Gerard MacGalt could not have been more pleased.
"Valentina! Come in, come in," he said. "I was hoping to see you again. I was worried that Mrs Donegal-- I should say Professor Donegal-- had misinterpreted my comments about you unforgivably! Let me take your coat. Have a sit-down in the alcove. I've some fresh shortbread and ginger ale. You know I'm famous for that."
Valentina was sitting with legs crossed on the alcove sofa in the grey sunlight oozing poignantly through the high lancet-arched window before Gerard had finished talking. She watched him hang her trench coat on a hook by the door in this, the most comfortable and aesthetic of teachers offices.
He turned, smiling hugely, and rubbing his hands together he bent forward inquiringly. "A snack, eh?"
"Oh definitely! I skipped breakfast. I stopped by to discuss the issue I brought up last month when I bumped into you in Lornaglen. First, let me thank you again for renting your cottage to me. You don't know how--"
"Let's hear nothing about rent," he said in a mock gruff voice, balancing a thick slice of shortbread on a cake knife. "I'll not hear of you paying rent on a property that I own free and clear, and no need for it myself."
He slipped the slice onto a saucer, with a fork and paper napkin. "Ginger ale, then?" he asked, handing her the saucer. "The 'issue,' you say, lass?"
"Yes, thank you. Uh-huh, the secret hideaway place at the Parliament complex."
Gerard made to laugh, patting his belly. "An Americanism! 'Uh-huh.' You see, I found you out. All those years we missed you. In the States, you were, am I right? Am I right?" He winked at her, pouring the fizzy soda into two glass mugs.
Valentina smiled like a child caught with its hand in the cookie jar by an indulgent uncle. "For the most part, I admit, yeah. But about..." She took a tiny bite from the piece of shortbread on her fork. "About the secret place. I've proof now. I've pictures of the architectural drawings, the original ones, not the blueprints, not the official design. I've Maggie Donegal's hand drawn sketches and her finished drawing. It backs up everything I told you last month at All Souls."
Gerard was a hefty squat man of seventy, dressed like a snake-oil salesman, as Valentina thought of it, the ill-fitting black dress coat and trousers, a bowtie and bib collar, cheap cufflinks, and a pocketwatch in his paisley vest with its gold chain dangling like a stolen necklace.
He stood staring at her for a moment, a mug held out to her. "I had forgotten that," he said as she took the mug and returned his pensive stare.
Her eyes surprised him. They were even colder now than when she spoke to him, rather absurdly, he thought, about a secret room at Parliament. And now she said she had proof? He noticed the smallish cell phone hooked to a strap on her left wrist. Pictures, she had said. Of Maggie's original plan for the new Parliament building. A secret chamber, underground, where, she had told him, she was held against her will by a man wearing a white plastic mask, like the Phantom of the Opera, but full-faced.
Gerard nodded benignly and sat next to her on the red plaid sofa, an arm across the backrest.
"I've known Professor Donegal since 1975," he said, "when she was with Pendleton and Associates, and her late husband was a patient of mine, at Houghton Medical."
He knew at once that this comment didn't solve anything. He felt that Valentina was psychotic, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. He would humor her for the present. Her eyes gave him no other choice.
"Look at these," she said. She had set down her mug and saucer on the lampstand near her and was now tapping her phone screen, the gallery icon. "A dozen or so pictures of Donegal's drawings." She handed him the phone.
Gerard swiped through the eleven photos. He was not well versed in architectural drawings, and even though Valentina pointed out the salient features, he could not really see this alleged secret underground room, only that she was pointing at one of the conference chambers on the southeast corner of the complex.
He nodded and handed the phone back to her. "And how may I help you?"
"For now, someone I can trust to keep this confidential. A friend. I know you find this hard to believe. But I'll have further proof before too much longer. I met a man when I was in the US, an investigator who occasionally works for the government. I frequented a restaurant in Manhattan, St Andrew's, a Scottish restaurant. I met him there quite often. Nothing really... you know, romantic... but we shared some interests... hobbies..." She described him in some detail, to make him as real as possible to Professor MacGalt. "He travels internationally, and I'm quite sure he'll meet with me... with us... if I request it. He'll be very intrigued by something unusual like this. In fact, I've told him a little about it, before I came back home to Lornaglen."
Gerard smiled, patting the backrest behind Valentina's shoulder. "I should like to meet the fellow myself," he said without meaning it, but hoping to give the impression that he did.
Valentina leaned away from him, her eyes darkening. "I must say, he's a dangerous man, but in a good way. I understand your reluctance to meet him."
"Did I say I was reluctant?"
Valentina smiled cruelly. He was surprised again. "Yes," she said, "you did. But never mind for now. I need to consider..." Her smile faded. A hard look came over her. "My abductor. I MUST discover his identity. I only know that he is highly skilled in handling himself and others, well educated in general. I know his voice. I know the color of his eyes. His build. His manner of walking, his mannerisms. His temper. His peeves. But I know nothing of his social life or his background. His accent doesn't place him anywhere in particular, except that he spoke only English to me in a deep voice, in a clipped sort of speech..."
"What was his purpose in abducting you?" asked Gerard, caught up in the story despite his skepticism.
Valentina sat motionless, silent, gazing at nothing outside of herself.
After what seemed forever to Gerard, she picked up her ginger ale and settled back cosily, drawing one leg up under the other and tapping the lip of the glass mug with her teeth, still staring into herself.
"He wanted to get to know me," she said in a tone of dark amusement. But her eyes warmed up. She seemed to be gazing at the bust of Freud on top of the upright piano.
"A rather drastic approach," Gerard remarked.
He pulled out his pocketwatch and popped the lid. He could easily chat awhile longer before preparing for his next class, but he gave the impression of being pressed for time.
When he glanced at Valentina with that intention, he saw that she was wise to him, and again he was surprised. He did not remember her being so intuitive.
"I won't take up anymore of your time," she said with her knowing smile.
When he started to protest she squeezed his hand. "No, no, I've got some errands to do, and you're too kind to run me off when you've a class you need to get ready for. We'll talk again. I'll call you this weekend, if you aren't going off somewhere."
Gerard lurched up to his feet.
"I devote the weekend to you, Valentina," he said and beamed at her with genuine fondness.
The next morning the sky above Lornaglen was heavy with a cotton darkness and there was the smell of a rain coming.
At the pub on the edge of the village where Sanguineus parked, the sign over the door was lit with a footlight above the lintel: Cooper's Place. The windows were bright from the ceiling lamps inside.
A mongrel uncurled itself from the welcome mat and went stiff-legged to the barrel trash bin and leaned against it, sniffing at Sanguineus as he passed.
He wore his boots, jeans, and his black leather jacket over a grey sweatshirt, a black sockcap low over his brows. He was here to get a look at the target.
According to his take on Estelle's fable, Gerard MacGalt ate breakfast at Cooper's Place every weekday during the college terms, a forty minute drive to Edinburgh on the A1. Sanguineus had come that way. Not counting the lorries it was light traffic by this time of the morning, heading to the city, and very little going east toward the bay.
He went up to the bar. The keep was a woman not half bad looking, bosomy and bleached blond, with dimples and a pert nose between her leaf-green eyes. She slapped the counter with both hands and asked his pleasure.
"Steak and eggs and the house brew," he said, handing her a debit card and nodding toward the booths at the windows. "Whistle for me."
From his seat up front he had a good view of the tables where the usual brotherhood of old farmers gathered for their profane version of lauds.
He saw an older man in an old-fashioned suit and flyaway white hair sitting by himself with his laptop open on the table while he ate. He looked very much like the photo of Professor Gerard MacGalt on the college's faculty page of its web site. He could hardly be anyone else, here at a farmers' hangout with a computer in his face.
And then it happened.
Sanguineus got up to fetch his order, just as the elderly gentleman was walking toward the restroom. Their paths crossed.
The eccentric old man looked up at Sanguineus and was startled; frightened, even. He recovered immediately and went on to the white door in the corner across from the bar.
Sanguineus thought, He knows who I am! Now what the fuck?
"Here you are, luv," said the keep, holding out his plate and glass to him at the end of the counter. She had intended to bring his order to his booth, to flirt with him, but now she wondered what was troubling him. He looked so grim.
"You're very kind," he said.
At his booth he took out his Nordic cell phone and put a comment on Estelle's latest post of 'The Soothsayer and the Devil.' Which of the three female architectural professors was the client? He typed:
'Doesn't the Soothsayer have a witchly client?'
He set the phone aside and attended his breakfast without an appetite.
The elderly man had unplugged the laptop, closed it, slipped it into its case, and walked out with it under his arm, looking straight ahead. He did not acknowledge the goodbye from the keep.
The tiny tolling of a bell had Sanguineus checking his notifications. Estelle had responded to his comment with one of her own.
'Yes, Maggie Mae she's called...'
No comments:
Post a Comment