What Remains (22 page)

Which meant he knew all about me.

‘You’re an investigator,’ he said. ‘You find missing people.’

I nodded, dug around in my pocket and removed a business card. He took it from me, studied it.

‘Are you free now, Mr East?’

‘Calvin. Yes, I am. Actually, now is a very good time because no one turned up for the 5 p.m. tour, and I was due to speak to Mr Cabot on Skype at half past.’

‘Would he be available to speak to me?’

‘Yes, I’m sure he would.’

‘So is there somewhere we can chat?’

‘You mean you don’t want to have to listen to an animatronic sailor laugh loudly every one hundred and ten seconds?’ He smiled, loosening his collar, and pushed his red-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Please, follow me.’

29

He led me back down to the first floor, through the canyons of machines, to a door on the far side marked
STAFF
. Next to it was a number pad. As he input his code, the door buzzed away from the frame and opened into a short corridor with three doors on the left, what looked like a staffroom at the end, and two huge sash windows on the right. The view, partly obscured by the brickwork of the building next door, was of the Thames, all the way down to Tower Bridge.

‘This way,’ East said.

All three rooms on the left were offices, the first two small and cluttered. In the third, a big glass panel looked through to what I assumed was Gary Cabot’s working space when he was in the country. His office was bigger, the furniture nicer, more modern, the mill’s brickwork complementing the design. There was more light too. A window opened up on to a perfect view of the pier, perched on the river like an insect. Behind the desk, in a studded, antique leather chair, was a man in his late eighties, grey, stooped, eyes staring off into space. As we got closer, I realized he was talking to himself.

‘You work them hard here,’ I said.

East looked from me to the old man and smiled. ‘Oh no, that’s just Mr Cabot’s father, Joseph.
Joe
. He likes to come in a couple of times a week and soak in the atmosphere out there. Joe’s the reason Mr Cabot fell in
love with the pier. Without him taking Mr Cabot to the pier, we’d all have very different lives.’

Beyond the door, I could hear the tinny sound of what must have been Gary Cabot, his voice coming through the computer speakers as he described the hotel he was staying in. He had a strong local accent, and he sounded upbeat and excited about being in Dubai. His father – clearly, I now realized, talking via Skype rather than to himself – seemed to be enjoying hearing about it too. His reaction reminded me of my grandparents, who always found the idea of foreign travel incredibly exotic, even when everyone in the world was doing it.

‘When Mr Cabot’s away, he likes me to look after Joe,’ East said, pausing outside the office door. ‘I’ve got to drop him back at the nursing home after this.’

As the door squeaked open wider, the old man looked up, but not directly at us. His gaze was askew, somewhere off to my left, milky eyes like a couple of pearls.

He was blind.

‘Joe, it’s Calvin.’

‘Calvin, my boy,’ the old man said, his accent similar to his son’s. One of his hands was gripping the head of a walking stick, the other was reaching out into space, fingers grasping at air as he searched for East’s hand. ‘Come and say hello to Gary. He says he’s staying on an island that’s the shape of a palm.’

East moved around to face the computer, taking Joseph Cabot’s hand, pale and liver-spotted, in his. ‘Hello, Gary,’ he said to the screen. ‘How was the auction?’

‘All right, Calvin?’ the reply came. ‘Yeah, good. Some interesting pieces, but nothing that floated my boat. I’ve
got a last-minute appointment, so instead of talking after this, we’ll just catch up when I’m back. That okay?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That’s fine. I’ve got someone here, though. His name is David Raker. He’s an investigator. He wanted to ask you some questions.’

‘An investigator?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What have you been doing, Calvin?’

Both Cabots laughed.

East only smiled. I couldn’t decide if it was because he didn’t like being the butt of the joke – or whether it was because Cabot had hit on something a little too close to home. I filed it away for later.

East waved me towards him. ‘Mr Raker?’

Next to him, Joseph Cabot searched the room for me, presumably trying to listen for a voice, for a sound I might make that would help him better pinpoint my position. He was thin, his skin like a yellowing bed-sheet, and he kept one hand on his knee, rubbing at it as if it were sore. But, beyond the evidence of his age – the jowls, the intricate network of wrinkles, the hairless dome of his head, the creaky knees – it was possible to see the man he may once have been: tall, probably quite handsome, with the kind of physique a runner would have had.

I reached out and took his hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Mr Cabot.’

‘Oh, please. Joe.’ He shook my hand, his grip a little soft, then smiled. ‘A pleasure to meet you too, Mr Raker. I hope Gary hasn’t been up to no good.’

‘No, nothing like that, sir.’ I came into view of the computer’s camera and saw Gary Cabot on-screen, the picture
a little pixelated, but clean enough. ‘Hello, Mr Cabot,’ I said to him.

Physically, he looked exactly the same as he had done in the photograph of him I’d seen online, except he was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, the latter a little snug for him. Behind him was an opulent-looking hotel room, with a sliver of window off to his left, Dubai at night reduced to a series of shimmering lights.

‘Mr Raker,’ he said, ‘what is it I can do for you?’

I looked from him to his father, to East standing off to my left. This wasn’t exactly an ideal set-up for an interview, via Skype and surrounded by onlookers. Luckily, Cabot Jr seemed to pick up on it, even from three thousand miles away.

‘Tell you what,’ he said, looking at his watch, ‘my flight back to London is at 2 a.m. Don’t ask me why Emirates have to keep such unsociable hours, but that’s the flight time.’ He shrugged, smiled. ‘I’ll be back at 6 a.m. London time, so should be around tomorrow afternoon. I’d be happy to catch up then – as long as you can put up with me being a little tired. I don’t tend to relax much on planes.’

‘That sounds fantastic,’ I said.

‘Good. Get Calvin to give you my numbers.’

‘I will do. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Perfect. All right, I’d better go.’

‘Travel safely, son,’ Joseph Cabot said.

‘I will do, Dad. I love you.’

‘I love you too, my boy.’

I stepped away from the conversation, out beyond the computer, feeling like I was intruding on this moment. There was a clear bond between father and son, one that made me think of my own father, a man for whom words
didn’t come as easily, or outpourings of emotion – but one I’d loved nonetheless.

A second later, East had helped Joe Cabot sign off.

‘Modern technology,’ Cabot said. ‘The irony of me being able to see my son halfway around the world, but
not
be able to see him, definitely isn’t lost on me. So, do you work for the police, Mr Raker?’

‘David. No, I work for myself.’

‘Oh, how exciting,’ Cabot said. ‘Like Philip Marlowe?’

I smiled. ‘Something like that, sir, yes.’

‘Sometimes I think I should have been more ambitious,’ Cabot went on, but then seemed to lose the trail of his thoughts, fingers scratching at a dry patch on his right hand. ‘I spent most of my life under cars, trying to wash engine oil out of my hands, and thought that was a good career. But when I hear about my boy jetting off to Dubai, and listen to people like you, with these fascinating jobs, I think, “Joe, you
really
missed a trick.” But, alas, it’s a little too late for me now.’

He paused and looked down at himself, an instinctive movement that spoke of the fact that he hadn’t always been blind, but then it seemed to click that he couldn’t do that any more; that he was even incapable of being able to examine the shell he now called a body. He rubbed at his right knee again, and I heard a pop as he tried to straighten it out. When he looked up, his eyes were that same milk-white, but there was a sadness to them now.

‘Anyway,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll let you two get on.’

I glanced at East, who leaned down to the old man. ‘I’ll call someone to come up and take you to my car, Joe. Will that be okay with you?’

‘Just get them to call me a taxi, son.’

‘I shouldn’t think we’ll be
that
long, will we, Mr Raker?’

East looked at me like he was attempting to catch me out, as if I might feel obliged to keep our conversation short because the old man was waiting for him.

‘I couldn’t say for sure,’ I said.

The smile fell from his face, but not from Joe Cabot’s, who appeared amused by my comeback. I’d warmed to him instantly. ‘Just call me a taxi,’ he said.

I took his hand again. ‘Nice to meet you, Mr Cabot.’

‘And you, son,’ he said.

30

Unlike Cabot’s office, Calvin East’s was a mess.

The desk was in the middle, in front of a small window, and around it, filling every space, were books, vertically, horizontally, in towers on the floors, spilling off shelves. Next to a pitching skyscraper of encyclopedias was a metal filing cabinet, but that and East’s computer were the exception; the rest was a cascade of paper.

East grabbed a chair for me from the staffroom, brought it back and set it down, then returned next door when one of the museum staff arrived for Joseph Cabot. As they helped the old man out, I realized how quiet the building was, the noise from the Thames and the streets below reduced to a low hum. All I could hear was East’s computer, purring softly, and the gentle snap of paper as pages in a book, high up on one of the shelves, were caught in the breeze from an air-conditioning grille.

When East was done, he offered me a coffee, but I told him I’d pass, keen to get going. I watched him come around and push aside a reference book with
London 1600–1699
on the front.

‘So what can I help with?’ he asked, sinking into the leather chair on his side of the desk. It wheezed as it took his weight, and he began turning from left to right, its mechanism making a tiny squeak every time he changed direction.

‘You’ve got a lot of books here.’

He smiled, looking around the room. ‘London has about
four thousand years of history, give or take, going all the way back to the Bronze Age. So when I’m telling people about the story of this place, about this amazing city we live in, I like to know what I’m talking about. Plus, I’m a hoarder – and I’m a collector.’

‘What do you collect?’

‘Books, paintings, antiquities. I’m fascinated by London, I’ve lived here my whole life, so my collection is centred here. Are you a fan of history, Mr Raker?’

‘As long as we learn from it.’

‘Very wise,’ he said, smiling. ‘I have no formal education, which is why I would never be considered as a curator at any other museum. Everything I’ve learned has come from these.’ He gestured at the books around his office. ‘Gary Cabot was good enough to let me be a part of this, to help shape the tours here.’

I said nothing, taking out my notepad and pen.

He studied me, as if he’d noted something in my expression; something he didn’t necessarily like. ‘You know, a lot of people look down on us here. They say this isn’t a proper museum, that we’re a seafront arcade, just one that happens to come with a big city tax band. But this place …’ He paused. ‘Do you know how many other non-coastal pleasure piers there are in this country, Mr Raker?’

‘David,’ I said, and shook my head.

‘Zero. None. Do you know how many there are
in the world
?’

‘No.’

‘None. Wapping Grand Pier is unique. Utterly unique. That thing out there, it’s a one-off. Whatever people’s opinion, there’ll never be another one of those.’ East seemed to glaze over for a second, eyes on the pier,
thoughts somewhere else. ‘Ever since it was first built, it’s been divisive. When it went up in 1888, some said it would be a white elephant, that the money would be better spent on Wapping’s flagging maritime industry. Others said it was in completely the wrong place, the wrong part of London, that no one would come down to
Wapping
, this place full of growling sailors and salt-blanched warehouses. But they came. They came in their hundreds of thousands, right up until Hitler flattened it in 1940. And then they came again when Arnold Goldman finally resurrected it in 1967 – because people can see it for what it is.’

‘Unique.’

He nodded. ‘Correct.’

‘Is Gary Cabot ever going to reopen it?’

‘The pier?’ East shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. You’d have to ask him. I know he would like to, but it’s Grade II listed, which complicates things. You have all sorts of hoops to jump through – rightly, I should add – before you can make structural changes to a listed building, and that only adds to the cost. Plus it’s in a general state of disrepair, hence the warning signs at the front. For now, I think he’s just happy that it’s his name on the ownership documents, because it means
he
gets to make the decisions about it. After all, history does nothing if not repeat itself.’

‘With regard to what?’

He ran a hand through his hair, one side of it matted to his scalp where the rim of his top hat had pressed it flat. ‘I mean, there are people out there who wouldn’t be disappointed if the pier got knocked down tomorrow. Some think it’s an eyesore on the river. Some, like the police marine unit next door, say it gets in their way and stops them doing their job. Even the mayor’s on record as saying he’s
not a fan of it, that it’s located too far out for tourists, and too far from a convenient Tube stop.’ He held out his hands in a
What are you going to do?
gesture. ‘People had problems with the pier a century ago, they’ve got problems with it now. But they can complain all they like – it’s not going anywhere.’

I picked up my pen.