Dread and Water

by Douglas Clark

  “You could provide the answers?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But we should try to do so. But as I said, the answers to that particular problem are already known, and I only used it to illustrate the fact that we here at Pottersby would not be asked to design a bomb, merely to answer some of the problems posed by its discovery and use.”

  “Thank you. I think I understand that point. Would you mind clarifying another? You say you have no formal long-term programme, yet I have been told that the three dead men, Doctors Redruth, Silk and Mailer—I take it he’s dead by now—all came from the same team or department.”

  “Mailer is dead. I should have told you earlier. Yes, they are in a team, as every researcher is. Administratively it would be impossible for everybody to be a loner. My senior colleagues head-up firms or units. All the others belong to units which seem most appropriate to their general abilities. Any research worker who is needed elsewhere is temporarily loaned from his own unit to the one which needs his services. I find that it is necessary to do this actual physical shift, otherwise there could be a conflict of interests.”

  “Quite. So is it possible to know what the three we are interested in were engaged on?”

  “Oddly enough, their unit is engaged on one of our few planned research projects. It is concerned with …”

  “Steady, sir,” warned Toinquet.

  “Oh, yes! Security! Thank you, Michael. But I think I can give these four gentlemen just a general idea of what’s going on in that area.”

  “As long as it is only general, Director.”

  “That particular unit—Group Six—is doing continuing tests on shielding for nuclear reactors. It’s a long-term business.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Green. “Or can’t we be told?”

  “In layman’s terms? Nuclear material is shielded by lead. As you know, you can power a ship by nuclear means if that ship is big enough to carry the weight. But quite powerful reactors can, themselves, be quite small, contained in, say, a twenty-inch cube. These could supply enough power to drive smaller ships or aircraft. But the weight of shielding necessary for safety would make them uneconomic. There’d be no payload. So Group Six is looking into reactor dynamics.”

  “With any hope of success?” asked Masters.

  Crome smiled. “There’s always hope. But I take your point. Shall we just say that should they be successful it would be a great breakthrough in many ways. Not only in providing a useful power source, but also in the disposal of atomic waste which, as you know, has to be shielded just as much as the active material.”

  “Thank you. We won’t press for more details. But can I assume that the three dead men were all nuclear physicists?”

  “You can.”

  “Top-flight men?”

  Crome smiled again. “Mr Masters, all three were brilliant men—as I think you’d agree their qualifications would indicate. But what is regarded as a brilliant brain in the ordinary workaday world may only be regarded as average in a closed community such as this where so many are highly qualified. As I told you, we are not a major research station. So the really outstanding men—those recognised as such by their fellows—do not normally come here.”

  “I understand, Doctor. It explains why your Chief Security Officer regards the mysterious happenings here as a job for the CID rather than Special Branch.”

  “As Whitehall does,” said Toinquet defensively.

  “Quite. And believe me I mean no offence to your staff by suggesting they are so average as not to merit the attention of industrial or other espionage groups.”

  Crome said quietly: “We realise that, even though we take every possible precaution against such eventualities. But perhaps I have misled you. The three men who died were all young—in their early thirties. I think it safe to say that one—or even all three of them—would have graduated, with more experience, to the super league, although that is a description I deplore.”

  “Got it,” said Green. “You use this place almost like a training course for bright youngsters as well as running it as a going concern in its own right.”

  “I couldn’t have put it better myself, Mr Green.”

  Green looked pleased with himself and slurped the remains of his beer.

  “Now,” said Masters, “what about mountaineering?”

  Toinquet took up the running.

  “It’s one of those things with leading scientists. By and large they’re loners. They won’t indulge in team games. Yet they like the exercise. Wherever I’ve been as a Security Officer there’s been a mountaineering and walking club.”

  “Club?” asked Green with mock surprise. “Same as team, isn’t it, Widow?”

  “Hardly. The club part of it is only for administration. The exercise part is every man for himself.”

  Brant leaned forward. “Does that mean that when they aren’t mountaineering or get too old for it they have no interests other than their work?”

  “Of course not. A surprising number of them make music.”

  “Compose?”

  “No. They play. Often quite badly. But two or three of them will get together and immerse themselves in making music. That’s what they call it themselves. On occasions it’s the most excruciating row imaginable, but they do it and enjoy it.”

  “Don’t forget our dramatic society,” said Crome. “Very thriving. We have quite a few women here, you know—employees as well as wives.”

  “They’re interested in play acting?”

  “Of course. It follows the pattern Michael has been outlining. An actor must be an egoist. Anyhow, when they appear they are pandering to their sense of self-importance or self-centredness in character. Nobody else is involved when they’re doing their bit of showing off.”

  “This is very interesting,” said Masters. “I’ve been wondering why two of the men who were killed were climbing solo when I had always believed mountaineers went roped.”

  “You’re talking about normal clubs,” said Toinquet. “Where there are rules and regulations. Our people here consider such precautions as an affront or a deprivation of liberty or some such tarradiddle. Comes of living behind barbed wire all the time, I expect.”

  “There’s something in what Michael says,” added Crome. “Just as people who live in these high-rise flats get neuroses, so do our people here. You know, it is terribly difficult for them. They are supposed to take mental leaps in the dark—to tread where nobody else has ever trodden before—and yet they are confined physically within a guarded perimeter. And even when they’re outside it they cannot discuss their work. The trouble that constraint causes—particularly to the less conservative among us—is immense.”

  “I can imagine it.”

  “Some of them are arrogant,” asserted Toinquet. “They think they can do what others can’t—that they’re indestructible on mountains, in snowstorms, rain and mist. It’s really an unbelievable trait in highly intelligent men.”

  “So with the three you’ve lost,” said Green, “it could literally have been a case of pride coming before the fall?”

  “That would be too easy a conclusion,” said Crome. “They were all able climbers, weren’t they, Michael?”

  “Oddly enough, Director, those three were. In fact, from my observations, I’d have said they were three of the few who really had their heads screwed on properly round here.”

  Masters said nothing, but drummed with one finger on the table. Crome got up to open more bottles of beer. As he placed one beside Masters he said: “You’re looking a bit pensive, Super. Is something we’ve said troubling you?”

  “I think so. Able climbers falling from easy slopes sounds bad. When the climbers are all brilliant young men destined for higher things it sounds even worse.”

  “You mean it makes murder look more likely?”

  “Doesn’t it to you?”

  “I have never doubted it was murder—after Mailer’s fall, that is.”

  “Ah! Then you must have so
me fact on which to base your opinion. As a scientist you would not accept an unsubstantiated belief as being beyond doubt.”

  Crome sat down. “You’re not slow at catching on.”

  “Please don’t insult me. This isn’t the first case I’ve investigated.”

  “I apologise. Even I know something of your reputation, and I’d have said I was as unworldly as any man—being one of the lunatic boffins shut up in his own little scientific sphere.”

  “Not so,” replied Masters. “To be the Director of a government research centre means you have to be extremely aware of what goes on—politically, at any rate. You need to deal with Whitehall more than most. But that is by the way. Your reason for being confident it was murder, Doctor Crome, if you please.”

  “Egg-heads like us tend to belong to chosen schools of thought. I’ll explain that. Take astronomers as an example. The two main schools on the formation of the universe are the big-bang merchants and the steady-state adherents. So in other forms of physics. Over certain premises we tend to polarise. Nobody disagrees on pure basics, but they do on directions and uses if not on more abstruse questions.”

  “How abstruse?”

  “Well, I don’t want to talk above your heads—which is a common failing among people like us—but there is the argument raging here about whether parity is conserved or not.”

  “You are above my head already.”

  Crome laughed. “In layman’s terms again, it’s the argument as to whether the physical universe is more left-handed than right-handed or vice versa, or whether it is absolutely impartial.”

  Green grunted in disbelief. “You mean that is a bone of contention among your people?”

  “I’m not talking about human beings, but about particle physics,” explained Crome. “One school says parity is preserved, others say it is not. The older men tend to belong to the former school, the younger ones to the latter. These young people assert it has been proved that with certain particles, at least, there is no mirror image of reactions and interactions—almost like Newton’s old law of equal and opposite reactions which you will have heard of. Our three dead men were all members of the school who believe that parity is not conserved. Now I’m not saying that this particular argument has any bearing on the tragedies. I’m just using it as an illustration of the fact that there are deep professional divisions among us.”

  “But you are, nevertheless, suggesting that professional disagreement among your scientists could have led to these three deaths.”

  “I have made the point advisedly—in the interests of your investigation.” He spread his hands. “I was bound to think something of the sort, particularly as most of the others here believe that parity in nature is conserved. These three men were linked so indissolubly in the way they met their deaths, their ages, their abilities, their schools of thought, their work, their department … need I go on?”

  “No, Doctor. But I can’t believe they were killed because they believe nature is not impartial.”

  “Your decisions or beliefs are for you to arrive at. You have come in from outside. It should be easier for you to make a reasonable assessment than it is for me working here among these people.”

  Masters took out his pipe. “We’ve talked about mountaineering. Did Mr Toinquet say there was a walking club as well?”

  “It’s the same club,” said the Security man. “What usually happens is that climbers and walkers go off together at week-ends in the same coach. It’s the cheapest way. They go to Wales, the Lake District and—particularly when there’s a long break as at Easter and Whit—to Scotland or wherever so that those who want to climb can do so, and the rest can walk.”

  “Not private cars?”

  “It’s unusual for them to take cars. They’re not highly paid, you know. The pennies count. A hired coach comes cheaper. Particularly as they have one most week-ends in the year.”

  “Always the same blokes?” asked Green.

  “Not by a long chalk. I think there are nearly a couple of hundred in the club. Some are keener than others, of course.”

  “Women, too?”

  Toinquet nodded. “Quite a number of tough young birds here, though they’re usually in the walking parties.”

  “Anybody keep lists of who goes on these trips?”

  “I do. I keep a note of everything. You should know that.”

  “Then you know what I was going to ask.”

  “I do. How many people were present on all three occasions when the deaths occurred.”

  “Well?”

  “No mountaineers. Some walkers. But I might as well tell you that when each of those three fell, they were seen to be alone on their climbs, and the walkers were all some distance away.”

  “They were seen to be climbing alone and to fall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who by?”

  “Other climbers and various people who go along to fill up the bus. They don’t climb or walk. They picnic or camp or just watch or take films. There’s usually a party of two or three of them. Wives sometimes.”

  Crome looked at his watch. “Anything more for the moment? I shall be available whenever you wish to see me, of course, but I have an engagement in a few minutes’ time.”

  “There are quite a lot more questions to be answered,” admitted Masters, who felt less than pleased that an important murder investigation should be interrupted virtually at the outset for what he could only assume—as it was Sunday evening—would be a social occasion. Probably a cocktail party, judging by the early hour.

  “In that case, perhaps I could seek you out later. Meantime, I will hand you over to Michael who will see you into your quarters and show you the mess dining room and bar.”

  Green pushed his chair back. “You’re putting us up while we’re here?”

  “I assumed that is what you’d like me to do. We’ve got the room. There’s the pub in the village, of course, but I doubt whether you’d get four beds at such short notice.”

  “We shall do very well here,” said Masters. “Thank you, Doctor, for the offer.”

  “Right then,” said Toinquet. “This way, gentlemen.”

  Chapter 2

  To the surprise of Masters who, for no very sound reason, had thought the living quarters would be in the main house, they were ushered out of a side door and along a narrow concrete path towards one of the modern blocks.

  “Does nobody live in the house?” he asked as they went.

  “Only the Director. He has a large flat up there. The rest of it is given over to admin offices, central registry, library and so on. My private office is in there, too.”

  “It seems to me like the waste of a gracious home.”

  Toinquet didn’t reply. Masters didn’t know whether the Security Officer agreed or disagreed on this point, but darkness and the narrowness of the way did not make for easy conversation, and the party fell silent as they went along in single file.

  “It’s all here,” said Toinquet as they stepped inside the double swing doors of the single-storey complex and stopped in front of a glass-fronted notice-board. “The complete lay-out of the living quarters if you’re interested.”

  The diagram showed the building to be in the shape of a capital H. The main entrance—the one they had just used—was at the western end of the crosspiece. The north and south running arms of the first upright were devoted entirely to study-bedrooms, with bathrooms at either end. The southern half of the second upright was given over to similar rooms. The northern half of the second upright was, however, differently divided. In the centre of it, directly opposite the main doorway where they were now congregated, was a games and TV room, then an office—presumably the mess office. Next door to this, a bar. After that, the corridor was included in a very large room—the ante room—which in turn led to one of similar size—the dining room. Beyond this—where the bathrooms were in the other wings—were kitchens and boiler room.

  The corridors were on the inside of each
wing, with rooms on the outside only. The area enclosed on the north by the arms of the H was labelled Car Park, that to the south Lawn and Drying Ground.

  “Drying Ground?” queried Green.

  “Linen lines,” replied Toinquet. “Lots of people wash their own smalls at week-ends. They hang them out there. Why, lord only knows. There’s a perfectly good airing room for that sort of thing, but this lot will tell you that things smell sweeter dried in the open. Sweeter! I ask you! The place looks like a back street in Naples in decent weather, just when people want to put a deckchair out there.”

  “Seems reasonable to me,” answered Green. From the way in which the DI made this remark, Masters guessed he was trying to be perverse, and his next words proved it. “If cleanliness is next to Godliness, Widow, and you’re nearer God’s heart in a garden, you’ve got the best of both worlds. Or are you frightened the girls are giving ground-to-air signals of a secret nature every time they hang their knickers on the line?”

  Toinquet didn’t rise to that one, but went on to point out to Masters that there were subsidiary doors in the middle of each of the near wings and the central corridor which gave on to the car park and the lawns.

  “So,” he continued, “all your rooms are down this corridor on the left. Bathrooms and lavatories at the end. Be careful with the loos. One’s reserved for women.”

  The floors were covered in heavy brown vinyl, the unplastered walls cream-washed, the paintwork a gloss brown that reminded Masters of the hard brightness of pottery horses. The place was spotless.

  “Numbers six and seven, eleven and twelve. All ready made up. Keys in the doors. I’ll see you in.”

  “Can I bring the car round?” asked Brant.

  “Sorry. Yes. This park here is reserved for living-in members’ cars.” Toinquet stopped at one of the corridor windows. The asphalt patch already held several vehicles. “Bring it in there and park it just close to this side door down here.”