Into the Blue

by Robert Goddard

  ‘In this case, I think only hypnosis would answer the requirement. It frees the mind of all stresses and inhibitions. It liberates the totality of recollection.’

  ‘Hypnosis?’

  ‘I don’t wonder at your reluctance, but it has a history of success in such applications. You are the only known witness to the circumstances of Heather’s disappearance. You may have forgotten or suppressed some feature of them which is crucial to an understanding of what occurred.’

  Or crucial to an understanding of whether Kingdom had anything to fear from Harry. That, Harry felt certain, was really the object of the exercise. ‘I don’t know,’ he said hesitantly. ‘It seems a good idea on the face of it, but …’

  ‘Why don’t you think it over?’ Kingdom smiled at Harry as Harry did not doubt he smiled at all his patients before winkling their secrets from them. ‘You could perhaps come to my consulting rooms next week. Speed is obviously of the essence, but I appreciate it’s not the sort of step you’d wish to take without considering the implications.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. But I will think about it.’ And Harry silently vowed that while he was thinking about it, he would turn the tables on the subtle, self-confident Dr Kingdom. But how? And why, if Zohra was right in thinking Kingdom already suspected her, was the fellow prepared to be patient?

  ‘Do that, Mr Barnett.’ Kingdom’s broadening smile gave Harry no answers to his unspoken questions. ‘I really think you’ll see the wisdom of it. Let me know just as soon as you reach your decision.’

  36

  IT WAS ALREADY dark when Harry reached Weymouth. He parked the car thirty yards or so from the entrance to Mallender Marine, waited till his wristwatch showed a quarter to six, by which time he judged most of the staff would have dispersed, then walked boldly in. He passed nobody but an oblivious cleaner on his way through the dimly lit corridors. Mossop’s office was empty, but with the lad’s jacket still over his chairback and his briefcase stowed beneath the desk, it was certain he could not be far away. Harry settled himself at the desk facing Mossop’s, eyed the furnishings that had once formed the environment of his own working day – decrepit filing cabinets, overloaded cupboards, chart-posted noticeboards, memo-strewn tabletops – and waited.

  Ten years had passed since Harry’s sudden and ignoble exit from Mallender Marine, ten years that had drained its premises of familiarity but not contempt. That had merely lain dormant, sustained by an unsettled grudge, awaiting the moment of its revival. And now, with the thought Kingdom had sown in his mind, the moment had come. Roy Mallender had been the accuser eleven years ago and Harry the accused. Now the roles were about to be reversed.

  ‘Harry!’ Mossop started so violently as he walked through the door that most of the contents of his watering can – which he had evidently been away to fill – slopped onto the floor. ‘Wh-wh-wh—’

  ‘Close the door, Nige, and sit down. I want a word.’

  Mossop contrived to slam the door and strike a ringing blow against a filing cabinet with the watering can before he subsided into his chair. ‘I didn’t,’ he began, ‘didn’t … expect to s-see you … again—’

  ‘So soon?’ Harry lapsed into his old habit of finishing Mossop’s sentences for him. ‘You hoped you wouldn’t, more like.’

  ‘N-No … Not … not at all.’

  ‘Come off it, Nige. You thought you’d pulled the wool over my eyes, didn’t you?’

  ‘W-Wool? … I d- … I don’t …’

  ‘You thought you’d got away with just driving me to the New Forest and back. You thought you’d persuaded me Heather only went with you that day for the pleasure of your company.’

  ‘N-No. I never s-said—’

  ‘Where’s the evidence, Nige?’

  ‘Wh-What evidence?’ With a quivering finger, Mossop pushed his glasses back up his nose. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, liquid proof that he of all people would never make a good liar.

  ‘You got to like Heather, didn’t you? Don’t look so bashful. It’s understandable enough. You wanted to impress her, didn’t you? You wanted to show her you were more than just a pen-pushing nonentity, more than just the butt of her brother’s jokes. So you showed her something – some record stowed away and forgotten in the files – that proved her family’s commercial ethics weren’t as lily-white as she’d supposed.’ Harry leaned across the desk and fixed Mossop with a stare. ‘You may as well tell me all about it, Nige. I’m going to find out anyway.’

  ‘Find out what?’ The voice was harsh and booming and instantly recognizable. When Harry looked up, it was to see Roy Mallender standing in the doorway, dressed like the respected business man he would want to be thought but revealing by his cold-eyed stare and pouter pigeon stance all the bluster and belligerence he had once been famed for.

  ‘Hello, Roy.’ Harry injected as much false amiability as he could into his tone, knowing it would cut deeper than any insult. ‘Working late?’

  A single twitch in Roy’s expression revealed that fury was simmering only just beneath the surface. He took three swift strides to the desk and raised Mossop bodily from his chair by a choking grip on his collar. ‘Go home, Nigel,’ he barked. ‘See me first thing Monday morning.’

  In a sudden scuttling rush, Mossop gathered up his jacket and briefcase and fled from the room, Pity swept over Harry as he watched him go. Perhaps he had been unfair to the lad. Perhaps he should have broached matters more gently. Either way, it would be some days now before Mossop was even coherent, let alone forthcoming.

  Roy walked to the door and kicked it shut, then rounded on Harry. ‘You must be a bigger fool than I thought to come here like this, Barnett.’

  In some ways, Harry conceded, Roy was right, for this was one confrontation he was not ready for. He rose from his chair and began to walk calmly towards the door, but Roy stepped into his path.

  ‘Christ, I’d have been doing everybody a favour to have finished you off in Rhodes, wouldn’t I?’

  At close quarters, Roy’s loathed and swollen features were pitted with memories: memories of raging disputes won and lost, of injustices inflicted and grievances instilled. Looking at him, Harry found it difficult to believe that ten years separated him from the worst this man had done to him.

  ‘What did you want with Nigel?’

  ‘It was a private matter.’

  ‘Nothing that happens here is private.’ Roy’s blunt forefinger jabbed sharply into Harry’s chest. ‘Not from me.’

  ‘Don’t try to intimidate me, Roy. I’m not in your pay or your pocket anymore.’ Harry took a deep breath. There would be a time to avenge all the humiliations he had suffered at this man’s hands. There would be a time, but this was not it. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to leave.’

  At first, Roy did not move. For a moment, Harry thought he really did mean to finish what he had started on Rhodes. But no: he was lingering because, like all bullies, he never wanted his opponent to have the last word. ‘You had your warning, Barnett. Coming here tonight means you’ve ignored it. So go, by all means.’ With that, he cleared Harry’s path. ‘But don’t think there won’t be any consequences, because there will. Very serious consequences, believe me.’

  Harry did believe him. But strangely, at this moment, he did not care. Whatever the consequences, he was sure they would come too late to stop him. As he strode from the building, he was aware only of a bewildering self-confidence. Against the odds and his own expectations, he had teased out the tangled strands of Heather’s fate and was too close now to their source to be turned aside. A little more time was all he needed. A little more time and a meagre ration of understanding: then he would hold the truth in his hand.

  37

  HARRY AND ZOHRA were sitting on a bench in the overgrown heart of Kensal Green Cemetery as a grey midday came and went. Around them the crooked tombstones and gap-roofed mausolea of a Victorian necropolis stretched away along the rank and moss-fringed avenues. About thirty yards in front of them,
the tiny bobbing figure of Mrs Tandy could be seen tending the marbled plot where her father, mother, several aunts and uncles and a founding pair of grandparents had been committed in succession since the century began. But no other living soul was visible or detectable in the acreage of neglected graves. It was, therefore, the ideal place to choose for the discussion they were obliged to hold, innocent yet secure, above board yet out of prying earshot.

  Whilst Mrs Tandy, who had been profusely grateful to be driven to the cemetery, had bustled about filling vases for the flowers she had bought on the way, Zohra had calmly relayed to Harry all she had learned from her covert enquiries of the Versorelli Institute. Dr Kingdom, it transpired, had arrived in Geneva on Friday 4 November and had dined with the Director of the Institute that evening. He had attended a meeting at the Institute the following morning but had then been absent until the afternoon of Monday 7 November. So far, then, so good, since clearly he could have paid a flying visit to Rhodes on Sunday 6 November without being missed. Zohra had even contacted the airlines and confirmed that it was feasible. There had followed a full round of commitments at the Institute until the morning of Thursday 10 November. He had then once more absented himself, reappearing for the monthly senior consultants’ lunch on Saturday 12 November. None of this had struck Zohra’s informants as even remotely odd – Dr Kingdom was entitled to a portion of leisure like everybody else – but Harry and Zohra were compelled to take a different view. They knew where he had been during the first forty-eight-hour gap in his itinerary and they as good as knew where he had been during the second. As to why, or what he had done there, they had no evidence worthy of the name, but they had suspicions aplenty. They had proved he could have been on Rhodes, even on the very slopes of Profitis Ilias, at the time of Heather’s disappearance and, in their own minds, they had come to believe he must have been.

  A measure of justification for their certainty had already been supplied by Kingdom himself. Zohra had found him increasingly secretive of late, given to working at home and telling her less than he would normally have done. The past week had seen an uneasy watchfulness added to these developments, as if he had sensed or detected the enquiries she had been making. Yet she was sure her approaches to the Versorelli Institute had not been reported to him; she had given those she had spoken to not the least cause to suspect her motives. As for Harry, his meeting with Kingdom at Kew Gardens had left him in awe of the man’s subtlety but in no doubt of his duplicity. The suggestion of hypnosis had been a testament to both characteristics. If Harry refused, he would reveal his distrust of Kingdom. If he agreed, he might reveal far worse. Whichever his answer was to be, one would soon have to be given. And somehow, before then, he and Zohra had to gain the measure of their opponent, for Heather’s sake if not their own. They had reached the limits of conjecture. Now they needed something more.

  ‘There may be a way of making Dr Kingdom give us what we need,’ Zohra said quietly, after they had sat in silence for some time contemplating the difficulty of their position. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for several days. Ever since I learned the dates of his absences from Geneva, in fact.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, as I told you, he keeps all his patients’ files in a locked cabinet in his office. I have no access to it in the normal course of events, but I’ve noticed he often leaves it unlocked during the day if he’s in, even when he pops out for a few minutes. It might be possible …’

  ‘To examine the contents of Heather’s file?’

  ‘Or to photocopy them.’ Zohra grew suddenly sombre. ‘It would be risky. Telephoning the Versorelli Institute was one thing. Rifling through a cabinet I’ve absolutely no business opening is another. If he came back unexpectedly and caught me in the act …’

  The outcome did not need to be defined. At the very least, Zohra would lose her job. At the worst, Dr Kingdom could prove to be as dangerous as they feared. Harry felt instinctively that it was a risk he could not allow her to run. ‘Are you sure what we’d find would justify taking such a chance?’

  ‘No. But the fact that he’s stopped preparing material for Heather’s file through me makes me think it must contain something he wants to hide. If so—’

  ‘If so, I should be the one to play thief.’

  ‘How could you do that?’

  ‘Go there at night, perhaps. I daresay the cabinet could be forced.’

  Zohra frowned. ‘But then he’d know what had happened. What I’m suggesting would mean we had his notes on Heather in our possession without him being any the wiser.’

  Zohra was right. Her method had every advantage over a clumsy piece of cat-burglary. Yet Harry could not suppress some rebellion within him against the fact that she would be courting disaster while he sat back and awaited the results. ‘I’m not sure I can let you do this. It’s too much to ask of you.’

  ‘But you’re not asking it of me. Heather is.’ Her dark eyes swept across him, leaving him in no doubt of her sincerity. ‘Besides, I know Dr Kingdom’s habits better than anyone. There’s no reason why anything should go wrong.’

  ‘When would you make the attempt?’

  ‘As soon as the circumstances seemed favourable.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks?’

  ‘No I won’t take any unnecessary risks.’ So: the decision was made. ‘Don’t worry, please.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  There came to Zohra’s face the radiance of a sudden smile. ‘Well, it’s not so bad to have somebody worrying about me. In fact, it’s rather a pleasant novelty.’ She looked away. ‘I think Mrs Tandy has finished. Shall we join her?’

  Without further protest, Harry followed Zohra down a narrow path between the jumbled gravestones towards Mrs Tandy’s family plot, where the old lady could be seen bundling together discarded flower stalks. As they went, it occurred to him that Heather, whatever her other misfortunes, had been luckier in several friendships than he had ever been in one; he doubted if anybody would have done as much for him in similar circumstances as Zohra was prepared to do for her.

  ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I have some news,’ she said, as they passed between two towering monuments to the respected dead of another generation.

  ‘I don’t mind admitting I’ll be anxious to hear from you,’ Harry replied. ‘I wish you’d—’

  In a split-second of realization, he was struck dumb. From somewhere to his left had come a faint click that could have been a squirrel cracking a nut but which conveyed to his ears a hint of the mechanical, a slight but unmistakeable suggestion of a closing camera shutter. He whirled round and there, not twenty yards away, was a figure in a raincoat standing amongst the crowded tombs, lowering a camera to his side. Harry was clutched by the horror of instant recognition. It was the man from the train at Reading, the man who had wished him goodnight in Greek at Warwick Avenue station.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Zohra, noticing his alarm.

  But he could not reply. This shabby, innocuous stranger whose vapid grin would have persuaded most people of his utter harmlessness possessed the power to strike him rigid with fear. It was beyond logic but beyond denial. And every time it was worse.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ repeated Zohra, with great emphasis.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ piped the stranger in a voice Harry could have predicted he would use: that of a simpleton whom nobody would pay much heed. ‘The funerary monuments are quite delightful, are they not? And eminently photogenic.’

  ‘Yes,’ Zohra replied. ‘They are, aren’t they?’ It was obvious to Harry that she had been taken in completely. ‘Do you come here often?’

  ‘As often as I feel the need. You might say I haunt the place.’ It sounded so like the joke an eccentric grave-spotter would crack that Harry was sure only he would see through it. ‘Do excuse me. I must go a-snapping before the light starts to fail.’ With that he turned and hurried away, his grey raincoated figure dwindling rapidly amidst the forest of ra
ised crosses and broken pillars.

  Zohra touched Harry’s elbow, as if trying to wake him from a trance. ‘Are you all right?’ she said, clearly bemused by his behaviour.

  ‘Yes. I’m all right.’ He took a deep breath, forcing his tensed muscles to relax. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that … I could have sworn I’d seen that man before.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the train, when I left here last week.’

  ‘Maybe you did. He probably lives locally. What of it?’

  ‘Do you think he was really photographing the monuments – or us?’

  ‘He seemed genuine to me. The cemetery does attract photographers.’

  Harry did not try to argue. He knew how innocent the event was bound to seem to anybody denied his glimpses of the grand deception in which it played a part. Reading. Oxford. Haslemere. Kensal Green. Every step he took was traced, every move he made forestalled. He should have told her before now, he should have warned her of the snares that lay in wait for them. But if he did, would she believe him? And if she did believe him, would she still take the chance that might hand them Kingdom’s guilt on a plate? In the face of such uncertainties, he could only stifle his fear and hold his tongue.

  ‘Besides,’ Zohra continued, ‘what would be the point? What would a photograph of us together prove?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He turned towards her and smiled reassuringly. ‘Nothing, I suppose. You’re right. Let’s forget it.’ But his brain told him to do the exact reverse. Print this moment on your memory, it commanded. Record it faithfully so that later, when all these incidents have conspired to produce the climactic event you crave as much as you dread, you will be able to name the time and place when fear was finally conquered. The self-control that had returned to him now might count for nothing in the end. But at least it would sustain him until the end, whatever that was and wherever it was to be found.