Dover Beach

by Richard Bowker

  Hemphill said those last words as if they were carved into his soul. He had started to twitch. "I take it Cornwall had other ideas, though," I said.

  Hemphill took a deep breath before continuing, as if he were steeling himself to finish the most horrible story he knew. "Cornwall handled the actual procedure, you see. He must have used one of his own cells. And he never told me. Tensions kept getting worse, and the mother-to-be went home to Florida, carrying what I assumed was my clone. We couldn't find any more volunteers; people had other things on their minds. And then the world exploded."

  Hemphill paused. People tend to pause when their stories reach this point. After a few moments I decided to prompt him. I didn't have all day. "So for twenty-two years you thought that maybe, down in Florida—"

  "Until I saw the clone in a corridor at Northeastern," Hemphill continued, "and I knew instantly what Cornwall had done to me. I should have suspected all along, of course. He never cared about anyone but himself. But I wanted so much to believe. I wanted that clone to exist. There was nothing else left for me: my wife had died, my friends were gone, there was nothing left but hunger and disease and fear. I dreamed of him coming to Boston one day and finding me, and I could teach him what I knew, and despite all the world's problems, his life would be better than mine. It was a dream, Mr. Sands, that helped me make it through many hard days and nights."

  "So the clone showed up, and you went crazy."

  "My dream turned to dust when I saw—what did you call him? Winfield? Can you understand what that feels like, Mr. Sands?"

  "Maybe not. I've never tried to kill an unarmed stranger who meant me no harm."

  Hemphill looked appropriately chastened. "I admit it was wrong. I realized that right away. My quarrel wasn't with Winfield."

  "Did you really think Cornwall was dead?"

  He shrugged. "I didn't want the clone to find him. I didn't want the wonderful reunion I dreamed of to come true for Cornwall. But it didn't matter, I guess. You found him on your own."

  I thought of Winfield and his dream. Everyone was having trouble with his dreams, it seemed. That's life. Isn't it? Hemphill's dream hardly seemed to justify all he had gone through lately, but what did I know? Everyone's pain is real, I had told Kathy. And I supposed I believed it. "So you decided to follow us to England," I said, "and make sure Cornwall's dream didn't come true."

  "Yes. But I didn't follow you to Oxford. I found Cornwall on my own."

  "How did you do that?"

  "Well, I thought he might be associated with a university, so I simply called up information in Oxford and asked. It took me five minutes."

  Five minutes. It was all I could do to keep from banging my head against the table. "Go on," I managed to say.

  "When I got to Oxford, I went to a pub to gather up my courage. And while I was there the clone came in, obviously in a terrible mood. Seeing him made all my anger come back, but I still couldn't bring myself to face Cornwall. So finally I simply called him up."

  "Oh," I said. "It was your phone call that got him so upset."

  "Yes, well, the call didn't last very long, and it wasn't very satisfactory. It's easy for someone to hang up on you."

  "So you went there—and maybe he had gone by that time, afraid to face you—and you set fire to his house, out of anger and frustration."

  Hemphill shook his head. "No. That's the part you've got wrong. I didn't do anything. I swear it. I left the pub after I made the call and I went back to my hotel. I didn't find out about the fire until I read the newspaper the next day."

  "Oh, come on. You sell your painting to get to England so you can find Cornwall, then you talk to him on the phone for a minute and that's it?"

  "I agree with you. It was stupid. I realized it was stupid when I read about the fire—when I found out that Cornwall was missing, and I had lost my chance. I am not a brave man, Mr. Sands. I learned that long ago. I had my chance, and I was too afraid to take advantage of it."

  I tried to figure it out. If Winfield didn't do it and Hemphill didn't do it, then who did? Cornwall himself? But why? There was a lot I still didn't understand about Cornwall, and maybe Hemphill could help me there. But another question took precedence. "Did I at least get it right about you breaking into Kathy's flat?" I asked.

  "Yes. Her name was in the article about the fire. I couldn't think what else to do if I was going to find Cornwall. But of course he wasn't there, and there was nothing in the apartment to help me. I found her mother's address, and I went and hung around there the day after Christmas, but that was a waste of time. So I came back to the daughter's place, and then I saw Winfield and you, and I thought maybe you were all up to something—maybe you knew where Cornwall was. Was I right?"

  He looked at me hopefully. I shrugged. I wasn't ready to give him what he wanted just yet. "The reason the clone was in such a terrible mood at the pub was that Cornwall denied knowing him," I said. "Can you think of any reason why Cornwall would do that?"

  Hemphill shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense to me. Why would Cornwall have gone to the trouble of double-crossing me and using one of his own cells back before the war unless the clone—unless the idea of a clone—meant a great deal to him?"

  "Maybe he's changed his mind. Any reason why he might want to kill clones?"

  Hemphill look puzzled and a little frightened. "Kill clones? I don't understand. What's going on?"

  What was going on? Good question. Cornwall was killing clones, but I didn't know why. Hemphill was in England, but he denied burning down Cornwall's house. The case was there for the solving, but I couldn't solve it. And I had a train to catch. The solution would be there, perhaps, at the end of the train ride. "What would you do if you were to meet Cornwall now?" I asked Hemphill.

  "I just want him to talk to me," he replied eagerly. "I don't want to kill him or even to harm him. Killing solves nothing—I understand that now. I'm an old man, Mr. Sands. Cornwall has caused me enormous suffering, and I should at least have the chance to confront him before I die, to make him explain. Is that asking too much out of life?"

  I wasn't sure you could ask anything out of life—and I wasn't convinced that what Cornwall had done was such a big deal. The reason I decided to bring Hemphill along, finally, was that it seemed right—right to have him there at the climax. He was part of the case, and perhaps he would even help solve it.

  I gulped down the rest of my Big Mac and fries, and then stood up. "Let's go," I said.

  "Where?" Hemphill asked.

  To the climax. "I'll tell you on the way. Hurry up."

  * * *

  When we reached Paddington Station, it didn't surprise me a bit to see Winfield standing next to Kathy beneath the message board. "He woke up and got the gun away from me," Kathy whispered. "I couldn't stop him from coming."

  I nodded. It was okay. Each of us was obsessed with the same man, and now it was time to go find him.

  I stared at them all; they all stared at each other. "Who wants to lend me money to buy a ticket?" I asked finally.

  Chapter 30

  We made an odd band: Winfield drunk and paranoid, Hemphill twitching with excitement and fear, Kathy silent, distant, always apparently on the verge of tears that never came. And me.

  Courtesy of Art's guidebook, I thought of others who had gone to Bath: Roman soldiers seeking relief from the harsh foreign climate in the hot baths; monks coming to chant their prayers in the abbey; elegant ladies out of Jane Austen novels eager to promenade in the Pump Room. Layers upon layers of history. We fit in as well as the rest of them, I supposed.

  The journey was quiet, once Winfield was convinced that Hemphill was not a government agent out to trick him. We all found windows to stare out of and thought our own thoughts. Snowflakes spattered the windows as we approached our destination. It was going to be a cold climax.

  * * *

  We roused ourselves when the train pulled into the station. "Now what?" Winfield asked groggily.

&nbs
p; "Let's find the clone," I said. "I have the address. We should make sure he's safe before we do anything else."

  No one disagreed. As soon as the train came to a stop, we hurried off and found a taxi. Everyone piled in, I gave the driver the address, and we headed out into the snow.

  It was slow going. The snowfall made everything seem vaguely unreal. Time felt as if it were standing still—or, no, as if it had stepped aside, leaving us adrift, directionless, in the ancient city.

  "What do we do when we find the clone?" Hemphill asked.

  "Let me take care of that," I said in my best private-eye tone. I had no idea what we should do.

  The taxi wended its way up a steep hill overlooking the city and finally pulled up in front of a block of flats. "Everyone stay here," I said. No one argued. I got out. The dream-city lay spread out before me, serene and virginal in the snow. I looked around for Cornwall, in case he was staking the place out. No sign of him. I trudged up the steps of the building.

  The outer and inner doors were both unlocked. I walked slowly inside, still looking for Cornwall. The flat was on the ground floor. I walked along a dingy corridor. A baby was screaming behind a thin wall. Someone was cooking cabbage. I knocked on a door.

  It opened, and a man peered out. He was short and bald and wore a gray sweater with a hole in one shoulder. He eyed me suspiciously.

  "Mr. Pritchard?"

  "Yes?"

  "Is your son Michael at home?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  I reached into my coat pocket and took out the badge that Mickey had given me once upon a time, long, long ago. I flashed it at the man quickly and put it away. "My name is Sands, Mr. Pritchard, and I'm from the Investigative Division of the Ministry of Science. Let me try to explain briefly. As you know, your adopted son spent the first few years of his life at our Bromford Research Center, where he was a subject in a secret research project. We have reason to believe he may now be in danger from people who were involved in that project."

  "Danger? What do you mean? What sort of danger?"

  "Let me be blunt, Mr. Pritchard. I mean that other subjects have been murdered. Please, sir, there's no time to waste. Where is Michael?"

  "Murdered? But why?"

  "That's what we're trying to find out."

  The man scratched his fringe of gray hair. A woman appeared behind him. "Who is it, Alf?"

  "Says he's an investigator from the Ministry of Science," Alf told her. "Says Michael's in danger."

  "Danger?" The woman's eyes watered reflexively at the mention of the word. She was thin and plain and wore her grayish hair in a bun from which a couple of strands had come loose.

  "There may be a problem, ma'am, and we want to check it out. Can you tell me where Michael is at this moment?"

  She looked at her husband. "You sound like an American," he said to me. "Why would an American be working for—"

  "Your son's life is in danger!" I shouted. "Please help us."

  "He's at the mall, I'm sure," Mrs. Pritchard said. "On Southgate, near the Abbey Green. That's where he usually goes this time of night."

  "Can you describe him for me?"

  "Well, you know, black hair, dark eyes, average height. Wears a black leather jacket and them damn hoop earrings."

  "Thanks very much," I said. "I'll be in touch."

  "Now wait a minute—" Mr. Pritchard started to say, but I wasn't waiting. I left them standing in the doorway and hurried back to the taxi. I got in and told the driver where to go.

  Everyone looked at me. "His mother says he's hanging out at the mall," I said. "I don't think he'll be hard to find."

  "We've got to be on the lookout for government agents," Winfield said, but he didn't sound very sure of himself, and I wondered if reality was starting to sink in.

  The taxi made its way through the snowy streets. The four of us were silent. Kathy leaned heavily against me; her eyes gazed out into the darkness.

  When the taxi pulled up in front of the mall, I was the first one out, "Pay him!" I shouted. I don't know if anyone obeyed. I rushed inside the mall.

  Strange to be in one that wasn't a ruin. Smashed windows, caved-in walls, and bare shelves were all that remained of those I had seen in America. Still, I had a feeling this wasn't much of a mall. The people were working class, and the stores, with their banners advertising after-Christmas sales, looked worn and tawdry. This wasn't the tourist section of Bath.

  I looked for teenagers hanging out. They weren't difficult to find. In the middle of the mall there was a group of thugs draped over some benches next to a sick-looking tree. I approached them.

  "Is he there?" Winfield demanded in a low voice as the others came up next to me. "What does he look like?"

  It seemed impossible to me that Winfield couldn't see. One glance at Kathy told me that she saw. The boy with the long black hair and wispy mustache and acne—the boy in the leather jacket, wearing black hoop earrings and smoking a cigarette and talking to the crew-cut girl in the fuchsia miniskirt. The boy who looked as much like Winfield as Winfield looked like Cornwall.

  "So I says to the fuckin' teacher, I says..."

  Another generation, another world for those brilliant genes to inhabit.

  Cornwall was killing his own clones. Had he tricked the Ministry the same way he had tricked Hemphill? Were they expecting mathematical geniuses, when all they got was Cornwall himself, again and again and again? It didn't matter.

  But why was he killing himself, again and again and again?

  I scanned the shadows and the store entrances and the passersby. He had to be here somewhere.

  An old man, his back to us, was sitting on a bench eating an ice-cream cone. Hemphill went up to him, but he was bearded and toothless. A fellow in a pea jacket came out of the shadows and stared at Kathy, but he was in his twenties and brown-haired; he admired her for a moment, and then walked away.

  "So then I says, 'Hey, you stupid sod, I know this fuckin' stuff better than you do, so leave me the fuck alone.' And you know what the fuckhead says?..."

  The boy turned and noticed Winfield, who was now staring at him, suspicious and maybe a little afraid. "What the fuck are you lookin' at, arsehole?" the boy demanded, but his tone was a little hesitant, and maybe a little afraid too.

  And then I saw Cornwall. He was coming out of McDonald's, a Big Mac in his hand. Did it ease his homesickness, remind him of the good old days? Or did he just need some quick sustenance? Stalking victims builds your appetite.

  He saw me an instant after I saw him. He saw Winfield, saw Hemphill, saw Kathy. Saw everything. He dropped the Big Mac and started to run.

  I ran after him. We all ran after him. Out of the mall and into the night, the snow swirling like memories around us.

  Cornwall was fast for an old man. He ran with the speed of someone whose entire past was pursuing him. Time had disappeared once again, and as I pursued him through the ancient streets, everything became jumbled—everything became real. A car skidded to avoid hitting a pair of togaed Romans; a procession of monks made its way past a leather-clad young couple kissing in a doorway; Beau Nash doffed his hat and bowed to me, laughing. And I thought—if I could look at things from the proper angle, then the future—if there was a future—would be here, too, as real as the five of us running through the night, as real as the past that surrounded us.

  Then I slipped and cracked my knee against a curb. Now that was real. Pain is part of the job, I forced myself to think. I scrambled to my feet, visions fled, and kept running.

  Cornwall was heading away from the center of the city. He crossed a bridge over a frozen river, then disappeared into an underpass on the other side. I was catching up. I entered the underpass just seconds after him.

  He was standing at the far end, gun in hand. The gun was aimed at me. He fired.

  Death is part of the job, too, I suppose, but I wasn't ready for it just yet. I hit the ground. The bullet made an awful roar, but it missed. I looked up. Cornwall wa
s aiming again.

  "Daddy!"

  Kathy was standing above me, trying to catch her breath. Her cheeks were wet with snow and with tears that had finally come. She looked very young. She walked slowly toward her father. "Daddy?" she said, and her voice was low and frightened and pleading. "No, Daddy. Please."

  He didn't respond, didn't lower the gun, but she was between me and her father now, and I was safe for the moment. Kathy kept talking.

  "You should have told me, Daddy. I would have understood. Why couldn't we ever talk? Why was there only anger and tears and silence?" She stepped closer, and she was right in front of him. "Do you understand now?" she went on. "These others, they aren't you, they don't know you, they don't love you. I'm the one who loves you—who has always loved you. Remember the day you gave me the necklace—standing outside the playground together? Couldn't you feel the love then? Couldn't you understand? I'm the one who's real. I'm the one." She held out her hand to him. "But you've got to stop. You don't need to do this. It's not right, Daddy. You've got to stop. For me."

  I looked at her, and I thought of my own father, a skeleton buried next to an abandoned farmhouse far, far from here, and the thought made me catch my breath and close my eyes. The bond remains, beyond time and war and murder and neglect. The bond remains.

  I opened my eyes. Cornwall grabbed Kathy's hand, twisted her around, and placed the gun to her temple.

  I stood up cautiously. Hemphill and Winfield had arrived, and they stopped next to me. No one spoke. The only sounds were the muffled roar of traffic passing over our heads, Hemphill's wheezing effort to catch his breath, and Kathy's helpless crying.

  Hemphill finally broke the silence. "Too many people have died, Robert," he said. "Let the girl go."

  "If so many people have died," Cornwall replied, "what do one or two more matter?"

  "She's your daughter, Robert. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a daughter."