“I bought it two years ago.”
“I’m afraid we have no record of that name or that address on our files.” This was the end. Bulman lost his temper. “Are you telling me that I don’t know where I live and that I’ve forgotten the make and the color of my own car? I’m telling you, my car has been stolen. I left it here last night, and now it’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, sir. The license number you’ve given us doesn’t match up with the information I have here.”
“Well, your information is wrong.” Bulman slammed the phone down. His head was throbbing.
He needed money. He felt naked without cash and he wanted to eat. He looked at his watch. At least that was still working. Half past nine. The banks would have opened by now. Bulman had plenty of ID
on him, and he’d feel better once he had a full wallet. He could deal with the car later.
He turned and walked back the way he had come. Ten minutes later, he found himself in the local branch of his bank, talking to one of the managers who had a desk in the main hall. The manager was a young man, Asian, dressed in a suit, with a neat beard. He was clearly alarmed as this new customer came striding up to him, and Bulman realized that, what with all the tramping back and forth, trying to deal with all the events that seemed to have ganged up on him in the past hour, he must look half crazed. He no longer cared.
“I need to withdraw some money,” he said. “And your machine doesn’t seem to be working.” The manager frowned. “We haven’t had any complaints.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to use the machine. I want to withdraw some money from you.”
“Do you have a card, sir?” Bulman handed over his last remaining credit card and watched as the manager brought up his details on the computer. He gazed at the screen, perplexed. “I’m very sorry, sir . . .”
“Are you saying I don’t have an account with you?” Bulman’s voice was quavering.
“No, sir. You used to have an account. But you closed it down a year ago. You can see for yourself.” He swiveled the computer around and there it was, a row of zeroes at the bottom of his account. Every last penny had been removed exactly twelve months before.
“I never closed my account,” Bulman said.
“Would you like me to talk to the head office? . . .” Yet Bulman was already gone, spinning out of the chair and making his way through the main door, out into the fresh air. What the hell was going on? His travel pass, then the bank cards, his mobile phone, his car, now his accounts . . . it was as if his identity was being taken from him one piece at a time. He leaned against the corner of the building, steadying himself, and as he stood there, a commuter hurried past, throwing a copy of his newspaper into a bin right in front of him, almost as if he wanted Bulman to see what was on the front page.
It was a photograph of himself.
Bulman gazed at it in horror, remembering the headline that he had seen as he came out of his apartment. “Journalist Killed.” He was looking at the same headline now. He felt the sidewalk lurching underneath him as he stepped forward and plucked the newspaper out. The story was very short.
Harold Bulman, a freelance journalist who specialized in stories relating to the army and intelligence services, was yesterday morning found dead in his north London apartment. Mr.
Bulman, 37, had been stabbed. Police today appealed for any witnesses who might have seen or heard anything between ten o’clock and midnight to come forward. Detective Chief Superintendent Stephen Leather, who is heading the investigation, said: “Mr. Bulman may well have made himself enemies in his line of work, and at this stage we are not ruling anything out.” Harold Bulman was unmarried and had no close family or friends.
It was him. They were saying he was dead! How could they have made a mistake like that? Was this the reason why his phone wasn’t working, why there was no money in his account? Suddenly it all made sense. Somehow he’d been confused with somebody else. And as a result, a whole series of switches had been pulled as, automatically, his life was turned off.
He had to get to a telephone. He had to talk to his editors, to the people who employed him. He had no money. But there was a telephone in his apartment. That was the answer. Bulman didn’t want to be on the street anymore, anyway. He had become a non-person, an invisible man. For some reason, he felt exposed. How could he be sure that there wasn’t someone out there who really did want to stab him?
He had to get back inside.
He was sweating by the time he got back to his apartment, and his hand shook as he tried to force the key into the lock. It didn’t seem to want to go in. In the end, after three attempts, he realized that the key didn’t fit. And that was impossible too. Wasn’t it? He had used it only last night! But someone in the last twelve hours had gone out and changed the lock.
“Let me in!” he shouted. There was nobody to listen to him. He was shouting at the glass door and the brickwork. “Let me in!” He kicked the door, using the sole of his foot. But the glass was reinforced, shatterproof, and the door was held in place by powerful magnetic plates. He kicked out a third time.
He was screaming now. Anyone passing would think he was insane.
“Are you all right, sir? Can I help you?”
He hadn’t heard the police car draw in behind him, but when he turned around, there were two policemen standing on the sidewalk. Bulman was glad to see them. After all, he’d been trying to call them just a few minutes ago.
“I’m locked out,” he said.
“Do you live here, sir?”
“Well, obviously I live here. If I didn’t live here, I wouldn’t be trying to get in.” Bulman realized he was being rude. He tried to force a smile to his face. “I have a home on the top floor,” he explained.
“This has never happened before . . .”
