Slow Burner

by William Haggard

  On neutral ground Mortimer began to talk more freely than he would have allowed himself in the Executive. He was resentful and said so. ‘It’s a travesty,’ he began, ‘a mockery of Security work. Here’s Parton with a case against him which anybody short of a lawyer would act on—just the sort of case the special powers were granted for. And what are we doing about it?’ Mortimer answered himself with contempt. ‘We’re wondering about Sir Jeremy,’ he said. ‘Sir Jeremy!’

  ‘We are obliged to, you know,’ Russell said mildly.

  ‘I know we are. That’s what’s so damned unfair. I know that Parton’s safe enough for a day or two—safe, that is, until he leaves hospital. But he’ll get out sometime, and then . . .? If it’s East he’s thinking of . . .?’

  Russell did not answer, and Mortimer went on, his anger rising. ‘And it isn’t,’ he said, ‘only a question of keeping Parton in the country. There are a dozen things we ought to know—more about his contacts, for instance. And if it’s East he was going, then we want to know how he was planning to get there. If we could get a line on the Underground . . .’

  Russell sighed quietly. ‘I know,’ he admitted.

  ‘We shouldn’t be asked to play politics,’ Mortimer said stubbornly.

  ‘With nothing neat and tidy—nothing for honest Security Officers to work with.’ Russell was smiling, but not happily. ‘Though we are assuming,’ he added, ‘that Sir Jeremy still says no—when we have told him what Levison has just told us. We have still to do that.’

  ‘You think it might change his mind?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I confess that I’m not very hopeful.’

  ‘Then why bother to tell him?’ Mortimer said irritably.

  But Russell took this seriously. ‘You have a point,’ he said; he drank a little wine. ‘What we should be saying to Bates,’ he said reflectively, ‘is that our original suspicions about Parton—because he was Parton with Parton’s record and because he was capable of making that apparatus at Mrs Tarbat’s—have been sharpened by the knowledge that he knew her and therefore could have planted it. “Sharpened”, I am afraid, is the operative word. We cannot say “established”.’

  ‘Why should we?’

  ‘Granted. But suppose Sir Jeremy refuses us—we are sunk, are we not? Finally. We know our Sir Jeremy: the oftener he says no the more difficult he will find it ever to say yes.’

  ‘Quite so.’ Major Mortimer hesitated. ‘But if we don’t tell him,’ he added, ‘we shall be taking appalling risks.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And personal risks,’ he concluded.

  Colonel Russell pierced two cigars very carefully. He passed one to Mortimer and held a match to his own until he was satisfied that it would draw. Then he put it into his mouth. He wasn’t a man to spoil a good cigar. He smoked for a while, exhaling happily. ‘It is one of the attractions of our trade,’ h© said at last, ‘that occasionally one is obliged to accept risks. To tell you the truth I was thinking of doing so. Not the risk of failing to convey what it is clearly our duty to pass on . . . No, rather the opposite.’

  Mortimer’s eyebrows rose in inquiry, but Russell did not at once answer. When he did his manner was deliberately matter of fact. ‘I was thinking of going directly to the Minister,’ he said.

  Mortimer’s breath escaped him audibly. ‘There would be the devil to pay if you did,’ he said.

  ‘There would.’

  ‘Sir Jeremy wouldn’t forget—or forgive.’

  ‘I am getting a little tired of discussing Sir Jeremy,’ Russell said.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘But that wasn’t a reproof: it was a statement of fact.’ Russell’s smile was affectionate. ‘Mortimer,’ he said, ‘you are not yourself in this. You understand? In no way. I haven’t made up my mind but I mean to this afternoon. Keep things away from me if you can. I want to think.’

  William Nichol left his meeting even more depressed than he had entered it. These meetings at the Society weren’t engagements to which he particularly looked forward, and today’s had been rather more tedious than usual. He looked about him at the courtyard. He did not think it very good, nor yet entirely bad. He knew that it was a Victorian reconstruction and that the nobleman whose ideas had suffered in the process would have disowned it at sight. Nevertheless he had his reservations about the Noble Lord himself. The pure Palladian import, he thought—somehow it never quite came off in England. The light was wrong and the air; shadow fell too feebly, or incalculably, or not at all. Nichol looked across the courtyard on the chance of a taxi, noticing with a sense of its incongruity the ten-wheeled lorry parked at its centre. In the courtyard lorries were not something to be seen daily, and in any case a ten-wheeler could barely have scraped in. The driver was sitting at his wheel, his cap over his eyes. There was no taxi, and Nichol began to walk towards the archway leading to the street. Behind him the lorry started its engine.

  He found himself at the entrance to the archway, a tunnel, perhaps a dozen paces, between courtyard and street. The roadway ran between two pavements. Nichol thought again that it wouldn’t be over-generous for the huge ten-wheeler. The note of the engine behind him rose suddenly to a roar and he was aware that the lorry was upon him. His reflexes exploded in his legs and he leapt for the pavement. The wing of the lorry caught him in the air; threw him mercilessly against the wall. He fell in an untidy heap of hat and stick and legs, but he fell conscious that he was alive. The lorry shot on into the street, turned with the traffic and was gone.

  William Nichol, with deliberation, pulled himself to his feet. He was shaken and sick and his face was cut; but he was whole. The pavement had been muddy, and his clothes were stained and torn. He had burst his collar and he had lost his hat. He walked with care, keeping a hand upon the wall, to the steps of the Chemistry Society. He sat down slowly, forcing himself to relax. He found himself thinking that it was lucky he had kept himself in reasonable shape. Those hours as a boy, at school and at the university—those hours at play hadn’t been wasted, nor the golf and shooting which had succeeded them. He was fitter than most and, as a consequence, alive to boast of it. He even played rackets still . . . well, not exactly. He smiled as he remembered the occasion. He had gone to Queen’s to watch a nephew and there had been some muddle over the timings. His brother and himself had made for the bar. Perhaps they had drunk a little quicker than they had intended. It had ended in their borrowing rackets and shoes and going themselves into the empty court. The thin gallery had cheered with a friendly irony. ‘New balls, please,’ Nichol had said to the marker. ‘Thirty years ago he could beat me.’

  He smiled again, rising to his feet. His pulse, he found, was very nearly steady. He picked his hat from the gutter and examined it. He threw it away again; he did not believe that hats could be successfully re-blocked. In the street he found a taxi and directed it back to Bratt’s. It was only a step away and now he could have managed the walk, but he was not a man to walk hatless in London.

  He paid his taxi and to the hall porter gave brief instructions. His voice was entirely steady. ‘Henry,’ he said, ‘I have had an accident—no, nothing to worry about, but I am not presentable. Telephone to Colton, please, and ask them to send me a change of clothes. A complete change. The housekeeper will know what is wanted. They are to be sent here by car. At once. I shall go to a bedroom now and lie down a little.’

  The porter inspected him dubiously. ‘Very good, sir,’ he said. ‘And shall I send for a doctor?’

  ‘No thank you. I don’t need one.’

  But the porter wasn’t satisfied. ‘Doctor Morris will be in the club this evening, sir,’ he ventured. ‘Should I ask him to come up to you?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes, if you would. Perhaps it would be as well.’

  The porter was clearly relieved. ‘And can I get you a drink, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘By no means.’ William Nichol managed a creditable smile. ‘At any other time,’ he explained, ‘but emphatically not now. But I should be grateful
for some tea. Strong, and as hot as you can make it. And all the sugar in the world.’

  In the Security Executive Charles Russell sat down at his desk. Cheated of talk with Nichol he retreated upon a well-tried resort. He would make an Appreciation. He drew to wards him a sheet of the thickest foolscap which the office provided. He was entitled by his rank to the best writing paper, and in fact it was a necessity, for he wrote a deliberate and a heavy hand, APPRECIATION, he wrote across the head of the sheet, and at once his mind fell into a familiar groove: AIM, FACTORS, COURSES OPEN TO MYSELF, TO THE ENEMY—PLAN. The Aim, he considered was obvious: it was to arrest Ellis Parton and to discover about his plans everything which could be discovered . . . Armour, Air, Artillery Support, Climatic Conditions. Charles Russell cursed quietly. The only certain factor was that Sir Jeremy would decline to grasp the nettle; he would shy at the Nuclear Security Order, shy at the special powers, until there was no need to use them.

  Or until it was entirely too late to do so.

  Charles Russell swore again. It occurred to him that perhaps Sir Jeremy should be put under Morale, and in that case it would be proper to bring under the same heading the realization, which had struck him this morning, at his breakfast and with more than customary point, that he was due for retirement in a matter of months. Colonel Russell had realized that he was becoming increasingly exasperated by Sir Jeremy, but the thought had also struck him that at this stage he would have to do something really outrageous to lose his pension . . . such, he wondered, as going over Sir Jeremy’s head to Palliser. It would be unheard of, a personal affront. Protocol . . . Russell sighed, bringing his mind with an effort back to his Appreciation . . . Courses Open? There were no courses open. Sir Jeremy wouldn’t decline to listen to what was unwelcome, but having done so he would drift and block and drift again until the situation declared itself. Then he would improvise. It would be very competent improvisation, no doubt—a really admirable making the best of what by then would be a very bad job. Russell sighed again, for he didn’t want a bad job: his instincts were to take action to avoid one. Plan, then? He shrugged angrily. No plan was possible when instinct and a trained, a professional caution barred the road to it. Regretfully he drew a line through his bold APPRECIATION. Instead he wrote below it, but not in capital letters: Summary.

  1. We began by assuming that this apparatus at Dipley was a blind—because it was the only assumption which offered any explanation at all.

  2. We next assumed that only a scientist of the top flight could have done such a thing, and

  3. That he had planted this machine in order to distract attention from himself whilst he left the country.

  Up to this point our assumptions were supported only by the absence of any others more convincing.

  Russell read these paragraphs and reflected. Then he took his pen again and wrote rapidly:

  4. But it then became apparent that the plant had turned against the planter. Since no scientist of the top flight had left the country or to the best of our knowledge had tried to, then obviously so far from distracting attention the blind had attracted it.

  5. Attracted it to whom? To any top scientist who might have tried to leave us but had been prevented by circumstances.

  6. We knew of only one such: Parton—because he went sick unexpectedly.

  7. Who was already suspect upon general grounds and who

  8. We now know was acquainted with Mrs Tarbat; could have got into her house; and could:

  (a) have made the plant with her knowledge and consent, or

  (b) if she objected had very probably a handle to oblige her to agree.

  Russell put down his pen and sighed. It was a pretty good case, he thought—Generals fought battles upon much less and sometimes won them. But very senior civil servants . . . No, Sir Jeremy wouldn’t take the risk. The special powers had never been used. There would be questions in the House. His Minister’s majority wasn’t too healthy and . . .

  And it was entirely possible that Sir Jeremy still wouldn’t recommend that the special powers be invoked.

  Charles Russell sighed again. He told himself, but with reluctance, that Sir Jeremy wouldn’t do a thing. Not a thing.

  He read his paper again with distaste, for he was conscious that it had in no way advanced his personal decision. He crossed to his safe; spun the combination; and, with a gesture of irritation, threw his Summary inside. He shut the safe and turned. A uniformed Inspector was standing by his desk, and in the Security Executive uniformed policemen were a rarity. But this one Colonel Russell knew well; he came from a Division where curiosities had long since ceased to be curious. ‘Good afternoon, Williams,’ Russell said. ‘Please sit down.’

  Inspector Williams sat down. ‘Have you seen the afternoon paper, sir?’ he inquired.

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Then I had better start at the beginning. Doctor Nichol has had an accident.’

  ‘Not serious, I hope. You’re not trying to tell me . . .’

  ‘No, sir. I came to tell you he was quite all right. He has gone to his club and is resting.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that. I’ll telephone later. And thank you, too. It was good of you to tell me.’

  But Inspector Williams did not rise. He seemed to be hesitating. ‘It was a very unusual sort of accident,’ he said finally.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Yes . . . I think so. There was a ten-wheeled lorry in the courtyard of Burlington House when Doctor Nichol was leaving his meeting. I can’t think what it was doing there and we have already checked that it wasn’t calling. It drove through the archway at an impossible speed just as Doctor Nichol was walking out of it. As I say, he escaped. He jumped for it—he must be pretty spry.’

  Charles Russell considered this. ‘It’s police work,’ he said, ‘if it’s anything.’

  ‘Quite so, sir. It’s rather odd, we thought, but then we’re paid to think things odd. We’ll follow it up, of course.’

  ‘Of course. And please let me know if anything emerges.’

  ‘Naturally, sir.’ Inspector Williams saluted and withdrew.

  Charles Russell began once more to consider his private problem, but he did not get far with it. For the messages began to arrive in a crescendo. First was the information that the lorry had been abandoned in Piccadilly. The driver had vanished. There was little in that, Russell reflected—plenty of people lost their heads after an accident with a motor vehicle. Then a little later the report that the lorry had been stolen an hour before the incident . . . Hm, not much further forward by that, except that it would be an additional reason for the driver losing his head after an accident if the vehicle concerned had been stolen. That had been followed up as a matter of routine, and it hadn’t been difficult to discover that after the accident a man had been noticed running dangerously across the street. But naturally, Russell decided—he had to go somewhere, so where had he gone? Well, a man had been seen getting into a faster-than-average saloon in St James’s Square and driving away with an urgency which had impressed the incident on the observer. No, she couldn’t swear to the time within minutes, but it was evident that the driver of the lorry could also be the driver of the saloon. The number of the faster-than-average saloon? No again, she hadn’t taken it.

  But that had been unimportant since an hour later a faster-than-average saloon had been wrecked in South London and the driver, unconscious, taken to hospital. That again had been followed up at once. The number plates had been false, but by the late afternoon it had been established that the saloon had in turn been stolen in Reading the day before.

  Charles Russell considered this information with mounting interest. His expression was grim. He thought it very meticulous, very competent planning for an accident.

  Major Mortimer himself brought the final news, and he was very serious. By then it was nearly midnight. ‘The driver of that car has come to,’ he said. ‘He has admitted that he was also driving the lorry. He has admitted that hitting
Doctor Nichol wasn’t an accident.’

  Charles Russell fit his pipe. ‘It would have taken a certain amount of explanation if he had said otherwise,’ he suggested.

  ‘Precisely. So we know that it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘But have still to discover what it was. And why. That may not be so easy.’

  ‘We know that too,’ Mortimer said. He seemed a little reluctant to go on, and when he spoke again his manner was almost apologetic. ‘The driver told us,’ he said, ‘that Sir Jeremy Bates had promised him ten thousand pounds to kill Doctor Nichol.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Russell said.

  Mortimer knew his master and he waited; he watched him as he considered impassively. ‘Who is this man?’ Russell asked finally.

  , ‘His name is Schmidt.’

  ‘Schmidt? Not that Schmidt you were talking about at Colton? The wine waiter—Nichol’s housekeeper’s gentleman friend?’

  ‘Just that Schmidt. He stole the lorry and he stole the car. He drove the lorry at Doctor Nichol in Burlington House. It must have been a damned close thing. He had been taking Dutch courage and he crashed the car he’d put ready for the getaway. The doctors don’t think he’ll five very long.’

  Charles Russell considered again. ‘It’s utter nonsense,’ he repeated.

  ‘But I’m afraid it’s not.’ Mortimer spoke stubbornly. ‘Not the facts, I mean—they have been established. This Schmidt—he did steal a lorry. Why should he do that? He’s a wine waiter. And he did drive it at Doctor Nichol. Why again?’

  ‘I agree it’s odd. This man is a friend of Nichol’s housekeeper, so there’s a connexion with Nichol. But none, his story apart, with Bates.’

  ‘But is his story so apart? Naturally we asked him how he knew that Nichol would be where he was at that particular time. He said at once that Sir Jeremy told him.’