Stephanie

by Winston Graham

  ‘He’s insinuating far more than I like to face up to at the moment. Peter Brune is an old and valued friend of mine. There’s never been a breath of scandal about him. He’s also been a most generous donor to the funds of this college, as we both know.’

  ‘Indeed! And a continuing benefactor. I don’t know what we should have done without him!’

  ‘Or shall do.’

  There was silence, during which Dr Crichton shifted uneasily.

  ‘There’s the Encaenia on the twentieth! Everything’s published and printed! We can’t possibly go back on that!’

  Henry said: ‘We can’t confer an honorary degree on someone who is under suspicion for a criminal offence.’

  ‘But what suspicion? Something James Locke has cobbled together out of his anger and grief? Of course it was a tragedy to lose his daughter, but he mustn’t be allowed to traduce a distinguished and blameless man because of a few coincidences! Tell me again, what is his twisted reasoning?’

  Henry pushed back his boyish grey hair. ‘It isn’t just his twisted reasoning any longer, Alistair. The police have come into it. I told you this.’

  ‘But how? Have they any firm proof?’

  ‘No, fortunately. But, as you know, learning from Locke that Arun Jiva, the graduate student from Delhi, was returning to England, they kept watch on his house and arrested him on Tuesday. Although he has so far refused to talk, they have searched his house again and also his baggage and have found evidence confirming what they had already gathered from investigations put in hand after Errol Colton’s murder. Both in Jiva’s house and in Colton’s were references which the police think point to a drug ring located, among other places, in Bombay, Corfu and Oxford. Importing and distributing hard drugs on a big scale. It’s a nasty thought. What is nastier is that they have several leads pointing to Postgate as the centre of the organisation in England.’

  Crichton got up, rubbed his nose, looked at his Bursar. ‘God Almighty, it’s just impossible! I’ll have to speak to the Vice-Chancellor, and then I suppose also the Chancellor! But for God’s sake, you can’t condemn a man on suspicion! We’d be living in a totalitarian state if we did such things!’

  It was plain to Gaveston that these two meetings, if they had to take place, would be highly embarrassing for the Principal. A strong advocate of Brune from the start, Crichton in his anger reflected his own conflicts. If the rumours about Brune proved to be baseless he would lose face because he had not condemned them. If he said nothing and the allegations surfaced elsewhere, particularly in the press, he would be even more exposed and could no longer say he knew nothing about them. He clearly wished Gaveston had never raised the subject and that it would go away.

  Henry said, ‘One thing had occurred to me. It might be farfetched. Or it might be the answer. That is that if police suspicions are correct – and we’ve no proof that they are yet – Postgate may be being used by members of Brune’s staff unknown to him. He’s got a confidential secretary who’s very close to him and takes on a lot of the responsibilities of his business and the charities –’

  ‘You mean John Peron? Yes. That could be! It would explain a lot.’ A look of relief passed across the Principal’s face. ‘ It might well be the solution.’

  ‘It would be a more likely solution if Peter were an unworldly scholar,’ Henry said. ‘Scholar he certainly is, but he’s very much of the world as well …’

  ‘Whom have you spoken to among the police?’

  ‘Superintendent Willis and one of the head officers of Customs and Excise.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Crichton. ‘Customs and Excise are the barracudas of our investigative system. On their VAT rounds they can make forced entries in a way the Tax Inspector could never do, and they can take liberties with the law that the police wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘You’re well informed, Alistair.’ Henry would have been amused if the situation had been less serious.

  ‘I don’t live in such a cloistered world.’ The Principal grunted. ‘Like Brune, I’m a practical scholar. One couldn’t hope to run a college otherwise.’

  Henry said: ‘You haven’t forgotten that Brune is dining with us here on Sunday.’

  ‘I’d not forgotten at all! It’s a hellish situation. But good grief! Have we not invited James Locke as well?’

  Gaveston began to light his pipe.

  ‘I can stop that. I can ring him, ask him not to come. I’m sure he’ll understand.’

  ‘Who else is coming – Caterham, isn’t it? And that architect chap. And …’ Crichton frowned, groping for names.

  ‘Our MP. And the Shadow Minister for Education. And Professor Shannon from Berkeley. And there’s sure to be a few of our people. Mary Fisher and Martin Goodbody always turn up.’

  ‘That’s at least nine,’ said Crichton, having ticked them off on his fingers. ‘ Hm. Perhaps in all the circumstances better to leave it as it is.’

  ‘Not ask the Chancellor?’

  ‘I doubt if he could come at such short notice. But no, Henry, while this – this thing is hanging over us! Inviting Charles, with Peter Brune as principal guest? I should feel hypocritical, and towards both men!’

  Henry frowned at his pipe, which had not lit up, put it away in his pocket. At this year’s Encaenia two others were to be made Doctor of Civil Law, one of Science, one of Letters, one of Divinity. The eulogy for Sir Peter Brune, KBE, MA, printed first in Latin, in which it would be delivered, and then in an English translation, would, Henry guessed, refer to his distinction as a Greek scholar, his wide-ranging benevolences, his many gifts to the University, particularly to St Martin’s, his endowment of foundations in some of the poorer countries of Europe so that scholars there could come to England to continue their studies at Oxford. This was the highest order Oxford University could confer. The ceremony was picturesque, beginning this year with a recital by the organist of Corpus Christi, followed by an assembly of the dignitaries in the Hall of Exeter College and the procession of them all in caps and gowns to the Sheldonian where the ceremony would take place.

  Gaveston stirred uneasily, dusting the ash off his shabby jacket. He knew at this stage Alistair Crichton would accept his advice. He had to choose between two friends, and he had tried to take a middle course. But mainly he had acted on the assumption that James (and the police) were mistaken. Peter Brune was sans reproche.

  Would they be justified – could they be justified in going ahead with the investiture without telling the Chancellor? Disbelieve James – who by his violent action a couple of weeks ago had put himself beyond the pale of civilised behaviour – but who was now cooperating with the police? Disbelieve the police, who presumably did not suspect James or had not enough evidence to proceed against him, but were now accepting his evidence and advice in the arrest of Dr Arun Jiva? Superintendent Willis and the drug enforcement officers thought they were on to something: Willis had told Henry that they had applied for Home Office permission to tap the telephone in and out of Postgate, but it had not yet been granted.

  The Chancellor, told the situation, would almost certainly ask Peter Brune if he would consent to a postponement until next year. Brune would be deeply alienated and his benefactions to the University would dry up. No one wanted that to happen. Clearly one did not want the University to benefit from money made out of drugs; but neither could one cast such splendid gifts aside without the weightiest of reasons.

  ‘Principal,’ Henry said, and it was rare that he called Crichton by his official name, ‘perhaps it would be better if we allowed James Locke to come to the dinner on Sunday.’

  ‘What? Who? What can you mean?’

  ‘Locke is a civilised man, accustomed to keeping his feelings to himself. He hardly knows Peter Brune, nor Peter him. A dinner where they meet casually may convince James that he must be completely mistaken about Brune. No one in his right mind would believe it.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t convince him?’

  ‘In one way or another it might help
to lance the boil. Of course it’s a risk – a calculated risk.’

  Crichton walked across to the window, looked down at the quad, where some students were clustered arguing.

  ‘I would call it an uncalculated risk,’ he said.

  II

  Nari stayed at the Fairlawn Hotel, which was just off the Woodstock Road. A quiet fairly inexpensive place, much favoured by reps; they kept it busy during the week but at weekends went home leaving the hotel half-empty. A few new people came in, parents visiting their sons and daughters, but Nari had the dining room almost to himself on the Friday evening. He went to bed early and rehearsed his questions over and over again before taking the pill he had been given.

  He did not know whether he was as free as he seemed: he thought it likely that if he chose to leave for the railway station somebody would be there to make sure he didn’t catch a train. The pill he had taken had certainly calmed his nerves, and he looked on his mission with a sense of fatalism, as if this were the last act of some tragedy in which he was the central figure.

  There had been no time at all in his early days in England to write to Bonni; he had begun a letter in his cell but never finished it. What was there to say?

  The taxi was to pick him up at eleven, but he woke at seven and reread the two sheets he had written to her – necessarily garbled, falsely reassuring. How could he finish it now? If he successfully fulfilled his mission – and if an Englishman’s word was his bond – he would not return to India at all. He would never see his wife or his flat or his friends (including, pray God, Shyam Lal Shastri) ever again. Unless eventually he established himself in a modestly successful way in England and was permitted to send for Bonni. Would she come? Would he want her to come? In spite of distance and separation having lent some enchantment, he thought not. Cringing and complaining and resentfully subservient, she would be a drag on him in England. She was old-fashioned, out of date, uneducated. In Edgbaston he had seen several very pretty Indian girls, Westernised, emancipated, coming into his cousin’s shop. Even those who retained their saris had a totally different outlook. Perhaps in the end – who knew? – he might be able to marry such a girl. With a new name and a new identity, no one was to know he had been married before.

  He tried the questions a dozen times more until he was word perfect, then took his second pill dutifully after breakfast. It crossed his mind to wonder what sort of justice there was in the world that the police authorities should have the freedom to administer pills that gave sleep and confidence, whereas he faced a prospect of fifteen years in prison for bringing in one of the likely ingredients.

  But by the time the taxi came his mind had passed this by and confidence settled on him. As the car drove through the city suburbs and then into the green and lush and leafy countryside he compared it with the suburbs of the city he had left in India, his home and its surroundings. The everlasting smell of sweat and urine and stale cooking that came up from the flat below; the street outside down which he walked every morning to catch his train, the bolts of dyed cloth piled in an entrance, with bangles and cheap jewellery; the fruit stalls selling oranges and pomegranates and guava, the shoe stalls and food stalls; and children defecating in the gutter in the molten glare of the early sun, and further on the shacks and shanties, many of them made of packing cases and old sacks and all full of people in rags or naked, children waiting to beg, old men waiting to die. People, people everywhere, pullulating, multiplying faster than hunger and disease could take them off, all drifting into Bombay from some greater crisis of existence in the outer countryside.

  A week or two ago Nari had longed to see the back of this cold orderly country, wanted to return to Bombay with all its faults and ugly memories. Now, with the prospect of a new identity and an opportunity to live here, his feelings were different. He was not unaware of the risks this interview might bring – he was not such a fool as to suppose it would all be as easy as the policemen pretended – but he knew also that if by some miracle he was found not guilty and allowed to return to Bombay he would not be permitted to resume his normal life, drab though that might be; he would still be in thrall to men like Mr Mohamed and Dr Arora. There had been a sentence he had half caught that horrible day when he had refused to swallow more than eighty of the packages. Someone had whispered: ‘Eighty’s only just worth while,’ and Arora had said: ‘It will do for a first time.’ They had been talking in a dialect he only partly understood, and which they probably thought he did not understand at all, but during these last few days in prison the interchange surfaced and solidified in his mind. If he returned to India a free man, that might be waiting for him.

  The taxi turned off down a side road, and Nari thought he had reached his destination. But not so. They came to a clearing in which was a caravan and a police car. Two men in the car, both strangers to him. When the taxi drew up one of the men got out and opened the door of the taxi. He smiled pleasantly.

  ‘Mr Nari Prasad. Could we trouble you for a minute or two?’

  Nari edged his way out, was escorted across the grass, up the two steps and into the caravan, which had in it a table and three chairs and some radio apparatus. The other man from the car joined them.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Prasad,’ said the first man genially. ‘ We just want to know if you can remember the statements you have to make. Shall we just go through them?’

  They went through them three times, while the second man checked with what was typewritten on a sheet of paper.

  ‘That’s good,’ said the first man. ‘That’s very good. Remember, not to get flustered. Give him time to answer. Put the questions clearly, then wait for the reply. See?’

  ‘I see,’ said Nari.

  ‘Now then,’ said the second man, getting up, ‘just put this round your neck, Mr Prasad.’

  He was holding out something on a thin black tape like a necklace, like a medallion, no bigger than an old-fashioned watch, but flatter.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Just put it round your neck. See, like this, let me; if you put the cord under the collar of your shirt just like an extra tie, then the mike will lie comfortable, hidden by your shirt. No one can possibly see it.’

  ‘Mike?’ said Nari.

  ‘Yes, it’s just a body mike. Didn’t they tell you about it? It’s quite harmless; nobody’ll know you’ve got it; but with it we’ll be able to listen to the answers.’

  III

  ‘I wish’, said Nari, ‘to see Sir Peter Brune, please.’

  A maid had come to the door, but a man hovered behind her in the shadow.

  ‘What name is it?’

  ‘Nari Prasad.’

  ‘Oh.’ She half closed the door on him and could be heard whispering inside.

  It was an impressive house, and some of Nari’s Dutch courage had seeped away.

  The door opened and a dark man stood there. ‘What is your business?’

  ‘Are you Sir Peter Brune?’

  ‘State your business and I will see if he is in.’

  ‘I can only state my business to him, sir. That is what I was told.’

  ‘Who told you? Who are you from?’

  ‘I cannot say. I can only say it to Sir Peter Brune.’

  John Peron stared at the young man and then beyond him to the waiting taxi.

  ‘I will see,’ he said, and shut the door.

  Nari stood on the top step, his kneecaps trembling. A shaft of sunlight among the clouds lit up the young beech trees with a rare brilliance. It was something that could not happen in India, the much paler sun illuminating the much brighter green. Nari was not conscious of it.

  After waiting and waiting and waiting the maid opened the door. ‘Come in.’

  A dark hall; Nari stumbled over a rug; a big, lighter room; at the other end of it an elderly man with greying hair, a deeply etched rather handsome face. The brighter light from the window behind him made his expression impossible to read.

  ‘What is it?’ he said in a deep cu
ltured English voice.

  ‘You are Sir – Sir Peter Brune?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name, sir, is Nari Prasad. I – I have come from – with a message from Arun Jiva.’ Pause for reply. Could he remember anything else?

  ‘From Jiva? Surely he’s not back in England?’

  ‘I would – like to speak to you privately – with absolute privacy, sir.’

  Pause for reply. But there was no reply. After a brief silence Sir Peter Brune said: ‘ You may say anything you wish in front of my secretary.’

  What now? Did he hold firm or did he give way?

  The dark man said: ‘Come along, man, what is it you want?’

  ‘Did you know he was back in England?’

  ‘Who, Jiva?’ Brune said. ‘No. What is it to me?’

  Nari got on the rails again. ‘Arun Jiva has been arrested in

  Oxford for smuggling drugs.’

  A grandfather clock was ticking in the room. It was enormously

  solemn.

  ‘The damned fool,’ said the secretary. ‘What the hell did he come

  back for? He was told to stay away!’

  Peter Brune held up a hand to silence the other man. To Nari

  he said: ‘I’m sorry to hear he’s in trouble. I don’t think I can help

  him.’

  ‘He says you must help him now. Otherwise …’

  Brune turned his back, looked out at the fitful sunshine. ‘I’m

  sorry. I can provide him with a lawyer; nothing more.’

  Now was the big one – the threat. Nari was overawed by this

  elderly distinguished Englishman, by the big house, by the dark-faced

  secretary standing arms folded by the door.

  Nari stuttered and was hardly audible. ‘He says – he says if he

  comes down you will come down.’

  ‘What do you say?’ Brune demanded.

  Nari stumbled through the words again, but more clearly.