Someone else, he thought, was making patterns in his mind. Creating them out of nothing. Someone was being very creative indeed.
3
Church bells ringing. Ding dong bell. On the pavement leading up to St Joseph’s the Sunday cohorts were walking, soberly dressed, wearing industrious expressions. The morning sun shone brightly on grey stone, yew trees, well-trimmed green lawns. The rains had had a freshening effect on the grass, the summer leaves, even on the granite gravestones outside the church, which had a freshly-washed look about them. Dobie was freshly washed and shaved but not noticeably freshened. He drove on down the street, cautiously slowing down for the road junction and the little cluster of shops around it where incautious pedestrians, emerging from the newsagents with their noses in the News of the World and their heads as often as not still aching from the sociable excesses of Saturday night, were wont to step blithely off the pavement and vanish between the wheels of intemperately-conducted vehicles. All these disco places, Dobie thought crossly. They have a mind-numbing effect. Glancing sideways as he passed the shops, he perceived outside the newspaper emporium a very large placard bearing the announcement,
CARDIFF WOMEN VICTIMS IN DOUBLE SEX MURDER
The wording of this message had an even more spectacularly mind-numbing effect on him and on entering the main road he only narrowly avoided running over a middle-aged lady pushing a perambulator who, having emitted a penetrating squeak, was just able to seek refuge on the central island in the nick of time. Dobie, shaken by this encounter and redoubling his concentration, continued on his journey. The Corder residence, when he arrived there some fifteen minutes later, seemed to be doing even better business than St Joseph’s; a considerable crowd of some thirty or forty loiterers had apparently taken root on the strip of pavement outside the front gate, a TV-news van was prominently parked some ten feet distant and a uniformed policeman was providing a non-nuclear but determined deterrent to those avid sensation-seekers who were attempting to gain admission to the property itself. Dobie was relieved to find himself recognised at once and waved benignly through; the three-and-a-quarter hours he had spent at the police station the day before had clearly not been altogether in vain. What with one thing and another, though, it had been a nerve-racking drive and, once safely within the house and seated once again in the front room, he was even more relieved to be greeted with the sweetest words of thought or pen or with what might, anyway in the circumstances, be so regarded.
“Not too early for you, is it?”
“No, indeed not,” Dobie said.
The whisky bottle in Alec’s sturdy hands made musical noises and Wendy, who had been gazing glumly out of the front window at the goings-on outside, came to plump herself ganglingly down on the sofa beside them. “Those people. They’re not going to go away.”
“We’ll see about that,” Corder said grimly.
“You’ll just have to get used to it, Daddy. The policeman did warn you.”
Dobie could understand their perturbation. You didn’t have to look out of the window to be aware of that lurking presence outside, not in the least threatening but docilely inquisitive, like the audience at an Alan Ayckbourn play intent upon watching other people going quietly bonkers, bored wives and unassuming husbands being pushed to the ends of their respective tethers. The house itself was a little too much like a stage, its furniture a little too unused and a little too carefully arranged; Dobie had always thought so, but he also knew that the houses of most wealthy people were like this. Perhaps they wouldn’t feel comfortable if things were otherwise.
“What I can’t make out,” Corder said, “is what they expect to see.” He raised his laden glass vaguely in Dobie’s direction. “Oh well. She’s right, of course. Daughters usually are, you know. It’s a most annoying habit of theirs.”
“Not true,” Wendy said. “I wish it were.”
This morning she was wearing sky-blue knee-length shorts and a yellow rollneck pullover and wasn’t looking at all secretarial. She looked sort of Home-Counties and horsy, Dobie thought, which was odd because to the best of his knowledge she didn’t ride at all. But then his knowledge didn’t amount to very much. Her last remark seemed to have irritated her father slightly and Dobie couldn’t see why. “All right – now that this has happened I’m sure we both wish things had worked out rather differently. But it’s no good letting your mind dwell on it. Business as usual and carry on regardless. That’s the ticket.”
“I’m not dwelling on it. I didn’t mean that at all.”
Corder stared down at the whisky swirling restlessly around in his tumbler. “Let’s take these into my study, shall we, John? Those bloody people out there, they’re getting on my nerves.”
Corder’s study at least faced the other way; nothing could be seen through the picture window but a blue-grey expanse of shifting sea and the shapes of a few distant merchant ships lying off Sully Roads. A desk and a shelfload of red-bound books seemed to be there chiefly in order to justify its description; it wasn’t study-like in any other sense and Corder appeared to be aware of this, to the point of feeling a need to apologise for it. “… Never much liked this place, to tell you the truth. Never did. Nor does Wendy, really.”
“I gather she doesn’t live here any more.”
“No,” Corder said, giving a leather-backed armchair quite a vicious kick before turning and sitting down on it. “Not since she started working with us. I found her a nice little room in Fairwater, right above the shop, so to speak. Well, a five-minute drive, anyway. Jane made a hell of a fuss at the time but you know what mothers are like. Or you can imagine it, anyway.”
“Jane made a fuss about most things.”
“So she did. Still, the kid wanted to be independent, the way kids do, and I could see her point of view. Anyway, I’m all for peace and quiet. Aren’t you?”
“Very much so.”
“Yes,” Corder said. “Ironical, that.”
He stared down again into his whisky glass, holding it cupped in both hands. It was a pose of deep despondency, but not a studied one. It was probably true that he’d never liked the house; the house was Jane’s choice, and all its furnishings, and now that she was gone he had to feel himself, in a strange way, to be on foreign territory. Even here. Even in his study. “… I suppose,” he said, “I’d better hear all about it. That’s if you feel like telling me.”
Dobie didn’t, not really, but it was something that had to be done. Yet again. With the coherence developed of practice, he went through his story and Alec listened to it. Since at no point did Alec show any obvious signs of surprise, Dobie deduced that he’d heard most of it already, probably from Pontin. But the story admittedly did seem to sound a little more extraordinary each time he told it. “… That’s what happened, though, Alec. And I haven’t held anything back. I’d have no reason to.”
“Funny about Jane’s not being here when you arrived, if that was what you’d arranged. Most unlike her.”
“That’s what I thought at the time. But—”
“And you’ve no idea what it was she wanted to talk to you about?”
“None at all. Unless maybe it had something to do with Jenny. But that doesn’t make much sense, either. Jane wouldn’t have told me anything bad about Jenny, it wouldn’t have been… loyal.”
“Why would it need to be something bad?”
“Isn’t it usually?”
Corder shook his head, but not in disagreement. “Yes. With women, I suppose it usually is. That note she left… You’ve given it to the police?”
“Not yet. I’ve got it here in my pocket, as a matter of fact.”
“Could I see it?”
Dobie handed it over and Corder read it. Several times.
“… Well, it’s her typewriter all right. Red part of the ribbon because the switch got jammed. I was wondering if… ”
“Yes,” Dobie said. “Anyone could have put it there.”
“But not anyone could have written
it.”
“Jane could have written it but at some other time.”
“Well, yes.” Corder shook his head again and returned the note to Dobie. “You’ve been doing some thinking about it, obviously.”
“Of course I have.”
“Me, too. Are you going to give it to the police?”
“No,” Dobie said.
“No. All right. I shan’t mention it. All the same… Yes, Pontin’s an idiot, but when all’s said and done the police are professionals. I’m not sure we’d be wise to get mixed up in this thing ourselves.”
“I am mixed up in it,” Dobie said.
“Any more than you are already, I mean.”
“The trouble is, I know one thing that they don’t.”
“What’s that?”
“That I didn’t do it.”
“Good God. Are you serious?”
“Very.”
“They couldn’t possibly believe it was you who…?”
“They not only could, I think they do.”
“But that’s ridiculous. I’ve known you for thirty years. It’s the most preposterous… Yes. I see what you mean.”
The glass of the picture window vibrating gently. Corder ignoring the sound, Dobie looking up. The whine of jet engines, growing louder and louder. From other, rounded windows the passengers would be looking downwards at the house and the people outside it and the line of the beach and the grey rocks and the smooth unruffled surface of the sea. Under that unruffled surface, the abyss. The nothingness of infinity. Once again, Dobie felt fear.
Corder wasn’t altogether ignoring that sound, after all. It was too loud, too penetrating to be ignored. “Bloody aircraft,” he said. “I think I’ll get rid of this place. I’m starting to hate it.”
Outside the house. Outside the church. Only three days ago Dobie had been like that himself, one of that numberless multitude soberly going about their daily business, talking to students, conferring with colleagues, walking quietly from staff room to lecture hall, upstairs, downstairs, work work work, and treading all the time on that glass-fine crust holding them all briefly up from nothing. A crust as thin as a sheet of paper pinned to a door that opened, again, on nothing. No, he wouldn’t show that paper to the police. They wouldn’t understand. Alec wouldn’t, either.
“It’s like this every day in the summer. Paris flight coming over. Twice every day we have to put up with it, taking off and landing. It doesn’t worry me as much as it might,” Corder said, “I’m always at the office, but I’ve complained about it all the same. Jane’s complained. Doesn’t do a blind bit of good.”
“No,” Dobie said. “It doesn’t.”
… Why hadn’t anyone told him? The Paris flight, coming in. That was what had woken him up, that racketing roar. Jenny passing by. Overhead. So close to him at that moment, and he hadn’t known.
“I wish Wendy had a bigger place. She could put me up. As it is, I’ll just have to stick it out. How are you coping?”
Alec was right. It didn’t do a blind bit of good. Nothing does.
“Remember a boy called Cantwell? On your staff?”
“Cantwell?”
“I’ve borrowed his room. In Cardiff.”
“Cantwell? He’s dead.”
“Yes. Well, not borrowed. Sort of taken over.”
“Shot himself, didn’t he? A bad business, that.”
“Yes, it was.”
“So is this a bad business. Maybe,” Corder said, “we should both get pissed.” Clambering rather awkwardly to his feet, he opened an adjacent cupboard and took out yet another bottle of the double malt. “Where’s your glass?”
“Here.”
“Here. Right. Well, the truth of the matter is, he blotted his copybook. Pretty badly.”
“Who did?”
“That Cantwell fellow. We had to sack him. He’d been given notice. Of course, no one imagined that he’d go and… do that. But the fact remains.”
Get pissed. It wasn’t a bad idea. “Nobody said anything about that at the inquest.”
“Hell, no. No point in washing your dirty linen. He wasn’t a special friend of yours, was he? Or a protégé? Or anything like that?”
“Not really, no. I was just a little puzzled—”
“You see, that’s how it is. We all know there’s a lot of it going on but no one wants to admit to it. Because if you do that, you imply it’s been successful. And then the fat’s in the fire, as the saying goes.”
Dobie had already suspected that that other whisky bottle in the sitting-room had taken a certain amount of punishment that morning. “ … I’m sorry Alec. I don’t follow you at all.”
“You really don’t?”
“I really don’t.”
“Well… Perhaps I’m getting whatchamaycallit about it. Paranoid. That’s the word. Oh God,” Corder said. “Industrial espionage, we call it. Professional misconduct. Of course when you’ve got the evidence you’ve no choice but to act on it. It’s quite a serious matter. You can understand that.”
“Yes, but… Is that what he was doing? Cantwell?”
“It’s what a whole lot of people are doing. All over the country. Picking up a little piece here, a little piece there. And somewhere there’s a clever chappie who collects it all together and adds it all up. Of course he wasn’t the clever chappie. Cantwell wasn’t. A snippet provider, you might say. But that’s bad enough.”
The aircraft had passed on now, was gaining height over the Channel. Dobie was having some difficulty in collecting his thoughts. In adding them all up. His mind was still on a small safety-belted figure, leaning forwards a little in her seat, gazing fixedly out into the hard-driving rain. “But you make hi-fi components, don’t you? Stereo speakers and so on?”
“Yes, we do. But now we’re going into hearing aids. No great harm in my telling you that, the cat’s been out of that little bag for some time back.” Alec’s voice had gained a little in confidence and enthusiasm; he was talking shop and back on familiar ground. “We’re going into hearing aids in a very big way, in fact I’ve just been looking at a new production site in Birmingham. It’ll be hard getting hold of the workforce I’ll need down here.”
“You think that’s likely to be lucrative?”
“You know what they cost, those little miniaturised ones that go inside your ear?… Three to five hundred they’ll set you back. I plan to produce a more effective model that’ll retail at sixty pounds and that’s including VAT. Not just in the UK, either. Throughout the Common Market and in the USA. You know how many partially deaf people there are over an area that size?… No, nor do I. But the mind boggles, right? And all that with a guaranteed six per cent profit margin. A good investment opportunity, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re going to end up pretty rich, if it all works out.”
“I’m rich already.”
“Well, yes. So you are.”
The classic one-two with the shotgun, Dobie thought.
First you blast the ears off the kids with your high-voltage amplifiers, then you sell them cheap hearing aids when they’ve grown up. It can’t fail.
“… But,” Corder said, a little wistfully, “if the Min. of Health takes it up, as they’re almost bound to, it’d probably get me a peerage. You know, Jane had her heart set on that. I don’t know that I’m so very keen. It’s not as though I had a son or someone who would… But there you are.” He paused for a space. “Shit. Sometimes you wonder.”
“What kind of stuff did Cantwell have access to?”
“I don’t know. Ask Roger Michaels about it. My security bloke. He’ll have all the details if you’re interested. But you didn’t come here to talk about my business problems, did you?”
“No. Not really.”
“Let’s take another little drink to it, then.”
With all that liquid refreshment sloshing around inside him, Dobie didn’t fancy getting straight back into his car and driving off. Not with the minatory figure of a hefty poli
ce constable still guarding the front gate. A little fresh air and exercise was first of all indicated. Accordingly, Dobie turned sharp left on leaving, entering thus the Pantmawr garden, and began to walk up and down on the lawn. It was an extensive lawn but very patchy, the grass clearly finding the salt sea air not much to its liking. At some fifty yards’ distance from the house it indeed gave up the struggle completely, yielding to a rough sandy shingle which degenerated in turn into the shale and loose rocks that marked the edge of the sea-cliff; not a very precipitous cliff, but steep enough for a low protective wall to have been built along it. On this stone wall Dobie saw that Wendy was seated, shoulders slightly hunched, gazing out to sea. He wasn’t sure that she’d be in a mood to appreciate company, but as his unwary approach had not gone unremarked he couldn’t very well sheer away without at least the appearance of discourtesy. He continued his approach, therefore, and sat down beside her. Like many middle-aged men, Dobie felt a certain unease when conversing with the grown-up children of old friends; you never knew whether to include them, so to speak, within the aura of that friendship or to treat them as independent entities, and fiercely independent entities at that. He even felt a little uneasy about Wendy qua entity; there had always been something a bit tomboyish about her which probably had something to do with what Alec had said. A daughter instead of a son. Girls are all too often aware of these things.
Anyway, a minute or so had gone by and neither of them had so far said anything. It was Wendy, in fact, who broke the silence first. “… I just can’t think of anything to say.”
“No,” Dobie said, shifting his position slightly. “There isn’t anything, really.”
“It’s even worse for you than it is for Dad. I mean you hadn’t been married all that long, had you?”
“Not long. But I wouldn’t say it makes it any worse.”
“I didn’t really know her very well. I met her a few times here, of course, at Mum’s coffee mornings and things like that. She seemed very nice. Maybe,” Wendy said, “a little bit young for you.”
The Strange Attractor Page 10
