by HRF Keating
Her attempt at a lightening humour fell totally flat.
‘Nothing more I can help you with then?’
‘No. No, nothing, thank you.’
*
Harriet’s visit to Christopher Alexander at home, which she had expected to have to wait till evening to make, came about much earlier. She had rung him at Heronsgate House to fix a time. But the switchboard operator there told her that ‘Mr Alexander is no longer with us’.
‘No longer with you? Why is that? Is he on leave, or what?’
‘I have been told to say no more than I’ve said to you, madam.’
Harriet thought for a second. Then she went into action.
‘I never gave you my name,’ she barked. ‘But let me tell you now, I am Detective Superintendent Martens, Greater Birchester Police. And I need to interview Mr Alexander. So, tell me, why is it he’s no longer with you?’
‘I — Well, I don’t know … The Director —’
‘Never mind the Director. Tell me at once why Mr Alexander has left.’
‘Well, I suppose you’ll find out in some way or another.’
‘I will. You can be sure of that. And, if it’s any comfort, I can say that if I come to my knowledge of what happened through you, I will not reveal it.’
‘Oh. OK then. Chris — that’s Christopher — was sacked first thing this morning. Told to clear his desk and that. He just said to me, as he went, that he’d, well, come unstuck with the boss. That’s what he said.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
She rang off, and thought.
Christopher Alexander unstuck from Dr Lennox. Why should that be? Has Lennox possibly some grounds for suspicion that Christopher passed on the secret of the hiding-place of the CA 534 to the people who then broke open his secure filing cabinet? Or can Christopher, conscience-stricken, have simply confessed he had passed on what he knew? What if all he did was mention to someone that Lennox was defying the order to destroy the specimen of CA 534 — but to whom? Whom? — and then had felt he ought to own up? Yes, this perhaps was more likely for the high-minded young man who had felt he was unfit to tackle writing a DLitt on — Damn it, on … No. Yes, got it. On Jean Paul Richter, a barely known German writer who was held in high esteem by Professor Wichmann and is mentioned in a Sherlock Holmes story.
No doubt about it. I must go to Christopher’s flat at once — good thing I noted his name and address — and make sure, if he is somehow a link to some terrorist organisation, that he’s not on the point of going into hiding or even trying to get out of the country.
*
Harriet had some difficulty finding space to park outside the house where Christopher Alexander had told her he lived. The street was evidently heavily occupied by young people working in the centre of the city, and their cars, a motley collection of far from gleaming vehicles, were ranged along both sides of it, almost nose to tail, looking miserably depressing in the chilly rain that had begun to fall. One of them, directly outside the house whose number Christopher had given her, was particularly irritating. An ancient Mini, much battered but painted in compensation in badly applied psychedelic colours, had been parked wildly askew, carelessly occupying most of two possible spaces.
But Harriet stopped herself cursing its owner, or even getting on to the local police station to suggest someone come round and take its number. She had a task ahead.
She drove quickly to a neighbouring street where she managed to find somewhere to put the car — even without a yellow line — then marched back through the rain up to the door of the house, found which of the eight bell-pushes she ought to ring, and pressed hard on it.
As, at last, she heard steps coming to the door, she ran through in her mind the various possibilities she might encounter. A warily defensive young man preparing to go into hiding, or just a shocked and perhaps tearful young man unexpectedly fired from his job, or even a wildly terrified young man holding a gun.
What she saw when the door opened was Christopher Alexander looking in no way different from the person she had interviewed in his cubbyhole of an office. His almost feminine roses-and-cream cheeks were just as they had been when she had first seen him. His big eyes were innocently blinking. His thatch of fair hair, if not smoothly brushed, was only a little tousled, as if from time to time he had worriedly run his hands through it.
‘Oh. Oh, it’s you,’ he said.
‘Yes, Detective Superintendent Martens.’
Although she had hoped that by formally stating her name and rank she would get a reaction from him, nothing happened.
He simply stood there, still blinking.
Attempting to prevent me entering? Prevent me seeing preparations for flight? Bewildered to find me here? Or, with evidence on display connecting him to some terrorist outfit, determined that I shan’t see it?
‘I’d like a word inside,’ she said, hoping the blunt approach would make him reveal something of his state of mind.
For a moment he stood there still. Then he stepped back.
‘Yes, yes. Er — Come in. Come up. Yes.’
She followed him to the flat, which seemed to consist of no more than a cramped living room and, with its door wide open, an equally small bedroom filled almost entirely by a double mattress on the floor, the duvet on it thrown back.
So, that girl, Maggie what’s-her-name, here last night? No doubt, if I was to conduct a full-scale search I’d find the good old traces d’amour on that mattress, however little she had matched up as a lover to Tim Patterson’s expectations. But stains like that would hardly tell me anything more than I know already. Might make an excuse and have a look at the bathroom though. Often says more about the people who use it than whatever they choose to say out loud.
‘Sit down, please,’ Christopher said, lifting a stack of newspapers and paperbacks off a small armchair and plonking himself on another at the scarred and scratched light-wood table tucked under the single window.
Glancing at the books, as he piled them straighter beside him, Harriet saw they were mostly science fiction titles. She took that as a way to begin.
‘I see you don’t have much intention of going back to your German studies,’ she said, gesturing at the pile. ‘Who was it Professor Wichmann told me you’d been going to do a DLitt on? Richter, John-something Richter?’
‘Jean Paul Richter,’ Christopher said.
And shut up.
‘But I’m right in thinking,’ Harriet ploughed on, ‘that you’ve got the opportunity of going back to the university — now you’re no longer at Heronsgate House?’
‘But I won’t,’ he said with more terse confidence than she had expected.
Oh, no, young man, you’re not going to cut me off like that. I’m going to put my finger on more about you. A lot more.
‘Oh, why is that? Professor Wichmann told me you might well have had a good career as an academic.’
This sideways approach did seem to get more of a reaction.
Christopher’s pink and white cheeks were flooded by a cherry-bright blush.
‘I —’ he said. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I — Well, I’d be mostly all on my own doing that. And — and, well, really I like to have someone there, someone sort of directly above me, who’d keep me on the straight path.’
Yes, as I thought, more or less. Total lack of self-confidence. Which tells me what? Almost anything, I guess. Still, keep it in mind.
‘But how did your leaving Heronsgate House come about?’ she asked, hoping to find a less buttoned-up answer now that he had admitted to some of his troubles. ‘When I saw you there, you seemed to be well entrenched.’
‘Yes.’
That and no more.
She cursed.
Oyster, oyster, I’m going to prise open that surprisingly tough shell of yours, whether you like it or not.
‘So what happened?’ she persisted sharply. ‘How, within the space of a few hours, did you go from holding down the job of PA to the Director to being total
ly unemployed?’
‘I just did.’
‘Come on, I need to know. You can hardly have forgotten that on Tuesday night a number of men forced their way into Heronsgate House, broke open the secure cabinet in the Director’s office and stole a highly dangerous herbicide.’
‘I haven’t forgotten.’
‘So?’
‘What more is there to say about it?’
‘A good deal, I should think, since it seems to have brought about your sudden dismissal. If that’s what took place. Did it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come on now, Christopher, I need to know exactly what happened. You must see that it may be relevant to my inquiries.’
For a moment he sat there at the table, the awkwardly piled books beside him, and said nothing. Then he gave her his answer.
‘Dr Lennox blamed me for it.’
‘For the break-in? Why? Why should he blame you? You led me to understand that all you did was to find that drawer forced, usher out the cleaning lady and phone Dr Lennox. Did you do more than that? Did you have some other security duties, ones that Dr Lennox had given you confidentially? And ones you failed to carry out?’
‘No, no. He didn’t do anything like that. I — I think what had made him angry was his suspicion that I would leak things he didn’t want to come out. I mean, he knew that I knew that fellow Tim Patterson of the Star. I’d told him so, when Tim got hold of that story about the existence of the CA 491, though I swore I hadn’t passed it on.’
‘But had you?’
‘No. No, really I hadn’t. It was only …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I think Tim could have got the first hint of it from me when I — I was sort of boasting one evening about the importance of the work we did at Heronsgate House. But I didn’t give him any details. Not one. But what I’d said may have put him on to the chap who did tell Tim about it. You remember I told you about all that.’
‘Yes, you did, though you wouldn’t give me the fellow’s name. However, I know it now. Oliphant.’
‘Oh. Oh, but … Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. He’s in Australia now.’
‘Yes, I know that, too. But what I don’t know is why Dr Lennox pushed you out, without a moment’s notice. You had, as they say, to clear your desk and leave.’
‘Yes.’
‘Come on, I need to know more. Did Dr Lennox tell you explicitly why he was sacking you, what he thought you’d done?’
‘Well, yes. But …’
‘But what?’
‘I’m not meant to say.’
‘But you’re going to. I’m a police officer, let me remind you. I have powers of arrest.’
‘No. No, you mustn’t.’
Harriet noted, not without a certain grim pleasure, that Christopher now was looking thoroughly scared.
‘I’m considering it,’ she said.
‘Well, yes, then. I will tell you. I’ve got to. Yes, it’s this. Dr Lennox made me sign an undertaking. A solemn undertaking that I would never say anything about the circumstances of the theft that night. You won’t let him know I have, will you?’
You poor innocent young man. Really, you’d be much better safely tucked up in the world of academia.
‘You can trust me,’ she said to him. ‘Unless it becomes a matter for the courts. But what is it, do you think, that Dr Lennox doesn’t want you to reveal in any circumstances?’
Have I got — never mind by what roundabout way — to some key point?
Christopher sat there. She could see his Adam’s apple moving up and down in his throat.
One more prompt?
No. Here it comes.
‘I don’t know. I don’t really know. Unless …’
‘Unless?’
Christopher shifted about on his chair. His elbow brushed the heaped books at his side. A few cascaded to the floor.
When he straightened up from gathering them together he looked more in charge of himself.
‘It’s like this,’ he said. ‘It may be that Dr Lennox, though he didn’t specifically say it to me, thought that there was something … Well, something odd about the way that the top drawer of his cabinet had been pushed out of shape. I mean, I suppose it was done with … With some sort of — what do you call it? — some sort of jemmy. Crowbar. But — but, well, the drawer didn’t seem damaged enough to have been forced in that way. Or I didn’t think so. And Dr Lennox may have thought the same.’
‘And didn’t want you to go telling the world, telling me, about that?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘I hardly think something like that would make Dr Lennox insist on you signing that undertaking. Did he give you any other reason for asking for it?’
‘Well, no. No, he just said I had to sign it. He said it was the customary thing when confidential work is involved.’
‘All right. We’ll leave it at that.’
Christopher at once looked relieved.
‘But,’ she said sharply, ‘if any other thoughts occur to you, get in touch with me. About anything, no matter how trivial it might seem. Here’s my mobile number again.’
‘Yes, yes. I will. Of course, I will. Thank you.’
But Harriet hadn’t quite finished.
‘One thing,’ she said, ‘do you mind if I use your loo before I go?’
Christopher, naïve Christopher, seemed almost as much put out by this request from a woman — a lady — as he had been by the probing questions she had asked.
‘Oh. The loo? Yes. Yes, please do. I mean, it — It’s the only other door on the landing. It’s in the bathroom.’
Harriet did not wait for embarrassed Christopher to say more.
She got to her feet, picked up her handbag by its shoulder strap. Marched out.
In the bathroom she shut and bolted the door and then gave the little white-tiled room a methodical survey.
Yes, plenty of useful insights on the two people who use it. Two tubes of toothpaste on the rather spattered glass shelf above the wash-basin, different brands. His, probably the big Aquafresh, hers the smaller one, half-used, extra-whitening Arm and Hammer. Hadn’t Tim Patterson talked about her ‘white-teeth smile’? So, Maggie — yes — Quirke cohabiting here, even without evidence of traces d’amour. And I wouldn’t be altogether surprised if she isn’t the first woman naive Christopher has slept with. I can see the narrow single bed he had being replaced — how exciting for him — by the mattress on the floor. And, yes, all this would account for those unexpected bouts of confidence just now. A first girlfriend. A young man’s triumphing. Young love. Those sweet, liberating exchanges of secrets. Unburdening.
Then something she had taken in without realising it as she surveyed the little room brought all her sentimental thoughts tumbling to the ground. The mess that Christopher, Christopher undoubtedly, had left everywhere. The top of his toothpaste not put back, a dark line of urine drops across the worn pink mat round the toilet bowl, the door of the little medicine cupboard left ajar — quick peek inside, heap of multi-buy orange razors, usual contraceptive pills — and even a discarded pair of bright-coloured shorts kicked into a corner to be picked up later. Boys’ untidiness. The sort of untidiness Graham and Malcolm had always left in the bathroom at home before they had gone off, carefree, to college.
God, she thought then in a sudden blast of black remembrance, Graham, Malcolm. I must get out of here. I must. I must.
She caught hold of the door-bolt, wrenched it clear, pulled the door open.
And then … Then Hologram Harriet made her appearance once more. She turned back, flushed the loo as if she had used it.
But Real Harriet, not even calling out good-bye to Christopher, pulled the house door wide open, rushed out and stood there in the rain, letting black thoughts race and tumble through her head. Graham, dead. Dead when he had promised so much. Malcolm, there in St Mary’s, perhaps crippled for life.
Chapter Eight
When Harriet had recovered herself enou
gh, just enough, to ring John at his office she learnt that he had, as usual, been in touch with St Mary’s and had had yet better news of Malcolm.
‘They say his condition’s stable and he’s going to be transferred to an ordinary ward. Some time this afternoon. We shall be able to visit him this evening, they’re giving us special treatment. They suggested between seven and eight, if that suits you.’
‘Yes, yes, that’ll be fine. I’ll see that it is. Oh, John, this is good, isn’t it? I almost begin to … Well, to hope for his complete recovery.’
‘Yes. Yes, I did too, for a bit. But, darling, don’t let yourself think it’s happened already, or even that it will finally. There’s a long way to go yet. And — and, Harriet, there’s another thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve arranged the funeral. I fixed it for this day fortnight. The hospital is happy to leave Graham where he is till then. They’ve been very good about everything. But I had a call from that Superintendent Robertson at Notting Hill, and he’s very keen that there should be a full-scale funeral, as an opportunity for the Met to show solidarity. I gather the Commissioner himself wants to be present. So I didn’t think we could do anything else but go for that, though for myself …’
‘For me, too,’ Harriet said. ‘A quiet cremation. But, yes, I can see, when they’re wanting to do all that, then we must let, them. So this day fortnight. Right.’
God, she thought, John’s good to me. He knew, he must have done, how I couldn’t cope with the thought that there had to be a formal funeral for Graham, the standing at the graveside, or watching the coffin slide away, and he just took it all into his own hands. And now it’s arranged, and I can bear to know that it’s going to happen. I can cope.
And at once, in the way that the mind works, the very opposite thought about John came into her head.
Last night, up at St Mary’s when he so suddenly rounded on me. Said all those unbearable things, made those accusations, that I had somehow forced and bullied the twins into joining the Service, that it was because I wanted successors to myself in the police. All right, he calmed down soon enough. He even told me, because he saw how much he’d wounded me, deeply hurt me, that he hadn’t meant what he said.