Dread and Water Read online

  DREAD AND WATER

  Douglas Clark

  © Douglas Clark 1976

  Douglas Clark has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1976 by Victor Gollancz Ltd.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 1

  “Can anybody give me a good reason why doctors of philosophy, particularly those with a bent towards the sciences and scientific research, should be dedicated mountaineers?” asked Detective Superintendent George Masters.

  Detective Sergeant Brant, who was driving, said: “Perhaps they like the good, clean, mountain air after mucking about in labs all their working lives. Terrible smells in labs sometimes. You must remember sulphuretted hydrogen and how it stinks.”

  “We don’t want any of your schoolboy reminiscences,” said DI Green. “Even when I went to school there were fume chambers. Just because you made bad-egg gas to stink the place out, it doesn’t mean that professional egg-heads inflict the same punishment on themselves.”

  “Modern physical sciences don’t create smells,” said Masters quietly. “They give you shocks instead.”

  “Apart from which,” said Detective Sergeant Hill, sitting in the front passenger seat, “modern labs are air-conditioned and air-purified. They shove the air through scrubbers to clean it up.”

  Green was sitting in the—to him—safe nearside back seat. His usual position in the car; always tacitly left for him by Masters who, recognising Green’s apprehension on the road, carefully contrived to board the vehicle last. The traffic on the road west out of London was not heavy at this time on a Sunday afternoon: that indeterminate time about half past three on a dry, cold, grey Sunday in early April when Easter has passed by almost unnoticed by humans and without rousing the countryside to spring activity. So Green was not too fearful, but scarcely cheerful at being dragged out on a Sunday.

  “I’m feeling bright,” he said lugubriously. “I didn’t miss that remark about modern science giving people shocks. Has it given us one?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “All those doctors of philosophy you were going on about?”

  Masters nodded.

  “Murder?”

  It was almost an unnecessary question because all four of them rarely worked together these days on anything less. But it was not quite unnecessary this time.

  “Maybe. Maybe three or more murders. We’ve got to decide for ourselves.”

  “And then investigate?”

  “Can you see us avoiding it?”

  Green grunted and took a Kensitas from a badly crumpled packet. Good detective as he was, Masters had never been able to discover why Green’s cigarette packets were always crumpled. They must have been pristine when bought, but they never survived for long in their original condition.

  “No. We’ll be stuck with it.” Green sucked his top partial denture to signify disapproval before mouthing his cigarette. “But you mentioned mountaineering. Have we got to start climbing bloody great crags?”

  “I think not. I say that because all the men we’re interested in fell to the bottom of them. That’s why we’re interested.”

  “All leading scientists?” asked Hill.

  “Government employees at Pottersby Research Centre.”

  “Down in Berkshire?”

  “That’s it.”

  The car purred on, clearing London proper and entering the outskirts. The wayside trees were still bare. Here and there in gardens the pink of flowering almond blossom gave fragile promise of better things to come while carpeting the ground with petals. The daffodils, perversely doing well despite the weather, clumped gold with green, claiming the right of primogeniture.

  “We’d better have it all,” said Green. “So’s we don’t have to speculate in the dark.”

  Masters was filling his pipe with Warlock Flake. He said: “Your memory’s better than mine,” which was partly true in that Green could remember facts like a music hall memory-man, where Masters could cast back and do mental fishing, “so you’ll probably recall reading in the newspapers about two fatal accidents to scientists who were climbing.”

  “Two?” asked Green. “I can remember one. Even his name. Redruth. But it must have been all of six months ago.”

  “Last October,” agreed Masters, “and you’re quite correct. Dr Philip Redruth. The other, last March—that is, a year ago—involved Dr Stanley Silk.”

  “D’you mean to say that now, after intervals of six months and a year, somebody has suggested those two might have been murdered?”

  “Only because there’s been a third one. This morning in North Wales. He wasn’t dead when we left the Yard, but he was so close to it that he’s probably gone by now.”

  “All from Pottersby, you said?” asked Green.

  “More than that. All from the same section at Pottersby.”

  “Ah!” breathed Green. “Now I get it. The long arm of coincidence has killed three boffins in precisely the same way, so the long arm of the law has been alerted to discover the whys and wherefores.”

  “Right on the button,” said Masters. “That’s why I said I didn’t know whether there had been three or more murders, or none at all. Coincidence has been mentioned. Professionally we mistrust coincidences—although they’re naturally occurring phenomena. But we make use of them, as now, when we are using one to arouse a suspicion within ourselves which will feed on the lack of trust we place in the very coincidence that has alerted us.”

  “Is that the end of the lecture?” asked Green, “because if so, I’d like to know where those three copped it. All in North Wales?”

  “Just this last one—Clive Mailer—in Snowdonia. Redruth on Ben Nevis and Silk in the Lake District.”

  “Oughtn’t we to be going up to Wales? Just in case this chap Mailer does recover enough to mutter a few words?”

  “That’s been taken care of. There’s a relay of intelligent jacks standing by with tape recorders and laryngophones as well as notebooks.”

  “You mean they’ve got mikes strapped to the throttle box of a dying man?”

  “He’s concussed—unconscious. He doesn’t know; and it could be the means of saving other lives.”

  Green grimaced. “Some hope! All they’ll get from that’ll be a death rattle.”

  “Pottersby itself is the common factor in all three deaths,” said Masters. “It seems to me a safe bet that any skullduggery involved emanated from there—or rather from one or more of its personnel. So that’s where we should look first.”

  The car was approaching Reading, the afternoon growing duller as they went, although there were still several hours of British Summertime daylight to come.

  “I suppose we’ll be faced with hundreds of forgetful professors,” moaned Green. “Every one so immersed in some project as to have no time to notice anything else. And if by some chance they did notice anything, they’d have forgotten it the next day. So we’re in for a rum time.”

  “Could be,” agreed Masters. “There’s very little else I know. Redruth was climbing solo on a pretty easy pitch.…”

  “Now we get the jargon,” interrupted Green. “Anybody know what abseil means?”

  The others ignored him. “Climbing solo?” asked Hill. “That’s a bit risky. I thought nobody ever did that.”

  “Silk was roped to a partner—a novice,” said Masters.

  “Did he cop it? The partner, I mean.”

  “F
ortunately not. I wasn’t told how he managed to escape.”

  “And Mailer?”

  “Alone again. I was told his protection failed—whatever that may mean.”

  “Expanding nuts,” said Green. “They shove ’em into cracks and crevices; expand them to a tight fit and then belay themselves.…”

  “Now who’s producing the jargon?” asked Brant. “From the sound of it, you know what it’s all about.”

  “Not me. And watch your speed, Sergeant. The limit’s forty on the Reading by-pass.”

  Brant slowed slightly.

  “If none of us knows anything about mountaineering,” said Masters, “let us hope that the investigation will not rely solely on a working knowledge of climbing techniques.”

  “If it doesn’t do that,” said Green, “among that lot of suspects it’ll depend on our being familiar with the second law of thermodynamics. I don’t know which will be worse.”

  “It must be the weather,” said Hill. “Anybody would think, listening to the conversation in this car, that we’d never been out on a case before, let alone solved one. OK. So we’ve had our failures—but no more than anybody else and far fewer than most—except, perhaps, Sherlock Holmes.”

  “You’re like an old woman talking when her belly’s full of buttermilk,” sneered Green. “Well done, our side! We’re frightfully keen on being keen on cricket!”

  “Stow it,” said Masters. “Both of you. As an onlooker I can safely say you’re both as bad as each other when it comes to chalking up success. And don’t tell me I’m even worse. I know I am, and I revel in it. If I can’t be successful most of the time, I don’t want to play. Success is sweet to me; and the harder the problem, the greater the success.”

  “Honesty is the best policy,” said Green. “It’ll get you anywhere—and I don’t think! This show we’re heading for is going to be a headache. I can feel it in my water.”

  Pottersby village was picturesque. Even in the fading light of a dull day the timbered cottages and thatched roofs argued picture postcards. Though nominally a village, it was now a small town. The nearby research establishment had meant increased trade, had caused more houses to be built, had brought more traffic.

  “That pub’s prosperous,” said Hill as they coasted along the main street. “More like a country club, I’d have said.”

  “Than what?” asked Green.

  “Than a pub.”

  “Meaning they’ve put a couple of quids’ worth of whitewash on the walls, varnished the window frames and proceeded to charge twice as much for the beer?”

  “I don’t know, do I?”

  The address of the research establishment may have suggested that it lay within the parish bounds of Pottersby. In reality, it was almost three and a half miles away from the village. Pottersby Hall, a sizeable house of probably thirty rooms, standing in its own grounds, had been taken over at the request of the last owner, who had sought by this means to lessen his in vivo expenses and his post mortem taxes. It probably made one of the poorest research bases—not being tailor-made for the job—but undoubtedly one of the prettiest. That is, if one ignored the double wire fences. These had been set up a dozen feet inside the perimeter wall which had, itself, been topped with barbed wire. Large notices proclaimed that guard dogs roamed at will in the space between the wall and the fences.

  At they turned right off the road on the short indented approach to the main gate, Green said: “I’ve heard tell all boffins are crackers. And no wonder if they’re cooped up behind wire like this. They might as well be in a loony bin or a nick.”

  The old main gate, wrought-iron and crested, still remained. So did the gatekeeper’s cottage, though now this was used as a guardhouse.

  “Detective Superintendent Masters’ party,” announced Brant to the uniformed gate policeman.

  “All except you, get out and come in one at a time on foot.”

  Masters didn’t like it.

  “I was told at Scotland Yard that I would be expected.”

  “A Superintendent Masters certainly is. If you’re the genuine article, that’s you. If not, you’re in trouble, mate. Into the guardhouse.”

  The light was bright. They blinked against it as they showed their identification cards.

  “One moment please.” The guard in the office slid back a panel in the wall behind him. “Do you recognise Detective Inspector Green, sir?”

  A voice from the room beyond said: “Of course I do. Willy P in person!” The connecting door opened and a man of Green’s age appeared.

  “Remember me?”

  “Widow!” said Green with surprise. “Widow Twankey!”

  The two shook hands. “You moved out into Security, then?”

  “Journeys may end in lovers’ meetings,” said Masters petulantly, “but I’m here, too, gooseberry-like.”

  “Toinquet, Chief Security Officer,” said the newcomer. “Channel Island descent, third generation English.”

  “How do you do? It seems you have served with DI Green sometime in the past.”

  “When he was Sergeant Green. I’ve not seen him since ’fifty-five, but he hasn’t changed much.”

  “Fine. Now how do I get to the Director?”

  “I’ll lead you up. My lads will have let your car through by now.”

  They rejoined Brant and followed Toinquet’s VW along the drive. Modern road lights had been put up at close intervals along the way. After two hundred yards, as they neared the main house, it was possible to see that modern, single-storey structures had been erected on both sides of the old building.

  They parked on the sweep of tarmac in front of the main door. By now it was almost dark. The Chief Security Officer led them in. The great hall of the house was uncarpeted. Notice-boards graced the walls and a barrack table served as a desk for the guard on duty.

  “Director in his office, John?”

  “I’ll see, Mr Toinquet. These others had better sign in while I ring.”

  The visitors’ book wanted to know it all. Name, status, department, nature of business, time in and—waiting for their return—time out.

  “Doctor Crome’s in. He’ll see you now.”

  They all four toiled up to the first floor behind Toinquet. The government had seen fit to carpet the stairs with mole-coloured hair cord. It deadened the footsteps slightly.

  The Director’s office was the old master bedroom. Spacious, and still decorated in white and gold, it was lit by a central chandelier, had an open fire blazing, and a circular dining table with half a dozen chairs in the middle of the floor as well as the Director’s desk in the window.

  “Doctor Crome: Detective Superintendent Masters.”

  To Masters’ great surprise, Crome was not all that much older than himself. Forty or forty-two? A small man with a medium grey suit, well pressed, a neat shirt and tie and well-cleaned shoes. He had a mop of light brown, wavy hair, cut to give it shape and substance without running to sideboards or collar-length straggles.

  They shook hands.

  “You know my brief, sir,” said Masters. “To establish whether your three scientists died from any cause other than accident, and if so, to solve any problem this poses.”

  “That’s it. If you’d care to sit down—all of you—we can have a drink.” He turned to Toinquet. “You, too, Michael. You’re involved as much as any of us.”

  “I can’t honestly see how, Doctor. I think the fact that the Yard has sent a murder team indicates they don’t think that what has happened involves internal security. Otherwise the place would be thick with Special Branch.”

  Green, on hearing this, glanced at Masters. Masters, surprised by both the statement and the inimical content of Green’s eye message, wondered how a chief security man could be so obtuse as to consider murder as unconnected with internal security and why Green was, apparently, not quite so friendly with his old colleague as Toinquet’s initial welcome had suggested.

  Crome was putting bottles of beer and glass
es on the table. “Well at least stay and help me out if these four start shooting questions I can’t answer.”

  The sat round the table.

  “What do you want to know?” asked Crome.

  “Everything you can safely tell us,” replied Masters. “About this place, the three men who died, their jobs, hobbies, families, and anything else you can think of.”

  “Right. Chip in if you’ve got questions.”

  “No notes,” said Toinquet.

  Masters turned to him. “Throughout this investigation, I shall give the orders. Any reasonable request from you to me will, if I think it necessary, be translated into an order. I would like your co-operation on that basis, please.”

  Toinquet grunted—half agreement, half annoyance.

  “Pottersby is not a major research centre,” said Crome. “Not a Porton or a Harwell where there are major areas of study for specific purposes. We here are sweepers up. We have some relatively minor programmes under way—as a sort of skeleton of activity—but we spend much of our time on jobs which crop up.…”

  “Unforeseen?”

  “Very often. Let us say we supply answers to questions which crop up in the day-to-day running of a technocracy. Sometimes of a highly secret nature, sometimes not. Sometimes industrial, sometimes medical and sometimes military.”

  “Can you give us an example?”

  “No, sir,” said Toinquet. “Every job that comes here has a top classification, even if merely because the answer may lead to something of value.”

  “I see.” Masters didn’t suffer obstruction gladly, and privately he thought he and Toinquet were going to clash head-on before so very long.

  “Perhaps,” said Crome pacifically, “I could use a hypothetical case to which every platoon commander in the infantry could give you a reasoned answer. Let us say the Ministry of Defence was planning an invasion of Norway on a beach dominated by a hill five miles inland. They might like to use a nuclear weapon to destroy the enemy on the hill. Their likely questions would be something of this nature. We know we can use a tactical bomb so long as our own troops are not nearer to ground zero than three miles. But how soon can we put our own men on the hill to occupy it? Would it be safe to land troops from helicopters inside ten minutes? Or an hour? Or how long would we have to wait? How would the troops have to be equipped? How long could they stay?”