Nucleus

by Rory Clements

  She looked out from the closed window. Manfred Bloch was staring at her from the aerodrome entrance. She mouthed two words. Please help. But he wouldn’t, would he? No one dared help in a police state.

  But he nodded. Then he started to walk towards the car as though he still had something to say to her captors. It was a mere twenty metres, but in those few strides she became aware of something familiar in the way he moved.

  Kirsch climbed in beside Lydia and slammed the door shut. His junior colleague took the front passenger seat. ‘Go,’ Kirsch said. The driver crunched the Mercedes into first gear and released the clutch. The car juddered forward and within moments they were out on the road, heading into the heart of the city.

  Her mind spun. Nothing made sense. Something in the way he moved. Manfred Bloch had a distinctive rolling gait. Sometimes you could recognise a man by the way he moved as clearly as by his face or fingerprints. She had seen that gait twice before. First in London, outside Bloomsbury House with Eva Haas – and then last night in Orpenplatz, walking away from the cathedral, a pistol dangling from his hand.

  CHAPTER 21

  The lecture was supposed to last an hour, but Wilde wound it up after fifty minutes, exhorting the young men and women to use the long vacation to good effect, to visit as many historic sites as they could, to avail themselves of whatever contacts they had to gain entry to the great houses, to use their eyes and ears and critical faculties.

  As he spoke, he realised for the first time that there was a very real chance that some of these young people might not be here at Michaelmas; the government had already introduced a limited form of conscription. The thought of them in uniform, going off to war, brought him up short. For a moment he stopped in mid-flow and gazed out at the banks of bright faces in front of him. He feared for their futures. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You all know that I don’t go along with Henry Ford. History is not bunk. But in days like this, well, I suggest you enjoy the present too.’

  His subject had been The illusion of stability in late sixteenth-century England. In three hundred and fifty years, the world had learnt nothing. Stability? There was no longer even an illusion of such a thing; the world was crumbling before their eyes.

  At the end of the lecture his parting words were: ‘God bless you all.’ He tried to look away as two of his undergraduates cornered him, but if they saw the dampness in his eyes they said nothing. They had been disappointed that he had been away these past months, they said reproachfully. Would he be kind enough to give them an hour or two before the long vac? He would be delighted, he said. He would be in touch with a convenient time. ‘And I will set you plenty of reading for the days when you are basking at the seaside. No novels for you two.’ They were good students; a light supervision was quite adequate in their case, and his two months’ absence would not have affected their degrees.

  When he got back to his rooms, he found Bobby waiting for him, with a small, grizzled man who seemed nervous.

  ‘This is Willie Smith, my brother-in-law, Professor,’ said Bobby. ‘Married to my sister, Marjorie.’

  Wilde shook the man by the hand, felt the trembling. A rarely used word came to mind as he assessed his visitor: meek. Willie Smith was a meek man. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Smith.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. It’s an honour to be here, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense. Come in. Would you brew up a pot of tea for us, Bobby?’

  ‘It’s already on the go, Professor.’

  Wilde indicated to Willie that he should sit on the hide sofa, and tried to put him at ease. ‘Feel free to smoke a cigarette. I’m afraid I don’t so I can’t offer you one.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir. I think I’ve probably smoked enough this morning. The missus is always telling me to cut down.’

  ‘Well, we both know why you’re here. Bobby tells me you and your friend discovered the body of poor Dr Birbach in the river. You noted something about the mouth, I believe.’

  Bobby returned with the pot of tea and two cups.

  ‘And one for yourself, Bobby,’ Wilde said. ‘Come and sit with us if you would.’

  Bobby fetched himself a cup and gingerly took his place next to his brother-in-law. He poured the tea.

  Wilde turned back to Smith. ‘We were talking about the man’s mouth.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was blistered and raw. Swollen with ulcers, like he’d been drinking in mustard gas. I saw the effects of that in the war, sir. Not the sort of thing you forget.’

  ‘You pointed this out to the police, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Bobby held up a hand, like a pupil in class. ‘If I may just say, Professor, the police was here this morning. Carted a lot of stuff away from Dr Birbach’s rooms.’

  Wilde nodded. He wondered what sort of police had been involved. Philip Eaton’s sort, perhaps? It did not sound the sort of operation a local copper would have authorised. He wondered, however, whether anything of value had remained to be removed after Torsten Hellquist’s little pillaging exercise. No one would have known better than Hellquist what was actually of any value. He returned to the matter of the corpse. ‘What was the state of the remainder of the body? Was it fully dressed – and if so what clothes?’

  ‘The deceased was wearing a white shirt, sir. I think you would call it a dress shirt. That’s all.’

  ‘So he was naked from the waist down?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you spot any other injuries?’

  ‘No, sir. Not as such.’

  ‘What do you mean not as such?’

  ‘Well, I mean obviously he was drowned, so that’s sort of an injury in itself, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Do you think he might have died in some other way, though. You mentioned mustard gas. Could that have killed him?’

  ‘Mustard gas can kill a man, but you’d have to get a bad dose. It couldn’t happen in Cambridge, though, could it? I’ve never heard tell of mustard gas since the war. How would it be here in England? Left it all in Flanders, thank God.’

  Wilde wondered about those missing hours in the life and death of Dr Paul Birbach. Wilde had seen him in the boathouse at sunset, so that must have been about 9.30 p.m. He hadn’t seen him again after that. According to Bobby, Willie Smith and his friend had discovered the body the next morning at about 10 a.m. So that meant there were twelve and a half hours missing. A lot could happen in half a day. A man could fly to Paris and back in that time. He wondered if Geoff Lancing knew what time Birbach and his lady friend had left the party.

  ‘Is that all, Professor?’ Bobby said.

  Wilde shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I was elsewhere for a few moments. So, Mr Smith, what time did you arrive at the river?’

  ‘Seven, sir. We’d been there three hours when Alfie spotted the corpse. It was tangled up good and proper, so it must have been there all along.’

  Wilde suddenly recalled that Hellquist had said he had seen Birbach at midnight. So that narrowed it further; there were seven missing hours, from midnight to 7 a.m. ‘What did the police say to you, Mr Smith?’

  ‘Not much, sir. It was only a couple of constables. A man drowned in the Cam isn’t usually big news.’

  ‘What did they say when you mentioned mustard gas?’

  ‘One told me to stay off the sauce, sir, but the other one agreed that the man’s face looked a bit of a bleeding mess – excuse my language, Professor Wilde, but those were his words. We didn’t discuss it any more than that.’

  Wilde, who was sitting on his desk chair, picked up his cup and took a sip. The other two followed suit. ‘Well, Mr Smith, I must thank you for taking the trouble to come here to see me. If anything else comes to mind, I would be grateful if you would tell Bobby here and he will pass it on.’

  Bobby nudged his brother-in-law. ‘Go on, Willie, tell the professor.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, there was one other thing. When we dragged the body out and laid him down on the bank, I did notice his wrist
s were black and blue.’

  ‘As if he had been bound?’

  ‘I’d say so, sir, yes.’

  This was no simple accident.

  *

  Wilde found Rupert Weir at Addenbrooke’s Hospital on Trumpington Street. He was taking coffee alone in the doctors’ common room and immediately rose to shake hands. Weir and his wife Edie lived in a large and splendidly appointed Edwardian house on the outskirts of Girton. They were two of the most delightful people Wilde knew.

  ‘Coffee, Tom?’

  ‘Love one.’

  Weir was large of girth with a large appetite and a larger than life character to match. Even in midsummer, he wore tweeds with a bulging waistcoat. He summoned the tea lady and ordered another pot.

  ‘How was America?’

  ‘Wonderful, thank you.’

  ‘Well, you must tell me all about it. In fact, come out to Girton and have some supper with us. Edie will want to hear everything and pester you with questions.’

  ‘I would love to – perhaps next week? But, in the meantime, I need to pick your brains.’

  Dr Rupert Weir had two roles in the community. One was as GP, serving the needs of families for everything from coughs and colds to the care of the old and dying. The other role was police surgeon, in which role he was called upon for many tasks, from assessing the inebriation of car drivers, to producing reports on times and causes of death for the coroner.

  ‘You’re welcome to them.’

  ‘I gather a body was dragged from the river yesterday – a man from my own college. Dr Paul Birbach.’

  ‘Ah yes, the little German gentleman. Got him here in the mortuary. Strange case.’

  ‘What’s strange about it?’

  Weir raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s your interest, Tom?’

  ‘He was on the same stairs as me at college. There’s a lot of disquiet about the place. I wanted to get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Dr Weir paused. ‘What do you know about the case?’

  ‘I know he was half naked, and that his mouth was blistered as though he had inhaled poison gas . . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it seems quite likely that he was bound before death.’

  ‘Good. Then you know almost as much as I do. Come on, let’s pop down and you can take a look. Got a strong stomach, have you?’

  *

  Birbach’s chest had been opened up and his organs exposed. His face in death looked nothing like the Birbach that Wilde knew. The intelligence was gone; the expression was bland. Nothing of his great mind was left behind.

  ‘See the blistering around the lips, Tom? Classic signs of vesicant inhalation.’

  Wilde studied the body as though it were a waxwork. The sweet smell of decay did not trouble his stomach; it was the coldness of the room that made him shiver. ‘You were at the front, weren’t you, Rupert?’

  ‘Yes, I worked in a field hospital. First saw mustard gas at Passchendaele. Yellow stuff. Not hugely effective for killing, but caused a great deal of panic and discomfort. Ghastly days. Never thought to see it again.’

  ‘Strange way to kill someone, isn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly not very efficient in the short term. There are much quicker, cleaner ways to commit murder. But if you wanted to terrorise someone, to panic them . . . well, it would do that.’

  ‘Torture.’

  ‘Exactly. Terror is what gets us – the fear of asphyxiation. Gasping for breath. Enough to break the most resolute man, I’d say.’

  Wilde nodded. He thought of Horace Dill and the panic in his eyes as he struggled to suck a little air into his corrupt lungs.

  ‘But it wasn’t the gas that killed your friend Birbach. Have a look here.’ Weir prodded the dead man’s lungs with his index finger. ‘They’re as pink and sweet as a baby’s. Dr Birbach was not a smoker and nor did he actually inhale this stuff. His throat and stomach were clean too.’

  ‘What did kill him then?’

  ‘Heart attack. He already had heart disease. It’s possible that stress might have brought on the attack.’

  ‘The stress of someone trying to force him to inhale gas, for instance?’

  ‘It’s certainly a possibility.’

  ‘So how might the gas have been delivered?’

  ‘Directly to the mouth through something like a frogman’s oxygen mouthpiece? But clamped over the lips rather than inserted in the mouth. His eyes were not affected, which means he was not in the middle of a gas cloud. There were other injuries, too,’ Weir continued. ‘Burn marks to the chest as if he had been touched with cigarettes. Definitely torture. I suspect the heart attack cut his torturer’s efforts short.’

  ‘So what are the police doing about this?’

  Weir pulled the sheet back over the corpse, and ushered Wilde from the mortuary. ‘They’re investigating, of course. Actually, I think they’re a bit overstretched what with the IRA setting off a bloody bomb, but don’t worry – Detective Inspector Tomlinson’s not a bad sort. Just a little lacking in imagination. I made it quite clear to him that this was a priority.’

  ‘Do you think you could get an interview for me? I’d really like to talk to him.’

  ‘I’ll ask him and let you know. By the way, who exactly was this fellow Birbach? One of those smart-arse scientists from the Cavendish, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Among the very smartest.’ Wilde said quietly. ‘The sort of man with secrets to torture and kill for.’

  Weir’s easy-going demeanour vanished. ‘In that case, Tom, I wonder if this might not be a bit too big for Tomlinson and our local boys. I’m going to put through a call to a Special Branch chum in Scotland Yard.’

  *

  O’Gara had never felt so alone in his life. He had tried every hour on the hour, then every half hour, yet still the phone just rang and rang without reply. Where was Dorian Hyde? Without him, there was no point to his being here. O’Gara had what was wanted now, the information. The question was what to do with it when the big man wouldn’t answer his phone and there was no other way of making contact.

  His mind kept returning to Wilde. He had a brain on him, for Christ’s sake. If he were on side, he’d be a help. Well, he knew where Wilde was at least, and he was accessible. It might be a risk worth taking. Jesus, he was beginning to think he would have no option. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he wasn’t cut out for this sort of work. But there were times, as the cowboy said, when a man had to do what he had to do. Or something like that.

  *

  Wilde took a detour via the St Andrew’s Street police headquarters. No, he was told, Detective Inspector Tomlinson, was not available. And no, there was no one else with the time to speak with the professor unless he had information he wished to provide. The whole of the Cambridge Constabulary was up to its neck in the bomb outrage on Thompson’s Lane and the curious death of a scientist in the Cam. Not a man to spare.

  Five minutes later, Wilde found the two Germans sitting in the lobby of the Bull. For a moment, he had a strange feeling that they had been there all night – for they were in exactly the chairs they had occupied when he met them. They both rose at his approach. Arnold Lindberg had a valise; Eva Haas had a knapsack. He guessed they hadn’t managed to carry much in the way of belongings on their trek across the mountains.

  He did his best to give them a friendly welcome. ‘I’ll get the concierge to call a taxi and we’ll be on our way.’

  On the journey to his house, Wilde sat in the front beside the driver. Dr Lindberg leant forward. ‘Please excuse me, Professor Wilde, do you think it would be possible to go to the Cavendish Laboratory today?’

  ‘I’ll call my friend Dr Lancing, see what he says.’

  ‘I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to seeing the old place once again.’

  As the cab dropped them off, he pointed out Lydia’s house, Cornflowers, next door. ‘Of course it’s empty now with Miss Morris away.’ Should he mention that she wa
s in Berlin? How much did Frau Dr Haas know? Best thing was to let her bring it up. ‘And so, for the moment, you will both be staying in my rather more modest home.’

  He spotted Doris through the window and within moments she was opening the door to them and taking control. She bustled around, showing the visitors all the rooms, pointing out the bathroom amenities, the tap that always stuck, how to operate the window latches, the location of the laundry baskets and the kitchen equipment available to them. ‘And you must tell me your likes and dislikes regarding food,’ she added, stressing every syllable like an elementary school teacher talking to a pair of six-year-olds.

  Wilde meanwhile telephoned the Cavendish. Lancing sounded less than enthusiastic. ‘It’s not a great day for visitors, Tom. Not a lot of smiles around here, what with the terrible news about Paul Birbach. I gather Torsten Hellquist is beside himself with grief.’

  ‘Of course – I understand. How about tomorrow?’

  Lancing heaved a resigned sigh. ‘Oh – damn it; bring them today, after lunch. I’ll have a little talk with them, give them the lowdown. The truth is, of course, that they are far from the first German physicists seeking a place here. We’ve already had to turn away rather a lot of them. Best that I’m open with them straight away rather than raise false hopes.’

  ‘Any chance of them seeing the boss?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bragg’s in London for a few days. I know he’d love to help everyone who comes through his door, but of course he just can’t. You saw how crowded this place is, Tom. But, look, I’ll try to let your friends down gently.’

  ‘Thank you, Geoff. I owe you a drink.’

  ‘Tell you what – pay me back this evening by thrashing Milt Hardiman on court. He’s a smug bastard when he’s got a racket in his hand. You’ve got an open invitation to Old Hall, you know.’

  Wilde seized the chance. He very much wanted to hear what the inhabitants of Old Hall recalled about Dr Paul Birbach’s last night on earth. ‘Yes, of course, I’ll come – but I’m not sure about the tennis. I haven’t played since last summer.’

  ‘Then drink him under the table instead.’