Dobie wondered if a certain bitchiness of disposition was an inherited quality or latent in the species. With women, I suppose it usually is. It might have been Jane talking. “I didn’t really know her very well, either.”
“Maybe you’d rather not talk about it.”
“I’d rather not have to talk about it. But with you, it’s all right.”
“I know what you mean,” Wendy said. “Yes. It’s so awful.”
A tear rolled slowly down her left cheek. Dobie, suddenly reminded of that time with Kate in the cemetery, how many weeks ago?… reached for his handkerchief again. But Wendy shook her head.
“I liked her but I didn’t like Mum. That’s what’s awful. And it’s no use Dad telling me not to worry about it, it’s just the same with him. They didn’t get on. I know it and he knows it but he won’t admit it. Parents are just stupid about things like that.”
“That’s what my students tell me sometimes. But quite often they’re mistaken. When you’re that age,” Dobie said, “it’s quite easy to mistake the nature of a relationship. I suppose at any age, for that matter.”
“Well, I think I know more about it than you do.”
“People are stupid,” Dobie said. “I’m not denying that.”
But that’s not what makes them unhappy, he thought, walking away. It should do. But it doesn’t. No one worries much about being stupid. It’s always other people’s stupidity that worries them. And makes them feel miserable. That wasn’t logical. Though in another way it was. It was logical and it was illogical. That wasn’t possible. Not possible for him to start driving, either. Not like this. He’d just go on walking for a little while longer…
Black coffee again. The balance of polar opposites, Dobie thought. Whisky and black coffee. Logical and illogical. Jane and Jenny. Ghetto-blasters and hearing aids. No end to the series. He drank black coffee and groaned as Kate at once poured him out another steaming cupful.
“Go on. Drink the rest of it up. And then you can sleep it off. You should be dam’ well ashamed of yourself but you know that already.”
“Bollocks. I’m as chirpy as a cricket. Hey, listen. Kate?”
“Now what?”
“About the keys.”
“What keys?”
“Keys to this place. This room. Has anyone else got them? Because someone’s been in there, you see.”
“With designs on your virtue?… Wasn’t me. Maybe the neighbour’s cat.”
“No. I’m not joking. You always keep this room locked, don’t you?”
“And the front door. And the clinic. I’m careful about that. I have to be.”
“All the same, someone took Sammy’s hat and raincoat and then brought them back. With this note in the raincoat pocket.”
Kate took it and read it much as Corder had done. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s the note that was on Jane Corder’s door when I arrived that night. And that’s the hat and raincoat the man who killed her was wearing. I wasn’t going to tell you about it because I thought you might be worried… But… I do have to know about the keys.”
“Are you going to tell Jackson about it? That’s more to the point.”
“No,” Dobie said. “I’m not.”
“Because you think it isn’t important?”
“Because I think it is.”
“God, Dobie, are you sure?”
“Am I sure of my facts? Yes. Am I sure that I know what I’m doing? No. Sammy must have had the keys. What happened to them?”
“I’ve got them.”
“He could have had them copied and given them to someone else.”
“Why should he have? Why should anyone want to pinch his raincoat? You say they’re facts but they don’t make any kind of sense.”
“They’re facts for all that. Your clinic’s open every morning, isn’t it? And again in the evenings? Anyone could walk in and out. You wouldn’t know.”
“That’s why Sammy always kept his door locked when he was out at work.” Kate was looking round the room now as though she’d never seen it before. With her little button eyes bright as a bird’s. Hers was a bright face, when you looked at it closely. Not very pretty, no. But bright.
“I’ll tell you something else I learned this morning,” Dobie said. “Alec told me. They gave Sammy the sack.”
“They sacked him? I don’t believe it.”
“Alec should know.”
“What for?”
“For stealing. Or that’s what it amounts to.”
“This is crazy,” Kate said. “Stealing what?”
“Information. You know. Industrial spinach,” Dobie said. “Design plans and that sort of thing. I’ll try to find out a bit more about it tomorrow.”
“But that man didn’t say anything about it at the inquest.”
“That’s what I said. And Alec said they didn’t want it to come out. No point in it, since Sammy was dead.”
“I can see that.” The eyes were now two lambent points of fire. God, Dobie thought, she is quite pretty when she gets angry. The Irish blood, maybe. “They give him the sack and he shoots himself, yes, that looks kind of bad. So we won’t mention it. But if the coroner bites me in the neck for knowing that he had a gun, that’s my own silly fault. Too bad. If he weren’t a friend of yours, I’d shoot the bugger.”
“That wasn’t quite how he put it.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t.”
“I’ll find out about it, Kate. Really I will.”
“Forget it,” Kate said. “You’ve got troubles of your own.”
“I want to find out about it.”
“Well, I don’t want you to. I know you mean well but you’re accident-prone.”
“Okay,” Dobie said. “So you’re a doctor. Why don’t we go out for a little stroll together? – so you can keep a watchful eye on me.”
Kate considered this suggestion thoughtfully. “Well… It is quite a nice evening.”
Monday morning. And business as usual, at Corder Acoustics. All the staff carrying on regardless.
In keeping with this outdated military philosophy, the desk had a plaque on it which said MAJOR R.M. MICHAELS MC. The desk wasn’t as large as Dickie Bird’s and the office wasn’t nearly as imposing, its walls being festooned with papers suspended from bulldog clips and with dilapidated year planners; behind the desk, however, Major Michaels was getting the show on the road with customary zest, barking vigorously into a telephone. “Of course, Mr Corder, if that’s what you wish… No, no problem at all. I’ll do that thing…” He put down the receiver and smiled at Dobie, displaying in the process an alarming number of gleamingly white incisors. “Well, that seems to be all in order, Mr Dobie. Now then. Cantwell, I think you said…”
He swivelled his chair vigorously to the right and then swivelled it back again.
“… What can I tell you?”
“I understand you have a security problem.”
“Well, yes, we have. I have to agree. Hearing aids. Ha! Bloody hell! Hearing aids! You can just imagine it.”
“Well, not quite,” Dobie said diffidently. “Not, that’s to say, from your viewpoint.”
“They’re so damned small,” Michaels said. “Like, tiny. You stick one in your ear and it’s almost invisible, that’s how it’s supposed to be, and of course there are other places where you could stick one, if you see what I mean, like where the monkey put the nuts, that’s supposing you wanted to smuggle one out of here. No way of stopping it. Other than to make sure no unauthorised person gets hold of one in the first place.”
“And that’s what you’ve done?”
“That’s what we try to do. But then there’s all kinds of technical griff that’d be very useful to any well-informed competitor. Design print-outs, test records, calculations, production forecasts even…”
“Who would want to buy that sort of stuff?”
“Well, I like to think we have the British opposition just about weighed up. We know them and they
know us and no hard feelings. But there’s quite a number of those Common Market chaps I don’t know from a cake of soap and don’t know that I want to frightfully. The Jerries are the worst, of course, but the Frogs and even some of the Swedes are getting pretty hot. It’s all becoming a bit of a nightmare, frankly.”
“Yes,” Dobie said. “I can see that it must be.”
“Specially when you’re dealing with people who may be simply whizzo at hi-tech electronics but otherwise never seem to know if it’s Easter Island they’re on or Maundy Thursday. They just shove papers and things into their overalls and then go buzzing about from place to place like a blue-arsed bee in a bakery. Okay, so it’s just plain carelessness, but what if every once in a while it isn’t?”
Dobie was somewhat taken aback by the Major’s style of conversation, in which the phrases came out in a series of explosions, each concluded with a formidable snap of the teeth, the general effect being that of a man proceeding with undue haste across an exceptionally well-prepared minefield. “Was that,” he asked, “what Sammy Cantwell did?”
With a powerful thrust of his right leg the Major spun his chair round through a hundred and eighty degrees and then spun it back again; bewilderingly thus confronted, albeit briefly, with the back of the Major’s neatly-trimmed head, Dobie wondered if some weird new form of callisthenics was being practised and if so, if he should not do the same. He decided, however, against it; probably wisely. “Just exactly that,” Michaels said. “The boss may be prepared to shut an eye or even both if his senior staff bend the rules a little, but that doesn’t go for junior staff in the Research Section. No way, José. He got the boot and deserved it.”
“Did he know Mrs Corder?”
Michaels seemed to find this question a trifle disconcerting. He revealed his inner perturbation by raising his right eyebrow about one-thousandth of an inch. “Why do you ask that?”
“She came round here, didn’t she? On occasion?”
“Yes, she did. On occasion. I once asked if I shouldn’t issue her with a pass but she got quite shirty about it. So we let it ride. No – the reason why your question surprised me a little,” the Major said, adjusting the set of his sleeve to show the greater part of an unidentifiable regimental cufflink, “one of my blokes saw her talking to him the day before he got copped. He thought it was odd because she didn’t usually stop off to chat up the junior staff. No reason why she shouldn’t, of course. It just wasn’t something she often did.”
Certainly hob-nobbing with the hoi polloi had never been Jane’s sort of thing. “Did she seem to know who he was? Or was she just generally dispensing a gracious word?”
“Not knowing, can’t say. The really odd thing was that he later denied the incident had ever taken place.”
“Really? When?”
“Very next day. When I was pointing out to him the error of his ways and handing him his cards. I mean, it was just a casual question I put to him, but he lied about it, just the way he lied about everything else. Never seen her, he said, much less spoken to her. He couldn’t have known I had a witness. Two, in fact, since my lot always go around in pairs.”
“And that’s the only time she’s ever spoken to one of the junior staff?”
“Oh no, I don’t say that. But it doesn’t very often happen. Other than to say ‘Good morning’ and so forth. Except to Wendy, of course. When she’s here.”
“Wendy?”
“Don’t you know Wendy? The boss’s daughter?”
“Wendy, of course I know Wendy.” Dobie shook his head. For a moment or two, his thoughts had wandered.
“I don’t think she came in today, but that’s understandable. Of course,” the Major said, trying out a new exercise which involved tipping his chair over backwards until he appeared to be in imminent danger of capsize, “the old man’d like her to go into the business on the management side. Natural enough as he doesn’t have a son. But I don’t believe she’s really all that keen. Women in business…” He scrutinised the ceiling keenly, pondering the matter, before abruptly coming back to an even keel. “It might be better if there were more of them. We just haven’t got used to them yet.”
“That’s a very enlightened view,” Dobie said. “Personally, I—”
“Oh well, as employers go, old Corder’s enlightened enough. The trouble is, it don’t always cut both ways. I mean the ladies have got to liberalise some of their views as well and it isn’t easy for them. I don’t think our Wendy was one little bit chuffed when she got to hear about Sinful Susan but that’s the sort of thing I mean. A son, now, would understand at once. You can’t expect a daughter to.”
“Ah,” Dobie said, out of his depth but struggling manfully.
“That’s another aspect of the problem, of course. The security problem. You just can’t stop people gossiping, not even about the boss. Especially not about the boss. Men are worse than women, believe you me.”
“I suppose you’ve had her checked? Security-wise?”
This was Dobie at his most brilliantly guileful.
“Susan? Oh Lord, yes. She’s perfectly okay. Nice quiet young lady. Husband’s in insurance, I believe. Of course she never comes round the office. Naturally not.”
“Susan… I’ve forgotten her other name…”
“Not a frightful lot of people know that. The old man likes to keep it pretty much under his hat. It’s Strange.”
“Well, not altogether. In the circumstances.”
“Eh?… No, I mean her name is Strange.”
“Oh, I see. What is it?”
A faint grinding noise emerged from the Major’s mouth. “Strange is her name, for Chrissake, it’s Mrs Strange, Susan Strange. I do hope I’m getting through.”
Brilliant guilefulness was not, in fact, Dobie’s forte. It was str— It was very odd how often he had this effect upon people. “Yes, oh yes, I’m sorry, it’s just that it’s some time since I heard… I mean it has to have been going on for some little time now. Hasn’t it?”
The Major’s jawbones relaxed perceptibly. “About a year or so, I would say. But what I’m really getting at, you can see the daughter’s point of view in these cases. What she doesn’t realise is that it could’ve been so much worse. You know, the directors of some of the companies I’ve worked for… Well, you wouldn’t believe it if I were to tell you.”
“But of course, you have to keep all that side of things pretty confidential.”
“Haw haw yes,” the Major said. “I should rather say so.”
“At least I found out what Alec’s security problem is.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“The security officer.”
“It seems to be true about Sammy, though.”
“Yes.”
“So let’s leave it alone.”
“It’s where the connection is, though.”
“What connection?”
“Between everyone, just about. Me and Jenny and Jane and Alec and Sammy. And now this additional complication.”
“Sinful Susan?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what she is?”
“Sinful? Or a complication?”
“Skip it. You weren’t all that surprised, were you?”
“I was in a way. I didn’t know Alec had a mistress.”
“God, Dobie, people don’t say that any more.”
“… Was having a bit on the side.”
“That’s much better.”
“I don’t see why, but never mind.”
“I’ll tell you why,” Kate said. “When my father started out in practice, he was what used to be called a family doctor. If you were on his panel you had everyone else along with you – aunts, cousins, grandparents, the lot. But then things changed and it just meant parents and children. By the time I was a student you could forget about the children unless you wanted to be some kind of children’s specialist. And now there aren’t any married couples, either. Only males and females. In other words, when they come to
see me there’s only me me me. This is a me-me-me society, Dobie, and I’m a me-me-me doctor, family doctors have gone with the dinosaurs and so have kindly fathers and loving wives and all that caboodle. That’s why no one says ‘mistress’ any more. Except for a few befuddled refugees from Barchester Towers. You got to get with it, Dobie baby, else you’re way out in Cloudsville. I’m sorry but someone has to let you in on the facts of life.”
“Don’t be angry, Kate.”
“You’re such a cluck.”
“I know I irritate people.”
“So did Jesus Christ. It’s not that. Or maybe it is. You remind them of the days when things were different. You’re so fucking quaint.”
Dobie hadn’t anticipated this attack but his years of experience as a college lecturer had given him a certain expertise in the arts of ducking and weaving. “Yes, but in those days women didn’t have much say in the matter, did they? What you’re talking about, it goes with being independent and having a career and so on. You can’t have it—”
“Oh, shut up, Dobie. And stop dithering about.”
Dobie in fact wasn’t dithering about but merely arranging the cassette tapes on the shelf into some semblance of order. Of course, it all depended on how you looked at it. Were he to continue the argument, the calm perseverance with which he marshalled the relevant facts would no doubt be immediately characterised as pig-headed obstinacy. It was no good saying she couldn’t have it both ways when she so very obviously could.
“Just because you’re married,” Kate said, “doesn’t mean you’re not on your own. You can run a big business and still feel lonely. It’s no one’s fault. That’s how the system works.”
“You said once that Sammy felt lonely.”
“So he did. But it didn’t worry him. He knew all about the system.”
“He must have had old-fashioned tastes, though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, look at this.” Dobie held up a cassette box. “Cole Porter. That’s before my time, even.”
The Strange Attractor Page 11