Peter found that he was gripping the upright of the fence so tightly that it was an effort to unclasp his hand and step back. His legs felt unsteady, and he sat down on the other side of the path to recover.
He had come to a conclusion – a conclusion from which he never subsequently departed. No one in possession of his senses could deliberately have driven his car over that fearsome drop. There were things which were possible, if improbable. And there were things which were impossible. This was impossible.
From where he sat, his view inland was blocked, first by an unusually large and thick clump of trees which filled the hollow immediately below him, and then by one of those rounded and shapely knolls which were characteristic of the chalk cliff. He could see a track which skirted the side of this knoll and evidently formed a shortcut back to the road.
He looked back at the track. From the point where the car must have left it, the ground ran downhill in two directions: fairly sharply toward the cliff edge, and rather more gradually down the track itself. The shape of what must have happened was beginning to form in his mind, wanting in detail but clear in outline. He drove back slowly to the hotel.
At Key’s Garage the exchange of cars was quickly effected; documents were exchanged and the deposits which they had paid were adjusted in the Professor’s favour. The Savoia sixteen, with its driving seat pushed back to the very last notch, accommodated Peter’s length. He said, “I’d better go and make my mark with the military. Tomorrow I thought I’d cast round a bit. If your invitation still holds good, I’d like to run out tomorrow morning and have a look at what you’re doing.”
“Excellent,” said the Professor. “The site is not easy to find. We will go together.” He drove off, and Peter stood for a few moments watching him go.
Bill Key said, “He’s a real old character, isn’t he? It’s easy to imagine him scratching up fossils. But you ought to see his assistants.”
“Long-haired students of both sexes, I imagine.”
“Nothing like it. They came in last Saturday for a drink at the hotel. They looked like recruits on a battle course. Young, athletic, and polite. You could have fitted any three of them into the front row of the England Scrum.”
“Did they explain how they came to be recruited for the dig?”
“They didn’t have a lot to say for themselves. As I said, polite but not really communicative. If you’re making for the Research Station, it’s a small road, second on the left, about two miles down. There used to be a signpost, but they took it down after they had all that trouble with the protesters. You’ll spot the turning easily enough, though. It’s opposite a piggery. If you don’t see it, you’ll smell it.”
The perimeter of the Research Station was guarded by a double line of wire fence ten feet high, the outer line angled outward at the top, the inner line angled inward. There were overhead lights at twenty-yard intervals. A notice beside the gate said, “Army Property. Out of Bounds to All Unauthorised Personnel.” Apart from the fact that it was neat and functional, it bore little resemblance to a traditional Army establishment. As much as it looked like anything, it looked like one of those up-to-date secondary schools where the pupils concentrate on painting, dressmaking, and having a good time. The buildings, solid red-brick-and-glass constructions, all of one storey, were spread around in a carefully unorganised manner, hugging the contours of the ground as though to escape attention from hostile aircraft. There was a lot of lawn, and the paths between the buildings were neatly rolled gravel. The only prominent objects were a bulbous construction which looked like a steel egg in a giant eggcup and a mast with two saucer-shaped attachments on the top.
Peter stood in the sunshine staring through the latticework of the gate. It seemed an innocent enough place. He noticed that someone had cultivated a strip of flowerbeds along the front of the nearest building. There were marigolds and pinks in it, and a fioribunda rosebush flourishing in the chalk soil. In the silence he could hear larks singing.
A door in the guard hut beside the gate opened and a military policeman came out. He walked across and studied Peter without speaking. Peter took out the letter which Mr. Troyte had armed him with and pushed it through the latticework. The redcap took it, read the name on the envelope, turned it over to make sure there was nothing written on the other side, then stepped back, wheeled around, and made for the large building on the right of the entrance which Peter assumed must be the reception office. The letter, as he knew, was addressed personally to the officer in charge of the Station and was from a senior official in the Ministry of Defence. One of the secrets of Arthur Troyte’s success was knowing useful people in every walk of life.
Five slow minutes passed. The soldier reappeared, unlocked and opened the gate, ushered Peter inside, locked and shut the gate, and led the way into the building, where he handed him over to a gray-haired lady who sat enthroned behind at a desk inside the door. He conducted him to all of this without speaking a word. Perhaps he was dumb? Peter remembered a story he had once read about a mad scientist who was served by slaves all of whom had had their tongues cut out to prevent them revealing his secrets. Was it possible—?
No, the gray-haired lady still had her tongue. She said, “Colonel Hollingum may have to keep you waiting a few minutes, sir. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Peter said he thought this would be a very good idea. The gray-haired lady spoke down the telephone. But when the door at the far end of the hall opened a few minutes later, it wasn’t the coffee. It was a small Indian in a long white coat. He came up to Peter, placing one neatly shod foot in front of the other as softly and precisely as though he were practicing a new dance step. He said, “You must be Dr. Vinograd. I am so pleased to meet you.”
“Well, no,” said Peter. “My name is Manciple.”
“You are not Dr. Vinograd? I had a feeling he would be somewhat older. Do not take that as a reflection on you. Youth is a priceless asset. Not something you need apologise for. What is to be your function here?”
“It isn’t exactly a function. I’m here in connection with the death of Dr. Wolfe.”
“Dr. Wolfe? Oh. Yes. I have not introduced myself. I am Dr. Bishwas. Dr. Wolfe was my colleague. It was very sad.”
There was something behind this which Peter found it hard to fathom; a feeling of more meant than was said. He wondered whether perhaps it was because the conversation was taking place within earshot of the gray-haired woman.
“If you knew Dr. Wolfe well,” he said, “perhaps there is somewhere we could talk in private.”
“I am afraid – I am very much afraid – that there is nothing private I could tell you. Will you be with us for long?”
“As long as I have to.”
“I see, yes. You are staying locally? In Bridgetown perhaps? You are in the good hands of Mr. Brewer. An interesting example of Dravidian survival.”
At this point the coffee arrived in a plastic cup carried by a sergeant. Dr. Bishwas smiled apologetically and departed as softly as he had come. As Peter was finishing the coffee, a bell sounded. The gray-haired lady said, “That is Colonel Hollingum. He can see you now. The last door on the left.”
Colonel Hollingum, who rose from behind his desk to greet Peter, looked more like a doctor than an Army officer and more like a civil servant than a doctor. The long white overall which he was wearing could equally have concealed service dress or a black coat and striped trousers. He said, “I hope we shall be able to deal with this matter fairly quickly, Mr.—um—Manciple. This is one of our busy days.”
“I hope so too, sir,” said Peter.
“I am not clear from this—um—communication exactly what it is I am expected to tell you.”
“We wanted to see if we could get any sort of lead as to how – or why – this very odd accident should have happened.”
“An unhappy accident. But I do not understand quite why you describe it as odd. Dr. Wolfe’s car ran off the track and went over the cliff.”
&
nbsp; “Well, there were one or two odd things about it. The fact that there were no skid marks, which would seem to indicate that he made no attempt to brake after going off the path.””That would be quite consistent with his having had a blackout.”
“Yes, I suppose so. I was hoping that you might be able to fill in the background for me.”
“You realise that I cannot discuss the work he was doing here.”
“I do realise that. What I meant was the factual background. How long he had been here. What sort of life he lived.”
“He joined us nearly six years ago.”
“I suppose he worked very much on his own?”
“Almost entirely.”
“So that until you got his report every two years, you really had little idea what point his researches had reached?”
Colonel Hollingum stared at him. Then he said, “Has some member of my staff been speaking to you?”
“Nothing like that. I happened to be talking to his sister.”
“It was indiscreet of Dr. Wolfe to discuss his work with his sister. And if he did choose to tell her anything; she should not have passed it on to you.”
Peter saw that they were getting off on the wrong foot. He said, “She didn’t know anything about his work. I doubt if she’d have understood it if he had described it, and I’m quite certain I shouldn’t. The last science I did was making gunpowder at my prep school. It wasn’t even very good gunpowder. It didn’t explode.”
“I see. Then what—?”
“The sort of things I wanted to know were whether Dr. Wolfe was in normal health and spirits last week. Was he worried or upset about anything.”
“You must appreciate that I had very little to do with Dr. Wolfe personally. He went his own way. I had categorical instructions not to interfere with him.”
“He was wellknown in his own line?”
“He was the most distinguished genetic biologist we have ever had in this establishment. My job was to see that he had the best possible working conditions and total lack of interference.”
“Did he go outside the camp much?”
“When he was working here, very little. Sometimes he went out fishing. And he went occasionally into Bridgetown in the evenings for a glass of beer at the Doone Valley Hotel.”
“And one of your men went with him.”
The Colonel looked at him stonily. He seemed, Peter thought, to have a list divided into two columns: items which could be discussed and items which could not. Peter was aware that he had again approached the dividing line.
The Colonel said, “You misunderstand the position. I was responsible for Dr. Wolfe’s—um—comfort and wellbeing inside the camp. When he left it, he came under a different jurisdiction. Lewis and Bateson were neither of them my men.”
“Lewis was the man who was hit by a motorist?”
“Yes.”
“That was on the same day that Dr. Wolfe had his accident?”
“Yes.”
“Would he have known about Lewis’ death?”
The Colonel considered the matter. Evidently the answer was on the permitted side of the line. He said, “We had the news about Lewis in the course of the afternoon. It was widely discussed. I imagine Dr. Wolfe heard about it before he left.”
“And when was that?”
“Shortly before nine o’clock that evening.”
“Might he have been upset at the news?”
“He might have been. We should not necessarily have known that he was. Dr. Wolfe was not a man who exhibited his feelings in public.”
There was a short pause. It seemed to be the end of the conversation. Dr. Wolfe had left the camp at nine o’clock in the evening. His car had gone over the cliff at Rackthorn Point shortly afterward. Finish. Peter could think of nothing else to say; of no question he could ask to which any helpful answer could be given. He was on the point of rising to his feet when the Colonel spoke again.
He said, “There is something I must say to you before you go,” and paused.
During their brief conversation Peter’s opinion of the Colonel had been changing. He knew, of course, that he was not dealing with a fool. He now realised that the Colonel’s stiffness and taciturnity were not the result of official obstruction or hostility. Colonel Hollingum was worried. He was anxious to put something across, and was uncertain how to go abou”I wonder if you realise that your car was picked up on our early warning system when it turned off the main road. It was recognised as coming from Key’s Garage, and we were finding out about you from Bill Key before you had got out of the car. The few minutes we kept you waiting outside the gate were spent in telephoning the writer of that letter. Fortunately, we caught him at his desk in the Ministry. If we had failed in either instance, you wouldn’t have been allowed inside the gate.”
“I realise you have to be careful,” said Peter.
The Colonel went on as though he had not heard him. “There is an infantry platoon on permanent duty here. One section is on red alert. The other three sections are ten minutes’ notice. We have an open radio-telephone link with Western Command, and another with Whitehall. I mention these precautions to give you some idea of the priority accorded to the work which is going on here. Whether I approve of that work or not, it is my job to see that it goes on uninterrupted. You understand me?”
Peter nodded.
“You mentioned the fact that Dr. Wolfe reported on his own work, in writing, at the end of the second and fourth years. Those reports did not go to me. They went to the Joint Services Scientific Advisory Committee, which, in turn, reports directly to the Cabinet. I know roughly what was in them, but not the details. Nor, of course, do I know the policy decisions which were based on them. I expect it was thought better that I should be kept in the dark.”
The Colonel smiled briefly, and Peter caught sight of a human being behind the official mask.
“It can be very trying work. During the time I have been here, we have lost three scientists. The first disappeared five years ago, when he was on leave. When I say disappeared, I mean that, literally. He might be anywhere, above the earth or under it. He has not been seen or heard of since. The second one failed to turn up for breakfast one morning, and I went over to his quarters to look for him. He was in his bath. He had cut his own throat the night before. It was not a pleasant sight.”
Peter nodded again. The room seemed to have become stuffy and airless.
“I am telling you these things so that you will listen very carefully to the advice I have to give you. Go back to London. Write your report. Say that it is quite impossible to decide whether Dr. Wolfe took his own life or whether it was an accident. Whatever the truth of the matter, one fact is certain. He is dead.”
6
By the time Peter got back to the hotel, lunch was under way. Anna was alone. Detecting the faintest hint of an invitation which might or might not have been there, Peter walked across to her table.
Anna said, “Come and keep me company. Kevin has gone to Cryde to see if he can hire a Land-Rover. He’s tired of pushing us out of goyals. How have you been spending the morning?”
“I’ve been changing cars, too. I’ve got one more suited to my length of leg. Then I went over to the Research Station.”
“Did they let you in?”
“After checking everything down to the date of my birth and my size in shoes and gloves.”
“It’s a terrible place. In Old Testament times it would have been visited by fire from heaven. I don’t suppose they let you look at any of whatever it is they’re doing, did they?”
“Certainly not. I had a chat with the boss, and was told a few things about Dr. Wolfe, most of which I knew already. I got the impression that he was a very private sort of person.”
Anna considered the point, sitting up in her chair and straightening her back as she did so. The movement brought her breasts very slightly forward inside the thin shirt she was wearing that morning. Peter lowered his eyes and became engrosse
d in filleting the grilled trout on his plate.
“He wasn’t private in the sense of being stuffy,” said Anna. “He was easy to talk to, and interesting. He knew about a lot of different things. Music – I suppose from his sister. He talked a lot about her. And rock climbing and sailing, and the connection between music and chess and mathematics. He was fun to talk to. But when it was all over, you did realise that you hadn’t got one inch past his outer defences.”
“Do you mean that he was hiding something?”
“Not exactly. I mean one got the impression that he was leading two quite different lives, or maybe even three. And he could switch from one to the other whenever he wanted. No, Dave, I simply couldn’t. Treacle pudding, in this weather? I’ll just have some cheese.”
“Cheese for me, too,” said Peter.
“What are you going to do with yourself this afternoon?”
“I thought of exploring the country behind Rackthorn Point.”
“Work or pleasure?”
“A bit of both.”
“Can I join in the pleasure part?”
“By all means,” said Peter. “We’ll take my car to the caravan site and do the rest on foot.”
“Is this where it happened?” said Anna.”I think it must be. And that’s the place where the fence was broken. For God’s sake, watch it.”
Anna had walked to the extreme edge of the cliffs and was bending forward, looking down. “It’s quite a drop,” she said. “Do you think anyone could have gone over it with his eyes open?”
“No,” said Peter, with a shudder. “I don’t. Please come away from the edge. You’re making me feel wobbly inside.”
Anna came back and sat down beside him. She said, “Different things frighten different people. I’ve never minded about heights, even when I was quite small. What I can’t stand is squishy places. Bubbling marshes and bogs and quicksands. I used to have a regular nightmare about being sucked down, very slowly, into a marsh. First my mouth went under, then my nose. I can remember saying, ‘If you try hard enough, you can breathe through your ears.’”
The Empty House Page 5