Fine Lines

Chapter Seventeen

There was no way I could stay at home for the rest of that evening. I had to get out. More specifically, I had to go to Anna’s. The thought of what might be contained in Marty’s notes, the possibility that he might have made some reference to Zeppo in them, made it impossible for me to idly sit in and wait. Only minutes after Zeppo had left, I was in my car and driving to her flat.

She was not expecting me. But she had been angry and upset after the policemen’s visit, which gave me an excuse to see how she was. I had no idea if she would even be home, but I was willing to risk a wasted journey. Anything was better than sitting alone, running through permutations of discovery.

There was a light on in her window. I felt relieved, then anxious. I told myself it was too soon for her to know anything, but the possibility was enough to make my heart thud as I climbed the steps to her flat. I tried to prepare myself, rehearsing how best to react, and rang the doorbell. I waited as footsteps came towards the door. Then Anna opened it.

I saw at once that something was wrong. Her face was set, closed as stone. She did not even seem surprised to see me.

“Hello,” I said, blustering past my doubts. “I thought I’d call and see how you were.”

“I’m all right, thanks.” Her voice was carefully guarded. She stood back. “Come in. Marty’s father’s here.”

She held my eyes with hers as she spoke, and I immediately understood the reason for her mood. A weight was lifted from me.

“Shall I go?” I asked, almost whispering.

“No, it’s all right. I don’t think he’s staying much longer.” She made no attempt to lower her voice. I raised my eyebrows, questioningly Her lips tightened and she gave a short, disgusted shake of her head as she turned away.

I closed the door and followed her into the lounge. Westerman was standing in the centre of the room with his coat on. His mouth was even more pinched than usual. The open end of their quarrel gaped obviously.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to barge in,” I said to him. “I had no idea you were here.”

“Mr. Westerman just called around to let me know he’s going back to America tomorrow,” Anna said. Westerman’s lips pinched a little more.

I looked at him enquiringly. “Really? I thought you were going to stay another week?”

Anna cut in before he could answer. “He was. But now he’s spoken to the police, he’s decided to leave early.”

He shot her a quick, furious look, before addressing himself to some indeterminate point between us. “I can’t see any point in wasting any more time. As far as I’m concerned, I know all I need to. Or want to.”

“Mr. Westerman wasn’t happy to hear that Marty’s been to gay nightclubs.” Anna was speaking to me, but never took her eyes off him. He turned and looked directly at her.

“I doubt any father would be pleased to learn his son is a homosexual.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Anna erupted, “How many more times? Marty’s not homosexual! He went there as part of his research, that’s all!”

Westerman snorted. “Dress it up however you like, I can only see one reason for anyone going to those sort of places. You might be able to ignore that, but I certainly can’t.”

“Ignore what? There’s nothing to ignore! And even if there was, would it really matter? He’s still missing, isn’t he? That’s what’s important!”

“It might be to you, but it certainly isn’t to me. Not any more. If he’s going to mix with people like that, he can count without my help to get out of any trouble he’s got himself into.” Westerman’s mouth twitched. “If I’d known about this I would never have come here in the first place. I’ve made an effort to accept the things he’s done in the past, but this...!” He shook his head, mutely outraged.

“What are you talking about, “got himself into”?” Anna demanded. “You don’t know what’s happened to him! And what “things” has he done in the past? You mean like studying anthropology instead of selling toilet bowls? Like coming here instead of going to an American university? Is that what you call having a wayward son?”

“I find your attitude offensive.”

“Why? Because it’s not as narrow-minded as yours? How can you be so bloody pompous about this?” She stopped herself. “Listen. For the last time, Marty’s not homosexual. I don’t know where he is, or what’s happened to him, but I know it’s nothing to do with that. He went to gay clubs as part of his research, that’s all. If you don’t believe me, ask the university.”

It was like a reprise of her conversation with the police. With as much success.

“I’m afraid I don’t put much store in the opinion of English intellectuals,” Westerman said. “For all I know they probably encourage associating with moral degenerates themselves.”

Anna shook her head, violently. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this! Marty’s missing! You can’t just give up on him!”

“I can do whatever I see fit. I’ve spent time and money coming over here to try and find him, only to find out he’s been enjoying the company of deviants! It’s obvious to me now why he decided to disappear, and if he’d rather associate with... with pederasts than with decent people, then he can stay with them until he rots as far as I’m concerned!”

“Make your mind up!” Anna was shouting now. “A few days ago it was my fault. Now he’s run away because he’s come out of the closet! Which is it?”

“I’m not prepared to discuss this any further.” He made as if to leave. Anna moved in front of him.

“Well, you bloody should! If you pack up and go home, the police are going to give up as well, aren’t they? He’s your son for God’s sake! Does it matter what he did or who he mixed with?”

Westerman looked at her with an expression of triumph. “Obviously not to you, but I’m glad to say some people at least still have some sense of moral values.”

“Moral values?” Anna looked incredulous. “How can you talk about morals when you’re prepared to abandon him like this? What’s moral about that?”

“A damn sight more than mixing with perverts! But since you clearly don’t mind that, I doubt very much that you’ll be able to understand what I’m talking about.”

“I understand, all right, but I just can’t believe you mean it! He’s your son!” She repeated the fact as though Westerman had overlooked it. He gave a brittle shake of his head.

“Not any more.”

Anna closed her eyes, then appealed to me in desperation. “Donald, did Marty ever strike you as either a homosexual or a “deviant”?”

“No, not I began but Westerman interrupted as though I was not there.

“I’ve no more to say on the subject. You might like to know I intend to contact the police and embassy and let them know my reasons for leaving.”

“Why?” Anna cried. “Can’t you at least let them make up their own minds?”

“I’m sure they will. But if Marty’s going to disgrace himself, I want to make it quite clear to them I don’t condone it.”

“Disgrace himself?” Anna began, but Westerman was already moving to the door. I felt I had to say something.

“I must say I think you’re being completely unreasonable!”

He did not even look at me. “I don’t. This sort of decadence might be acceptable in your country, but it’s not in mine, thank God. And I’d thank you to stay out of this. I’ve no interest in discussing my actions with an ageing dilettante.”

I was still spluttering as he walked past me into the kitchen. Anna went after him.

“I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure meeting you,” she said. “But I’d be lying, and one hypocrite in a room’s enough.” She opened the front door and stared at him, coolly. “Goodbye, Mr. Westerman.”

Westerman hesitated, and seemed on the point of saying something else. Then he turned and left without another word.

Anna shut the door, not quite slamming it. She came back into the lounge. Neither of us spoke. She stood beside the table, staring into space. I realised I was shaking.

“Of all the... the insufferable... swine!” It was a woefully inadequate response, but anger and humiliation had robbed me of a more potent vocabulary. I avoided looking at her.

Anna said nothing. Her silence began to make me feel uncomfortable. I risked a glance. Her eyes were shiny with tears, but she held herself perfectly still. I searched for something to say, but once again found nothing.

“The bastard!” The words came without warning. Her face was twitching with the effort of holding back from crying, out of anger as much as anything else. “The cold-hearted fucking bastard!”

I was shocked at her language. She realised I was staring at her, and quickly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Donald, but... Christ, how can he? His own son! Doesn’t he care?”

“Apparently not.”

“How can he be so... so sanctimonious about it? He’s so bloody self-righteous! Doesn’t he realise what he sounds like? And the way he insulted you. There was no excuse for that. Yet he still acted as though we’d done something wrong!”

“Another example of the American disease of believing anything they do is right, because they’re American,” I said, belatedly finding my tongue now the man had left.

“Marty’s American, and he’s not like that.”

It was not a reprimand, but I hurriedly qualified my statement all the same. “No, I know. I daresay a lot of Americans aren’t. It’s just bigots like his father that give the country a bad name.” I still felt I had to say something more to re-establish myself. “I’m not sure who he hates the most, the English or homosexuals. The man’s clearly unbalanced.”

Anna showed no sign of hearing me. “Why has he got to make such a big issue out of going? If it upsets him that much, why doesn’t he just go? Why has he got to make a point of telling the police his reasons? It was hard enough convincing them to take it seriously in the first place. If they think Marty’s own father’s convinced he’s run off because he’s gay, they won’t even try any more.”

“I wouldn’t worry about him influencing them. I’m sure they’re capable of seeing Marty’s father for what he is.” I was sure of no such thing. Which made it all the easier to say.

Anna made no comment. Then she smiled tiredly across at me. “I bet you love coming here, don’t you? Never a dull moment.”

“I do seem to pick my moments to call, don’t I?” I said, and with sudden vertigo remembered the reason for my visit. Anger at Westerman had driven it out of my mind. My tension returned.

“I don’t know about you, but I feel like a drink,” Anna said. “What would you like?”

I clutched at the offer. “A brandy, if you have one. If not whisky will be fine.”

I waited while she poured the drinks and handed me a glass. I cleared my throat. “Have the police called for Marty’s notes yet?”

“No, not yet.” She sat down and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know what they expect to find, anyway. Love letters between him and another man, or something. If they do, they’ll be disappointed. There’s nothing like that in them.”

It sounded more like an assertion than an opinion. I forced myself to wait until I had taken a drink before I asked, “Have you had a look yourself?”

“Only at the file he left here, not the ones at the university.”

“And there was nothing in it?”

“No, but I never expected there to be. Just notes, like you’d expect.”

I cleared my throat again. “Is the one here recent?”

She nodded. “It’s got the notes he was working on when he disappeared. I know because he always dates everything, and the last date is the day before I came back from Amsterdam.”

I tried to quell my sudden excitement. “So they don’t give any clues?”

“No, nothing. I never thought they would. I don’t know why he left, but it certainly wasn’t anything to do with him going to gay clubs. He hadn’t been for weeks, anyway. And if he’d been planning to go while I was away, he would have told me.” She shrugged. “I don’t suppose that’ll make any difference to the police, though. It’s a nice, handy little explanation for them. Particularly when his own father lets them know what he thinks.”

I said something vaguely reassuring, but I cannot remember what. I was no longer paying attention. All I could think was that Marty had been as good as his word. Unless there was some record of his meeting with Zeppo in his notes at university, which was unlikely, he had kept it a secret. The only danger that remained was if someone remembered seeing them at the nightclub. That was a possibility, but somehow I could not make myself feel too concerned about it. I sensed that the crisis point had been reached and passed, and suddenly the tension ebbed out of me. Without warning, I yawned.

“I’m sorry,” I said through it. “Excuse me.”

“You must be tired.”

“I am, rather. It’s been a long day.” One of the longest I had known, actually. Now it was over, reaction had left me exhausted. Yawning again, I made my excuses and left. It was all I could do to stay awake long enough to drive home. I considered calling Zeppo to tell him the good news about Marty’s father, but decided that could wait. It would serve him right to sweat a little. By half-past nine I was in bed.

It was the best night’s sleep I had had in weeks.

Westerman left the next morning, as he had said he would. Anna tried telephoning him at his hotel, presumably in the desperate hope of making him change his mind. But he had already checked out.

She contacted the police. Again, as promised, Marty’s father had notified them that he was leaving, and when Anna pressed they admitted he had also made his views on the situation clear. They assured her that the investigation would be unaffected, but she was not convinced.

“I suppose they’ll still keep it open, or on file, or whatever they do,” she said. “But I can’t see them worrying about it too much. As far as they’re concerned now, Marty’s just another gay who’s come out of the closet and left his girlfriend.”

I made reassuring noises, but of course she was right. What had been half-hearted to begin with now seemed almost certain to become even more perfunctory.

Once again, there was a sort of lull. If the police were doing anything, it failed to produce any further news. Then, a week after Westerman had left, Anna was late again. I had come to recognise that as almost invariably meaning something had happened, and a small twist of anxiety began to eat at my confidence. It flared when I saw her face as she walked in.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

She did not look at me. “Marty’s bank statement came this morning.” She began to speak; stopped, as though the words hurt her. “Nothing’s been taken out of his account since before he disappeared.”

She stood there without moving, head hung slightly, still with her coat on and her bag slung over one shoulder. She did not seem to know what to do with herself.

I tried to think of the correct thing to say. “Does he have another account anywhere?”

She shook her head.

“Well, perhaps he drew enough money out to last him for a while.”

Anna still did not look at me. I had the impression these were all points she had already considered and dismissed. “The last withdrawal was for a hundred pounds. He couldn’t still be living on that.”

I wished I had saved the chequebook and card. Zeppo could have used them in supermarkets, or anywhere else anonymous and busy, to give the impression that Marty was still in circulation. But it was too late now. And it would have been a further risk.

“Have you told the police?”

“I phoned them before I came here. They said the same as you, that he might have another account. When I told them he hadn’t, they said he might have one I didn’t know about. But I know he hasn’t. All his money’s in that one.”

“Did you tell them that?”

She nodded. “They said he could have got a job somewhere by now, and that if he didn’t want anyone to know where he was, he wouldn’t risk writing cheques on his old account anyway.” She looked lost and helpless. “They didn’t seem to think it was anything worth worrying about.”

“They were probably only trying to reassure you.”

She looked at me, miserably. “I don’t want reassuring. I’m not stupid. I just want to know that someone apart from me wants to find him.”

I knew what she wanted me to do, and shied away from it. I thought I was safely past that sort of involvement. Then I looked at her face, and knew there was no avoiding it.

“Would you like me to talk to the police?” I asked. “I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but I’ll try, if you want me to.”

Her expression became instantly grateful. “Would you mind? After what Marty’s father said to them, I know they won’t take much notice of me. But they might listen to you.”

There was no reason why they should, but I smiled. “I can only try, can’t I?”

I telephoned from the office, while Anna waited downstairs. I asked for the detective inspector who had been to the gallery: the telephone gave a series of clicks, then I was connected.

“Inspector Lindsey.”

“My name’s Donald Ramsey. You came to my gallery last week to speak to my assistant, Anna Palmer, about her missing boyfriend. Marty Westerman. An American.”

“Yes?” Waiting for me to get to the point. I hurried on.

“She received a bank statement this morning from her boyfriend’s account, and it appears that the last withdrawal was made several days before he disappeared. Since then nothing’s been taken out. Obviously, Miss Palmer is quite upset.”

“Just a second.” Something was put over the receiver, muffling it. I waited. It was taken off “Yes, I’m sorry. Go on.”

A little disconcerted, I searched for my thread. “As I was saying, Miss Palmer’s upset about this because she thinks it might mean that...” The words caught. “Well, she’s worried that it means something’s happened to him.”

“She’s already let us know about this, hasn’t she?” His voice was slow and deliberate. There was an ironic, almost mocking quality to it.

“She telephoned you this morning. I don’t think it was you she spoke to, though.”

“So how can I help you?” He might as well have asked, “So what do you want me to do about it?”

“Well, basically, I would like to know what you intend to do with the information.”

“Was the situation not explained to Miss Palmer?”

I refused to let him intimidate me. “From what she’s said, I don’t think whoever she spoke to was particularly helpful. She’s very worried, obviously, and wants to know that everything possible is being done to locate her boyfriend.”

“It is. I thought we’d already made that plain to her. On several occasions.”

Indignation made me forget myself. “Then perhaps you can tell me what you intend to do now you know he’s been missing all this time with apparently no money to live on?”

“What exactly is your relationship to either Mr. Westerman or his girlfriend?”

“I’m Miss Palmer’s employer. A friend. Of them both,” I added, lamely.

“You aren’t a relative, then?”

“No.”

I heard him sigh. I could almost smell his tobacco breath. “Mr. Ramsey, let me explain our position. Everyday we receive literally dozens of calls from people who have someone missing. Some are more urgent than others. This morning, for example, I’ve just been speaking to a mother whose five-year-old daughter has been missing for thirty-six hours. The little girl is a diabetic. The mother has only just reported her missing because she’s been out all this time and thought her daughter was “at a friend’s”. Which means that we now have a five-year-old girl who is God knows where, who is probably in urgent need of medication, and who has already been missing for over a day and a half. That worries us. A fully grown adult who leaves home with a suitcase, clothes, chequebook and passport does not. It might be very distressing for his girlfriend, but it does not merit us pressing the panic button. Particularly not when this person’s own father tells us he’s satisfied his son has left of his own free will, and for his own good reasons.”

He paused. “Now we hear that this person has not touched his bank account since he left home. Well, that may or may not be a cause for concern. There can be any number of different explanations for it. He might he living with someone who is paying all his bills, for instance. He might have found a job, and not want to use his old account for fear of being traced by his girlfriend, who he has walked out on. He might be wandering around with amnesia, not even sure what a chequebook’s for. Or he might be lying dead somewhere, as a result of an accident, a mugging, or perhaps even a jealous boyfriend.

“It could be any of those, or any one of a dozen other reasons. And to be perfectly honest, it doesn’t make any difference. That is not being callous. That is simply stating the simple truth. We have already done everything we reasonably can. If anyone fitting his description turns up, alive or, regretfully, otherwise, at any hospital, train station, or wherever, we will know about it within a matter of hours. If he leaves the country, we will know about it almost immediately. I am told his visa does not expire for several more months, so he has every legal right to be here, but even if he hadn’t, we could do no more to locate him than we have already. Short of organising a nationwide manhunt, which, bank account notwithstanding, is not justified, there is nothing else we can do. I am very sorry for his girlfriend. I am very sorry for all the other girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, parents, and sundry other family members who also have loved ones missing. Of which, as we speak, in this division alone there are several hundred. Many of which have been on file for considerably longer than Miss Palmer’s boyfriend. And of which, at this current moment in time, I am most concerned about a little girl with an ignorant mother and diabetes.”

I heard him breathing. “Now. Does that explain the situation clearly enough for you?”

It did. Clearly enough not to mind his condescending and faintly contemptuous manner. “Yes, I think so. Thank you. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

He relented a little. “Tell Miss Palmer that we’re doing everything we can. If we hear anything at all, we’ll let her know.”

“I will.” I said goodbye and hung up. I waited a moment before going downstairs, letting my euphoria bleed off before I faced Anna. I no longer had any doubt that Marty’s fate would remain lost to history. The way ahead was finally clear.

Now it was only a matter of time.