Chapter Five

No doubt they were up the creek, as Charlie had said, but they were hardly up equal distances. It was nice of Charlie to make the disaster inclusive, but really for him it was no more than a matter of losing one pretty well-paid research job out of a dozen. For Hunter it was another thing, although not one which he could yet take seriously. To the policeman who talked to him he patiently but rather absently repeated that he had no basis for making the remark about Bond other than the research notes of his assistant, Mr Cash.

This policeman was a slick young man, who had the brisk, confiding air of an insurance or even a vacuum cleaner salesman. When he spoke it was with a slightly apologetic air, as though he were trying to sell you something, and knew that it was an article of inferior quality, because unfortunately he did not work for the very best firm. He had this air now as he read the note on Bond made by Charlie Cash.

‘These notes were not much more than gossip, as Mr Cash has admitted. You agree about that?’

‘Yes. The interview was not going well. I was trying to get some reaction from Mekles.’

The police inspector, whose name was Crambo, shook his head in apparent puzzlement. ‘They call me Dumb Crambo at the Yard, and I’m not surprised. I would never have suspected that you’d ask a question in that way, just on a basis of gossip.’

‘Well, I did,’ Hunter said wearily.

‘If it had been someone like me, now, someone stupid, I should have been afraid of slander. But I suppose you put the questions very cunningly, eh?’

‘I don’t know that I worried about that. The question itself was harmless, just a suggestion that Mekles was doing business with Bond. I was surprised by the way he reacted.’

‘Harmless,’ Crambo said meditatively. ‘That’s assuming you didn’t know that this chap Bond had dived out of his window earlier that evening.’

‘I didn’t know it. I hadn’t seen a paper.’

‘But Mr Mekles had seen a paper, he told me so himself, and he didn’t like it at all. Natural that he shouldn’t like it, don’t you agree.’

‘I suppose it was.’

‘All quite natural, you might say. Your innocent question and his feeling that you were needling him, you might say.’ He said suddenly, ‘When did you first meet Bond?’

‘I didn’t know him from Adam.’

‘I expect you’d have known him from Eve,’ Crambo said, and looked shamefaced. ‘You’ll have to pardon me. My sense of humour gets the better of me at times. Then Mr Mekles makes this nasty remark about you.’

‘Yes. I –’

Crambo gave a twist to the trousers of his neat grey pin-stripe suit. ‘We know all about that. There’s no need to explain. A bit of bad luck for you, if I may say so. I’ve always admired your programme, you know.’ Hunter mumbled something. ‘Indeed, I have. I always say to the little woman, “Turn it on now, Doreen, mustn’t miss the Personal Investigator.” I like a programme with a punch. Next to Dragnet, you’re my favourite. The way that man Friday goes on – oh, there I am again, man Friday, do you see? I apologise.’

‘Did Bond commit suicide?’ Hunter asked, in an attempt to put a stop to this clowning.

‘No doubt about it. A witness opposite saw him clamber out on to the sill and jump.’

‘Why did he do it?’

‘That’s what we’d like to know.’ Crambo’s glance was suddenly remarkably keen. ‘I should value your ideas about that, you know.’

But Hunter had no ideas. When Crambo left after an hour and a quarter, his professional salesman’s cheerfulness seemed to mask slight disappointment.

After Crambo came the reporters, but he disappointed them too by his blank serenity and artificial calm, as well as by his refusal to say anything about past or future. He said only one thing that interested them.

‘Mr Hunter,’ said the owl-faced crime reporter of the Banner, ‘a certain accusation was made against you last night by Mr Mekles.’

‘You mean he said that my name was O’Brien, and I had been in prison?’ Their pens pointed eagerly at the pads in their hands. Their faces had an identical expression of Pavlovian doggy pleasure at the rung bell when he said almost indifferently, ‘What he said was true.’

He refused all further details, he refused an offer of money for his life story, he refused to say whether he would resign his job. They left, dissatisfied after all. There had been the bell ringing, the salivation, but in the end no food. Within a few hours there would be food enough, Hunter thought. They hadn’t long to wait.

After the reporters, with the telephone reconnected, came Jerry Wilton, sepulchral, sad, inviting him to attend a committee meeting to discuss his position that very afternoon.

Calmly he said, ‘You don’t really want me coming along, Jerry. I don’t want to be an embarrassment. I’ll sit down and write my resignation now.’

He could hear relief as well as sympathy in Jerry’s voice, as he said that Bill understood the whole thing, taking it like a sportsman, wanted to be absolutely fair, must consider public, duty we all owe, hoped remain good friends. Jerry did not mention O’Brien or prison, and Hunter guessed that he knew all about it, and knew what O’Brien had gone to prison for. But Jerry did proceed to dot the i’s and cross the t’s when he mentioned the disgrace clause in the contract, and added that strictly speaking it could be invoked, but nobody wanted to do a thing like that, remain good friends, resign and be paid six months’ salary.

There was a question mark in Jerry’s voice. Hunter guessed that he might have got more by bargaining, but he did not want to bargain. ‘That’s very generous,’ he said, and meant it.

Jerry was pleased. Jerry’s voice had changed a great deal from its artificial opening grace notes, changed almost to his ordinary, equally artificial, back-slapping geniality, as he said that the whole thing was a great pity, a damned shame, he blamed himself a good deal, they must have a drink sometime. Hunter agreed that they must have a drink sometime, and added mentally, sometime never.