The Finder

1988.

The Finder

Waldo Mars flicked the indicator stalk and ushered his blue Peugeot 106 into the Sainsbury’s car park. The Target’s red Volvo V50 was pulling into one of the parking bays near the entrance, and Waldo found a space a discreet distance away. As he stepped into the warm and breezy afternoon, Waldo concocted a cover story: I’m shopping for my pregnant wife and four hungry kids, he decided. She has cravings for pickled gherkins, jellied eels, ice cream; the children will want … He began to invent favourite snacks for each kid, then found they needed names and ages to complete the picture. The Target had obtained his trolley from the trolley-park, and was now wheeling it through the automatic doors.

Samantha, 10, likes fish fingers; Joshua, 8, likes scrambled egg; Sebastian, 5…

Waldo yanked out a trolley for himself. Sturgeon, 3, likes… What do 3 year olds like? And what the hell were you thinking of, naming your child Sturgeon? The trolley, like Rose Duvalle, Waldo’s assistant, had a leftward tendency, and needed correcting now and then. With some difficulty, he rolled it through the swishing doors. The Target was in amongst the fruit and veg. He was tall and broad-shouldered; sand-coloured, except for his blue eyes. Waldo could see instantly why his wife didn’t trust him. The way he was eyeing those melons and feeling up those avocados with his large, hairy hands hardly spoke of a man fulfilled by his marital lot. In dairy, the Target stocked up with natural low-fat yoghurt and various flavours of milkshake. Waldo reckoned that Sturgeon might like the colourful little tubs of fruity yoghurt, and grabbed a few packs. He found some dairylea cheese spread for Sebastian, and some stilton for Samantha.

The Target continued onto meat and poultry, Waldo slaloming along behind in cool pursuit. Organic, free-range chicken. Well, the man had a conscience at least. Or was this part of an adopted guise to win the approval of his animal-rights-supporting mistress? Waldo extracted a black book from his rear pocket and scribbled a note. The Target’s trolley began filling up: wild rocket, wholegrain bread, brown rice and fresh salmon jostled in uncomfortable proximity to frozen chips, turkey burgers, sausages and spaghetti hoops. The perfect distillation of a double life in one trolley: shopping for his wife and kids as well as his health-fanatic girlfriend.

After paying for his purchases, the Target returned to the red Volvo and began unloading his groceries into its capacious rear. Waldo dawdled near the trolley bay, not wishing to be spotted. He then darted across the car park, abandoning his own trolley, so as not to risk losing his quarry. Pregnant wife and starving kids would survive, he assured himself, as he belted up and engaged reverse gear. Imaginary families always did.

Rose Duvalle dabbed some Angel Bright bathroom cleaner onto a cloth and went to work on the sink. Small circles, round and round, underneath the mixer tap, once around the plughole, up to the rim and down again. She hummed as she worked, not certain of the song, or even the tune, but the humming calmed her fizzing, feverish head in the same way that the act of cleaning always did. It was not usual practice for guests staying at a four-star London hotel like the Blue Parrot to clean their rooms, especially just after the maid had been, but then Rose was no ordinary guest. She had been living at the Blue Parrot for nearly four years, and it had become home to her. And the maids, while mostly very sweet, were, to put it bluntly, not terribly good at cleaning. Of course Rose would never complain. It was easier to put it right herself. Complaining would do no good at all. They would only send one of the maids along again. Frankly, if those girls couldn’t see the dirt the first time around, there was no earthly reason why they should see it the second. And why risk her ‘most favoured guest’ status among the staff. She was so popular with everyone from the assistant receptionist right up to the manager. It was far easier when all was said and done to do the cleaning herself.

When she had finished the bathroom, Rose started on her bedroom, and when that shone to her satisfaction, she moved on to the adjoining room, an office, and dusted, sprayed, polished and buffed in there. Her humming was no longer a recognizable tune; just a rhythmic noise made through her nose and closed lips, that slid up or down in pitch or volume depending on the vigour of her motions. Her face, pink at the best of times, now glowed with moisture, and thick strands of her mousy brown hair clung damply to her ear and cheek. When Rose had finished in the office, she took her little box of creams, sprays and cloths into yet another adjoining room, this time the bedroom of her boss, Waldo Mars. Like everyone else, Waldo was not aware of her secret activity, but then he was the sort of man who wouldn’t notice a well-polished side table if it leapt up and bit him on the behind. So why did Rose bother? Why did medieval sculptors carve angel’s faces on the loftiest cathedral parapets and gables far beyond the scope of any human observer. She did it because it needed doing. It mattered not that no one with eyes to notice such things would ever bear witness to her handiwork.

When Rose had finished cleaning, she spent another energetic half hour under the shower, soaping and rinsing her forty-five-year-old body at least a dozen times. Her concern was to track down and remove every trace of dirt from every pore, every crevice. And when soap and flannel had done as much as they could, she used pumice for a more abrasive touch. Her finger and toenails were kept ruthlessly clipped so no filth could find sanctuary beneath them. Specially formulated shampoo, with the antibacterial power of floor cleaner, kept her hair germ-free, if a trifle prone to shed itself.

After a long and detailed study of the moodscape on North London streets, Waldo Mars had selected the Peugeot 106 as the car least likely to arouse anger, irritation, admiration, suspicion, or in fact any kind of reaction at all. It possessed a kind of archetypal normality once associated with the man on the Clapham omnibus; the driver of a Peugeot 106 was as solid and reliable citizen as one could ever hope or expect to find. This was a useful attribute for a car habitually in pursuit of others, and consequently required to engage in frequent and suspicious changes of speed and direction.

Waldo followed the Target from Winchmore Hill to North Enfield. When possible, he kept a car or two between them to avoid being seen. He had followed many a target in this fashion, driving more often than not with his neck craned out of the window, and suffering permanent stiffness as a result.

The Volvo parked on a sandy drive off a narrow residential street. Waldo continued onwards fifty yards or so, then pulled over. His cover story? Visiting his aged aunt Bertha; too fragile these days to get out much, so he’s come laden with, laden with - Waldo cast around the Peugeot’s filthy interior for anything resembling a gift - laden with stories of her grand nephews and nieces, Sam, Joshua, Sebby and little Sturgeon.

The Target, freighted with bags of shopping, was letting himself into a yellow-fronted terraced house. He had his own key, Waldo noted: so the affair was at a fairly established stage. Treading carefully on the gravelled front garden, he peered through the net curtains, hoping to catch them in a clinch. Instead, he saw … children! Three or four of them were gathered around the Target, jumping on him in a frenzied greeting. He tossed a small one in the air, and hugged and kissed each of them in turn. There was no sign of an adult female presence. Waldo continued his vigil as the man vanished into the kitchen, then reappeared five minutes later with a set of plates steaming with breadcrumbed and sauce-drenched food. The children stepped up to the table and began hungrily devouring the food. Waldo did not know what to make of all this. He leaned back to scratch his calf, and in doing so caused gravel to pop audibly beneath his heel. The family group froze and turned window-wards in unison. The Target strode to the front door.

‘Can I help you?’ His eyebrows arched questioningly. Limpid blue eyes looked out from the handsome crag of a face.

‘Visiting my aged aunt,’ mumbled Waldo. ‘Come laden with stories of Sam and Joshua and Sebby and, and the other one … anyway, can’t seem to remember where she lives.’

‘Oh. Have you a number for her? You’re welcome to use the phone.’ The Target seemed … very nice.

‘Fraid not. Wife’s pregnant, you see. Youngest son is very upset with his name. So it’s all a bit hectic at home. Anyway, thanks - thanks for your help. Be going now.’

‘You’re welcome,’ the Target said to Waldo’s retreating figure. ‘I hope you find your aunt.’

After dressing in newly laundered clothing (delivered from a nearby Sikh-run dry-cleaning service, she didn’t trust the Blue Parrot’s standards), Rose grabbed the latest issue of The Cleaner and descended to the lobby, fourteen floors below. Rose’s left leg was an inch or so shorter than her right, and since childhood she had always tended to walk in a leftward arc in the absence of visual clues such as paving slabs or parquet flooring to keep her moving in a straight line. And so, when she exited the lift and entered the wide, marble-floored lobby, it was towards the sofas and bamboo-and-glass coffee tables beneath the giant yucca that her body naturally inclined her, rather than to the more brightly lit seating area between the mirror-fountain and the reception desk. This had always been so; the other seating area was a foreign continent to Rose. Removing a discreet anti-bacterial wipe from her handbag she quickly swabbed a small area of sofa before seating herself there.

Her magazine was little more than a fig-leaf for her real purpose - which was to enjoy the transient scenery of people, familiar and new, as they glided in and out. She loved the lobby, with its ever-shifting population, its bustle and air of consequence, the nervous energy of those checking in and out, balanced by the courteous voices and gestures of the staff. She relished the whispering hiss of the mirror fountain, and the way it reflected sliding wet curtains of light on the walls and floor. She appreciated the twinkling smiles she received from the cheery doormen and the porters as they trundled past. The lobby kept the restless, circling thoughts at bay, and calmed her as still, quiet spaces never could.

A woman approached the recess where Rose sat. She had a baby in her arms, and was pushing a trolley. A little boy of about three brought up the rear, whining for ice cream. The woman told him he’d just have to wait until daddy arrived with some money. She lowered herself exhaustedly on one of the sofas, while the boy began running and sliding on the polished floor. Rose smiled at her. ‘They’re a lot of work at that age,’ she said.

‘For as long as I can remember he’s been a handful.’

Rose did not have children and had never wanted any. The woman introduced herself as Janice. She asked Rose if she was on holiday.

‘Business.’

Antoine approached and offered them drinks. ‘Your usual, Mademoiselle Rose?’

Rose nodded and smiled.

‘The staff seem to know you well,’ observed Janice.

‘Yes, I’ve had long chats with most of them. I’ve been here a while.’

Nearly four years before, Waldo Mars moved his home and business to the Blue Parrot Hotel as a temporary measure. At that stage he had been toying with the concept of a constantly shifting base, moving from city to city, or even from coast to coast, as the whim took him. The idea sat well with his restless, gypsy spirit and his unease with the notion of roots and stasis. A man is always limited by his environment, was Waldo’s creed. The minute you plant yourself anywhere, you become subject to the life-sapping forces around you: rules and regulations, etiquette, parochialism. To be truly free, you must be always on the move. That had been his philosophy then, and it still was to some extent - he just hadn’t reckoned on the slipperiness of time, and how it can get away from you when you’re not looking, like a great fat oily fish. Three years and ten months. Had it really been that long? He had entered a comfort zone, no denying it. And Rose? She hadn’t helped, stubbornly ignoring any hint on his part that it was perhaps time to move on. For someone as pink and shiny and virtually frictionless as Miss Rose Duvalle, she’d certainly been a brake on his itinerant dreams.

Waldo returned to the Blue Parrot in the late afternoon. Rose was in her favourite seat in the lobby, chatting with one of the porters. Waldo acknowledged her wave, then took a lift to their suite. There was a telephone message from Mrs G, the wife of the man he’d been following. The woman had a paranoid aversion to mobile telephones. Believed that even calling one could give her cancer. Hence the call to his landline. If Rose had been up here doing her job instead of flirting with the staff, she could have let him know about this earlier. In her message, Mrs G sounded anxious, upset. He decided to call her right away.

‘Hello, Mrs Gregory. Waldo Mars here … Yes, he’s been under our observation all day … Well I’m sorry about that. Secretary was taken sick. Jellied eels, I believe. Anyway, we can confirm that your husband is definitely leading a double life. Another family, in fact. Three kids…. A house in North Enfield…. No, I didn’t. Don’t believe there is one in fact…’ Waldo held the phone away from his ear to avoid damaging it, as a stream of sarcastic rage hurtled out of the receiver. ‘No I don’t think the children were spontaneously generated, Mrs Gregory…. Yes, I know my biology…. Sure, a woman must have been involved at some point in time. There just doesn’t appear to be one on the scene right now…. I have experience in these areas. The way he handled those kids, you could tell…’ Waldo did not speak much more after this, beyond a few ‘Yes Mrs Gregories’, and ‘No Mrs Gregories’. Two minutes later, he replaced the receiver with a sigh. Of frustration, or relief? Hard to read his own heart on this one. He didn’t like being sacked. Professional pride and all that. Still, Mrs G was more unstable than most of his clients, and that was saying quite a lot. No, there was a definite sense of relief, undiluted by the knowledge that he now had just four cases on his books. After all, Waldo had not started up the missing persons agency to make money. Its mission had always been less about finding people than finding something to do with his days.

Long ago, before he became rich, Waldo had been an inventor. He had been, by his own admission, brilliant. The problem lay with his methods: he would begin building his machines before he’d properly thought through what their function should be. Or at least the purpose he originally had in mind would change during the construction process, or slip from his memory. As a result, he had a shed full of beautifully engineered devices that hummed and buzzed and whirred contentedly, most of them to little purpose or effect. There was a tubular machine that could capture light, a pen-like thing that could detect people’s emotions, and a cellphone-shaped object that could theoretically pick up electrical signals from 49 seconds into the future. But what use was stored light to anyone? And people were absolutely right to view the ‘emo-tector’ as a gross invasion of privacy. As for the ‘anachrotexter’, no future man or woman had thus far sent so much as a bleep back to him, so the device remained entirely innocent of functionality.

In despair, Waldo became a model. His looks had been almost embarrassingly good in those days, and he still had the strong chin and cheekbones that had earned him a decent living back then. But his face was chubbier now, and the muscles in his shoulders and stomach had got lost in layers of fat. His nose - his big, once beautiful nose - was now crooked, askew - like a great bell caught in mid-swing - a reminder of the more dangerous roads he’d wandered since becoming a professional finder.

The big change in his fortunes had occurred when he was in his early thirties. He was stopped in the street one day by a lawyer, who claimed to recognize him from the label of a well-known coffee brand. It turned out to be from a shoot he’d done some years before. He’d never given permission for his image to be used beyond the initial ad campaign. Now his face was plastered over a billion