There was barely half an hour to go before the laboratory closed down for the weekend. Ian went off to his room, to wind up the experiment, and complete his notes. I sat there at the desk, head in my hands, trying to look at recent events in a detached way.
I found I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand far enough back to be objective, because I was too involved, too horribly involved. I had a sensation of menace all around me, so that I could hardly sit still in my own private office without glancing over my shoulder uneasily.
This little room had been my father’s, though he’d hardly ever used it, preferring the solitude of his study in the house. He had been a lonely man, making few friends. The laboratory had been his whole life. Perhaps it was as well he had not lived to see the evil that had overtaken Malverton.
Yet it looked as if he must have suspected something was wrong. He had certainly known that stock was missing, for he had accused Ian of inefficiency, and Ruth Truscott had told us that Father had seemed terribly agitated only the day before his death. Without him actually saying what was worrying him, she had somehow got the impression that his anxiety was connected with a fateful experiment he had once done. And from that slender piece of evidence Ian had discovered that Physolaria could be used for making a narcotic drug. How much had Father known of what was in fact happening here?
I couldn’t help hoping he had realized that Ian wasn’t to blame. But if Ian wasn’t responsible, then someone was stealing the stock, and Father must have had a horrible suspicion what it was being used for. What would he have done about it?
Suddenly fear began to claw its icy way up my spine, as a new and dreadful idea broke through. It seemed so clear to me now that I was astonished nobody had seen it before, I wanted to rush to Ian next door, but for the moment I was rigid with horror.
When I found my legs I dashed out of my office, down the corridor, and burst into Ian’s laboratory without ceremony.
‘What is it, Dulcie? You’re so white.’ He came and put his arms round me. My extreme terror began to subside, but I was still thoroughly shaken by the direction my thoughts had taken me.
‘Ian ... my Father ... how did he die?’
He stared down at me, astonished. ‘But you know about that. He went into an insulin coma. He must have given himself an extra dose.’
‘But was his death an accident? Because he was known to be so forgetful, it would look just as if he had mistaken his dose. It must have been so very easy for them….’
‘Them? You mean...?’
“Yes,’ I cried wildly. ‘Yes, I mean Father was killed—murdered! He must have stumbled on something, and they realized he knew too much. He had to be got rid of—just like Leeson.’
I had come running to Ian for reassurance. I was wanting him to tell me that I was talking utter nonsense, that without doubt my Father’s death had been an accident. But I felt the arms around me go stiff, and then they dropped away.
‘Oh God!’ he groaned. ‘How blind I’ve been. Of course, it all fits.’
That phrase again. I could remember it on my own lips not long before. It all fits, I’d said, meaning Ian’s guilt. How easy it was to jump to the wrong conclusion.
‘We mustn’t be hasty,’ I muttered unhappily. ‘Really, there’s nothing at all to go on. Father died of insulin shock, that’s a fact. We can never be sure it wasn’t a pure accident.’
But this didn’t restrain Ian. ‘The more I think about it,’ he insisted, ‘the more convinced I am that you’re right. It’s quite true that your father was absent-minded about some things—little unimportant, everyday things. But diabetes was something scientific, and he was above all a scientist. He was always utterly meticulous about the balance between insulin dosage and food intake. I know it sounds curious to say this, but in a way he found his diabetes interesting. He was his own guinea-pig.’
‘But Father was very worried at the time,’ I pointed out with faint hope. ‘He could have got his injections muddled up somehow or other.’
Ian swept this aside. ‘No, Dulcie, he’d never have done that. It doesn’t make sense that way—it never did. For instance, he always carried a small packet of sugar lumps as a precaution. He had them in every jacket he wore. He never ever forgot his sugar, any more than he would forget an experiment in the lab. I should have realized….’
‘Then what were the police doing to have overlooked this possibility?’ I asked angrily.
‘The police didn’t come into it, not into a serious investigation. Your father’s manner of death coincided with what could be expected of a diabetic, if he had acted carelessly. His own doctor was ready enough to sign the death certificate on the evidence he had.’ His voice became bitterly self-accusing. ‘No, I was the one who should have realized the truth, but just because I didn’t want to find anything wrong, I was blind to what was under my nose.’
It was such a universal human fault—failure to accept the obvious. Like my loving Ian, and Ian loving me. We’d both of us shut away that knowledge because it didn’t square with what we wanted to believe. Ian was a surly brute who had been caught out acting suspiciously. Dulcie had been a glamour-puss actress with no thought or care about her lonely old father. It is so easy to overlook the truth when you won’t let yourself know.
I said, ‘It makes the prospect pretty grim, doesn’t it? If they, whoever they are, guess we’re wise to their racket, what money would you put on our lives? Hadn’t we better go to the police?’
‘Not yet. If we did, this thing would blow sky high. We dare not risk interrupting supplies of MJ71. We’ll go to them when we’ve got more information.’
‘And meantime...?’
‘Meantime, I’m going to take very good care of you, Dulcie my darling.’ Ian wrapped both his arms around me again, protectively. ‘Right now I’m going to drive you over to Ruth Truscott’s. I’m not taking any chances.’
Swiftly he bent his head and kissed me. It was the first time, and it was such a very little kiss. ‘You’re much too precious to take chances with, my love,’ he said huskily, briefly touching my lips with his again.
It was as though I’d never been kissed before. All past kisses became nothing more than stage embraces in my memory, passionless exchanges with men I was indifferent to. I’d only imagined I was in love before, I could see that plainly now. This was love, this was the real thing. A kiss that was barely more than a brother’s peck had set me on fire.
There was a bustle of noise downstairs, outside the window. I came back to the present realizing that the works had closed down, and the staff were setting off home in the minibus.
Gently I broke away from Ian. ‘We’d better get going, then,’ I said. ‘It won’t take me many minutes to pack a few things.’
All at once I was timid. It was only now, with Ian right there ready to do battle for me, that I understood how much I’d needed him.
‘Come through to the house with me,’ I asked. ‘I don’t feel like facing Mrs. Cass just now. I keep looking at her and wondering….’