Dover Beach (37 page)

"Burning down a house—who cares, besides Inspector Grimby? But you knew something else, Kathy: you knew your father was killing those clones. It doesn't really matter when you found out. Maybe it wasn't right away. Maybe it was one of those mornings when we sat together at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper like an old married couple. Maybe you saw one of those articles that I saw, and you recognized the town, or the boy's name, and you understood what your father was up to.

"What matters is that you didn't say anything—out of love? Because he was finally showing that he loved you? I don't know. And when I finally figured out about the killing of the clones, you fought it, you made me waste a day lying to people at the Ministry of Science while your father stalked another victim. That's the bad thing you did, Kathy. That's the thing you're going to have to live with."

Kathy's face twisted with the effort to control the emotions she had tried to control for so long. And when she finally failed, the words that came pouring out sounded hoarse and feral, as if she hadn't used her voice in a long, long time. "Goddamn him. Goddamn those... things.
I
should have killed them. And I should have killed him, too, and then maybe I could live like everyone else.
Why wouldn't he love me?
How could he have been so stupid? Even at the end, when there was nothing left, even then... goddamn him...."

And then abruptly she stopped, and the tears returned. "Oh Walter, I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "So sorry. Can you—can you ever—" She couldn't finish the question, but I suppose she didn't need to.

I went and got her a glass of water. She drank it down greedily, and she looked at me, and she realized the time had come. Time to tell it all. "Where do I start?" she asked softly.

"The clones," I said, just as softly.

She nodded. "I knew about them all along. I wasn't quite as stupid as my mother about such things. But in spite of them, I tried so hard to make him love me. I kept thinking I was succeeding, and then it would all turn to ashes. Like the birthday. So beautiful, so perfect, and then I realize that he's scarcely even thinking of me—he's just using me as an excuse to check up on one of his creatures."

"Then you must have known Winfield was a clone as soon as you saw him," I said.

"Yes, but as usual I decided to give my father one more chance. He had seemed so depressed lately by all he had done, so worn out, that I had begun to hope. I rang him up and begged him—if he loved me—to deny the clone. I was offering him a choice—do you see?—between real life, real love, and his—his solipsism. And it worked, Walter. He had his choice, and he chose me. I was so happy.

"But as usual it turned, out badly. He had made his choice, but he was angry with me for forcing him to do it. After Winfield and you had left he said, 'I denied him—my own flesh and blood, my own genes. What more do you want?' And I said what I have said so many times: 'I want you to love me.' And then the phone rang."

"Hemphill," I said.

"I didn't know it at the time, but it makes sense—more pressure, more fear for my father. It pushed him over the edge, I think. When he hung up, he started screaming: 'Just leave me alone. All of you. I don't care. I don't care about anything.' And he took his coat and stormed out.

"Can you understand, Walter? That pushed
me
over the edge. I suppose I share my father's temper. If he wouldn't give me his love, if I couldn't make him care, then I wanted to destroy everything that was his. And that's what I did."

Silence. Kathy's eyes were closed. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was squeezing them spasmodically together. I had seen the gesture before—her father had done it, in Oxford, with Kathy and Winfield both staring at him, both demanding his love. I didn't feel much like it, but I had to push the story along. That was my job. "And then you got me involved," I said.

She opened her eyes and looked at me, pleading. "I didn't mean to make you a patsy, Walter. I was confused and alone and frightened, and you were the only person I could turn to—but I couldn't tell you the truth. I just couldn't. I suppose I knew Winfield would get blamed, and that was all right with me, but I honestly didn't think anything would come of it.

"And the killing of the clones: yes, you're right. I should have told you straightaway. But can you see that it was the same thing all over again—the same old hope that this time it would happen, this time he would show his love? Only this was the ultimate act that would show his love. Denying Winfield—all right, that's something. But killing them... what more could he do?"

"They were real people that he was killing, Kathy," I said.

She nodded. "I know, but I suppose I've never thought of them as being quite human—they have always been simply this
force
that opposed me, that possessed what was rightfully mine. Even seeing Winfield didn't change that. But in the end—in Bath, seeing that boy—it was different. The boy was real. Why should he have to die? And then in the subway, I told my father to stop. Don't you remember? I told him it wasn't right; I tried to make him understand.

"But finally, of course, it turned to ashes again. He knew that what he had done was wrong; he understood everything. But all that understanding, all that guilt couldn't make him love me. And that's what I wanted, Walter. That's all I ever wanted."

Kathy looked at me, but she didn't see what she wanted to see, and then she covered her face with her hands. She wasn't crying now. Her tears, perhaps, were exhausted. I heard a distant cheering and looked at my watch: Happy New Year. From the flat below came the sound of happy voices singing:

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot..."

"I'm sorry it had to end like this, Kathy," I said.

She looked up at me. She seemed terribly vulnerable. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to leave you with your memories," I replied softly. "Do what you want with them. I'm heading back to Boston."

She reacted as if I had punched her. "Oh, no, Walter. Please. You can't go. You hate America."

I shrugged. "I guess I don't hate it as much as I thought."

"But—but you've got to stay. You have to testify at Winfield's trial, right?"

"I gave my statement to the police yesterday. They said it would be sufficient. It's not like this is a difficult case. They were actually quite eager to have me leave."

Then Kathy did something awful. She got down on her knees in front of me, her hands clasped as if in prayer. "Please, Walter. Please. I'm sorry. I'll do anything. I'm so sorry. You're all I've got now. I love you, Walter. Can't you see that? I love you." And she buried her face in my lap, her hands clutching at my sides, her body shaking with grief and despair.

This wasn't the way it happened in books, in movies. This emptiness wasn't what I was supposed to be feeling. In movies, in books, you chucked people under the chin and said what needed to be said, and the scene faded out. The hysterics took place between chapters, the regret and the uncertainty were merely glints in the hero's steely eyes.

What could I say to her? I had to go back. Even if she were innocent—and she wasn't. Even if she loved me—and I wasn't sure she did, wasn't sure this wasn't a final, desperate performance. Even if I loved her—and I didn't want to think about that.

I had to go back, you see, because the case, such as it was, was not quite over. And the final chapters would have to take place in Boston.

Chapter 32

Hello good-bye hello good-bye.

The shotgun was trained on me from the time I turned the corner. I smiled.

The shotgun was slowly lowered, and the person holding it started to smile too. "Wally?"

"Hey, Doctor J."

Doctor J shook my hand solemnly. "What you doin' here, Wally?"

"Come to call on your boss. Is he in?"

"Course." He pounded on the door. "Got a visitor," Doctor J informed Mickey nonchalantly when he opened it; Doctor J looked pleased at Mickey's astonished reaction. Inside, Brutus started barking furiously. Nothing had changed.

I exchanged pleasantries with Mickey, then went upstairs and knocked on Bobby's door.

"Yeah?" he called out.

"Delivery from Harrods for a Mr. R. Gallagher," I said. "Fish and chips and shepherd's pie and a pint of bitter, eh what?"

Bobby opened the door in a hurry. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said cleverly.

"Hiya." I walked inside and sat on the couch beneath the photograph of John F. Kennedy. "How's things?"

He shut the door and went back to his desk. "Fine, I guess. I sent you another letter yesterday."

"Waste of postage. Sorry."

He sat down. "What happened, Wally? They kick you out?"

I shook my head. "I finished the case, more or less, so I figured I should come back here and get another one."

"You finished the case?"

"Yup. Tracked down Cornwall just the way I was supposed to. Of course, my client then proceeded to murder him, which isn't the way it's written up in the textbooks, but that wasn't my fault. So here I am, back at my home base, ready for anything."

Bobby looked nonplussed. "Jesus, Wally. You wanna elaborate on all that?"

"Oh, not just now. Maybe I'll write it down someday, get Art to publish it. But listen, there's this one aspect of the case I thought you might be interested in."

"Yeah?" He sounded more suspicious than interested.

I took a breath. I was getting to be an old hand at this. "It was just this minor point, you know, but it's been sort of nagging at me, and we experienced private eyes like to tie up all the loose ends. See, when I visited the Ministry of Science to find out about Cornwall, I asked for Mr. J. T. Carstairs. He was the guy who signed the letter that your friend in the JFK Building showed me, remember? Well, they had never heard of this guy at the Ministry. Okay, so big deal. But then I found Cornwall anyway, and he was talking about this and that before my client killed him, and he mentioned the months he spent at a military base after his arrival in England. But the letter said that all the scientists were put up at college dorms in London. Okay, big deal again. But it made me think about the letter and, you know, it was on this plain white stationery, and you'd think the Ministry of Science could afford their own letterhead. Well, I kind of juggled all of this around in my mind and came up with a theory. Just a theory, mind you."

I shut up. Bobby's customary smirk had disappeared. He looked very unhappy. "I confess," he whispered.

There. That was easy enough. But I hadn't expected him to take it this seriously. "You forged the letter?"

He nodded. "You needed proof to give your client so you could go to England. You weren't getting any. So I made it up."

"And the guy at the JFK Building just pretended it was a real letter?"

"Sure. What harm did it do?"

"I don't know," I said, quite honestly. "Um, why are you crying, Bobby?"

"Ah, shit," he said. He groped for a handkerchief and blew his nose. "Ah, shit."

Watching Bobby cry was very unsettling; that wasn't the way the world was supposed to operate. I tried to figure it out. "Bobby, the other scientists on the list—they were real, they went to England. I came across their names while I was tracking down Cornwall." He stared at me, cheeks wet with tears, not disagreeing. I plunged ahead. "Bobby, you told me once you worked at MIT. Did you know something about all this?"

He slowly nodded. "I worked at MIT. Until there was no more MIT, until there was just one long nightmare you never woke up from. Remember those days?"

"A little," I said.

"Yeah. You try to forget, like me. But they don't go away, Wally, they're gonna stay with you to the grave. No food, disease everywhere, people going nuts. And all you try to do is stay alive, even though you can't figure out why that seems so important. You know?"

"I know," I said. "Bobby, did you—"

"I worked for the fucking Brits,"
he shouted, loud enough to rattle the crucifix behind him. "There," he said, in a normal tone. "Satisfied, Wally? I heard they were rounding up the scientists. Shit, I knew what all those MIT guys looked like, I even knew their fucking addresses. So I offered my services to the Brits. And they put me on. Piecework. They gave me food for every scientist I brought in. And they gave me a gun. I suppose they told you over there it was all voluntary. Bullshit. Ask your friend Professor Hemphill."