He had a computer terminal on his desk and he typed in Tristan Williams’ name.
“How do you know this bloke?” he asked, keying the computer to start its search.
“Old friend,” Marissa said evasively.
“We came to Australia on the spur of the moment and decided to try to look him up to say hello.”
“Bloody friendly of you,” Mr. Hammersmith said as he glanced over at his screen.
“Here we go. Yes, Mr. Tristan Williams was a graduate here, class of 1979.”
“Do you have his current address?” Marissa asked. This was the first encouraging lead they’d had all day.
“Only his work address,” Mr. Hammersmith said.
“Would you care to have that?”
“Very much so,” Marissa said, motioning Wendy to give her a piece of paper. Wendy handed her another sheet of graph paper from her purse.
“Mr. Williams is close by,” Mr. Hammersmith said.
“Only a few blocks away at the Female Care Australia clinic. It’s near enough to walk.”
Marissa sighed. She handed the graph paper back to Wendy along with the pen.
“We’ve already been there,” she said.
“They told us he’d left two years ago.”
“Oh, dear!” Mr. Hammersmith said.
“Terribly sorry about that. We try to keep our files up to date, but we’re not always successful.”
“Thank you for your help,” Marissa said, getting to her feet.
“I suppose Tristan and I were destined never to meet again.
“Bloody awful,” Mr. Hammersmith said.
“But hold on. Let me try something else here.” He went back to his computer screen and began typing on the keyboard.
“There we have it!” Mr. Hammersmith said with a smile.
“I’ve chocked the faculty roster with the 1979 year of graduation. We have three people from that year on staff My advice is to ask them about Tristan Williams. I’m sure one of them will know where he is.” He wrote down the faculty names and their respective departments and handed the sheet to Marissa.
I’d try the bloke on top of the list first,” Mr. Hammersmith said.
“For a while he was acting as the class secretary for the alumni journal. He works in the Anatomy Department, which is in the building directly across from this one. If after talking with him and the others you still haven’t turned old Williams up, come back. I have a few other ideas that might be worth trying. I could contact the Health Insurance Commission in Canberra for one.
If he’s doing any outpatient billing, they’d have to have an address for him. And of course there is the Australian Medical Association. I think they keep a data bank on physicians whether they are members or not. Beyond that, there’s the State Licensing Board. There are actually a lot of ways we might track him down.”
“You’ve been most kind,” Marissa said.
“Good luck,” Mr. Hammersmith said.
“We Australians love to see friends from abroad. It would be a shame if you two missed each other after you’ve come all this way.”
After leaving the alumni office, Marissa stopped Wendy in the stairwell.
“You don’t mind if we follow up on this, do you?” she asked.
“This is a step beyond our deal.”
“We’re here,” Wendy said.
“Let’s give it a shot.”
Marissa and Wendy had no trouble finding the Anatomy Department, where they went and asked for Dr. Lawrence Spenser.
“Third floor,” a secretary told them.
“Gross anatomy. He’s usually in the lab in the afternoon.”
Climbing the stairs, Wendy said, “The smell alone here is starting to awaken bad memories. How well I remember it from my med school days. Did you like gross anatomy first year?”
“It wasn’t bad,” Marissa said.
“I hated it,” Wendy said.
“That smell. I couldn’t get it out of my hair for the entire three months.”
The door to the gross anatomy room was ajar. The women peeked inside. There were about twenty shrouded tables. Toward the rear was a lone individual wearing an apron and rubber gloves. His back was to them.
“Excuse me!” Marissa called.
“We’re looking for Lawrence Spenser.”
The man turned around. He had dark curly hair. Compared to the people Marissa and Wendy had been seeing, he seemed pale.