The Cambridge Theorem (48 page)

“It wasna my idea, fella. I was thinking about the butcher.” Then she laughed softly to herself. “I dunno. A few days ago, I suppose. You see, my Alec, he doesna even come home much any more. Three weeks on, one week off, supposedly, but he and his mates are away to Edinburgh or Perth for three, four nights after they get paid. I pretend I dinna know what he's up to, but all the money has gone to his head. He's tired of us down here, and we both know it. You wait, soon he'll no be comin' home at all.

“So it gets lonely. I've been here my whole life. I've thought about it, you know. We get travelling salesmen, comin' through, and they're always making suggestions.

“But you.” She ran her fingers through his hair, then cupped his chin. “I could see you were hurtin' and I thought you had maybe left your wife or something. You seemed to need a wee bit of affection.” That made him laugh. “This is the first time, for me. I canna think why I've waited so long.”

Later, when she was getting dressed, she asked him, “Was it your wife, who died?”

“No, I'm divorced. Someone I met.”

“Derek,” she asked, just before she left, “are you with the police?”

“Used to be. How'd you know?”

“Well, you have a pistol and a holster in your bag and I couldna think you were a criminal. I thought maybe you were a spy, or something.”

He laughed. “You've been looking through my things? I should report you to the tourist board.”

“Aye, that's for sure,” she said, kissing him again.

They maintained a friendly politeness as Sandie served them an unhurried breakfast the next day. She caught his eye on a couple of occasions, and smiled. He and Iain wrote her separate checks as they stood in the narrow hallway, their bags at their feet. Sandie held out her hand to Iain, and shook it firmly. Then she held out her hand to Smailes, and when he took it, she stepped towards him and kissed him deliberately, and lovingly, on the mouth. She stepped back and looked him in the eye. “Mind you come back now,” she said.

As they drove out of the town, Iain Mack looked at him with incredulity and indignation.

“You sneaky, bloody bastard,” he said.

Smailes grinned and kept his eyes on the road.

H
E WAS NOT SURE
what to expect at the flat. Les had probably fixed the front door, but he thought he might have to grab whatever spare clothes he could and stay with his mother until the place was straightened out.

He dropped Iain at the station and drove home. The front door was fixed all right, and he bent down to pick up his post and a week's worth of the
Cambridge Evening News
. The inner door had been replaced entirely, although his key still fit the lock. The flat itself was restored. The furniture had been righted and the broken pieces replaced. The lounger had been supplanted by a new black vinyl armchair. There was a new mattress and dresser, and all his clothes and possessions had been stowed away. Even the cowboy boots stood beside the wardrobe. He wondered if they were still wearable.

It had to be Standiforth's work. Les Howarth would not have laid out a penny, and he couldn't imagine the project originating at the Cambridge station. He felt pleased. It was the least M15 could do for him, after all.

He sat down in the kitchen and began to look through the post and the newspapers. Under the headline
Student Lovers Found Murdered
, the Monday edition led with the discovery by a greenskeeper of two bodies near a drainage ditch close to Girton Golf Course. They had been identified as students from St. Margaret's College, Giles Allerton and an American girlfriend, Lauren Greenwald. The story mentioned that Allerton had been missing for two days, but the woman had disappeared only hours before her body was found. Allerton's car had been found abandoned in a multi-story parking lot in Huntingdon. Cambridge police speculated that the two friends had been murdered by the same person. No doubt George would create the ballistics evidence to back that up, Smailes said to himself.

Smailes thought anxiously again of Lauren and had begun reading the story of Gorham-Leach's suicide on the first inside page when the identity of the diner in the Dumfries restaurant suddenly struck him. It was bloody Rob Roy, of course, the so-called graduate student who had shared Lauren's digs. Smailes would swear to it, despite the severity of the barber job that had removed all his hair. What the hell was he doing in a Dumfries restaurant with Derek Smailes and Iain Mack? Not just eating dinner, that was for sure. He was tailing them, which made him a bit more than a graduate student, didn't it? Which meant that he also had tabs on Lauren Greenwald, in all likelihood. Smailes' mind worked rapidly through the implications, and he shook his head in disbelief.

“Paul Beecroft, of course,” he said at first. Then, moments later, “No, Ivor Davies. Ivor bloody Furse-Davies,” the connections in his memory finally meshing.

There was nothing he could do to confirm his suspicions at that hour, so he turned again to the newspaper account, a cold cynicism in his heart. He would start work first thing in the morning, and try and get into Standiforth's office by afternoon.

Gorham-Leach's body had been found on Monday morning by his housekeeper, but evidence suggested he had been dead for at least a day. White powder found in a vial near the body had been sent away for analysis. No note had been found. The story quoted an unnamed family spokesman who revealed that Gorham-Leach had recently been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, and had only months to live. Very neat, Smailes thought to himself. The accompanying obituary was a fulsome tribute to Cambridge's most illustrious scientist. The senior tutor of St. Margaret's College, Dr. Nigel Hawken, described his colleague's death as “an inestimable loss to science and to scholarship.”

Follow-up stories on the double murder throughout the week were relegated to inside pages, since the Falklands crisis had pushed everything else off the front page. Continuing inquiries revealed no new evidence. Chief Superintendent George Dearnley, head of Cambridge CID, had taken personal charge of the case and vowed to bring the perpetrator of the brutal killings to justice. But as yet the police had neither motive nor suspects in their investigation. In the Friday edition, Smailes found a short notice that made him smile despite his mood. Dr. Nigel Hawken, senior tutor of St. Margaret's College since 1964, had announced his retirement effective at the end of the academic year. St. Margaret's College Council had announced that Dr. Charles Poole, a professor of botany currently on sabbatical, would take his place. The front page headline that day read
Marines Retake South Georgia
. And just to reinforce Smailes' anger and dismay, the jingoistic tagline above it read
Blunder by Argy Captain Lets Lads In
.

Before going to bed, he could not prevent himself walking to his front window and craning his neck up and down the street. There were no white Rovers or Post Office vans that he could see.

He was up early and at Mick Fowler's garage not long after it opened at eight. Fowler spotted him from the far end of the showroom and waddled towards him.

“Derek! What a nice surprise. How've you been? Say, no hard feelings, okay?” he said unctuously, advancing in his cloud of cologne, grabbing his elbow and pumping his hand. “What can I do for you?”

Smailes pointed to the Allegro parked out front. “Find me the bug in that, will you, Mick? Those guys I told you about must've planted something in it. That's how they tailed me.”

Mick's face broke into a sly grin and he walked to the door that led from the showroom to the shop.

“Malc! Come in here,” he yelled, and walked back to Smailes, looking thoughtful.

“Bygones are bygones, right, Del?”

“Right, Mick.”

Malc turned out to be a gormless-looking teenager in grease-stiffened overalls with long, oily hair and a ripe boil high on his left cheekbone. Fowler told him conspiratorially to hoist up the detective's car and find the listening device that was planted on it. Malc looked puzzled but took the detective's keys anyway. Fowler led Smailes back towards the offices.

“So what's the caper? You can tell old Mick. Personal interest, you see, Derek. You gotta believe I wouldn't never have rented the motor if I knew they was crooks.”

“I believe you, Mick. But sorry, I can't talk, not on this one.”

“Too bad. Coffee, Derek? I think maybe Elsie has a doughnut.”

“Thanks Mick, I've eaten. Like to borrow an office and a telephone, though, if I can.”

“No problema,” said Fowler suavely. “In here.”

Smailes sat down at a metal desk in a small dirty office with a girlie calendar on the wall. On the desk were magazines representing the breadth of Fowler's interests—
Penthouse, Classic Car
and
Scrap Age
. He waited until his watch said eight thirty-five, then called the reference library. You were allowed three questions on the phone, and the librarian answered his cheerfully. The answers were confirmation. He was hardly surprised.

He wandered out into the showroom where Fowler was showing off one of his Bentleys to a young, sharply-dressed West Indian who was probably a crook if he could afford one of Fowler's restored vehicles. Malc reappeared from the shop and caught Fowler's eye with a shrug. The three men moved into Fowler's office.

“Nuffink,” said Malc.

“What?” asked Fowler.

“Don't find nuffink. Done the engine, the whole chassis, back to front. Nuffink. Could start tearing into them door panels, if you like.”

Fowler raised his eyebrows at Smailes, who shook his head. “Thanks anyway,” said Smailes.

“Bring the motor round front, Malc,” said Fowler, and the kid disappeared.

“Sorry, Derek. He's good, mind you.”

“It's okay. You get that Rover back yet?”

“Not yet. It's got another few days on the deposit, I think,” said Fowler, worried. He'd obviously been thinking. “I'm not going to get it back, am I? Give me a break, Derek.”

“Yeah, you'll get it back, my guess. Ditched somewhere,” said Smailes. “Listen Mick, when they picked it up, the third guy drove away later, from round back, right?”

“Like I said,” said Fowler, distracted. He was thinking about the Rover, his investment in it. Malc parked the Allegro out front and honked. Smailes wiped off the wheel with his handkerchief and headed back to Cambridge.

He had half expected Standiforth to be sitting there with George when he arrived at the office that morning, and he was. His mood had solidified into a cold anger, and he felt no need to be polite.

“What's he doing here?” he asked, not looking at Standiforth.

“Roger has one or two things to ask you, that's all, Derek. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Save me the trip to town, anyway.” He handed George an envelope.

“What's this?”

“My resignation.”

“Derek, I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. You don't still think that Roger and I…”

“It's nothing to do with that, George. I gave this a lot of thought. It's time to call it quits. I never fitted in here, you know that. No hard feelings.” He hoped George noticed the sarcasm in his voice.

George put the envelope on the desk in front of him and shook his jowls at it slowly. “Roger?” he said.

Standiforth was watching him calmly. “Detective Sergeant Smailes, I hope you are rested. I asked the Chief Superintendent whether I could be here today for a number of reasons. First, I want to thank you for the extraordinary work you have done in helping solve this case. I deeply regret that you were exposed to any danger. I take full responsibility for that, and I apologize to you most sincerely. As soon as I knew we had no reception over the remote we should have come straight in behind you. But I delayed, and then it was too late. I am only thankful that your agility and skill has saved my conscience from a lifetime of discomfort.”

“Fuck you, Roger,” said Smailes icily. Dearnley actually flinched in his seat.

“Derek…” he began.

“Shut up, George. I don't have to listen to this crap. Like an idiot, I was inclined to believe you, and him. That was until I ran into Rob Roy in the restaurant in Dumfries. That made me do my thinking all over again.”

“Who?” asked Dearnley.

“Rob Roy,” said Smailes. “Roger knows who I mean. Where d'you put the bug, Roger? Had my mechanic go over the car front to back this morning, couldn't find it. There's got to be one, how else could you trace me to Scotland?”

Dearnley looked completely baffled. Standiforth drew on his cigarette and put it out slowly in George's heavy glass ashtray.

“You remove the ashtray drawer and clip it to the steering column, down inside. Very hard to find,” he said eventually.

“Yes, well I suppose Malc would have found it sooner or later. George, don't tell me you don't know about all this. I was set up from the start, wasn't I? You knew Gorham-Leach's confession was being taped, right? Roger must've told you he was already blown, I suppose. And you knew about Lauren, Davies, the theft of the file, the whole ball of wax.”

Here Standiforth interceded. “No. I told the Chief Superintendent that we already had the evidence on Gorham-Leach, I concede. But he knew nothing about the girl or the other surveillance operations. The botch of the arrest was a tragic accident, as I explained to you. I take full responsibility.”

“You really think I'm fucking stupid, don't you, Roger? Give me a break. When I ran into Rob Roy and I recognized him from Lauren's digs, I worked backwards through the whole thing. So Lauren was blown and you had her under surveillance, okay? So if Lauren is blown, that means Gorham-Leach is blown, too. Boy, I was slow. The night I came back from Rickmansworth, George tells me you've already got people in place watching him. They'd been there for months, right? Yet I fell for the line that Hawken's buddies down the street had been turfed out in the middle of the night. Which one did you get first, Roger? G-L, I'll bet, because Rob Roy had been down the Public Records Office last year, combing the same records Bowles eventually found. Said he was doing a book on
Jews of Britain
, right? Took him weeks to find the record. Boy, I'll bet it sent you all running for the crapper when you found out who he really was. What was it, the sudden return from retirement that alerted you, or did you feel it was finally time to backtrack Hawken's work, Roger? You knew all about him, too, I would guess. That's why he was put out to pasture here in the first place, his unreliability, I'll bet. I'm surprised our burly historian didn't rip out the relevant page at the PRO, but you would never have guessed that Bowles would get there too, would you?