The Longest Pleasure

by Douglas Clark

  “He said a bite?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good enough, Chief,” said Reed. “He means he’s got a nibble, and a good one, but he wouldn’t say so straight out—knowing him.”

  Masters felt the excitement and the relief growing within him, but he strove to keep his voice matter-of-fact.

  “We’ll finish our lunch here in peace. No rushing. The DCI likes a good lunch break and whatever he has won’t spoil. Take your time, Gardam. Don’t give yourself indigestion.”

  Despite Masters’ exhortations, the two sergeants were ready to travel inside five minutes.

  “We’ll have to go back nearly into Newport and then turn right,” instructed Gardam. Masters settled back in the car, took off his jacket, loosened his tie, lowered the car window and began to pack his pipe. “Take it easy, Reed. We want to get there in one piece.”

  In the tiny town of Yarmouth, in a side road which ran between the approach to the pier and the harbour, Reed pulled up the Rover behind Crowther’s Panda car. Through the open sash window of the pub, Masters saw Green sprawling on a bench seat with half a tankard of beer still in front of him. Green looked out as Masters got down.

  “Don’t bother to come in, George. They’ve called time in here. They’re wanting us out.”

  “Sit in the shade, you lot,” ordered Green to the four sergeants. “I want a word in private with His Nibs.” He then led the way out of the little side street and crossed over to the rails around the harbour. They managed to find a few spare feet not occupied by the sightseers who were watching the activity on the fleet of motor cruisers in the basin.

  “Not bad,” muttered Green, nodding towards one craft on top of the cabin of which was lying a girl with a skin the colour of teak, set off by a yellow bikini.

  “Not bad at all,” agreed Masters, determined not to ask Green why he had been summoned.

  Green helped himself to a cigarette.

  “Nice place this. Doris and I often come here or else round the other side where they’ve provided seats on a pretty bit of green that runs down to the water.”

  “Wanda and I went there. Doris told her about it.”

  “Did you get to Alum Bay?”

  “Not up and down all the steps. Wanda wouldn’t have managed them.”

  “I suppose not.”

  There was a silence for a few moments after this exchange, then Green said, laconically, “I may have found him, George.”

  “Thanks, Bill.”

  “I only said may.”

  “I heard. But you’ve got a nose.”

  “I suppose so. Want to know how far I’ve got?”

  “Please.”

  “There’s a young industrial chemist here called Chapman. He works in one of those buildings on that new estate behind us across the road. He told me what he does, but I don’t understand half of it. Something to do with control testing of something they make over there. He goes and takes odd samples and puts them under a microscope to see they’re up to standard or dissolves them in water to see how long they take to disappear.”

  “I know the rudiments of testing.”

  “I thought you would.”

  “Is that all?”

  “All I’m going to tell you. Chapman himself can tell you the rest. He’s expecting us.”

  Green turned from the railing and with Masters alongside him, crossed the road close to the bus stop and turned into the new industrial estate nearby. Green opened the door of the third single-storied building.

  “Mr Chapman’s expecting me again, love.”

  The girl spoke into the internal phone and then looked up at Green. “You know your way, don’t you?”

  “Ta, love.”

  It was a small office with the storm vents wide open to let in a little air and a lot of noise. Chapman, Masters guessed, was about twenty-seven or eight. A good-looking young man, big-built and fair as a Viking.

  “Mr Ronald Chapman,” announced Green. “Detective Chief Superintendent Masters.”

  Chapman shook hands and said: “You’re a bit overwhelming, you two,” and laughed a little nervously. “Sit down, please.”

  “Now, Ronnie lad,” began Green. “I want you to tell my boss exactly what you told me and answer any questions he has.” He turned to Masters. “Ron was anxious to get home to lunch, so I didn’t hold him up once I’d established that he had something to tell us. He’s not long been married, you see, and he goes home for lunch and his little missus gets worried if he’s a bit late.”

  Chapman reddened, as if suspecting that Green was laughing at him. He was relieved to hear Masters say: “If I could get home to my wife at lunchtime, I’d be there. I’ve got a baby son, too, Mr Chapman. I don’t see as much of him as I’d like on full working days.”

  “Yes, well . . .” Chapman cleared his throat. “Mr Green came to ask me if I’d helped with picking up the poison canisters. The point is, I did and I didn’t.” He paused as if expecting some comment, but getting none, continued. “The police asked the firm if they would give me time off to help. My boss agreed, but it was inconvenient for me. The call came from my boss while I was having breakfast in my digs . . .”

  “On the Tuesday morning?” asked Masters.

  “That’s right. He told me to report direct to the fire chief at the beach, dressed in old clothes and rubber boots. But the point was, you see, I was getting married next day, Wednesday. I’d got everything arranged. I was coming in here till lunchtime to get things straight for my holiday, then I was taking the afternoon off to get a haircut and do a bit of shopping. I had to buy the bridesmaids a little gift each, and one for my best man. You know the form . . .”

  “We’ve all experienced it,” agreed Masters.

  “So you can see that when I got that phone call that morning I wasn’t too happy.”

  “Returned to the breakfast table swearing a bit, did you, lad?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Green inclined his head.

  “Well, my digs were in a boarding house—Mrs Dutton’s in Newport. I was the only full-time lodger she had then. They like full-timers in the winter, you know, but not in the summer, because they can charge holiday makers more than regulars. That’s why Sue and I were getting married before the holiday rush started.”

  Masters nodded and waited for Chapman to carry on, letting him tell his story in his own way.

  “Anyhow, there was one other chap at Mrs Dutton’s—on holiday by himself. A thin, nervous sort of chap, about thirty, I’d say, and he was sitting opposite me at breakfast. He asked me what was wrong, so I told him. Then he said that I needn’t worry, he would stand in for me as he’d nothing to do much except go down to the beach, so he might as well make himself useful.”

  “But . . .” protested Masters, “you had been called in as a chemist. How could this man take your place?”

  “Because he was a scientist, too. Not a chemist. A cryophysicist actually. We’d talked about it the night before over supper, so I knew he was genuine.”

  “And that,” said Green, “is where I stopped Ron. As soon as I heard the word cryophysicist, I knew this was going to be up your alley, George, not mine. So I let Ron go off for lunch and phoned for you.”

  “Thanks, Bill.” Masters turned to Chapman. “What was this man’s name?”

  “Wilkin. Stephen Wilkin.”

  “Please go on with your story.”

  “That’s it, really. I took Wilkin down and said I’d come from the firm. The fire chief was too busy really to pay much attention to what I said about only helping him for the morning. He just said every little helps and accepted Wilkin on my say-so. Happy to get him, I suppose.”

  “And that is all you know?”

  “Absolutely. We were sent off in different directions and I packed it in at one o’clock. I didn’t see Wilkin again, because I had a stag party that night and I wasn’t back at the digs until all hours. Next day, Wilkin was up and gone before I was ready to move—I had
to pack the last of my things, you see, because I wasn’t going back to Mrs Dutton’s after the wedding. We’d bought one of the new houses here in Yarmouth, and I was dumping my kit here.”

  “Quite. You’ve been very helpful, Mr Chapman.”

  “I have?”

  “Most certainly. Can you please tell me where Mr Wilkin lived and worked?”

  “Sorry. We never got round to details like that. But I expect Ma Dutton will have his address.”

  “Of course.”

  “By the way, Chief Superintendent.”

  “Yes?”

  “You haven’t told me what all this is about, and why you’re looking for Wilkin. Do you think he pinched a canister of arsenic trichloride or something?”

  “We have no reason to believe that any of the poison canisters went missing, Mr Chapman.”

  “I should think not. Those chemicals were killing mammals as big as whales, and nobody but a fool would fiddle with them. And Wilkin wasn’t a fool.”

  “No?”

  “He was a bright boy. Rather intense, you know. Earnest, I suppose you’d call him. One of the sort that has the cares of the world on his shoulders.”

  “What had he to say about canisters of chemicals finding their way into the sea?”

  “He got very het up about the dumping of chemical waste and their indiscriminate use. Big business seemed to be one of his bugbears—big business that wasn’t sponsoring research that is.”

  “What sort of research?”

  “His own, of course. What else?” Chapman laughed. “It’s funny how even scientists who are taught to take a logical, dispassionate point of view can always see the blue eyes of their own particular babies.”

  “You said he was a cryophysicist. Now I’m aware that the suffix cryo has to do with low temperatures, but I thought that cryogenics was the branch of physics concerned with phenomena at very low temperatures.”

  “Same thing, virtually,” said Chapman. “Not that it’s something I know very much about.”

  “I know nothing about it,” grunted Green. “Give me a bit of a run-down, Ron, just so’s I’m not entirely in the dark. What do you say, George?”

  “I’d like to hear what Mr Chapman can tell us, as long as he makes it intelligible to the lay mind.”

  “Well now,” said Chapman, “Let’s see how best to put it. I suppose I can say it is the science dealing with the production of very low temperatures and the study of their physical and technological consequences.”

  “By very low,” asked Masters, “are we talking about hundreds of degrees below zero?”

  “At a guess, I’d say everything below minus a hundred and fifty centigrade or Celsius, if you prefer it.”

  “How’s that?” asked Green.

  “Celsius was the scientist who standardised what we call the centigrade scale. Both scales put the melting point of ice at nought and the boiling point of water at a hundred. However, that’s by the way. What a layman should latch on to is that at very low temperatures indeed, matter develops some very remarkable properties.”

  “Like what?”

  “I really don’t know a lot about it—I don’t think that anybody is completely clued up on it because all the study of the cryo world is essentially a recent science. It really started when people discovered how to liquefy gases—including helium which, as I understand it, proved the toughest.”

  “Like they liquefy natural gas in Canada to transport it in tankers?”

  “Right. Liquid gas takes up only a tiny, tiny part of the volume occupied by its gaseous equivalent. That’s one of the results of cryophysics. It makes it easy to transport natural gas as they would oil.”

  “What other special phenomena are there connected with cryophysics?”

  “I suspect there are thousands. But you must know about superconductivity, for instance.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Green.

  “Well, many metals and alloys show the property of superconductivity at very low temperatures. What happens is that the metal assumes a state in which its electrical resistance has entirely vanished. That means that electric currents can flow through it indefinitely without generating heat or losing their own strength. So you can see that if you need, for instance, a very strong magnetic field, you just keep coils of wire very cold by using liquid helium and push electricity through them. They don’t need anything like the amount of current ordinary electromagnets need and, what is more, their fields remain very constant.”

  “Interesting,” murmured Masters. “Any other applications that you know of?”

  “Liquefied gases for rocket propulsion, magnets and . . . yes, tissue freezing techniques have been used in surgery.”

  “Ah! Anything concerning food?”

  “I’m sure there must be. The possibilities are endless, but I don’t know of any specifically to do with food, though if you can freeze human tissue for surgery I can see no reason why animal flesh cannot be treated with some advantage.”

  “Quite. One last question about cryophysicists. Would a man engaged in them need to be a fairly expert technician?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but my guess would be yes. You’ll gather from what I’ve told you that so far, at any rate, all the applications are intensely practical. It’s fair to say that practical applications have to be researched in labs—on a small scale, of course—before even a viable pilot scheme can be built outside.”

  “Thank you.” Masters got to his feet. “That really was the last question on that particular subject, Mr Chapman, and we’re in your debt.”

  “I’ve helped?”

  “Tremendously.”

  “I noticed that you sidestepped very neatly when I asked you exactly what you are investigating.”

  “It’s difficult to tell you, Ron,” said Green. “Chiefly because we don’t want to be unfair to your pal Wilkin if we are on the wrong track. But we can safely say that we are on the biggest case we two have ever been on—or any other coppers for that matter. So keep it to yourself, chum.”

  “Of course. Thank you for telling me.”

  “Don’t mention it to wifey.”

  “Oh!”

  “You told her at lunchtime that I’d called?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I did.”

  “Fair enough, lad. Just tell her we’re chasing a missing canister of arsenic and are talking to all the boffins on the island.”

  “Right.”

  “Now all we want is Mrs Dutton’s address, and we’ll be on our way.”

  Chapman gave them the information and they left to rejoin the sergeants.

  *

  “They’re coming,” said Gardam.

  Reed straightened up from the railing on which he’d been leaning and said to Berger. “How does the Chief look?”

  “It’s difficult to tell.”

  “He’s a funny bloke,” said Gardam.

  “What’s funny about him?” The question was asked in a tone that dared Gardam to criticise.

  “Why, when I came into the pub to tell him Mr Green had struck oil, I expected him to be pleased . . .”

  “Of course he was pleased. It was what he’d been working and praying for.”

  “Oh, yes? So what does he do? Swallow his beer and set off to come here? Oh, no, he settles down and orders us to take our time, and he told you not to drive fast when we did set out.”

  “Before I joined him,” said Reed, “his sergeants used to say they always knew when he’d cracked a tricky case because he used to go broody. What they really meant was he’d seen the solution, but from then on he used to tread very carefully, making sure he didn’t put a foot wrong as he gathered his proof. But this case is different.”

  “How?”

  “You know he’s been given the job of looking for a nut who’s spreading botulism? This nut has already killed two people and put a score more in hospital. For all we know, those figures could be doubled by now. So where does he start? There’s about fifty-five
million people in this country and it could be any one of them—at least in theory.”

  Gardam nodded. “I reckon I’m beginning to see what you mean.”

  “I hope you are, mate. In less than three days, George Masters has picked up a trail. Not a strong one. Just one he reckons should be there, and so, because he’s got nothing else to help him, he’s started to follow it. What do you expect him to do if somebody like you comes in and says there’s a possibility he’s made the right choice? Jump for joy?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Quiet satisfaction, mate, that’s what it was. He just daren’t rush, in case whatever it was disappeared. He’s got the hunter instinct—to stalk his prey slowly and carefully, giving himself time to think as he goes.”

  “I get you. And that’s why he’s so successful?”

  “That, and the fact that he’s got a head on his shoulders.”

  “And he’s a decent bloke to work for,” added Reed. “As long as you have the right attitude to work, that is.”

  Crowther joined in. “He roasted me a few months ago.”

  “Have you got any scars to prove it?” asked Reed.

  “No, Sergeant.”

  “Then he didn’t roast you, and he obviously bears no malice because he asked for you and Sergeant Gardam as soon as he reached your nick.”

  “Quiet,” growled Berger.

  “We have to go to an address in Newport. Perhaps you would lead us there, Sergeant Gardam?”

  “Right, sir.”

  *

  “Mr Wilkin?” said Mrs Dutton. “Yes, I remember him. Stayed a week at the time Mr Chapman got married.”

  “That’s the one, love,” said Green. “We’re trying to get in touch with him.”

  “What for? Nice, quiet gentleman he was. No trouble at all except he got wet on the beach.”

  “Your book will have his address in it.”

  “It might.”

  “Your guests sign in, don’t they?”

  “Some of them.”

  “You mean you don’t ask them to sign?”

  “The book’s here in the hall. If they want to fill it in, they do. But they’re not forced to.”

  “Did Mr Wilkin sign it?”