‘The implication being that Ashton wasn’t?’
‘That’s it. It came up again just now and this time it clicked. I’ve just been talking to Harrington, and he tells me there’s a group of seven linked programs. I made an educated guess at the period they covered and I got it right first time. They started when Penny first began her graduate work in genetics. I think Ashton educated himself in genetics alongside his daughter. This morning Penny said he’d made suggestions which surprised Lumsden when they worked in the laboratory. Now, Penny works with Lumsden, one of the top men in the field. Everything he knew and learned she could pass on to Ashton. She read the relevant journals - and so did Ashton; she attended seminars and visited other laboratories - and passed everything back to Ashton. She could have been doing it quite unconsciously, glad to have someone near to her with whom she could discuss her work. He was right in the middle of some of the most exciting developments in science this century, and I’m not discounting atomic physics. What’s more likely than that a man like Ashton should think and theorize about genetics?’
‘You’ve made your point,’ said Ogilvie. ‘But what to do about it?’
‘Penny must be brought in, of course.’
He shook his head. ‘Not immediately. I can’t make that decision off the cuff. The problem lies in the very fact that she is Ashton’s daughter. She’s intelligent enough to ask why her father should have considered it necessary to hide what he’s doing, and that, as the Americans say, opens up a can of worms, including his early history and how and why he died. I doubt if the Minister would relish an angry young woman laying siege to his office or, much worse, talking to newspaper reporters. I’ll have to ask him for a decision on this one.’
I said, ‘You can’t possibly suppress a thing like this.’
‘Who is talking about suppressing it?’ he said irritably. ‘I’m merely saying we’ll have to use tact in handling it. You’d better leave it with me. You haven’t said anything to her about it, have you?’
‘No.’
‘Good. You’ve done well on this, Malcolm. You’ll get the credit for it when the time comes.’
I wasn’t looking for credit, and I had an uneasy feeling that Ogilvie wasn’t being quite straight with me. It was the first time I had ever felt that about him, and I didn’t like it.
I saw Penny the following afternoon, by arrangement, at University College. As I walked down the corridor towards her office the door of Lumsden’s office opened and Cregar came out so that I had to sidestep smartly to avoid barging into him. He looked at me in astonishment and demanded, ‘What are you doing here?’
Apart from the fact that it wasn’t any of his business, I still felt sore enough at the roasting he had given me at the committee meeting to be inclined to give him a sharp answer. Instead I said, mildly enough, ‘Just visiting.’
‘That’s no answer.’
‘Perhaps that’s because I neither liked the question nor the way it was put.’
He boggled a bit then said, ‘You’re aware the Ashton case is closed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll have to ask you again - what are you doing here?’
I said deliberately, ‘The moon will turn into green cheese the day I have to ask your permission to visit my fiancée.’
‘Oh!’ he said inadequately. ‘I’d forgotten.’ I really think it had slipped his memory. Something in his eyes changed; belligerence gave way to speculation. ‘Sorry about that. Yes, you’re going to marry Dr Ashton, aren’t you?’
At that moment I didn’t know whether I was or not, but I wouldn’t give Cregar that satisfaction. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘When is the wedding to be?’
‘Soon, I hope.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He lowered his voice. ‘A word to the wise. You are aware, of course, that it would be most undesirable if Miss Ashton should ever know what happened in Sweden.’
‘Under the circumstances I’m the last person likely to tell her,’ I said bitterly.
‘Yes. A sad and strange business - very strange. I hope you’ll accept my apology for my rather abrupt manner just now. And I hope you’ll accept my good wishes for your future married life.’
‘Of course - and thank you.’
‘And now you must excuse me.’ He turned and went back into Lumsden’s office.
As I walked up the corridor I speculated on Cregar’s immediate assumption that my presence in University College was linked to the Ashton case. Granted that he had genuinely forgotten I was to marry Penny, then what possible link could there be?
I escorted Penny to Fortnum’s where she restocked her depleted larder. Most of the order was to be sent, but we took enough so that she could prepare a simple dinner for two. That evening, in the flat, as we started on the soup she said, ‘I’m going to Scotland tomorrow.’
‘With Lumsden?’
‘He’s busy and can’t come. The extra time I spent in America has thrown our schedule out a bit.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘I don’t think I’ll be away as much as a week. Why?’
‘There’s a new play starting at the Haymarket next Tuesday which I thought you might like to see. Alec Guinness. Shall I book seats?’
She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll be back by then. Yes, I’d like that I haven’t been in a theatre for God knows how long.’
‘Still having trouble in Scotland?’
‘It’s not really trouble. Just a difference of opinion.’
After dinner she made coffee, and said, ‘I know you don’t like brandy. There’s a bottle of scotch in the cabinet.’
I smiled. ‘That’s thoughtful of you.’
‘But I’ll have a brandy.’
I poured the drinks and took them over to the coffee table. She brought in the coffee, and then we sat together on the settee. She poured two black coffees, and said quietly, ‘When would you like us to get married, Malcolm?’
That was the night the new carpet became badly coffee-stained, and it was the night we went to bed together for the first time.
It had been quite long enough.
THIRTY-THREE
The rest of the week went slowly. Penny went to Scotland and I booked a couple of seats at the Haymarket Theatre. I also made enquiries into exactly how one gets married; it hadn’t come up before. I felt pretty good.
Ogilvie was uncommunicative. He wasn’t around the office much during the next few days and, even when he was, he didn’t want to see me. He asked how I was getting on with the investigation of Benson and made no comment when I said I was stuck. Twice thereafter he refused to see me when I requested an audience. That worried me a little.
I checked with Harrington to find how he was doing and to see if any genetics experts had been brought in - not by asking outright but by tactful skating around the edges. No new boffins were on the job and certainly no biologists of any kind. That worried me, too, and I wondered why Ogilvie was dragging his heels.
Harrington’s temper was becoming worse. ‘Do you know what I’ve found?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘This joker is using Hamiltonian quaternions!’ He made it sound like a heinous offence of the worst kind.
‘Is that bad?’
He stared at me and echoed, ‘Bad! No one, I repeat - no one - has used Hamiltonian quaternions since 1915 when tensor analysis was invented. It’s like using a pick and shovel when you have a bulldozer available.’
I shrugged. ‘If he used these Hamilton’s whatsits he’d have a sound reason.’
Harrington stared at a print-out of the computer program with an angry and baffled expression. ‘Then I wish I knew what the hell it is.’ He went back to work.
And so did I, but my trouble was that I didn’t know what to do. Benson was a dead issue - there seemed to be no possible way of getting a line on him. Ogilvie seemed to have lost interest, and since I didn’t want to twiddle my thumbs in Kerr’s section, I spent a lot of time in my flat catching up on my reading and waiting for T
uesday.
At the weekend I rang Penny hoping she’d be back but got no answer. I spent a stale weekend and on the Monday morning I rang Lumsden and asked if he’d heard from her. ‘I spoke to her on Thursday,’ he said. ‘She hoped to be back in London for the weekend.’
‘She wasn’t.’
‘Well, perhaps she’ll be back today. If she comes in is there a message for her?’
‘Not really. Just tell her I’ll meet her at home at seven tomorrow evening.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ said Lumsden, and rang off.
I went to the office feeling faintly dissatisfied and was lucky to catch Ogilvie at the lift. As we went up I asked bluntly, ‘Why haven’t you given Harrington a geneticist to work with him?’
‘The situation is still under review,’ he said blandly.
‘I don’t think that’s good enough.’
He gave me a sideways glance. ‘I shouldn’t have to remind you that you don’t make policy here,’ he said sharply. He added in a more placatory tone, ‘The truth is that a lot of pressure is being brought to bear on us.’
I was tired of framing my words in a diplomatic mode. ‘Who from - and why?’ I asked shortly.
‘I’m being asked to give up the computer programs to another department.’
‘Before being interpreted?’
He nodded. ‘The pressure is quite strong. The Minister may accede to the request.’
‘Who the devil would want…?’ I stopped and remembered something Ogilvie had let drop. ‘Don’t tell me it’s Cregar again?’
‘Why should you think…’ He paused and reconsidered. ‘Yes, it’s Cregar. A persistent devil, isn’t he?’
‘Jesus!’ I said. ‘You know how he’ll use it. You said he was into bacteriological warfare techniques. If there’s anything important in there he’ll use it himself and hush it up.’
The lift stopped and someone got in. Ogilvie said, ‘I don’t think we should discuss this further.’ On arrival at our floor he strode away smartly.
Tuesday came and at seven in the evening I was at Penny’s flat ringing the bell. There was no answer. I sat in my car outside the building for over an hour but she didn’t arrive. She had stood me up without so much as a word. I didn’t use the tickets for the show but went home feeling unhappy and depressed. I think even then I had an inkling that there was something terribly wrong. Little bits of a complicated jigsaw were fitting themselves together at the back of my mind but still out of reach of conscious reasoning power. The mental itch was intolerable.
The next morning, as early as was decent, I rang Lumsden again. He answered my questions good-humouredly enough at first, but I think he thought I was being rather a pest. No, Penny had not yet returned. No, he had not spoken to her since Thursday. No, it wasn’t at all unusual; her work could be more difficult than she expected.
I said, ‘Can you give me her telephone number in Scotland?’
There was a silence at my ear, then Lumsden said, ‘Er…no - I don’t think I can do that.’
‘Why? Haven’t you got it?’
‘I have it, but I’m afraid it isn’t available to you.’
I blinked at that curious statement, and filed it away for future reference. ‘Then can you ring her and give her a message?’
Lumsden paused again, then said reluctantly, ‘I suppose I can do that. What’s the message?’
‘It’ll need an answer. Ask her where she put the letters from her father. I need to know.’ As far as I knew that would be perfectly meaningless.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll pass it on.’
‘Immediately,’ I persisted. ‘I’ll wait here until you ring me back.’ I gave him my number.
When I sorted the morning’s post I found a slip from British Road Services; they had tried to deliver a package but to no avail because I was out - would I collect said package from the depot at Paddington? I put the slip in my wallet.
Lumsden rang nearly an hour later. ‘She says she doesn’t know which particular letters you mean.’
‘Does she? That’s curious. How did she sound?’
‘I didn’t speak to her myself; she wasn’t available on an outside line. But the message was passed to her.’
I said, ‘Professor Lumsden, I’d like you to ring again and speak to her personally this time. I…’
He interrupted. ‘I’ll do no such thing. I haven’t the time to waste acting as messenger-boy.’ There was a clatter and he was cut off.
I sat for a quarter of an hour wondering if I was making something out of nothing, chasing after insubstantial wisps as a puppy might chase an imaginary rabbit. Then I drove to Paddington to collect the package and was rather shattered to find that it was my own suitcase. Captain Morelius had taken his time in sending my possessions from Sweden.
I put it in the boot of my car and opened it. There seemed to be nothing missing although after such a length of time I couldn’t be sure. What was certain was that Swedish Intelligence would have gone over everything with a microscope. But it gave me an idea. I went into Paddington Station and rang the Ashton house.
Mary Cope answered, and I said, ‘This is Malcolm Jaggard. How are you, Mary?’
‘I’m very well, sir.’
‘Mary, has anything arrived at the house from Sweden? Suitcases or anything like that?’
‘Why, yes, sir. Two suitcases came on Monday. I’ve been trying to ring Miss Penny to ask her what to do with them, but she hasn’t been at home - I mean in the flat in London.’
‘What did you do with them?’
‘I put them in a box-room.’
There were traffic jams on the way to Marlow. The congestion on the Hammersmith By-Pass drove me to a distraction of impatience, but after that the road was open and I had my foot on the floor as I drove down the M4. The gates of the house stood open. Who would think Mary Cope might need protection?
She answered the door at my ring, and I said immediately, ‘Has anyone else asked about those cases?’
‘Why, no, sir.’
‘Where are they?’
‘I’ll show you.’ She led me upstairs by the main staircase and up another flight and along a corridor. The house was bare and empty and our footsteps echoed. She opened a door. ‘I put them in here out of the way.’
I regarded the two suitcases standing in the middle of the empty room, then turned to her and smiled. ‘You may congratulate me, Mary. Penny and I are getting married.’
‘Oh, I wish you all the best in the world,’ she said.
‘So I don’t think you’ll have to stay in London, after all. We’ll probably have a house in the country somewhere. Not as big as this one, though.’
‘Would you want me to stay?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Now, I’d like to look at this stuff alone. Do you mind?’
She looked at me a shade doubtfully, then made up her mind. So many strange things had happened in that house that one more wouldn’t make any difference. She nodded and went out, closing the door behind her.
Both cases were locked. I didn’t trouble with lock-picking but sprung open the catches with a knife. The first case was Ashton’s and contained the little he had taken with him on the run from Stockholm. It also contained the clothes he had been wearing; the overcoat, jacket and shirt were torn - bullet holes - but there was no trace of blood. Everything had been cleaned.
It was Benson’s case I was really interested in. In this two-cubic-foot space was all we had left of Howard Greatorex Benson, and if I couldn’t find anything here then it was probable that the Ashton case would never be truly solved.
I emptied the case and spread everything on the floor. Overcoat, suit, fur hat, underwear, shirt, socks, shoes - everything he had died with. The fur hat had a hole in the back big enough to put my fist through. I gave everything a thorough going-over, aware that Captain Morelius would have done the same, and found nothing - no microfilm, beloved of the thriller writers, no hidden pockets in the clothing, nothing at
all out of the usual.
There was a handful of Swedish coins and a slim sheaf of currency in a wallet. Also in the wallet were some stamps, British and Swedish; two newspaper cuttings, both of book reviews in English, and a scribbled shopping-list. Nothing there for me unless smoked salmon, water biscuits and Mocha coffee held a hidden meaning, which I doubted.
I was about to drop the wallet when I saw the silk lining was torn. Closer inspection showed it was not a tear but a cut, probably made by a razor blade. Captain Morelius left nothing to chance at all. I inserted my finger between the lining and the outer case and encountered a piece of paper. Gently I teased it out, then took my find to the window.
It was a letter:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Howard Greatorex Benson is the bearer of this letter. Should his bona fides be doubted in any way the undersigned should be consulted immediately before further action is taken with regard to the bearer.
Stapled to the letter was a passport-type photograph of Benson, a much younger man than the Benson I remembered but still with the damaged features and the scar on the cheek. He looked to be in his early thirties. Confirmation of this came from the date of the letter - 4 January, 1947. At the bottom of the letter was an address and a telephone number; the address was in Mayfair and the number was in the old style with both letters and digits, long since defunct. The letter was signed by James Pallson.
The itch at the back of my mind was now assuaged, the jigsaw puzzle was almost complete. Although a few minor pieces were missing, enough pieces were assembled to show the picture, and I didn’t like what I saw. I scanned the letter again and wondered what Morelius had made of it, then put it into my wallet and went downstairs.
I telephoned Ogilvie but he was out, so after making my farewell to Mary Cope I drove back to London, going immediately to University College. Aware that Lumsden might refuse to see me, I avoided the receptionist and went straight to his office and went in without knocking.
The Tightrope Men / The Enemy Page 53