around the bottom. The date alone was easily readable, though looking ane mic as to ink.
The letter had been sent on 17. xii.99.
December 17. Less than a month ago.
xet
evo
There werenât after all many places in Great Britain with an x in their name, and I could think of nowhere else that fitted the available letters other than Exeter, Devon.
When I reached Directory Inquiries, I learned that there was indeed a Victor Verity in Exeter. A disembodied voice said, âThe number you require is ...â I wrote it down, but when I called Victor Verity I spoke not to him, but to his widow. Her dear Victor had passed away during the previous summer. Wrong Verity.
I tried Inquiries again.
âVery sorry,â said a prim voice, not sounding it, âthere is no other Victor or V. Verity in the Exeter telephone area which covers most of Devon.â
âHow about an ex-directory number?â
âSorry, I canât give you that information.â
Victor Waltman Verity was either ex-directory or had mailed his letter far from home.
Cursing him lightly I glanced with reluctance at the money job half done on my computer... and there, of course, lay the answer. Computers. Internet.
The Internet among other miracles might put an address to a name anywhere, thatâs to say it would if I could remember the open sesame code. I entered my Internet-access number and typed in my password, and sat hopefully, flicking mentally through possibilities as the machine burped and whined until a connection was made.
After a while a website address drifted into my mind, but it was without certainty that I tried it: www.192.com .
192.com was right.
I started a search for Verity in Devon, and as if eager to be of service, the Internet, having surveyed every fact obtainable in the public domain (such as the electoral registers), came up with a total of twenty-two Devon-based Veritys, but none of them any longer was Victor.
Dead end.
I tried Verity in Cornwall: sixteen but still no Victor.
Try Somerset, I thought. Not a Victor Verity in sight.
Before reaching to switch off, I skimmed down the list and at the end of it noticed that at No. 19 Lorna Terrace, Taunton, Somerset, there lived a Mr. Waltman Verity. Good enough to try, I thought.
Armed with the address I tried Directory Inquiries again, but ran up against the same polite barrier of virtual nonexistence. Ex-directory. Sorry. Too bad.
Although Saturday was a busier day in the showroom, my thoughts returned continuously to Taunton and Victor Waltman Verity.
Taunton... Having nothing much else urgently filling my Sunday, I caught a westbound train the next morning, and asked directions to Lorna Terrace.
Whatever I expected Victor Waltman Verity to look like, it was nothing near the living thing. Victor Waltman Verity must have been all of fifteen.
The door of No. 19 was opened by a thin woman dressed in pants, sweater and bedroom slippers, with a cigarette in one hand and big pink curlers in her hair. Thirty something, perhaps forty, I thought. Easygoing, with a resigned attitude to strangers on her doorstep.
âEr... Mrs. Verity?â I asked.
âYeah. What is it?â She sucked smoke, unconcerned.
âMrs. Victor Waltman Verity?â
She laughed. âIâm Mrs. Waltman Verity, Victorâs my son.â She shouted over her shoulder towards the inner depths of the narrow terraced house. âVic, someone to see you,â and while we waited for Victor Waltman Verity to answer the call, Mrs. Verity looked me over thoroughly from hair to sneakers and went on enjoying a private giggle.
Victor Waltman Verity appeared quietly from along the narrow hallway and regarded me with curiosity mixed, I thought, with the possibility of alarm. He himself was as tall as his mother, as tall as Martin. He had dark hair, pale gray eyes and an air of knowing himself to be as intelligent as any adult. His voice, when he spoke, was at the cracked stage
The letter had been sent on 17. xii.99.
December 17. Less than a month ago.
xet
evo
There werenât after all many places in Great Britain with an x in their name, and I could think of nowhere else that fitted the available letters other than Exeter, Devon.
When I reached Directory Inquiries, I learned that there was indeed a Victor Verity in Exeter. A disembodied voice said, âThe number you require is ...â I wrote it down, but when I called Victor Verity I spoke not to him, but to his widow. Her dear Victor had passed away during the previous summer. Wrong Verity.
I tried Inquiries again.
âVery sorry,â said a prim voice, not sounding it, âthere is no other Victor or V. Verity in the Exeter telephone area which covers most of Devon.â
âHow about an ex-directory number?â
âSorry, I canât give you that information.â
Victor Waltman Verity was either ex-directory or had mailed his letter far from home.
Cursing him lightly I glanced with reluctance at the money job half done on my computer... and there, of course, lay the answer. Computers. Internet.
The Internet among other miracles might put an address to a name anywhere, thatâs to say it would if I could remember the open sesame code. I entered my Internet-access number and typed in my password, and sat hopefully, flicking mentally through possibilities as the machine burped and whined until a connection was made.
After a while a website address drifted into my mind, but it was without certainty that I tried it: www.192.com .
192.com was right.
I started a search for Verity in Devon, and as if eager to be of service, the Internet, having surveyed every fact obtainable in the public domain (such as the electoral registers), came up with a total of twenty-two Devon-based Veritys, but none of them any longer was Victor.
Dead end.
I tried Verity in Cornwall: sixteen but still no Victor.
Try Somerset, I thought. Not a Victor Verity in sight.
Before reaching to switch off, I skimmed down the list and at the end of it noticed that at No. 19 Lorna Terrace, Taunton, Somerset, there lived a Mr. Waltman Verity. Good enough to try, I thought.
Armed with the address I tried Directory Inquiries again, but ran up against the same polite barrier of virtual nonexistence. Ex-directory. Sorry. Too bad.
Although Saturday was a busier day in the showroom, my thoughts returned continuously to Taunton and Victor Waltman Verity.
Taunton... Having nothing much else urgently filling my Sunday, I caught a westbound train the next morning, and asked directions to Lorna Terrace.
Whatever I expected Victor Waltman Verity to look like, it was nothing near the living thing. Victor Waltman Verity must have been all of fifteen.
The door of No. 19 was opened by a thin woman dressed in pants, sweater and bedroom slippers, with a cigarette in one hand and big pink curlers in her hair. Thirty something, perhaps forty, I thought. Easygoing, with a resigned attitude to strangers on her doorstep.
âEr... Mrs. Verity?â I asked.
âYeah. What is it?â She sucked smoke, unconcerned.
âMrs. Victor Waltman Verity?â
She laughed. âIâm Mrs. Waltman Verity, Victorâs my son.â She shouted over her shoulder towards the inner depths of the narrow terraced house. âVic, someone to see you,â and while we waited for Victor Waltman Verity to answer the call, Mrs. Verity looked me over thoroughly from hair to sneakers and went on enjoying a private giggle.
Victor Waltman Verity appeared quietly from along the narrow hallway and regarded me with curiosity mixed, I thought, with the possibility of alarm. He himself was as tall as his mother, as tall as Martin. He had dark hair, pale gray eyes and an air of knowing himself to be as intelligent as any adult. His voice, when he spoke, was at the cracked stage
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