little holiday-season town, he imagined Angel’s Muffin House bustled with trade in the summer but tumbleweed rolled through it the rest of the year.
It was a well-chosen spot for a discreet meeting. This had been Arnold Zuckerman’s emailed suggestion. Julian hadn’t noticed this cake shop, tucked away off Blue Valley’s one, quiet, high street.
The guy’s visited this town before, then.
Julian was busy wondering why the proprietor of Angel’s would bother to keep it open like this, when he spotted movement in a dimly lit corner. He noticed a middle-aged man sitting alone at a table. Self-consciously he wove his way past several tidily laid tables towards him.
‘Arnold?’ he asked, holding out a hand.
‘Yes,’ the man replied with a warm smile and a rich, deep, vaguely familiar voice. ‘Mr Cooke?’
Julian nodded and they shook hands formally.
‘Please,’ the man said, ‘pull up a seat. I ordered us a pot of Earl Grey and some delicious-looking cinnamon muffins.’ He spoke with the warm, old-world charm of a storekeeper; very appealing and welcoming in a come-and- join-me-by-the-firem’boy kind of way.
Julian sat down and the man poured tea into his cup from the pot.
‘You flew in from Britain today?’ he asked.
Julian nodded. ‘Into Denver, earlier this morning.’
‘You must be tired.’
Julian added milk and spooned in some sugar. ‘Yes, I am a bit.’
An awkward silence passed between them as Julian decided how to open up the discussion.
‘Look,’ said the man, ‘this is a bit awkward. I’m not particularly good at playing games with people, Mr Cooke. I lie very badly, which.. believe me, is a real handicap in the line of work I’ve chosen. I’m afraid I’m not who I said I was.’
Julian looked up at him. The man smiled a little guiltily. ‘You might recognise me, or you might not. Depends how well you’ve been following the news lately.’
Julian realised he knew the face from somewhere — distinguished in the way a mature character actor might be.
In the news?
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘now you say it, I think I have seen you on TV.'
The man sighed and his smile widened. ‘I suspect you probably have. It’s getting harder and harder these days to find a quiet corner where I can be myself.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t be. I should apologise for not being on the level with you, Mr Cooke.’
‘Okay, Arnold Zuckerman is an alias.’ Julian smiled. ‘I thought it sounded like a badly made-up name.’
‘Yes,’ the man acknowledged with a soft laugh. ‘If I place a cap on my head and a pair of glasses on my nose and try a change of clothes I can still — just about — walk up a street without being accosted by someone. But’ — he sipped his tea — ‘not for much longer, I imagine.’
Julian looked at him intently, trying to place this man’s face in the right context. He remembered seeing that face recently as a still image, a picture on the front of a magaz Then it came to him.
‘Oh shit!’ he whispered. ‘You’re… you’re the independent candidate, uh… Shepperton?’
He nodded. ‘William Shepherd.’
Julian’s jaw dropped open. ‘Oh my God!’
Shepherd laughed. ‘Not quite. I’m just a part-time lay preacher.’
Julian grinned. There was a warm, disarming familiarity to the man, which he found quite charming.
I’m sitting across the table from a man who may well be the next President of the United States.
Shepherd noticed Julian’s sudden stiffness. ‘Relax,’ he laughed warmly, ‘and please call me William. You know, despite being demonised, or lionised, depending on which news network you want to watch, I’m just a tired old guy trying to muddle through one day after the next and do what’s right for my country.’
‘You seem to be doing well, though.’
‘It’s still early days. There’s another whole year of campaigning to go. There’s a lot of work to do yet, to convince the American people it ain’t the end of the world if they go and vote a Mormon into office.’
‘A costly business.’
Shepherd sighed. ‘Tell me about it. I believe the predicted spend on political campaigning by the others is likely to top two billion dollars by the time election day rolls around. I’m hoping to rely on the message, instead of slick campaigning.’ Shepherd leaned forward and offered a sly wink. ‘You know what? I think people are beginning to see through all that glossy crap these days.’
‘Do you think you stand a chance?’
‘I’m making a lot of new friends,’ he replied. ‘There’re a lot of backers out there beginning to smell a good bet.’ Shepherd shrugged. ‘In any case, the Democrats and Republicans are both looking dirty, the amount of mud they’ve been slinging at each other. All I need do is convince middle America that voting for me won’t let in the party they despise the most.’
He waved his hand dismissively. ‘But look, if you’ll forgive me, I’m bored witless of discussing campaign tactics. I have a man called Duncan who drives me up the wall with that kind of tedium. No… I’m here because we share a fascination with a certain obscure historical character.’
‘Yes.’ Julian reached for a muffin. He pulled it apart in his hands and picked at the hard-baked crust, not hungry but needing something to fiddle with. ‘So then, I suppose the obvious question from me is: why your interest in this William Preston character?’
Shepherd took a moment to consider the question.
‘I’ll level with you. It’s not so much Preston himself that I’m specifically interested in. As you saw on my web page, I managed to put together some background on the man, but it’s what happened to the group of people that were travelling west with him that I’d like to learn more about.’
‘So, what do you know?’
‘They vanished in the mountains…’ He looked out of the window, through the net curtains at the panorama of peaks towering over the small town. ‘Somewhere out there.’ Shepherd turned to look at Julian. ‘One of them was my great-great-grandfather. ’
Julian’s eyes widened. ‘No! Seriously?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘My great-great-grandfather.’
‘Preston?’
Shepherd hesitated. ‘Lord, no. It was a young man.’
‘Would his name have been Lambert?’
‘Yes,’ replied Shepherd — his turn to look astonished. ‘Yes, it was. How on earth would you know that?’ he asked, his deep voice dropping to a whisper.
Julian wondered how much of the truth he wanted to pay out to this man. He decided there was no harm in giving him a little bit more for free. ‘We discovered what happened to those people. We found where they ended up.’
‘Oh my…’ Shepherd’s deep eyes widened.
Julian smiled. ‘Better still, we found the journal of one Benjamin Lambert. A very detailed account of what happened out there.’
Shepherd gasped. ‘That’s an incredible discovery!’
Julian nodded. ‘Yes, yes it is.’
Shepherd spread his hands. ‘And? Would you tell me what happened to them?’
Julian sipped his tea silently.
How much do I give this guy for free?
‘Well, this is a little awkward, Mr Shepherd-’
‘William.’
‘William… I’m sitting on a historical tale I believe to be worth a lot of money.’ Julian sighed. ‘Look, I’m crap at talking money, but-’
Shepherd smiled. ‘But, you’re a journalist, you’ve worked hard to unearth the details and you’re not that keen on giving it all away for nothing. I can understand that.’
