Only The Ruthless Can Play

by John Burke

  On the way back he stopped at the end of the corridor and looked along it. The lights looked bleak at this time of night — or, rather, morning — like the hazy, acrid lights of a dismal railway station. The doors were all closed and nothing moved. Somewhere outside, a world away, an engine clanked hollowly across points and then there was silence. Andrew was about to turn away when he noticed a gleam of light from one of the doors. At first he thought it must be partly open, then realised that the light was reflecting from a key left in the lock of the door.

  He walked quietly along the corridor. It was David Marsh’s room. He knew that: he had already shamefacedly checked on the numbers and the distance between this room and Jessica’s. They were not far enough apart.

  He wondered if Jessica were inside.

  That was ridiculous. Of course she wouldn’t come to Marsh’s room.

  Yet she would have been willing to come to Andrew. She had wanted to. Before the Course started she had pestered him to let her come, or at least that he should come to hers.

  But it couldn’t have got that far with Marsh yet. Jess wasn’t that kind of girl.

  A woman scorned …

  Oh, the hell with it. It was absurd. He knew her too well. He was the only man she wanted.

  And when she couldn’t get him … ?

  There was a good excuse for knocking. He could knock and bring Marsh to the door, pointing out the risks of leaving his key in the lock; could edge his way in or provoke Marsh into giving something away.

  It was flimsy but it was an excuse. It would do.

  Andrew wavered. Then he went on past the room, round the corner and towards Jessica’s rooms.

  The outer door was slightly ajar. He debated whether to knock. But if she were alone she wouldn’t mind if he walked right in. Whenever he arrived unexpectedly at her flat he had only to let himself in and walk into the sitting room or the kitchen or the bedroom, and she would spin round to welcome him like a child welcoming an unforeseen treat.

  And if she weren’t alone …

  Andrew pushed the door open and went in.

  A cluster of signal lights rearing above the chasm of the railway cast a glow across the office desk. Then a shadow moved across the window and came swiftly at Andrew. He put up one arm instinctively and backed away a pace. A fist hammered into his jaw. He lurched sideways, trying to regain his balance, and his head cracked against the edge of the open door.

  As he reeled into blackness he was hit again — twice, three times — and then he was falling and seemed to go on falling with no sensation of hitting the floor.

  Five

  When he came round, Jessica was saying: ‘Andrew … what happened? Andrew!’

  He reached out as though hoping to find the bed safe beneath him, the sheets and blankets tucked in around him. Instead, he was stiff, lying at an awkward angle on a hard floor, and his head was being pounded to bits from inside and outside at the same time.

  ‘Andrew.’

  There was panic in her voice and yet she sounded drowsy. He wanted to reassure her but found it difficult to form the words.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he mumbled. Even that much effort hurt.

  Her arm was about his shoulders. She helped him to sit up. He winced.

  ‘What happened?’ she said again. She had hardly finished speaking when she was overtaken by a massive yawn. She was still sleepy, her voice slurred.

  Andrew shook his head then wished he hadn’t done. But he was wide awake all right. He said:

  ‘Your boy-friend bumped into me on his way out.’

  ‘What are you raving about?’

  ‘I’m amazed he had that much energy. He certainly packs a hard punch.’

  ‘Raving,’ said Jessica. ‘You’re raving. You must be.’

  The languorous voice was so familiar. He had heard it so often, drugged with sated passion, the sleepy aftermath of lust.

  He said: ‘He was here, wasn’t he? You ought to be more careful. Or you ought to teach him to be. Not even dosing the door properly behind him. You never know who might walk in. Look who did walk in, in fact.’

  She was making an effort to wake up thoroughly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody has been here. I’ve been asleep.’ Again she yawned. ‘I feel so … so doped.’

  ‘Doped?’ It was meant as a sneer, but changed into a question.

  ‘I’ve been sleeping like a log. I felt so dizzy downstairs, and as soon as I got up here I went flat out. Hardly had time to get into my pyjamas. I just’ — her head sagged — ‘collapsed.’

  Andrew struggled to his feet and swayed for a moment. Jessica put out an arm to steady him but was not much steadier herself.

  ‘Who were you drinking with?’ he demanded.

  ‘You know. You saw me. David — David Marsh. And that man Western.’

  ‘And who saw you to your room?’

  ‘David,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘Very clever. He gave you too much to drink and brought you back here.’ He was accusing her rather than Marsh. ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then nothing,’ she retorted. ‘I’ve told you. I was just about able to get myself into bed. I didn’t hear another thing until you woke me. I heard a terrific thump out here. I didn’t really take it in — I woke up and then started to drift off to sleep again — but you must have moaned or something, because I felt I had to crawl out of bed and come and see what was going on.’

  He stumbled towards the door and switched the light on. It struck their eyes like a savage blow. Jessica put up an arm to shield herself from the glare. She looked pathetic and defenceless. In some way it stimulated his anger. He wanted to strike her simply because she was so defenceless; because she was asking for it.

  ‘You can’t tell me you didn’t want young Marsh to come to your room. And you can’t tell me he didn’t want to. And if he gave you too much to drink, what other reason — ’

  ‘No.’ She was being jarred into wakefulness at last. ‘No. Nothing happened. Neither of us is ready for anything to happen … yet.’

  ‘Yet?’ he echoed.

  ‘Andrew, please — we don’t want the whole hotel woken up.’

  He still had enough control over himself to recognise the truth of this. The Course was still important to him. He had meant not to see Jessica, not to come to her while the Course lasted. He had slipped a long way since making that resolve; but he was not going to ruin the whole thing. They went on in tense, angry whispers.

  ‘Just what goes on between you and young Marsh?’

  ‘Nothing that we’re ashamed of.’

  ‘Nobody’s talking about shame. You can go a long way without being ashamed.’

  ‘I’ve certainly done pretty well in the last couple of years,’ she admitted.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I think you know.’

  ‘If you’re implying ‘

  ‘I’m not implying anything. But I don’t think you have any cause for complaint, Andrew. You’ve neglected me; you don’t want to have anything to do with me while you’re on this Course, and God knows if you’ll condescend to have anything to do with me afterwards; and yet you’re suspecting me of having an affair with somebody else, and actually getting jealous about it. I suppose I should be flattered.’

  ‘Jess, you’re making yourself cheap.’

  ‘Am I?’ she marvelled. ‘Then perhaps that’s the real me.’

  ‘You know it isn’t.’

  ‘I don’t know. I have so little idea what I really am. But I do know’ — her whisper became sharp and cutting — ‘I’m not going to be one man’s property any longer. Particularly when he can’t be bothered to use his property more than once every three or four weeks.’

  ‘Next thing,’ he lashed out, ‘you’ll be going off for romantic weekends with that youngster.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  She turned her head up to the light now and blinked her eyes like a haughty cat.

  He said: �
�What do you mean by that?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘The weekend before we go to Belby!’ he accused her. ‘He’s invited you to go away with him. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘I haven’t had any other invitations, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t accept.’

  ‘You’d be bored stiff. You’ll probably be bored to tears by him before we even reach that weekend.’

  ‘Let’s wait and see, shall we? He’s invited me,’ she added, ‘to meet his mother — to stay with them down at Maidenhead.’

  ‘Serious stuff, hey?’ Andrew mocked her.

  ‘Now perhaps you’ll go.’

  An early morning despair settled on both of them. They had been staring into each other’s eyes as they talked, each trying to make the other flinch with the whispered thrusts. Now they stood apart and could not look at each other.

  Jessica said: ‘My desk … ’

  Andrew followed the direction of her gaze. There were files open on the desk. Two neat piles of folders stood at one side, and there were three opened, with a couple of timetables lying across them. One of the desk drawers was half open.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he said grudgingly.

  ‘Someone’s been tampering with the files.’

  ‘Now look, Jess, there’s no need to dream up a nice cover story — ’

  ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Go back to bed. Please. I’ve had enough.’

  He knew he had gone too far. He knew, also, that she was sincere.

  ‘Jess, if there’s really been something going on in here … if you were really doped so that there was time for someone to go through your papers … Look, you’ll have to report it, won’t you? If you want my evidence, we can think up some way of presenting it without making my presence here seem suspicious — ’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ she said coldly.

  ‘It only requires a bit of thinking out. We needn’t be involved — personally implicated, I mean.’

  Jess opened the door.

  ‘Will you please go?’

  Andrew went out into the corridor. He had a moment of dizziness again, and pressed one hand to the back of his head. A lump had formed there, and there was a trickle of blood matting his hair. He brought his hand away sticky.

  ‘Are you all right, old chap?’

  The voice was quiet and friendly, but it struck a gasp from Jessica.

  Andrew swayed round. He found himself confronted by Western, in an olive green silk dressing gown. His hair was slightly rumpled but otherwise he looked his usual smooth, bleak self.

  ‘I … I fell against a door. On my way to the lavatory.’

  ‘Ah.’

  There was something too derisively provocative in that monosyllable. Andrew burst out: ‘And what the hell are you doing prowling around at this hour of the night? Taken on a job as house detective, or something?’

  Western smiled thinly. ‘I, too, have found it necessary to respond to a call of nature. Fortunately I avoided any collision with a door. I do hope you’re all right, old chap. Can I help you back to your room?’

  ‘No,’ said Andrew. ‘No. I’ll manage, thank you.’ He turned towards Jessica. It was essential to establish one or two facts. ‘Thank you for helping me, Miss Rogers,’ he said emphatically. ‘I’m sorry I woke you up.’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ said Jessica.

  Western nodded politely to her and walked away, the narrow smile still on his lips.

  ‘Damn,’ said Andrew. ‘Damn. That’s done it. Now we’ll have to work out some story before he spreads a nice little story of his own — ’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Jessica again. ‘Leave the whole thing to me.’

  ‘But Western — ’

  ‘Western will not say a word,’ she said coldly and confidently. ‘Stay out of it, Andrew, and don’t worry. Let me handle it my way.’

  *

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Dampier. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  He tried to maintain his usual blandly condescending manner, but he had been severely shaken and was sure that Jessica Rogers was not deceived.

  She had told him how her suspicions about Philip Western had been aroused. He felt she was glossing over one or two details — she had been especially reticent about the circumstances of Western’s appearance in the corridor last night and her own reason for being awake at that time — but on the whole she was a sound, intelligent girl and not prone to jumping to hasty conclusions.

  Dampier was very unhappy. He liked his job and had no wish to look for another. He enjoyed working for Intersyn and exercising his small but significant power. It was not that he worshipped his employers or paid any greater due to them than the tithe of lip service. He did not trust them and knew exactly what their much publicised concern with their workers’ welfare was worth; but he had felt that so long as they appreciated the work he did for them, the propaganda he implanted in the minds of Course members and the reports he gave of those members, he was safe. If that appreciation had now soured he expected no quarter. Nothing spectacular would happen. Intersyn didn’t work that way. Nobody got fired from Intersyn. There was rarely any unpleasantness. All that happened was that you were tactfully advised to look for another job, for which you would be given excellent references. If you were in a lowly position you were usually allowed six months’ grace. In a senior position you might get as long as two years, though it was expected that you would have enough pride to want to remove your backside from your chair long before that time was up.

  It was unthinkable that he should be eased out after he had played the Intersyn game so loyally and unflaggingly. There must be somebody behind this. There must be an element of nepotism in it somewhere. If he was to be replaced, whose was the chosen candidate?

  He hated to admit to the Rogers girl that he was in any way vulnerable, but she knew a great deal already and she had been decent enough to let him in on the secret. He had to trust her and put himself in her hands. He said:

  ‘Miss Thompson’s quite unwarranted remark about the previous American course … and so on … did she say anything more? That is — ah — did she offer any more speculations, impertinent as they might be?’

  Jessica hesitated.

  ‘Come now, Miss Rogers … Jessica.’ His joviality rang false in his own ears ‘You’ve gone this far. You must tell me all.’

  She said: ‘Miss Thompson mentioned that the nomination for this Course member came from Mr Partridge.’

  ‘Partridge. Indeed.’

  Dampier felt even sadder. The plot was not merely thickening: it was becoming glutinous. There had never been a great deal of love lost between himself and Partridge, the only one of the five working Directors with whom he had never got on. Partridge and his gang of technicians always professed to look down on the London office departments. ‘We make the stuff,’ was one of Partridge’s overworked pronouncements, ‘and then you lot find ways of not selling it.’ He had made it quite clear that in his opinion all time not spent on intensive research and production and on hard-selling marketing was time wasted. The subtleties of the soft sell were beyond him. Partridge’s henchman, the senior chemist who gave several of the Course lectures at Belby, consistently did his best to make life awkward for Dampier. Dampier prided himself that he passed off these conflicts successfully. By letting his class know well in advance before going to Belby that there existed a healthy rivalry between the production and marketing functions, by telling jokes against himself and even quoting Partridge’s own remark with a deprecating, we-know-better-don’t-we smile, he inoculated them against any barbs that might strike home. It was all, he implied, part of the Intersyn family friendly rivalry — good for the individual and good for the Company.

  And now Partridge had used his influence to appoint a watcher, a spy. Partridge wanted someone else to take over Dampier’s job.

  But there was nobody else who could do it as well. Dampier was not himself top management material and had accepted this at an ear
ly stage of his career. He was, however, a reliable assessor of other people’s merits. Those who can’t, teach. Dampier could not make the grade but had an infallible instinct for detecting those who could. He would declare without false modesty that he had the qualifications of an accountant, a psychiatrist and a recruiting officer.

  Some of his colleagues thought he was vain. He knew what they said behind his back — knew that he was nicknamed ‘The Ferret’ — and none of it harmed him. He was irreplaceable. Yet now there was a danger of a possible replacement. Perhaps he had been too complacent. His only fear had been that one day he would lose his knack and be no longer susceptible to reason or to swiftly garnered and swiftly tabulated impressions. He could not believe that this time had come. He still had the ability to coax his adult pupils into revealing their best and even more significantly their worst.

  To Jessica he said: ‘This is all most distressing. I do feel, though, that it may not be as sinister as it appears.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She reacted to the tone of his voice rather than to his actual words. ‘I didn’t like to say anything at first, but after last night I thought you ought to know about it.’

  ‘Quite right. Thank you.’

  ‘Are you going to make out an official report? I don’t want to cause Miss Thompson any trouble — ’

  ‘Miss Thompson,’ he declared, ‘deserves all the trouble that may befall her. But’ — he was cheered and in some way strengthened by the thought of that elderly, irritating spinster at his mercy — ‘I don’t think it advisable to take any steps at this stage. It would only hold up the Course and cause a great deal of unpleasantness.’

  He could challenge Western and get the whole affair out in the open. The other Directors wouldn’t approve of Partridge’s methods. Partridge would not be popular. But then, neither would Dampier himself. Intersyn was not happy about having things out in the open: it was something they had always avoided. It was vulgar to make scenes, even when you were demonstrably in the right.

  He said: ‘I shall be obliged if you will, for the time being, keep all this to yourself. It may be possible to straighten this whole deplorable business out before the Course is ended.’