The Human Factor Part 13

All the same he had to admit that the little book didn't go with Aldermaston and the tote and Playboy, the dreary office routine and the Zaire bag; does one always discover clues to the complexity even of the most simple life if one rummages enough after death? Of course, Davis might have kept the book from filial piety, but it was obvious that he had read it. Hadn't he quoted Browning the last time Castle saw him alive?

'If you look, sir, there are pa.s.sages marked,' Piper said to Doctor Percival. You know more about book codes than I do. I thought I ought to draw attention.'

'What do you think, Castle?'

'Yes, there are marks.' He turned the pages. The book belonged to his father and of course they might be his father's marks-except that the ink looks too fresh: he puts a " c " against them.'

'Significant?'

Castle had never taken Davis seriously, not his drinking, not his gambling, not even his hopeless love for Cynthia, but a dead body could not be so easily ignored. For the first time he felt real curiosity about Davis. Death had made Davis important. Death gave Davis a kind of stature. The dead are perhaps wiser than we are. He turned the pages of the little book like a member of the Browning Society keen on interpreting a text.

Daintry dragged himself away from the bedroom door. He said, 'There isn't anything, is there... in those marks?'

'Anything what?'

'Significant.' He repeated Percival's question.

'Significant? I suppose there might be. Of a whole state of mind.'

'What do you mean?' Percival asked. 'Do you really think...?' He sounded hopeful, as if he positively wished that the man who was dead next door might have represented a security risk and, well, in a way he had, Castle thought. Love and hate are both dangerous, as he had warned Boris. A scene came to his mind: a bedroom in Lourenco Marques, the hum of an air conditioner, and Sarah's voice on the telephone, 'Here I am', and then the sudden sense of great joy. His love of Sarah had led him to Carson, and Carson finally to Boris. A man in love walks through the world like an anarchist, carrying a time bomb.

'You really mean there is some evidence...?' Doctor Percival went on. You've been trained in codes. I haven't.'

'Listen to this pa.s.sage. It's marked with a vertical line and the letter "c".'

' "Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger: I will hold your hand but as long as all may..." '

'Have you any idea what " c " stands for?' Percival asked and again there was that note of hope which Castle found irritating. It could mean, couldn't it, "code ", to remind him that he had already used that particular pa.s.sage? In a book code I suppose one must be careful not to use the same pa.s.sage twice.'

'True enough. Here's another marked pa.s.sage.'

"Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, That hair so dark and dear, how worth, That a man should strive and agonise,"

'And taste a veriest h.e.l.l on earth . ." '

'It sounds to me like poetry, sir,' Piper said.

'Again a vertical line and a "c ", Doctor Percival.' -You really think then...?'

'Davis said to me once, " I can't be serious when I'm serious." So I suppose he had to go to Browning for words.'

'And "c"?'

'It only stands for a girl's name, Doctor Percival. Cynthia. His secretary. A girl he was in love with. One of us. Not a case for the Special Branch.'

Daintry had been a brooding restless presence, silent, locked in thoughts of his own. He said now with a sharp note of accusation, There should be a post mortem.'

'Of course,' Doctor Percival said, 'if his doctor wants it. I'm not his doctor. I'm only his colleague though he did consult me, and we have the X-rays.'

'His doctor should be here now.'

'I'll have him called as soon as these men have finished their work. You of all people, Colonel Daintry, will appreciate the importance of that. Security is the first consideration.'

'I wonder what a post mortem will show, Doctor Percival.'

'I think I can tell you that his liver is almost totally destroyed.'

'Destroyed?'

'By drink, of course, Colonel. What else? Didn't you hear me tell Castle?'

Castle left them to their subterranean duel. It was time to have a last look at Davis before the pathologist got to work on him. He was glad that the face showed no indication of pain. He drew the pyjamas together across the hollow chest. A b.u.t.ton was missing. Sewing on b.u.t.tons was not part of a daily woman's job. The telephone beside the bed gave a small preliminary tinkle which came to nothing. Perhaps somewhere far away a microphone and a recorder were being detached from the line. Davis would no longer be under surveillance. He had escaped.

Chapter VIII.

I.

Castle sat over what he meant to be his final report. Davis being dead the information from the African section must obviously cease. If the leaks continued there could be no doubt whose was the responsibility, but if the leaks stopped the guilt would be attributed with certainty to the dead man. Davis was beyond suffering; his personal file would be closed and sent to some central store of records, where no one would bother to examine it. What if it contained a story of treachery? Like a Cabinet secret it would be well guarded for thirty years. In a sad way it had been a providential death.

Castle could hear Sarah reading aloud to Sam before packing him off for the night. It was half an hour after his usual bedtime, but tonight he had needed that extra childish comfort for the first week of school had pa.s.sed unhappily.

What a long slow business it was transcribing a report into book code. He would never now get to an end of War and Peace. The next day he would burn his copy for security in a bonfire of autumn leaves without waiting for the Trollope to arrive. He felt relief and regret relief because he had repaid as far as he could his debt of grat.i.tude to Carson, and regret that he would never be able to close the dossier on Uncle Remus and complete his revenge on Cornelius Muller.

When he had finished his report he went downstairs to wait for Sarah. Tomorrow was Sunday. He would have to leave the report in the drop, that third drop which would never be used again; he had signalled its presence there from a call box in Piccadilly Circus before he caught his train at Euston. It was an inordinately slow business, this way of making his last communication, but a quicker and more dangerous route had been reserved for use only in a final emergency. He poured himself a triple J. & B. and the murmur of voices upstairs began to give him a temporary sense of peace. A door was closed softly, footsteps pa.s.sed along the corridor above; the stairs always creaked on the way down he thought how to some people this would seem a dull and domestic, even an intolerable routine. To him it represented a security he had been afraid every hour he might lose. He knew exactly what Sarah would say when she came into the sitting-room, and he knew what he would answer. Familiarity was a protection against the darkness of King's Road outside and the lighted lamp of the police station at the corner. He had always pictured a uniformed policeman, whom he would probably know well by sight, accompanying the man from the Special Branch when the hour struck.

'You've taken your whisky?'

'Can I give you one?'

'A small one, darling.'

'Sam all right?'

'He was asleep before I tucked him in.'

As in an unmutilated cable, there was not one numeral wrongly transcribed.

He handed her the gla.s.s: he hadn't been able to speak until now of what had happened.

'How was the wedding, darling?'

'Pretty awful. I was sorry for poor Daintry.'

'Why poor?'

'He was losing a daughter and I doubt if he has got any friends.'

'There seem to be such a lot of lonely people in your office.'

'Yes. All those that don't pair off for company. Drink up, Sarah.'

'What's the hurry?'

'I want to get both of us another gla.s.s.'

'Why?'

'I've got bad news, Sarah. I couldn't tell you in front of Sam. It's about Davis. Davis is dead.'

'Dead? Davis?'

'Yes.'

'How?'

'Doctor Percival talks of his liver.'

'But a liver doesn't go like that-from one day to another.'

'It's what Doctor Percival says.'

'You don't believe him?'

'No. Not altogether. I don't think Daintry does either.' She gave herself two fingers of whisky he had never seen her do that before. 'Poor, poor Davis.'

Daintry wants an independent post mortem. Percival was quite ready for that. He's obviously quite sure his diagnosis will be confirmed.'

If he's sure, then it must be true?'

'I don't know. I really don't know. They can arrange so many things in our firm. Perhaps even a post mortem.'

'What are we going to tell Sam?

'The truth. It's no good keeping deaths from a child. They happen all the time.'

'But he loved Davis so much. Darling, let me say nothing for a week or two. Until he finds his feet at school.'

'You know best.'

'I wish to G.o.d you could get away from all those people.'

'I shall in a few years.'

'I mean now. This minute. We'd take Sam out of bed and go abroad. The first plane to anywhere.'

'Wait till I've got my pension.'

'I could work, Maurice. We could go to France. It would be easier there. They're used to my colour.'

'It isn't possible, Sarah. Not yet.'

'Why? Give me one good reason...'

'He tried to speak lightly. 'Well, you know a man has to give proper notice.'

'Do they bother about things like notice?'

'He was scared by the quickness of her perception when she said, 'Did they give Davis notice?'

'He said, 'If it was his liver...'

'You don't believe that, do you? Don't forget that I worked for you once-for them. I was your agent. Don't think I haven't noticed the last month how anxious you've been-even about the meter man. There's been a leak, is that it? In your section?'

'I think they think so.'

'And they pinned it on Davis. Do you believe Davis was guilty?'

'It may not have been a deliberate leak. He was very careless.'

'You think they may have killed him because he was careless?

'I suppose that in our outfit there's such a thing as criminal carelessness.'

'It might have been you they suspected, not Davis. And then you'd have died. From too much J. & B.'

'Oh, I've always been very careful,' and he added as a sad joke, Except when I fell in love with you.'

'Where are you going?'

'I want a breath of air and so does Buller.'

2.

On the other side of the long ride through the Common known for some reason as Cold Harbour the beech woods began, sloping down towards the Ashridge road. Castle sat on a bank while Buller rummaged among last year's leaves. He knew he had no business to linger there. Curiosity was no excuse. He should have made his drop and gone. A car came slowly up the road from the direction of Berkhamsted and Castle looked at his watch. It was four hours since he had made his signal from the call box in Piccadilly Circus. He could just make out the number plate of the car, but as he might have expected it was just as strange to him as the car, a small red Toyota. Near the lodge at the entrance to Ashridge Park, the car stopped. No other car was in sight and no pedestrian. 'The driver turned off his lights, and then as though he had second thoughts turned them on again. A noise behind Castle made his heart leap, but it was only Buller b.u.mbling through the bracken.

Castle climbed away through the tall olive-skinned trees which had turned black against the last light. It was over fifty years since he had discovered the hollow in one trunk... four, five, six trees back from the road. In those days he had been forced to stretch almost his full height to reach the hole, but his heart had knocked in the same erratic fashion as it did now. At ten years old he was leaving a message for someone he loved: the girl was only seven. He had shown her the hiding-place when they were together on a picnic, and he had told her he would leave something important there for her the next time he came.