5

The car’s not the salmon-pink creation I’d been expecting but a dark blue Bentley. I see its number plate from the window: N N 1. The chauffeur with the peaked cap gets out from behind the wheel; he looks up at the house, looks at the numbers on either side, then steps up to the door.

The bell rings in the hall below.

There’s a murmur of voices. The bell rings again, this time in the flat.

Ferguson, his red hair dishevelled, is standing on the stairs.

‘I say, old man. There’s somebody for you.’

He waits, his hand on the banister, as I descend. He’s dressed in a yellow and mauve striped blazer.

‘The police,’ I say, and nod my head.

‘I say, old man,’ he says. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’

‘I’ve seen it coming,’ I add, ‘for days.’

‘I say, old man, there’s nothing I can do?’

‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’ I shake my head.

‘No messages to give?’

‘They’ve all been given.’

‘I’m sorry, old man, it’s come to this.’

He comes out to the step; he sees the car. His eyes narrow; he begins to frown.

The chauffeur nods his head, turns to the rear door of the car, and pulls it open. With the flat parcel beneath my arm I step inside.

There’s a second figure there: huge, massive, square-shouldered, he takes up more than half of the space available on the seat itself. He’s dressed in a dark overcoat. A morning newspaper is open on his knee.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Remember me? We met at Elizabeth’s the other week.’

The car, with the force of his laughter begins to shake.

Outside, Ferguson, smoothing down his hair, is gazing in. I wave.

He gestures back, uncertain. There’s a white handkerchief tucked in the top pocket of his blazer. He’s wearing a light blue tie, with a horse’s head outlined, in a creamish colour, immediately beneath the knot.

The chauffeur gets in behind the wheel.

‘Do you have the parcel, sir?’

I hold it up.

‘Is that for Neville?’ the broadly built man has said. I indicate the name inscribed on the dark brown paper.

‘I could have taken it up myself.’

‘No one knew you were coming today, Mr Fraser,’ the chauffeur says.

He starts the car.

‘You don’t mind me cadging a lift, then?’ Fraser says. ‘I asked Jackie to let you know. No doubt,’ he adds, ‘she clean forgot.’

He gets out a cigarette case.

The car moves off.

I get out the cigarette lighter with the coloured crest.

Ferguson, still smoothing down his hair, has waved. The mauve and yellow striped arm is raised.

‘A friend of yours, then?’ Fraser says.

‘A detective.’

‘Really?’

He turns in his seat to gaze through the rear window at the disappearing figure.

‘Dressed conspicuously,’ he says.

‘That’s part of his disguise.’

‘C.I.D. or private?’

‘C.I.D.’

‘First time I’ve seen one,’ he tells me, ‘dressed like that.’

I flick the lighter.

‘A new conception.’

He nods his head.

He dips the end of the cigarette in the bluish flame, then sees the monogram printed on the side.

‘Elizabeth’s?’

I light my own cigarette and snap it shut.

‘She left it behind,’ I say, ‘one night.’

The chauffeur’s head has turned; it gives an involuntary jerk. Fraser, however, has glanced behind, back down the street, as if he hasn’t heard.

‘No one, on the face of it, could suspect him of being one, I suppose,’ I say.

The figure behind us disappears.

The car dips down towards the valley.

‘What branch of the C.I.D. is your friend in, then?’ Fraser says.

‘Murder.’

‘Is there much of it goes on round here?’

‘More than is generally recognized,’ I say.

‘What case,’ he says, ‘is he dealing with at present?’

‘The death by strangulation of a man found on a tennis court,’ I tell him.

‘Hence, I suppose, his sporty get-up.’

‘That’s right.’

‘He looked more like part and parcel of a song and dance routine to me.’

‘The victim was fond of tap-dancing in his youth,’ I say.

‘Do you always take the piss out of everyone you meet?’ he says.

‘Invariably,’ I tell him.

He begins to laugh.

He weighs, by my reckoning, over sixteen stone: I wonder, if he swings one over in the car, which way I ought to move: one in the belly then one in the chops, then one on the nose to make it count. He’s muscle-bound, too; most of it, I suspect, has turned to fat.

‘Married, are you?’ He looks across.

‘I have been,’ I tell him, ‘for some considerable time.’

‘Children?’

I shake my head.

‘Working is she, then? Your wife.’

‘In hospital,’ I tell him.

‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

‘Went crazy,’ I say. ‘She’s been confined.’

He’s not sure, for a moment, which way to look; the driver’s eyes gleam back from the mirror then glance away.

The car turns westwards. The valley narrows; buildings creep in on either side.

Fraser, in a rather melancholic fashion, begins to bite his nails. He props one of his short, muscular legs across the other.

‘You teach in the local art school, then?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Any prospects?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Why do you stay on, if that’s the case?’

‘I don’t intend to,’ I tell him, ‘for very long.’

‘Has Neville offered you a job?’ he says.

‘None that I’m aware of. No.’

I glance into the mirror.

‘He did mention, however, that he’s looking for a chauffeur. He’s somewhat disenchanted,’ I add, ‘with the one he has at present.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Strictly between ourselves,’ I say.

The car has slowed. The eyes, partly obscured by the neb of the cap, meet mine.

‘Relax, Bennings,’ Fraser says.

He gets out a cigarette: he offers it round the front to the driver.

‘No thank you, sir,’ the chauffeur says.

He taps the end of the cigarette himself: I get out the lighter, flick up the flame: his eyes, as he lights the cigarette, meet mine.

‘I wouldn’t mind, when the moment comes – as come,’ he tells me, ‘it undoubtedly will – pumping you in the mouth myself.’

‘Whenever you can find the time,’ I say.

‘They tell me,’ he says, ‘you used to box.’

‘On and off,’ I say, and smile.

‘I’ve done some fighting,’ he says, ‘myself.’

‘A size like that,’ I tell him, ‘I’m not surprised.’

I fold one leg across the other.

‘Targets of those proportions are hard to find.’

His own leg cocked up, he suddenly takes down.

He smokes his cigarette for a while in silence.

The road, a straight, concrete highway, has suddenly broadened. The speed of the car has suddenly increased. Odd trees, newly planted, have been set at irregular distances on either side.

We pass through a village. Rows of windowless cottages appear; men with picks and hammers are working on the walls; truncated, glassless windows look out onto overgrown fields: the low white profile of a glass-roofed concrete building appears briefly on the skyline of a moor beyond.

The road dips down. Some distance further on the car turns off along a narrow lane. Immediately ahead, blocking the lane, appears a cottage. Its thatched roof with its two tall brick chimneys is surmounted by a painted metal sign, a large fist clenched around a bar of steel. The sign itself is painted red. Above it, in silver, is set the single letter L.

Two tunnels have been cut through the centre of the cottage; as we pass through the one on the left, following a large arrow, a man in a peaked cap leans out of a lattice window.

He ducks his head, glances in the car as it passes through the building, then salutes briefly as he glimpses the broad-chested figure sitting in the back.

A driveway sweeps up beyond, past a clump of rhododendron bushes and a line of trees.

It emerges at the front of a concrete mansion. A vast, pillared portico projects from its crumbled, blackened façade; much of the stone has been patched with cement. Cement too has been used to fill in the ruts and holes in the drive itself.

Across the lawns and terraces at the front of the house stand several massive shed-like structures. Bulldozers move across the edges of a lawn; the derricks of several large cranes project above a line of trees. From every direction, as the car pulls up, comes the dull, staccatic roar of engines.

The chauffeur gets out and opens the door: he opens it, deliberately or otherwise, on Fraser’s side. The large man douses his cigarette and clambers out.

The pale-faced, black-eyed man I’ve seen at Elizabeth’s appears on the steps at the front of the house.

‘I’m Groves,’ he says. He nods to Fraser. ‘I’ll take you over, if you’ll follow me.’

Fraser goes off towards the house, pausing on the steps and glancing back. The car, with the small-eyed chauffeur, has driven off.

Groves waits. ‘You came up with Fraser, then?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He’s jolly good company to have around.’

‘Very,’ I tell him. I nod my head. Fraser’s large figure has turned on the steps. When I look again he’s disappeared.

‘There’s Neville now, then,’ Groves has said.

As we emerge from the trees several large buildings, window-less factory structures, have appeared on either side. On the flank of each of them is mounted the letter L, surmounted by the device of the red-painted fist clenching the bar of steel. Several trucks and lorries, stamped with the same device, are parked beneath the trees. In the furthest distance, beyond a stretch of moorland, are visible the remains of the village we passed through in the car.

Walking across the open space between the nearest building and the line of trees is a small, slight figure who, on seeing us emerge from the trees, runs his hand across his long blond hair and turns casually in our direction.

Groves, I discover, glancing round, has disappeared.

‘Freestone?’

A pair of cool blue eyes examine mine.

‘My name’s Newman.’

He puts out his hand; the eyes glance past me now towards the house.

‘They told me you’d arrived.’

I hold out the parcel.

‘I was asked,’ I tell him, ‘if I’d give you this.’

‘That’s right.’

He doesn’t take it. Perhaps he’s wondering if Elizabeth has come.

‘Is there anything in it?’

He shakes his head.

‘We thought, if you had something to bring, there was more chance of you turning up.’ He smiles. ‘It was my secretary’s idea,’ he says. ‘Not mine.’

He turns, his hand in his pocket, and looks back towards the moor. Trees, uprooted and dismembered, lie strewn across what at one time might have been a park. Closer at hand a tractor is filling in a dried-up lake. A balustraded bridge stands, partly dismembered, at its narrowest end, and at the other, where it disappears beyond a belt of trees, stands a roofless stone pagoda.

‘What do you think?’

‘I like the fist.’

‘I thought you would.’

‘And the bar of steel.’

‘Symbolic.’ He glances up.

‘I suppose,’ I tell him, indicating the parcel, ‘I might throw this away.’

‘I’ll take it.’

‘Shouldn’t you look inside?’

He laughs. There’s a faint tinge of colour on either cheek. The eyes are hard. I can see the whiteness of his knuckles as he feels the paper. On the lapel of his jacket is pinned a tiny badge with a device, in relief, I can’t make out.

‘I hear Fraser came up in the car as well.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did he tell you much about it?’ He gestures round.

‘Nothing.’

‘It’s a new industrial estate. Where that old house is now there’ll be a skyscraper block accommodating, in a centralized office, over thirty or forty firms. There’s even a new church if you want to look. In ten years time there’ll be twenty or thirty thousand people working here. In fifteen years it might have trebled.’

‘What’s your job here?’

‘I supervise it all,’ he says.

He looks round him, sees the bridge, then, further off, the stone pagoda.

‘It was quite a mess when we first arrived. In a couple of months you’ll see a difference. It’s all bits and pieces I’m afraid at present.’

He turns away from the trees and indicates we might walk down between the buildings immediately below us.

A tractor lumbers past; he steps aside. We follow a moment later in the tracks left by its massive tyres.

‘I wondered,’ he says, ‘if you’d any ideas.’

He gestures round.

‘We have an artist. A sociologist. An architect. An environmental psychologist. They’ve been with the scheme since it first began.’

I get out a cigarette. He shakes his head.

I think it might be too much to get out the lighter.

I say, ‘What category do I come into, then?’

‘None whatsoever.’ He looks across. ‘That’s why I asked.’

I get out the lighter.

As far as I can tell he doesn’t notice. I light the cigarette, snap the lighter shut and put it away.

He walks with his hands in his trouser pockets. His cheek, on one side, is drawn in, as if he’s biting the skin inside. In profile he reminds me of those intellectual athletes, common in England before the First World War: the face is lean and slim, the eyes are calm and almost dreamy. He might, in some earlier life, have climbed the Himalayas, run the mile, high-jumped, rowed, boxed, cricketed, footballed to an almost professional level.

‘I wanted the view,’ he tells me, ‘of someone who didn’t care.’

‘About what?’

‘Anything at all.’

‘Is that the impression your detective gives?’

He smiles. The faint touch of colour on his cheeks has gone.

‘It’s an impression I get from everyone,’ he says.

He looks across.

‘The detective’s there,’ he adds, ‘for my own protection.’

‘I thought it was for your wife’s.’

He shakes his head.

‘We’re not together,’ he says, ‘at present. I need to know what’s going on.’

‘Aren’t you getting divorced?’

He bows his head. He looks at his feet as he walks along.

We’ve reached the door of the nearest building; we don’t go in. The track turns off towards the moor.

‘Even my daughter’s caught up in it,’ he says.

‘You could always take her away,’ I tell him.

‘From the college? She’d never allow it. She’s as much aware of motives,’ he says, ‘as anyone else.’

We’ve turned up the track; behind us I can see Groves come out from beneath the trees. He looks over, waves, gazes over a little longer, then, with a shrug, turns back towards the house.

‘Elizabeth, you see, is not unlike you in some respects. You may have found that out yourself. She couldn’t give a damn about anything at times. It’s almost suicidal, this impulse, in the end, to disown almost everything,’ he says.

‘She’s got more to disown, I suppose, than me.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

He kicks at the clay in front of his feet.

‘I gather your wife’s in hospital,’ he adds.

‘She is at present.’

‘Is she seriously ill?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Suppose she found out.’

‘She wouldn’t mind.’

‘Do you mean,’ he says, ‘she doesn’t care?’

‘She’s got past caring about anything,’ I tell him.

He lifts his wrist, abstracted, then glances at his watch.

‘In a way,’ he says, ‘I don’t care much myself.’ He gestures round. ‘It’s an act of faith, like everything else.’

‘Wilcox cares.’

He shakes his head: he’s not certain, perhaps, for a moment, who Wilcox is.

‘He’s hoping,’ I tell him, ‘when things materialize, you’ll rejuvenate the college.’

He waves his arm: ‘The whole town’ll be affected by what goes on round here.’ He looks across. ‘I told him the college, for instance, might be expanded.’

We’ve reached the edge of the moor; tractors move to and fro, dragging back the turf; in every direction trenches have been dug; there are stacks of pipes standing up amongst the bracken, mounds of bricks and from further down the slope comes the clatter of a giant cement machine.

‘There’ll be houses right across this slope.’ He waves his arm. ‘Over there,’ he adds, pointing in the direction of the ruined village, ‘there’ll be a community centre, a sports field and a running-track. There’s no telling what the effect might be: colleges, schools, libraries, they’ll all be needed.’

‘It doesn’t seem worth it.’

‘Improving people’s lives?’

‘Hanging on to your wife,’ I tell him.

‘There’ve been men like you before,’ he says.

‘Have you made the same appeals?’ I ask.

‘It’s never been necessary, in the end,’ he says.

He looks across.

‘I see nothing to be afraid of here,’ I tell him.

‘Nor anything to respect,’ he says.

I shake my head.

‘Then we’ve nothing more to say.’

He gestures back the way we’ve come.

‘The car’ll take you back,’ he says. ‘Just ask at the house. They’ll bring it round.’

He starts off down the slope.

He doesn’t look back.

By the time I reach the house it’s begun to rain.

When the car comes round and I step inside, I see Fraser waiting in the porch above me, waving, his massive features lit up, despite the weather, with something of a smile.