Reporters were sometimes invited to join the ritual. They could tell—based on whether he used their first or last names when calling them into his sanctum—whether they would be sharing his wine, or one of the less attractive offerings from the private fridge. Over the years that Hyde ran the foreign desk, it had become something of a competition among the reporters to bring him back a bottle of the most revolting local tipple they could find. A long-fermenting bottle of guava brandy from Namibia was considered the unofficial winner. The collection also included a terrifyingly yellow Italian limoncello, a vile Danish liquor called Gammel Dansk, and a home-brewed Mongolian spirit that smelled like paint thinner. After a trip to see her relatives last year, Alex had proudly contributed a bottle of Buckfast, the fortified wine favored by Glasgow soccer hooligans.
Hyde relished summoning reporters who hadn’t managed a byline in a couple of weeks. He would watch them squirm as he poured himself a glass of good wine, smiled pleasantly, and then pointedly replaced the bottle in the fridge. They knew what was coming: a healthy measure of the guava brandy. The routine was obnoxious, but effective. The reporters nearly always found a way to file a story the next day.
Hyde enjoyed running a newsroom, for the most part. His heart wasn’t in local news, it was true. But through creative accounting and the grim determination of Hyde and few of the other old guard, the paper managed to cling to its Washington office and to six foreign bureaus: Beijing, Jerusalem, Cairo, Mexico City, Berlin, and London. If you could count old Charlie Swift in London as a bureau. Really, Hyde should shut down Berlin and open Islamabad. It was where the story was now. But he couldn’t stomach the idea of not having a single reporter on the Continent. It was bad enough he’d had to shut Paris and Rome. It killed Hyde to run wire copy from the great cities of Europe. But at least he was still in the game. Well into his sixties, he retained a boyish amazement that he’d found a profession where you actually got paid to travel the world, interview interesting people, and write about it.
He missed being out in the field. Hyde was unlike other star reporters of his generation in that he’d never hankered for the life of a war correspondent. As a young man, he had watched his contemporaries break news from Vietnam and did not envy them. Danger and bloodshed did not appeal. Instead, he preferred to install himself in elegant flats in cosmopolitan cities. Then he would set out to meet the people who made them tick. He was a beautiful and a fast writer. He saw that while one could keep busy covering the never-ending cycles of coups and floods and currency devaluations, the way to really capture a place was to write about its people. The foods they ate, the sports they played, the gods they worshipped. His eight-thousand-word Sunday-magazine article on the renaissance of Chianti—filed after three weeks of “research” in Tuscany and accompanied by an expense report staggering enough to earn him his own cost code in the paper’s accounting office—remained a standard to which the interns aspired.
Perhaps the happiest years were his stint in Istanbul. Having persuaded the then foreign editor that Turkey was a key listening post for the Arab world, he befriended the local CIA station chief. Together the two men spent their evenings on the spy’s balcony. Hours slipped by as they smoked, topped up each other’s whisky, and watched oil tankers motoring up the Bosporus Strait. The station chief claimed to have radar that could track covert Soviet subs gliding down from the Black Sea. He claimed the Agency could intercept and listen to every word the Russians said. Hyde never quite knew whether to believe his friend on this count. But he did pick up all kinds of gossip about the Russian mob, narcotics trafficking, and other areas the CIA had deemed of interest.
One of Hyde’s early editors had once warned him that the glory days of a newsroom were always ten years before you got there. Alas, he had now reached an age where he believed it. He had no idea how the young journalists who worked for him could stand the demands that were placed on them. Web build-outs. Podcasts. Live blogs and reader Q&A’s. Always another news platform hungry for you to file. Worst of all, editors who insisted your phone remain always on, always with you, the better to reach you around the clock. He supposed this was true across all industries, in this era of efficiencies and multitasking. Yet it pained him that reporters could no longer disappear for weeks on a boondoggle like his legendary Chianti quest.
And yet, they kept coming. Take Alexandra James. Smart girl. She could have gone to law school like nearly every other Ivy League grad of her generation. Or off to earn a fortune on Wall Street. Six years she’d worked in his newsroom, and he was still trying to figure her out. She was clearly driven. Clearly talented. But she was also young and inexperienced. And there was the thing with her child. It had left her . . . somehow . . . damaged. As if something critical in her had broken and was still deciding whether to heal.
Hyde sipped the last of his champagne and wondered what Alex would come up with on the Thomas Carlyle story. She was testing him. One of Hyde’s vanities was a conviction that he knew exactly how much leash to give his reporters, and when it was time to rein them in. Five decades of journalism had also led him to believe that the world was crazy, and most people were nuts. He had an inside joke with his wife: everyone outside our bed is insane. People did crazy things all the time. That was good for journalists. It meant if you dug deep enough, for long enough, there was always a story.
He hoped Alex James was the type of reporter who would find it.
He also hoped she would remember to bring him back a Burberry coat.
18
MONDAY, JUNE 28
By 9:02 a.m. I was both ravenous and ready to throttle Petronella Black.
I had walked through the front door of the Groucho half an hour before, right on time. No, there was no table booked for Miss Black, the girl at the reception desk told me. Yes, they knew Miss Black, and if I was her guest, I was welcome to wait for her in the brasserie. Just turn right at the main bar and keep heading toward the back of the club.
I took a table in the corner and practically inhaled a cup of tea. I looked around. I’d never been inside the Groucho before. It’s a private club for media types: screenwriters, journalists, actors. Also It girls, which I guess was the category Petronella loosely slotted into. The London newspapers are always reporting rock-star sightings at the Groucho; Mick Jagger has been known to turn up, and Bono was spotted dancing on the bar at Stella McCartney’s last birthday party. A few years back an incident involving a member of parliament, two television starlets, and a Ziploc Baggie of cocaine in the ladies’ room made headlines.
But on a Monday morning the Groucho was disappointingly subdued. Most of the other tables were occupied by men in gray suits, reading the Financial Times. I drummed my fingers on the table and waited. And waited.
I had just lifted my hand to order scrambled eggs and a croissant—I was past caring whether Petronella showed—when she appeared in the doorway. She was luminous. All legs and big blue eyes and that pale-gold hair sheeting down her back. I watched as just about every man in the room stopped eating and pretended not to stare. Would it be exciting or bothersome to possess that kind of beauty?
She pretended not to notice, or maybe she was so used to men’s staring that she really didn’t. She crossed the room and plopped into the chair across from me. A waiter rushed over to spread her napkin across her lap and pour her coffee. She was wearing a white, zippered catsuit with an Hermès scarf knotted around her waist. Just the thing, obviously, for a seven-hour transatlantic flight to your boyfriend’s funeral. I glanced down. Strappy gold Jimmy Choos with four-inch heels. They were great shoes, I had to hand it to her.
“Did you find the place all right? I was worried you’d gotten lost,” I said acidly.
She ignored me. She didn’t apologize for being late, didn’t even say hello. She took her time stirring milk into her coffee and then looked up. “I don’t know if this is important or means anything or not. But yesterday before I left Cambridge, I went to Thom’s room. I hadn’t been there
since—since what happened—and I kind of wanted to say good-bye, you know?”
I nodded.
“And I also wondered if there was anything of mine there that perhaps I should collect. I mean, he had packed up to move home and everything, but just in case. Everything between us ended rather abruptly, as you know.”
I nodded again.
“I still have the key Thom gave me, so I could let myself in.” She fished around in her handbag for a moment and pulled out an ordinary-looking brass key. “I mean, the point is, the door was locked.” She looked at me significantly. “And I went in, and everything looked all right. Quite neat and tidy, actually, nothing like when Thom lived there. And I was just looking around in the drawers and things when I heard a noise. From the second bedroom—the one Thom used mostly for stowing his skis and luggage and things. And then the door opened—I nearly fainted—and out walks Nadeem. He nearly frightened me to death.”
“Who’s Nadeem?”
She frowned. “Nadeem is—I think he’s Indian or Pakistani or something. Nadeem Siddiqui. He works with me at Cavendish. Or not really with me. He’s guest-lecturing for a term, or something like that. But he’s tied somehow to Cavendish. Quite an odd chap, really. Though I did try to be nice to him.”
“And what’s Cavendish?”
“Cavendish Laboratory. It’s the physics department, basically. My department. I told you I do research there with high-energy particle accelerators.”
I didn’t bother to hide my smile. Petronella was starting to remind me of a Bond-girl villain. A blond bombshell in a white catsuit with an advanced degree in some incomprehensible branch of physics. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
“No, you hadn’t mentioned that,” I said. “But anyway, why was this Nadeem person in Thom’s room?”
“Well, that’s just it. He was quite strange about it. He’d been at the party, you see. The party on Thom’s last night. I’m the one who’d invited him. He was in the common room at the lab the other day when a few of us were talking about it, so I invited him along. I didn’t actually expect him to come, of course, but never mind. He did. It turns out he and Thom already knew each other. They’d met at a lunch or something, I don’t know. Anyway. I think he left before we ordered the takeaway.”
“But what’s that got to do—”
She raised her hand to shush me. “I’m getting to it. So when I saw him yesterday, he said he’d lost something. He thought he might have left it at the party. So he’d come back to look, but he couldn’t find it. But, Alex, here’s the thing.”
“Yes?”
“The room—the second bedroom, where he was looking. I can’t think why he would ever have been in that room at the party. Thom used it as a storage room, you see? And when I looked past him—past Nadeem—it was a total state. Like a bomb had gone off. The mattress thrown off the bed to the floor, the shelves pulled out from the walls. It looked . . . ransacked. Even Thom wouldn’t have left it like that. And as I said, the rest of the suite looked as if it had been cleaned.”
“Right.” I remembered Thom’s bedder saying she had straightened up.
“So I asked Nadeem what he’d lost and could I help him look. He said it was nothing important, and he closed the bedroom door behind him, and that was that. He walked me out and we said good-bye. And it wasn’t until last night as I was driving down to London that the other thing occurred to me. Which is, how did he get in? I told you I had to use my key. The door was locked. So how did he get in? And what was he doing in there, with the main door all locked up behind him?”
“I don’t know.” I thought for a moment. Pressed my finger onto my bread plate to collect the last few croissant crumbs. “What do you think he was looking for?”
“Oh, I’ve no idea. I’m sure none of this has anything to do with anything. It didn’t seem worth bothering the porters with it. But it does seem—quite strange, doesn’t it? It felt like I should tell . . . someone. So I thought of you.”
I took out my notebook and scribbled down the name—Nadeem Siddiqui—and the details of the room as Petronella had described them. “I have to say I don’t know if there’s anything sinister about it or not. And I’m not actually going back to Cambridge. I’m flying to Boston myself today, to write the story about the funeral. But if I’ve got a few minutes before my flight, perhaps I’ll try to track him down and ask a few questions. Lord knows I don’t have any other leads at the moment.” I slapped my notebook shut.
Petronella nodded, lifted her arms over her head, and stretched. The catsuit stretched with her. It was quite a sight. “I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing. You’ll let me know if you find anything out? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do need to run to get to Heathrow on time.” She picked her phone up off the table. “I’ve just got to ring Lucien quickly.”
I blushed at the name. Lucien Sly might well still be asleep in my bed at the hotel back in Cambridge. I’d managed to sneak out without waking him.
I stood up. “I’ll be in touch. See you at the funeral, maybe. Have a safe flight. Oh, and give his lordship a kiss for me.”
Petronella looked up, startled.
I walked out.
I TURNED LEFT OUT OF the Groucho and then left again onto Old Compton Street. Sex shops, wine shops, pubs. I wheeled my Samsonite behind me. I was looking for a café or a hotel lobby or even a park bench where I could make a phone call or two.
I wasn’t sure what to make of my meeting with Petronella. I couldn’t think of how this slightly strange lab colleague of hers could possibly be connected to Thomas Carlyle’s falling out of the Eliot House bell tower. Still, it did seem odd that he’d been caught rummaging around Thom’s room. Thom’s locked room. There would probably be an innocent explanation. But it seemed worth calling and asking Nadeem Siddiqui what it was.
Finally I found a café. I ordered yet another pot of tea and called Galloni’s desk at the police station. No answer. I left a voice mail explaining that someone might have broken into Thom’s rooms at Emmanuel, and that Thom’s girlfriend had seen him, and that she was landing in Boston later today if they wanted to send somebody over to talk to her. I don’t usually consider it my business to pass tips along to law enforcement. But Galloni was proving a useful source, and it never hurts to return the favor once in a while.
Next I fired off an e-mail to renew my interview request for Thom’s parents. Lowell Carlyle’s secretary at the White House had been polite, but discouraging. No chance until after the funeral, if ever, she’d said. Still, it couldn’t hurt to keep trying.
Then I looked up the number for Cavendish Laboratory. A receptionist answered on the second ring. I got passed around and hung up on a few times until eventually a woman with a heavy German accent told me Nadeem Siddiqui no longer worked there.
“Are you sure?” I pressed her. “I think he was there just last week.”
“Yes. He was here for the one term. Do you need his forwarding address?”
She read out a street name and house number in Cambridge. I copied them down and thanked her. Within a couple of minutes, I had the phone number and was dialing.
“Hello?” The voice sounded English, older, female. Not promising.
“Hello, I wonder if I might speak with Nadeem Siddiqui?”
“Nadeem?” The woman sounded bewildered.
“Yes, is this the correct number for Nadeem Siddiqui?”
“Well, isn’t he the popular one now.”
“Oh, good, you know him?” I said with relief.
“Course I know him. My lodger for the past four months, isn’t he? Mind you, nobody ever bothered to ring him when he actually lived here.”
Now it was my turn to sound bewildered. “So—you mean he doesn’t live there anymore?”
“No, dearie. You’ve missed him. Moved out, he has. Just this week. Left everything neat as a pin. Nice lad, that one.”
My heart sank. “Do you have any idea how to reach him?”
“That’s
what the other one asked. No, I’ve no idea. He paid his rent in cash and I don’t expect I’ll be hearing from him again.”
“The other one, did you say? What other one? Was someone else looking for Nadeem?”
“Just that gentleman showed up yesterday. Handsome, but an odd bird. Wanted to see the room. I asked, was he wanting it for himself? It’s got new carpeting and its own private bath, you know. But, no, he didn’t want to take it, he just wanted to look around. Very odd bird.”
I thanked her and hung up.
Then I sat for a moment and thought things over.
Nadeem Siddiqui had left town because the academic term was over. Maybe he’d forgotten to pack something—something utterly pedestrian, such as his tennis racket or a pair of glasses. And he’d asked a friend still in Cambridge to go back to his room and look for them. There were perfectly logical explanations for everything I’d just heard.
Still.
I checked my watch. I would need to leave for Heathrow soon to make my flight back to Boston. I didn’t move. On the sidewalk outside the café, the morning routine of the city was unfolding. Tourists wandered past, maps in hand. Sanitation workers wheeled trash bins to the curb. A bicycle messenger whizzed by.
Hyde wanted me on that plane so I could get back to cover the funeral. That was obviously the responsible thing to do. But Hyde was the first to tell his reporters, Always trust your gut. I hesitated one more minute. Then I got up and took the train back to Cambridge.
19
I was at Cavendish Laboratory by lunchtime, and for the next several hours I was exceedingly efficient.
Cavendish was mostly a dead end. The German woman I’d spoken to on the phone was summoned to the front reception to help me. She was tall, with grayish-blond hair scraped back into a bun. She looked visibly irritated at having now been disturbed twice. But I did manage to learn that her name was Gitta Juette and that she was deputy director of the lab’s nuclear-physics research group. She said Siddiqui had been working for her, just for this past term, part of a pilot exchange program with Pakistani scientists. He’d given a few lectures and helped with research here. He finished up a little over a week ago.
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