DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 1

by Phillip Strang

  ‘For generating large-scale electricity, although a condensed version could have been put on a missile. As I said, the solution was with Malcolm. He could have completed it, but we’ve not been able to emulate his results, and we have access to much more powerful computers.’

  ‘Does a lot of your research produce results as dramatic?’

  ‘Not really, but if you can produce energy, you can produce destruction. Basic physics. It was straightforward for Malcolm; for us, it became too complicated, and then he disappeared. One day he’s here, the next he’s gone. And then, a few weeks afterwards, he’s dead.’

  ‘What was the reaction here when he died?’

  ‘We were shocked, I can tell you that.’

  Isaac could see that the woman spent too much time in a laboratory. Her skin was pallid, her hair tied back in an unfashionably severe style. On her feet, she wore sensible shoes, which made sense, as he had noticed that the tiled floor was slippery, apart from the rubber mats placed at strategic points. He did not like the place; it reminded him of the science department at his old school.

  ‘How did it affect the project he was working on?’

  ‘They expected us to carry on without him, but it was not possible. Malcolm was the genius, not us. In the end, we put it to one side.’

  ‘The project was shelved?’

  ‘We’ve never been able to solve what Malcolm was working on. And now, it’s not so relevant.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Back then, it was coal and oil-fired power stations, fuel-guzzling cars.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Earth-based solutions have improved, although the energy from space remains viable. And besides, the budget’s not there anymore. Everything’s incredibly expensive, and without money there’s not much we can do, except theorise.’

  ‘Would the money have been available for Malcolm Woolston?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I used to see them with Ed Barrow.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The men with the money.’

  ‘Do you know who they were?’

  ‘I know one of them was an army man.’

  ‘Others?’

  ‘Just before Malcolm disappeared there were a few.’

  ‘Military?’

  ‘That’s what I think.’

  ‘Would you remember who they were?’

  ‘I was never introduced.’

  ‘I’ve a photo. Could you please look at it and tell me if you know this man?’

  Isaac withdrew from his pocket two of the photos that Larry had found at Arbuthnot’s. He showed them to Helen Toogood. She studied the first, a quick reply. ‘That’s Harold Hutton,’ she said.

  ‘We’re aware that he was here on a regular basis.’

  ‘He’s dead. I read about it. Supposedly he was murdered.’

  ‘He was,’ Larry said.

  ‘And the other?’ Isaac asked.

  The woman took out a magnifying glass from the pocket of her lab coat. She moved it up and down as she scanned the photo.’

  ‘I never met him, but he was here once.’

  ‘It was a long time ago; are you sure?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Quite certain. I never forget a face.’

  Isaac and Larry realised that they had the second connection to the research department and to Ed Barrow and Sue Christie.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Toogood,’ Isaac said. ‘If we’ve any more questions, we’ll be in touch.’ The woman left the lab where Isaac and Larry were sitting.

  Larry spoke first. ‘She’s identified George Arbuthnot,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not conclusive, but we should be able to confront Barrow with it, see what his reaction is.’

  ‘He’ll stonewall.’

  ‘Sue Christie’s here. We’ll ask her.’

  The two men walked backed down the corridor to the personal assistant’s office. They knocked and entered. ‘Any help?’ the woman asked from behind her desk.

  ‘Are you able to help us identify a man if we show you a photo?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  Isaac handed over the photo. Sue Christie took her time in answering. ‘Sorry, I don’t remember him.’

  ‘And when is Mr Barrow back?’

  ‘No idea.’

  The two police officers left soon after and found a café. ‘What do you reckon?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘I’d trust Helen Toogood more than Sue Christie,’ Larry said.

  ‘That’s as maybe, but Mrs Toogood’s eyesight is not so sharp. You saw how she used the magnifying glass.’

  ‘I’d still trust her first. She’s got no axe to grind, whereas Barrow and his personal assistant have.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe not an axe. Barrow’s involved with his PA. They’ll cover for each other.’

  ‘And Gwen Barrow?’

  ‘Ed Barrow could be genuine in his affection for her, although it doesn’t stop him having a bit on the side.’

  ‘Are we confident that he is?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘It’s not relevant, not yet, if he is.’

  ‘True, but it raises the question of why Ed Barrow married the widow: out of love or to keep a watch out for Woolston.’

  ‘It’s conjecture, but I’d say the latter.’

  Chapter 18

  Malcolm Woolston had seen the two police officers at his former wife’s house. He realised the significance: they had identified him. He had hoped it would take longer, but it did not matter. He knew that Ed Barrow hadn’t called the police to let them know that a murderer was on the loose, and it wouldn’t have been Sue Christie, bitch that she was. He knew all about her and her men. She had tried it on with him once, but he hadn’t been interested. There was only one woman for him, Gwen, and now she was with another man and that man was cheating on her.

  Woolston walked the short distance to his daughter’s house, saw her arriving there two hours after the police officers had left her mother’s house. Ed Barrow had driven her. He wanted to go over and confront the man, announce his return to his daughter, but it was clear that she already knew. He planned how to meet her, knowing full well her reaction.

  He realised that if they knew he was back, they probably were aware of his appearance. He returned to his flat, shaved off his beard, as well as his remaining hair, and left. It was not the ideal disguise, he knew, but it would suffice. He returned to his daughter’s house. A uniformed policeman was standing outside. He waited for his daughter to leave, knowing that in the park he would not be recognised.

  After two hours Sally emerged. She said hello to the uniformed policeman and crossed the road, her daughter in a pushchair. She looked as if she had been crying.

  ‘Hello,’ Woolston said, as Sally sat down next to him on the only bench available.

  ‘Hello.’ A curt reply.

  ‘I’ll never harm you or your mother, believe me.’

  Sally sat rigidly on the spot, unsure what to say. The young child in the pushchair played with a small toy.

  ‘I need you to let me explain,’ Woolston said.

  ‘But, but…’

  ‘Don’t speak, just let me talk. Let me tell you how much I love you and your mother. How much I regret the years apart, the years of deception, and why it has been necessary.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Sally spluttered, uncertain whether to scream or to be overjoyed. ‘You’ve killed people.’

  ‘I’ve also saved countless thousands, but they’ll never tell you that. They don’t care about the truth, only the lies they perpetrate.’

  ‘Why did you vanish? You can’t realise how hard it was on mum. For years she was sad. She’s married again.’

  ‘I know. I saw her and Ed at the registry office. I saw you at school, getting drunk, making a fool of yourself. I even helped you home once, but you don’t remember. I was always there for you and your mother.’

  ‘I’m not sure what to say,’ Sally said. The child dropped the toy. Woolston leaned down and picked it up.
<
br />   ‘Can I?’

  ‘Yes. This is Susie.’

  ‘I know.’ Woolston gave the child the toy; she took it, momentarily touching his hand.

  ‘She looks like you,’ Sally said.

  ‘I’m sorry for all the pain. I did what was necessary.’

  ‘But all those years, and now they want you for murder.’

  ‘The people that died, some were evil, some were good, but the secret had to be kept.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I perfected a way of generating vast amounts of low-cost energy.’

  ‘Mum said you were involved with research.’

  ‘My research was for peaceful purposes, but others wanted to use it for evil. I could not let them.’

  ‘Is that why you disappeared?’

  ‘Yes. I had to. They maltreated me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The two men that died.’

  ‘Is Ed involved?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please don’t harm him. He’s been good to mum and me.’

  ‘I will leave him alone for now.’

  ‘Would you kill him?’

  ‘I will not let my knowledge fall into their hands. They would use it one day for the wrong reason. The consequences are too frightening.’

  Across the road, the policeman at the door observed the woman that he was protecting talking to a man. He decided to investigate, although his order had been to stand at the woman’s front door during the day, a particularly tedious task. The constable crossed the road and made towards Sally and her father.

  Malcolm Woolston stood up and walked away. Sally moved towards the policeman. ‘Is it all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine, thank you.’

  As she went back into her house, she looked over at the park; her father was gone. She considered contacting her mother, but for some reason she did not. She had felt safe with the man, even his granddaughter had smiled at him. She knew he would not harm them.

  ***

  Ed Barrow returned to his office the day after the revelation that his wife’s former husband was still alive. He was confident that no one suspected that he already knew, even before the police officers had visited him in his office.

  Sue Christie was soon in his office. She flung her arms around his neck to give him an early morning kiss. He pulled back. ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Sorry, there’s too much going on. Don’t you see it? We’re targeted as well.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Why not? You were here when he contacted me, and he knows about our affair.’

  ‘It’s your affair, not mine. You went and married Gwen, not me.’

  ‘You know I had to.’

  ‘Doing your duty for Queen and country?’

  ‘We had to know if he ever contacted her.’

  ‘You signed the initial order authorising Malcolm’s torture. The man was brutal with him. I’m with Malcolm on that one. But why us? Why me?’

  ‘Malcolm’s mind could be disturbed. If he’s settling old debts, then we could be drawn in. He knows that we’re here making love. He’s probably got videos. What if he shows Gwen?’

  ‘He’ll not do that. He was always devoted to her, you know that. Remember that time when we’d had a few too many drinks, and I sat on his lap,’ Sue said.

  ‘You were looking for a foursome.’

  ‘I was just joking.’

  ‘But if they had agreed?’

  ‘I’d have been game, so would you, don’t deny it.’

  ‘It didn’t happen, and Malcolm was sure angry for you suggesting it.’

  ‘He’ll not harm her; he’ll not harm you, because of her.’

  ‘You weren’t here,’ Ed said,’ when they went to work on Malcolm.’

  ‘You told me afterwards.’

  ‘I told you too much.’

  ***

  Malcolm Woolston had made a promise, a promise he could not keep indefinitely. His daughter was right in that she wanted to protect her mother from further anguish, but then his daughter was idealistic, saw the world through rose-coloured glasses.

  Ed Barrow was a malignant parasite who had sold out to the highest bidder. The man sat in a decent office, with a personal assistant and a hefty salary; blood money as Woolston saw it.

  He looked out of the window of his flat. A couple of children played down below, a dog barked in the distance, yet in his small flat there was nothing. The television no longer interested him, the food that he had bought had gone stale. In the past, when he had been with Gwen and Sally, he had enjoyed preparing the evening meal whenever Gwen came in late, even picking their daughter up from school. But now, he had nothing, not a noise, not a friendly face.

  He looked around the flat. It was dull and devoid of reading material. Not that he wanted to read; too many ideas swirling in his mind, too many unfinished equations, too many people still alive who should not be.

  Unable to sit down, Woolston left the flat and returned to where the chance of his being recognised was at its greatest. He walked past his daughter’s house, past his wife’s house. He could see her through the kitchen window. He thought she still looked lovely. He continued walking for several hours, finally arriving at Sue Christie’s address. The woman was not there, he could tell that. He walked around the back of the building, peered in the window, saw the cat that she had had eleven years before, although it was now looking old.

  ***

  Ed Barrow knew that Sue had been correct. Initially, he had been close to Gwen out of a feeling of compassion for her, coupled with the more immediate reason for finding out where her husband had gone. It was clear after six months that she had no idea where he was, only a belief that he was dead. With Malcolm’s disappearance, he realised that he loved the woman. Sue was fun, and always ready to be laid, but with Gwen it was romance, a bottle of wine, and candles.

  Sue was Thursday night in the office, or in the back seat of his car, or wherever. He liked her, and although she could be irritating, he still could not resist.

  Ed knew that Malcolm was a liability, not only for the department but for his life. Eleven years earlier, it had been him who had postulated that Woolston’s disappearance had been an elaborately constructed hoax.

  The research still remained uncompleted; others had tried, only one person looked as though she may succeed. Ed realised that Liz Hardcastle had not fallen off the platform at the railway station; she had been pushed.

  ***

  ‘What is the response from Barrow? Have you been keeping a watch on him?’ a man in uniform said.

  ‘We should have told him that Malcolm Woolston was back when we saw his formula on the internet.’

  ‘Hindsight, pure hindsight,’ the man said as he drank his brandy.

  It was not often that the two men met. One was a minister of the Crown, the other, a general. In a gentlemen’s club in Mayfair, their conversation would be confidential. It was a club that had figured in history, where great men had met to discuss business and war and politics, but this time the two men, separated in age by no more than two years, discussed Malcolm Woolston, the most significant research scientist and mathematician in the country, at least to them.

  ‘Woolston could have had a knighthood by now,’ General Claude Smythe said. The second son of a duke, he had chosen the army over politics. His brother, Cameron, the first son, the secretary of state for defence, sat opposite.

  ‘That’s the trouble with these idealistic fools,’ Claude Smythe said. ‘They somehow believe that the best security for this country, the world, is if we all universally disarm and live together in peace and harmony.’

  ‘When the strength is in having the ultimate deterrent,’ his brother replied. Since the formulas had been discovered on the internet, their meetings had become more regular. Neither man was idealistic, not even men of the people. As the sons of a duke they believed in their superior breeding. Men such as Woolston were expendable unless they had something to offer, something that would
benefit them.

  ‘Do we take Barrow into our confidence?’ Claude Smythe asked.

  ‘The man went and married Woolston’s widow. Can he be trusted?’

  ‘Uncertain.’

  ‘Expendable?’

  ‘If he makes the wrong decisions.’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘We’ve kept a watch on him over the years. He’d been instructed to keep a watch on the man’s wife, see if he had kept a record of his work somewhere, but what does he do?’

  ‘He beds the damn woman and then marries her. Even offered to adopt her daughter.’

  ‘The wife and daughter, can we use them as levers?’

  ‘Why not. What do a couple of women matter?’

  ‘The weapon is more important. We need Woolston alive.’

  ‘The police want him arrested.’

  ‘Pressure can be brought to bear.’

  ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘Why not? The defence of the realm is at stake here. Do we care that Woolston has committed murder?’

  ‘Getting rid of Hutton was a benefit to us. Woolston saved us the trouble.’

  Chapter 19

  Gwen Barrow was disturbed by all that had happened. She knew that she had married Ed out of loneliness, and although she loved him, it was not the same as the passion that she had felt for Malcolm. Back then, they had been young and carefree, optimistic for the future, discussing a family, and then Sally had come along. Both of them had loved her equally, but then there had been the rough years when their daughter had strayed off the track and had found bad men and bad drugs, a result of Malcolm not being there for her.

  She knew she should feel anger for what he had put them all through, but she was confused by the love that she still felt. Now he was around again, had been around for years. She wondered if he had seen her making a fool of herself the first few times she had tried the dating market. She hoped he hadn’t. She felt embarrassed about what he might have seen, her attempts at relieving the sexual frustrations that she felt, the inappropriate men, the inappropriate places. If he could remain hidden for so long, then he had probably seen her, presumably seen their daughter making the same mistakes.