The Bookman's Tale (23 page)

S
ince his first visit to London, Peter had loved riding the tube. Amanda always preferred taxis—she said you could see the architecture of the city that way, but Peter claimed the tube was cheaper and, often, quicker. What he liked most, though, was the anonymity. He didn’t have to tell anyone where he was going or make small talk with a driver. And he loved the map. Aboveground, London was utterly confusing, but belowground, in the hands of the exquisite tube map, Peter understood the city.

As he rattled toward Hampstead on the Northern Line, the adrenaline that had been driving Peter seemed to have worn off, and he slumped in his seat, settling into a dull dread. The train was just pulling out of the third stop when Liz Sutcliffe appeared beside him once again, still twirling her pasta. She spoke not from Peter’s imagination but from his memory. At some point during their Italian lunch, Peter had asked Liz what sooner or later he asked every Londoner that he met: “What’s your tube stop?” He had found this a great conversation starter, and though he often caught Amanda giggling when he asked it, she would later tell him what a good job he had done of initiating conversation. “Tube rescues American from social anxiety,” she would say.

“Belsize Park,” Liz Sutcliffe said, before popping a forkful of pasta into her mouth and disappearing. Her address was Hampstead, but the closest tube station was one stop closer to central London. If Thomas Gardner and Julia Alderson were only a few minutes ahead of him and going all the way to Hampstead, he might still have a chance to reach Liz first.

Peter leapt off the train at Belsize Park and found Liz’s street on the tube station’s local area map. He sprinted out of the station and up the hill, realizing that although Thomas and Julia might have farther to go from the Hampstead station, they would be going downhill. He turned into a quiet residential street that led to Liz’s flat and peeked back around the corner and up the hill to see if he could spot Thomas and Julia. He didn’t even notice the parka-clad figure that strode past him, then suddenly reversed and stopped beside him.

“Peter, is that you?” Her cheeks rosy from the cold, and the mist of her warm breath dissolving in the midday sun, Liz Sutcliffe stood next to Peter, a perplexed smile on her face. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

Peter leaned forward, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Liz waited patiently, as she might for a dog or a small child. Finally he was able to gasp, “Murder.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Liz, still smiling maternally, as if Peter were playing some sort of game that proved him an exceptionally clever six-year-old.

“Sykes,” said Peter. “Graham Sykes has been murdered.”

Liz yanked Peter up by his arm so she could look him in the eye. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

“I went to see him,” said Peter, still panting, “and this morning he was murdered.”

“Fuck,” exhaled Liz. “How do you know?”

“I saw him,” said Peter. “It was awful. It was so awful.” He felt the nausea and chills returning as he remembered the scene; this time he felt not panic but revulsion and grief. A tear ran down his cold cheek. “They cut his throat,” he whispered.

“Jesus fuck,” said Liz, the color draining from her face. “Bollocks!”

“I’m so sorry,” said Peter. “I was supposed to keep him out of danger. I was supposed to warn him but he was . . . we were arguing and . . .” He recalled the argument with Sykes the night before. If Peter hadn’t been so stubborn, he might have remembered to warn Sykes about the threat from Thomas Gardner. Now all he could see was the face of the dead man, and all that blood. “It was horrible,” he said.

“How could this happen?” said Liz.

Her question hung in the crisp air for a moment as Peter tried to banish the image of Sykes’s body. “I’ll explain everything,” he said at last, taking a deep breath and feeling he was pulling himself back from an abyss. “But we’ve got to get you out of here first.”

“What do you mean?” said Liz. “What does this have to do with me?”

“They ransacked your office, Liz,” said Peter. “And they may already be at your flat.” Before he could stop her, Liz fled down the road. Peter caught up to her just as she stopped across the street from her home. A glass panel in the street door had been smashed, and a window on the second floor flung open. Below the window several piles of books and papers lay on the pavement. Liz stood wide-eyed before the scene. Afraid that Thomas and Julia might still be in the flat, Peter slipped an arm around Liz and guided her farther down the block.

“We have to leave London,” he said when they were around the corner. “Now.”

“My car’s in the next street,” said Liz quietly, and she slipped her hand into Peter’s and pulled him down the block. When she had edged her Citroën into the line of traffic moving up Haverstock Hill toward Hampstead, she asked Peter where they were going.

“Kingham,” said Peter, who had already given the matter some thought. Even though that meant going back to the murderers, he thought he might be able to keep up the pretense of doing business with John Alderson long enough to solve the mystery of the
Pandosto
and perhaps find some evidence that would both exonerate himself and implicate Julia Alderson and Thomas Gardner in Sykes’s murder.

Not until they were well under way did Liz ask, “What were they after?”

“They were after Sykes’s manuscript,” said Peter. “They didn’t find it at his cottage because he had already posted it to you. I assume they didn’t find it at your office, or they wouldn’t have come to your flat, unless . . .”

“Unless what?” said Liz.

“Well, they didn’t just try to get the manuscript from Sykes, they killed him—I think because he knew what was in it. It’s not so bad if they found the manuscript at your flat. I’m just glad they didn’t find you.”

“They didn’t find the manuscript either,” said Liz.

“How do you know?” said Peter.

“Because I spent my morning on Hampstead Heath reading it,” said Liz, reaching into her bag and pulling out a bound sheaf of papers. “It’s right here.”

P
eter had replayed in his mind a hundred times in the past two days the conversation that he and Amanda had had just a few weeks ago on the night she had given him the Volvo. After a second round of lovemaking, they lay side by side, their hands loosely nestled together, gazing at the high ceiling.

“Did you like being an only child?” Amanda had asked.

“I don’t know,” said Peter. “I guess if I’d had a little brother, I would have had someone to talk to. I might be more . . . socialized. But then I would have worried about him growing up in that house. I’m good at worrying.”

“I’d have liked a little sister,” said Amanda.

“Not an older one?” said Peter.

“No. I guess since I was first and I always thought another might come along, I never dreamed of an older one. But I used to wish I had a baby sister. To take care of, you know. I want my kids to have siblings.”

“How many?” said Peter, after a long pause.

“Do you mean how many kids would I like?”

“Yeah.”

“Three or four,” said Amanda. “If the first three are all boys, I might try once more for a girl.”

“So you’d like girls?” Peter asked, suddenly seeing himself and Amanda walking through a park with two dark-haired toddlers wearing frilly pink dresses. He found the vision equally frightening and enthralling.

“I’d like at least one of each,” said Amanda. “But I’m realistic. What about you?”

“I’d like any kids that had you as a mother,” said Peter, and Amanda lay her head on his chest and fell almost instantly asleep.

After that, Amanda would sometimes make a seemingly offhand comment—though Peter knew there was no such thing with her—about wanting her daughter to take ballet lessons or hoping that her son would apply to schools other than Ridgefield. Peter began to picture himself as a stay-at-home dad, writing antiquarian book catalogs in his home office while the children napped.

Now he sat at the bedside of the woman who would never bear children and gently woke her.

“How are you feeling?” said Peter.

“Better,” said Amanda. “Stronger. I think I can sit up.” Peter pressed a button and the bed raised Amanda to a sitting position.

“Not as bolt upright as you like,” said Peter.

“Still,” said Amanda, “I feel more human.”

“We need to talk,” said Peter.

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Amanda. “Besides, I thought the girl was supposed to say that.”

“A couple of things have happened while you were sick.”

“Peter, you’re scaring me. Did somebody die?”

“Nobody died,” said Peter. “It’s just that you had a pretty bad infection.”

“But they said it was clearing up.”

“It is. It is clearing up. You’re going to be fine. It’s just that . . .”

“I’m not going to be fine, am I?”

“The infection got into your ovaries,” said Peter, taking her hand. “We’re going to have to rethink the whole children issue.”

“Oh,” said Amanda softly, looking away from Peter for the first time in the conversation. She stared out the window at the pale blue summer sky for a long minute before Peter pulled her back toward him. He made no attempt to wipe away the tears trickling down her cheek. “It’s just that I . . .”

“I know,” said Peter. “We both did.” They sat quietly for a long time, Amanda’s hand resting limply in his. Peter felt he should give the news a chance to settle before he went on. Finally, when he could bear the silence no longer, he said, “There’s something else, too. Some good news.”

“I could use some good news,” said Amanda, forcing a smile as she drew her sleeve across her eyes. Peter gripped her hand more firmly and slipped out of his chair. “Did you lose something?” asked Amanda, as he knelt on the floor by her bed.

“Yes,” said Peter. “About two years ago. I lost my heart.”

“Peter, what are you doing?”

“Amanda Ridgefield,” said Peter—and to his own surprise he felt not panic but supreme peace as he said it, “will you marry me?”

Amanda began to cry again, but Peter thought he saw a smile behind her tears. He got back up and pulled a ring from his pocket. “What do you think?” he said. Before she could stop him, he slipped it onto her finger.

“Peter, it’s . . . it’s beautiful.” She was sobbing now, and Peter waited patiently for her to compose herself. After a few moments, she slipped her hand from his and reached for a tissue.

“I don’t want you to marry me because you feel sorry for me,” said Amanda.

“I don’t feel sorry for you,” said Peter. “Look, we can adopt, we can do all sorts of things. I’m prepared to do a lot of things to make you . . . to make us happy. The one thing I’m not prepared to do is leave this room without being engaged to you.”

“And this isn’t a sympathy proposal?”

“Amanda, you know me. You know us. You know how much I love you. Why do you think I’ve been buying and selling all these books? To make money for this.” He pointed to her ring, which already looked like a natural part of her hand.

“Really?” said Amanda.

“Really,” said Peter.

“Okay then, Peter Byerly. Yes.”

Though Peter often mourned the scar on Amanda’s heart left by her inability to bear children, he never regretted choosing that moment to propose to her. He had been planning to buy the ring after he had sold his Volvo full of books and to propose on Halloween in the Devereaux Room, but he felt a need to balance Amanda’s grief, and her family’s grief, with joy. Charlie and Sarah were nearly as happy as Amanda when they saw the ring on their daughter’s finger and heard the news.

“I’m gonna call you ‘son’ now,” said Charlie, clapping Peter on the back in a gesture that failed to hide the depth of his emotion. “I hope you won’t mind that.”

“No,” said Peter, “I won’t mind at all.”

Peter drove Amanda home five days later. He spent the rest of the summer in a guest room in the Ridgefield house, helping nurse his fiancée back to health. Amanda seemed to be her old self, sitting in the study reading, laughing and teasing Peter in the kitchen and around the pool, even making love when her parents had gone to New York for the weekend. But from that time on there was between Amanda and Peter a small unspoken barrier, which had not been there before, around the topic of children. He rarely noticed it, but once in a while, when they saw a baby in a restaurant or flipped past a channel playing a Disney movie, Peter felt it—this slight awkwardness, as if they were friends who had accidentally seen each other naked. Peter would learn that marriages acquire such scars, but it was this blemish on their absolute intimacy, even more than Amanda’s barrenness, that grieved him. That he never had the courage to talk to Amanda about it was something he would regret for the rest of his life.