Chapter 15
The aeroplane began its final descent. Helene peered out of the dirty window and was rewarded by the sight of a wide, flat valley, ringed by yellowing hills and a summer blue sky.
Passengers had been cheerfully informed by the captain that the temperature in San Bernardino was currently a pleasant 88oF which Helene worked out was about 31oC: still considerably cooler than Bahrain and with a welcome lack of humidity. She felt as if she’d been damp ever since she’d left Hawaii.
Charlie woke up as the wheels touched the tarmac and the small jet bumped and shuddered to a standstill. He looked relatively refreshed considering they had just travelled for 24 hours, leaving their Manama villa in the early hours, travelling east and re-crossing the dateline in the process. Technically it was two days later. Or was it? Helene’s tired brain refused to cooperate.
She’d spent most of the journey typing up her notes, trying to create a narrative thread, honing her questions, refining her theories. She hadn’t been able to go online during the nightmarish tangle of flights, so whether or not the NSA were still communicating via the website was unknown to her. Truthfully, Helene had been appalled by what Hassan had told her. She and Charlie had discussed the ramifications at length – with few conclusions. Neither could work out why Wally Manfred was still alive when it would have been so much easier – and cheaper – to have killed him. It wasn’t as if the efforts had subdued the Gene Genies: if anything the reverse was true.
“Looks like we’re here,” she said, rather pointlessly.
Charlie nodded but didn’t speak.
Helene eased her stiff body out of the economy bucket seat and stretched slowly, an orchestra of creaks joining her in sympathy. Charlie moved with his customary felid grace. He reached into the overhead locker and pulled out a smart, canvas shoulder bag and a jacket: his entire complement of luggage. Everything else had been jettisoned at Manama. Helene was similarly unencumbered, reverting to her grab bag and a change of underwear. She was wearing a new wig, cut into a blonde bob, and feature sunglasses; Charlie made do with an LA Galaxy baseball cap that he’d picked up when they’d changed planes in Los Angeles.
Helene hadn’t been happy when he’d shown her the new passport. She was now travelling as ‘Mona Samovar’. She couldn’t say whether she was most annoyed at being named after a teapot or by the implications attached to the first name. He didn’t say and she didn’t ask: which was beginning to sum up their present relations. He was travelling as ‘Jack Duncan’, a carefully neutral name.
First they had to find a car. Easy enough. The airport boasted a choice of six rental companies. The shuttle bus took them direct to a massive parking lot. A line of chesty saloons, covered in a fine film of dust, were paraded in front of them.
Yes, the clerk had told them, they were all latest models and yes, they all had SatNav and air-con as standard: automatic, naturally. Charlie paid a week’s rental in advance, although ‘paid’ was rather a loose term these days. Helene slumped gratefully into the armchair-size seats and he blasted the fetid air with super-cooled air-con.
He punched in the address for Arrowhead Springs and they cruised out of town past a McDonalds’ museum and small shopping mall. A sign proclaimed: San Bernardino – 99th largest city in the US. Helene wondered irrelevantly who had made 100th.
The road rose up into the hills, snaking past arid foothills, scrubby vegetation, and very little else. Occasionally a huge truck carrying livestock passed them, if the air holes in the sides were anything to go by. Helene felt a brief pity for the animals inside that were soon to be carcasses. She knew how they felt.
As they climbed higher, she was immediately struck by the bizarre appearance of an enormous rock formation. It looked primitive, almost manmade.
“I can see why this place got its name,” said Charlie.
Helene nodded silently.
On the side of the mountain a natural formation of eroded soil and rock marked out a gigantic arrowhead, pointing directly at the unusual combination of hot springs and cool mountain water at the foot of the hill: the eponymous Arrowhead Springs.
The road whisked them past the outcrop and Helene wondered what it must have looked like to the Native Americans who had lived there centuries before the palefaces arrived. Well, like an arrowhead, obviously, but she wondered if they’d been aware of the healing properties of the sulphurous hot springs. Probably: she reckoned that hippies in the seventies thought they’d invented homeopathy and holistic thinking, but really they were only picking up the threads of centuries of knowledge, most people having been blind-sided by the immediate and obvious benefits of medicine and scientific study. Helene could certainly vouch for the improving soak in Kotohira’s onsen, although the soothing water didn’t seem to have done much to improve Matsumoto’s milk of human kindness. Better not think about that: better not think about the blood on the floor…
Helene shook her head and tried to concentrate on what she was going to say to Wally Manfred’s daughter. It was hard to think past, “Hello”, let alone plan a subtle strategy that would encourage the daughter of a kidnapped computer hacker to talk. What had Charlie said about Hassan? We’ll have to wing it.
Eventually the SatNav informed them that they had reached the end of their journey: they were still less than forty minutes from the airport.
Charlie pulled into a long, snaking estate, fringed by a parched ring of mature trees. The houses were older than Helene had expected; 1930’s one-storey buildings, large units but with surprisingly small gardens, the wooden frames shoulder to shoulder as if preparing to circle the wagons and ward off some surprise attack.
One of the smaller houses caught Helene’s eye.
“This is it,” she said, “3744 Elder View.”
The house had an air of sadness, if not outright neglect. The lawn had been mown but not recently; the shutters had been painted, but a couple of years back; the windows had been washed once but were now covered with the omnipresent dust.
Charlie parked across the street and half a block up. They were watched by a small group of bored children, playing in the street, their rag-taggle of bicycles abandoned on the brown verge.
One of the bolder ones yelled out, “Who you come to see?”
Helene turned round and smiled.
A small, tanned face with a grubby nose looked up at her owlishly. She suspected that this child should have been wearing his spectacles but refused to do so. He fancied himself as the leader, so Helene decided to humour him. The boy wiped his hand across his face, spreading the snot in a glistening snail trail. Helene was revolted and amused at the same time.
“Do you know Barbara Manfred?” she said.
“She won’t speak to you,” said the snotty child.
“Why’s that?” he said.
The child looked up and up as Charlie’s height cast him in shadow.
“She don’t like people, mister, specially not strangers. My mom said she’s got blues, but I ain’t never seen her wear nothing blue.”
“Does she have any friends?” Charlie asked carefully. “Maybe people who come and visit her sometimes?”
The boy shook his head and Helene noticed that the other children were silently agreeing from a safe distance.
“Naw. She don’t want no friends. Just them men who come sometimes, but I don’t think she likes ‘em much, cuz they never stay long.”
“Who do you think they are then?” said Helene softly.
“My pa says they’re the Feds and that Miz Manfred is a retired bank robber. I don’t think girls can be bank robbers, can they?”
The rest of the dusty children shook their heads in unison. Equal opportunities wasn’t a term they were likely to learn around here.
“And what does your mum, er, mom say about Ms Manfred?” prompted Helene.
The child shrugged.
“She says that they’re just IRS and Miz Manfred ain’t done paid her taxis. But I don’t think that’s right neithe
r cuz I ain’t never seen her take no taxi.”
Helene and Charlie exchanged glances.
“Thank you,” said Helene. “You’ve been very helpful.”
And in lieu of anything better, she gave the child a half-opened packet of chewing gum. He seemed disproportionately pleased with his trophy and went off to show it to his gang, with no intention of sharing it.
Helene followed Charlie up the driveway past an elderly pick-up truck that, at some point in the past, had been reversed into something solid. He knocked on the door frame and waited.
There was no answer.
“Maybe she’s not in,” said Helene.
“She’s in,” said Charlie. “Her pick-up is here and the kids would have said if she’d gone out.”
He knocked again and motioned for Helene to do the speaking. She spoke softly but clearly, unwilling for her voice to reach the goggling children.
“Miss Manfred: we’re not Federal agents. We’re here to help you – you and your father. Will you come and talk to us, please?”
There was some scuffling behind the door.
“Go away! I can’t talk to you!” said a light, girlish voice.
“Please, Miss Manfred,” persisted Helene. “Barbara, we know what happened to your father three years ago. We know that you’re scared, but if you talk to us we can help you.”
“You can’t help me,” came the reply, in a voice that was near to tears. “No-one can help me. You have to go now or they’ll know! Go away. Please!”
The shuffling retreated.
Helene tried again but it seemed Barbara Manfred had said as much as she was going to: as much as she could.
“We could come back tonight,” said Charlie quietly. “So no-one knows we’ve been here. She might talk to us if she thinks no-one will know.”
“I suppose so,” said Helene wearily.
Charlie frowned.
“If we leave the car a mile or so back on the highway and hike in, we can get to her without anyone seeing us. It’s worth a punt.”
“Okay,” said Helene, half-heartedly. “Let’s do that. In the mean time I think we should go and find Manfred senior.”
“You’re the boss,” he said easily.
Helene nearly swallowed her gum.
Warm Creek Nursing Home was less than a half an hour’s drive from Arrowhead Springs. Helene took her turn at the wheel and the SatNav guided her easily. It must make being a spy so much easier, she reckoned. Not that this was how she thought of herself: she was still a journalist and she had one helluva story to tell. Nearly.
The nursing home was set amid the low foothills, some miles out of San Bernadino. The modern, low-rise building was painted a soothingly pale terracotta. Neat lawns and young trees were framed by a secure looking fence: either to keep the patients in or, possibly, visitors out.
But it seemed security wasn’t the main concern as Helene and Charlie were buzzed in through a pair of electric gates, no questions asked. Helene could see that the inmates were making the most of the pleasant weather, or rather their carers were, as they were pushed or escorted around the grounds. Some just sat, slumped in a haze of memories, lost to the present world. All seemed to be in either early or more developed stages of dementia.
Helene could hardly bear to watch. Her mother had died confused and scared, surrounded by strangers, while Helene had been working abroad; home just one day too late to say goodbye. She was haunted by the last image she held of her mother: a thin, frail, wild-haired woman who knew no-one and nothing – except that she wasn’t at home and she desperately wanted to go there. “Won’t you let me go home?” she’d wailed. She’d called for Helene, begged for her, but could not recognise the daughter who stood before her, crying, unable to comfort or help.
It was the only thing about being single that really terrified Helene: the thought that one day, she, too, might wake up and not be able to remember who she was or where she belonged; not to be able to recognise familiar faces; to be lost and fearful. It was a terrible thing to lose control of one’s body, but to lose your mind was to lose yourself.
“Are you ready?” he said.
“Not really,” said Helene. “I hate places like this.”
He shrugged. “Most people do, I would have thought,” he said, a serious expression on his face, “although hopefully not the people who work here. At least it seems pretty calm here.”
“I can’t imagine why that might be, can you?” said Helene sharply.
He didn’t reply but compressed his lips into a thin, bitter line.
“Let’s find out,” he said at last.
They followed the signs to reception and a well appointed blonde woman, on the slippery slope from sixty and dressed as a nurse, fielded their enquiry.
“Mr Manfred? Why, yes, he’s one of our guests. But he doesn’t see anyone. Who did you say you are, honey?”
“Mona Samovar,” said Helene, mentally wincing at the ridiculous name. “I live in London and this is the first chance I’ve had to come out here to see Wally. We used to work together.”
“Well, gee, I hate to disappoint you when you’ve come all this way and all,” said the nurse, who didn’t sound in the least bit disappointed.
“Barbara asked us to drop by,” said Helene, clutching at straws. “Barbara Manfred, his daughter.”
At that the woman’s face tightened still further.
“His daughter you say! Harrumph! All I’ll say is that young lady is no better than she ought to be. Well, I suppose as you’ve come all this way… why don’t you and your son wait in the garden, honey, and I’ll go get Wally. Maybe you’d like a glass of iced tea, too?”
“Thank you,” said Helene, gratefully on both counts. “That would be marvellous.”
Once the nurse had gone Charlie raised an eyebrow.
“Your son?”
Helene tried a wry smile. “Technically I am nearly old enough to be your mother.”
“Hmm. Would that count as an Oedipus complex?” he said.
Helene couldn’t be bothered to reply.
She led them to a bench under a tree that the nurse had pointed out, and an Hispanic orderly dressed in a white uniform brought them their drinks. The iced tea was sweet enough to set Helene’s teeth on edge. And, despite the heat of the day, Charlie pulled a face and tipped his drink under the bench. Helene half expected to see the grass wither instantly.
After a short wait, Helene saw a dumpy black woman approach with a wizened man strapped into a wheelchair, a panoply of St Vitus Dance making his limbs jerk in unison. He seemed unaware of his surroundings, a thin line of drool hanging from his lower lip.
The nurse frowned and used a clean tissue to dab at the man’s mouth. Unwanted tears came to Helene’s eyes: she felt ridiculously grateful to see that small act of kindness towards one so helpless. She hoped that when her time came… then she shook the thought away.
A new feeling of horror overcame her when she realised that the man in the wheelchair was undoubtedly the one from the photograph that Hassan had shown them. But the last three years had taken a terrible toll on the once vital face and strong, stocky body.
“Hello Wally,” said Helene in a strangled voice.
And despite her best efforts she couldn’t keep the tears from welling, threatening to brim over at any second.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen him in a while, ma’am?” said the nurse carefully.
Helene nodded wordlessly.
“It’s probably a bit of a shock for you. You sit back down, miss. Don’t you be frettin’ yourself. It gets Wally all upset: he likes people to be calm.”
“S-sorry,” said Helene.
“That’s okay, ma’am, I understand. We get a lot of that here. But really the patients are just like children: you gotta keep ‘em comfortable and busy and they’re good as gold. See Jimmy over there?”
She pointed to an elderly man with white hair sitting serenely holding a cup of tea.
“J
immy used to be in removals: you know, movin’ folks from place to place, shiftin’ their furniture. Well, he kept on movin’ all the furniture in his room and one day he moved half the living room down the hall and no-one knew how to stop him. But then I figured even removal men gotta have a rest during their work so I said to him, ‘Now, Jimmy, you shouldn’ be doin’ that: you’s on your tea break’. An’ he stopped: jus’ like that. You gotta know how to talk to ‘em is all. They’s still people, ma’am.”
Helene took a deep breath, reached forward and gently took Wally’s hand between hers.
“Hello, Wally,” she said. “It’s Mona. Genie sent us. You remember Genie?”
There was no reaction in the man’s face, not so much as a flicker of recognition. Helene tried again.
“We stopped by to see Barbara – she said to say ‘hi’. You know, Barbara, your daughter?”
Nothing. But Helene was intrigued to see the expression of disgust on the nurse’s face.
“Have you met his daughter Barbara?” said Helene, looking up.
“I met her,” said the nurse, with pursed lips.
“We saw her today,” said Helene. “I didn’t think she seemed very well.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said the nurse. “She don’t come here.”
“What, never?” said Helene surprised. “She’s only half-an-hour away.”
“Half-an-hour, half-a-day, half a lifetime to some folks,” said the nurse enigmatically. “Some kids push their parents in here and never see ‘em again. Say it’s too hard. Well, I’ll tell you what’s too hard: havin’ children what is so ungrateful that they don’t have the time of day for you – that’s hard.”
Clearly the nurse felt strongly on this point.
“So Barbara has never been here to visit Wally?” pursued Helene.
“Mm-mm. She come just the once, not long after Wally come here,” said the nurse.
“So, Barbara didn’t bring him here herself?”
“No, ma’am,” replied the nurse curiously. “He come by ambulance. Most of ‘em come by ambulance.”
Of course. That made sense. But Helene couldn’t understand why Barbara wouldn’t visit her father?