The Cambridge Theorem (32 page)

“Sure, in terms of background.”

“What does that matter? I feel more like myself when I'm with you than with all these overprivileged kids at the University. You're only the second man I've known that made me feel this way.”

Smailes was gratified by her frankness, but piqued at the thought of a rival. He felt for her jaw in the darkness and squeezed it. “Oh yeah, and who was the other guy? Somebody with the FBI?”

“No, Ari. He was a lover I met in Jerusalem last year. He was married. He was a very brave, idealistic man, and there was absolutely no pettiness about him. But it was real brief, only a couple of weeks.”

“Jewish guy?”

“No, Jordanian. A diplomat. We met at the hotel. He had to go back to Amman. He was nearly forty.”

Smailes felt this rival's threat recede. “What's a nice Jewish girl like you doing with an A-rab?” he said, choosing the Texan pronunciation deliberately.

“Derek, I don't give a shit about that stuff,” she said pointedly.

“Tell me some more. How did you meet him? What did he look like? What were you doing in Jerusalem anyway? A pilgrimage?”

Smailes had felt himself relax and was on the edge of sleep, but he wanted to extend this intimacy, because it reassured him. He wanted her to reveal herself emotionally, the way she did so readily physically.

“Not really. My family's not religious at all. It's more a tribal thing, a roots thing. We have some relatives in Tel Aviv. It was my second visit. I spent a year on a kibbutz, after school, after I graduated. It was great.”

“You a commie?” Smailes asked. It was a silly remark, but she took it graciously.

“Hardly, but I really respect the kibbutzim. Those people work really hard. I didn't like the rest of Israel. It's basically a U.S. puppet state, sort of like Florida with bunkers and anti-aircraft batteries. I hate those hysterical Zionists that run the place. Fleshy, heartless old men, they're disgusting.”

“Did you visit the Arab states?”

“Are you kidding? With my name and looks?”

“I guess you have a point,” said Smailes, as he began to fall asleep.

The Bowles inquest was the pantomime that Smailes expected, in which everyone played their part as rehearsed. He was glad Lauren kept her pledge to stay away, because even he found the proceedings a little distasteful. The life and death of Simon Bowles was duly sanitized and recorded, a tiresome legal ritual that no one relished, except Oscar Baddeley, the coroner. Baddeley had the affected gravity and precision of the minor official, and Smailes could almost mouth the words that the coroner pronounced as he went through his inflexible routine.

The first witness called was always Maurice Jones, the postmortem surgeon from Addenbrookes, and Baddeley's technique was to confer as much information as possible for the record in rhetorical questions, to which the witness simply assented. This contributed to the coroner's air of unflawed efficiency, which was what was desired.

“You are Dr. Maurice Jones, consultant morbid anatomist at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge?” asked Baddeley.

“I am,” said Jones obediently.

“And on the morning of Wednesday, March 24th, 1982 did you examine the body of a young man, identified to you as Mr. Simon Bowles of St. Margaret's College, Cambridge?”

“I did,” responded Jones.

“Please tell us what you found.”

Smailes knew the next line because Jones always described his cadavers as well-nourished, unless they had actually died of starvation. The fact that Bowles weighed little over nine stone would be immaterial to him.

“I found the body of a well-nourished young gentleman,” said Jones, and proceeded to read from his post-mortem report that Smailes had seen weeks before. He noted the absence of major diseases and abnormalities on the body, and the absence of any contusions or injury in any region except the neck. He described the modest blood alcohol reading, and the absence of any other foreign substance he had tested for. He gave the approximate time of death and described the nature of the neck injury as a rupture of the spinal column between the first and second vertebrae, commensurate with an injury caused by hanging. Contusions in the area of the neck supported this judgment.

Baddeley went through a few other questions designed to eliminate other possible causes of death, and then excused Jones, who left to return to his morgue. Obviously a doctor's time was more valuable than a policeman's.

Derek Smailes was the third witness called, after the hesitant testimony of Police Constable Roger Dickley established how the body had first been found. Baddeley had decided to spare Bunty Allen the discomfort of testifying, which was probably wise. Since hearsay evidence was allowed in a coroner's court, unlike a judicial court, Dickley had been permitted to describe his conversations with both Mrs. Allen and Paul Beecroft. He described how they had closed up the room and waited for CID to arrive. He did not tell Baddeley about omitting to call the coroner's office, which Baddeley had no doubt realized and decided to overlook. Just as he had been persuaded to overlook the whole question of Mr. Alan Fenwick, Smailes thought to himself as he sat down in the witness chair next to Baddeley's table. Opposite him sat the court recorder, crouched over her stenotype machine. Looking out, he could see Alice Wentworth, the sole representative of Bowles' family, seated impassively in the first row. Next to her was Giles Allerton, who kept a scowl on his face throughout the whole proceeding. An uncomfortable-looking Ivor Davies appeared to be the sole official of the college present, although to his surprise Smailes made out the striking figure of Tiffany Pollock, Hawken's secretary, seated in the back. Dr. Julius Kramer was there, wearing a shabby blue suit, looking as unkempt as before. There were two or three students in the room that Smailes did not recognize, and a couple of young journalists reprsenting the Evening News and one of the weeklies at the press table. Smailes doubted this story would make the front page, or even a page lead. He turned to face Baddeley who went through Smailes' rank and the circumstances of his arrival at St. Margaret's on that same morning. Smailes assented to Baddeley's descriptions firmly and professionally.

“Please tell the court what you found when you inspected Mr. Bowles' room,” said Baddeley, and Smailes took out his small notebook. He was quite glad that Lauren wasn't there.

Derek Smailes went over the details of Simon Bowles' room, including his removal of personal belongings from Bowles' pockets and the discovery of the note in the typewriter. He described the arrival of the mortuary attendants, and the arrangements for scenes of crimes officers to examine the room. Baddeley then produced the large glossies taken of Bowles' room and Klammer's fingerprint report, and asked Smailes to identify them, which he did. He then described his discussions with Mrs. Allen, Hawken, and Bowles' friends with whom the young man had spent the previous evening. He omitted his discussions with Davies, Gorham-Leach and Kramer, and any reference to his inspection of Bowles' files. Baddeley asked Smailes about the reported state of mind of Simon Bowles on the evening of his death, and Smailes read from his notes that both Mr. Giles Allerton and Miss Lauren Greenwald had described Simon Bowles as aloof and preoccupied. Baddeley excused Smailes and to his surprise called Alice Wentworth to the stand.

Baddeley must have picked up on the last phone call between Alice Wentworth and her brother, because it was all he chose to ask her about. She described the strangeness of her brother's mood, the cancellation of his plans to attend a family gathering on the Sunday before his death, his announcement of his plans to study instead and spend Monday in London. Smailes wondered if Baddeley was going to ask about the reasons for the London trip and was alarmed that the whole question of Simon Bowles' research might come up. That would certainly rouse the two bored-looking reporters who were dutifully taking notes. It would make for a whole other angle on the story, Smailes knew. But Baddeley merely jotted some notes and excused Alice Wentworth, and Smailes could see what he was doing, steadily increasing the evidence that Bowles' mood before his death was somehow disordered and abnormal. The last witness called was the psychiatrist Julius Kramer, who looked every bit as unsavory on the witness stand as he had weeks ago out at the hospital. His testimony, however, was clear and succinct, and he basically reiterated his belief than his former patient had become severely depressed again, but had succeeded in masking the fact from his family and friends. When asked about the significance of the suicide note, Kramer referred to the delusion from which Bowles had been suffering when first admitted to Myrtlefields Hospital two years before. He expressed the opinion that under extreme stress, it was possible that the frightening hallucination might have returned, although he, Kramer, personally doubted that that had occurred. Baddeley concluded by asking Kramer for statistics about how many depressed patients experience a second episode of major depression in their lives, and Kramer answered sixty per cent. With unnecessary baldness Baddeley then asked whether suicide was a serious danger among depressed patients, and Kramer agreed that it was a concern, although not always a major one. Baddeley thanked Kramer and the psychiatrist stepped down.

Baddeley barely waited a minute before beginning his summing up. Its fluidity convinced Smailes that, as usual, it was pre-rehearsed, and that nothing unanticipated had emerged during the inquest, which was what Baddeley had intended. He heard Bowles described as a brilliant but unstable young man whose mood had seemed strange to family and friends immediately before his death. The circumstances in which the body was found, together with the post mortem examination, convinced him that Simon Bowles had taken his own life by hanging, while the balance of his mind was disturbed. He expressed conventional sympathies with the family, and pronounced the inquest closed. It was such a reasonable conclusion, Smailes wondered why he felt there were any questions unanswered.

T
HE REGIONAL NEWS GAVE WAY
to a game show and the stocky Russian stuffed a handful of pizza into his mouth and got off the end of the bed to turn down the volume on the television. He cocked his head to listen to a noise outside, chewing slowly, moving first to glance out through the drawn curtains, then to the door. There were two soft raps, a pause, followed by two more. He unlocked the door and went back to his perch at the end of the single bed, next to the flat pizza box.

“You're very late,” he said to the television screen. He wiped away tomato sauce with a paper napkin, picked up another piece and then leant forward to turn the volume back up.

“Problems?”

The man who had entered the small hotel room dropped a heavy canvas duffle to the floor, then took off an English-style flat cap and began unbuttoning a gray rain-coat. Rain glistened on his shoulders. He was younger and taller than his colleague, with dark hair brushed straight back and high, thinning temples. He tossed the coat and hat onto the second bed.

“GRU bastards,” he said forcefully. “They are a worse enemy than any Western intelligence agency. The instructions were intentionally misleading. I will write a full report, tonight.”

“Don't waste your energy,” said the older man. “I warned you it would be difficult. They do it deliberately, to let us know they are doing us a favor. I presume that in time if war, there would be no such games. You got everything?”

“Yes,” said the other grudgingly. “Once I found the chest—at the third attempt, I might add—I was quite impressed. Every piece individually wrapped and well-greased. It should last for years.” He began opening the duffle.

“Each site is supposed to last for thirty, I think, although the contents are replaced more often. What did you get?” he asked, beginning to show interest.

“Just two machine pistols and an automatic. It's a Beretta, I couldn't resist. Ammunition, of course. And two transmitters, in case of failure. I left the heavier stuff, the Kalashnikov's, the Israeli semi-automatics…”

“Of course, of course. Let me see.” The older man took one of the wrapped pistols from the bag and began to carefully unfold its protective cloth.

“How did you disguise the site again?”

“I stuck red flags all around it,” said the taller man, offended.

“Just tell me.”

“The site is a wooded hill outside Norwich. Very isolated. You have to walk across two fields, but there are tall hedgerows and no one sees you from the road. I filled in the pit again and stamped the earth down. I used turf from a little way off, branches. The rest of the dirt I scattered around. You could go there tomorrow, not find it. Then I returned to the car.”

“The tools?”

“There's a pick, a shovel and a one metre probe still in the boot. I'll dispose of them tomorrow.”

The older man thought for a moment. “No. Leave them. They might be useful later.” Then he changed the subject. “Well, our comrades in military intelligence understand their work, I think you have to say, even if they like to make things difficult for us. How does it drive?”