“Doctor Silver, is it?” he said, unamazed by the blanket.
“That’s me.”
“I understand that you are the senior official, sir.”
“Myself or Doctor Kelly or Mrs. Dixon-Jones, the secretary.”
Doctor Kelly went down to the hospital with his patients. I’m sorry to say that Mrs. Dixon-Jones is dead.”
“Ah,” said Silver, a perfect portrayal of detached, professional regret.
“We have the fire well under control now, but we’ve still got a lot of damping down to do. We don’t want sparks still live under the charred wood, do we? We’ve saved all that east wing. I thought it was going when we had that shift of wind, hut it didn’t last. I’ve never seen a building burn like this, not us domestic building. More like a timber yard. We had to make pumps twelve in the end.”
“That means they’ve got twelve fire engines here,” explained Pibble. “Of course the house is mostly timber, and they’ve been keeping it very warm for the inmates, so would all have been dry.”
“I must thank you for your efforts,” said Silver.
“All in the day’s work, sir.”
“Did you find where it started?” said Pibble.
“It seems that the workmen left all their paint and stored on the back stairs. That went up like a bomb. I gather Mr Dixon-Jones was a heavy smoker, and she may have dropped a fag end there. I’m afraid the whole thing was caused by the carelessness of several parties. Unfortunately we’ve no real control over the fire precautions of a private institution like this—we can only advise. There’ll be a proper inquiry, of course, to establish the exact cause of the outbreak.”
“Oh,” said Pibble. He longed to let sleeping dogs lie, but training—habit—forced him to ask another question. “Did you find why the telephone was out of action? It’s all well clear of where the fire started.”
“Yes, I’ve looked into that. A hairpin seems to have fallen across the terminals.”
The man now spoke with a certain chilliness, as though his former polite formality had been a face for turning to the unofficial public. Pibble plowed on.
“The other thing is a silver cigarette lighter, about the size of a billiard ball, made like the globe of the world. You might find that somewhere near the start of the fire. It’s worth looking for.”
The fireman stared at him for a moment with real dislike. “This is Superintendent Pibble of Scotland Yard,” said Silver, telling the necessary half-truth.
The fireman relaxed, and looked relieved.
“Mrs. Dixon-Jones gave me the impression of being an extremely fastidious smoker,” said Pibble.
“That’s right,” said Silver. “She was nuts about fag ends.”
“I see,” said the fireman judiciously. “This will all have to be gone into at the proper time.”
“Of course,” said Pibble. “I hear that my, er, colleagues have left.”
The fire officer grinned suddenly.
“You hear right,” he said. “Like the movies, it was. I gather they got their man up in Watford—it was on the seven o’clock news. That big guy with the moustache blew his top.”
“Thanks,” said Pibble gloomily. “We’d better not bother you any more. I’m not really here in an official capacity, incidentally.”
“That’s OK, sir,” said the fireman, and turned back to his chores. Silver stood watching the action and shaking his big head.
“It’s not like her,” he muttered. “Not like her.”
A hand touched Pibble’s elbow. He turned and saw Alfred, still in mufti. The blond eyebrows rose and the blue glance darted over Pibble’s shoulder to where Silver stood. Pibble ignored the question.
“Mr. Thanatos would like to see you,” said Alfred. “I’ll take you now, if you’re ready.”
“I can’t come now.”
“He won’t like that, sir.”
“Well, he’ll have to lump it.”
The killer look flicked across Alfred’s face. Pibble sighed.
“If Mr. Thanatos wants me to tell him what’s been happening,” he said, “he’ll have to wait. I’ve got to ask around a bit. I can ring him tomorrow, if you like.”
“Will you make it tonight, please, sir? Between half past eight and half past nine. This is the number.”
Pibble took the scrap of paper.
“I’ll try,” he said.
Alfred nodded and walked off. Pibble went dully up the gravel toward the wheelchair. When he was a couple of yard away Doll dashed from behind her grandmother and threw her arms round his neck.
“You’re a mad old thing,” she cried, shaking him to and fro. “I saw you and Ram go in, and I didn’t know what to do. You looked so furtive I thought you didn’t want me to tell anyone, but I’ve never been so frightened. I know mad uncles are best, but they aren’t much good to you fried alive.”
Pibble wriggled out of her grip, ready to grab at the trundling chair, but it was still where she had left it, its wheels chocked with big flints from the gravel edging.
“Rue put them there,” said Doll. “Isn’t it awful about poor Posey?”
Pibble bent over the chair.
“This must be a very sad day for you,” he said, politeness merging into obsequiousness.
“Fiddlededee,” said Lady Sospice. “I’d much rather see it burnt than live to endure that Armenian turning it into one of his hotels, where anyone can come and stay. And with Posey Jones gone there’s nothing to stop Doll from becoming secretary. Think of that! Take me home now, darling. You can help us up the drive, young man. It’s downhill after that.”
“Poor Posey,” said Doll, kicking the chocks away at turning the chair toward the gate. Pibble took the bar beside her and shoved, struck by the dismal echo. Never again would Mrs. Dixon-Jones dear-Mary Mary. Posey was gone.
Poor Posey.
8
The soft springs of the old ambulance swayed the coachwork lullingly on the curves. Silver lay supine on the stretcher, hair and face and blanket a progression of gray tones. Pibble sat opposite, and against his left side the last two cathypnics lolled asleep; he was the bookend and they the slovenly books. He had to brace himself at each sway against the chill weight, which would otherwise have toppled him sideways, inch by inch. Their presence, against his will, gave the functional dreariness of the ambulance interior a curious warmth and cosiness, made the place into a sort of psychic greenhouse; an involuntary picture floated into his mind of Doll and Rue Kelly necking amid the phallic cucumbers. The two children stirred and blinked.
“Soppy,” complained the further one.
“Not me—’im,” whined the nearer.
“Sorry,” said Pibble. “What’s Doctor Silver dreaming about?”
“Dunno,” said the further.
“Shove off,” said the nearer, and flopped once more against his shoulder.
He wondered how strong the imperative was. In a vocabulary as restricted as the cathypnics’ there was unlikely to be more than one word to express the whole range of meaning from a mild distaste for one’s company to a terrified loathing, and the unaccented voices gave no help. With all his soul he longed to shove off, fade far away, dissolve and quite forget Posey Dixon-Jones, Thanassi, the cathypnics, Rue Kelly, Silver, and the rest. If Ivan hadn’t needed somebody to take charge of this couple, now that Silver had collapsed again. . . No. That wasn’t quite fair. The ambulance man would have done as well; but if he’d simply mooched off home, after having begun so much, caused in particular the whole vile Gorton imbroglio …
“Your fault,” said one of the children without opening its eyes.
Yes, and not only that. If Posey Dixon-Jones had committed suicide it was because of the pressures on her—Thanatos, Costain, and finally Pibble with his mad babble of lurking murderers. She could herself have been meditating arson, and th
us triggered off the word or two he had heard on the first tape. No, that was too early … Suppose she wanted to burn the building down, to keep it out of Costain’s hand, and had laid herself out when the incendiary material exploded. He remembered again that pair of arsonists in Acton who’d overdone the gasoline and blown themselves clear into the street. Possible. She’d have been expecting to give the alarm, and get her adored fat charges safely out. Pibble in fact, had helped her by making them congregate in the hall. And Kelly’s Kingdom? She couldn’t have reckoned on Rue having all the equipment he needed for instant rescue …
No, he didn’t believe it. Earlier he’d talked to Rue about how far it was possible to know someone—to know Posey in particular. He’d overstated his case: it was possible to know some things. She might kill herself; she might fire the McNair; but she would not risk burning a cathypnic child, even the ones lost in the long dream of “upstairs.” Silver thought so, too.
Alfred, then? For the insurance? Thanassi short of pocket Money? Huh!
An irritation like a forgotten itch tickled his mind. An itch which you remember only when you happen to touch the spot. In his mind’s eye he saw the chisels and hammer lying amid the splintered shelving on the floor of Kelly’s laboratory.
“Sharp,” complained one of the children, edging him at once into the easier speculation about the limits of their strange abilities. They hadn’t commented at all on his thought processes about Posey, which had been coherent and largely abstract. But an aimless picture stirred them to react. He looked sideways and saw that they were both now smiling—because he was thinking about them, paying attention to them? Bloody little showoffs. Just like any other kids. The smiles didn’t change;
With an effort he forced himself to think again about Silver’s extraordinary little lesson in medical practice, perched amid the sticky cedar boughs. That meant something—something important enough for Silver, man of peace, to meditate murder over. Murder not for money, but to cover up something dangerous, something that bad happened. A biopsy had been performed, as a result of which … yes, a child had got meningitis and died, the only one they’d lost in Ivan’s time at the McNair. It had happened in Kelly’s Kingdom, which meant that Rue …
The final swing of the ambulance in through the hospital gates threw the children against Pibble. He was bundling them back into place, propping them floppily against each other like sheaves in a stook, when he realized that the machine had stopped and would sway no more. As the ambulance men ducked in to pick up Silver’s stretcher Pibble found that his mind had once more slid away from its hateful task to wondering about the cathypnics. How did the waking children react to the idea that their mates in the haven “upstairs”, were being probed and sliced? Perhaps their minds were not capable of receiving the idea, or perhaps they didn’t get any message from upstairs except the communal dream The two children in the ambulance were still smiling as other hospital attendants came in, lifted them deftly onto stretchers, and whisked them away, grumbling about the weight. Pibble followed them out. He decided to call Mr. Thanatos.
The vestibule of the hospital was like that of a hotel, with carpet, bright lights, flower stall, and bookstall (both shut), and contextless people sitting in small groups. Pibble had tedious wait for an empty telephone booth until a heavy, slab-faced woman, dressed in black like an Italian peasant, emerged from one. As he edged forward she glared haughtily at him and nipped back in, only to stride out again carrying an expensive pigskin briefcase with what looked like a coronet embossed above the clasp. Pibble found that he was gaping as he let the door shut behind him. The ringing tone had given only half a purr before the receiver at the far end was snatched up and the dismal bleeps began; he pressed his sixpence home.
“That you, Jim?” said the voice, more metallic than ever.
“How many Jims do you know?” said Pibble.
“Only one that’s got this number, Jim. Alfred says you’re playing hard to get all of a sudden.”
“No. He said you wanted to see me and I told him I couldn’t come tonight. So he gave me this number.”
“Right. What happened at the McNair, Jim?”
“It burned down. All the children were rescued and are safe in Saint Ursula’s hospital. Mrs. Dixon-Jones died.”
“Yeah, I got all that. Theory seems to be that she burnt it down to stop Viv Costain getting his hands on it, and killed herself by mistake. You go along with that?”
“Viv Costain?” said Pibble.
“Yeah, that’s the guy.”
“He saw the Rolls,” said Pibble
“I don’t get it.”
“When I met him this morning I told him the Foundation had acquired a rich benefactor. He didn’t know about you then, but now you’re on Christian-name terms.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing, Jim. I’m on the same terms with everyone.”
“You broke your agreement with Mrs. Dixon-Jones when you sent the car for me. You’d promised her that you wouldn’t advertise your connection with the McNair, but somebody was bound to recognize a machine like that, and Mr. Costain did. I don’t know what sort of bargain he arranged with you, but I know he’s got a lot of behind-the-scenes influence about planning permission and so on, and I also know he thinks the McNair should be a public garden and park. He could have offered you some sort of deal—not opposing your South Bank plans, for instance. It’s got to be something fairly urgent and important, for you to be sitting over the telephone like that, and Alfred said tomorrow would be too late. You want to know whether I’ve noticed anything which might upset your deal.”
Thanatos’ cackling laugh rattled the receiver.
“Jim,” he chortled, “I know why they fired you now. Well, did you?”
“I don’t see why I should tell you.”
“That’s my Jim! You played your cards pretty damn close to your chest about Ram Silver this morning. I thought we were friends. I liked you.”
“I warned you three times. You said so yourself. It was no business of mine, either.”
“Hoity-toity.”
“As a matter of fact I think he’s going straight now.”
“Ah. Great. So you don’t think he rubbed out this Jones woman?”
“No. He had a motive, I suppose, if he was setting up a fraud and all the money was channelled through her hands. But he wasn’t expecting the fire—at least he dashed back into the building to try and rescue his research papers. And at one point he had quite a good motive to kill me, and a first-class opportunity, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He loved her, I think.”
“So you go along with this theory she did it herself?”
Pibble hesitated too long.
“So you don’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t. I don’t know anything.”
“I’ll buy your guesses.”
“No.”
“Jim, Tony’s been talking to the Yard.”
“Yes?”
“Theory there is you’ve done your nut. You’re trying to prove you can out-detect the organization. They don’t like you very much.”
“I’m not surprised. If they’re right, you mean, I may be making a mystery over this other thing where none exists?”
“That’s about it.”
“It could be true. I’ve thought of it.”
“So’ve I. But then you nail me about this Viv feller, and I have to reckon maybe you’re not so screwy at all.”
“Thanks.”
“Jim, you aren’t going to take the next step, are you? You don’t figure I sent Alf down there to rub her out, so I could deal with Viv? Let me tell you one thing. I’ve always known my enemies couldn’t outwit me, but maybe they could outshoot me, so it’s been against my interests to start any kind of a shooting match. You watch Westerns? I’m the cardsharp
sitting over in the corner of the saloon. My skills go for nothing when the gun slingers start up.”
“Yes. Besides, Alfred wouldn’t have known about the hairpin.”
“I’ve lost you.”
“Never mind. What do you plan to do about the cathypnic children, Thanassi?”
“Why?”
“From what you said just now it sounded as if you expected Silver to carry on with his research—and Doctor Kelly, too. That means you’d have to find a home for them, and so on. I wondered if you’d thought it out.”
“You’re talking to one of the world’s great thinkers, Jim. Yeah, I’ve thought it out. You’ve read about this disposable hotel project of mine? I need a demonstration place, show agents over, ambassadors, that kind of trash. I’ll find a nice site, edge of some country town, larks, blackbirds, put the kids in there.”
“It’ll be useful for you to have your show hotel inhabited by children who make visitors feel happy, won’t it?”
“Don’t you get sharp with me, Jim—not if you want a job on the payroll.”
“No, thanks.”
“Oh. I figured you were after some sort of deal.”
“I am.”
“Every bloody little man in this bloody little island thinks he can screw Thanassi.”
“Hard luck. Damn. I’ll put another sixpence in. You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“Look, if I’m right about what I think—that’s to say if I find it all fits together, because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to prove anything—I’ll tell you. Your side of the bargain is that you put in somebody of Mrs. Dixon-Jones’s calibre to keep an eye on the children’s interests.”
“I’ll think about it. This guess of yours, Jim. Will it play hell with my other, er, you know what I mean …”
Sleep and His Brother Page 19
