The Cambridge Theorem (22 page)

“Understand what sir?”

“You really are an infuriating man, officer. The files are closed, Mr. Smailes, the files are closed. And I have stayed in place at this University ever since to ensure that there are no repetitions, no repetitions, you understand, of the thirties. The harm that was done to this country and its allies is irreparable…“

“Not to mention the scandal.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I think the scandal has been despicable, and terribly injurious to the security of this country. The KGB might as well have the whole of Fleet Street working for it. You can perhaps imagine how I reacted to a self-important neurotic fool like Simon Bowles asking me questions.”

Hawken's chest was heaving, and he put out his good hand against a filing cabinet to steady himself.

“Perhaps you can imagine how I react when I am misled in my inquiries into an unusual death,” Smailes replied.

“I knew Bowles might have told someone, one of his friends, of our meeting, and if you brought it up, I was resolved not to dissemble, if you must know. But I was not about to volunteer this information. The interests of the state supercede the interests of a provincial CID, in my opinion. What I have told you is known to very few individuals in this town. I trust I can rely on your confidentiality.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Since Blunt, we have kept a very close eye on the academic community, both the professors and the students, believe me, Mr. Smailes. I have my counterpart at Oxford. And our work has been successful. We have finally purged our society of a whole generation of traitors, and no one, no one with extreme left-wing sympathies will be able to penetrate the British Government ever again. Simon Bowles and his preposterous inquiries. I could not believe my ears.”

“But you don't believe his investigations had anything to do with his death?”

“I certainly do not. The fellow was obviously unstable, damn it. What do you think?”

“I happen to agree with you. I just like to get all the facts. And since you were holding some back, it just raised questions for me, that's all. Did you know for instance that he went down to London the day before his death?”

“No, I did not. Why would I know or care about his movements?”

“Good point sir, why would you? I don't think there's anything else. You can rely on my discretion, believe me, sir.” He glanced at his watch. “The service is probably about to begin. Sorry to catch you off guard like this, but I don't think you've missed anything.” Smailes gave a smile as Hawken stared at him icily and turned to the door. He remained in the room with his thoughts for several minutes before leaving Mull's office.

There were about thirty mourners in the small chapel. The simple wooden casket stood at the front of the room on a raised platform next to the pulpit. The platform extended backwards to a curtain behind which was the business end of the crematorium, Smailes surmised. At some juncture in the service, an unseen hand would press a button and the specially muffled motors would activate the conveyor that took its cargo to the furnace. Much less primitive than burial, let's face it, he told himself.

About half the mourners were students. He recognized Giles Allerton and Lauren Greenwald. The conservatively-dressed young man next to Allerton was probably his brother Hugh from Oxford. He did not see Alan Fenwick. Representing the college were Hawken and Davies, who sat stonily behind the more colorful ranks of the junior members. It seemed to Smailes that the tension between them was almost palpable. He wondered if Davies had also known more about Bowles' activities than he had conceded. He certainly had seemed stunned to see the policeman again, and had only regained himself with difficulty. Should he speak with him again? Across the aisle were Alice Wentworth and her mother, and a few other relatives and friends from the older generation. He wondered whether the family harbored any suspicions that they had not confided in him. Peter Wentworth was holding forth from the pulpit, his ample voice filling the small room.

“And accept unto thee thy son, Simon, we beseech thee. Pardon his sins, as we beseech thee also to pardon ours…”

Smailes was not sure he could continue listening to Wentworth's discourse. He had been telling the truth when he told Alice Wentworth that he had a faith of sorts, but it certainly wasn't anything he could recognize in the pieties of the Church of England. He had always thought the notion of a divine being listening to the simultaneous entreaties of five billion souls was nonsense, as were notions of God as some sort of eternal housemaster, meting out punishment and reward. The Victorian manners of the church had always exasperated him, the dreadful hymns and the stiff admonitory language of the Bible. He had not taken a seat and was able to leave unobtrusively, he thought.

“Nearly finished are they, guv?” asked the driver of one of the funeral cars as Smailes stepped out into the sharp cold of the afternoon. There were three of them, dressed in dark overcoats, leaning on the side of the limousine, smoking.

“I dunno, the casket's still sitting there, so I guess not,” said Smailes, pausing to light up also.

“You riding with us?” asked the same man. “Cambridge Arms, isn't it?”

“No, no, I've got to get back to work. I just had a professional interest in this, that's all. They a decent family to work for?”

“Don't ask me, mate. I just drive, that's all. Don't speak unless spoken to, you know. He was a youngster, I hear. Usually more upsetting, when they're young,” he said.

“Yes, quite young,” said Smailes, and had begun to move off towards his car when he heard a voice behind him. He turned. It was Lauren Greenwald, and her face looked angry.

“Mr. Smailes, are you driving back to Cambridge?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Can I get a ride back with you? I can't take any more of this.”

“If you like,” said Smailes, surprised. “Where are you going?”

“The college will do,” she said. Nothing more was said until they had been driving for five minutes. “It's not just the Christian bullshit, it's the whole fucking dishonest attitude towards death,” she said suddenly. She looked straight ahead as she spoke, recounting an angry story of her meeting with Bowles' family, of their emotional repression, of their treating Simon Bowles' death as an embarrassment. “They're so bloody British, emotion is something distasteful to them. I just couldn't face going back to that hotel and drinking sherry with them, making small talk.” She turned to Smailes, and he could see the pain in her eyes. “Thanks for the ride. I could have waited for Giles and his brother, but I didn't want to get into explanations. They're almost as bad.”

Smailes was unsure what to say. “Well, weeping and wailing isn't everybody's way, you know,” he volunteered. But he thought of his father's funeral, the way he had cried and cried. The words sounded hollow.

“Oh sure, stiff upper lip, and all that. Can't we just admit that Simon's death is a tragedy, and share grief? What's the matter with these people? Do they think grief is something shameful? His sister seems more angry than sorry that Simon is dead.”

“Are funerals different where you come from, miss?” he asked.

“Oh, I guess not. But as a culture we're not so hung up about emotion. And Jews are good at suffering. I just didn't want to be the only one crying in that chapel.”

They had stopped outside St. Margaret's, but Lauren Greenwald made no move to get out of the car. She seemed to have gathered herself.

“So what are your conclusions, detective?”

“About what, miss?”

“Simon's death.”

“It's not my job to make conclusions, miss. That's for the coroner.”

“You know what I mean.”

“There seems to be no foul play, I'm sure of that. As for the real reason he took his life, I've no idea. Do you, miss?”

“I don't think he took his life,” she said softly. “And I don't think he typed that note.”

“Ah, well there we'll have to differ, miss,” said Smailes carefully. “Unless you know something that you haven't told me.”

“No, it's just a hunch. Because I can't figure it.”

“You give me a call, miss, if you get anything more than hunches, okay?” He smiled at her and she gave him an awkward smile in return.

“Okay,” she said, opening the door of the car.

T
HERE WERE TWO
distinct halves to Myrtlefields Hospital. The Old Hospital was a fortress-like Victorian asylum built behind a high stone wall on a knoll outside the town. In the Summer ancient elm trees shrouded the grim turrets and barred windows almost completely from view. Now in the early Spring the bare limbs of the trees, capped with the bell-shaped nests of a rookery, formed a gray curtain in front of brown stone of the buildings. At the rear of the hospital a huge chimney rose from the heating plant, like a textile mill. This was the original hospital, where the worst cases, the chronically mentally ill were housed. The modern half of the hospital had been built in the late sixties on flat farmland between the Old Hospital and the main road, and its trim, low buildings, unwalled and unfenced, with expanses of lawn like playing fields on three sides, spoke of the bleak civic optimism of that era. Smailes pulled into the car park outside the new wing. Bowles had been a short stay resident, a month-long rehab job; he had not needed to ask in which wing Dr. Julius Kramer, Bowles' psychiatrist, had worked.

Kramer had agreed to see him late Monday afternoon, and Smailes expected to learn nothing to justify keeping the case alive. He was intrigued by the disclosures of Gorham-Leach and Hawken, and felt he now understood better the bile that Hawken had displayed throughout the investigation. But he did not find himself surprised. He had always assumed that the British security services kept a much closer watch on domestic activities than anyone really knew, and it made sense that they would have their men in the breeding grounds of the ruling class. He wondered if Hawken had any academic credentials at all, how his cover worked. He wondered what else the astute Mr. Bowles might have found out, and knew that although the report he would hand up the next day would officially close the file, he personally would not close this case until he had read all Bowles' Cambridge files, the files Alice Wentworth had allowed him to remove, the files that he had begun ploughing into that weekend.

Smailes was quite familiar with institutionalized misery, and the smell of disinfectant, urine and overcooked food which greeted him as he entered the double doors of the hospital was the same as in any orphanage or juvenile prison he had visited. He turned to the right down a low corridor, following a sign to Reception, clearing his throat out of uneasiness. A young man appeared at the far end of the corridor and shuffled towards him. He was wearing pajamas and a carelessly tied dressing gown, and scuffed the floor with his slippers as he walked. “Hey, you,” he almost shouted, and Smailes felt his stomach tighten, wondering how he should deal with this encounter. As the man drew closer it was clear he was no more than nineteen or so, with an unnaturally pale, waxy complexion and a dark stubble on his chin and top lip. Smailes checked his step, but the young man stumbled past, not seeing him, absorbed in a delusion in which the detective played no part.

“That's what I said, God damn it!” he yelled toward the end of the corridor, and then began laughing softly.

Smailes rounded the corner towards a counter which seemed to be the staff station. Behind was a glass-walled office in which a group of people were talking. In front of the counter was a low table which held a number of newspapers and magazines. Below the table sat an old woman, also in nightclothes and a dressing gown, seemingly asleep. Smailes leant on the counter and peered into the office. The old woman asleep under the counter smelled awful.

A young man with light brown hair, beard and spectacles was seated at a desk, resting his chin on his hand and watching the antics of another man with an air of bemused tolerance. A young woman sat on the desk watching with similar concentration. They were both dressed casually in jeans and sweaters. The woman had straight blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail and wore no make-up. The other man was seated across the room and was gesticulating wildly. He was older than the other two, perhaps in his forties, with unkempt black hair and beard. He wore glasses fastened at the hinge with tape, an old sweater and corduroys. He seemed quite overweight. Whatever his ailment, it did not seem to trouble the two orderlies, who listened to him with a sort of rapt weariness, as if they had heard whatever was his tale many times. Although the door was closed, Smailes could catch the occasional syllable as the speaker's cadence swelled. He considered knocking when he heard a door open behind him.

A small, middle-aged Oriental man emerged from a ward and asked if he could help. He was not dressed like a typical hospital worker either. Smailes mentioned he had a four o'clock appointment with Dr. Kramer.

“Please wait in here. I'll tell him you're here,” he told him in an accent Smailes could not place. He opened another door off the reception area which was clearly some kind of waiting room. The heavy steel door with its vertical panel of reinforced glass swung shut on its spring.

Smailes chose one of the battered vinyl armchairs and sat down. Cigarette smoke still hung in the air. None of the chairs or sofas matched, and some were in terrible shape, with their plastic torn and folds of dirty batting hanging loose. He supposed the National Health could not quite stretch to regular furniture replacement, but the state of the room enforced a sense of depression and neglect. The walls had not been painted in years and were adorned with graffiti. Across from his chair someone had scrawled “Nutters Rule OK.” The heavy door opened.

Smailes tried to contain his surprise that Dr. Kramer was in fact the energetic bearded gentleman he had just witnessed regaling his younger colleagues. He had thrown a white coat over the old sweater and trousers. He pushed his long black hair off his forehead and shook Smailes by the hand. In his other hand he held a large file folder.