Page 31 of Safe Enough

I nodded. Obviously I wasn’t surprised. Not even the Met uses tents and Tyvek for purse snatching.

He jerked his thumb again and said, “American.”

I nodded again. I knew Rose was quite capable of working that out from dentistry or clothing or shoes or hairstyle or body shape, but equally I knew he would not have involved me officially without some more definitive indicator. And as if answering the unasked question he pulled two plastic evidence bags from his pocket. One contained an opened-out blue US passport, and the other contained a white business card. He handed both bags to me and jerked his thumb again and said, “From his pockets.”

I knew better than to touch the evidence itself. I turned the bags this way and that and examined both items through the plastic. The passport photograph showed a sullen man, pale of skin, with hooded eyes that looked both evasive and challenging. I glanced up and Rose said, “It’s probably him. The boat matches the photo, near enough.”

Boat was a contraction of boat race, which was Cockney rhyming slang for face. Apples and pears, stairs; trouble and strife, wife; plates of meat, feet; and so on. I asked, “What killed him?”

“Knife under the ribs,” Rose said.

The name on the passport was Ezekiah Hopkins.

Rose said, “Did you ever hear of a name like that before?”

“Hopkins?” I said.

“No, Ezekiah.”

I looked up at the windows above me and said, “Yes, I did.”

The place of birth was recorded as Pennsylvania, USA.

I gave the bagged passport back to Rose and looked at the business card. It was impossible to be certain without handling it, but it seemed to be a cheap item. Thin stock, no texture, plain print, no embossing. It was the kind of thing anyone can order online for a few pounds a thousand. The legend said HOPKINS, ROSS, & SPAULDING, as if there were some kind of partnership of that name. There was no indication of what business they were supposed to be in. There was a phone number on the card, with a 610 area code. Eastern Pennsylvania, but not Philly. The address on the card said simply LEBANON, PA. East of Harrisburg, as I recalled. Correct for the 610 code. I had never been there.

“Did you call the number?” I asked.

“That’s your job,” Rose said.

“No one will answer,” I said. “A buck gets ten it’s phony.”

Rose gave me a long look and took out his phone. He said, “It better be phony. I don’t have an international calling plan. If someone answers in America it’ll cost me an arm and a leg.” He pressed 001, then 610, then the next seven digits. From six feet away I heard the triumphant little phone company triplet that announced a number that didn’t work. Rose clicked off and gave me the look again.

“How did you know?” he asked.

I said, “Omne ignotum pro magnifico est.”

“What’s that?”

“Latin.”

“For what?”

“Every unexplained thing seems magnificent. In other words, a good magician doesn’t reveal his tricks.”

“You’re a magician now?”

“I’m an FBI special agent,” I said. I looked up at the windows again.

Rose followed my gaze and said, “Yes, I know. Sherlock Holmes lived here.”

“No, he didn’t,” I said. “He didn’t exist. He was made up. So were these buildings. In Arthur Conan Doyle’s day Baker Street only went up to about number eighty. Or one hundred, perhaps. The rest of it was a country road. Marylebone was a separate little village a mile away.”

“I was born in Brixton,” Rose said. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Conan Doyle made up the number two twenty-one,” I said. “Like movies and TV make up the phone numbers you see on the screen. And the license plates on the cars. So they don’t cause trouble for real people.”

“What’s your point?”

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