The Great Pursuit (21 page)

'What about this Piper?' someone asked. Hutchmeyer drew on his reserves of deep feelings.

'Peter Piper was a young novelist of unsurpassed brilliance. His passing has been a great blow
to the world of letters.' He paraded his handkerchief again and was prompted by MacMordie.

'Say something about his novel,' he whispered.

Hutchmeyer stopped sniffling and said something about Pause O Men for the Virgin published by
Hutchmeyer Press price seven dollars ninety and available at all...Behind him Sonia wept audibly
and had to be escorted to the waiting car. She was still weeping when they drove off.

'A terrible tragedy,' said Hutchmeyer, still under the influence of his own oratory, 'really
terrible.'

He was interrupted by Sonia who was pummelling MacMordie.

'Murderer,' she screamed, 'it was all your fault. You told all those crazy terrorists he was
in the KGB and the IRA and a homosexual and now look what's happened!'

'What the hell's going on?' yelled MacMordie, 'I didn't do...'

'The fucking cops up in Maine think it was the Symbionese Liberation Army or The Minutemen or
someone,' said Hutchmeyer, 'so now we've got another problem.'

'I can see that,' said MacMordie as Sonia blacked his eye. Finally, refusing Hutchmeyer's
offer of hospitality, she insisted on being driven to the Gramercy Park Hotel.

'Don't worry,' said Hutchmeyer as she got out, 'I'm going to see that Baby and Piper go to
their Maker with all the trimmings. Flowers, a cortège, a bronze casket...'

'Two,' said MacMordie, 'I mean they wouldn't fit...'

Sonia turned on them. 'They're dead,' she screamed. 'Dead. Doesn't that mean anything to you?
Haven't you any consciences? They were real people, real living people and now they're dead and
all you can talk about is funerals and caskets and '

'Well we've got to recover the bodies first,' said MacMordie practically, 'I mean there's no
use talking about caskets, we don't have no bodies.'

'Why don't you just shut your mouth?' Hutchmeyer told him, but Sonia had fled into the
hotel.

They drove on in silence.

For a while Hutchmeyer had considered firing MacMordie but he changed his mind. After all he
had never liked the great wooden house in Maine and with Baby dead...

'It was a terrible experience,' he said, 'a terrible loss.'

'It must have been,' said MacMordie, 'all that loveliness gone to waste.'

'It was a showhouse, part of the American heritage. People used to come up from Boston just to
look at it.'

'I was thinking of Mrs Hutchmeyer,' said MacMordie. Hutchmeyer looked at him nastily.

'I might have expected that from you, MacMordie. At a time like this you have to think about
sex.'

'I wasn't thinking sex,' said MacMordie, 'she was a remarkable woman characterwise.'

'You can say that again,' said Hutchmeyer. 'I want her memory embalmed in books. She was a
great book-lover you know. I want a leather-bound edition of Pause O Men for the Virgin printed
with gold letters. We'll call it the Baby Hutchmeyer Memorial Edition.'

'I'll see to it,' said MacMordie.

And so while Hutchmeyer resumed his role as publisher Sonia Futtle lay weeping on her bed in
the Gramercy Park. She was consumed by guilt and grief. The one man who had ever loved her was
dead and it was all her fault. She looked at the telephone and thought of calling Frensic but it
would be the middle of the night in England. Instead she sent a telegram, PETER PRESUMED DEAD
DROWNED MRS HUTCHMEYER DITTO POLICE INVESTIGATING CRIME WILL CALL WHEN CAN SONIA.

Frensic arrived in Lanyard Lane next morning in fine fettle. The world was a splendid place,
the sun was shining, the people would shortly be in the shops buying Pause and best of all
Hutchmeyer's cheque for two million dollars was nestling happily in the F & F bank account.
It had arrived the previous week and all that needed to be done now was to subtract four hundred
thousand dollars commission and transfer the remainder to Mr Cadwalladine and his strange client.
Frensic would see to it this morning. He collected his mail from the box and stumped upstairs to
his office. There he seated himself at his desk, took his first pinch of Bureau for the day and
went through the letters in front of him. It was near the bottom of the pile that he came upon
the telegram.

'Telegrams, really!' he muttered to himself in criticism of the extravagant hurry of an
insistent author and opened it. A moment later Frensic's rosy view of the world had
disintegrated, to be replaced by fragmentary and terrible images that rose from the cryptic words
on the form. Piper dead? Presumed drowned? Mrs Hutchmeyer ditto? Each staccato message became a
question in his mind as he tried to cope with the information. It was a minute before Frensic
could realize the full import of the thing and even then he doubted and took refuge in disbelief.
Piper couldn't be dead. In Frensic's comfortable little world death was something your authors
wrote about. It was unreal and remote, a fabrication, not something that happened. But there, in
these few words unadorned by punctuation marks and typed on crooked strips of paper, death
intruded. Piper was dead. So was Mrs Hutchmeyer but Frensic accorded her no interest. She wasn't
his responsibility. Piper was. Frensic had persuaded him to go to his death. And POLICE
INVESTIGATING CRIME robbed him of even the consolation that there had been an accident. Crime and
death suggested murder and to be confronted with Piper's murder added to Frensic's sense of
horror. He sagged in his chair ashen with shock.

It was some time before he could bring himself to read the telegram again. But it still said
the same thing. Piper dead. Frensic wiped his face with his handkerchief and tried to imagine
what had happened. This time PRESUMED DROWNED held his attention. If Piper was dead why was there
the presumption that he had drowned? Surely they knew how he had died. And why couldn't Sonia
call? WILL CALL WHEN CAN added a new dimension of mystery to the message. Where could she be if
she couldn't phone straightaway? Frensic visualized her lying hurt in a hospital but if that was
the case she would have said so. He reached for the phone to put a call through to Hutchmeyer
Press before realizing that New York was five hours behind London time and there would be no one
in the office yet. He would have to wait until two o'clock. He sat staring at the telegram and
tried to think practically. If the police were investigating the crime it was almost certain they
would follow their enquiries into Piper's past. Frensic foresaw them discovering that Piper
hadn't in fact written Pause. From that it would follow that...my God, Hutchmeyer would get to
know and there'd be the devil to pay. Or, more precisely, Hutchmeyer. The man would demand the
return of his two million dollars. He might even sue for breach of contract or fraud. Thank God
the money was still in the bank. Frensic sighed with relief.

To take his mind off the dreadful possibilities inherent in the telegram he went through to
Sonia's office and looked in the filing cabinet for the letter from Mr Cadwalladine authorizing
Piper to represent the author on the American tour. He took it out and studied it carefully
before putting it back. At least he was covered there. If there was any trouble with Hutchmeyer
Mr Cadwalladine and his client were party to the deception. And if the two million had to be
refunded they would be in no position to grumble. By concentrating on these eventualities Frensic
held at bay his sense of guilt and transferred it to the anonymous author. Piper's death was his
fault. If the wretched man had not hidden behind a nom-de-plume Piper would still be alive. As
the morning wore on and he sat unable to work at anything else Frensic's feeling of grievance
grew. He had been fond of Piper in an odd sort of way. And now he was dead. Frensic sat miserably
at his desk looking out over the roofs of Covent Garden and mourned Piper's passing. The poor
fellow had been one of nature's victims, or rather one of literature's victims. Pathetic. A man
who couldn't write to save his life...

The phrase brought Frensic up with a start. It was too apt. Piper was dead and he had never
really lived. His existence had been one long battle to get into print and he had failed. What
was it that drove men like him to try to write, what fixation with the printed word held them at
their desks year after year? All over the world there were thousands of other Pipers sitting at
this very moment in front of blank pages which they would presently fill with words that no one
would ever read but which in their naïve conceit they considered to have some deep significance.
The thought added to Frensic's melancholy. It was all his fault. He should have had the courage
and good sense to tell Piper that he would never be a novelist. Instead he had encouraged him. If
he had told him Piper would still be alive, he might even have found his true vocation as a bank
clerk or plumber, have married and settled down whatever that meant. Anyway, he wouldn't have
spent those forlorn years in forlorn guest-houses in forlorn seaside resorts living by proxy the
lives of Conrad and Lawrence and Henry James, the shadowy ghost of those dead authors he had
revered. Even Piper's death had been by way of being a proxy one as the author of a novel he
hadn't written. And somewhere the man who should have died was living undisturbed.

Frensic reached for the phone. The bastard wasn't going to go on living undisturbed. Mr
Cadwalladine could relay a message to him. He dialled Oxford.

'I'm afraid I've got some rather bad news for you,' he said when Mr Cadwalladine came on the
line.

'Bad news? I don't understand,' said Mr Cadwalladine.

'It concerns the young man who went to America as the supposed author of that novel you sent
me,' said Frensic.

Mr Cadwalladine coughed uncomfortably. 'Has he...er...done something indiscreet?' he
asked.

'You could put it like that,' said Frensic. 'The fact of the matter is that we are likely to
have some problems with the police.' Mr Cadwalladine made more uncomfortable noises which Frensic
relished. 'Yes, the police,' he continued. 'They may be making enquiries shortly.'

'Enquiries?' said Mr Cadwalladine, now definitely alarmed. 'What sort of enquiries?'

'I can't be too certain at the moment but I thought I had better let you and your client know
that he is dead,' said Frensic.

'Dead?' croaked Mr Cadwalladine.

'Dead,' said Frensic.

'Good Lord. How very unfortunate.'

'Quite,' said Frensic. 'Though from Piper's point of view "unfortunate" seems rather too mild
a word, particularly as he appears to have been murdered.'

This time there was no mistaking Mr Cadwalladine's alarm. 'Murdered?' he gasped. 'You did say
"murdered"?'

'That's exactly what I said. Murdered.'

'Good God,' said Mr Cadwalladine. 'How very dreadful.'

Frensic said nothing and allowed Mr Cadwalladine to dwell on the dreadfulness of it all.

'I don't quite know what to say,' Mr Cadwalladine muttered finally.

Frensic pressed home his advantage. 'In that case if you will just give me the name and
address of your client I will convey the news to him myself.'

Mr Cadwalladine made negative noises. 'There's no need for that. I shall let him know.'

'As you wish,' said Frensic. 'And while you're about it you had also better let him know that
he will have to wait for his American advance.'

'Wait for his American advance? You're surely not suggesting...'

'I am not suggesting anything. I am merely drawing your attention to the fact that Mr
Hutchmeyer was not privy to the substitution of Mr Piper for your anonymous client and, that
being the case, if the police should unearth our little deception in the course of their
enquiries...you take my point?'

Mr Cadwalladine did. 'You think Mr...er...Hutchmeyer might...er...demand restitution?'

'Or sue,' said Frensic bluntly, 'in which case it would be as well to be in a position to
refund the entire sum at once.'

'Oh definitely,' said Mr Cadwalladine for whom the prospect of being sued evidently held very
few attractions. 'I leave the matter entirely in your hands.'

Frensic ended the conversation with a sigh. Now that he had passed some of the responsibility
on to Mr Cadwalladine and his damned client he felt a little better. He took a pinch of snuff and
was savouring it when the phone rang. It was Sonia Futtle calling from New York. She sounded
extremely distressed.

'Oh Frenzy I'm so sorry,' she said, 'it's all my fault. If it hadn't been for me this would
never happened.'

'What do you mean your fault?' said Frensic. 'You don't mean you...'

'I should never have brought him over here. He was so happy...' she broke off and there was
the sound of sobs.

Frensic gulped. 'For God's sake tell me what's happened,' he said.

'The police think it was murder,' said Sonia and sobbed again.

'I gathered that from your telegram. But I still don't know what happened. I mean how did he
die?'

'Nobody knows,' said Sonia, 'that's what's so awful. They're dragging the bay and going
through the ashes of the house and...'

'The ashes of the house?' said Frensic, trying desperately to square a burnt house with
Piper's presumed death by drowning.

'You see Hutch and I went out in his yacht and a storm blew up and then the house caught fire
and someone fired at the firemen and Hutch's cruiser tried to ram us and exploded and we were
nearly killed and...'

It was a confused and disjointed account and Frensic, sitting with the phone pressed hard to
his ear, tried in vain to form a coherent picture of what had occurred. In the end he was left
with a series of chaotic images, an insane jigsaw puzzle in which though the pieces all fitted
the final picture made no sense at all. A huge wooden house blazing into the night sky. Someone
inside this inferno fending off firemen with a heavy machine-gun. Bears. Hutchmeyer and Sonia on
a yacht in a hurricane. Cruisers hurtling across the bay and finally, most bizarre of all, Piper
being blown to Kingdom Come in the company of Mrs Hutchmeyer wearing a mink coat. It was like a
glimpse of hell.