The Human Factor Part 24

Chapter I.

I.

She had turned to look back through the window of the taxi and seen nothing through the smoke-grey gla.s.s: it was as though Maurice had deliberately drowned himself, without so much as a cry, in the waters of a steely lake. She was robbed, without hope of recovery, of the only sight and sound she wanted, and she resented all that was charitably thrust on her like the poor subst.i.tute a butcher offers for the good cut which he has kept for a better customer.

Lunch in the house among the laurels was an ordeal. Her mother-in-law had a guest she couldn't cancel a clergyman with the unattractive name of Bottomley she called him Ezra-who had come home from a mission field in Africa. Sarah felt like an exhibit at one of the lantern lectures he probably gave. Mrs Castle didn't introduce her. She simply said, 'This is Sarah,' as though she had come out of an orphanage, as indeed she had. Mr. Bottomley was unbearably kind to Sam and treated her like a member of his coloured congregation with calculated interest. Tinker Bell, who had fled at the first sight of them, fearing Buller, was now too friendly and scratched at her skirts.

Tell me what it's really like in a place like Soweto,' Mr. Bottomley said. 'My field, you know, was Rhodesia. The English papers exaggerated there too. We are not as black as we are painted,' he added and then blushed at his mistake. Mrs Castle poured him another gla.s.s of water. 'I mean,' he said, 'can you bring up a little fellow properly there?' and his bright gaze picked Sam out like a spot-light in a night club.

'How would Sarah know, Ezra?' Mrs Castle said. She explained with reluctance, 'Sarah is my daughter-in-law.'

Mr. Bottomley's blush increased. 'Ah, then you are over here on a visit?' he asked.

'Sarah is living with me,' Mrs Castle said. 'For the time being. My son has never lived in Soweto. He was in the Emba.s.sy.'

'It must be nice for the boy,' Mr. Bottomley said, 'to come and see Granny.'

Sarah thought: Is this what life is to be from now on?

After Mr. Bottomley had departed Mrs Castle told her that they must have a serious conversation. 'I rang up Maurice,' she said, 'he was in a most unreasonable mood.' She turned to Sam, 'Go into the garden, dear, and have a game.'

'It's raining,' Sam said.

'I'd forgotten, dear. Go upstairs and play with Tinker Bell.'

'I'll go upstairs,' Sam said, 'but I won't play with your cat. Buller is my friend. He knows what to do with cats.'

When they were alone Mrs Castle said, 'Maurice told me if you returned home he would leave the house. What have you done, Sarah?'

'I'd rather not talk about it. Maurice told me to come here, so I've come.'

'Which of you is well, what they call the guilty party?'

'Does there always have to be a guilty party?'

'I 'm going to ring him again.'

'I can't stop you, but it won't be any use.'

Mrs Castle dialled the number, and Sarah prayed to G.o.d whom she didn't believe in that she might at least hear Maurice's voice, but 'There's no reply,' Mrs Castle said.

'He's probably at the office.'

'On a Sat.u.r.day afternoon?'

'Times are irregular in his job.'

'I thought the Foreign Office was better organised.'

Sarah waited until the evening, after she had put Sam to bed, then walked down into the town. She went to the Crown and gave herself a J. & B. She made it a double in memory of Maurice and then went to the telephone box. She knew Maurice had told her not to contact him. If he were still at home, and his telephone was tapped, he would have to pretend anger, continue a quarrel which didn't exist, but at least she would know he was there in the house and not in a police cell or on his way across a Europe she had never seen. She let the telephone ring a long time before she put down the receiver-she was aware she was making it easy for Them to trace the call, but she didn't care. If They came to see her at least she would have news of him. She left the box and drank her J. & B. at the bar and walked back to Mrs Castle's house. Mrs Castle said, 'Sam's been calling for you.' She went upstairs.

'What is it, Sam?'

'Do you think Buller's all right?'

'Of course he's all right. What could be wrong?'

'I had a dream.'

'What did you dream?'

'I don't remember. Buller will miss me. I wish we could have him here.'

'We can't. You know that. Sooner or later he'd he sure to kill Tinker Bell.'

'I wouldn't mind that.'

She went reluctantly downstairs. Mrs Castle was watching television.

'Anything interesting on the news?' Sarah asked.

'I seldom listen to the news,' Mrs Castle said. 'I like to read the news in The Times.' But next morning there was no news which could possibly interest her in the Sunday papers. Sunday he never had to work on Sunday. At midday she went back to the Crown and rang the house again, and again she held on for a long while-he might be in the garden with Buller, but at last she had to give up even that hope. She comforted herself with the thought that he had escaped, but then she reminded herself that They had the power to hold him-wasn't it for three days?-without a charge.

Mrs Castle had lunch-a joint of roast beef-served very punctually at one. Shall we listen to the news?' Sarah asked.

'Don't play with your napkin ring, Sam dear,' Mrs Castle said. 'Just take out your napkin and put the ring down by your plate.' Sarah found Radio 3. Mrs Castle said, 'There's never news worth listening to on Sundays,' and she was right, of course.

Never had a Sunday pa.s.sed more slowly. The rain stopped and the feeble sun tried to find a gap through the clouds. Sarah took Sam for a walk across what was called-she didn't know why a forest. There were no trees only low bushes and scrub (one area had been cleared for a golf course). Sam said, 'I like Ashridge better,' and a little later, 'A walk's not a walk without Buller.' Sarah wondered: How long will life be like this? They cut across a corner of the golf course to get home and a golfer who had obviously had too good a lunch shouted to them to get off the fairway. When Sarah didn't respond quickly enough he called, 'Hi! You! I'm talking to you, Topsy!'

Sarah seemed to remember that Topsy had been a black girl in some book the Methodists had given her to read when she was a child.

That night Mrs Castle said, 'It's time we had a serious talk, dear.'

'What about?'

'You ask me what about? Really, Sarah! About you and my grandson of course-and Maurice. Neither of you will tell me what this quarrel is all about. Have you or has Maurice grounds for a divorce?'

'Perhaps. Desertion counts, doesn't it?'

'Who has deserted whom? To come to your mother-in-law's house is hardly desertion. And Maurice-he hasn't deserted you if he's still at home.'

'He isn't.'

'Then where is he?'

'I don't know, I don't know, Mrs Castle. Can't you just wait awhile and not talk?'

'This is my home, Sarah. It would be convenient to know just how long you plan to stay. Sam should be at school. There's a law about that.'

'I promise if you'll just let us stay for a week'

'I'm not driving you away, dear, I'm trying to get you to behave like an adult person. I think you should see a lawyer and talk to him if you won't talk to me. I can telephone Mr. Bury tomorrow. He looks after my will.'

'Just give me a week, Mrs Castle.' (There had been a time when Mrs Castle had suggested Sarah should call her mother, but she had been obviously relieved when Sarah continued to call her Mrs Castle.) On Monday morning she took Sam into the town and left him in a toyshop while she went to the Crown. There she telephoned to the office-it was a senseless thing to do, for if Maurice were still in London at liberty he would surely have telephoned her. In South Africa, long ago when she had worked for him, she would never have been so imprudent, but in this peaceful country town which had never known a racial riot or a midnight knock at the door the thought of danger seemed too fantastic to be true. She asked to speak to Mr. Castle's secretary, and, when a woman's voice answered, she said, 'Is that Cynthia?' (she knew her by that name, though they had never met or talked to each other). There was a long pause-a pause long enough for someone to be asked to listen in-but she wouldn't believe it in this small place of retired people as she watched two lorry drivers finish their bitter. Then the dry thin voice said, 'Cynthia isn't in today.'

'When will she be in?'

'I 'm afraid I can't say.'

'Mr. Castle then?'

'Who is that speaking, please?'

She thought: I was nearly betraying Maurice and she put down the receiver. She felt she had betrayed her own past too-the secret meetings, the coded messages, the care which Maurice had taken in Johannesburg to instruct her and to keep them both out of the reach of BOSS. And, after all that, Muller was here in England-he had sat at table with her.

When she got back to the house she noticed a strange car in the laurel drive, and Mrs Castle met her in the hall. She said, 'There's someone to see you, Sarah. I've put him in the study.'

'Who is it?'

Mrs Castle lowered her voice and said in a tone of distaste, 'I think it's a policeman.'

The man had a large fair moustache which he stroked nervously. He was definitely not the kind of policeman that Sarah had known in her youth and she wondered how Mrs Castle had detected his profession she would have taken him for a small tradesman who had dealt with local families over the years. He looked just as snug and friendly as Doctor Castle's study which had been left unchanged after the doctor's death: the pipe rack still over the desk, the Chinese bowl for ashes, the swivel armchair in which the stranger had been too ill at ease to seat himself. He stood by the bookcase partly blocking from view with his burly form the scarlet volumes of the Loeb cla.s.sics and the green leather Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition. He asked, 'Mrs Castle?' and she nearly answered, 'No. That's my mother-in-law,' so much a stranger did she feel in this house.

'Yes,' she said. 'Why?'

'I'm Inspector Butler.'

'Yes?'

'I've had a telephone call from London. They asked me to come and have a word with you-that is, if you were here.'

'Why?'

'They thought perhaps you could tell us how to get in touch with your husband.'

She felt an immense relief-he wasn't after all in prison-till the thought came to her that this might be a trap-even the kindness and shyness and patent honesty of Inspector Butler might be a trap, the kind of trap BOSS were likely to lay. But this wasn't the country of BOSS. She said, 'No. I can't. I don't know. Why?'

'Well, Mrs Castle, it's partly to do with a dog.'

'Buller?' she exclaimed.

'Well if that's his name.'

'It is his name. Please tell me what this is all about.'

'You have a house in King's Road, Berkhamsted. That's right, isn't it?'

'Yes.' She gave a laugh of relief. 'Has Buller been killing a cat again? But I'm here. I'm innocent. You must see my husband, not me.'

'We've tried to, Mrs Castle, but we can't reach him. His office says he's not been in. He seems to have gone away and left the dog, although...

'Was it a very valuable cat?'

'It's not a cat we are concerned about, Mrs Castle. The neighbours complained about the noise-a sort of whining-and someone telephoned the police station. You see there've been burglars recently at Boxmoor. Well, the police sent a man to see-and he found a scullery window open-he didn't have to break any gla.s.s... and the dog...'

'He wasn't bitten? I've never known Buller bite a person.'

'The poor dog couldn't do any biting: not in the state he was in. He'd been shot. Whoever had done it made a messy job. I'm afraid, Mrs Castle, they had to finish your dog off.'

'Oh G.o.d, what will Sam say?'

'Sam?'

'My son. He loved Buller.'

'I'm fond of animals myself.' The two-minute silence that followed seemed very long, like the two-minute tribute to the dead on Armistice Day. I'm sorry to bring had news,' Inspector Butler said at last and the wheeled and pedestrian traffic of life started up again.

'I'm wondering what I'll say to Sam.'

'Tell him the dog was run over and killed right away.'

'Yes. I suppose that's best. I don't like lying to a child.'

'There are white lies and black lies,' Inspector Butler said. She wondered whether the lies he would force her to tell were black or white. She looked at the thick fair moustache and into the kindly eyes and wondered what on earth had made him into a policeman. It would be a little like lying to a child.

'Won't you sit down, Inspector?'

'You sit down, Mrs Castle, if you'll excuse me. I've been sitting down all the morning.' He looked at the row of pipes in the pipe rack with concentration: it might have been a valuable picture of which, as a connoisseur, he could appreciate the value.

'Thank you for coming yourself and not just telling me over the telephone.'

'Well, Mrs Castle, I had to come because there are some other questions. The police at Berkhamsted think there may have been a robbery. There was a scullery window open and the burglar may have shot the dog. Nothing seems to have been disturbed, but only you or your husband can tell, and they don't seem able to get in touch with your husband. Did he have any enemies? There's no sign of a struggle, but then there wouldn't be if the other man had a gun.'

'I don't know of any enemies.'

'A neighbour said he had an idea he worked in the Foreign Office. This morning they had quite a difficulty trying to find the right department and then it seemed they hadn't seen him since Friday. He should have been in, they said.'

'When did you last see him, Mrs Castle?'

'Sat.u.r.day morning.'

'You came here Sat.u.r.day?'