‘Thank you,’ I said, relieved. ‘Can I come and get it?’
‘Not tonight – I’m meeting him for a movie, and tomorrow we have dinner with friends. What about Friday, around seven?’
A delay of two days was a lot longer than I wanted, but I wasn’t in a position to object. I thanked her, made a note of the address and hung up. Being a highly experienced professional, a man skilled in the tradecraft of the clandestine world, a person who – as I think I mentioned – had been trained to survive in situations where others might die, it would be reasonable to assume that I would see an ambush coming. But not me – the high-school teacher raised in Queens played me off a break and I didn’t even suspect it until I stepped into the apartment.
The lights were low, ‘Hey Jude’ was playing on the stereo, the room was filled with the smell of home cooking and a table was set for three: I had been invited for dinner. I guessed the whole evening would be devoted to pressuring me to change my mind about Bradley’s seminar, but there was no way out, not when people have spent months compiling a dossier on your life and you’re a beggar for their files.
‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble,’ I said, doing my best imitation of a smile.
‘The least we could do,’ Marcie replied, ‘considering all the trouble we have caused you.’
Bradley appeared, hand extended, asking me what I’d like to drink. As it happened, I was in one of my periodic ‘cease and desist’ phases: I had decided New York would be a fresh start, a perfect opportunity to try to get clean, and it wouldn’t be just lip service this time – I’d even got the schedule of the local Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Being an addictive personality, however, I couldn’t do anything in moderation – not even sobriety – so I had also sworn off all alcohol. This was going to be a long evening.
Bradley returned with my Evian. While Marcie went to check on dinner, Bradley took a shot of his liquor and guided me towards the white room at the end of the universe. Except it wasn’t that any more – the kilim was on the floor, the drapes rehung and the only evidence of the desperate drama that had played out within its walls was the physiotherapy equipment in the corner.
Dozens of file boxes were standing next to it. Bradley pointed and smiled. ‘This is your life, Mr Murdoch.’
As I bent and glanced through them, I was shocked at the extent of their research – the boxes were filled with computer print-outs, data-storage disks and copies of everything from Caulfield Academy yearbooks to the annual reports of UN agencies. I took a folder at random – it was their master list of the aliases I had used – and the names brought a rush of memories.
Bradley watched as I turned the pages. ‘Marcie and I have been talking,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if we call you Scott?’
‘What’s wrong with Peter Campbell?’ I asked.
‘I just thought … at least between ourselves, it’d be easier to use your real name. That’s how we’ve always thought of you.’
I looked at him. ‘Trouble is, Ben, Scott Murdoch’s not my real name either.’
Bradley stared, trying to compute it. Was I lying, trying one last gambit to throw them off the track they had followed so assiduously, or was this my poor attempt at humour?
I indicated the list of aliases. ‘It’s like all the rest. Just another false identity – a different time, a different place, a different name.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s been my life.’
‘But … you were Scott Murdoch at school … just a kid … That was years before the secret world,’ he said, even more perplexed.
‘I know. Nobody would have chosen what happened – but that’s the way it turned out.’
I watched the investigator’s mind race – the child’s name that was no real name at all, my absence from either of the funerals, the fact I didn’t seem to have inherited any of the Murdochs’ wealth. He looked at me and realized: I was adopted, I wasn’t Bill and Grace’s natural child at all.
I smiled at him, one of those smiles that has no humour in at all. ‘I’m glad you didn’t try to go back any further than Scott Murdoch. Everything before Greenwich is mine, Ben – it’s not for anyone else to see.’
There was no doubt he understood it was a warning. The three rooms on the wrong side of 8-Mile, the woman’s features which had faded in my memory with every year, the real name she gave me – they were the very core of me, the only things I owned that were indisputably mine.
‘Who cares about a name?’ Bradley said at last, smiling. ‘Pete’s fine.’