by Howard Engel
From my chair at one of those historic round tables, I could see the door that Bill Palmer would use coming into the pub. It was a minor distraction from my view of Jonah Abraham’s lovely daughter who shared my table. At first I thought she was wearing no make-up, but closer inspection showed that it was there, but there with a subtle hand. The waiter in a blue apron hovered near and dropped four draughts and made change from his apron before dancing away to deliver more glasses and bottles in the more sedate of the two beverage rooms. This, the “Ladies and Escorts,” was relatively quiet, the people well-behaved and temperate. On the “Gents” side of the partition fights sometimes broke out, the language was colourful and the consumption up to the limit of the busy plumbing. Anna made a brave show of downing her first draught in one gulp. Her cheeks turned a pretty pink and she tried to smile at me over the rim of her glass. “I think that gesture is restricted to fine wines,” I said.
“Now who’s the snob?” She put her glass down and then began making patterns with the wet rings on the red table top. “Have you found that list for Daddy yet, Benny?” she said, changing her tack before we got into that familiar wrangle again. I put a hand over hers.
“Look, Anna, we’re only going to fight if you keep trying to pump me for information. I’ll tell your father what I’ve learned as soon as I have things figured out. That might take a few more days, it may take a few more weeks. Some cases go on for months. This one won’t. You can tell him that at least. Did you tell him about the parking lot last night?”
“Of course.”
“And he said stay clear of me, right?”
“He … How did you know?”
“Maybe I’ve got the makings of a father myself. Maybe I was listening on the clothesline.”
“I can’t stay long, I’ve got to go home to change.”
“You’re going out?” As soon as I’d asked the question, I guessed the answer, but I let her give me her version.
“Yes, I’m going out. I do occasionally do my social duty, you know.” She looked like she wanted to tease me more but I put a spike in her cannon.
“Have you been back there since he died?”
“No. You think you know everything. Will you be there?”
“I wouldn’t miss it. I’ll even put on my good suit for the occasion.”
“Good. It’ll be nice to see you dressed up.” It was a disarming smile and I was responding to it when Bill Palmer came through the door on the “Gents” side looking for me “What’s the matter?” I didn’t know my face was so responsive.
“It’s just a man looking for me. He’s been digging up information I thought was gong to be useful half an hour ago. Now, it’s just information, but I have to see him anyway.”
Anna got up and tried to peer through to the men’s side. “Before I go, I should give you this.” She dug into a pocket and brought out an envelope with my name on it. “Daddy wanted me to give it to you.” She passed it over. “Another payday so soon,” she said. I ignored the remark. I was learning how to talk to Anna Abraham.
“I’ll look for you tonight,” I said. On her way out, Anna paused at the door, looking back into the “Gents” to see if she could see who it was I was going to talk to next. Palmer must have blended into the crowd. From Anna’s expression I could see that she was leaving the pub disappointed. Even in personal defeat, however, her passage across the room gave delight: patrons lifted their faces from a contemplation of their draught beer. A moment later and she had found the fresh air on James Street. I left a few coins on the round table top and made my way next door.
Palmer was in a narrow passage near the service centre. He was sitting closer to the smell of chips and the sound of beer being opened and poured, but away from the din in the main part of the room. There were already two amber glasses at his table.
“Well,” he said. He was using a trick I thought was my own: you raise your eyebrows, cluck your tongue, say “well” in a certain tone and the confession of guilt follows automatically. I found myself about to explain, then recognized the position and enjoyed the joke of having the tables turned on me by another pro.
“Were you able to dig up your files?” I asked.
“I found a few things. I haven’t been through this stuff in a few years. Not since …”
“Kiriakis was bugging you about Guenyeli.”
“Right. He was pretty obsessed with it. You know what he was like.”
“Did you ever actually meet Bell? I know you talked to him, but …”
“Meet him? Sure. I even went sailing with him a few times while I was trying to get information. He kept a dinghy in Kyrenia. That’s a little harbour on the north coast, a few miles from Nicosia. Tim was crazy about boats, claimed to be a typical Englishman in that.” Bill handed me a sheaf of paper in a faded green file folder. Inside were a dozen pages of onionskin paper. I only glanced at them. I thanked him but he made no sign of hurrying off back to the paper. “He went out to Palestine with the Royal North Surreys. He was regular army, Sandhurst and all that. They bumped him up to a higher rank before he retired. He never won any big decorations, just the regular ones most officers get when they’ve actually been in the field. It’s all in there.”
“What was he like?”
“Oh, Tim was a ‘matey’ soft; liked his pint in private and whisky and soda in public, liked the water, knew a hell of a lot about the island—archaeological stuff. He was the man to see if you were planning a trip. He knew the good roads and the churches to look at. Not that we were doing much sightseeing in those days. I didn’t see much of him after my pieces began to appear. Never much liked him.”
“He was living in Walmer, near Deal, when he died. Where’s that?”
“Close to Dover.”
“Ah, the white cliffs and all that?”
“I guess so. I once got a letter from him from there. He talked about how he and another retired major would walk out to the local of an evening. He said that they’d become characters: both of the same age, both ex-army, both with the same sort of regimental moustaches and both called Tim. ‘Tim and Sir Tim’ they called them as they wound their way home after an evening’s booze-up.”
“Sounds cozy. I suspect they were both unmarried or widowed, right?”
“One of each, I think. But I don’t know which was which. It was a sad letter. The only one he ever wrote me. He was upset because his pal had just died.”
“Heart attack after passing the port?”
“Nothing so traditional: hit and run on the road a halfmile from the pub.”
“Poor old fellow. Here’s to him. Here’s to both of them.” I lifted my glass of beer, then both of us set our glasses down without sipping. I guess we both remembered Guenyeli at the same moment.
It’s funny thinking of people and the things they do. I’ve sat in dozens of courtrooms trying to reconcile the face in the prisoner’s dock with the crimes that have been committed. I read a mystery once about a policeman who tried to sum up faces from history and decide whether they belonged on the bench or in the dock. It seems to me it’s even harder than that. We are all so full of worn-out ideas about villainy. When you look at pictures of Eichmann in his glass booth in Jerusalem, what do you see? All I see is the ordinariness of the face. The sort of face you see on the street every day. If Guenyeli was an evil act—and I haven’t heard the army’s side of the story: maybe it was an important strategic act that helped shorten the emergency, I don’t know—it was executed by Tim Bell, who spent his last years in quiet retirement. Nobody ever branded him a killer. No clubs were closed to him. He got his pint every evening with his old friend and an obit in the Times when his time came. If a neighbour tapped him on the shoulder in that pub and said, “Excuse me, aren’t you the chap who arranged the affair at Guenyeli?” would Bell have kept his mouth shut, changed tables, or quoted the man in the glass booth: “I was just following orders”?
Bill Palmer must have been thinking about Bell too. Neither of
us said anything for a long time. When he began making motions to leave, I promised to take good care of his file and return it in a day or two. “Take your time,” he said. “All of the people concerned are dead now. It’s all water over the falls.”
It was his saying that they were dead that did it. It clicked into place and I understood. Bill must have thought I’d had my limit. In fact I nearly knocked over an empty glass with my elbow. “Bill, when did Sir Tim get hit by that car?”
“What? Why it was in July of 1985.”
“That’s great! That’s wonderful!”
“Well, I bet he didn’t think so!”
After Bill left to return to his word-processor at the Beacon, I opened the fat envelope Anna had given me from Jonah. There were two letters inside: the first was a brief note from Davies, Dickens, Fowler and Butler (signed per Michael Bodkin) stating that George Tallon was executor in the estate of his brother Arthur; the second was neatly typed under the letterhead of Consolidated Galvin. It read:
To the Director of Medical Records
Grantham General Hospital
Dear Miss Rilski,
I would like to authorize Benjamin Cooperman, a licensed private investigator of this city, to have access to all medical and health records relating to the death of my brother, Arthur Tallon, who died on 29 February of this year. As Arthur’s next of kin and as his executor, I am asking you to aid Mr. Cooperman in his research into this matter.
Yours sincerely,
George F. Tallon
Encl.
I vaguely remembered asking Abraham to get me access to Tallon’s medical file. Now, I didn’t know what to do with it. I put the letters back into the envelope and buried the evidence in my inside breast pocket, next to my heart, and hoped that something would occur to me.
I counted the change in my pocket. There wasn’t enough for what I had in mind, so I complimented the waiter on his service and exchanged a two-dollar bill for eight quarters. He made me pay for this courtesy by forcing me to listen to a diatribe levelled at his employer behind the bar. With no sign of burning ears, the bartender kept moving around in his cramped kingdom, filling glasses of amber draught beer and opening imported and domestic bottles. Not a movement was wasted as he danced along the invisible duck-boards.
Back out on James Street, the world looked bright and artificial after the pub. I collected the car and drove to Papertown to make two phone calls. The first could have been made from my office, but I was too excited about the idea behind it to wait until I was back in my own neighbourhood. I placed the call from a pay phone across the street from the Kesagami-Copeland Paper Mills through the overseas operator. She took the details of my credit card and passed me on. The English operator assisted me in getting the officer in charge at the police station in Deal, Kent. It didn’t take long. I talked to the desk sergeant for nearly ten minutes, as our voices bounced from dish to satellite and back again. Harry Armstrong’s local knowledge was nearly inexhaustible.
My second call was both cheaper and shorter. I dialled the number of the paper mill and asked to speak to Alex Favell. It seemed more than a month since I’d first talked to him and not three days. Let’s see, that was after I’d driven Mary MacCulloch to the golf club and allowed myself to drink while on duty. This time my approach was more cautious. Favell or somebody—it could be any of the people I’d run into since Monday—was cooking up trouble for me, just enough to interfere with the free and open way in which I’ve been able to operate in this town. He might be arranging for me to buy my second set of tires in two days. He might be having a word with a friendly alderman, or maybe the mayor himself. Savas warned me that he’d had complaints about me and my unprofessional manners and practices. Gilbert and Sullivan were right about policemen. Poor Savas is always getting it in the neck about me. All he had to do to put a permanent wrench in my spokes was to send a nasty note to the Registrar of Private Investigators, care of the Provincial Police. Pa would like that, of course. I could then find a real career, like helping my cousin Melvyn search titles and serve summonses and subpoenas. I think I’d rather set sail in a rowboat and hire on to assist Harry Armstrong in Kent.
“Hello?” It was Alex Favell at last.
“Mr. Favell, it’s Benny Cooperman again. I’d like to talk to you.” It was just five o’clock. I was hoping to irritate him enough to expand my knowledge of the puzzle. I wasn’t sure how he might do it, but I hoped that I would be ready for him.
“You! Cooperman. I have nothing further to say to you. Why don’t you try to get honest employment, Mr. Cooperman? Why don’t you get off my back? I can’t talk. I’ve an appointment and I’m just leaving. I’ve no time for you. Goodbye!” The phone went dead with a loud click in my ear. The voice that had suddenly vanished from the other end recalled to me that earlier meeting. I could see his face, the bald dome several inches above my own head. He worried me. People who live at the edge of their tempers worry me. Favell either lived a very restricted life or he was angry a good deal of his time.
And there he was. Just as I’d hoped, right on time. I’d made my call from a booth with a good view of the front door of the executive entrance of the paper mill. He came out puffing like he’d just run up three flights of stairs and the ladder of success. His Lincoln was in the most preferred parking space. It came with a salute and bow from the parking attendant. It was either a bow or he was making sure it was Favell who was driving off in the familiar car.
It wasn’t hard following Favell’s Lincoln from Davis Road to the highway. He was a steady driver; it almost seemed that he was a chauffeur driving on somebody else’s instructions: “Forty-five miles an hour, James, and please raise the temperature to sixty-five. Vents open, please.” I kept well to the rear, letting some rush-hour Fords and GMs come between us. He turned off at the tunnel road and I followed him under the Welland Canal and up again into the light on the other side. After another mile, he took the right lane that took him smoothly to Highway 406 heading north. I was still behind him as he raised his speed to the limit when he went over the Glendale Avenue bridge. Now the six-lane road dipped into the ravine of the old canal where it entered Grantham through a back door. Quickly we curved around the backs of the stores along St. Andrew Street, then found ourselves already well up Ontario and crossing the old canal near Welland Vale. Here, Favell abandoned the 406 and returned to Ontario Street for the drive through the industrial confusion before reaching the QEW, the Toronto highway. I couldn’t figure out why he chose the crowded two-lane road at rush-hour over the six-lane freeway, until he pulled into a service station for a fill-up. I took a right turn at the first opportunity and found myself at a family restaurant offering coffee with artificial cream and no doubt pancakes and waffles with artificial maple syrup. I didn’t have time to order either of these, but I did pick up a fresh pack of Player’s Medium. I was back in the car with my motor running when the Lincoln went by me with its windshield freshly washed and the fuel supply restored.
Favell took a left turn at the Embassy, a hotel and pub that featured the same country music that sometimes played the City House. As I came around the corner, I recognized some of the names on the crooked sign. Favell took the road over the old canal bridges into Port Richmond with its views of lighthouses and piers. The boats in the marina were tucked under canvas where they would stay for another few weeks before the summer would claim them. Marie’s Lobster Restaurant had its sign illuminated already. I read the notice that said the place would be closed on Good Friday. I guess that was coming up on the morrow. I was glad I wasn’t in Dublin. Frank Bushmill had often told me what a fearsome place Dublin is on Good Friday. “A man could starve to death,” he’d said. “Everything’s closed up tighter than a Kerryman at a wake.” Favell turned from Canal Street into Lock and went up the hill. Traffic was thinner here, so I didn’t get too close. I was glad of that, because in a moment his brakes lit up and the car came to rest at the curb near the intersection of Lock and Main. I
slipped over to the curb as well and turned off the motor.
In my rear-view mirror, I could see the harbour below me and part of the remaining section of Lock One of the old canal. In the fading light it looked rather forlorn and neglected. Ahead of me, Favell was looking up and down the street to see if he’d been followed. I was getting more and more interested all the time. So were the seagulls, which slid down to the sidewalk looking for crumbs, acting like they were pigeons. Favell walked up the hill another four or five houses and then turned in to a pebbledashed bungalow with green trim around the windows and a screen door that went back to those pre-war days when everything cost five cents and there was no sales tax. I pulled out a sketching pad and a hat from the back seat of the Olds and got out. Working the stiffness out of my legs, I walked down to the waterfront. I sat on an ancient bollard from where I could see what was going on up the hill and attract little attention. The streets were as bare as the marina was of aluminum masts riding at anchor. A character reeled out of the beverage room in the Mansion House at the end of Canal Street. He ignored me and the rest of creation until he came to rest in some bushes behind an abandoned freight shed. Here he urinated loudly against the galvanized siding. Nobody noticed him either.
Favell was inside the house up the street for forty-five minutes by my watch and three lame attempts to render the yacht club across the harbour. When the door opened and he came down the steps, I was ready to follow him again, and I would have, except for the fact that the woman in the silk dressing gown who followed him out onto the porch waving goodbye was Mary MacCulloch. Favell got into his car and drove off, Mary watched him go and returned to the house. I stayed put. I smoked a row of cigarettes, waiting with my eyes fixed most of the time on the quiet bungalow up the hill.
