by HRF Keating
‘Maybe there are. But what you never really told me before I went off was what she’s actually like.’ John smiled.
Weakly, she thought.
‘Well, you know,’ he said, ‘if I’d given you the complete character study, good side and bad, you wouldn’t ever have gone there, would you?’
‘What good side, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Oh, she does have some good qualities. She may be a little bitter nowadays, and who can blame her, forced to live the life she does. But in the old days she was no more than a bit of a busybody. And, you know, busybodies, though they can be a pain, do have their good points. When they interfere, they often manage to do some good to somebody.’
‘Well, she didn’t do me any good, I can tell you that.’
John looked at her carefully, and then evidently decided it was safe to speak.
‘Actually, she did do you some good. When you left for Moorfields you were in a pretty depressed state. I could see that. But now you seem to be fighting fit, even if it is your long-suffering spouse that you’re fighting.’
‘Oh, no, you don’t get out of it with fancy arguments like that.’
She paused and took a deep breath.
But then it occurred to her that what John had said wasn’t exactly a fancy argument. All right, I do feel better now than I did when I left home. So I suppose seeing that old harridan did do me some good. And … And I sort of feel it did me more good than just making me be horrid to John. Can’t think why, but …
‘All the same,’ she went on, rather less heatedly, ‘you did send me into the lion’s mouth, or lioness’s mouth if you like, totally without warning. Do you know what she said to me when I’d hardly got into that awful room of hers? She actually spewed out her envy and hatred of the world and all that’s in it by saying, without a word of regret, she knew Graham had been killed and Malcolm injured. She brought it out, just like that.’
‘Yes. Yes, well, all right, perhaps I should have told you what to expect. But even I wouldn’t have been prepared for her to be as heartless as that.’
‘Well, she was.’
‘But, just consider this: you’ve just been able to tell me what she said, her very words. But, when we were talking after breakfast this morning, one single passing thought about the boys sent you tumbling down into black grief and despair.’
She took stock.
‘Yes,’ she said after a moment or two, ‘you’re quite right. Somehow, perhaps it was even because of that beastly woman, I do feel now a little more able to cope. John, do you think, though, that’s right? I mean, here it is, Sunday, less than a week since we were talking about the threat of far-off thunder and that terrible phone call came, and shouldn’t I still be devastated by grief?’
John looked across at her from where he was sitting.
‘I don’t really think there’s any should about it,’ he said. ‘What’s right, I think, is just what you feel at any moment. I’m sure that there’ll be times, not only in the days leading up to next Tuesday, but for months to come, years even, when the impact of it all strikes again, just as violently as it did as we went careering down to London that first time to see Malcolm with you sat beside me there hunched in utter misery.’
‘So, it’s OK if I don’t sit here in tears all the time?’
‘Yes, I truly believe it is, especially as you’re undertaking Mr Brown’s hard-work remedy for grief. So, you can tell me now what other news you gathered about Aunty Beryl?’
‘If I must.’
She shook her head clear.
‘Right, well, there wasn’t much. Let me see. Yes, she’s given up reading the Star.’
‘So have you.’
‘True, and she’s probably right to have done it as well. After all, who wants daily doses of rape and — Oh, John, I must tell you. When she was complaining that the Star was filled with nothing but accounts of the appalling things she saw as threatening her, she headed the list with rape, and I couldn’t help joking to myself that of all unlikely rape victims your Aunty Beryl was the safest.’
John gave a brief chuckle of a laugh.
‘Yes, that’s hardly news to me. Poor old thing, she never was, as far as I can make out, much of a target for ravening males, and I can’t see her being a victim now, however often the Star has its “Woman of 154 Assaulted in Own Home” stories.’
‘Yes. That’s the thing. She does have a hard life, a horribly hard one, to tell the truth, but she also makes the most of her hardships, the most and a bit more. So you, for one, put off visiting her, and 1 declare here and now that I won’t ever see her again.’
‘OK, I promise I’ll take over from now on and assuage — if that’s the word — my long held guilt.’
Harriet felt she had made her point.
And something else, something more, seemed to have been planted now at the back of her mind, though she was unable, scratch at it as she would, to free it from the depths of her unconscious. A little irritating scab.
*
The scab, if scab it was, ceased altogether to itch early next morning. Harriet’s mobile rang while she was still reading the papers after breakfast and cursing things in general because she still had nothing to do. John had told her the night before that it would be ridiculous, and even dangerous, for her to ask to go back to her regular duties at least until after the funeral.
‘You aren’t fit to assume responsibilities,’ he’d said. ‘All right, at this moment you feel you are, but you know what it is; quite suddenly, without any warning or real cause, you’d be overwhelmed by misery and grief. You know you would. Come to that, I might well be myself. I’ve been on the edge of it more than once. But, if it happened to me, I could drop what I was doing and no great harm would come of it. The Majestic always takes its time. But with you and police work it’s not the same thing. All right, you’ve been active these past few days. But you’ve had your Mr Brown backing you up every inch of the way. So, now, you must content yourself with slowly trying to get back to a steadier state. You know what I say: when there’s nothing to be done, do nothing.’
‘OK.’
It had been all she could manage.
But now suddenly her mobile was singing its little, alarming song.
She recited her number.
‘Harriet? Andrew Brown.’
Coincidence, when John’s just pointed to him as my safeguard? Or, in fact, is it father figure just being fatherly?
‘Yes?’
‘Something I’m going to tell you, off the record. Something that, strictly, I shouldn’t be mentioning at all.’
‘Yes …?’
‘It’s this. We have had an ultimatum. From whoever has the CA 534. They don’t, of course, identify themselves, but there’s been a letter simply stating that, unless steps are immediately announced to stop research into genetically modified foods, areas of the countryside will be razed by a certain highly persistent herbicide, I quote, “now in our possession”. Very well, I would like your view on that.’
It did not take Harriet more than a second to know what her view was.
‘It’s WAGI,’ she said. ‘It can’t be anyone else, however unlikely they look as an effective organisation. But genetically modified foods are their big thing. And it’s always been in my mind that they’d have given their eye-teeth to have got hold of the CA 534, though God knows how a tinpot lot like that has done it. But, never mind, it’s exactly the sort of threat they’d like to be holding over the country.’
‘I understand what you mean. However, that was not the response of the people at the Home Office, where the letter arrived first thing this morning. They’re in touch with the people I prefer not to name, and their advice doesn’t deviate by an inch from the belief that your fugitive Professor Wichmann is the man responsible.’
‘And do you … Well, is that your view of it, too?’
‘I am calling you, Harriet,’ came the give-nothing-away Scottish voice.
She thought
rapidly about all the implications. The theft of the CA 534 is now a definite threat to the whole economy of the country, especially if whoever has it gets to learn how heat treatment can make it multiply so fast. So it’s right that the Faceless Ones should be in full charge of the hunt for Professor Wichmann, if it’s him who issued that ultimatum. But Andrew Brown doesn’t hold that view, however little he contrives to admit it in words of one-syllable. So can I, should I, do what my instincts tell me is right? Go along a hundred per cent with my boss?
Answer. Damn it, yes.
‘So what do you think I should be doing?’ she asked.
A tiny chuckle of satisfaction at the far end.
‘I don’t think it would be altogether a bad thing, Superintendent, if, from strictly a security angle, you were to look into the activities of a certain group that goes by the name of WAGI.’
‘Search that house, The Willows? I’d need a team, of course.’
‘So you would. But I think a search would be a wee bit premature. It would only alarm them, if they should be the people we want, and we’d not be very likely to find anything that easily. No, just a visit, I think, Harriet. A morning call.’
‘Very good. I’ll make it that.’
Right, she thought, it’s no longer when there’s nothing to be done, do nothing.
*
Her mobile rang again almost as soon as she had put it away.
Cautious Mr Brown already countermanding the order he’s taken care not to give me in so many words? But her caller was someone else, and altogether unexpected.
‘Detective Superintendent Martens?’ a hesitant male voice asked.
‘Speaking.’
‘You — you gave me your mobile number. You said if — if there was anything else I thought of —’
She could bear it no longer.
‘Who are you?’
‘Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, I haven’t said.’
‘Well?’
‘It’s Christopher Alexander. You know, it was me you —’
‘Yes, yes. I know who you are. Now, tell me why you’re calling me.’
She could hear the gulp coming all the way through the air.
‘I — I — Well, I think there’s something I ought to — well, to confess.’
Harriet hauled all her patience into play.
‘Just tell me what it is that’s troubling you,’ she said. ‘And then we’ll see if there’s anything that ought to be done about it.’
Another gulp on the radio waves.
‘Well, you see, what it is, is this. I — I suddenly thought last night — I was sort of lying awake, you know — and I suddenly realised that I — that I might have, without meaning to, told — well, told my girlfriend, er, Maggie, you know …’
Maggie? Maggie? What the hell’s her proper name? Can’t remember. But better let him go on. If I don’t, he may clam up altogether.
She imagined Christopher’s Maggie, beside him on that mattress on the floor of his flat, when he had let slip … something.
‘All right, Christopher,’ she said, ‘you think you mentioned something you shouldn’t have to your Maggie. What was it?’
‘Well, I’m not quite sure what I did say. But — but I think I may have said something about the CA 534. About what exactly it is, and how important my work at Heronsgate House was. I — Well, you see, she, Maggie, was sort of — well, knocking me. She said I was a weakling. I mean, she’s very athletic herself, you know, and — well, she went on to say I was only a kind of office boy and Heronsgate House was just a minor research place. So I — well, I told her how important my work really was, and how — I think I said this — there was the CA 534 in the Director’s filing cabinet and that he and I were the only people who knew about it.’
‘I see. But you’re not certain you actually said to Maggie — What’s her surname, by the way? It always helps to know that. If only to sort her out from all the other Maggies.’
Not, she thought fiercely, that there are so many girls with that name these days. But I must know exactly who she is if this wretched young man did really tell her where Dr Lennox hid that CA 534 sample. Because she could … But let’s hear who she is.
‘Oh, it’s Quirke.’
Of course, Quirke.
‘All right, now just quietly think again about that conversation you had with her. Where were you when you were talking? That’s always a good way to bring things back to mind.’
‘I was — Well — Well, we were sort of in bed together, actually.’
‘OK, it’s not a criminal offence to go to bed with a girl. So, now, just what did you say to her? After you’d made it clear your job was important, what exactly did you go on to say about Dr Lennox?’
‘Yes, yes. That was it. I was saying how he had to rely on me for some things, and that he wasn’t without faults. And then, yes. Yes, I did say he’d just put the CA 534 into his security cabinet.’
‘And that was all?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure it was. And does it matter really that I just mentioned it to her? I mean, I’m sure she forgot as soon as I said it. Well, actually, I’m sort of sure she did. Because, well, straight after that she — well, she began to make love again. So she must have got a better opinion of me, mustn’t she?’
‘I’m sure she did, Christopher. And you mustn’t worry about that little slip of yours. Don’t, of course, mention it to anybody else, particularly not to your Evening Star friend Tim Patterson. But otherwise just forget all about it.’
But, she thought tucking the mobile away, I am not going to forget about it. Because didn’t that same Tim Patterson tell me that Maggie Quirke was a member of WAGI?
So, yes, let the Faceless Ones go hunting all over the Lake District for Professor Wichmann. I’m surprised they haven’t found him yet. But I am going to do what Mr Brown so cautiously suggested and go to see Miss Gwendoline Tritton once again to find out, if I can, whether it did occur to that young WAGI member to pass on her interesting piece of information to the organisation’s chairman. Or does she insist on being called its Chair?
Chapter Thirteen
Gwendoline Tritton came to the door herself when Harriet rang the bell at The Willows. She looked exactly as she had done at their last meeting, right down to the faded blue trainers on her large feet.
‘You again,’ she said with all her old ferocity.
Harriet simply stood there.
‘Yes, it’s me, Detective Superintendent Martens. I have some more questions about the activities of WAGI.’
‘Do you? And what if I will not answer? You’d arrest me, I suppose. Then let me tell you it won’t be the first time that I’ve been in police custody. I told them nothing then, and I won’t tell you anything now. However much pressure you bring to bear.’
Good heavens, the woman really must be mad, or very nearly so. To loose off like that at the mere sound of my name. She’s hysterical.
Then another thought came.
Hysterical, or pretending to be so? If she has really got something to hide, it could be a way of making me think she’s not worth investigating and nor is her WAGI. But, if Maggie Quirke did pass on what she learnt from poor wavering Christopher, then it’s more than likely that the letter threatening to unloose CA 534, unless work on genetically modified foods is brought to an end, was written at the workstation beside that long table in the former drawing room just inside here. And I’m going to do my damnedest to discover if it was.
Oh, for the days of the vanished typewriter and its give-away chipped e’s or missing tails to its g’s.
‘Miss Tritton,’ she said, ‘there is no reason at all for you to take this attitude. WAGI, like any other organisation, has a duty, if questions about its work and aims have arisen, to answer them. So, may I please come in and put those questions to you, as WAGI’s chairman.’
‘Chair, Chair, Chair,’ Miss Tritton shouted.
‘Very well, as WAGI’s Chair, if that’s what you prefer.’
; And Gwendoline Tritton abruptly succumbed.
‘Oh, come in then. Come in, if you must.’
Harriet followed her into the big ground-floor room, stiffening herself, as she entered, not to cast a glance at the workstation. Somehow she felt that if she did look at it for some unlikely trace that there had rested there in the tray of its printer the ultimatum to distant high-in-the-heavens Whitehall, she would fail in her quest.
She pushed the superstition out of her mind.
‘Miss Tritton,’ she said, ‘we have been considering the facts I learnt about WAGI on my previous visit here and we are not altogether satisfied that your activities do not now go beyond the legal limits. You must be aware that, in view of the terrorist threat to the country as a whole, changes have been made to the laws. Some of the freedoms the ordinary citizen has traditionally possessed have been curtailed in the interests of the safety of us all.’
‘In the interests of the beasts and the bureaucrats who would like to make us all their slaves,’ Miss Tritton came fighting back.
‘That’s your view,’ Harriet said, ‘and you are perfectly entitled to hold it.’ She let a tiny pause hang in the air, and then added, ‘Unless you have carried it beyond words and into actions.’
Apparently she had made that seem threatening enough to give the ferocious WAGI Chair something to think about. For several seconds she stood there, compressing her lips into a tight line of opposition.
‘And what have we done that makes you think so?’ she asked eventually.
‘That’s what I have come here to learn.’
At this Gwendoline Tritton’s lips curled upwards into a thin smile.
A smile that said ‘catch me if you can.’
‘When I was here before,’ Harriet began, feeling herself like a cat, belly to the ground, inch by inch approaching this strong-beaked blackbird, ‘you were good enough to show me the Minutes of your most recent Council meeting. There was, as I remember, an item listing future activities. I wonder if you could find a copy and go through it telling me which of those projects have been implemented, and with what outcomes?’