Enigma Variations

I burst out the door. I started back, retracing the route I had taken while following him. The houseboats were still out on the canal. I walked fast but did not see him ahead of me. He could have taken a different route or maybe he wasn’t headed home. If I didn’t find him I would have to head back to my rental and keep watch, hoping he would show up. My intuition told me he still had the notes. He had been keeping them at the space he rented for giving music lessons and working on breaking the enigma there. By bad luck I had followed him there a day too late. He had cleared out, knowing he would be evicted the next day and any belongings left in the room either discarded or held until he paid his back rent. I should have gone there the night before. Hopefully, he would take the notes home. I would have to break into his apartment again the next time he went out. He had to be trying to solve the enigma in order to get the reward from Jutting. He must have learned about it while working for the tycoon. Maybe he had an extra motivation. Maybe he believed he had been treated unfairly by Jutting and wanted to be the one to find the solution so he could get some kind of revenge in addition to the reward. It was speculation but it fit what I had seen and the clues I had gathered. He might be getting desperate though. He was behind on all his bills, he had been evicted from the space he presumably used to pursue his only money making vocation. He must be in danger of losing his apartment as well. I hoped he wasn’t desperate enough to contact Jutting and try to sell the notes. It would be infinitely more difficult to steal them from a billionaire surrounded by bodyguards and private security. For a member of the highest class of the global elite, his house had looked modest from the outside. I had no doubt it was not modest on the inside. He almost certainly had the best security money could buy. It wouldn’t be like breaking into Carlu Ortoli’s house. Carlu Ortoli was merely wealthy. Jutting was on a different plane of existence.

I reached the Bethnal Green station still without having caught sight of Bathmore, walked up and down the platform rapidly, scanning the crowd, looking for that burgundy backpack. No luck. I had lost him. My only option was to return to my temporary home and wait. I rode the trains back to Hammersmith, thinking. I still wanted to pursue a meeting with Jutting if possible. If Bathmore turned over the notes as I feared he might I would need to know as much as possible about Jutting’s residence and business. When I emerged from Hammersmith station I paused out of the flow of human traffic and called the number Gabrielle’s father had given me for Ortoli. It was an answering service. I had placed calls to the number twice before. The first time had been to arrange our initial meeting at Ortoli’s Genoese villa, the second to arrange a rendezvous to turn over the painting to him.

“Pronto,” said the voice I recognized from the last time—a deep, slightly raspy, female voice.

“Hello,” I answered in my faltering Italian. “I would like to leave a message for Signore Ortoli.”

I left my name and phone number and the woman assured me he would call me back within a day. I thanked her, hung up, and jumped back into the stream of pedestrians. Two doors down, I veered back out of the crowd and made a quick stop at a tiny market for a bag of cat food. I had left the living room window open. From there the cat could easily jump to the handrail outside. I hoped he hadn’t disappeared. I liked the cat’s presence. It helped calm my thoughts. As I was paying, it occurred to me that Bathmore’s apartment had been devoid of food and full of takeout containers. The main street outside was lined with bars, coffee shops, and takeout restaurants. Back on the street I peered into each window as I passed, looking for that burgundy backpack. It was more difficult to see into the shops and restaurants across the street but whenever there was a break in the traffic I shot a glance across, checking windows. Half a block from the market I stopped, thinking I had seen something burgundy.

“Watch yourself, tosser.” A man barged past me, giving me a hard bump with his shoulder. I ignored him. There was a pub directly across the road with a dusty window facing the street. It was dim inside but I could see through to the bar and the backs of several customers seated there. One of them was wearing a burgundy backpack.

I walked down to the next light, shoving the cat food into my pack, crossed and hurried back up the street. Cautiously, I opened the door and peered in. It was Bathmore. I entered the pub and walked up to the end of the bar farthest from where he was seated. There were a couple of people between us—a bald man in his fifties who had to be a British Telecom repair man with his yellow jacket and cargo pants and a younger man farther down the bar who had long hair and sported a corduroy jacket with worn leather elbow patches. I wasn’t worried that Bathmore would recognize me. Out of the corner of my eye when I leaned forward or back I could see that he was staring straight ahead, watching his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The glass in front of him was nearly empty. His head was lolling slightly as if he was already drunk. The bartender—whose graying buzz cut, lined face, and heavily tattooed forearms indicated he might have