The Peace Machine

by Bob Shaw

  The house, with its warm lights glowing through the screen of poplars, looked achingly peaceful. He parked his car and stood outside for a moment, reluctant to enter, then went in through the side door. The interior, although brightly lit, was very quiet — and empty. He walked through to the lounge and found a note in Vicky’s handwriting sitting on the stone fireplace. It said: “The police have been here. Several reporters have rung me. And I have heard the news on the radio. I was beginning to hope I was wrong about you. I have taken David. This time — and I am sane — it is finally over. V. H.” Hutchman said aloud, “You, too, have done the right thing.”

  He sat down and, with meaningless deliberation, looked around the room. Nothing in it, he discovered, was of any importance. The walls, the pictures, and the furniture had become slightly unreal. They were stage properties among which three people had, for a while, acted out assigned roles. Suddenly conscious that he was artificially extending his own part beyond its term, he got to his feet and went into his study. There were more than a hundred envelopes — including those destined for England — yet to be filled, sealed, addressed, and stamped. He threw himself into the mechanical tasks, concentrating on minute details of folding the papers and exactly squaring the stamps to further deaden the ponderous workings of his mind. The attempt was moderately successful, but at times strange, incredible thoughts came to the fore.

  My wife and child have left me.

  Today I killed a man. I lied about it to the police and they let me go, but I knew that I did it. I didn’t mean to do it, but it happened. I terminated a human life!

  The news about my machine is spreading across the world. Soon the information ripple is going to reach the confines of its system, and then the direction will be reversed. I’m at the center. I’m the ground zero man, and terrible things are going to happen to me.

  My wife and child have left me… .

  When the work was finished and the envelopes piled in neat stacks, Hutchman looked around blankly, faced with the prospect of going on living. It occurred to him that he had not eaten anything all day, but the thought of preparing food was preposterous. The only meaningful action he could think of was to take another batch of envelopes out and mail them, possibly in London. Just at the time he most needed to preserve his obscurity he had been catapulted into the news headlines, yet it was still worthwhile to cover his tracks as regards the mailings. The police knew he had been involved in a peculiar accident — they still had nothing to make him a suspect in the massive security investigation which would ensue when the first envelope reached Whitehall. Andrea had halfthreatened to tell the police all she knew, but what she really wanted was to disengage herself as rapidly and completely as possible. There was no danger there.

  Hutchman brought the small suitcase in from the car and refilled it with envelopes. He turned off all the lights, went out into the blustery, rain-seeded darkness, and locked the door. Force of habit, he thought. What is there to steal? He threw the case onto the front seat of the car and was in the act of getting in beside it when a brilliant beam of light slewed across the drive, making shadows leap. A black sedan materialized behind the lights and crunched to a halt close to his car. Three men got out immediately, but Hutchman could not see them clearly because a spotlight was shining into his eyes. He fought to contain his fear.

  “Going somewhere, Mr. Hutchman?” The voice was hard and disapproving, but Hutchman relaxed as he identified it as belonging to Detective Inspector Crombie-Carson.

  “No,” he said easily. “Just doing a local errand.”

  “With a suitcase?”

  “With a suitcase. They’re handy for carrying things around. What can I do for you, Inspector?”

  Crombie-Carson approached the car, the police spotlight pinpointing him with radiance. “You can answer some more questions.”

  “But I’ve told you all I know about Welland.”

  “That remains to be seen,” the Inspector snapped. “However, it’s Miss Knight I’m interested in now.”

  “Andrea!” Hutchman felt a sick premonition. “What about her?”

  “Earlier this evening,” Crombie-Carson said coldly, “she was abducted from her apartment by three armed men.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Good God,” Hutchman whispered. “Why should anybody want to do that?”

  Crombie-Carson gave a short laugh which somehow indicated that, while he appreciated Hutchman’s display of surprise on its merits purely as a display, he had seen many guilty men react in a similar manner. “A lot of people would like to know the answer to that question. Where, for instance, have you been all evening?”

  “Right here. At home.”

  “Anybody with you to substantiate that?”

  “No.” If Andrea has been abducted, Hutchman thought belatedly, then she must have talked to more people than Welland. Either that or Welland passed something on to…

  “How about your wife?”

  “No. Not my wife — she’s staying with her parents.”

  “I see,” Crombie-Carson said, using what Hutchman was beginning to recognize as an all-purpose phrase. “Mr. Hutchman, I suspect that you were about to leave this area in spite of my request that you should remain.”

  Hutchman felt stirrings of real alarm. “I assure you I wasn’t. Where would I go?”

  “What have you in that suitcase?”

  “Nothing.” Hutchman squinted into the spotlight, feeling mild heat from it on his face. “Nothing like what you’re looking for. It’s correspondence.”

  “Do you mind showing it to me?”

  “I don’t mind.” Hutchman opened the car door, pulled the case to the edge of the seat, and clicked it open. The light played on the bundles of envelopes and reflected in the inspector’s glasses.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hutchman — I had to be certain. Now if you would lock the case away in your car or in the house, I would like you to accompany me to Crymchurch police station.”

  “Why should I?” The situation, Hutchman realized, had gone far beyond his control.

  “I have reason to believe you can help me with my inquiries.”

  “Is that another way of saying I’m under arrest?”

  “No, Mr. Hutchman. I have no reason to arrest you, but I can require you to give your full co-operation during my investigations. If necessary I can…”

  “Don’t bother,” Hutchman said, feigning resignation. “I’ll go with you.” He closed the case, put it on the floor of the car, and locked the door. Crombie-Carson ushered him into the rear seat of the police cruiser and got in beside him. The interior smelt of wax polish and dusty air circulated by the heater. Hutchman sat upright, acutely self-conscious, watching the flowing patterns of lights beyond the windows with heightened awareness, like a child going on holiday or a man being wheeled into an operating theater. He was unaccustomed to riding in a back seat, and the car felt monstrously long, unwieldy. The uniformed driver seemed to maneuver it around corners with super-human skill. It was almost ten o’clock by the time they got into the town and the public houses were busy with the Sunday night trade. Hutchman glimpsed the yellow-lit windows of Joe’s inn and abruptly his sense of adventure deserted him. He longed to be going into Joe’s for the last congenial hour, not for spirits but for pints of creamy stout which he could swill and swallow and drown in until it was time to go home. As the car swung into the police station Hutchman, who normally never drank stout or beer, felt that he had to have at least one pint, perhaps as a token that he could still contact the normal, mundane world.

  “How long is this going to take?” he said anxiously to Crombie-Carson, speaking for the first time since he had got into the car.

  “Oh, not very long. It’s quite a routine matter, really.”

  Hutchman nodded. The Inspector had sounded quite affable, and he privately estimated that he could be out again in thirty minutes, giving him at least another thirty for a beer, a chat with friends he had never met before, and a pee
k down the landlady’s blouse… A man with no family ties could take his fill of such simple pleasures. The last was a meager compensation, almost inconsiderable, but memories of his abysmal failure with Andrea — perhaps Vicky’s hold would relax now that she had renounced all rights. And Andrea had come on too strong that night. Was it only last night? Where is she now? And what is Vicky doing? Where is David? What’s happening to me? He blinked at his surroundings in internally generated alarm.

  “This way, Mr. Hutchman.” Crombie-Carson led him through a side entrance from the vehicle park, along a corridor, past an area containing an hotel-like reception desk and potted palms, and into a small sparsely furnished room. “Please sit down.”

  “Thank you.” Hutchman got a gloomy feeling it would take him more than thirty minutes to extricate himself.

  “Now.” Crombie-Carson sat down at the other side of a metal table without removing his showerproof. “I’m going to ask you some questions and the constable here is going to make a shorthand note of the interview.”

  “All right,” Hutchman said helplessly, wondering how much the Inspector knew or suspected.

  “Good. I take it that, as a condition of your employment, you are familiar with the provisions of the Official Secrets Act and have signed a document binding you to observe the Act?”

  “I have.” Hutchman thought back to the meaningless scrap of paper he had signed on joining Westfield’s and which had never influenced his activities in any way.

  “Have you ever revealed any details of your work for Westfield’s to a third party who was not similarly bound by the Act?”

  “No.” Hutchman began to relax slightly. Crombie-Carson was barking up the wrong tree and could continue to do so for as long as he wanted.

  “Did you know that Miss Knight is a member of the Communist Party?”

  “I didn’t know she actually carried a card, but I’d an idea she had socialist leanings.”

  “You knew that much, did you?” The Inspector’s condensed face was alert.

  “There’s no harm in that, is there? Some of the shop stewards in our missile-production factory are red-hot Party men who go to Moscow for their holidays. It doesn’t mean they’re secret agents.”

  “I’m not concerned with your trade-union officials, Mr. Hutchman. Have you ever discussed your work at Westfield’s with Miss Knight?”

  “Of course not. Until yesterday I hadn’t even spoken to her for years. I…” Hutchman regretted the words as soon as they were uttered.

  “I see. And why did you re-establish contact?”

  “No special reason.” Hutchman shrugged. “I saw her accidentally at the Jeavons Institute the other day and yesterday I rang her. For old times’ sake, you might say.”

  “You might. What did your wife say?”

  “Listen, Inspector.” Hutchman gripped the cool metal of the table. “Do you suspect me of betraying my country or my wife? You’ve got to make up your mind which.”

  “Really? I wasn’t aware that the two activities were in any way incompatible. In my experience they often go hand in hand. Surely the Freudian aspect of the typical spy fantasy is one of its most dominant features.”

  “That’s as may be.” Hutchman was shaken by the relevance of the Inspector’s comment — there had been that terrible moment of self-doubt, of identity blurring, just after he had met Andrea in the Camburn Arms. “However, I have not committed adultery or espionage.”

  “Is your work classified?”

  “Moderately. It is also very boring. One of the reasons I’m so positive I’ve never discussed it with anybody is that nothing would turn them off quicker.”

  Crombie-Carson stood up, removed his coat, and set it on a chair. “What do you know about Miss Knight’s disappearance?”

  “Just what you told me. Have you no clue about where she is?”

  “Have you any idea why three armed men should go to her apartment, forcibly drag her out of it, and take her away?”

  “None.”

  “Have you any idea who did it?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “Mr. Hutchman,” the Inspector said impatiently, “let’s conduct this interview the old-fashioned way. It’s always more productive when I ask the questions.”

  “All right — but permit me to be concerned about the welfare of a friend. All you tell me is…”

  “A friend? Would acquaintance not be a better word?”

  Hutchman closed his eyes. “Your use of the language is very precise.”

  At that moment the door opened and a sergeant came into the room with a buff folder. He set it on the table in front of CrombieCarson and left without speaking. The Inspector glanced through it and took out eight photographs. They were not typical policerecord pictures, but whole-plate shots of men’s faces, some of them portraits and others apparently blown up from sections of crowd photographs. Crombie-Carson spread them in front of Hutchman.

  “Study these faces closely, and tell me if you’ve seen any of them before.”

  “I don’t remember ever seeing any of these men,” Hutchman said after he had scanned the pictures. He lifted the edge of one and tried to turn it over, but Crombie-Carson’s hand pressed it down again.

  “I’ll take those.” The Inspector gathered up the glossy rectangles and returned them to the folder.

  “If you have finished with me,” Hutchman said carefully, “i have a craving for a pint of stout.”

  Crombie-Carson laughed incredulously and glanced at the shorthand writer with raised eyebrows. “You haven’t a hope in hell.”

  “But what more do you want from me?”

  “I’ll tell you. We have just completed part one of the interview. Part one is the section in which I treat the interviewee gently and with the respect a ratepayer deserves — until it becomes obvious he is not going to co-operate. That part is over now, and you’ve made it clear you are not going to be helpful of your own accord. From now on, Mr. Hutchman, lam going to lean on you. More than a little.”

  Hutchman gaped at him. “You can’t! You have nothing against me.”

  Crombie-Carson leaned across the table. “Give me some credit, friend. I’m a professional. Every day in life I’m up against other professionals and I nearly always win. Did you seriously think I would let a big soft amateur like you stand in my way?”

  “An amateur at what?” Hutchman demanded, concealing his panic.

  “I don’t know exactly what you’ve been up to — yet — but you’ve done something. You’re also a very poor liar, but I don’t mind that because it makes things easier for me. What I really object to about you is that you’re a kind of walking disaster area.”

  I’m the ground zero man, a voice chanted in Hutchman’s head. “What do you mean?”

  “Since you quietly slipped out of your fashionable bungalow this morning one woman has been abducted and two men have died.”

  “Two men! I don’t…”

  “Did I forget to tell you?” Crombie-Carson was elaborately apologetic. “One of the three men who abducted Miss Knight shot and killed a passer-by who tried to interfere.”

  Part two of the interview was every bit as bad as Hutchman had been led to expect. Seemingly endless series of questions, often about trivia, shouted or whispered, throwing coils of words around his mind. Implications which if not immediately spotted and challenged hedged him in, drove him closer and closer to telling the wrong lie or the wrong truth. Grazing ellipsis, Hutchman thought at one stage, his exhaustion creating a feeling — akin to the spurious cosmic revelation of semiwakefulness — that he had produced the greatest pun of all time. So numbed was he by the end of the ordeal that he was in bed in a neat but windowless “guest room” on an upper floor of the station before realizing he had not been given the option of going home to sleep. He stared resentfully at the closed door for a full minute, telling himself he would kick up hell if it proved to be locked. But he had had virtually no sleep for forty-eight hours, his brain had been s
avaged by Crombie-Carson, and although he was going to stand no nonsense about the door, it seemed hardly worth while doing anything about it before morning…

  He dropped cleanly into sleep.

  The sound of the door being opened wakened him. Convinced he had been asleep only a few minutes, Hutchman glanced at his watch and found that it registered ten past six. He sat up, becoming aware that he was wearing gray linen pyjamas, and watched the doorway as a young uniformed constable came in carrying a cloth-covered tray. The small room filled with the smell of bacon and strong tea.

  “Good morning, sir,” the constable said. “Here’s your breakfast. I hope you like your tea nearly solid.”

  “I don’t mind.” Hutchman’s preference was for weak tea, but his thoughts were occupied by something infinitely more important. This was Monday — and the remainder of his envelopes should have been in the mail. A crushing sense of urgency dulled his voice. “I take it I’m free to leave here at any time?”

  The fresh-faced constable removed the tray cloth and folded it meticulously. “That’s something you would need to raise with Inspector Crombie-Carson, sir.”

  “You mean I’m not free to leave?”

  “That’s a matter for the Inspector.”

  “Don’t give me that. You fellows on duty at the desk must receive instructions about who is allowed to leave and who isn’t.”

  “I’ll tell the Inspector you want to see him.” The constable set the tray across Hutchman’s thighs and walked to the door. “Don’t let your scrambled egg get cold — there’s only one sitting for breakfast.”