by HRF Keating
Clam up here. Clam up quick. Don’t want him somehow mentioning to Wichmann that I’m interested.
Hastily she moved back to the circumstances of the break-in.
‘Now, there’s something else you could perhaps tell me.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s about a story that appeared in the Evening Star a few weeks ago. Dr Lennox mentioned it to me just now. He said someone here at the Institute may have spoken out of turn to some reporter or other from the Star, about the original discovery of — what was it? — CA 490?’
‘No, 491. That was our first full success.’
‘Thank you. CA 491. I was wondering, have you any idea who could have spoken to —’ A sudden recall. ‘To, yes, Tim Patterson of the Star. That story was a scoop of his, as I remember. I know the fellow, never short of an exclusive story, though not always one that proves to be strictly accurate.’
‘And you’re wondering who it was here who talked to him about CA 491? You think they might have spoken to someone else, about CA 534?’
‘I wondered, yes.’
‘Well, I think I can set your mind at rest there. After that story in the Star about CA 491 the Director asked me to make some discreet inquiries, and I was able to put my finger on the culprit. I’m sorry that I was, as a matter of fact.’
‘Oh. Why?’
‘The chap got the push. That very day.’
‘I see. But — but, yes, could he have been aggrieved over that? I imagine Dr Lennox would not be too kind about sacking him.’
‘I know what you mean. But, no. I actually went to see the fellow to sort of apologise — I won’t tell you his name — and I learnt that he was heading straight off to Australia, he knew of a job there that was his for the asking. So I really don’t think he could have anything to do with this business.’
She wondered whether to extract the name of Tim Patterson’s informant from this timid and confused young man. But decided not to press him. The chap had apparently gone to Australia, and it was worth keeping Christopher on her side.
‘Yes, you’re almost certainly right,’ she said. ‘But can you prepare for me a list of all the employees here, right down to, yes, that cleaning lady. And I don’t think I need keep you any longer. Here’s my card, if you’d tell me when you’ve got the list ready. But now, no doubt, Dr Lennox will have things he wants you to do.’
Christopher’s pink cheeks paled.
‘Oh, gosh, yes. Yes, there’s the documents he asked for yesterday.’
*
Harriet drove directly to University Boulevard. It did not take her long, cruising down it, to find Bulstrode Road, and not much longer to spot halfway along a display of vegetables on the pavement outside a greengrocer’s shop.
She parked a short distance further on.
No sense in giving any warning to a man who, if he is in the flat above the shop, may be sitting with that container of ultra-potent herbicide concealed somewhere on the premises, going over and over in his mind the circumstances of the break-in at Heronsgate House and whether anything about them might lead to him.
She strolled back past the shop, giving a casual appraising glance to its neatly arranged boxes of apples, oranges and pretty side-by-side bunches of green grapes and red. She saw that the way to the flat above must be somewhere at the rear. There were no stairs in the dark depths at the back.
Turning, she found, some fifty yards along the terrace, a narrow passage leading to an alleyway behind. She made her way down it and soon worked out which building must be the greengrocer’s. There was a small yard with, under a sloping roof, piled sacks of potatoes, at a guess. And to one side a flight of iron steps led up to a blue door, much faded, with a tinny-looking chrome letterbox at its centre.
With some caution, she climbed up and pressed the button on the little bell-push precariously attached to the door jamb.
A crackly buzz from inside came clearly to her ears.
But nothing else.
The aged professor of German sitting crouched there in fear? Or innocently asleep in his armchair, knowing nothing of any break-in at Heronsgate House?
She buzzed again, and for good measure gave the tinny knocker on the letterbox a long repeated tapping.
Still nothing.
She turned and looked down into the little yard below and then out into what she could see beyond the back wall. Nothing. Nobody.
She dropped to her knees and pushed open with her fingers, wide as she could, the flap of the letterbox. She peered through. But she was able to see almost nothing.
Another quick glance behind her, and then she put her mouth close up to the open flap.
‘Hello?’ she called.
She listened. No response.
‘Hello? Hello?’
Still nothing.
Last try.
‘Mr Wichmann? Mr Wichmann? Hello? Hello?’
She gave it as long as a count of one hundred. Then she abandoned it.
Rubbing her knees where the iron grating had bitten into them, she made her way down, crossed the earthy-smelling yard with its stored potatoes, and made her way back round into Bulstrode Road and along again to the greengrocer’s.
Its proprietor, she saw, was standing now in his doorway, looking out at the world, an Indian or Pakistani, comfortably chubby.
‘Good morning,’ she said.
‘Madam, good morning. There is something I can supply? Today I am having some very fine oranges, and grapes also. Very good, nothing of seeds.’
‘No. No, thank you. Or, perhaps later. But I really wanted to ask you about the man who lives in the flat above you. Professor Wichmann.’
‘Ah, yes, very fine gentleman.’
‘He doesn’t seem to be there. Do you know if he’s out?’
‘Yes, yes. He has gone to university library. He was telling. Always when he is going out, if I am here, he is mentioning. Very good. When you are old, that is always best.’
‘Yes. Yes, you’re right. A sensible precaution. So you think I could find him at the university? In the library there?’
‘Oh, it is yes and no also. He would go for shopping also.’
Harriet had to admit defeat. Try later in the day.
She thanked — she looked up at the fascia above — Mr Chaudhuri, bought a bunch of his nothing-of-seeds grapes, and, back in the car, considered what her next step should be.
Precious little progress so far. All right, I’ve got the description of the intruders which those two security idiots produced. But they were fuzzy about it all, to say the least. Get hold of them again? Certainly should at some point. Something not quite right there. But seeing them again as soon as this isn’t going to produce anything more. They’ll have to stew.
There’s something else too, scratching at a corner of my mind. About Christopher Alexander, I think. Was there a moment when he seemed more than usually unsure? When he may have been boxing clever somehow?
But she could pin nothing down. Abruptly an idea for a new approach came to her.
Those stories in the Star about the Heronsgate Institute, surely their chief crime reporter so-called, Tim Patterson, must know a good deal about the place. Worth picking his brains, old adversary from press conferences though he is?
Yes, a word with him. The horse’s mouth. If a vicious one.
But …
But how to approach him? At all costs I mustn’t give him the least hint of the theft of the CA 534.
By the time she had arrived at the Star office she felt she had solved the problem. Brushing aside Tim Patterson’s pretty perfunctory condolences — Hologram Harriet fully in control — she said, ‘I expect you’re surprised to find me here. But I’ve come to satisfy something nagging at me. When we were down in London on Tuesday, seeing our injured son, as we came out of St Mary’s Hospital late at night, my husband spotted an early copy of the Banner with a headline saying “PC Twins in Bomb Blast Terror”. Seeing it suddenly like that hurt me rather, to tell the tr
uth, and ever since I’ve been puzzling myself as to how they knew so quickly down there that the boys were twins. So, forgive me, but I’ve come to the experts for an answer.’
Then, to her astonishment, she saw something like a blush appear on Tim Patterson’s usually intently pale face.
‘I — I —’ he stammered. ‘Well, I can explain that myself actually. You see, I’m the stringer here for the Banner, and, whenever there’s a story with a Birchester angle, it’s sort of my duty to phone it in to them.’
‘Oh, well,’ Hologram Harriet said coolly, ‘that accounts for it.’
But Real Harriet, almost at the surface, had other thoughts.
So that’s how that bloody paper got that headline. A cheap thrill for its readers. And never mind my misery. Our misery.
Hologram Harriet, however, was still well in charge.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘it must be past opening time now, so come for a drink. Show there’s no ill-feeling.’
She saw a look of faint disbelief on Tim Patterson’s face, but he got to his feet and accompanied her to a quiet pub, The Leather Bottle, not far away.
There, ordering a Guinness for him — she remembered he called that a reporter’s drink — and a lager for herself, plus a sandwich when she realised she had eaten nothing since a barely tasted breakfast, she began cautiously to approach finding out how much poke-nose Patterson knew about Heronsgate House.
But she had not got far when her mobile squeaked out.
‘Excuse me, a second.’
Then to the mobile, ‘Yes?’
‘It’s John, darling. I’ve just heard from St Mary’s. Malcolm’s recovered consciousness. He’s very weak, of course, and they suggest it would be best if we waited till tomorrow before going down to see him in case it’s all too much for him.’
‘Yes. Yes, I understand what they’re saying, but tomorrow …’
‘I know what you mean. But we must accept their advice, at least to some extent. But we could, I think, go late this evening, if it’s OK. Apparently all he’s been able to do so far is mutter a few words, “Where am I? What happened?” That sort of thing. And beyond telling him where he was and that he was in good hands, that’s all they thought they should say. For the time being at least.’
‘Yes, of course. But, John, it’s wonderful. Wonderful, isn’t it? And we could always ring and ask if we can come tonight, couldn’t we?’
‘We could, if all still goes well, yes. We’ll talk this evening. And there’ll be something else to discuss, actually. The people at St Mary’s want to know when we’re going to have Graham’s funeral. They were very good about it, but I think they’re anxious to keep the maximum amount of space in the mortuary there. In case of what they call a major incident.’
Her thoughts whirled. Funeral, funeral. Yes, there’ll have to be one. A funeral for the shattered remains. A coffin, like a box of butcher’s waste. And Malcolm. The hospital’s more optimistic, but how long will it be before he’s on his feet, if he ever is. Should we delay a funeral? God, I don’t know. I can’t think. We’ve neither of us given it a thought. Unless John has had it in his head. But I haven’t. I haven’t at all.
‘But, you?’ John’s voice came in her ear. ‘How did your interview with the formidable Mr Brown go?’
‘I’ll tell you tonight. Can’t talk at present.’
She cut the call.
‘That was about your son?’ Tim Patterson asked. ‘The one in hospital? I couldn’t help hearing. It sounded like good news.’
‘It was. Malcolm’s recovered consciousness, thank God.’
‘Oh, that’s good. Very good.’
For a moment she warmed to him. But then she caught a tiny hint of calculation in his eyes and realised that what he was really thinking was bit of a story here, must get back to the office, make the final edition.
All right, I’m going to use this damn fellow.
‘I’ve been thinking recently,’ she said, ‘about the piece you wrote the other day on that runaway herbicide they contrived to manufacture at Heronsgate House. I expect the stuff’s been destroyed now, but it has occurred to me — you know I’m in charge of Greater Birchester Police terrorist precautions — that if something like that got into the hands of any terrorist organisation it might prove as much of a threat as whatever explosives they normally acquire.’
She saw Tim Patterson’s eyes light up. Some bigger story here?
‘So I was wondering how you got hold of your facts about that herbicide going critical, if that’s the right expression. I mean, if you could get to know about something at Heronsgate House which they wanted kept strictly confidential, perhaps some terrorist outfit could do the same?’
A bit flimsy, she thought. But will it …?
It did.
‘So your anti-terrorist precautions extend even to a place like the Heronsgate Institute?’ Tim asked, with ill-concealed eagerness.
‘Oh, yes. Indeed they do. Or they’re going to very soon.’
‘And it’d help you if you learnt the secret of the Star crime correspondent’s methods?’
‘It very well might, and I’d be grateful.’
‘OK. Well, basically it’s very simple. What you do is make sure you’ve got as many contacts, up and down the city, as you can possibly get. It involves, I’m sorry to say, more than a little imbibing of alcohol. But one must suffer in a good cause.’
He gave a grin.
An unpleasant grin, Harriet thought. More of a smirk.
‘And you found a contact at Heronsgate House?’ she asked.
‘Chap called Oliphant, actually. Recently sacked, I’m sorry to say. And in Australia now, poor sod.’
Damn. Trail ending at something I’ve already found out.
‘So you don’t actually know now anything at all about the set-up at Heronsgate House?’ she said, provocatively.
Tim Patterson sat up straighter.
‘Oh, don’t I? You mustn’t think when I’m on to something that, if one door shuts, I don’t get my foot in at another. No, I’m happy to say I go drinking from time to time now with a chap who’s actually PA to the Director there. Name of Chris Alexander.’
Chris to you as well as to his boss. I bet he doesn’t like that, poor Christopher.
But Tim Patterson was happily boasting on.
‘Got to know him through a girlfriend of mine who works on the women’s page at the Chronicle, Maggie Quirke. Ex-girlfriend, I should say. I … er … let Chris take her over. I was getting tired of her, tell the truth. Very fanciable, wonderful body — she’s a marathon runner — big white-teeth smile and all that. But, alas, not much of an athlete in bed. So I passed her on. Pretended to Chris he stole her off me. He’s so unsure of himself, it isn’t true. That’s how one gets a good contact.’
Another smirk of a smile.
So, yes, Harriet thought, I was right to feel something was not hundred per cent kosher when I was talking to Christopher. He must have been wondering all along if he’d said more than he should to this nasty piece of work here.
‘I never realised the lengths someone like you has to go to,’ she said, heading Tim off from things it was better he should have no idea of. ‘I’m impressed, really. I’m surprised you haven’t got yourself down to Fleet Street.’
Compliment received, with evident pleasure.
‘Oh, I could get a job down there, when I’m ready. But there’s a lot to be said for being a big fish in a small pond, you know. For instance, I dare say you remember my exclusive about that mad outfit called WAGI?’
‘Waggy? I don’t think —’
‘Surely you must remember. It was a running story for weeks. Even you in the police became part of it.’
‘I’m sorry. But —’ She momentarily choked, recovered herself. ‘But, that bomb, in London, has blotted out a lot I should remember.’
Is it worth having lied to this obnoxious sod, or lied with the truth, just so as to learn something that’s pretty unlikely to
be any use to me?
Then, yes, she answered. Anything that gets me half an inch nearer finding out where that CA 534 is must be worthwhile. A police officer’s duty.
‘So what was this story — something waggy? — you got hold of?’
‘My waggy story, as you kindly put it. Well, waggy is — I’d better spell it out. It’s W-A-G-I, Women Against Genetic Interference. They began as a little female talk-shop somewhere out in Boreham and then they spread to all Birchester and, they like to claim, to all sorts of other places.’
‘Yes, now you say that, I do recall them. Didn’t we have to bring them up to the magistrates’ court for destroying a crop of GM maize?’
‘You’ve got it. And why did they land up in the dock, and lucky to get away with just being fined? Because Tim Patterson of the Star had a contact — my disappointing girlfriend, actually — who belonged to WAGI. Hey, and you know what? A relation of your husband’s another member, up before the beak too.’
Tim Patterson of the Star broke into honking laughter.
Harriet, pricked with rage at last, downed the lager she had ordered and stood up.
‘Well, you’ve been a help, Tim,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
And, leaving him to make what he could of that, she made her way out.
In the car she looked at her watch. Yes, a good deal of time gone by since Professor Wichmann had set off, first for the university library then, as helpful Mr Chaudhuri had put it, ‘for shopping’. So back to Bulstrode Road and the man the Faceless Ones had put their finger on. And I must remember, too, to ask John about that relative of his.
Chapter Five
‘He was coming back,’ Mr Chaudhuri called out, as he put a bag of his very fine oranges into a housewife’s shopping trolley.
Giving him a grateful wave, Harriet hurried away to the passage leading to the alleyway at the rear of the neat terraces of Bulstrode Road. In less than two minutes she had put her finger on the little white button crazily set in the narrow door jamb. Its crackly buzz came to her ears.
