The Ebony Tower-Short Stories - John Fowles

by John Fowles

  Some ten minutes later the friend telephoned from the flat. There was no sign of Marcus, but everything seemed perfectly as it should be. He found and looked in the engagements diary on Miss Parsons's desk, and read out the day's programme. The morning had been barred out, it seemed; but there was nothing abnormal in that. It was the M.P.'s habit to keep Friday morning free for answering his less pressing correspondence. Fortunately Mrs Fielding knew a fellow director of the company whose board meeting was down for three o'clock. Her next move was to try him; and it was only then that she learnt the mystery had started before the failure to catch the 5?2 train; and that Miss Parsons had also (sinisterly as it seemed, since Mrs Fielding knew nothing of the innocent trip to Hastings) disappeared from the flat by three o'clock that afternoon. She now realized, of course, that whatever had happened might date back to the previous day. Marcus had been at the flat at nine on the Thursday morning, when she had spoken to him herself; but everything since then was uncertain. Very clearly something had gone seriously wrong.

  Drummond agreed to drive over to the Hall, so that some plan of action could be concerted. Meanwhile, Mrs Fielding spoke to the local police. She explained that it was merely a precaution... but if they could check the London hospitals and the accident register. Soon after Drummond arrived, the message came that there had been no casualties or cases of stroke in the last twenty-four hours that had not been identified. The lady and Drummond began to discuss other possibilities: a political kidnapping or something of the sort. But Fielding had mildly pro-Arab rather than pro-Israeli views. With so many other more 'deserving' cases in the House, he could hardly have been a target for the Black September movement or its like; nor could he--for all his belief in law and order and a strong policy in Ulster--have figured very high on any I. R. A. list. Virtually all his infrequent Commons speeches were to do with finance or agriculture.

  Drummond pointed out that in any case such kidnappers would hardly have kept silent so long. An apolitical kidnapping was no more plausible there were far richer men about... and surely one of the two Fielding daughters, Caroline and Francesca, both abroad at the time, would have been more likely victims if mere ransom money was the aim. And again, they would have had a demand by now. The more they discussed the matter the more it seemed that some kind of temporary amnesia was the most likely explanation. Yet surely even amnesiacs were aware that they had forgotten who they were and where they lived? The local doctor was called from in front of his television set and gave an off-the-cuff opinion over the line. Had Mr Fielding shown forgetfulness recently? Worry, tenseness? Bad temper, anxiety? All had to be answered in the negative. Then any sudden shock? No, nothing. Amnesia was declared unlikely. The doctor gently suggested what had already been done regarding hospital admissions.

  By now Mrs Fielding had started once more to suspect some purely private scandal was looming over the tranquil horizon of her life. Just as she had earlier imagined an unconscious body lying in the London flat, she now saw a dinner for two in Paris. She could not seriously see the prim Miss Parsons's as the female face in the candlelight; but she had that summer spent less time in London than usual. At any moment the telephone would ring and Marcus would be there, breaking some long-harboured truth about their marriage... though it had always seemed like the others one knew, indeed rather better than most in their circle. One had to suppose something very clandestine, right out of their class and normal world--some Cockney dolly-bird, heaven knows who. Somewhere inside herself and the privacies of her life, Mrs Fielding decided that she did not want any more inquiries made that night. Like all good Conservatives, she distinguished very sharply between private immorality and public scandal. What one did was never quite so reprehensible as letting it be generally known.

  As if to confirm her decision, the local police inspector now rang to ask if he could help in any other way. She tried to sound light and unworried, she was very probably making a mountain out of a molehill, she managed the man, she was desperately anxious not to have the press involved. She finally took the same tack with Drummond. There might be some natural explanation, a lost telegram, a call Miss Parsons had forgotten to make, they should at least wait till the morning. By then Peter could also have gone to the flat and searched more thoroughly.

  The Filipino houseboy showed Drummond out just after eleven. The agent had already drawn his own conclusions. He too suspected some scandal, and was secretly shocked--not only politically. Mrs Fielding seemed to him still an attractive woman, besides being a first-class member's wife.

  The errant Peter finally telephoned just after midnight. At first he could hardly believe his mother. It now emerged that his girl-friend Isobel and he had had dinner with his father only the evening before, the Thursday. He had seemed absolutely normal then; had quite definitely not mentioned any change of weekend plan. Peter soon appreciated his mother's worry, however, and agreed to go round to the Knightsbridge flat at once and to sleep there. It had occurred to Mrs Fielding that if her husband had been kidnapped, the kidnappers might know only that address; and might have spent their evening, like her, ringing the number in vain.

  But when Peter telephoned again--it was by then a quarter to one--he could only confirm what the last visitor had said. Everything seemed normal. The in-tray on Miss Parsons's desk revealed nothing. There was no sign in his father's bedroom of a hurried packing for a journey, and the suitcases and valises had the complement his mother detailed. There was nothing on any memo pad about a call to the agent or to Mrs Fielding. In the diary sat the usual list of appointments for the following week, starting with another board meeting and lunch for midday on the Monday. There remained the question of his passport. But that was normally kept in a filing-cabinet in the office, which was locked--Fielding himself and Miss Parsons having the only keys.

  Mother and son once more discussed the question of alerting the London police. It was finally decided to wait until morning, when perhaps the secondary enigma of Miss Parsons could be solved. Mrs Fielding slept poorly. When she woke for the fifth or sixth time, just after six on the Saturday, she decided to drive to London. She arrived there before nine, and spent half an hour with Peter going once more through the flat for any clue. None of her husband's clothes seemed to be missing, there was no evidence at all of a sudden departure or journey. She tried Miss Parsons's home number in Putney one last time. Nobody answered. It was enough.

  Mrs Fielding then made two preliminary calls. Just before ten she was speaking to the Home Secretary in person at his private house. There were obviously more than mere criminal considerations at stake, and she felt publicity was highly undesirable until at least a first thorough investigation had been made by the police.

  A few minutes later the hunt was at last placed firmly in professional hands.

  By Saturday evening they had clarified the picture, even if it was still that of a mystery. Miss Parsons had soon been traced, with a neighbour's help, to her relatives in Hastings. She was profoundly shocked--she had been with the Fieldings for nearly twenty years--and completely at a loss. As he had gone out the day before, she remembered Mr Fielding had asked if some papers he needed for the board meeting were in his briefcase. She was positive that he had meant to go straight to the address in Cheapside where the meeting was to be held.

  The day porter told the police he hadn't heard the address given the taxi-driver, but the gentleman had seemed quite normal--merely 'in a bit of a hurry'. Miss Parsons came straight back to London, and opened up the filing cabinet. The passport was where it should be. She knew of no threatening letters or telephone calls; of no recent withdrawals of large sums of money, no travel arrangements. There had been nothing the least unusual in his behaviour all week. In private, out of Mrs Fielding's hearing, she told the chief superintendent hastily moved in to handle the inquiry that the idea of another woman was 'preposterous'. Mr Fielding was devoted to his wife and family. She had never heard or seen the slightest evidence of infidelity in her eightee
n years as his confidential secretary.

  Fortunately the day porter had had a few words with the cab-driver before Fielding came down to take it. His description was good enough for the man to have been traced by mid-afternoon. He provided surprising proof that amnesia could hardly be the answer. He remembered the fare distinctly, and he was unshakable. He had taken him to the British Museum, not Cheapside. Fielding hadn't talked, he had read the whole way either a newspaper or documents from the briefcase. The driver couldn't remember whether he had actually walked into the Museum, since another immediate fare had distracted his attention as soon as Fielding paid him. But the Museum itself very soon provided evidence on that. The chief cloakroom attendant produced the briefcase at once--it had already been noted that it had not been retrieved when the Museum closed on the Friday. It was duly unlocked--and contained nothing but a copy of The Times, papers to do with the board meeting and some correspondence connected with the constituency surgery later that day.

  Mrs Fielding said her husband had some interest in art, and even collected sporting prints and paintings in an occasional way; but she knew of absolutely no reason whatever why he should go to the British Museum... even if he had been free of other engagements. To the best of her knowledge he had never been there once during the whole of her life with him. The cloakroom porter who had checked in the briefcase seemed the only attendant in the Museum--crowded with the usual July tourists--who had any recall at all of the M. P. He had perhaps merely walked through to the north entrance and caught another taxi. It suggested a little the behaviour of a man who knew he was being followed; and strongly that of one determined to give no clue as to his eventual destination.

  The police now felt that the matter could not be kept secret beyond the Sunday; and that it was better to release the facts officially in time for the Monday morning papers rather than have accounts based on wild rumours. Some kind of mental breakdown did seem the best hypothesis, after all; and a photograph vastly increased chances of recognition. Of course they checked far more than Mrs Fielding realized; the help of Security and the Special Branch was invoked. But Fielding had never held ministerial rank, there could be no question of official secrets, some espionage scandal. None of the companies with whom he was connected showed the least doubt as to his trustworthiness... a City scandal was also soon ruled out of court. There remained the possibility of something along the LambtonJellicoe lines: a man breaking under the threat of a blackmailing situation. But again there was nothing on him of that nature. His papers were thoroughly gone through; no mysterious addresses, no sinister letters appeared. He was given an equally clean bill by all those who had thought they knew him well privately. His bank accounts were examined--no unexplained withdrawals, even in several preceding months, let alone in the week before his disappearance. He had done a certain amount of sharedealing during the summer, but his stockbrokers could show that everything that had been sold had been simply to improve his portfolio. It had all been re-invested. Nor had he made any recent new dispositions regarding his family in his will; castIron provisions had been effected many years before.

  On the Monday, July 16th, he was front-page news in all the dailies. There were summaries of his career. The younger and only surviving son of a High Court judge, he had gone straight from a first in law at Oxford into the army in i; had fought the North African campaign as an infantry officer and gained the M.C.; contracted kala-azar and been invalided home, finishing the war as a lieutenant-colonel at a desk at the War Office, concerned mainly with the Provost-Marshal department. There had followed after the war his success as a barrister specializing in company and taxation law, his giving up the Bar in 1959 for politics; then his directorships, his life in East Anglia, his position slightly right of centre in the Tory Party.

  There were the obvious kinds of speculation, the police having said that they could not yet rule out the possibility of a politically motivated kidnapping, despite the apparently unforced decision not to attend the scheduled board meeting. But the Fieldings' solicitor, who had briefed the press, was adamant that there was categorically no question of unsavoury conduct in any manner or form; and the police confirmed that to the best of their knowledge the M. P. was a completely law-abiding citizen. Mr Fielding had not been under investigation or surveillance of any kind.

  On the assumption that he might have travelled abroad with a false name and documents, a check was made at Heathrow and the main ports to the Continent. But no passport official, no airline desk-girl or stewardess who could be contacted could recall his face. He spoke a little French and German, but not nearly well enough to pass as a native--and in any case, the passport he had left behind argued strongly that he was still in Britain. The abundant newspaper and television coverage, with all the photographs of him, provoked the usual number of reports from the public. All were followed up, and none led anywhere. There was a good deal of foreign coverage as well; and Fielding most certainly did not remain unfindable for lack of publicity. He was clearly, if he was still alive, hidden or in hiding. The latter suggested an accomplice; but no accomplice among those who had formerly known the M. P. suggested himself or herself. A certain amount of discreet surveillance was done on the more likely candidates, of whom one was Miss Parsons. Her telephone at home, and the one at the flat, were tapped. But all this proved a dead end. A cloud of embarrassment, governmental, detective and private, gathered over the disappearance. It was totally baffling, and connoisseurs of the inexplicable likened the whole business to that of the Marie Celeste.

  But no news story can survive an absence of fresh developments. On Fleet Street Fielding was tacitly declared 'dead' some ten days after the story first broke.

  Mrs Fielding was not, however, the sort of person who was loth or lacked the means to prod officialdom. She ensured that her husband's case continued to get attention where it mattered; the police were not given the autonomy of Fleet Street. Unfortunately they had in their own view done all they could. The always very poor scent was growing cold; and nothing could be done until they had further information--and whether they got that was far more on the lap of the gods than a likely product of further inquiries. The web was out, as fine and far-flung as this particular spider could make it; but it was up to the fly to make a move now. Meanwhile, there was Mrs Fielding to be placated. She required progress reports.

  At a meeting at New Scotland Yard on July 30th, it was decided (with, one must presume, higher consent) to stand down the team till then engaged full-time on the case and to leave it effectively in the hands of one of its junior members, a Special Branch sergeant hitherto assigned the mainly desk job of collating information on the 'political' possibilities. Nominally, and certainly when it came to meeting Mrs Fielding's demands for information, the inquiry would remain a much higher responsibility. The sergeant was fully aware of the situation: he was to make noises like a large squad. He was not really expected to discover anything, only to suggest that avenues were still being busily explored. As he put it to a colleague, he was simply insurance, 'in case the Home Secretary turned nasty.

  He also knew it was a small test. One of the rare public-school entrants to the force, and quite obviously cut out for higher rank from the day he first put on a uniform, he had a kind of tightrope to walk. Police families exist, like Army and Navy ones, and he was the third generation of his to arm the law. He was personable and quick-minded, which might, with his middleclass manner and accent, have done him harm; but he was also a diplomat. He knew very well the prejudices his type could only too easily arouse in the petty-bourgeois mentality so characteristic of the middle echelons of the police. He might think this or that inspector a dimwit, he might secretly groan at some ponderous going-by-the-book when less orthodox methods were clearly called for, or at the tortured, queasy jargon some of his superiors resorted to in order to sound 'educated'. But he took very good care indeed not to show his feelings. If this sounds Machiavellian, it was; but it also made him a good detective. He
was particularly useful for investigations in the higher social milieux. His profession did not stand out a mile in a Mayfair gaming-house or a luxury restaurant. He could pass very well as a rich, trendy young man about town, and if this ability could cause envy inside the force, it could also confound many stock notions of professional deformation outside it. His impeccable family background (with his father still a respected county head of police) also helped greatly; in a way he was a good advertisement for the career--undoubtedly a main reason he was picked for an assignment that must bring him into cntact with various kinds of influential people. His name was Michael Jennings.

  He spent the day following the secret decision in going through the now bulky file on Fielding, and at the end of it he drew up for himself a kind of informal summary that he called State of Play. It listed the possibilities and their counterarguments.