Babel

by Barry Maitland

  She came to a pedestrian crossing controlled by traffic lights. An elderly couple, faces barely visible between hats and scarves, was waiting patiently at the opposite kerb for the signal to turn green. The road was deserted, not a vehicle in sight. The sight struck Kathy as very sad. She put her head down and marched across the street, aware of the disapproving stare from the old man.

  She reached the café and stepped in out of the wind. The place was empty, and she collected a cup of tea from the counter and took a seat at the front window, easing out of her coat. Someone had left a newspaper at the next table, and she reached across to pick it up and glanced idly at the front page, then looked again, transfixed. A picture of a man in a bulky black coat, cropped grey hair and beard, the familiar face staring sombrely at something away to his left, other men in black crowding round him. Brock and the team. The caption read, ‘DCI Brock of Scotland Yard’s élite Serious Crimes Branch, who leads the hunt for the killer’.

  Kathy’s eye went across to the headline, which filled most of the remainder of the page, leaving room only for the opening words of the story:

  CAMPUS SLAYING

  One of Britain’s most respected academics was gunned down on the steps of his university yesterday in an execution-style killing. Philosophy Professor Max Springer, 66, was shot dead

  Shot dead. And suddenly Kathy could taste the fumes at the back of her throat and feel the bile rise. She looked quickly away out of the window, fixing her attention on the bright patch of sky on the horizon. Take your time, take your time. She breathed deeply, clammy with sweat, until the panic passed.

  When she turned round, she saw Suzanne standing at the counter. She went over to join her.

  ‘Oh, Kathy, hello. I thought that was you. How was your walk?’ Suzanne looked more closely at her. Brisk and to the point as always, she said, ‘Doesn’t seem to have done much for your colour. You look terrible. Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  As they approached the table by the window, Kathy saw a look of consternation pass very briefly across Suzanne’s face as she noticed the newspaper lying by Kathy’s cup. It struck her that Suzanne had already seen the story, the picture of Brock, and also that she had deliberately kept it from her. Now she came to think about it, there had been no papers at breakfast that morning. She wondered what Suzanne would do now. They sat facing one another across the table, the newspaper lying between them. Kathy said nothing.

  Suzanne sipped her coffee, then placed the cup carefully in its saucer and said, ‘Not a very good picture of him, is it?’

  ‘You’ve seen this already, have you?’ Kathy didn’t like the interrogator’s tone in her voice, but couldn’t help herself.

  ‘David phoned last night and told me about it.’ Suzanne was the only one who called Brock David, and sometimes it seemed to Kathy as if they were talking about two different men, Suzanne’s younger and more in need of guidance than the other. ‘I think he was preparing the ground in case he has to cancel this weekend. Sounds as if this may be a big case. Do you think?’

  Kathy thought she detected relief in Suzanne’s voice, and realised that it wouldn’t have been her style to deceive her. Brock then—he must have asked her to do it. She wondered again whether coming back to stay with Suzanne had been such a good idea, although at the time she’d been in little shape to argue with Brock.

  ‘I don’t know. I only just picked the paper up from the next table. I didn’t get past the front page. Is it someone famous?’ Her mind began to run along familiar lines—a stalker, a Yardie killing, a breakaway Irish group.

  ‘Well, they say he was, but I’ve never heard of him. A philosopher, for goodness’ sake, and I don’t think he’s ever been on TV. To be honest, if someone asked me to name a famous living philosopher, I’d be hard put to get past a couple of French names, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Why did Brock not want me to see it?’

  ‘Why do you think? I told him he was daft. He just wants you to forget about work while you’re on leave.’

  ‘Does he think I’m that fragile?’ Kathy found herself curiously alarmed by the idea that Brock would think it necessary to hide newspapers from her.

  Suzanne considered this. ‘I don’t think it’s that, exactly. More that he thought you might be tempted to go rushing back to London and try to get involved, when you should be having a complete break.’

  ‘No,’ Kathy shook her head firmly, trying to sound as if she meant it. It was the first time she’d had to say this aloud, and her words sounded false. ‘I’m not tempted.’

  Kathy felt Suzanne’s questioning eyes on her and felt compelled to say more. ‘In fact, I’m beginning to think that I may not go back at all.’

  ‘What . . . leave the police?’ Suzanne frowned doubtfully.

  ‘Yes.’

  Suzanne hesitated, then spoke quietly. ‘David only gave me an outline of what happened to you on Christmas Eve. But I know he’s concerned that you must have enough time to get over it. Don’t you think you should wait before you make any decisions?’

  ‘Starting a new case, like Brock’s doing at the moment, it’s like . . .’ Kathy struggled for the image that was in the back of her mind, ‘. . . like standing on the edge of a deep, dark pool, having to dive in, and knowing that beneath the surface is this awful mess, everything tangled up, everything tied to everything else with lies and fear and greed, and it’s your job to untangle it and sort it all out. I mean, why would you want to bother?’

  ‘Well, if you feel like that, no, I suppose you wouldn’t . . . Is there something else you’d rather do?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been thinking how nice it must be to do something that isn’t so . . . so claustrophobic and intense. Something that brightens people’s lives, where they’re pleased to see you instead of looking guilty or belligerent when they find out what you do. Something light and cheerful.’

  ‘And well paid, of course. And with lots of opportunities to meet eligible members of the opposite sex in friendly and relaxed settings.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kathy grinned ruefully. ‘That too. Definitely that.’

  ‘Well, go on then. I’m all ears. What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ She fixed her attention on her teaspoon, stirring hard, wishing they hadn’t got onto this.

  ‘No ideas at all?’

  ‘Well, I thought, maybe something to do with travel. A travel agent or a courier. Something like that.’

  Kathy stared out of the window. On the far pavement the couple at the pedestrian crossing were on the return leg of their walk, the wind now at their backs and threatening to blow them off their feet.

  ‘I feel I’m running out of time, Suzanne. Why should I waste any more of it trying to clear up the messes that other people make? Do you think that’s stupid?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t think that at all.’ Suzanne seemed to struggle with her reply, and Kathy wondered if there was another level to this conversation, as if it reflected in some way on Suzanne’s own relationship with Brock, which Kathy had found hard to fathom.

  ‘I think what you say is very sensible. When I hear some of the things that you and David and the others have to do, well, I couldn’t do it. And I know that you’ve had some terrible experiences, especially this last time, and if I’d been through anything like that my reaction would be the same, I’m sure, to run a mile. Only . . .’ She hesitated, as if struggling to force herself to be objective.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I think it is important to understand yourself, and what you have a talent for. Like, I have a talent for what I do—I’m not boasting, I’m just saying it as a fact. I have an eye for old things, I can recognise the good stuff, and I enjoy discovering it and restoring it and then selling it to people who trust my judgement. I’ve known this since I was a girl, going out with my father to junk shops and flea markets. But for years I ignored it and did work that I was competent at, but that didn�
�t really use my particular talent, because I didn’t especially value it. And in the end that made me unhappy and dissatisfied.

  ‘You ask why you would want to do police work, and I suppose the answer is, because you have a special talent for it. I know that because David’s told me, and he knows. And I believe that a talent like that is something you have to recognise somehow. You don’t choose it, it just is, and it may be a curse. That doesn’t mean that there may not be lots of other fields where your talent can flourish just as well as police work. I don’t know, but I do think you have to bear it in mind when you’re thinking what you should do with your life.

  ‘Sorry. That sounded like a sermon. Have you had anything to do with the travel business before?’

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘I know one or two people. A friend of mine runs a travel agency here in Hastings. Suppose I ask her if you could talk to her, maybe work with her for a few days to get the feel of it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Suzanne. I appreciate it, but I don’t want to involve you in all this.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want me reporting on you to David? I promise. He won’t hear about it from me.’

  Kathy appreciated the other woman’s concern, but didn’t tell her that she’d got it wrong. It wasn’t her talent she was worried about, but something altogether more critical. She thought of Bren in the pub, that last time she’d seen them all, and how utterly reliable he had appeared to her. That was what had gone, her reliability. She had lost her nerve, and without it she was as useless to them as a spent battery. They got up to leave, and Kathy glanced again at the photo of Brock in the paper, wondering what it was that had attracted his attention away to the left.

  2

  The most striking thing, Brock had thought, when he’d first arrived, was the public nature of the crime. This was no private violence in some dark corner, but a public execution staged before a large audience. The body had lain sprawled theatrically halfway down a monumental flight of steps, the image like a still from The Battleship Potemkin, with a trail of blood leading back up the flight, and clumps of students and police standing in immobilised groups beneath the glare of lights. He turned from his conversation with Bren to look away to his left across the curve of the Thames, towards the Millennium Dome glowing huge in the winter twilight, and at that moment a press cameraman caught him in his flash. They were practically on the newspapers’ doorstep here, and the reporters had arrived quickly, attracted perhaps by this public nature of the death. He gave them a few non-committal comments, then told the uniforms to move the cordon further back.

  He hadn’t even heard of this university, the University of Central London East, or UCLE, nor been aware that there was a campus here in this area of the Docklands, and at first there had been confusion with the University of East London, further east in the old Royal Albert Dock. It hadn’t been here long, by the look of it, one among the host of new construction projects that had blossomed eastward along the river in the past few years. The cascade of steps, the flanking cantilevered lecture theatres, the squat curved tower of the central administration, the primary colours and gleaming stainless steel panelling, all seemed to Brock to protest an aggressive claim to identity, as if compelled to compete with the brash office towers of Canary Wharf, glittering Manhattan-like over there to the west. And for a moment, after he’d taken this all in, he’d been tempted to think that the stagey murder scene too might be some kind of pose, a publicity stunt perhaps, and that the old man sprawled so artfully on the steps might at any moment leap to his feet to the cheers of his rapt audience.

  But his death was real enough, two shots to the heart, the medical examiner suggested, at very close range, which corresponded with what most of the witnesses thought they’d heard or seen.

  ‘Inspector! Inspector Gurney!’ The uniformed officer further up the steps was holding back a young woman who appeared to be trying to reach them. Bren loped up and bent to listen to what they were saying. Brock was struck by her pale elfin face, distressed, framed by short-cropped black hair, eyes wide and ringed with dark. He turned away to hear another detective’s report on the assailant’s description, as compiled from the accounts of a dozen students who had seen him: medium height, slim build, probably, but wearing a bulky anorak-style coat with hood covering the head, dark jeans, face obscured by a dark mask or balaclava, description of shoes too variable to be reliable. He was young, they all agreed, because of the agile way he skipped down the steps and ran off along the entry concourse towards the university entrance and the city beyond. And they all said ‘he’, although they couldn’t say for sure why they assumed it was a male. No one could recall seeing the gun, a revolver, the police assumed, since there had been no sign of the spent cartridge cases.

  Brock sighed. ‘Put it out. It’s all we’ve got for now. Let’s hope the camera can tell us more.’ He glanced up again at the security camera that scanned the steps. If it had been working properly they should have a complete ringside record of the event.

  And there was a curious detail from just one of the witnesses, a young man who had been climbing the steps about ten yards behind the victim. He had been watching the assailant coming down the flight before he reached the old man, because he had noticed the mask beneath the hood and been startled by it. So he had his eyes on the murderer’s face at the moment when he had struck, and he was convinced that he had spoken, had said something to the victim just before he closed in and put his left arm round the old man’s shoulder, quite gently, and raised his right hand to his chest and fired twice, then stepped away to let him tumble back down the steps.

  Bren rejoined him, a young man in a sharp suit at his heels. ‘The girl was a student of his, name of Briony Kidd, didn’t witness it, but says she knew him quite well. I said we might want to talk to her later. This bloke insists on having a word, Brock.’

  The young man introduced himself as the President’s Executive Officer.

  ‘President?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Yes, of the university. The head.’

  ‘I thought they were called vice-chancellors.’

  The young man gave a knowing little smile. ‘Not any more, at least not here. We prefer the American title.

  Professor Young sent me down to see if you’d like to meet with him now. You are in charge, I take it?’

  Brock looked around at the activity on the steps, then nodded. ‘Lead the way.’

  ‘And the President did ask if your men could be instructed not to make any statements to the media until you’ve had a chance to discuss things with him.’

  Brock looked coolly at him. ‘They won’t be.’

  ‘Good.’ Then, as if conscious that some note of accommodation might be appropriate, he added, ‘This is quite shocking, isn’t it? We really have no precedent for it. I’m sure we all hope it can be quickly resolved. You’ll have our full cooperation, naturally.’

  They walked along the dockside concourse to the foot of the Central Administration Tower and into a lobby of blond wood, stainless steel and recessed lighting, like a rather modish cocktail bar, Brock thought. A lift took them to the top floor, where a secretary led them into a spacious office dominated by a large brushed steel desk whose curved front echoed the curve of the glass wall behind, which, stretching the full width of the room, offered a spectacular night-time panorama of the Thames, from the Millennium Dome on the left to the pyramidal peak of the tower at Canary Wharf on the right. A couple of ships were visible on the black ribbon of the river, and in the distance the lights of Greenwich and South London faded into a bank of mist moving up from the south. A powerfully built man with a thick mop of fair hair rose from his seat behind the desk, and advanced forcefully towards them.

  ‘Roderick Young,’ he growled softly, fixing Brock with an intent stare and gripping his hand hard.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector David Brock.’ The room was warm, and Brock eased off his coat which was immediately swept up by the young Executive Offic
er, who removed it to a wardrobe disguised behind a panel of blond veneer.

  ‘Chief Inspector, we are very shocked by this. There really is no precedent for it. I’m sure we all hope it can be resolved quickly, and you can rely on our full cooperation, naturally.’ Brock recognised the exact words the younger man had used earlier, as though over-tutored. The President waved them to seats in front of the desk while he returned to his place with his back to the panorama, as if to say, You may find this spectacular view distracting, but I am entirely focused on more important things.

  ‘Now, would you care to brief me?’ He adjusted crisp white cuffs and smoothed the faintest crease in an immaculate charcoal suit that lent an almost military style and gravitas to his bulky figure. ‘I’ve only just arrived back on campus from a meeting in the City, and I’d like to hear the facts directly from you.’

  The lights of a twin-engined passenger jet, just taken off from the London City Airport a couple of miles to the east, passed slowly across the panorama, but only the faintest rumble came through the sweep of glass wall. Without turning, Professor Young murmured, ‘The 17:35 to Berlin,’ and sat back in his chair.

  Brock checked his watch. ‘I can tell you as much as I know, which isn’t a great deal at this stage. An hour and a half ago, at about four o’clock, a man, identified by witnesses as one of your staff, Professor Max Springer, was fatally shot on the main steps leading between the upper and lower concourses on this campus. The assailant escaped without hindrance. My officers have secured the crime scene and are presently interviewing the considerable number of witnesses who were in the vicinity. The body is being removed to the Whitechapel mortuary. It will be necessary to close the immediate area around the steps for some time, perhaps several days.’

  ‘And the, er, assailant, has he been identified? You must have a good description, presumably, with all those witnesses?’