October skies

CHAPTER 70

Friday

Blue Valley, California

Julian checked the email on his BlackBerry to remind himself of the agreed time as he stepped inside.

It was, as he thought, four p.m.

He looked around Angel’s Muffin House, a small and cosy teahouse with lace doilies, chequered tablecloths and a faux brass oil lamp adorning each table. Several small windows with net curtains allowed in some of the dull pallor of late afternoon, but it was dim enough inside that he needed a moment for his outdoor eyes to adjust.

It appeared to be deserted, not a single customer. Not that that surprised him. Like the rest of this quaint little holiday-season town, he imagined Angel’s Muffin House bustled with trade in the summer but tumbleweed rolled through it the rest of the year.

It was a well-chosen spot for a discreet meeting. This had been Arnold Zuckerman’s emailed suggestion. Julian hadn’t noticed this cake shop, tucked away off Blue Valley’s one, quiet, high street.

The guy’s visited this town before, then.

Julian was busy wondering why the proprietor of Angel’s would bother to keep it open like this, when he spotted movement in a dimly lit corner. He noticed a middle-aged man sitting alone at a table. Self-consciously he wove his way past several tidily laid tables towards him.

‘Arnold?’ he asked, holding out a hand.

‘Yes,’ the man replied with a warm smile and a rich, deep, vaguely familiar voice. ‘Mr Cooke?’

Julian nodded and they shook hands formally.

‘Please,’ the man said, ‘pull up a seat. I ordered us a pot of Earl Grey and some delicious-looking cinnamon muffins.’ He spoke with the warm, old-world charm of a storekeeper; very appealing and welcoming in a come-and-join-me-by-the-firem’boy kind of way.

Julian sat down and the man poured tea into his cup from the pot.

‘You flew in from Britain today?’ he asked.

Julian nodded. ‘Into Denver, earlier this morning.’

‘You must be tired.’

Julian added milk and spooned in some sugar. ‘Yes, I am a bit.’

An awkward silence passed between them as Julian decided how to open up the discussion.

‘Look,’ said the man, ‘this is a bit awkward. I’m not particularly good at playing games with people, Mr Cooke. I lie very badly, which.. believe me, is a real handicap in the line of work I’ve chosen. I’m afraid I’m not who I said I was.’

Julian looked up at him. The man smiled a little guiltily. ‘You might recognise me, or you might not. Depends how well you’ve been following the news lately.’

Julian realised he knew the face from somewhere — distinguished in the way a mature character actor might be.

In the news?

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘now you say it, I think I have seen you on TV.'

The man sighed and his smile widened. ‘I suspect you probably have. It’s getting harder and harder these days to find a quiet corner where I can be myself.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t be. I should apologise for not being on the level with you, Mr Cooke.’

‘Okay, Arnold Zuckerman is an alias.’ Julian smiled. ‘I thought it sounded like a badly made-up name.’

‘Yes,’ the man acknowledged with a soft laugh. ‘If I place a cap on my head and a pair of glasses on my nose and try a change of clothes I can still — just about — walk up a street without being accosted by someone. But’ — he sipped his tea — ‘not for much longer, I imagine.’

Julian looked at him intently, trying to place this man’s face in the right context. He remembered seeing that face recently as a still image, a picture on the front of a magaz Then it came to him.

‘Oh shit!’ he whispered. ‘You’re… you’re the independent candidate, uh… Shepperton?’

He nodded. ‘William Shepherd.’

Julian’s jaw dropped open. ‘Oh my God!’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Not quite. I’m just a part-time lay preacher.’

Julian grinned. There was a warm, disarming familiarity to the man, which he found quite charming.

I’m sitting across the table from a man who may well be the next President of the United States.

Shepherd noticed Julian’s sudden stiffness. ‘Relax,’ he laughed warmly, ‘and please call me William. You know, despite being demonised, or lionised, depending on which news network you want to watch, I’m just a tired old guy trying to muddle through one day after the next and do what’s right for my country.’

‘You seem to be doing well, though.’

‘It’s still early days. There’s another whole year of campaigning to go. There’s a lot of work to do yet, to convince the American people it ain’t the end of the world if they go and vote a Mormon into office.’

‘A costly business.’

Shepherd sighed. ‘Tell me about it. I believe the predicted spend on political campaigning by the others is likely to top two billion dollars by the time election day rolls around. I’m hoping to rely on the message, instead of slick campaigning.’ Shepherd leaned forward and offered a sly wink. ‘You know what? I think people are beginning to see through all that glossy crap these days.’

‘Do you think you stand a chance?’

‘I’m making a lot of new friends,’ he replied. ‘There’re a lot of backers out there beginning to smell a good bet.’ Shepherd shrugged. ‘In any case, the Democrats and Republicans are both looking dirty, the amount of mud they’ve been slinging at each other. All I need do is convince middle America that voting for me won’t let in the party they despise the most.’

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘But look, if you’ll forgive me, I’m bored witless of discussing campaign tactics. I have a man called Duncan who drives me up the wall with that kind of tedium. No… I’m here because we share a fascination with a certain obscure historical character.’

‘Yes.’ Julian reached for a muffin. He pulled it apart in his hands and picked at the hard-baked crust, not hungry but needing something to fiddle with. ‘So then, I suppose the obvious question from me is: why your interest in this William Preston character?’

Shepherd took a moment to consider the question.

‘I’ll level with you. It’s not so much Preston himself that I’m specifically interested in. As you saw on my web page, I managed to put together some background on the man, but it’s what happened to the group of people that were travelling west with him that I’d like to learn more about.’

‘So, what do you know?’

‘They vanished in the mountains…’ He looked out of the window, through the net curtains at the panorama of peaks towering over the small town. ‘Somewhere out there.’ Shepherd turned to look at Julian. ‘One of them was my great-great-grandfather. ’

Julian’s eyes widened. ‘No! Seriously?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘My great-great-grandfather.’

‘Preston?’

Shepherd hesitated. ‘Lord, no. It was a young man.’

‘Would his name have been Lambert?’

‘Yes,’ replied Shepherd — his turn to look astonished. ‘Yes, it was. How on earth would you know that?’ he asked, his deep voice dropping to a whisper.

Julian wondered how much of the truth he wanted to pay out to this man. He decided there was no harm in giving him a little bit more for free. ‘We discovered what happened to those people. We found where they ended up.’

‘Oh my…’ Shepherd’s deep eyes widened.

Julian smiled. ‘Better still, we found the journal of one Benjamin Lambert. A very detailed account of what happened out there.’

Shepherd gasped. ‘That’s an incredible discovery!’

Julian nodded. ‘Yes, yes it is.’

Shepherd spread his hands. ‘And? Would you tell me what happened to them?’

Julian sipped his tea silently.

How much do I give this guy for free?

‘Well, this is a little awkward, Mr Shepherd-’

‘William.’

‘William… I’m sitting on a historical tale I believe to be worth a lot of money.’ Julian sighed. ‘Look, I’m crap at talking money, but-’

Shepherd smiled. ‘But, you’re a journalist, you’ve worked hard to unearth the details and you’re not that keen on giving it all away for nothing. I can understand that.’

‘Yeah, that’s about it.’ Julian shrugged.

‘Except now there’s something of a topical link into this story, eh?’ Shepherd added, with a wry smile.

‘You could say that.’

Julian remained poker-faced, but his mind was racing to catch up with the situation. More information on this man was coming to him, bits and pieces he’d unintentionally picked up from the background noise of daily news. William Shepherd, the independent Mormon candidate from Utah. The preacher, the businessman, the voice of common sense broadcast twice a week to tens of millions of the faithful, and a voice that broadly appealed to Christians from many other churches, the one and only candidate untainted by corruption and sleaze. And the guy who all of a sudden in recent weeks had started looking like a real contender.

‘I imagine your concern is how your great-great-grandfather conducted himself?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a concern. In this ridiculous business we call politics, public perception is everything.’ He sighed. ‘If my great-great-grandfather went and ate someone in order to survive… well, I think my campaign manager, Duncan, would have a hissy fit.’

Julian appreciated his candour — and his sense of humour.

‘I can imagine.’

‘So I’m sure you can see,’ Shepherd continued, ‘I have a very cynical, vested interest in how my ancestor behaved.’ He reached for the teapot and topped them both up. ‘You could imagine, for instance, how much mileage the Republicans and the Democrats would get out of something that resembled another Donner Party incident, eh?’

‘Yes. I can see how that would bugger things up for you.’

Shepherd looked at him, anxiously raising an eyebrow.

‘And? Did he?’

Julian shook his head. ‘No. There was no cannibalism… at all.’

Shepherd closed his eyes and sighed with relief.

‘I’m sure you understand how important that is? It’s such a taboo word and any kind of association with it…?’

Julian understood.

‘Politics is an awful game, one I genuinely detest. In some ways I’m not looking forward to the prospect that I might just win this election and have to play the political game in office for four years. But I’m doing it because someone has to. Someone has to show our people that there’s another way, that they don’t have to vote for one of two groups of corrupt sons-of-bitches. To be honest, it might be a relief not to make it to the White House.’ Shepherd sighed and laughed gently. ‘But don’t tell my backers that, eh? They’re bankrolling my campaign to win and nothing less will do for them.’

‘I can put your mind to rest,’ said Julian. ‘Your ancestor comes across in the journal as a very good man. But,’ he said, choosing his next words carefully, ‘some very… twisted… things happened up there. Really very dark, unsettling stuff. All of it revolved around Preston. I’ll be honest with you: whilst you personally may benefit from how Benjamin Lambert conducted himself, the Mormon faith may take a hit from Preston’s behaviour. ’

Shepherd pursed his lips, deep in thought. ‘Yes… but I believe from the little I’ve been able to research on the man that he abandoned the Church of the Latter Day Saints to follow his own path. He took his followers into a wilderness, literally and spiritually.’

Julian took his glasses off and wiped them. ‘Yes, very much so,’ he said. ‘Lambert’s description depicts a man tormented by something, by horrendous visions, capable of anything — even murder and mutilation. I’ve had a criminal psychologist examine the journal and without getting into a long-winded profile’ — Julian smiled edgily — ‘there’s something of the Charles Manson about him.’

‘Lord. Really?’

‘The psychologist’s phrase was a messianic narcissistic sociopath. Bit of a mouthful.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps it’s just easier to say that he lost it. Went quite mad out there.’

‘Yes,’ Shepherd replied quietly, his eyes focused out of the window and on the mountains. ‘So, Mr Cooke, what do you plan to do with this story?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I had plans for a documentary, but at the moment that’s not looking so good. Perhaps a book.’

‘Well,’ said Shepherd, his gaze returning to the room, to Julian, ‘you’ve certainly got my attention, and,’ he added with a candid smile, ‘I’m a man known to have quite a bit of money. Perhaps we can help each other out here?’