Other than stopping for diesel, Gordon Reeve drove straight to Heathrow. He found a long-term parking lot and took the courtesy bus from there to the terminal building. He’d called Joan from a service station, and she’d told him he was booked on a flight to Los Angeles, where he could catch a connecting flight to San Diego.
Sitting in Departures, Gordon Reeve tried to feel something other than numb. He’d sometimes found an article written by Jim in one of the newspapers-but not often. They’d never kept in touch, except for a New Year’s phone call. Jim had been good with Allan, though, sending him the occasional surprise.
He bought a newspaper and a magazine and walked through duty-free without buying anything. It was Monday morning, which meant he’d no business to take care of at home, nothing pressing until Friday and the new intake. He knew he should be thinking of other things, but it was so hard. He was first in line when boarding time came. His seat on the plane was narrow. He discarded the pillow but draped the thin blanket over him, hoping he would sleep. Breakfast was served soon after takeoff; he was still awake. Above the clouds, the sun was a blazing orange. Then people started to pull down the shutters, and the cabin lights were dimmed. Headsets clamped on, the passengers started to watch the movie. Gordon Reeve closed his eyes again, and found that another kind of film was playing behind his eyelids: two young boys playing soldiers in the long grass… smoking cigarettes in the bathroom, blowing the smoke out of the window… passing comments on the girls at the school dance… patting arms as they went their separate ways.
Be the Superman, Gordon Reeve told himself. But then Nietzsche was never very convincing about personal loss and grief. Live dangerously, he said. Hate your friends. There is no God, no ordering principle. You must assume godhead yourself. Be the Superman.
Gordon Reeve, crying at thirty thousand feet over the sea. Then the wait in Los Angeles, and the connecting flight, forty-five minutes by Alaska Airlines. Reeve hadn’t been to the USA before, and didn’t particularly want to be here now. The man from the consulate had said they could ship the body home if he liked. As long as he paid, he wouldn’t have to come to the States. But he had to come, for all sorts of jumbled reasons that probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. They weren’t really making sense to him. It was just a pull, strong as gravity. He had to see where it happened, had to know why. The consulate man had said it might be better not to know, just remember him the way he was. But that was just so much crap, and Reeve had told the man so. “I didn’t know him at all,” he’d said.
The car-rental people tried to give him a vehicle called a GMC Jimmy, but he refused it point-blank, and eventually settled for a Chevy Blazer-a three-door rear-drive gloss-black wagon that looked built for off-roading. “A compact sport utility,” the clone at the desk called it; whatever it was, it had four wheels and a full tank of gas.
He’d booked into the Radisson in Mission Valley. Mr. Car Rental gave him a complimentary map of San Diego and circled the hotel district of Mission Valley.
“It’s about a ten-minute drive if you know where you’re going, twenty if you don’t. You can’t miss the hotel.”
Reeve put his one large holdall into the capacious trunk, then decided it looked stupid there and transferred it to the passenger seat. He spotted a minibus parked in front of the terminal with the hotel’s name on its side, so he locked the car and walked over to it. The driver had just seen a couple of tourists into the terminal and, when Reeve explained, said “sir” could follow him, no problem.
So Reeve tucked the Blazer in behind the courtesy bus and followed it to the hotel. He unloaded his bag and told the valet he didn’t need any help with it, so the valet went to park his car instead. And then, standing at the reception desk, Reeve nearly fell apart. Nerves, shock, lack of sleep. Standing there, on the hotel’s plush carpet, waiting for the receptionist to finish a telephone call, was harder than any thirty-six-hour pursuit. It felt like one of the hardest things he’d ever done. There seemed to be fog at the edges of his vision. He knew it must be exhaustion, that was all. If only the phone call hadn’t come at the end of a weekend, when his defenses were down and he was already suffering from lack of sleep.
He reminded himself why he was here. Maybe it was pride that kept him upright until he’d filled in the registration form and accepted his key. He waited a minute for the elevator, took it to the tenth floor, finding his room, unlocking it, walking in, dumping the bag on the floor. He pulled open the curtains. His view was of a nearby hillside, and below him the hotel’s parking lot. He’d decided on this hotel because it was the right side of San Diego for La Jolla. Jim had been found in La Jolla.
He lay down on the bed, which seemed solid and floating at the same time. He closed his eyes, just for a minute.
And woke up to late-afternoon sun and a headache.
He showered quickly, changed his clothes, and made a telephone call.
The police detective was very obliging. “I can come to the hotel if you like, or you can come down here.”
“I’d appreciate it if you could come here.”
“Sure, no problem.”
He took the elevator back down to the ground floor and had some coffee in the restaurant, then felt hungry and had a sandwich. It was supposed to be too early for food, but the waitress took pity on him.
“You on vacation?”
“No,” he told her, taking a second cup of coffee.
“Business?”
“Sort of.”
“Where you from?”
“ Scotland.”
“Really?” She sounded thrilled. He examined her; a pretty, tanned face, round and full of life. She wasn’t very tall, but carried herself well, like she didn’t plan to make waitressing a career.
“Ever been there?” His mouth felt rusty. It had been a long time since he’d had to form conversations with strangers, social chitchat. He talked at the weekenders, and he had his family-and that was it. He had no friends to speak of; maybe a few old soldiers like him, but he saw them infrequently and didn’t keep in touch between times.
“No,” she said, like he’d said something humorous. “Never been outside South Cal, ”cept for a few trips across the border and a couple of times to the East Coast.“
“Which border?”
She laughed outright. “Which border? Mexican, of course.”
It struck him how ill-prepared he was for this trip. He hadn’t done any background. He thought of the seven
“What’s wrong?” she said.
He shook his head, not feeling like talking anymore. He got out the map the car-rental man had given him, plus another he’d picked up from a pile at reception, and spread them on the table. He studied a street plan of San Diego, then a map of the surrounding area. His eye moved up the coast: Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, and La Jolla.
“What were you doing here, Jim?”
He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until he saw the waitress looking at him. She smiled, but a little uncertainly this time. Then she pointed to the coffeepot, and he saw that he’d finished the second cup. He nodded. Caffeine could only help.
“Mr. Reeve?” The man put out his hand. “They told me at reception I’d find you here. I’m Detective Mike McCluskey.”
They shook hands, and McCluskey squeezed into the booth. He was a big fresh-faced man with a missing tooth which he seemed to be trying to conceal by speaking out of the other side of his mouth. There were shoots of stubble on his square chin where the razor hadn’t done its job, and a small rash-line where his shirt collar rubbed his throat. He touched his collar now, as though trying to stretch it.
“I’m hellish sorry, sir,” he said, eyes on the tablecloth. “Wish I could say welcome to San Diego, but I guess you aren’t going to be taking too many happy memories away with you.”
Reeve didn’t know what to say, so he said thanks. He knew McCluskey hadn’t been expecting someone like
