Babel

by Barry Maitland

  ‘That’s Dr Darr, is it?’ Brock interrupted, making a note on his pad. ‘Is he proposing to leave the country?’

  ‘I don’t know. Haygill’s trying to persuade him to change his mind. But that’s just a hint of the possible repercussions. Apart from the staff, the damage to CAB-Tech’s reputation and the confidence of its investors could be immense.’

  The words were there, Brock sensed, but not the feelings. There was no anger, no outrage in Young’s voice. He spoke in a monotone, giving the impression of a chess player moving his pieces forward, one by one, to establish a position.

  ‘Professor Haygill is understandably incensed. He feels that he always behaved with total propriety towards Max Springer, despite outrageous provocation, and he is now being pilloried by the words of a dead man against which he can’t defend himself. He is in a mood to lash out, to defend himself, against anyone he perceives as an enemy. You understand?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He even suggested to me that the Herald reports may have been deliberately inspired by the police.’

  He paused and looked balefully at Brock for comment.

  Brock said, ‘Really?’

  Young gave the briefest of smiles, as if he hadn’t really expected to provoke a reaction.

  ‘Naturally I will attempt to counsel him to avoid entangling us all in unnecessary complications. But at some point his interests and ours—that is, the university’s—may diverge. May indeed have already diverged.’

  ‘Is that so? I seem to recall you describing CAB-Tech as the flagship of your university’s research effort, Professor,’ Brock said mildly.

  ‘Sometimes even the flagship must be sacrificed for the sake of the whole fleet. I’m thinking that it may become prudent, necessary, for the university to review the whole operation and management of CAB-Tech. Some kind of high-powered, external committee of review, with unimpeachable credibility. A senior judge, a retired vice-chancellor, a past president of the Royal Society . . . that sort of level. My dilemma is, that I don’t want to set up a sledgehammer to crack a nut, you see.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Well, if the problem is endemic, and the whole body is tainted, then clearly some powerful surgery is necessary. But if it’s localised to one or two misguided junior staff who can be isolated and removed without damaging the integrity of the whole, well, that’s a different matter. To be candid, Chief Inspector,’ and here Young fixed Brock with a frank, almost intimate little smile, ‘it would help me a great deal if I could have some guidance from you as to how deep, or should I say, how far up the CAB-Tech hierarchy your current investigations are reaching.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on our inquiries.’

  ‘You see,’ Young went on as if he hadn’t heard, ‘we’re both basically the same. We’re both servants of the public. Just like you, my primary concern has to be the well being of the members of the public I serve, the students and their parents—you might be one of them—whose investment in their education at UCLE depends upon the good standing of the institution. I cannot permit any individual or group, no matter how prestigious, to undermine the value of the degrees our students leave us with, and which are the foundation of their future.’

  Brock wondered if Young really believed he was making any impression with this appeal, for once again, although the words were said, there was no emotional force behind them. Yet somehow he seemed to feel he’d made his point, for after Brock repeated that he could say nothing about his investigation, Young nodded, promised his full cooperation, and got to his feet. When he’d gone, Brock decided that Young’s sole objective had been damage limitation—to persuade Brock that he at least lay outside whatever circle of guilt the police might be defining. He was probably on his way back to tell Haygill to stay calm, while he prepared the means to sacrifice him.

  Brock’s secretary Dot put her head round the door. ‘I heard he’d gone. I’ve had another request for an urgent meeting. Mrs Haygill phoned. She wants to meet to speak to you personally. Shall I get back to her?’

  Sheila Haygill was shown into the meeting room half an hour later. She was expensively dressed, with several large precious stones on her fingers, and carefully groomed. She moved into the room and sat down in the offered chair with deliberate care, and Brock thought at first that this was because the circumstances made her nervous. He thought she must have been stunning when she was young, but the buxomness had become over-ripe, and the natural beauty of youth had become formalised by make-up and hair styling into a kind of stiff counterfeit that matched her movements and also, when she began to speak, her speech.

  ‘I am not a genius, Chief Inspector,’ she began, ‘like my husband. In fact I’m not very bright, as most people know.’

  He detected a Manchester accent, and as she went on he decided that the stiffness came from a sense of inherent insecurity, despite her looks and possessions.

  ‘But I know right from wrong, and I’ve tried, in my own way, to support my husband over the years to the best of my ability. However, he’s away a great deal, and he’s been under a lot of pressure recently, as you may know, and especially in the past months, and perhaps due to that, he hasn’t always been fair to me. In fact, there have been times when he’s shown . . .’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘his contempt.’

  She paused and opened her handbag for a tissue, and dabbed her nose, then drew herself up straight. ‘This morning I got a call from a friend, who told me that my husband has been employing a private detective to spy on me.’ Her eyes narrowed in anger. ‘I don’t consider that the action of a loving husband.’

  Brock shifted uncomfortably in his seat and cleared his throat. ‘Are you absolutely sure, Mrs Haygill? Sometimes people can jump to conclusions . . .’

  ‘Oh, there’s no doubt. The man was confronted. He confessed.

  But anyway, that’s only the latest and final straw. It’s a private matter between me and my husband. I only mention it to explain that I’m leaving him, and I don’t feel bound to lie for him any more.’

  ‘Have you been lying for him?’

  ‘I . . .I’ve kept silent when I would have spoken out if it had been anyone else. Tell me, this report in the paper this morning, is it true that you suspect my husband of being involved in the murder of Max Springer?’

  Brock didn’t reply for a moment. He saw the tension in her eyes as she waited for his reply, and felt on a cusp, one of those moments where everything shifts.

  ‘Mrs Haygill,’ he replied softly, trying to sound very calm and reassuring, ‘I’ll answer that to the best of my ability, but first I’d like to tell you that I would like to record this conversation, and also invite one of my colleagues to join us. Will you agree to that?’

  She hesitated, then nodded, and Brock lifted the phone and asked for Kathy. When they were ready Brock explained the caution to Mrs Haygill and went on, ‘You asked me just now if we suspect your husband of involvement in the murder of Max Springer. All I can tell you is that we believe that Abu Khadra, a member of your husband’s staff, pulled the trigger that killed Professor Springer, but we are not entirely satisfied that he acted alone. The report in the paper that we have been interviewing your husband and his staff at CAB-Tech once again is correct. Now, you also said just now that you have been keeping silent about something to protect your husband, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please tell us what it is.’

  Her carefully plucked eyebrows creased together in a frown. ‘He came to see me, you see. About three weeks ago. The twelfth of January it was. I made a note in my diary at the time. Richard was at a meeting in York that day.’

  ‘Who came to see you?’

  ‘Max Springer. He came to our house. I was amazed at the nerve of the man. He’d never been there before, and of course he knew he wouldn’t be welcome. I was just so astonished to see him standing at the front door, this untidy little man in his shabby mackintosh with his hair blown al
l over the place, that he was able to speak to me before I slammed the door on him.

  ‘He said that he had something he wanted to tell me, something important for me to hear. He seemed so, well, humble in his manner, not at all the monster I’d heard of from Richard’s accounts, that I let him in. We sat in our lounge room, and I remember noticing that he was wearing odd socks, and the collar of his shirt was dreadfully frayed. He said he’d come to warn me about something. He said he had some information about Richard’s work which he was planning to make public, and when he did it might well ruin Richard.’

  ‘He wasn’t more specific about what kind of information it was? What it related to?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t have understood anyway. It was just something to do with his work. Well, I thought it was very odd him coming to our house to tell me this, so I asked him why, and he said that one of the things he regretted about the fight he’d been having with Richard was the pain it might have caused innocent parties, especially myself. He explained that he had heard gossip at the university that our marriage had been running into difficulties, and he hoped he hadn’t contributed to that. Only now he felt obliged to warn me that things would get worse for my husband, and I might like to consider how I could protect myself from the consequences, financially.’

  ‘‘‘Financially”? He said that? What did you understand him to mean?’

  ‘I really wasn’t sure, when I thought about it afterwards. I mean, Richard handles all our finances, and I hadn’t a clue what our assets might be, or whose name they might be in. Short of divorcing Richard, I wasn’t sure that I could “protect myself ”, but I did take some steps. I went through the records Richard keeps at home, and went to speak to an accountant.’

  ‘What else did Springer say?’

  ‘Nothing. He said that was all he’d come to say and got up and left.’

  ‘Did he indicate when he was going to make the information public?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you told your husband about this visit, did you?’

  Sheila Haygill lowered her eyes. ‘No. I intended to at first, of course, but then I imagined the terrible fuss Richard was bound to make about it, him coming to our home and speaking to me while Richard was away, and me letting him in and listening to him. And . . . I wasn’t sure that I wanted to tell Richard about Max Springer’s advice to me. It would make him very angry, I was sure, and there again, maybe . . . maybe it was good advice. So in the end I just kept quiet.’

  ‘You didn’t warn him that Springer was planning to ruin him?’

  ‘I didn’t see how I could, without telling him the whole thing.’

  ‘Maybe you could have given the warning to a third party to pass on to Richard. Someone like Dr Darr, for instance.’

  He watched the reaction, the blink of surprise, the flush of the cheeks beneath her make-up, then she stared defiantly at him and said, ‘I may have mentioned something to Dr Darr, yes. Sometimes, when Richard and I aren’t . . . when he forgets to tell me things, about his movements and so on, I talk to Tahir—Dr Darr.’

  ‘Rather than Richard’s secretary?’

  ‘She . . . she’s very efficient and devoted to Richard. Unfortunately she doesn’t like me very much. The feeling is mutual.’

  ‘So what exactly did you tell Tahir?’

  ‘I told him about Max Springer’s visit and his threat to Richard. Tahir wasn’t really concerned. He said that Springer was mad and always trying to cause trouble, that there wasn’t any way he could damage Richard and that I shouldn’t worry about it. I was reassured by his reaction . . . at the time.’

  She hesitated and lapsed into silence as if running out of momentum, and Brock glanced anxiously at her. Knowing that she couldn’t be compelled to give evidence against her husband he didn’t want to lose her. ‘Can I get you something, Mrs Haygill? A cup of tea, coffee?’

  She roused herself. ‘No, no, thank you. I’d just like to get this over.’

  ‘Of course. There’s something about Richard that you want to tell me?’

  She nodded. ‘I didn’t think too much about Springer’s visit after I spoke to Tahir, until I opened my paper on that Friday morning and saw the report of his murder. I was very shocked, of course, but I didn’t connect it with his visit to me until later that night. Richard had been away on business again that day—he’d flown up to Glasgow for some meeting, and he didn’t get home until late. I was in bed when I heard him open the front door, and I expected him to come straight upstairs to have a bath as he usually did after a long day. Only he didn’t come upstairs, and I began to wonder if he’d missed his evening meal and was making himself something in the kitchen. I put on my dressing gown and went downstairs, but there was no light on in the kitchen. Then I noticed a light coming from his study. The door wasn’t quite shut, and I pushed it gently, because sometimes he’s quite irritable when he’s tired, and I was about to say something when I caught sight of him. He was sitting with his back to the door, at his desk, taken up with something he was holding under the desk light, examining it. I saw straight away what it was. It was a gun.’

  She came to a stop, staring down at her handbag as if seeing the scene again.

  ‘What sort of gun, Mrs Haygill?’ Brock prompted gently. ‘Can you describe it for me?’

  ‘Er . . . it was black, not very large—about the same size as his hand. Not like the kind of thing you see in Westerns. More modern, flat.’

  ‘A pistol rather than a revolver then. And you weren’t aware of your husband owning such a thing?’

  ‘Good heavens, no! Why ever would he possess something like that?’

  ‘Go on then, what did you do?’

  ‘Well, I just froze. I didn’t dare even breathe. My first thought was that he was going to shoot himself. I thought, maybe Max Springer was right and Richard is in some kind of terrible trouble and wants to end it all. But when I thought of Springer I remembered the newspaper report of that morning, how he had been shot at the university by an unknown gunman, and there was Richard holding a gun.’

  ‘Examining it, you say?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Then he sort of shook his head, as if he’d come to a decision about something, opened the drawer of his desk, and put the gun inside. I stepped back from the door and returned to the foot of the stairs. I didn’t dare try to get up them again without him hearing, so I called out his name, as if I’d just come down. He answered and came out of the study. He looked very tired and I asked him if he was all right. He said he was, then started to switch off the lights, and we went upstairs.

  ‘The next day he was due to fly to the Gulf, and I was to drive him to the airport at midday. After breakfast he did some packing, then said that he was going to go for a walk to clear his head. I was surprised, because he never does that. I offered to go too, but he said he had some things to work out for his trip and he needed to think. He put on his old coat and I heard him go into his study before he left. Once I was sure he was gone I went in there and opened the desk drawer. The gun wasn’t there any more. I searched all through the desk, and the suitcase he’d packed, but I couldn’t find it. I began to think I’d imagined seeing it.’

  Brock exchanged a glance with Kathy. ‘Why?’ he said cautiously, imagining what a defence counsel might make of this. ‘Had you been drinking before your husband got home that night?’

  ‘I’d had one or two drinks, yes. But I wasn’t anywhere near drunk. I know what I saw.’

  ‘But you’re absolutely sure it was a gun? It couldn’t have been something else black? His wallet perhaps?’

  ‘No, no, it was a gun. It was the last thing I expected to see in his hand. I looked at it so hard to be sure I wasn’t making a mistake. He turned it over, directly under the light. It glinted like dark metal.’

  ‘All right. So how long was he away the next morning?’

  ‘Not very long. Twenty minutes.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he might have gone?’

  �
��He turned left outside our gate, and when he returned he had mud on his shoes. There’s a small wood not far from our house, with a pond. I thought he might have gone there.’

  Brock thought, simpler to have wrapped it up and put it in his dustbin, unless he was expecting his house to be searched while he was away.

  ‘That’s really all I know,’ Sheila Haygill said. Some of the stiffness had gone out of her and she sounded subdued, as if realising what she had done in informing on her husband.

  ‘Did you and Richard talk about Max Springer’s murder on that Friday night or Saturday before he left?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t want to bring it up, but it was front page in the morning newspaper again, and it would have been strange not to. Richard said he’d read about it the previous day.’

  ‘Where was your husband on the Thursday, the day Springer was killed?’

  ‘At the university as far as I know. I believe he came home at about eight that evening, and he didn’t mention anything about a murder.’

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘I’ve thought about that, but I can’t remember. I mean, I didn’t know anything had happened and I had no special reason to remember that day. I suppose he must have been normal or I would have remembered something, wouldn’t I?’

  Brock turned his collar up against the wind, and stared morosely at the icy water. He had knocked his knee getting out of the car, and the pain which had eased over the past week had returned whenever he put weight on his left leg. The pond was almost precisely circular as if it had been deliberately constructed by a landscaper, although it had in fact been formed by a bomb crater during the war, at a time when the surrounding wood was much larger than the present copse. It wasn’t deep, at its centre no more than waist high to the two divers in black wetsuits working across it, but the leafy silt of the bottom was treacherous to sift through, and there was a wealth of miscellaneous objects beneath the surface—bottles, cans, a bicycle frame, a milk crate—to confuse the search. Two other men in rubber boots were working around the edge, and behind him a line of uniforms was working through the copse. At least the wind and drizzle were keeping curious spectators away.