I couldn’t miss number 32. The lot took up the space of three conventional Highbury lots. Around the borders, the property’s lines were defined by a low wall of large whitewashed stonework. Between the wall and the house, the space was dense with ancient maples and oaks and a few tall evergreens. All trees appeared healthy. Their thickness with leaves and needles blocked any view of the house from the street. A driveway led off Highbury toward the residence, then looped back out. I parked the Mercedes on the street and walked down the driveway.
The house was brick, two-storey and larger sized than any of the other houses on the block. I rang the doorbell three times. Nobody stirred. I walked around the house. The curtains were pulled across the first-floor windows. At the rear, a flagstone patio spread out from the back door. Just off the patio, there was a large garden shed filled with an electric lawn mower and an array of shovels, rakes and other tools of the gardening trade.
I put my hand on the shed’s doorknob. It turned smoothly without emitting creaks or groans. Somebody was taking good care of the shed, the implements inside and the grounds surrounding the house. Standing on the edge of the large and freshly mowed back lawn, which wasn’t nearly as thick with trees as the front yard, I had a clear view down into the valley with a faint glimpse of the Humber River in the farthest distance. All was quiet, all was peaceful. Grace Nguyen was nowhere in sight. Neither was anybody else.
I walked back to the street and into the driveway of the house directly opposite number 32. A kid wearing a University of Western Ontario sweatshirt was washing a car with a garden hose. I introduced myself and asked what he knew about the people in the place across the street.
“Practically nothing,” he said. “I’m away at school year-round. Taking my master’s in business. What I understand, somebody might live there, but they lie low. My parents say there’re lights at night. That’s the only sign of life.”
The kid was talkative, genial even. I could press him a little.
“You think you could ask around for me?” I said. “It’s rather important.”
“I can do better than that,” the kid said.
He leaned closer to me. “Don’t look behind me at what I say next, okay?”
“Deal,” I said.
“The man in number 29 is who you want to talk to, the house next door to us.”
“Fount of information is he?”
“Mr. Griffith is his name, Lawrence Griffith. He’s always peeking out his windows. I’m sure he is right now, wondering who you are.”
“Sounds like just my man,” I said.
“Got this nickname among the neighbours. Everybody calls him ‘I Spy’ behind his back. He doesn’t have a clue about the name. So don’t, like, give it away. He might be offended.”
“My lips are sealed,” I said.
I went up the walk to number 29 and gave the heavy knocker on the door a bang. A tall, lean man with thinning grey hair and excellent posture opened the door. He was wearing a dark blue V-necked sweater and a pair of beige corduroys. The sweater-and-corduroy combo looked smart and neatly laundered.
“Lawrence Griffith?” I asked.
“That is I,” he said. “And you are parked across the street. The old brown Mercedes.”
“Crang’s my name,” I said. “Or have you worked that out already?”
“You’ve been talking to the Edmonds boy, so you already know keeping an eye on events around here is kind of a hobby with me.”
“That was the intimation.”
“Closer to an obsession, some would say,” Griffith said. He had exceptionally clear blue eyes for a guy his age.
Griffith gestured me to come in. I followed him through a bright and cheery hallway. Most of the cheeriness radiated from the paintings hanging along both sides of the hall. They filled practically every inch of wall space, most of them done in colours of an optimistic nature. Griffith and I sat down in the living room where the walls were just as bright with paintings as the hall.
“Now let me guess what you’re interested in, Mr. Crang,” Griffith said. “The house at number 32?”
“No trick to getting that one right. You saw me doing my investigative thing around the property over there.”
“Even without that, I’d have guessed correctly. The sole reason for anyone from outside the neighbourhood to visit this part of Highbury is number 32. It’s our mystery house. Big old place, people come and go, but nobody stays.”
Griffith stood up.
“Let’s wet our whistles before we get going on our little gossip. Coors do for you?”
I said by all means, and Griffith went out to the kitchen. While he was gone, I gave the paintings a once-over. Many were in styles that seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite tease the artists’ names out of my memory. A few I could definitely identify.
Griffith came back and handed me a cold sweaty can of Coors and a tall glass to pour it into. The glass was cold but not sweaty.
“The painting on the wall by the door,” I said, “the one with the red-checkered tablecloth, that’s an early Louis de Niverville. He doesn’t paint them that big these days.”
Griffith grinned like a fiend. “I haven’t had a stranger come here in years who recognized a painting of mine.”
“We passed a Graham Coughtry in the hall.”
“Outstanding, Mr. Crang,” Griffith said, still with the grin. “Never thought I’d meet a cultured private investigator.”
“You still haven’t,” I said. “I’m a lawyer.”
“Even more rare, a cultured lawyer,” Griffith said. The grin wouldn’t quit. I’d made the guy’s day. Now I had to unmake it.
“I can’t take the credit,” I said. “My partner is the visual literate in the house. She chooses the galleries. I store away memories of what I like.”
“That gives us something else in common,” Griffith said. “It was my late wife who educated me about Canadian painting.”
He turned his head toward the de Niverville, getting a little misty eyed. He needed a minute to pull himself together.
“I retired too damn early,” he said in a tone that told me he was getting down to brass tacks. “Had no idea retirement would be so dull. I’ve got my interests, Canadian art for one, but nothing has its point unless there’s an objective to it.”
“So you turned to snooping?”
“One way of putting it, I suppose. I’ve always read spy fiction. Upmarket authors. Le Carré, Charles McCarry. I love the information-gathering in those books. The techniques of it. That’s what I put to work on my own neighbourhood.”
The cold Coors was going down smoothly. “Score any successes?” I asked.
“I knew Roy Cameron at number 44 was having an affair with Lois Ford at 52 long before anybody else sniffed it out. Including their spouses.”
“You blew the whistle on Roy and Lois?”
Griffith shook his head. “Not the point. I like the technical side of the work. Once I get the information, I’m satisfied. I sit on what I learn.”
“What happened to the adulterers?”
“Both families broke up. A shame really. But Roy and Lois are living together these days in one of the condos over by the Old Mill subway station. Perhaps love prevailed after all.”
It was hard to tell whether I Spy had a touch of the kook in him. He seemed rational enough. Most likely he was just a lonely guy with a weird hobby.
“But number 32, that’s a horse of a different colour,” Griffiths said. He hadn’t touched his Coors.
“Who owns the place?” I asked.
“The Spencers had it for ages going way back. Rather a shy couple, the two of them rattling around on that huge property all alone. They died close to the same time four years ago this summer, Emma first and then Ted. No kids, so their trust company sold the house. But nobody around here knows who they sold it to.”
“You never scoped out the people who moved in?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nobod
y’s been in the house long enough to tell whether they’re living there.”
“How about recently?”
“Ah,” Griffiths said, holding up a finger, “that’s where it gets interesting.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Griffith’s Coors was still untasted.
“You’re wondering about the beer?” he said. “I don’t care for it. It’s just a sociable thing to get one for myself while my guests are having a drink.”
“Sociable would be if you opened the can.”
Griffith smiled a rueful smile but made no move on the Coors.
“To continue,” he said, “this past winter, when the leaves were off the trees, and I could make out the traffic into 32, people in a black Ford Navigator became regular visitors. They still are.”
“How regular?”
“Every weekday and many Sundays,” Griffiths said. The guy was relishing the telling of his story. Probably not often he got an eager audience for his peepery tales. Most likely never. “One problem in viewing from my window, it’s a bad angle on the Navigator. Plus the car’s driver has a habit of pulling up close to the front door.”
“Not much opportunity for identification?”
“It’s always two people, sometimes a third. This latter one comes only on Mondays. A very large man and a Vietnamese woman are the regulars. The third person, he’s a man, very tall, quite slim, has a distinctive profile, rather a protuberant nose. He accompanies the others once every two or three weeks, always on Mondays as I say. Just one more word about this other man. He doesn’t come in the Navigator. Note that, Mr. Crang.”
“How’s he arrive?”
“Through the woods at the back,” Griffith said. “That’s my own guess. Only times I see him are when he talks briefly to the woman at the end. Then he disappears, probably by the back way.”
“Vietnamese?” I said. “You told me a minute ago the woman is Vietnamese. How can you tell?”
“The name for one thing,” Griffith said. “Grace Nguyen. Nguyen, you know, is the most common surname in Vietnam. Centuries ago, a warlord of that name had four hundred wives and about a thousand children. The name just kept spreading down the years.”
I held up my hand in a stop signal. “Go back a bit, Mr. Griffith,” I said. I was making an effort to keep an unlawyerly look of gloating off my face, now that I seemed to be close to pinning down one of Grace’s current locations. “How did you get the name?” I asked Griffith. “How do you know she’s Grace Nguyen?”
“From the postman. Ernie his name is, and he’s a member of my team.”
“Your what?”
“Well, he doesn’t know he’s a member of my team. He likes the generous Christmas tip, the occasional Glenlivet or cup of coffee when he’s on his rounds, that kind of thing. He’s only too glad to answer my questions.”
“Anybody else besides Ernie on your team?”
“The gardener, a fellow named Andreas. German, I think. He got hired by phone and is paid by mail. So, as you might imagine, he’s not a ready source of information. Nice chap, though.”
“Summing up,” I said, “Grace Nguyen receives mail over there, but doesn’t stay the night. Have I got that straight?”
“Approximately.”
“That implies I’m missing something.”
“The hours,” Griffith said. “Whatever’s going on in there, they keep strange hours.”
“But I bet you’ve taken their measure in that department.”
Griffith’s face filled with satisfaction. “They arrive at six o’clock. Always about six in the afternoon, maybe ten or fifteen minutes before or after the hour. They don’t leave until two or three in the morning. Sometimes a little earlier. Their departure time isn’t as precise as the arrival time.”
“You’re up and around at three in the morning?”
“My nightly visit to the bathroom happens around then. Some nights I loiter awhile and watch until the Navigator leaves. It’s a random sampling perhaps, but I can pretty much vouch for the times.”
I polished off the Coors. “Just a couple more questions, Mr. Griffith.”
“The licence plate number on the Navigator would be one,” Griffith said. “Got something for writing it down?”
I made a habit of carrying a small notepad and a black Uniball pen. Griffith recited the plate number from memory. I bet he was the insufferable kid in grade school who beat everybody to the answer. Hot shots who carried notepads and Uniball pens were slackers compared to our Lawrence Griffith. I wrote the plate number into my pad.
“According to Ernie the postman,” Griffith went on, “no other mail comes to the house except pieces addressed to Homeowner. And we don’t know who that is, do we.”
Griffith smiled at his small joke.
“A couple of questions you said, Mr. Crang?”
“You just covered them,” I said. “But one more. What about the police raid three or four years ago?”
Griffith made a sound best described as a chuckle. “By gad, you’re well briefed, Mr. Crang,” he said. “The raid was pretty much a non-starter. Police went in with a massive force, all guns blazing, as it were. They had the misguided notion someone was growing marijuana over there. Nobody was, the police left, and that was the last we heard of that.”
“They should’ve checked with you first. Think of the saved manpower.”
“Indeed,” Griffith said. He got up from his chair. “Leave me your cell number, Mr. Crang. I’ll ring whenever something else develops at 32. All that’s happened so far could be only a prelude to more interesting events over there. I have that feeling.”
“Bigger than Roy and Lois having it off?”
“In a different league, Mr. Crang.”
We walked to the front door. “You’ve been a big help, Mr. Griffith,” I said.
“Call me Lawrence.”
“Thanks, Lawrence.”
“Or,” he said, “you can call me I Spy.”
I stopped and turned to him. He was wearing a look somewhere short of smug but way beyond satisfied.
I said, “I might have known you’d have sussed that out.”
“It’s just a matter of paying attention, Mr. Crang. And besides, I’m rather fond of the nickname.”
“How so?”
“It’s what I do. The same as the characters in le Carré novels. I spy.”
11
Annie played tour guide on a shortcut to a restaurant new to us named John’s. It was on Bathurst Street twenty minutes north and west of our house. Annie’s route sliced through the southwest corner of the Annex.
“Built in the 1880s or thereabouts,” she said, pointing at the steeple and other features of a church on Howland Avenue called St. Alban’s. “It was supposed to be the cathedral for Toronto’s entire Anglican diocese.”
“Looks on the truncated side for something that grand.”
“Exactly,” Annie said. “The diocese ran out of money. Never finished the church. What we’re looking at right now is one-quarter of the planned cathedral. Kind of sad.”
“Never made it to diocese status?”
“Not for as long as they counted on. Now a boys’ school owns the place.”
“‘Royal St. George’s College,’” I read from a sign on a small building next to the church. “Imagine that, an institution in the Annex that’s royal. No wonder they’re so snooty around here.”
We crossed Bathurst and went into John’s, a small narrow room, done in dark wood and restrained decor. It seemed to be trying for a New York feel.
I studied the menu. Venezuelan platter, Colombian empanadas, Milanesa de pollo, a lot of dishes with a choice of shredded chicken or shredded beef.
“The place ought to be called Juan’s,” I said.
“Latin American cuisine is why we’ve come,” Annie said.
“How’d we get lured way up here? Off the beaten track, isn’t it, not a chic section of town. Maybe there’s no such thing as a chic section of Bath
urst.”
“Word of mouth got us here,” Annie said. “Specifically the mouths of our neighbours.”
“Which ones?”
Annie smiled and leaned a little over the table. “Ones who’re like me. Freelancers. Tons of my kind live on the block. Every day, I’m taking a break, out there in the front yard. Somebody walks by. We chat, and in no time, five or six of us freelancers are mingling.” Annie glanced around John’s as if she was checking the place for Major Street residents.
“These freelancers,” I said, “what do they freelance at?”
“Mostly at being retired. But they seem to be occupied with many things. Busier than they’ve ever been in their lives is what they say. Dining out is a preoccupation. So the other day I ask what restaurants around here they recommend. Charles said John’s, and everybody else went nuts with their opinions.”
“Nuts in a positive sense?”
“Unanimously.”
“Which one is Charles?”
“In the house with the ironwork bench out front. Sixtyish guy, I’d say, nice looking with the beard. Everything else’s average. Average weight, average build. Not average brain.”
“The guy who always seems to be wearing the baseball cap, that’s him? Drives the red Jeep?”
“You’ve met Charles?” Annie asked, pleased with me if I had.
“He nods, I nod. We have a nodding acquaintanceship.”
Annie squeezed my hand. “Isn’t it fun being a homeowner in a neighbourhood all our own.”
The friendly waiter who looked more Italian than Latin American took our order. A bottle of the house red. The Venezuelan arepas for Annie. Milanesa de pollo for cautious me. It was billed as lightly breaded chicken with rice, beans and plantain. Sounded tasty.
“Wait,” I said, puzzled momentarily. “What’s plantain?”
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