A Matter of Loyalty

by Anselm Audley

  Saul certainly seemed to have a chip on his shoulder – well, Hugo knew that already. He flicked back to before the war. Rural Oxfordshire, son of a labourer, employed as a porter at the Ashmolean, moving pictures and sculptures. He’d flourished in the art world, picking up invaluable hands-on knowledge, gone straight back into it as soon as he was demobbed – no hanging around in the Army for him – and ended up in a tangled situation with the late Lord Selchester.

  He had a chequered history, and clearly not an entirely honest one. There was a great deal of murky business in the art world. Saul, fighting for a niche in that world, had done whatever paid, and not scrupled too much about it.

  No sign of Communist sympathies at all. He had a pithy lack of respect for his social superiors, which had given one interviewer pause, but it seemed to be rooted principally in the conviction that they were all idle layabouts. Communism, he’d said, was just a different way of living off the sweat of others’ backs.

  After the war . . . only a bare record, added sometime in these last few weeks. Nothing Hugo didn’t know already. Conviction for fraud, later overturned, fled the country and vanished, seven years in the French Foreign Legion.

  It all made sense. Saul had a prickly temperament, the right background, and an old feud with the dead man. Hugo himself had given Jarrett the angle he needed. He’d look for someone with the right training, he’d said. Lo and behold, that someone had turned up. Sir Bernard was pleased. Jarrett would be pleased.

  Hugo jotted down a few salient points and the name of Saul’s next of kin before handing the file back to Mrs Clutton. No point keeping Dick waiting any longer than was absolutely necessary.

  ‘Find anything helpful, Mr Hawksworth?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing I didn’t expect to see there.’

  ‘That’ll make Inspector Jarrett happy.’

  He gave an absent-minded nod, turned back to his office.

  ‘I’ve seen that look on you before, Mr Hawksworth,’ she said. ‘Gets you into trouble every time.’

  ‘Mrs Clutton,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘you know me too well.’

  ‘There’ll be trouble all right,’ said Susie darkly.

  Scene 2

  In Oxford, Leo was on the case. He’d only met Bruno Rothesay once, at a conference in Göttingen in the early thirties. Not a face you forgot, with that great Heidelberg scar on it. A good conversationalist, full of joie de vivre, although perhaps a little too prone to move on when someone more exotic appeared.

  Oxford being what it was, though, there were plenty willing to talk and give pointers, helpful or otherwise. An amiable chat in the Senior Common Room at St Giles led Leo to a former colleague of Rothesay’s, now living in retirement out at Woodstock, and thence to Rothesay’s closest Oxford friend, a chemist working at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory on South Parks Road.

  A swift walk across the road under grey winter skies, through the Lamb and Flag Passage, past Keble into the untidy warren behind the Museum. Behind the grand façades on South Parks Road, the science area was a warren of Nissen huts, pipes, cylinders, and vents.

  A pair of graduate students ambling past gave him cheery nods. He’d taught them both. Of considerable ability but indifferent keenness, not like the lot who’d come through in the years after the war. This pair were just too young to have fought.

  He found his man in another Nissen hut bolted on to the back of the Dyson Perrins, badly ventilated and overly full of noisy equipment. Dr Thomas Marston. A dapper, sandy-haired man with a bright, cynical glint to his eye, looking on with a certain exasperation as a pair of technicians dived into the bowels of the only silent machine in the room.

  ‘Can’t hear a thing in here,’ Marston said, brushing off an introduction. ‘Let’s go somewhere quieter.’

  They stepped out into the alley. Marston pulled a cigarette case out of his pocket; Leo declined.

  ‘Father Leo Hawksworth,’ said Marston, ‘of St Giles. Heard your talk at Leiden last year, in that strictly-for-the-curious session Lemaître organised at the end. “What can science learn from theology?” Dangerous business, asking that kind of question. Can’t say it went down well with my colleagues – those who bothered to sit through it.’

  ‘What did you think of it?’ Leo asked. At a gesture from Marston, they began walking in the direction of the Parks.

  ‘It’s a brave man who asks.’

  ‘Or a curious one,’ Leo said.

  ‘We,’ Marston said, waving his cigarette to encompass the whole grimy, war-weary labyrinth of the Science Area, ‘unleashed far greater horrors on the world than Torquemada ever contrived, and we’re just as convinced we were in the right. A salutary lesson to see our arguments reflected back at us from all those centuries ago. Makes you wonder how far we’ve really come.’

  ‘Wonder? Or do something about it?’

  Marston shot Leo a knowing look. ‘You know the answer to that as well as I do. That takes imagination, and there’s not enough of that in this whole department to fill a thimble.’

  They came out through the gate into the raw, leafless landscape of the Parks. Clouds scudded overhead, darker grey against lighter. The wind was cold, relentless. Over by the Cherwell, the geese were making a terrific racket.

  ‘I think you do your colleagues a disservice,’ said Leo.

  ‘Probably,’ said Marston carelessly. He had left his coat open, and seemed quite heedless of the cold. ‘But you weren’t sitting in the bar with them afterwards. Now, tell me. What curiosity brings you to my door? I can’t say I’m sad to be given a break from Bouncing Betty’s latest tantrum – she’s the antique you caught us all crawling around in – but I admit to a certain curiosity of my own.’

  There was no reason to beat about the bush with this man who watched too much and forgave too little. Leo could make a shrewd guess as to why, given the Establishment’s shabby treatment of Professor Turing.

  ‘Bruno Rothesay.’

  ‘Ah,’ Marston said. ‘I was sorry to hear about that. If you’re involved, I suppose it wasn’t an outraged husband finally catching up with him.’

  Of course, he knew more than he ought about Leo’s past and his other work, just as everyone in Selchester knew more than they ought about Foxley and Thorn Hall. Leo couldn’t in conscience claim to be speaking in an official capacity, but he had gained enough sense of Marston to know it wouldn’t make a difference. He would speak or he wouldn’t.

  ‘Still a distinct possibility,’ Leo said. ‘In the circumstances, though, not the only one.’

  Marston took another drag of his cigarette. ‘Believe it or not, Bruno was good company when I knew him. Quite a temper, of course, and he held grudges like a Hungarian. But in the evening, when the wine flowed, he could become quite genial. He liked things outside his subject, too. You know how it can be at conferences.’

  Leo nodded.

  ‘He didn’t act like a Scotsman. Or an Englishman, for that matter. There was a Continental look to him, and he knew how to drink in moderation, which the English never do. People were always thinking he was from somewhere else. A Polish count thought he must be French. A Venetian monsignor thought he was Jewish, and tried to warn him against going to a conference in Vienna, just when things all blew up there.’

  ‘Interesting circles for a scientist to move in.’

  ‘As I said, Bruno was good company. At ease, a touch exotic. The war changed him.’

  ‘The war changed many men.’

  ‘The war ought to have changed us all,’ said Marston, with the first edge of real emotion Leo had heard from him. ‘In Bruno’s case, not for the better. He kept the act up, but I don’t think his heart was in it. There was a bitter edge to him. The last time I saw him was in May, at Foxley. Quite changed, no urbanity at all. Only wanted to talk about work, picked my brains about isotope chemistry for three hours solid. He still had an eye for a piece of skirt, though.’

  ‘Did he quarrel over women, or simply pursue them?’
/>   Marston gave him a sly look. ‘Where did you think his scar came from?’

  ‘He spent six months at Heidelberg. It’s been taken as self-evident.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the famous Heidelberg scar. So dashing, so distinguished in an Englishman. A Wytham Woods scar doesn’t have quite the same ring, now does it? I can see you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, which means all those hard men in macs don’t either.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘I thought you priestly types had no time for the Enlightenment. Don’t tell me you’re hankering for the days of Torquemada after all. I shall be quite disappointed.’

  Leo twitched an eyebrow. They were coming around towards the river, under the tall bare trees, towards a deserted Parson’s Pleasure.

  ‘It was just before Heidelberg, that’s how he can get away with it. There was a woman.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Not this one. Divine, but heartless. A touch of the Carmen to her, and a good deal of gypsy blood. Anastasia, her name was. In any case, the usual story. Two admirers, and she egged them on. Liked the idea of them making fools of themselves for her sake. It went further than it usually did, and they ended up with a pair of old display swords or something in Wytham Woods. The swords were Rothesay’s idea. He probably reckoned his chances of winning were better than if they went at it with fists. Besides, he always liked that kind of gesture. Made him different, a cut above the common throng. Quite why they chose Wytham Woods, I don’t know. The place is always full of hapless zoology students trying not to crash around in the undergrowth. Long story short, they had to make a run for it, but not until the other man had laid Bruno’s cheek open. He kept out of sight for a while and then took himself off. Talk of the town that there had been a duel in the woods, but not many knew who it had been.’

  ‘I take it that things ended no better than the principals deserved.’

  Marston gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Indeed.’

  ‘They were reconciled?’

  ‘As I said, Bruno bore grudges until they died of old age, and then had them embalmed. The other man calmed down enough to make an offer of reconciliation, only to have it thrown back in his face.’

  ‘Who was he? Another academic?’

  ‘God, no. Not even that Jezebel could have stoked two academics into having at one another with swords. He was town, not gown. Younger than Bruno, bit of a chip on his shoulder. Worked at the Ashmolean, knew a great deal about art, but it was all self-taught. Can’t remember his name. On the tip of my tongue. I keep thinking of Sunday school for some reason.’

  They paused by the river’s edge, looking across the grass of Parson’s Pleasure to the swollen Cherwell, and out to the water meadows beyond.

  Leo, a cradle Catholic like the Fitzwarins, had never been to Sunday school, but he had a good idea what it might entail. ‘The name wasn’t Saul, by any chance?’ Leo had read that morning’s papers, in which Saul’s arrest featured prominently, but it seemed Marston had not.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marston, with a click of his fingers, ‘Saul – Saul Ingham.’

  Scene 3

  ‘Meeting your clerical uncle, sir?’ said Mr Godney, standing beside Hugo as the three-fifteen express pulled into Selchester station. Clouds of steam, the hiss of brakes, doors banging open, cries of joy or mild welcome. The wind was up still, rattling a loose door to the office and setting the station cat all at sixes and sevens.

  ‘I shan’t ask how you know that, Mr Godney,’ said Hugo.

  ‘We railwaymen have our sources, just the same as you do,’ said Mr Godney with dignity. ‘Always good to be one step ahead.’

  Leo came striding along the platform, a tall elegant figure in a black suit and dog collar. The Selchester station staff were used to him by now.

  ‘Good to be seeing you again, Father Hawksworth,’ said Mr Godney. ‘Smooth journey, I hope?’

  ‘She’s had a service, hasn’t she?’ Leo looked appreciatively at the engine, one of the old Southern Railway’s finest. He had an instinctive liking for railways and an easy manner with the men who worked on them. Hugo had a childhood memory of his uncle on the footplate of Mallard at King’s Cross, looking for all the world like one of her regular crew.

  ‘Good as new. Well, aside from the paint. They don’t like to maintain the engines properly these days, think it’ll make everyone happier when those new diesels come in. Crying shame, if you ask me.’

  ‘They’ve fixed that cylinder problem she was having, surely . . .’

  They plunged deep into railway conversation, passengers flowing around them. Bill the porter was loading some luggage for Exeter into the guard’s van, the crew on the footplate busy about their work.

  Hugo caught sight of Miranda Pearson coming out of the ticket office, heading for the up platform. She was wearing a dirndl, such an odd thing to see at an English country station, but they seemed to be all the rage at the moment.

  ‘Mr Hawksworth, isn’t it? Shall I be seeing you at my talk on Friday?’

  ‘I shall be going,’ said Hugo, who’d heard about it from Gus. He was as intrigued as anyone else to know what the Pearsons were up to.

  ‘I’m glad. The more the merrier.’

  ‘Off to London?’ Hugo asked, more for conversational politeness than anything else.

  ‘Yes, my desk at the British Library awaits. We can’t do everything in the field, although I like to get at local stories and customs unfiltered where possible. So much of the literature on folklore is written by people hankering for some imaginary golden age, or country parsons whiling away the hours. One has to cut through all the nostalgia and sentimentality.’

  There was a whistle from down the line.

  ‘That’ll be my train. You must excuse me, Mr Hawksworth. I look forward to seeing you on Friday.’

  She strode off, a swift, purposeful figure.

  ‘Who was that?’ Leo asked. Mr Godney had gone to chivvy Bill on.

  ‘Half of the couple at Nightingale Cottage. The folklorist.’

  Leo blinked. ‘Ah. I had a different image of her. Shall we?’

  ‘Meaning,’ said Hugo, ‘you’d like to drive.’

  Hugo settled into the passenger seat, glad to be handing control to someone other than Jarrett for once.

  ‘To the Castle?’ said Leo.

  ‘Yes, I’ve excused myself for the rest of the day. Leads to follow up. That is, if you’ve found anything.’

  Leo swung the car out into Station Road with nary a jolt to be felt.

  ‘I have indeed, although it may be rather old hat by now. Your colleagues made an arrest, I hear. Saul Ingham, the gentleman I met at Christmas.’ There had been a copy of The Times tucked into the side of Leo’s bag. Of course it was all over the papers. Even if Saul were proved innocent, his name would be dragged through the mud again.

  ‘I’ll fill you in. What did you find out?’

  As they made their way down Sheep Street and over the bridge towards the Castle, slowed by a tractor, Leo recounted the story he’d heard from Thomas Marston.

  ‘So he lied to us,’ said Hugo.

  ‘You were hoping for something less damning,’ Leo observed.

  ‘I don’t find it damning,’ said Hugo. ‘It’s the wrong way around. Bruno was the one who hung on to his grudges, Saul the one with a bad temper.’

  He outlined, in turn, the story he’d heard from Oldcastle and the contents of Saul’s file.

  ‘A man shaped by violent passions, like Saul Ingham, can find it hard to control them,’ Leo said. ‘We form our characters by habit. Bruno never let go of a quarrel. He liked to gloat, and he wasn’t shy about doing so. If he had been so unwise as to gloat in person, Saul would have found it a struggle to contain his temper.’

  ‘It’s one thing to struggle with your temper, quite another to shoot a man in the back of the neck.’

  They turned through the Castle gates, Leo stepping on the pedal as the car crossed on to private land.

  ‘You
sound like a man who isn’t ready to be convinced.’

  ‘It’s the convenient explanation,’ said Hugo. ‘We need a suspect with a particular background, and voilà! We have one. Sir Bernard likes it already.’

  ‘And this Jarrett? He sounds like a man less easily fooled.’

  Hugo had spoken to Jarrett by phone earlier in the afternoon. ‘He wanted a list. Did Saul have any prior connections in Selchester, any known friends or enemies? I’d say that he’ll be convinced if he can explain the tip-off.’

  ‘But you won’t be.’

  ‘I think an explanation will present itself,’ said Hugo. ‘A perfectly plausible, perfectly coherent explanation that allows them to pin the whole thing on Saul. It works for everyone. The Soviet agent turns out to be an unpopular outsider, who has helpfully been killed in a quarrel by another unpopular outsider. Case closed. We can rest easy where scientific secrets are concerned, because it turns out all the spies are dubious types with foreign connections, just like Klaus Fuchs.’

  ‘The Service I knew,’ said Leo slowly, ‘wouldn’t have stopped there. Nor would the Americans, although in the current climate they’d swing to the opposite extreme. I gather you’re not convinced Rothesay was passing material to the Soviets.’

  ‘There’s nothing in his record to suggest it.’

  ‘What sparked the hunt in the first place? You couldn’t tell me over the phone, of course, but I should like to hear it.’

  ‘Ah, well, there you’re in luck, because you’ll be meeting the source very shortly. He’s a Hungarian physicist, defected a few months back, down here for debriefing before we let him go to America, where he’d really like to be. Sir Bernard manoeuvred Gus into putting him up for a few days.’