Tomorrow's ghost

by Anthony Price

  ‘I see that the long arm of the law is back,’ murmured Crowe to Frances. ‘And I rather think it is reaching out towards you again. Miss Fitzgibbon.’

  And not a moment too soon, decided Frances as she smiled at them both. ‘I don’t think I’m on their list, or something like that,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘Really…’ Julian grimaced at the Professor. ‘You know, Hugo, if we had a proper trade union this sort of thing wouldn’t happen, you realise that?’

  ‘Dear boy—if we had a proper union we should probably be out of a job by now. Or reduced to time-serving impotence by the National Union of Students under a closed shop agreement, which would be well enough for me, at my age, but which you would find altogether insupportable—off you go, my dear.’

  ‘Well, I think that’s damned unchivalrous of you, Hugo—‘

  Frances ducked away from them as they started to chase this new hare.

  As before. Sergeant Ballard held the door open for her.

  ‘Yes, Mr Ballard?’ As he squared up to her she sensed that the civilian ‘mister’ was no more to his liking than his formal ‘madam’ was to her. So they were both equally disadvantaged by protocol.

  ‘Madam…’ The Sergeant focused on her. ‘Two faculty members have left the building in the last half hour. Dr Penrose and Mr Brunton.’

  The names meant nothing to her, so that when he showed no sign of elaborating on this information she was unable to decide whether Messrs Penrose and Brunton were exhibiting behavioural deviations, or whether Sergeant Ballard was a .man of few words.

  ‘You were expecting them to stay?’

  ‘They were both on the invitation list for the unveiling, madam.’

  The unveiling. At her back Frances could hear the noise of scrambled conversation in the crowded Common Room. In a few minutes’ time they would all troop down dutifully to witness the Minister unveil the marble plaque in the foyer which declared the building open; that ceremony, together with his acceptance of the honorary degree, was the main event of his visit. But as the building had actually been in use for more than a month this hardly rated as an earth-shaking occasion in the brief annals of North Yorks University; so that, short of Comrade O’Leary adding his own brand of excitement, Messrs Penrose and Brunton were not passing up anything interesting by absenting themselves.

  On the other hand, if O’Leary had somehow managed to outsmart the computer then any departures from potential target areas were highly suspicious.

  ‘Anything else of significance?’

  ‘One of the university staff on the desk in the foyer received a rather curious phone call, madam.’

  He was overdoing the ‘madam’ bit. ‘What sort of phone call, Mr Ballard? How was it curious?’

  ‘It was on the pay box in the foyer, not to the desk. But that’s happened several times before—the numbers are similar. Only, when he took the call he was cut off before the caller could say anything.’

  ‘You mean he never established the origin of the call?’

  ‘That’s correct, madam. The telephonist at the other end said “I have a call for you, Mr Dickson—I’m trying to connect you”. So he waited, and the telephonist repeated that she was trying to connect him. And then finally the line went dead.’

  ‘He wasn’t expecting a call—this Mr Dickson?’

  ‘No, madam. He phoned his wife to check, but she said she hadn’t phoned him.’

  Frances bit her lip. Knowing the Post Office, she could not see anything particularly curious in an abortive phone call. But it would be better to be safe than sorry.

  ‘How many university staff are there on the desk?’

  ‘Two madam. Mr Dickson and Mr Collins.’

  ‘What’s their job—today?’

  ‘They are checking coats and belongings into the cloakroom, madam. No coats, or briefcases and hand-luggage is allowed beyond the foyer today—it’s all being checked into the cloakroom.’ The Sergeant spoke as though he was reciting a brief he had learnt by heart. ‘And of course they’re also doing their usual duties, running the information desk and working the switchboard.’

  ‘You mean—they are searching people?’

  He gave her a long-suffering look. ‘No, madam. All the search procedures are being carried out by our personnel at the entrances.’ He paused. ‘But the advantage of having university staff on the foyer desk is that between them they know everyone on the invitation list personally, by sight and voice. And they also know the building—Mr Collins has accompanied me on each of my security checks. If there had been anything odd, he’d have spotted it.’

  That made sense, thought Frances. But she had to do something.

  ‘Well … we’d better inform Control about Penrose and Brunton.’ If there was a behavioural deviation there, maybe the computer could spot it. ‘Did they have any hand-luggage?’

  ‘One briefcase each.’ Sergeant Ballard forgot the ‘madam’ for once. ‘Searched at the door, checked in by Mr Collins and Mr Dickson respectively. Checked out by Mr Dickson, searched at the door again on leaving.’

  Everything would have been listed, naturally.

  Today no absentminded professors were permitted in the new English Faculty Library Building, searched and scanned and sniffed as they had been by the Special Branch, and booked in and out by Mr Dickson and Mr Collins, vigilant of eye and ear-Respectively. Respectively?

  ‘But if Mr Collins was doing the rounds with you, Mr Ballard—‘

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘Then Mr Dickson was on the desk alone for a time.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  Sergeant Ballard looked down on her as from a great height.

  Frances stared at him.

  ‘I’ll have everything in the cloakroom checked again, madam,’ said Sergeant Ballard heavily. ‘And we’ll have a word with the exchange about that call to Mr Dickson.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Ballard.’ Frances looked at her wristwatch. ‘Then we shall be joining you in about … ten minutes?’

  The Sergeant checked his own watch. ‘Fifteen minutes exactly, madam.’

  It was almost a relief to return to the Common Room, where she was hardly less inadequate as an expert on Faerie than she was as the nominal madam-in-charge of a Special Branch anti-terrorist section which clearly functioned just as well, or better, without her, thought Frances miserably. Because when ex-Royal Navy Lieutenant Cable had no doubt quickly established a working man-to-man relationship with the world-weary Sergeant Ballard, she had just as quickly revealed herself as a Girl Guide amateur.

  The Equal Opportunities Act to the contrary, it was still a man’s world, that was for sure.

  She caught Professor Crowe’s eye directly.

  ‘Dr Brunton and Mr Penrose—I mean, Dr Penrose and Mr Brunton … Who are they?’

  Crowe looked round the room. ‘I don’t see them here—‘

  ‘They aren’t here.’

  Crowe gave her a quick glance. ‘Penrose’s a crafty fellow from Cambridge who knows a little about the Romantic Poets and a great deal about student psychology. He should make professor in about ten years’ time … Brunton is a dark horse from McGill University, allegedly pursuing the Great American Novel, there being no Great Canadian Novelists—‘

  ‘Did I hear the ill-omened name of Brunton?’ cut in a short dark man with pebble-thick spectacles.

  ‘You heard the ill-omened name of McGill,’ said Julian.

  ‘Your insular prejudices are showing, Julian, dear boy,’ said Crowe. ‘If Dr Pifer hears you he will simply roll on you, and that will be the end of you, I fear.’

  A man’s world, thought Frances. But today was the man going to be the Minister, or Professor Crowe, or the handsome Julian—or Colonel Butler, or Comrade O’Leary?

  ‘Whatever the ample Dr Pifer may do to me does not alter the sum of what McGill has given to the world,’ said Julian.

  ‘Stephen Leacock?’ suggested the pebble-spectacled man.

  ‘Stephen Leacock an
d the geodesic dome,’ said Julian with an arrogantly dismissive gesture. ‘Why are you pulling that hideous face, Tom? Or should I say that more hideous face?’

  Tom peered at him seriously through the thick lenses. ‘Eh? Oh… I was pondering why “geodesic” with an “s”, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s the science of geodesy with an “s”, that’s why.’

  ‘Ah… but those imaginary lines which the geodisists draw—or perhaps they are properly geodesians—those are geodetic lines, with a “t”. So why not “geodetic domes”?’

  Tom frowned at Julian as though the fate of the English Faculty, if not the nation itself, hung upon the answer to his question.

  ‘Well, Tom, you’ll just have to look it up in your Shorter Oxford.’ Julian shrugged and grinned mischievously at Frances. ‘Did you know. Miss Fitzgibbon, that the Shorter Oxford Dictionary weighs thirteen pounds—six-and-a-half pounds a volume? That is, Tom’s 1950 edition does. He had occasion to carry them from one set of lodgings to another recently, and when he arrived in an exhausted state the first thing he did was to weigh them on the kitchen scales.’ He looked down at Tom benevolently.

  Tom blinked, found himself looking at Frances, and flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘More to the point -‘ Professor Crowe intervened quickly ‘—has the egregious Brunton discovered the Great American Novel yet?’

  More to the point, thought Frances, has the egregious Brunton exhibited behavioural deviations recognised by Colonel Butler’s computer, always supposing they had any data on him at all?

  ‘Perhaps he ought to borrow Tom’s scales and judge them by weight, like vegetable marrows at a horticultural show,’ murmured Julian. ‘Eh, Tom?’

  ‘Well…’ Tom ignored Julian ‘… he does show signs of appreciating William Faulkner.’

  ‘Faulkner?’ Julian refused to be ignored. ‘I find him unreadable. That convoluted style—sentences going on for pages, and then ending with a semi-colon! Quite unreadable!’

  ‘Oh—nonsense,’ said Frances involuntarily.

  ‘Indeed?’ Julian regarded her with a mixture of interest and surprise, as Doctor Johnson might have viewed a dog walking on its hind legs, thought Frances angrily.

  ‘Nonsense?’

  All three of them were looking at her now, and she was aware of the chasm at her feet. Her preoccupation with O’Leary had finally betrayed her into expressing a genuine literary opinion.

  But it was nonsense all the same. If fairy tales were about unreality, or other reality, or God only knew what, then her beloved Faulkner was about the problems of living in a real world and somehow making it work, even when it was unbearable.

  Suddenly all Frances’s fear evaporated: where Frances Fitzgibbon was out of her depth, young Frances Warren was in her element: as always, the secret of a good cover was self-discovery.

  ‘Utter nonsense.’ She smiled up at Julian. ‘Can you find a contemporary English novelist—British novelist—to put in the same class as Faulkner?’

  ‘John Fowles.’ The light of battle flared in Julian’s eye.

  ‘The Magus?’ The last vestige of Miss Fitzgibbon fell away from Frances: Miss Warren was in charge, and she was as arrogant as Julian. ‘Daniel Martin? You dare put them up against Sanctuary? Or The Bear ?’

  ‘Hah!’ said Tom. ‘Hah!’

  ‘Not that Fowles isn’t good,’ said Miss Warren magnanimously. ‘Some of the so-called critics need their heads examining. But to compare Faulkner with Fowles … Do me a favour!’

  ‘Do us all a favour,’ said Tom. ‘Start with The Bear, Julian.’

  He smiled at Frances, cowlike eyes swimming joyfully behind the thick lenses. Gary had smiled at Marilyn like that, ready and hoping to die for her.

  Forget Marilyn. Marilyn was with her useless father and her dying mother, somewhere in South-East London.

  Detective-Sergeant Ballard was standing in the doorway.

  ‘Well … I’m not an expert in the hunting of bears with mongrel dogs in Yoknapatawpha County,’ said Julian.

  ‘It isn’t about hunting bears,’ said Tom.

  ‘It’s about slavery,’ said Frances. ‘Faulkner’s got more to say about the negro problem in the South than all other American writers put together.’

  ‘He has? I’ve always thought his approach was a bit Schweitzerish myself,’ Julian prodded her gently. ‘But then perhaps you have insights into slavery denied me?’

  It was a pity that they were settling down to a good argument just when the expression on Sergeant Ballard’s face suggested that the computer had choked on one of the names fed into it, thought Frances.

  ‘No more so than any woman. We have some of the same problems the freed slaves had in searching for an identity…’ But she could no longer ignore the Sergeant’s signals.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me…’

  ‘An identity -?’ Julian turned as she pushed past him. ‘Oh, for God’s sake—not again!

  Hugo, do be a good chap and tell the fuzz either to arrest her or let her alone-

  * * *

  ‘Yes, Mr Ballard?’

  ‘We have a suspicious object, madam.’

  ‘Suspicious?’ Frances repeated the word stupidly.

  We’re not expecting any trouble in the library!

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the cloakroom. Almost directly under where we are standing.’

  Frances looked at her wristwatch. Damn Paul Mitchell! And Colonel Butler. And the computer. She had six minutes.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE CLICK-CLACK of Frances’s high heels echoed in the high open space of the entrance foyer as she descended the stairway alongside Sergeant Ballard. ‘I have informed Colonel Butler, madam,’ said Ballard.

  Except for the two civilians on the desk, Dickson and Collins, the foyer was still empty. The three Special Branch officers were still in position outside the glass doors, but through the expanse of glass wall on the other side of the doors she could see that a large crowd of students and hangers-on had now assembled outside the entrance.

  God! There was altogether too much glass, thought Frances with a swirl of fear.

  ‘We’ll have to get those people away from the front of the building. Sergeant,’ she said.

  Ballard cleared his throat. ‘Instructions are to stand fast, madam.’

  ‘Instructions?’ Frances frowned at him.

  ‘The moment we start clearing them away they’ll know we’re on to them,’ said Ballard. ‘Otherwise … the odds are they won’t detonate until they’ve got the targets into the blast zone.’

  Frances realised that she had been foolish. If the suspicious object really was a bomb then detonation would be by remote signal, activated from some visual vantage-point in the surrounding campus, and not by any old-fashioned time mechanism. So long as the crowd didn’t scatter they were theoretically safe until the Chancellor’s party came through the doors.

  Above the heads of the crowd and away across the open space between the new Library and the nearest great white tower she caught a momentary flash of academic scarlet.

  ‘Colonel Butler will have to hold the Chancellor’s party. Sergeant.’ With an effort she kept her voice steady.

  ‘He’s doing that, madam.’

  ‘And the people upstairs must stay where they are.’

  Ballard nodded. ‘Mr Collins, sir! I wonder if you would be so good as to go to the Common Room and prevent the ladies and gentlemen there from leaving? You can tell them there’s been a slight delay in the schedule.’

  Collins and Dickson exchanged glances.

  ‘Perhaps they’d both better go,’ said Frances.

  Ballard cleared his throat again. ‘Mr Dickson found the—ah—object, madam,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you might want to have a quick word with him.’

  Frances could feel the seconds ticking away from her life.

  ‘Of course … Thank you, Mr Collins … Mr Dicks
on?’ Frances attempted to exude confidence. ‘I won’t keep you a moment, Mr Dickson.’

  Dickson nodded to his friend. ‘Off you go, Harry.’

  They both looked old enough to have seen war service, thought Frances gratefully.

  Certainly they were behaving like veterans.

  Collins bobbed his head. ‘See you upstairs then, Bob.’

  Frances watched him depart for five heart-beats before turning back to Dickson. ‘You found this thing, Mr Dickson?’

  ‘Briefcase, madam. Dr Penrose’s briefcase.’

  ‘Briefcase?’ Frances looked at Ballard. ‘But all the briefcases were checked.’

  ‘This one was checked,’ said Dickson quickly. ‘I saw it checked myself.’ He pointed to the glass doors. ‘Then I took it off of Dr Penrose, and labelled it up like the rest, and took it into the cloakroom.’ He indicated the door on his left with a nod of the head.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Officer there asked me to check out the cloakroom again, just now—‘ another nod, this time to Ballard ‘—so I reaches up to the top shelf, to make sure there’s nothing else there but the cases, just to make doubly sure, like. And Dr Penrose’s case—I can’t hardly move it. ‘Fact, it took me all my time to lift it down.’

  ‘To—lift it down?’

  Dickson sniffed. ‘I put the heavy cases on the lower shelves, and the light ones up top. Dr Penrose’s was light as a feather, like there was nothing in it. Now it’s heavy …

  And, what’s more, it’s locked. And it wasn’t locked when I put it in—because I saw Dr Penrose close it up right here, on this desk-top.’

  Frances found herself staring at the door towards which Dickson had nodded, which bore the legend GENTLEMEN.

  Heavy—but still on the top shelf—and locked, when it should have been light and unlocked. Those plain facts disposed of the faint hope that Dickson and Ballard had raised a false alarm with good intent, it didn’t take a computer to produce that unpalatable print-out of the statistical probabilities for her. But how—

  ‘Madam!’ said Sergeant Ballard sharply. Someone who was certainly no gentleman had somehow got into the cloakroom, so that now there was only one adequate thickness of brick between whatever he had left behind him and her own shrinking flesh and blood. But Ballard was right: this was not the time to inquire further into that particular mystery.