by HRF Keating
Harriet would have liked to have taken advantage of being in the flat to make a full search. But she realised she could hardly do that without arousing Mr Chaudhuri’s suspicions. And if Professor Wichmann was the simple, good old man she had believed — and did still have some difficulty in not believing — then she should not, without stronger evidence, let his kindly neighbour think the old man was somehow the object of police investigation.
‘Thank you, Mr Chaudhuri,’ she said. ‘And, yes. Here’s my card with my mobile phone number. Could you call me the moment you learn anything?’
Mr Chaudhuri took the pasteboard slip, studied it intently, nodded his head with circular ambiguity. But was unambiguous in his reply.
‘Oh, yes, yes. The one instant I am seeing I will be telephoning you. I also am having the mobile these days. Please do not fear.’
A thought occurred to her then.
‘But does Professor Wichmann have a mobile? Can you contact him that way?’
But, even as she asked, she had to admit to herself that the combination of a state-of-the-art mobile and an aged, head-in-the-clouds professor hardly gelled.
‘No, no,’ Mr Chaudhuri said. ‘I am not thinking Professor would be able to use such.’
‘No, you’re right.’
She thanked him again and plodded back to her car. Standing beside it in the faintly warm sunshine, with puffy white clouds sailing along a deep-blue sky — the promise of Spring, she thought, and my vanished hopes — she tapped out Mr Brown’s number and gave him the news.
‘And you say this greengrocer in the shop below is sure Wichmann has never before gone away without telling him?’
‘Absolutely, sir. And I would say he’s entirely reliable.’
‘Very good then. I’ll get in touch with those people whom I don’t care to name on open airwaves, and we’ll see if there’s anything more they can do. And in the meantime you had better, senior officer though you are, go door-knocking and see whether anybody saw the fellow making his departure.’
‘Very good, sir.’
*
Two hours or more of police-constable door-to-door inquiries yielded nothing.
‘Good afternoon. I am a police officer making a routine inquiry.’ Warrant card held up for a moment. ‘Did you see, at any time today, an elderly man walking by, wearing an old leather knapsack?’
‘No? Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
Then next-door. ‘Good afternoon, I am a police officer …’ And again and again and again as the fitful sunshine grew less and less warm.
At last she had to call Mr Brown and report almost total lack of success.
‘I was lucky, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Someone at home at all the houses I called at, bar the one right at the end of Bulstrode Road, on the corner of University Boulevard here. I’ll have another crack at that later, when there may be somebody at home. But I really think we’ve lost all trace.’
‘Can he have gone into the university campus? Isn’t that possible? Be sitting there in the library, no idea what time it is?’
‘No, sir. I’m actually inside the campus now. I’ve been making inquiries, but no dice. Just now security’s extra tight all over the university. So, if he’s here anywhere, someone’s bound to have seen him.’
‘Very good. And I can tell you that I’ve had no response from — from the people I mentioned.’
Silence at the other end for a second. Then the Scots-tinged voice came in her ear again.
‘They’re anxious to use their newest technology now. Apparently, they can trace an individual who uses a mobile phone anywhere in the whole country. Providing, of course, they have the phone’s number.’
‘They’re unlucky then, sir. Wichmann, so the greengrocer told me, doesn’t have a mobile, let alone a number for it.’
‘Ah, weel.’
The Scots momentarily more evident. And, Harriet thought, the long-drawn syllable had in it a tinge of amusement.
‘But, sir, you will let me know the moment they have any information of any sort?’
‘You can take that as read, Superintendent.’
‘So what next, sir?’
‘Time off for you, Harriet. There’s nothing much we can do until either we get some idea where Wichmann may be, or until — and this may happen at any moment — he issues a threat to use that stuff unless we … Well, unless I dinna know what. So, I dare say you’d like the chance to go down to London, see that wounded son of yours.’
‘Thank you, sir. Yes, I would like that very much.’
*
John, when Harriet called him at his office, said he had phoned St Mary’s earlier and had been told Malcolm was still making progress.
‘So, darling, if you feel happy at going on your own, I won’t come. There’s a bit of a crisis here, and, if possible, I think I’d better be on hand.’
On my own.
For a moment Harriet’s courage deserted her.
All right, the drive down there’s no bother, and I dare say I can find somewhere to park as easily as John could. But Malcolm … To have to see him without John’s steadying hand there. My once-upon-a-time little son, brother to little Graham. What will I do if he’s suddenly worse? What if he has another of those fearful pain attacks when I’m with him? What if …?
Then she pulled herself together.
‘No, darling, that’s quite all right,’ she managed to tell John. ‘Deal with your crisis, and we’ll see each other at home this evening.’
‘And your business? That’s under control?’
‘As much as it can be. Mr Brown’s told me to feel free to go to London.’
‘Then till tonight.’
She sat where she was in the car for a minute or two, working out what her best plan might be.
OK, no point in going directly back home now. I can get a bite of something on the way down if I need to. And the sooner I get there, after all, the better. There’s no telling what they may be doing with Malcolm: tests, another operation of some sort if he’s fit enough; anything could prevent me seeing him. So I’d better get there soon as I can.
Then, just as she had re-started the engine and was making her way at walking pace to the campus exit, a thought came into her head.
Some little time’s passed since I completed my door-to-door chore, and it may be possible the householder at the place on the corner of Bulstrode Road has got back home.
Go there? Or shoot off to London?
No. No use making excuses. I’m less than a hundred yards away and it’d be scarcely any trouble to turn the other way now and stop off at that house.
She nosed her way forward until the front part of the car was poking well into the broad stretch of University Boulevard. And cursed. Always likely to have heavy traffic, now a long stream of vehicles was speeding into the city.
You know, I could easily turn left here instead and zoom along to where I can safely make a U-turn and then get on the motorway on that feeder road. Damn it, if I do wait to get across here, as likely as not I’ll find no one at home at that place. And I could lose hours if I stay here.
All right, not hours but —
And then for no reason that she could see there came a gap in the traffic heading into the city.
Take it, take it.
She shot forward. And, even as she got halfway to the far side she realised that in the early dusk a new batch of cars was speeding towards her. She felt perspiration shoot up on her forehead.
Down hard on the pedal went her foot.
Behind her, as she swung round, there came a chorus of horn blasts.
Fuck them. I’m a police officer on duty.
She overshot the entrance to Bulstrode Road by fifty yards or more, but managed to pull in where she thought she could safely leave the car.
And at the house on the corner her ring of the bell was promptly answered.
The lady who opened the door was the type Harriet mentally called an old dear.
&n
bsp; Stout in build, wrapped in a flower-print apron, feet in pom-pom pink slippers well battered by use, a dishcloth dangling from one hand, she seemed quite pleased to be answering the door even if called away from her kitchen.
But something could be about to burn there, Harriet thought.
‘Good evening,’ she said, quickly embarking on her spiel, ‘I am a police officer making a routine inquiry. I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, but did you happen to see, earlier today, an elderly man wearing an old leather knapsack walking past your house?’
‘Oh, well, no, dear. I couldn’t have done that. You see today’s my baking day, so I must have been in the kitchen all morning.’
‘But I did call here earlier, and got no reply.’
The old dear looked for a moment utterly astonished. Then something broke through.
‘Oh, yes. Yes, you’re quite right. I’d forgotten all about it. You see, my daughter rang up. She lives just three turnings along, you know, and she said her little one was poorly and she wanted to do her shopping. So I said I’d look in. Just for a minute or two. You don’t like to leave a little kiddy alone like that, not when he’s sick. You never know, do you?’
Harriet thought of commiserating with the old dear over the shadow of threat that had worried her.
But she had no need to urge more talk out of her.
‘And so, yes, 1 was out of the house for — Oh, I don’t know. Half an hour. Perhaps a bit more.’
‘But while you were on your way there, or on your way back, did —’
‘Well now, isn’t that funny? Because I did see that old gentleman striding along as I went to Jean’s, and, yes, he did have an old sort of knapsack on his back, leather you know. I quite wondered about that.’
‘But when was this, Mrs — I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.’
‘It’s Elworthy, dear. Mrs Elworthy.’
She stood looking happily complacent, as if the acquiring of that name had been the great success of her life.
‘Yes, Mrs Elworthy, and when was it you saw this gentleman?’
‘Oh, it must have been quite early. I mean, my Jean does like to get her shopping done before everywhere gets too crowded. So I was on my way round there by half past nine or a bit earlier.’
‘Half past nine. Good. And can you tell me which way the gentleman was going?’
‘Oh, no, dear, you’ve got that quite wrong. Quite wrong. In the end I saw he wasn’t walking anywhere.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand.’
‘He saw a bus on the far side of the road and — quite sprightly, he was — ran over and hopped on to it. It had just begun to rain again, what I call an April shower, even though it’s still March. So changeable the weather now. You don’t know what to wear from one day to the next.’
‘No,’ Harriet hastened to agree, anything to keep her informant happy to go on talking. ‘I must say I like it when it’s settled, when you know what’s going to happen. But, tell me, where was the bus he caught going to?’
‘Oh, well, to the station, of course. All the Number 17s along here end up at the station.’
So Professor Wichmann has left Birchester, almost certainly. Has left without telling tubby Mr Chaudhuri that he was going. He has fled then. Fled … where to? And why? All right, that at least is out of my hands now. Mr Brown’s in touch with the Faceless Ones, and they will, I suppose, find him if he’s anywhere to be found. If it isn’t too late.
One man and his bomb.
Chapter Eleven
When, down in London, Harriet saw Malcolm, all her maternal fears were blown away. Although his legs were still hidden under his tent-like cover, he was propped up, ignoring the laughter-noisy television and happily reading an old Dick Francis novel.
‘Mum, good to see you. And, Dad, he on his way?’
‘Well, no. No, some crisis at the Majestic. So he really had to stay back there.’
‘Going bust, is it, the great Majestic Insurance Company? I saw something on the TV about some other big outfit getting into trouble. Dad going to be out of a job?’
Harriet laughed.
‘No, I think the Majestic’s safe from pretty much anything lurking in the world of finance.’
‘So poor old Dad’s going to have to slave away there for years to come? Not that he does all that much slaving, if you ask me. Off to foreign parts every other month, and having who knows what sort of jolly times there. You’ll find he’s off with some gorgeous foreign lady one of these days.’
The faintest shadow of anxiety passed over Harriet’s mind.
‘Now, now,’ she said briskly. ‘Don’t knock your poor father. Even when he is off on his travels he works tremendously hard, you know.’
‘Oh, yes. I do know really. Safe pair of hands, old Dad.’
‘Well, you certainly seem to be much more cheerful than when we last saw you. But are things really going all right?’
‘Well, yes and no, of course. Bonce all but OK, they say, and, bar a few healing cuts here and there, top half’s fine. But under that tent, well, they don’t seem to be able to make up their minds about things there. I asked yesterday, in fact, what were the prospects of being able to go to Graham’s funeral in a wheelchair, and they did the headshaking business. But I still hope.’
‘And you really want to be there if you can?’
‘Oh yes, I do. Show those Indian buggers we’re not beaten yet. And — I must ask you this — is there any news about them? There’s never anything on the TV. I suppose al-Qaeda’s seen as more important, threatening all the time to do God knows what. But any terrorists who go about killing innocent people ought to be stopped, however few they are, however ridiculous their so-called aims. Damn it, those people could be plotting this very minute to booby trap another pair of Met officers.’
Harriet sighed.
‘I’m afraid there’s nothing to tell about the India’s Way lot,’ she admitted. ‘I think Superintendent Robertson would let me know if there’d been any progress. But I haven’t heard a word.’
‘They want to get Sid Halley on the case,’ Malcolm answered with a grin, tapping the book he had put on top of his protective tent.
*
Harriet had sat with him for a full half-hour before a bustling nurse came up wanting to dress his legs, and so she had to leave. In the car, as she negotiated her way through London’s evening traffic, she set herself to think, not about India’s Way, nor al-Qaeda, but about Professor Wichmann.
My task. That may, in fact, have been taken away from me. But it is my task still.
Did that nice old man really pull the wool over my eyes? Did he sit there in that shabby flat of his laughing to himself at this senior English police officer who was so easy to fool?
A moment then to make out what some idiot driver in a Mitsubishi was trying to do. And she let her thoughts run on again.
No, damn it, I can’t believe old Wichmann did that. I am an experienced interrogator. I’ve seen often enough when apparently innocent people are lying their heads off. And I know he wasn’t doing that.
Ease up a bit. Plod along in the near-side lane.
Yet Wichmann has gone off into the blue like that, not leaving any way of getting in touch with him, completely against his invariable practice. So why? Why’s he done it? Can he, despite everything, actually have that box with the CA 534 with him? With him somewhere in England? Or somewhere in the whole of Britain? Or, damn and blast it, even somewhere outside the country?
For a few moments she imagined the old man, ancient leather knapsack on his back, leaving his flat above Mr Chauduri’s shop. Yes, he would have lurked at the corner of the passage leading into Bulstrode Road until he was sure his little Indian friend wouldn’t see him. Then a quick walk, even a trot, up to University Boulevard and on along it, with stout old Mrs Elworthy stumping along just behind. Then the sudden shower and, on the far side, that providential bus coming to a halt. The bus that went to Birchester Central Stati
on, and all the rail lines radiating from it.
No. All right, main lines don’t exactly radiate from Birchester Central, but they do go away from it, north and south.
An idea came into her head then.
If the professor left, as Mrs Elworthy could vouch for, at about half past nine, what would be the next train he would catch? Because I’m fairly certain that a man as precise as Wichmann would have planned his departure for exactly the train he would take.
Curse it. Can’t possibly work this any further until I get back.
Oh, yes, I can.
With a fine disregard for best driving practice, she reached for her mobile and rang John.
He answered at once.
‘John, it’s Harriet. Where are you?’
‘Just got home.’
‘Then there’s something you can do for me. Could you look up long-distance trains leaving Birchester soon after, say, ten this morning?’
‘Well, I could. But why? And where are you, come to that?’
‘Oh, I’m on my way home now, be on the motorway any minute. But I’d like to check on those trains as soon as possible. It’s a work matter.’
‘All right, if you say so. I won’t pry, I can take a hint. But I’ll need a few minutes to find the rail timetable or ring the station. I’ll call you back.’
‘John, thank you.’
‘Oh, and one thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘When I do call, bring the car to a neat halt on the hard shoulder or wherever and then answer.’
‘Yes, sir. Very good, sir.’
*
She was well on the motorway before her mobile played its little tuneless tune, and she decided to ignore that husbandly advice.
‘Yes?’ she snapped out, speeding along.
‘All right, you can’t stop, for some reason or other. So I’ll be quick. There was the ten-fifteen going right up north, as far as Windermere, though you have to change at Preston. Then no main-line departures after that until an eleven o’clock London express, which goes on past there, all the way on down to Brighton. A good few departures earlier than ten, but nothing afterwards till the train going to Preston.’
