, still staring into space with that glassy expression.

Bathmore rode the Piccadilly line to Holborn station, transferred to the Central line, and got off at Bethnal Green station in Hackney. He had to be going to his office. I pushed my way through the press of human bodies and followed him up, out of the station. Out on the street it was bright, hot and dusty. City smells filled the air—diesel, urine, spicy food, sewer gas. Plane trees rustled overhead. The sidewalk was crowded. Ahead of me, a woman in a long black burqa maneuvered a stroller around a fruit stand. A skateboarder shot past me with inches to spare and nearly crashed into a crate of watermelons. I stuck to Bathmore’s back, watching his pack bob through the throng of humanity. Small shops, hole in the wall restaurants, pubs, and grocers lined the street. The buildings were two or three stories, old brick and graffitied concrete. He turned off the main street after maybe half a mile and I dropped back, trailing him from a distance on a smaller, less populated road that paralleled a canal. Houseboats were moored along the closer edge of the waterway and others puttered up and down. The smell of the canal reminded me for a moment of the China Basin inlet back home. Bathmore reached another, larger street and turned right, away from the canal. I hurried to catch up. Only a couple of blocks farther on, he stopped abruptly in front of a doorway sandwiched between a bookshop and a bakery.

The building was a boxy, three story brick edifice with stone lintels over the square windows. I loitered across the street, watching as he dug in his backpack and pulled out a set of keys. The entrance was up a couple of steps and recessed to form a narrow vestibule. Bathmore unlocked the door and stepped inside.

Now my job was waiting, again. I didn’t want to loiter in the street or try to sit in a pub and watch the building. My jet lagged brain was not alert enough for that and I wanted to be closer so I could see if Bathmore had visitors—maybe even close enough to hear if he made phone calls. That meant getting inside. I walked back up the street, turned down a side road, and circled around to the back of the building via a narrow alley. Twenty feet along the alley, it opened up and there was a parking area big enough for six cars and a dumpster. The building had a fire escape ladder up the back and a door at ground level probably used by people assigned parking spots. Only two of the spots were occupied, one by an ancient Mercedes sedan, the other by a tiny Ford van with Mulgrew’s Plumbing stenciled on the side in elegant burgundy letters. The door was propped open with a brick, probably by the plumber. That made things easy.

Inside, I found a long central hallway with doors opening to both sides. Gray linoleum, waxed a thousand times, stretched away, edges converging toward a distant spot of daylight. The walls were a yellowed white, the ceiling ten feet high with cobwebs in the corners above the door. Somewhere down the hall a bad ballast in one of the fluorescent light fixtures was buzzing. The building felt tired—like it would happily crumple to the ground if a helpful earthquake would just give it a gentle shake. A sewer gas odor wafted down the corridor and I could hear the dull echo of metal on metal in an enclosed space. To my right a narrow stairway led upward but I wanted to see if there was a directory so I started down the hallway toward the front of the building. Halfway down the corridor, a door was propped open. The clanging sound was coming from there. As I passed, I caught a glimpse of the plumber’s work boot clad feet—maybe Mulgrew himself—through the gap. I kept going. There was a glass fronted box in the tiny lobby holding a recently printed sheet of A4 that bore a list of office numbers and the names of the tenants. Only about forty percent of the office spaces were occupied if I could trust the list. Bathmore was on the top floor in 218. 216 and 214 were both unoccupied or at least had no name next to the room numbers. Every other office seemed to be empty. Maybe intentional—if you have a half empty building where people teach music lessons you might as well leave a buffer between occupied spaces.

I climbed the creaky steps. As I neared the top landing I could hear a piano. Someone was hesitantly running through the chords from Satie’s Gymnopedie Number One. I paused on the landing. Cello sounds droned from another room farther down the corridor. As I passed the piano room I heard a muffled voice with a Slavic intonation giving corrections. I stopped outside 216 and listened for a moment. I could hear no sound from inside. It was right next door to 218 where Bathmore had to be. I could hear no music or voices coming from 218 so his student must not have arrived yet if that was indeed what Bathmore was doing here. He could be up to something else. If so, I needed to know what it was. There was no bolt lock on the door to 216, just a cheap knob set. I tried the handle. It was locked. I had a pick gun, a bump key, and the picks I had used to get into Bathmore’s building with me. I decided to try the bump key first. It made some noise but the loud violin from a couple of doors down would help. I inserted it into the key hole, gave it a bit of tension, and realized I needed something to tap it with. There was nothing nearby so I quickly removed my shoe and used the sole. On the second tap, the lock turned. I pulled the door open, verified that the room was empty, and stepped inside.

The space was about twelve by ten feet. It had a warped hardwood floor gray with age and lack of proper care, a window overlooking the roof of the building next door, and nothing else. I set my backpack down quietly and, seating myself on the floor, put my ear against the wall which was shared with Bathmore’s room next door. Eyes closed, I listened. At first, I heard nothing. After a minute, I thought I heard the sound of a mouse scurrying along inside the wall. Another minute passed and then I heard the sound of an occupied chair scraping over wood floor, as if someone had scooted an inch or two. I thought I heard muttering but couldn’t tell if it was real or my imagination. The sounds of violin and piano continued but muffled now. After maybe ten more minutes of the same sort of sounds I heard a sharp voice say “Damn it!” then the sound of a pencil or pen being tossed down hard onto paper. The chair slid, feet paced around the room, then Bathmore sat down again. I imagined him seated at a desk or table. What was he working on? Was he trying to crack the code too? Working from Wolhardt’s notes? I hoped so. That would mean the notes were just in the next room and my job was close to done. I would merely have to wait for him to leave then go in and take them.

He kept me waiting for a while. I spent two more hours sitting on the floor and listening before I finally heard him stand up. A loud zipper opened and closed followed by a curious bang like metal striking metal, then the door opened and Bathmore left the room, slamming the door closed behind him. I had to think fast—follow Bathmore or search his office first. It was an easy choice. I knew I had to search his office, even if it meant losing him. I waited for two minutes, then peeked out into the corridor. It was empty. I repeated the bump key trick on Bathmore’s door and the lock gave way. Inside I found a simple wooden desk, a locking file cabinet, two stools, and a music stand. Early afternoon sun shone through the window and dust motes circled in the shaft of light. There was a sheet of paper, folded in thirds on the desk. It had a piece of tape on it as if it had maybe been taped to the outside of the door. I picked it up. It was from the building management—an official notice of eviction effective at the end of the month. It was June thirtieth so Bathmore’s time was up. I opened the unlocked file cabinet drawers. They were empty. He had taken the notes with him if they had been there at all. I hurried from the building, hoping I could catch up to him.