Ли Чайлд - Past Tense

‘Come take a look at this,’ Patty said.

Mark climbed off the quad bike and Patty led the way inside the room. She pointed down into the void under the vanity.

Mark said, ‘What am I looking for?’

‘You’ll see.’

He looked.

He saw.

He said, ‘Oh, dear.’

He bent down and came back up with the cotton bud.

‘I apologize most sincerely,’ he said. ‘This is unforgivable.’

‘Why did you tell us we were the first guests in this room?’

‘What?’

‘You made a big deal out of it.’

‘You are the first guests in this room. Most definitely. This is something else entirely.’

‘The painter?’ Shorty said.

‘No.’

‘Then who?’ Patty asked.

‘The bank told us to improve our marketing. We hired a photographer to take pictures for a new brochure. He brought a model from Boston with him. We let her do her make-up in here, because it’s the nicest room. I suppose we were trying to impress her. She was very good-looking. I thought we cleaned up after her. Obviously we didn’t succeed completely. Again, I apologize most sincerely.’

‘So do I,’ Patty said. ‘I guess. For jumping to conclusions. How did the pictures come out?’

‘She was dressed as a hiker. Very big boots and very short shorts. A hiker on a warm day, clearly, because her top wasn’t huge either. The motel was behind her. It looked pretty good.’

Patty gave him fifty of her hard-earned bucks.

She said, ‘What do we owe you for the meals?’

‘Nothing,’ Mark said. ‘That’s the least we can do.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. That’s just housekeeping money. The bank doesn’t see those numbers.’ He put the fifty bucks and the cotton bud in his pants pocket. He said, ‘And kind of on the same subject I have something for you.’

He led the way out to the lot again, back to the quad bike, to the carton strapped to its rack.

He said, ‘You are absolutely invited to dinner tonight, of course, and breakfast tomorrow, but equally all of us would absolutely understand if you preferred to eat alone, just the two of you. Everyone knows making conversation can be stressful. We put together some ingredients for you. Either join us at the house, or help yourselves from the box. No pressure either way.’

He undid the straps and hefted the box in his arms. He half turned and slid it into Shorty’s waiting hands.

‘Thank you,’ Patty said.

Mark just smiled, and climbed aboard the quad bike, and started up its ferocious engine. He turned a wide circle in the stony lot and disappeared around the corner, heading back to the house.

Cubicle four was the same as cubicle two, except in a different place. Otherwise it was identical. It had the same tweed chair, and a flat screen, and a sharpened pencil, and a pad of paper with the county name at the top, like a hotel brand. The flat screen was already lit up blue, with two icons already top right, like stamps on a letter, the same as before. Reacher double-clicked on the first, and saw the same battleship-grey background, and a title page in the same government writing, saying all the same things he had seen before, except for the centre line, which said this time the returns were extracted for the county as a whole.

He scrolled down, with the wheel between the mouse’s shoulder blades. The same introduction was there, with the same long disquisition about improvements in methodology. He skipped it all and went straight to the list of names. He got a rhythm going, flicking at the wheel with the tip of his finger, using some kind of elastic inbuilt momentum, spooling through the A section, and the B section, and the C section, then speeding to a blur, and then letting the list settle and slow and come to a stop among a short run of Q-names. There was a Quaid family, and a Quail, and a Quattlebaum, and two Queens.

He rolled on to the R section.

And there they were. Near the top. James Reacher, male, white, twenty-six years old, a tin mill foreman, and his wife Elizabeth Reacher, female, white, twenty-four years old, a bed sheet finisher, and their thus-far only child Stan Reacher, male, white, two years old.

Two years old in April, when the census was taken. Which would make him three years old in the fall, which would make him sixteen years old late on a September evening in 1943. Not fifteen. The old birdwatching lady was right.

Reacher said, ‘Huh.’

He read on. Their address was given as a number and a street in a place named Ryantown. Their home was rented, at a cost of forty-three dollars a month. They didn’t own a radio set. They didn’t work on a farm. James had been twenty-two and Elizabeth twenty when they married. Both could read and write. Neither had any Indian tribal affiliation.

Reacher double-clicked on the tiny red traffic light at the top of the document, and the screen went back to the blue wash with the two postage stamps. He double-clicked on the second of them, and the census from ten years later opened up. He scrolled down, swooping through most of the alphabet, once again rolling to a stop among the Q-names. The Quaids were still there, and the Quails, and the two Queen families, but the Quattlebaums had gone.

The Reachers were still there. James, Elizabeth, and Stan, in that April thirty-six, thirty-four, and twelve years old respectively. Apparently there had been no further children. No siblings for Stan. James had changed his employment to labourer on a county road grading crew, and Elizabeth was out of work altogether. Their address was the same, but the rent had dropped to thirty-six bucks. Seven years of Depression had taken its toll, on workers and landlords alike. James and Elizabeth were still listed as literate, and Stan was in daily attendance at school. The household had acquired a radio set.

Reacher wrote the address with the sharpened pencil on the top sheet of the branded notepaper, which he then tore off, and folded up, and stuck in his back pants pocket.

Mark parked the quad bike back at the barn, and walked on down to the house. The phone rang as soon as he got in the door. He picked it up and said his name, and a voice told him, ‘There was a guy here, name of Reacher, checking out his family history. A big guy, pretty rough. He won’t take no for an answer. So far he’s looked at four different censuses. I think he’s searching for an old address. Maybe he’s a relative. I thought you should know.’

Mark hung up without replying.

REACHER WALKED BACK to the city office and got there a half hour before the close of business. He went up to the records department and pressed the bell. A minute later Elizabeth Castle came in.

‘I found them,’ he said. ‘They lived beyond the city limit, which is why they didn’t show up the first time around.’

‘So no federal warrants.’

‘Turned out they were relatively law-abiding.’

‘Where did they live?’

‘A place called Ryantown.’

‘I’m not sure where that is.’

‘That’s a shame, because I came here especially to ask you.’

‘I’m not sure I ever heard of it.’

‘Can’t be far away, because his birdwatching club was here in town.’

She took out her phone, and did things to it, with spread fingers. She showed him. It was a map, expanded. She spread her fingers some more, and smaller places popped into view. Then she moved the magnified image around, circling Laconia’s boundary, examining the nearby hinterland.

No Ryantown.

‘Try further out,’ he said.

‘How far would a kid go for a birdwatching club?’

‘Maybe he had a bike. Maybe Ryantown was boring. The cops told me there were all kinds of little spots, each with a couple dozen families and not much else. Maybe it was a place like that.’