by Gwen Moffat
‘Redbirds are cardinals,’ intoned Frank with all the weary patience of a man who has been correcting his wife for half a century.
‘Cardinals have crests.’ In her seventies Bett still had good eyesight. ‘Besides, this bird was brighter’n a cardinal.’
Frank peered towards the trees, raised his clip-on shades and squinted against the sun. ‘I’ll be doggoned,’ he breathed.
‘There’s someone up that tree!’ Bett was affronted. ‘Someone spying on us. So why doesn’t he move?’
Indignant and fiercely protective of their own special place, deriving confidence from numbers, they climbed out of the pool and trudged through the sand to the grove. Ahead of them a vermilion flycatcher flitted away to the last cottonwood.
They were too old to be appalled by death but they found the manner of this one intriguing. ‘Suicide,’ someone said heavily.
‘He’s Mexican.’ Bett was staring at the man’s feet. After the first glance they avoided looking at the face, but the feet were in bad shape too. It was Joe – who had ranched for forty years in Montana before retiring to the Sun Belt – who walked round the suspended body and studied the back of the neck and the branch above. ‘That’s wire,’ he said. ‘Barbed wire.’
Incongruous in their scanty clothing, they moved to his side and stared upwards. They had drawn closer to each other and their silence was eloquent.
‘Alive?’ Bett whispered after a while. ‘They hung him alive, with barbed wire?’
‘They burned him first,’ Joe said. ‘Look at them feet.’
Reluctantly they did look, then away, avoiding each other’s eyes and then, as if manipulated by strings, they all turned and looked through the willows and across the river into Mexico.
‘Why did they have to do it on this side?’ Bett protested. ‘He’s Mex, isn’t he? Mexicans have to have done this; Anglos couldn’t have.’
‘Maybe they meant some Anglos to see,’ Joe said. ‘Like, a warning?’
Chapter 1
At two o’clock on a summer’s afternoon the air in Soho was warm even on the shaded side of the street; on the other side it must have been sweltering. Over there a massive black man in dreadlocks was haranguing a trio of Japanese tourists. Two Indian women in saris crossed the road to avoid the group. A turbaned Sikh lingered in the doorway of his mini-market observing the scene with wary contempt.
The woman at the restaurant window turned back to her companion. ‘At one time,’ she observed, ‘you would have said that half the people in Soho were foreigners; now you and I are the only Anglos in sight.’
‘Don’t forget the other customers. Anglos?’
‘Caucasians. Whites.’
‘That’s what I thought you meant. But at one time you would have said “English”. You’re suspended between cultures, Melinda: a displaced person – although more inclined towards the other side of the Atlantic than this one, I think. What are you going to do next?’
‘I’ve only just got off the plane!’ Miss Pink’s tone did indeed owe something to jet lag. Her agent’s expression remained one of polite inquiry. She avoided his eye. ‘I’m going to the Aegean,’ she murmured. ‘I propose to spend the winter in a villa in the sun, and swim in the wine-dark sea.’ At that she beamed, as pleased with her wording as the image it evoked.
‘Byron? He wasn’t under contract – and won’t the Aegean be a trifle cold in winter?’
She sipped her cognac. ‘There are plenty of other places that are congenial in winter.’
‘Such as Arizona, or California.’
‘I’ve just come from the Southwest. I can’t go back.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well – logistics … And I have no money.’ Behind the designer spectacles the eyes sharpened momentarily. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Another travel book? Pioneers – the opening of the West?’
She sighed and her tone was indulgent. ‘If you can get – ten thousand for me, as expenses, not an advance, then I’ll go anywhere that’s warm and dry.’
Martin Jenks’s face didn’t change. ‘That might be arranged.’
Only a person who knew her well would have seen that Miss Pink had stiffened. ‘I was forgetting the kind of vehicle that I would need in the wilderness,’ she said. ‘And of course you would want me to go to a wilderness area.’ He blinked at her. ‘Fifteen thousand,’ she said calmly.
‘Let me make a telephone call.’
‘There’s a catch in this.’
‘No catch, I assure you.’
‘Who’s going to pay fifteen thousand to a writer of gothics whose travel books just break even? That kind of money means something illegal – or dangerous.’
‘Jet lag is clouding your judgement. I’m not going to kill the golden goose.’
‘So who – ?’
‘James Dorset.’
‘Definitely a catch. The Dorset Press has Timothy Argent. He’s a brilliant writer, and he comes over very well on the box: a charmer, in fact.’
‘Certainly brilliant, but they don’t exactly have him.’
‘What? He’s left Dorset?’ He said nothing, watching her work it out. ‘And they want me?’ Her astonishment gave way to speculation. ‘You’re not asking me to compete with him,’ she went on slowly. ‘I know my field.’
‘Oh, no one better, Melinda. I don’t think there’s any suggestion of your competing.’ He became brusque. ‘Go along and have a word with Dorset. I’ll call him and confirm the meeting.’ He wasn’t asking permission but telling her.
As she watched him make his way through the tables she wondered if James Dorset had stayed in his office over the lunch hour or come back early anticipating her agent’s call. Why couldn’t his secretary take it? The book had to be important, if it was a book. Something was important. Fifteen thousand. Her eyes glazed as she visualised her house in Cornwall: like an expensive horse eating its head off without any work to do; a big old house that she hadn’t managed to let over the coming winter, but the bills having to be met all the same: rates, electricity, oil, maintenance, the gardener’s wages, those of her housekeeper, Chrissie Clarke … She had to admit that the Aegean was wishful thinking. There was no money for her to go anywhere; she must remain in damp grey Cornwall through the winter, writing yet another gothic romance – unless she were paid to go elsewhere.
‘Did you mention money?’ she asked as her agent returned.
‘I’ll leave that to you.’
‘It’s your job to draw up the contract!’
‘Of course. I thought you meant expenses. You know better than I what you’ll need in that line. You mentioned fifteen thousand.’
‘I was speaking off the top of my head. There’s something going on here.’
But he was signalling the waiter and affecting not to hear.
‘I’ve been an admirer of yours for years: sound escapist literature, meticulous observation. I’m talking like a reviewer but then you’ll know your own worth.’
Publisher and author exchanged practised smiles as they took each other’s measure. Miss Pink saw a lanky young man in peg-top trousers and a white silk shirt without a tie. His thick blond hair was expertly cut and squeaky clean and he had the mid-Atlantic accent and the ingenuous look cultivated by today’s youthful achievers in the media. She accepted his welcome as small talk rather than flattery but she was pleased that he kept talking. Despite appearances this man was nervous.
As he talked, James Dorset was trying to relate what he’d heard about her to this large, solid figure on the other side of his desk who reminded him of a maiden aunt, a countrywoman, a dog-lover, a lady. She had turned sixty and she looked it; she was plain but she made the best of her good points and she had taste. Her grey hair was as carefully layered as Dorset’s, her spectacles with their thin blue frames matched her soft leather bag, both in a darker shade than her linen dress. The effect of monochrome was relieved by a gorgeous scarf in shades of red and mauve knotted bandana-wise against th
e chill of Dorset’s air conditioning.
They discussed travel, heat, humidity. She told him that she found it easier to accept high temperatures in deserts than a heat wave in London. He registered boyish incredulity. ‘Really! Fascinating. I understand you’ve just come from a desert. How would you like to go back?’
‘That would depend on what you had in mind.’ She blessed her agent for having prepared her.
‘Do you know Tim Argent’s work?’
‘I read The Boer Trekkers but not the Australian book.’
‘So you know what he’s about. Well, last May he set out to follow a wagon train to California.’ He glanced at a pad on his blotter. ‘These people left Council Bluffs – on the Missouri?’ She nodded. ‘They left in 1849. Timothy was to trace their journey all the way to the Pacific and produce a book.’ He indicated a file on his desk on which there was a postcard. ‘He kept in touch with us – not regularly, but I’d say no more than two weeks went by without word. Usually it was postcards, but I had a letter from Council Bluffs, and a phone call when he reached Salt Lake City and before he started across the Great Salt Lake Desert.’ He rolled it off his tongue with relish. ‘He survived that evidently – of course he did; the last postcard was from Gabriel, California.’ He raised an eyebrow but Miss Pink shook her head; she didn’t know Gabriel. ‘That was six weeks ago.’ He handed her the postcard.
It depicted three shabby buildings with false fronts, an expanse of grey dust in the foreground, a beige mountain range in the distance. She turned it over. The small print told her that this was ‘Gabriel, California. Romantic Ghost Town of the Wild West’. The writing of the message was in a rounded scrawl: ‘This isn’t even a wide place in the road. There’s no road – but the Joplins came by. Leaving tomorrow thank God. Dying to get into the mountains. T.A.’ It was dated July 10th. The postmark was July 14th. Miss Pink tried to decipher the postmark. ‘It’s Endeavor,’ Dorset supplied. ‘Our map people worked it out. The difference in dates probably means someone forgot to mail it: either Tim or the person he asked to post it.’
‘Funny place for emigrants to be, so far south. Usually the overlanders entered California further north, going over Donner Pass, or Carson.’
‘They were late and apparently the central passes were blocked so they were working their way down the eastern side of the Sierras trying to find a low pass that was clear of snow. The details are all there in the journal kept by the wife of the chap who led the train: Captain Joplin.’
‘Tim Argent would be following the route with the diary on the seat beside him? What would be his next fixed point after Endeavor – or Gabriel?’
‘It looks as if he intended shortly to be in the Sierras. Endeavor is at the foot of the mountains. One assumes Gabriel is too, although it’s not marked in the Times atlas. We just don’t know.’
‘You haven’t heard from him since you had this card?’
‘That’s right: not for six weeks.’
‘What about friends and relatives, all his professional contacts: accountant, agent and so on? Didn’t he have a clearing house?’
‘We were his clearing house, and the only mail waiting to be sent on is junk stuff and his VAT form. He doesn’t use an agent, and he doesn’t have much to do with his accountant. I did get in touch with the chap and he’s heard nothing at all since Tim left for the States, but then he wouldn’t expect to. He has no relatives, that is, no one close enough to keep in touch with him. His two closest friends are no closer to him than I am really. All the same I did call them but they’ve not heard from him for over six weeks either. Before that they had the odd postcard – with innocuous messages. They don’t attach any significance to his silence.’
‘But you do.’
Dorset passed a hand over his face. He looked unhappy. Miss Pink indicated the postcard. ‘Did you try to find someone on the telephone in Gabriel – or in Endeavor?’
‘No.’ She waited. After a moment he went on: ‘We haven’t approached anyone yet, not even our representative in Los Angeles.’ He aligned his blotter carefully. ‘Timothy had a drink problem. He is – had been dry for two years. He had a lapse between the African and Australian trips, but he underwent treatment and he beat it, again. By last spring he could go to parties, drink soft drinks and even enjoy himself, or at least give the appearance of doing so. I thought this time he’d really beaten it – ’ He trailed off and studied her face.
‘You’re afraid he’s succumbed again, out there in the desert. It’s wild country on this side of the Sierras.’
He started to retract. ‘There could be other explanations. He was driving a Jeep, he was expecting the worst kind of terrain.’
‘But he was accustomed to rough driving! You can’t think he had an accident. And surely if he’d gone on a long drinking bout, even for a week, he’d get in touch with you when he sobered up. Apart from this problem, he has integrity. His writing reads that way.’
‘He has great integrity but then there’s guilt, you see. Shame, humiliation, the sense of disloyalty: letting me down. What might he do then?’
‘In your place I’d expect a letter that was abject, or defiant, or rationalising; I’d expect some kind of communication. Even if he continued to drink, an established author would surely make an attempt to go on with the job, however erratic he might be.’
‘True, but he could have been side tracked. I mean, again. Drink wasn’t the only problem. Well, not to say problem – ’ as her jaw dropped, ‘ – a failing, like an Achilles heel? He was, I mean he is a charmer. Girls adore him.’
‘I see. What age is he, in his mid-forties? Yes, a dangerous time. So you think he’s holed up with a lady, and drinking.’
Dorset spread his hands. ‘They say deserts do strange things to people. And I don’t pretend to understand Tim. There have to be pressures, otherwise why the drink? One gets the impression of a brittle crust. He’s prickly and impulsive … However, there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation which I just haven’t thought of – well, reasonable from his point of view.’ He became incisive. ‘And no way am I going to have strangers trying to trace him and force him back to the fold – let alone the police. He has to be handled with kid gloves or we could lose him. He is our best author, and there’s the future to think of – ’ He checked, then added defiantly: ‘If I were familiar with the country I’d go myself.’
‘You need a private investigator.’
‘That introduces a stranger. And I’d have no rapport with an American in this context, while an English investigator would have no rapport with the country. But you are discreet, knowledgeable, and extremely experienced in tracking people down.’ Miss Pink said nothing. ‘You’d have a perfect cover,’ he persisted, sensing resistance. ‘You’d be travelling with Permelia Joplin’s diary and you too would be writing a book. In fact, if Tim had dropped out, for whatever reason, we would ask you to take over.’
‘To write the book you commissioned him to produce?’
‘We can work something out – but that’s the last resort. I mean – ’ he was flustered, ‘ – it’s the most pessimistic angle, isn’t it? Not that we wouldn’t love a book from you but what I’m saying now is: use a book as a cover. The first thing to do is find out what’s happened to him. We’ll pay all expenses, of course, over and above the rate of a private investigator.’ She waited, politely attentive. ‘Ten thousand and first-class air fares,’ he added smoothly.
‘That would last only a month. I’m going to need a reliable off-road vehicle and they come expensive. Another ten thousand should cover it, with insurance.’
‘Leave us the name of an American bank and I’ll have twenty thousand telexed this afternoon. You shall have the plane ticket tonight. Can you leave tomorrow?’ Before she could protest he added softly: ‘Money eases most problems, you’ll see. You can take Tim’s file but return it to me tomorrow. I don’t think it can tell you anything. Whatever happened, happened out there, and he didn’t see it coming, o
r I’d know about it – I think. I’ll send a copy of Permelia’s diary with the ticket. That you can read on the plane.’
Chapter 2
‘Nights are getting colder. This morning we wakened to find all water froze in the pans. Temp was 20° and husband speaks gravely of mountains ahead. Baby’s cough no better. When I rise to build fire for coffee – we still have coffee – I put her to bed with Mary to keep warm. The cow’s milk has dried now she is yoked to pull waggon with the oxen. The deep sand is hard on the animals. I feed Baby a gruel of steeped corn and boiled water but she is losing weight …’
Miss Pink laid aside Permelia Joplin’s journal and looked below for relief. She saw a white expanse smeared with cloud shadows, and bright crumbs on a dark floor. The coast of Labrador, she assumed, or even further north; the flight was non-stop to San Francisco.
The cabin was light and warm. Lunch had been delicious; champagne had flowed, and as they flew westward, extending the long afternoon, she had dozed, and listened to Mozart, and divided what remained of her attention between Permelia and Timothy Argent’s Australian book: Penal Colony.
For a few moments now she considered the icebergs thirty thousand feet below, then she withdrew her gaze to find the eyes of this other author, the subject of her quest, regarding her from the back of his book jacket. He had been looking directly at the photographer who was, she saw by the credit, a woman. That didn’t surprise her. There was a sensuous light in Argent’s eyes, a sheen on the neck muscles, a warmth to the skin. He was amused, confident, excited; he’s going to take her to bed, thought Miss Pink.
Her head rolled and jerked upright. She opened her eyes to find the sunlight in a different place and this man still observing her but quizzically, she thought, asexually. What question was he asking as her aircraft droned stolidly and with deceptive sloth above the polar icefields? If she knew the answer – her eyelids drooped – she would solve the case. There is no case, said an inner voice, but the word had been introduced, had been fed into the computer-brain.
