The Human Factor (20 page)

There were two men in the room. One of them picked up
Playboy
and ruffled and shook the pages. The other was going through the drawers of the bureau. He told his companion, ‘Here's his address book. You'd better go through the names. Check the telephone numbers in case they don't correspond.'

‘I still don't understand what they are after,' Castle said.

‘Just a security check,' Doctor Percival explained. ‘I tried to get hold of you, Daintry, because it's really your pigeon, but apparently you were away at some wedding or other.'

‘Yes.'

‘There seems to have been some carelessness recently at the office. C's away but he would have wanted us to be sure that the poor chap hadn't left anything lying about.'

‘Like telephone numbers attached to the wrong names?' Castle asked. ‘I wouldn't call that exactly carelessness.'

‘These chaps always follow a certain routine. Isn't that so, Daintry?'

But Daintry didn't reply. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom looking at the body.

One of the men said, ‘Take a squint at this, Taylor.' He handed the other a sheet of paper. The other read aloud, ‘Bonne chance, Kalamazoo, Widow Twanky.'

‘Bit odd, isn't it?'

Taylor said, ‘Bonne chance is French, Piper. Kalamazoo sounds like a town in Africa.'

‘Africa, eh? Might be important.'

Castle said, ‘Better look in the
Evening News
. You'll probably find that they are three horses. He always bet on the tote at the week-end.'

‘Ah,' Piper said. He sounded a little discouraged.

‘I think we ought to leave our friends of the Special Branch to do their job in peace,' Doctor Percival said.

‘What about Davis's family?' Castle asked.

‘The office has been seeing to that. The only next of kin seems to be a cousin in Droitwich. A dentist.'

Piper said, ‘Here's something that looks a bit off-colour to me, sir.' He held out a book to Doctor Percival, and Castle intercepted it. It was a small selection of Robert Browning's poems. Inside was a book plate with a coat of arms and the name of a school, the Droitwich Royal Grammar School. Apparently the prize had been awarded in 1910 to a pupil called William Davis for English Composition and William Davis had written in black ink in a small finicky hand, ‘Passed on to my son Arthur from his father on his passing First in Physics, June 29, 1953.' Browning and physics and a boy of sixteen certainly seemed a bit strange in conjunction, but presumably it was not this that Piper meant by ‘off-colour'.

‘What is it?' Doctor Percival asked.

‘Browning's poems. I don't see anything off-colour about them.'

All the same he had to admit that the little book didn't go with Aldermaston and the tote and
Playboy
, the dreary office routine and the Zaire bag; does one always discover clues to the complexity even of the most simple life if one rummages enough after death? Of course, Davis might have kept the book from filial piety, but it was obvious that he had read it. Hadn't he quoted Browning the last time Castle saw him alive?

‘If you look, sir, there are passages marked,' Piper said to Doctor Percival. ‘You know more about book codes than I do. I thought I ought to draw attention.'

‘What do you think, Castle?'

‘Yes, there
are
marks.' He turned the pages. ‘The book belonged to his father and of course they might be his father's marks – except that the ink looks too fresh: he puts a “c” against them.'

‘Significant?'

Castle had never taken Davis seriously, not his drinking, not his gambling, not even his hopeless love for Cynthia, but a dead body could not be so easily ignored. For the first time he felt real curiosity about Davis. Death had made Davis important. Death gave Davis a kind of stature. The dead are perhaps wiser than we are. He turned the pages of the little book like a member of the Browning Society keen on interpreting a text.

Daintry dragged himself away from the bedroom door. He said, ‘There isn't anything, is there . . . in those marks?'

‘Anything what?'

‘Significant.' He repeated Percival's question.

‘Significant? I suppose there might be. Of a whole state of mind.'

‘What do you mean?' Percival asked. ‘Do you really think . . .?' He sounded hopeful, as if he positively wished that the man who was dead next door might have represented a security risk and, well, in a way he had, Castle thought. Love and hate are both dangerous, as he had warned Boris. A scene came to his mind: a bedroom in
Lourenço Marques
, the
hum
of an air conditioner, and Sarah's voice on the telephone, ‘Here I am', and then the sudden sense of great joy. His love of Sarah had led him to Carson, and Carson finally to Boris. A man in love walks through the world like an anarchist, carrying a time bomb.

‘You really mean there is some evidence . . .?' Doctor Percival went on. ‘You've been trained in codes. I haven't.'

‘Listen to this passage. It's marked with a vertical line and the letter “c”.

‘Have you any idea what “c” stands for?' Percival asked – and again there was that note of hope which Castle found irritating. ‘It could mean, couldn't it, “code”, to remind him that he had already used that particular passage? In a book code I suppose one must be careful not to use the same passage twice.'

‘True enough. Here's another marked passage.

‘It sounds to me like poetry, sir,' Piper said.

‘Again a vertical line and a “c”, Doctor Percival.'

‘You really think then . . .?'

‘Davis said to me once, “I can't be serious when I'm serious.” So I suppose he had to go to Browning for words.'

‘And “c”?'

‘It only stands for a girl's name, Doctor Percival. Cynthia. His secretary. A girl he was in love with. One of us. Not a case for the Special Branch.'

Daintry had been a brooding restless presence, silent, locked in thoughts of his own. He said now with a sharp note of accusation. ‘There should be a post mortem.'

‘Of course,' Doctor Percival said, ‘if his doctor wants it. I'm not his doctor. I'm only his colleague – though he did consult me, and we have the X-rays.'

‘His doctor should be here now.'

‘I'll have him called as soon as these men have finished their work. You of all people, Colonel Daintry, will appreciate the importance of that. Security is the first consideration.'

‘I wonder what a post mortem will show, Doctor Percival.'

‘I think I can tell you that – his liver is almost totally destroyed.'

‘Destroyed?'

‘By drink, of course, Colonel. What else? Didn't you hear me tell Castle?'

Castle left them to their subterranean duel. It was time to have a last look at Davis before the pathologist got to work on him. He was glad that the face showed no indication of pain. He drew the pyjamas together across the hollow chest. A button was missing. Sewing on buttons was not part of a daily woman's job. The telephone beside the bed gave a small preliminary tinkle which came to nothing. Perhaps somewhere far away a microphone and a recorder were being detached from the line. Davis would no longer be under surveillance. He had escaped.

CHAPTER VIII

1

C
ASTLE
sat over what he meant to be his final report. Davis being dead the information from the African section must obviously cease. If the leaks continued there could be no doubt whose was the responsibility, but if the leaks stopped the guilt would be attributed with certainty to the dead man. Davis was beyond suffering; his personal file would be closed and sent to some central store of records, where no one would bother to examine it. What if it contained a story of treachery? Like a Cabinet secret it would be well guarded for thirty years. In a sad way it had been a providential death.

Castle could hear Sarah reading aloud to Sam before packing him off for the night. It was half an hour after his usual bedtime, but tonight he had needed that extra childish comfort for the first week of school had passed unhappily.

What a long slow business it was transcribing a report into book code. He would never now get to an end of
War and Peace
. The next day he would burn his copy for security in a bonfire of autumn leaves without waiting for the Trollope to arrive. He felt relief and regret – relief because he had repaid as far as he could his debt of gratitude to Carson, and regret that he would never be able to close the dossier on Uncle Remus and complete his revenge on Cornelius Muller.

When he had finished his report he went downstairs to wait for Sarah. Tomorrow was Sunday. He would have to leave the report in the drop, that third drop which would never be used again; he had signalled its presence there from a call box in Piccadilly Circus before he caught his train at Euston. It was an inordinately slow business, this way of making his last communication, but a quicker and more dangerous route had been reserved for use only in a final emergency. He poured himself a triple J. & B. and the murmur of voices upstairs began to give him a temporary sense of peace. A door was closed softly, footsteps passed along the corridor above; the stairs always creaked on the way down – he thought how to some people this would seem a dull and domestic, even an intolerable routine. To him it represented a security he had been afraid every hour he might lose. He knew exactly what Sarah would say when she came into the sitting-room, and he knew what he would answer. Familiarity was a protection against the darkness of King's Road outside and the lighted lamp of the police station at the corner. He had always pictured a uniformed policeman, whom he would probably know well by sight, accompanying the man from the Special Branch when the hour struck.

‘You've taken your whisky?'

‘Can I give
you
one?'

‘A small one, darling.'

‘Sam all right?'

‘He was asleep before I tucked him in.'

As in an unmutilated cable, there was not one numeral wrongly transcribed.

He handed her the glass: he hadn't been able to speak until now of what had happened.

‘How was the wedding, darling?'

‘Pretty awful. I was sorry for poor Daintry.'

‘Why poor?'

‘He was losing a daughter and I doubt if he has got any friends.'

‘There seem to be such a lot of lonely people in your office.'

‘Yes. All those that don't pair off for company. Drink up, Sarah.'

‘What's the hurry?'

‘I want to get both of us another glass.'

‘Why?'

‘I've got bad news, Sarah. I couldn't tell you in front of Sam. It's about Davis. Davis is dead.'

‘Dead?
Davis
?'

‘Yes.'

‘How?'

‘Doctor Percival talks of his liver.'

‘But a liver doesn't go like that – from one day to another.'

‘It's what Doctor Percival says.'

‘You don't believe him?'

‘No. Not altogether. I don't think Daintry does either.'

She gave herself two fingers of whisky – he had never seen her do that before. ‘Poor, poor Davis.'

‘Daintry wants an independent post mortem. Percival was quite ready for that. He's obviously quite sure his diagnosis will be confirmed.'

‘If he's sure, then it must be true?'

‘I don't know. I really don't know. They can arrange so many things in our firm. Perhaps even a post mortem.'

‘What are we going to tell Sam?'

‘The truth. It's no good keeping deaths from a child. They happen all the time.'

‘But he loved Davis so much. Darling, let me say nothing for a week or two. Until he finds his feet at school.'

‘You know best.'

‘I wish to God you could get away from all those people.'

‘I shall – in a few years.'

‘I mean now. This minute. We'd take Sam out of bed and go abroad. The first plane to anywhere.'

‘Wait till I've got my pension.'

‘I could work, Maurice. We could go to France. It would be easier there. They're used to my colour.'

‘It isn't possible, Sarah. Not yet.'

‘Why? Give me one good reason . . .'

He tried to speak lightly. ‘Well, you know a man has to give proper notice.'

‘Do
they
bother about things like notice?'

He was scared by the quickness of her perception when she said, ‘Did they give Davis notice?'

He said, ‘If it was his liver . . .'

‘You don't believe that, do you? Don't forget that I worked for you once – for them. I was your agent. Don't think I haven't noticed the last month how anxious you've been – even about the meter man. There's been a leak, is that it? In your section?'

‘I think they think so.'

‘And they pinned it on Davis. Do you believe Davis was guilty?'

‘It may not have been a deliberate leak. He was very careless.'

‘You think they may have killed him because he was careless?'