Chapter 10

The next day Aroha arrives at my office and says she has something to ask me. Oh dear, what does she know, or think she knows? What she in fact asks me takes me completely by surprise. Mikaere is starting a ten week course on IT next week and would I be happy to have him board with me. “Think it over for a day or two. I’m sure I can find somewhere else for him, if necessary.”

I am keen to oblige. Aroha has treated me like family and I have acted more like family than I should have. In fact she is demonstrating considerable trust in me by proposing to put her other son in my care. So I say, “Of course, I’d be delighted to have him.”

She proposes a weekly rent, and insists I take it when I say that no payment is necessary. “Mikaere wouldn’t be comfortable simply being your guest.” That could be so. Hemi and Mikaere clearly have different sensibilities, although I didn’t really get to know Mikaere over that weekend.

Afterwards I begin to realize how Mikaere’s presence will upset my day to day living, lolling around the house in an old robe when I do not have to be on campus early. Oh well, it’s too late to back out now. I’m sure Mikaere will be a charming housemate. Mikaere will arrive on Sunday. I must make sure that the second bedroom, which I had already furnished with an old bed and an old chest of drawers, is in good order. Thoughts of his arrival are pushed to the back of my mind as I contemplate my interview with the police on Friday.

The appointed hour on Friday duly arrives and an unmarked car arrives outside. I leave the house and approach the car. The driver, whom I do not recognize, gets out of the car and, speaking across the car asks, “Professor Makkonen? I have come to take you to your meeting.”

I get in the passenger door and just wonder whether I should have asked for identification. “Where is the police station?” I ask.

“We're going to a private interview room.”

“Why?”

“It’s more discreet and, anyway, office space is in short supply.”

This doesn’t seem right. Is this the wrong car? Is the real police car about to show up? I look back through the wing mirror to see if there is another car about to draw up in front of the house. There is nothing, except a man on an old motorbike is following on behind us. Stay calm. Act as if nothing is wrong. I look at the passing streets, ignoring the driver, who is happy to ignore me. We enter a small housing development of eight small single story houses with single garages and pull into one of the drives. The driver clicks open the automatic door and we get out into the bare garage. The internal door leads past a couple of bedrooms and we enter the living area where, seated in an easy chair, is Zoltan, looking very much like the identikit picture, the one without the hair.

“Hello Zoltan. I thought it would be you. I fear the police are going to miss me when I’m not at home for my appointment.”

“Don’t worry little Inka,” Zoltan replies, “You sent an email changing your availability to 2 pm and saying that you don't need a ride.”

“How thoughtful of you to do that for me! Even so, I think I had better keep that appointment.”

“Of course you should and you will need legal representation so I have arranged for Mr. Fawkes of Dillinger, Brent and McKinsey to assist you.” He indicated another person in the room whom I had not previously noticed.

Mr. Fawkes does not resemble at all his close relative, Guy, but is a thin, stooping, grey haired man in his fifties in a grey, well-worn, pin-stripe suit. I learned how Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot of 1605 were cultural icons in the UK from the time I stayed in Lewes near the University of Sussex one autumn and was able to witness the extraordinary celebrations on the anniversary day, November 5th. I need to stay cool about having this contemporary Mr. Fawkes foisted on me, so I say, sarcastically, “Well, you think of everything. How kind!”

With matching sarcasm, Zoltan says, “He will help you stick to your story, that you once knew someone called ‘Zoltan’ whom fellow students called some kind of a spy but he was probably nothing of the kind, that you have no reason to think the person our friend Sammy was referring to is the same person and you are unable to help them any further.”

I explain I had already said that an identikit picture could have been of him.

“Could have? Well this afternoon you will be more doubtful.”

The interview proceeds for some little while, with Zoltan at his best in being calmly polite while also being thoroughly menacing. He's used to others agreeing with whatever course of action he lays down. Afterwards, Mr. Fawkes takes care of me and takes me to a branch of Pita Pit (no expense spared) so that ‘I can give him my instructions’. The instructions in reality flow in the reverse direction. He drives me to the police station in good time for my interview. Hope Wilson and Dave Smithers are the interviewing officers. I really want to be able to tell them everything, but I know all too well that the innocuous Mr. Fawkes has as his main task reporting back to Zoltan ‘how I perform’. And Zoltan does not play nice.

The painful repetition of stone-walling answers grates with my every inclination. I want to say something in private to Hope Wilson and figure out what to do. After an hour, I say I need the bathroom with just a flicker of a look at Hope. She gets up with me, opens the door, and as she leans her head out the door I am able to whisper in her ear, “Tomorrow, Grounds of Enlightenment, 10 am.” On my return the interview persists for a little longer in a fitful kind of way. It wraps up with the routine phrase, “We may have to speak with you again.” It’s an extraordinary relief to leave that interview room.

The next morning I arrive five minutes early at the ‘Grounds’ and find a table for two towards the back of the cafe. Ten past and no Hope Wilson. A quarter past and no Hope. Then a waitress comes over, asks if I am Professor Makkonen, and says there is a message from Maria, my new Masters student. Sorry she couldn’t make it today but she’ll see me at the university on Monday. Well, I don't have a new Masters student, or perhaps I do now. Hope Wilson clearly did not want to be seen with me in public. This level of caution underlines the seriousness of the situation. I do wish they had chosen a name other than Maria.