by Gwen Moffat
She returned to the ‘road’ and continued west, following the route which had in the past carried most traffic. She passed junctions and forks, sometimes making wild guesses as to which was the major fork. She had stopped marking her map; she was going in the right direction and the way seemed simple enough, even safe once the climb to Breakneck Pass had been negotiated. Admittedly the road would be a quagmire in the wet, but this afternoon there were only a few fair-weather clouds above the divide. The night would be fine.
She came to a belt of lodgepole pines through which the road climbed to a crest where a few old junipers grew, scarred by lightning but still alive. There was a saddle and the track dipped to run through alpine meadows where marmots lolloped over scree below a big rock tower. And now, westward, the Pacific slope declined in dark folds to a confusion of foothills. Beyond them lay the great central valley of California, full of hazy sunshine.
The old passion came surging over her: the need to stop and watch the sun set beyond the coastal ranges, but she resisted the temptation; she hadn’t come here to indulge herself among sunsets and the creatures of the night. She picked up the road map to try to discover which town Argent would have come down to back in July, some place where she might find a person who remembered him and his mysterious companion, a person more inclined to talk than the inhabitants of Dogtown.
All routes appeared to converge on a place called Credit, and they converged because this slope was in the process of being felled almost to the timber line. Her track had become a logging road and as she navigated bends above awesome drops she was for once grateful for clear felling; she could see if trucks were coming up. She couldn’t believe that heavy wagons climbed this mountain, would have thought that logs were lifted out by helicopters, until she passed a stationary and loaded vehicle, evidently left for the night. It was four o’clock and operations must be over for the day. She relaxed – as much as she could on that road; at least she would have a clear run to the bottom.
The town of Credit was still in the hills: a small straggling resort by a lake in the pine woods, but she was less concerned with its aesthetic properties than its amenities. There were two or three motels, a gas station, stores, even a police presence. A black and white car stood outside a timbered cabin.
The receptionist in the first motel was a slim Vietnamese dressed like a high-class courtesan and moving like a model. Behind her counter sat a little brown man whose freshly laundered shirt hung in folds from skeletal shoulders.
The girl was polite but noncommittal. No, they didn’t have many English people staying, and it was difficult to tell the difference anyway. Addresses were no help; visitors gave false ones. When Miss Pink suggested that this might be, at the least, illegal, the girl merely raised her exquisite eyebrows at such naïveté. The old man’s eyes remained fixed on a corner of the counter as if he were lost in his memories: listening to the sounds of a jungle or of an Asian street.
‘There is a colleague ahead of me,’ Miss Pink said: ‘a friend. He came through about two months ago, with a lady. They were in a pale blue Jeep.’
‘Not here. Maybe another motel.’
But no one at the other motels or the restaurant had seen an English couple in a pale blue Jeep. Miss Pink spent the night at the place run by the Vietnamese and in the morning she tried the gas station but without much hope. An experienced traveller would have started over the Sierras with a full tank and wouldn’t need to top up until he reached the central valley where petrol was cheap. But there was just a chance that he stopped to talk, and a gas-pump attendant is an accessible contact.
The woman on the pumps was a spinster in her forties, and inclined to gossip, but she’d seen neither Argent nor his vehicle. Miss Pink was more frank now, no longer disguising the fact that she had a specific interest in the author although she kept quiet about his disappearance, and she did embroider her story. This morning she dropped hints that she was looking at the Joplin Trail from the point of view of a television writer, the implication being that she had a professional connection with Argent.
‘So you’re working on a production together.’ Having arrived at this conclusion the woman became wary. ‘Why don’t he keep in touch with you then?’
‘It’s I who am out of touch,’ Miss Pink said smoothly. ‘Of course, we phone our clearing houses, but if they don’t inter-communicate – if only one computer is down – and with the time differential … London is eight hours ahead –’ She trailed off.
The attendant nodded sagely at this rigmarole. ‘I’m writing a book too,’ she said.
‘Good.’ Miss Pink was brisk. ‘Everyone should write a book. All that’s needed is application. So I go on to the next town. They had to stop somewhere for gas.’
‘They?’
‘He had an assistant, a kind of PA: secretary, driver, general dogsbody – gopher, you’d call it. He engaged her here but she was English.’
‘An English girl?’ There was a flicker of fear quickly swamped by excitement. The woman sensed drama. ‘What did she look like?’
‘I never met her. I haven’t seen Mr Argent since he left England.’
‘She was black?’
‘He didn’t say –’
‘She was very light-skinned, but she was black all the same – I mean, she wasn’t white.’
‘So you did meet them.’
The woman started to say something then checked. She avoided Miss Pink’s eye and looked down the road. ‘I never met her, I never saw either one of them.’ Her expression was eager again. ‘I know who can help you though. The police.’
‘I see. They called at the police station.’
‘No. Wait while I see if Floyd Bailey’s home. He’s the sheriff’s deputy. He’ll want to talk to you.’
⋆
The deputy was very large and very neat with an overblown face and a toothbrush moustache. Miss Pink had pulled away from the pumps and parked in the shade of an oak at the side of the forecourt. The police car nosed in beside the Cherokee and the driver emerged ponderously, introducing himself. She noted that after only a few hours in the resort, her vehicle was already known to him.
He didn’t comment on her story concerning her link with Argent but he was interested. He stopped her when she mentioned the author’s assistant.
‘What was her name?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t know he’d engaged an assistant until someone mentioned it to me in Dogtown.’
He looked sceptical. ‘Why “assistant”? Why not just someone he picked up on the road?’
She wasn’t put out. ‘Because he is a serious man, a professional. He’s more likely to join up with someone who would help him with his research than to waste time on – ’ She shrugged and left it there.
‘On a hooker – if you’ll forgive the expression.’
‘Good gracious –’ and she was surprised at her own thought, ‘– you mean she worked that road, between Endeavor and Credit?’
If she was surprised, he was amazed. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘We seem to be flying off at cross-purposes. I thought you implied it. What makes you say she was a – By “hooker” I take it you mean a prostitute?’
‘I do, ma’am.’ He was firm. ‘And I’m saying she was a hooker because she behaved like one. She took one of the loggers for all he’d got, and once they reached Bakersfield she split.’
‘A logger operating on that road?’ She glanced at the slope above the town.
‘Right. He picked her up on the top – no, she picked him up. She was on foot! She’d been with some guy – your friend, would that be? – and he’d hit a deer and put it in the back of the Jeep, she said. Then they’d had a fight because she’d got blood on her and she said the carcass was no good to them and it was poaching anyways, and he threw her out of the Jeep, told her to walk.’
‘Where did all this happen?’
‘Somewhere on top.’ He jerked his head at the skyline. ‘She spent the night
up there, in a logging rig. Forced the window with a coat hanger. When the guy arrived next morning to bring his load down, she came with him and – er –’ he coughed, ‘– spent some time with him. He gave her all the cash he had on him.’
‘What happened to Argent – the man who was with her originally?’
‘Well, she wouldn’t know, would she?’
‘How did you discover all this?’
‘It got around, and I take some of my meals at the same place the loggers do, so I talked to the guy who picked her up. I was interested in that blood on her – what she said were deer blood.’
‘Yes, you would be. Did she say where she was going?’
‘She told him she wanted to go to San Francisco, catch a flight back to Europe, but Bakersfield’s a sight nearer LA, and with those looks LA’s a more likely bet.’
‘You met her yourself?’
‘No, it was what this guy told me. He said she was sensational. Did you know she wasn’t white? Not completely. She told him she was from Paris, France: Algerian mother – that’s African – white father. He said she was sorta golden with long black hair and eyes like asters.’
In the pause he fidgeted under Miss Pink’s scrutiny. ‘Well, that’s what he said,’ he mumbled, then suddenly, defiantly: ‘So what happened to your friend, ma’am? All that blood.’
‘There was a lot?’
‘There had to be originally. There wasn’t none on her shirt and only a bit on her jeans. But there was blood: on her –’ he gestured, his meaty hands smoothing his barrel chest and waist, ‘– camisole?’ he ventured.
‘You mean lingerie, underwear?’
‘Right. The blood had soaked through: here.’ He placed a hand on his chest. ‘Nothing on her shirt, she’d changed that. She was carrying stuff in plastic bags.’
‘Travelling without a suitcase? Not even a proper bag?’
‘She didn’t even carry a purse. I asked all those questions – because of the blood. I didn’t like that. And where’s your man now, this colleague of yours?’
‘I suppose we are talking about the same girl. What name did she give?’
‘You said you didn’t know the name. This one calls herself Fay. Just that, no last name. She didn’t say much about herself and none of it need have been true, like the name. But she was a coloured girl and she wasn’t American. Like I said, this guy, this logger, he took a shine to her and he wasn’t interested in what happened before they met. Anyways, you can’t talk much in one of them trucks, they just kept to essentials. But I’ll tell you one thing, ma’am: your friend never come down here, not with a deer in the back. He wouldn’t risk it; season don’t start for another coupla weeks. And maybe it wasn’t a deer at all, maybe he beat her up. Another reason for him not coming down this way where she could have reported it.’
‘A good point.’ She was thinking that Timothy Argent would never have thrown a woman out in the wilderness and left her to walk to civilisation. The whole story was completely out of character. She saw no reason to doubt the deputy’s veracity but every reason to doubt that of the girl who called herself Fay.
‘How long ago did this happen?’ she asked.
‘About two months back.’
She nodded. ‘He didn’t return to Dogtown. Is there another way out of the forest? There’s a whole system of tracks on top.’
‘I know, but there’s only the two ways in and out; that is, with a vehicle. But he didn’t have to go back to Dogtown, he coulda gone past to the highway and no one any the wiser.’
‘Or he could have broken down and come out this side on foot without anyone noticing him go through the town, particularly at night.’
‘Then he’d have to find a wrecker, go up and salvage his Jeep, and I would have heard about it. But if you crash up there, lady, most people goes over with their vehicle.’
‘I can believe that. Then how did the girl escape?’
‘Maybe he went off the road after they separated. He’d be in a rage, drunk perhaps, not caring where he was going – ’ He regarded her doubtfully, testing the theory.
‘I’d like to know,’ she said, then, absently: ‘After all, we are collaborators – more or less. Where can I find this logger?’
‘In Alaska. He got a job with an oil company and left two weeks ago. Are you reporting your friend missing, ma’am?’
She hesitated. There was the blood on the girl – but that was hearsay, not fact, and to alert the authorities when Argent might be in hiding for some personal reason was, to say the least, a breach of etiquette. ‘Not at this stage,’ she said. ‘I’ll go back and make some more enquiries.’
He was sympathetic. ‘Suppose the girl’s story was true, she never said nothing about being with him, just a guy, she said. She could have left your friend some time before, taken up with someone else, and that guy come down safe, this side or the other.’
She frowned, her mind racing. He could be right, and suppose Argent had met with an accident two months ago, had crashed his Jeep? No action of the emergency services: sheriff, Search and Rescue helicopter, tracker dogs, could save him after such an interval, and nights were bitter at nine thousand feet. But her job wasn’t over by any means; she had to find out what had happened.
There were two courses open to her. One was to return to Dogtown by way of Breakneck Pass – and look for signs of a vehicle having gone over the edge; the other was to find the girl – and that seemed impossible. There was no indication of which way she had gone after Bakersfield: Los Angeles, San Francisco or Europe. Nothing was known about her other than what she had seen fit to tell the logger. However, people in Dogtown had knowledge of her. Hiram Wolf at the gas station had been quite frank – well, fairly frank – and although the caretaker of the house in Danger Canyon had protested that he knew nothing, he protested too much. The others: the Semples, the men at the Red Queen, Rose Baggott at the hotel, none of these had mentioned the girl, although they had all met Argent. What were they concealing, and why?
She would go back then, but when she left Dogtown she’d given no definite indication that she would return. She needed a reason and, having thought about it and calculated that the time in London was now six in the evening, she returned to the motel where she had spent the night and asked the pretty Vietnamese girl for the use of the office telephone.
She dialled her agent’s home number. The line was very clear, they both remarked on it. After the ritual courtesies he waited for her to state her business. ‘I’m calling from the office of a motel,’ she said, ‘just to report progress. The fieldwork’s turning out to be complicated; there are several canyons involved and the trail could have gone up any one of them. I’ve completed one route without being any the wiser – I mean, there are no marks, no wagon ruts; so now I’m going back to the east side to try the other canyons. The problem is this lack of tangible and visible evidence. There’s plenty of hearsay.’
‘Is there indeed.’
‘Everyone knows which way our people went –’ she gave a deprecating little laugh, ‘– and everyone disagrees. I see I’ll have to go over the ground with a fine tooth comb.’
‘I suppose –’ he was feeling his way, ‘– it’s necessary to go back? I mean, they crossed the mountains, didn’t they?’
‘The Sierras are the grand climax to the story.’ He would note that she hadn’t answered his question, should draw the conclusion that she’d traced Argent only as far as the mountains. ‘My book has to have a design,’ she said meaningly, then: ‘Don’t you agree?’
‘Of course.’ A fractional pause. ‘How is the book coming on?’
‘Excellent. It’s magnificent country. I’m enjoying it so much I forget to take the photographs – which is another reason for going back. The photographs are necessary?’
‘Absolutely essential.’ Now he knew what was required. ‘James was in touch only yesterday, said the book has to be lavishly illustrated –’
‘I had the right idea. Did he have any
other instructions for me? Like one should send postcards back periodically? I mean, people do.’
‘No, no postcards.’ (Still no word from Argent.) ‘Just keep on as you’re going would be the message. Are you all right? Anything we can do to – ease the way from this end?’
‘Not at the moment. You’ve given me quite enough, with the instructions about the illustrations. I’m starting back to Dogtown now and I’ll call again when I can telephone in comfort. I’m afraid the motel on the other side doesn’t have phones in the rooms. A bit primitive actually.’
‘There’s nothing you need?’ (Why did you phone?)
‘I just called to give a progress report and let people know what I was about.’ (Meaning people at this end; this is part of my cover.)
‘I see. I’ll tell James. Anything else?’ A pause. ‘Are you still there?’
‘I can’t think of anything,’ she said truthfully. She could think of no way to convey to him the information that Argent had not been travelling alone when he disappeared.
Chapter 6
At the first bend on the return journey Miss Pink realised that it was going to be impossible to study the verges and watch for oncoming traffic at the same time. Moreover a driver could go over the edge anywhere: lighting a cigarette on a straight stretch for instance; someone had said that Argent was smoking heavily. That brought fire to mind. A falling vehicle would have exploded and the resulting fire would have been visible for miles – except on the high ground between the two escarpments. But how could he have fallen off the road up there, an experienced traveller like Argent? He might have been lost, could have mired the Jeep in a bog – but this man would then have walked out, using a compass. All the same, the possibility of anyone being lost on top deterred her from leaving the main trail herself. She compromised, driving slowly across the range, keeping a weather eye open for signs of a vehicle having left the road precipitately, watching for a pale gleam through trees, a pale blue gleam, but she felt that the chance of finding any trace of him on the high ground was increasingly remote. Grimly she began to look forward to Dogtown where information was surely available once she hit on the correct method of extracting it.
