Element 79

by Fred Hoyle

  McAlan applied to the Ornithological Trust for a permit to visit the estate near Bury Saint Edmunds. He wasn’t too hopeful about his application, because it was plainly impossible for the Trust to grant permits to more than a small fraction of the many ornithologists of the Greater London area. Hugh McAlan was one of the lucky ones as it turned out, however. He was given a permit for eleven a.m. Sunday, which was much the best day of the week for him, and pretty well the best time of day, too.

  So one morning in late April, McAlan headed his Austin Mini out of London onto the Newmarket–Bury road. By his side were binoculars and a luncheon satchel, in the boot of the car his faithful waders.

  The ornithological party, when fully assembled, turned out to be about fifty strong. With so many people, the warden who conducted them through the estate was understandably reluctant to approach the Oreales closely. At all costs, the birds must not be frightened from the park.

  Some of the party claimed to have sighted the Oreales in the far distance, but McAlan wasn’t one of them. He saw a white-backed woodpecker, a nuthatch, and a redstart, which partly made up for the Oreales. The session lasted several hours. His feet were quite tired by the time he got back to the Mini.

  Hugh McAlan decided to return along the Haverhill road instead of by the faster A11. He started off down quiet country lanes, musing to himself. He wasn’t giving full attention to the driving, but neither was he really careless. He would have noticed any unexpected road traffic, like a car pulling out of a side road, for instance. What he did not notice, until it was too late, was a pair of birds, flying endlessly round and around each other, a pair that came into the road over the bushes on his near side. There was an unpleasant thud as the car hit the wretched creatures. Only after the impact was McAlan fully aware of what had happened. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. The birds were lying dead in the road, the road itself covered by an incredibly vast carpet of feathers. He climbed slowly out of the car and sadly walked to the point of the tragedy. Some of the feathers were of a greenish tinge. There were black tailfeathers, too. But most were of a brilliant yellow. Hugh McAlan had “got” his Oreales after all.

  A Jury of Five

  Arthur Hadley was a hard-driving man, just turned fifty. His only occupations were business and sex. On these topics he lavished his working hours in a ratio of about three to one. His headquarters were in Nottingham, but his activities were by no means confined to the immediate neighborhood. He had a chain of interests spread over the whole of the north of England. He had partners in some of these interests, partners whom he terrified by the risks he ran, like Tony Brown. Sir Anthony Brown was a yellow-bellied twerp, in Hadley’s personal opinion, but his title happened to be useful. The risks were always of the “swallow-all-the-water-in-the-sea” kind. Hadley’s specialty was the take-over bid. Early in life he’d discovered a simple truth, take-overs go most smoothly and profitably if they’re done when times are bad. There was no point in making bids for prosperous firms with long order books, too costly. In the old days, he’d bought when trade was slack. Now things were different, without the old big ups and downs. He bought now when credit was tight, and credit was tight every three or four years, whenever the whole country got itself into another kettle of economic hot water. In the year 1965 he did quite a lot of buying. By the end of 1965 he was pretty replete, overextended, folks called it. For the next year or two it would be necessary to sit down and work away at it all, to chew the cud, to masticate.

  Arthur Hadley was good at chewing the cud, because he gave a lot of time and thought to the process. He was good at choosing the right man for a job. He made mistakes sometimes, of course, but once he realized he’d made one, he always put it right quickly. “Cut your losses—fast” was one of his favorite tags. He was thinking now of hoofing out a dull old bugger, who for donkey’s years had run a firm he’d recently bought on the outskirts of Sheffield. Too set in his ways, too stereotyped, too old-fashioned. The only problem was, who to move into the job. Perhaps it would be best to give young Mike Johnson a whirl. It would mean taking him away from the Nottingham factory, which would be a real nuisance just at the moment. But he couldn’t see a better solution. He said so to his twenty-eight-year-old wife, Jennifer, and was surprised when Jenny disagreed. Usually she just listened to his business talk. He used her as a pair of ears, not really because he needed to talk to anybody, for advice or anything like that, but because he was inhibited—like most people—against talking to himself. That was why he was surprised about Mike Johnson. For a brief flash he wondered whether there could be anything between Johnson and his wife. Then he dismissed the thought. Jenny hadn’t much appetite for that sort of game.

  Like many promiscuous men, Hadley expected his wife to be one hundred percent “respectable.” Wasn’t that one of the reasons why he’d married her, for Christ’s sake? The daughter of a local manufacturer, Jennifer had been well-educated. She was well-spoken and she knew how to entertain his business associates in the best style. He hadn’t found her very sexy, but that really wasn’t important. There was plenty of sex to be had in other directions, at any rate, there was in the circles in which he moved. Like any woman, Jenny had wanted children, and he’d given her three, in rapid tempo. The arrangement now was that she brought up the kids—his legitimate kids—she made the home attractive and respectable, and in return he gave her anything she wanted—clothes, a car, that sort of thing. He thought it worked very well.

  Blanche White was one of the other directions. She was a pretty little thing of nineteen. She worked in one of Hadley’s subsidiaries. Because she didn’t read complex balance sheets, and because nobody told her, Blanche didn’t realize that Hadley was her true boss. But she knew he was an important man, and she was flattered when he asked her to go out with him. She’d been out with him now quite a number of times, usually at intervals of two or three weeks. Hadley had taken her the second time, and he’d made her every time since. And now the silly little bitch had got herself in the family way. How was it possible to be so bloody stupid, he wondered. “Why were you so bloody stupid?” he asked her.

  They were in the sitting room of a little place he’d had specially built, about five miles outside Nottingham. “I thought you,…” she began.

  Hadley gave a snort and took a sharp snap of whiskey. “Don’t be bloody daft. It’s not up to men these days, not with all the new things they’ve got. Didn’t anybody ever tell you?”

  “I didn’t like to go, to that clinic place.”

  “Didn’t like to go! You’ll like it a lot less, what’s going to happen to you now!”

  “What’s to be done?” the girl sobbed.

  “What’s to be done! Stop being bloody daft, for one thing. See a doctor. Go on working as long as you can. Then I’ll see you over it.”

  “See me over it!”

  “What the hell else d’you expect? There’s a hundred million kids born into the world every year. Don’t think anybody’s going to fall over backwards just because you’re going to have one of ’em.”

  “Don’t you care a bit?”

  “I care a hell of a lot. D’you think it’s any pleasure to me, this sort of thing? I’m not going to get anything out of it.”

  Hadley did get something out of it, much more than he could ever have imagined. He began with a small bonus. He took the little fool back to the bedroom. Tearfully, she let him do it again. He got far more out of it this second time than he expected in the circumstances. She again asked him, now in a whisper, to look after her. Once again, he told her he’d see she was all right. He left her there, thinking this was about as far as he could commit himself for the present. He took another sharp snap before starting back to Nottingham. He’d intended to stay here the night, told Jenny he’d be away the whole night. But he wasn’t staying now, not with this situation to prey on his mind.

  There was a stretch of some two miles of twisting country road before the main highway into Nottingham. He thou
ght about Blanche White as he drove his big yellow Jaguar. She wouldn’t give any trouble, too mouselike. He’d see her over it, like he said he would, until the kid was old enough to go to school. Then he’d find her a job. It might be worth his while to go on giving her a bit even after that. She’d only be twenty-three or twenty-four, useful in an emergency, perhaps.

  The T-junction onto the highway came up. A vehicle was approaching from the left. It wasn’t too far away, but far enough. Hadley saw no point in letting it get ahead of him. He gunned the big car as fiercely as he could. This was the time when it paid to have a piece of real machinery. The car leaped forward, straight into the track of the oncoming vehicle. Hadley took the turn at a bad angle. There was a blaze of light in his eyes, followed instantly by a blaze inside his head.

  The other vehicle was driven by Jonathan Adams, forty-five, professor of philosophy at Oxford. He was on his way to Nottingham to give a lecture at the university there. He was to stay overnight with his opposite number, Jerome Renfrew. He knew Renfrew, of course, but not very well. This worried Adams, because he’d been delayed in leaving Oxford, so he would be arriving at the Renfrew household long after it was really proper for him to do so.

  It was characteristic of Adams that he didn’t know Renfrew very well, in fact, he didn’t know anybody very well. A reticent, shy man, living in College rooms, what he liked most was travel, and reading, of course. Adams had a good reputation in his own field. He was a remarkably incisive lecturer for one so retiring in all other human contacts.

  Adams was also a skillful driver. He’d batted along at a good pace all the way from Oxford, because he was so late, of course. Almost in Nottingham, he noticed the lights of a car moving along a side road ahead. It never crossed his mind that anybody could be fool enough to pull out into the main road, so he kept going ahead. Then, to his horror, the car did pull out, immediately in front of him. If only the fool had kept to the center of the road and left him with enough room to get through on the near side.

  Jonathan Adams came to his senses still in the driver’s seat. He sat there for a few moments. There was an instant when he was vaguely conscious of somebody peering into the car. He remembered leaving Oxford. He was driving to Nottingham, that was it. Then he remembered the side road and the other car, but he couldn’t remember the actual collision. Still there must have been a collision, an appalling crash, unless at the last moment he’d managed only to sideswipe the other car. Perhaps he’d done that and then gone off the road, in which case it might not be too bad. Slowly, very gingerly, he tried moving his hands and arms. They were all right so far as he could tell, no sharp pain. Next the legs. They moved, so his spine wasn’t dislocated. The head was now the critical thing. Gently he moved his hands upward over the face and skull. Not bad, so far as he could tell. It began to look as if he’d gone off the road with only a blow hard enough to put him out for a few moments. He decided to risk it, to try climbing out of the car. He knew he shouldn’t do this, really. Better to wait for an ambulance. Some passing driver would be sure to call the police. There might be internal injuries. The temptation was too strong, however, to be out of this coffin-like box in which he seemed to be entombed. It was a difficult business, for the car had been knocked onto its side. He saw now why he’d felt so queer, because he hadn’t been sitting upright. After a struggle he managed it. Miraculously he was standing there looking down at the wreckage. It looked pretty bad, not much worth salvaging.

  A man came up to him and said, “What the bloody hell d’you mean by coming along at that speed?”

  “Did you see the collision?”

  “Did I see it, of course I saw it. I’m the driver of the other bloody car.”

  “Then we’d better exchange insurance companies.”

  “You’re damn right we’d better. That was a valuable car of mine. Not much but scrap there now.”

  “You did come out of the side road, you know.”

  Adams knew it was better not to argue. Leave things for the police to judge. The reply convinced him of this. “Don’t give me that story. There was plenty of time to get out into the road, if you hadn’t been driving like a flaming maniac. Right into the back of my car, bloody well into the bloody backside, right up its arse. You’ll see what they do to you for that.” Adams also knew he really should have slowed down a bit. After all, nobody was better aware than he of how full the world was with fools. Even so, it was hard luck to have picked such a prize specimen.

  “Better give me your insurance card, or your name. Here’s mine,” he said, handing over the insurance certificate he always carried in his wallet.

  “Think you’re going to get mine, do you?”

  “Unless I do, the police will know exactly what to think.”

  “You poor fish, you poor, bloody fish. What makes you think I haven’t got the police and the magistrates all sewn up around here?”

  “You may have them sewn up, but I can assure you Counsel from London will very soon unsew them.”

  At this Hadley realized he’d been unlucky. He’d drawn an educated man who wouldn’t be put down. It didn’t really matter, of course, only the no-claim bonus. It was just that he didn’t like to be beaten, to be shown up to be in the wrong. He would have paid out a hundred no-claim bonuses just to be able to fix this little bugger. However, he realized he’d better turn over his name and address: Arthur Hadley, “The Gables,” Arntree Road, Nottingham.

  The flashing blue light of a police car could be seen approaching from the direction of Nottingham. Behind the police car was an ambulance. Both vehicles drew to a halt by the side of the road. Out of one came two policemen, out of the other two attendants with a stretcher. Adams was at first surprised. Then he remembered his impression of somebody peering into his car, a passing motorist who had obviously called the police. He walked toward the attendants. It would be best to get them to drive him to the Renfrew household—at least now he would have a good excuse for being late. The Hadley man, he knew, would be tackling the police. Let the fool talk to them as much as he wanted. God, what a bore the fellow was. The police would come to him for his story all in good time, better when he was rested than now. The thing to do was to get to bed as soon as possible. There was certain to be some delayed shock.

  Adams stepped up to the nearest ambulance man and said, “Luckily neither of us is badly hurt, a few bruises, perhaps. I wonder if you’d be kind enough to take me into Nottingham?”

  The man was walking toward him, his companion behind, as they carried the stretcher. Neither of them paused in the slightest degree. The rear man came so close that Adams felt the fellow must surely brush against him. Yet he felt not the slightest contact. Hadley came rushing up, “Can’t make the buggers hear. Not a bloody word. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but why don’t you shut up? Stop the verbal diarrhea just for a couple of minutes.”

  This kept Hadley quiet, more or less, for a little while.

  The policemen and the attendants conferred together. Adams heard one of them say, “Looks bad,” then another added, “This sort of thing always gets me in the pit of the stomach.” Then the four men busied themselves in the wreckage. Adams watched as something was lifted, presumably a body, into the ambulance. “Funny, there’s only one corpse,” he heard an attendant say to one of the policemen, “where’s the other one gone?”

  Hadley could take it no longer. He strode up to the four men and shouted, “Stop this fooling, you silly buggers. Can’t you see we’re here. We’re all right. There’s nothing wrong with us. What you need is your bloody lugs cleaning out.”

  This outburst produced not the slightest response. Hysterically desperate now, Hadley rushed at the nearest man. There was no effect, no contact. Then Hadley broke down. Alternately, he whined and roared and jabbered, nothing but gibberish. Then he stopped and began to shiver violently.

  The ambulance men searched around again and then drove away. There was nothing Jonathan Adams could do
to stop them. The policemen stayed around for quite a while longer, making extensive notes. When they drove off there was nothing that could be done to stop them either.

  “You’d think they were a lot of muckering ghosts, the way they’re going on,” said Hadley.

  “When you say ghosts, I think you’re not very wide of the mark. Except it’s exactly the other way round.”

  “You mean we’re ghosts?”

  “Yes. Doesn’t it strike you as queer we’re both of us pretty well unhurt? I hardly seem to be bruised.”

  Hadley became much calmer.

  “What’s to be bloody well done about it?”

  “I don’t know. The strange thing is they seemed to have one body in the ambulance. Did you have a passenger in your car?”

  Hadley wondered if by any chance Blanche White had sneaked into his car. Then he realized she couldn’t have. He’d left her in a state of undress, as the newspapers put it, in the big bed out at his place. “No, I didn’t. What about you?”

  “I’d hardly have asked the question if I’d had a passenger, would I?”

  The two of them began to walk along the road toward Nottingham. A number of cars passed by. They walked on for half an hour or so when Hadley asked, “Did you see that body?”

  “No. I tried to, but somehow the light was never right.”

  “Whose body d’you think it was?”

  “One of us.”

  “How the hell could it be?”

  “I don’t know. If it wasn’t one of us, who else was it?”