A Dead Liberty (12 page)

“When politicians start talking about statistics,” she said, “I always remind them about the statistician who was drowned in a river whose average depth was six inches. That shuts them up pretty quickly, I can tell you.”

“I'm sure it does …” began Sloan, who had some figures in his own line of business at his fingertips. They were from an impeccable stable too—the Home Office—and they never convinced anyone of anything. People who were nervous about walking home through the streets alone in the dark never believed that statistically they were more likely to be murdered by a member of their own family than by anyone else. The goal of reaching the safety of their own homes had a hollow ring after that …

Perhaps the average woman might be prepared to believe that for her the bedroom was statistically the most dangerous place—he wouldn't know about that.

But it was.

And strangulation the most likely manner of her murder.

Men were at greatest risk in the kitchen. This had a great deal to do with the ready availability of knives. In every kitchen that Sloan had ever known, however much equipment of whatever degree of sophistication was there, there was always also one small sharp knife that was actually used for almost every task. It was always handy, too.

Sometimes it was even called a kitchen devil.

With babies it was the bathroom and drowning.

“But if there's one thing about statistics”—Melissa Wainwright was still in full flood—“that really gets my goat …”

“Yes, madam?” Detective Inspector Sloan would not have wanted to pontificate on Melissa Wainwright's marital status, but he was prepared to hazard the odd guess and calling her “madam” struck him as safest.

“It's when politicians start talking about the nuclear family that I really go berserk.”

“Really?” said Sloan politely. He noticed that Detective Constable Crosby had taken Melissa Wainwright literally and was eyeing her in a distinctly speculative fashion. Young women in jeans and tight blouses were notoriously difficult to get hold of.

“The only nuclear family,” she declaimed, “that people ought to be talking about is the one that isn't going to be here after the first attack. Instead of doing anything about that, they keep going on about their precious average of a father and a mother and two point two children.” She sniffed. “And there's another thing they ought to be thinking about …”

“Yes?”

“That plant over at Marby is going to be dangerous for generations. How are future generations going to know that when we're all gone? Plain English won't mean anything after the balloon has gone up and there won't be any written records.”

Sloan wasn't too worried about that. A legend of danger lasted longer than any signboard: it usually got built in to folk memory by a very primitive process indeed.

“So you see, Inspector …”

“We've come to see you about a different …” began Sloan, now that she'd had her own four-minute warning.

“What statistics do,” she continued grumpily, “is confuse the issue.”

“All politicians do that,” said Sloan, forbearing to say anything about the tactics of certain defence counsel.

“And doctors,” she added briefly. “Look at X rays. You try asking doctors exactly how dangerous they are …”

“What we want to ask you,” Sloan interrupted her smoothly, “is if you knew a young man called Kenneth Carline.”

Her face instantly assumed the mulish blankness of expression of the professional agitator intending to be deliberately unhelpful to the forces of law and order. “I wouldn't tell you if I did.”

“Well-built, tallish, and worked for Durmast's, the civil engineers, on the Palshaw Tunnel,” persisted Sloan.

A flicker of recognition crossed her face. “The man who was rushing about like a scalded cat at the opening after they saw our banner?”

“I daresay,” said Sloan drily.

“I know who you mean,” she said. “We called him the clean young Englishman.”

As epitaphs go, Sloan himself wouldn't have asked for a better one. “You do remember him, then?”

A faint smile of reminiscence appeared on Melissa Wainwright's unadorned features. “He was the one who got sent up first to try to take the banner down. His boss sent him.”

“I saw the picture,” remarked Crosby from the sidelines. “It was in the local paper.”

“But not the Minister,” she said gleefully. “You didn't see a picture of the Minister opening the tunnel, did you?”

“No,” said the constable.

“That's because he wouldn't be photographed under the banner and that”—she grimaced—“was where the ribbon was.”

“And Kenneth Carline tried to get up to the banner?” asked Sloan. Almost all battles—even defeats—were remembered with advantages and it was Carline in whom they were interested now.

She nodded. “It was much too high, of course, and he couldn't do it.” A reflective look came into her eyes. “That was before your mob arrived. One of them very nearly got up to it.”

“Sergeant Watkinson,” said Crosby.

“Then he fell,” she said.

“Was pushed,” countered Crosby.

“Broke his ankle, they said afterwards.”

“Still limping,” rejoined Crosby.

“Much too high to climb up from below.”

“And sheer, the sergeant said,” intoned Crosby. It was like the bidding and response of a religious ceremony.

“How did you get it up, then?” enquired Sloan.

“We didn't exactly put it up,” she said.

“But …”

“We hung it down.”

Sloan nodded. “That figures.”

“We lowered it from above. About six of us.”

“How did you get up there to do that?”

“Easy.”

“There's a fence,” said Sloan. “A high one.”

“Fences have gates.”

“Gates have locks,” observed Sloan.

“We've got friends,” she said.

“In high places, I suppose,” said Crosby, “seeing that there's a hill there.”

“Friends with keys,” she said, stung.

“Who?” barked Sloan suddenly.

Her expression changed. It became mulish again. “I don't know.”

“What do you mean by that, madam?” Sloan was at his most intimidating in an instant.

“I mean,” she responded, “that the gate leading to the hill was unlocked.”

“And you knew it would be?”

She stayed silent.

“I've read the report on the incident,” said Sloan. “Whoever wrote it noted that your group had no ladders, hooks or any other equipment with you to enable you to climb over a very considerable fence erected to protect the access to the tunnel opening from above. From which, madam, we must therefore conclude that the Action Group Against Marby proceeded to the tunnel entrance on the day of the official opening ceremony knowing that they could gain access.”

“What if they did?”

“Someone must have arranged it.”

“Well?”

“And given them the key.”

“No.”

“Told them that the gate would be unlocked, then.”

“So?”

“Moreover,” continued Sloan, “if that was the case whoever did leave the gate unlocked and apprised the Action Against Marby Group of the fact also left the key in the lock.”

Melissa Wainwright did not speak.

“Officers,” went on Sloan dispassionately, “who tried to gain access themselves by that route found the gate locked from the inside. That is why Sergeant Watkinson broke his ankle.”

“There is such a thing as freedom of expression,” exploded Melissa Wainwright, “even in a police state like this.”

“There is also,” said Sloan sternly, “such a thing as justice and it's every bit as important.”

“What's that got to do with …”

“I need to know who your informant was.”

“I don't know,” she said.

“And I intend to find out.”

“I don't know,” she repeated.

“You were aware, though,” insisted Sloan, “that the gate would be open.” Every campaign manager was aware of the importance of holding the high ground.

She nodded without speaking.

“And that the key would be on the inside for you to use after you got in to help to keep the police out.”

“Yes.”

“How did you know that?”

“We had a tip-off.” She bristled defensively. “You must know, Inspector, that there are plenty of people who would like to support us but daren't.”

“It's a free country, madam.”

“They've got their jobs to think of,” she said.

“How did the tip-off reach you?” he persisted. Polemics were for politicians, not policemen. He'd learned that long ago. “It is important that we know.”

She moistened her lips. “I had a telephone call.”

“To you here at home?”

“Yes.”

“Who rang you?”

“I tell you, Inspector, I don't know.”

“A man or a woman?”

“A man.”

“Who did he say he was?”

“He didn't.”

“But …”

Her voice faltered for the first time. “He just called himself a friend at Durmast's and rang off.”

NINE

Misturae
—
Mixtures

Lucy Durmast must have been one of the very few women in Her Majesty's Prison Cottingham Grange to whom an actual prison sentence had been a welcome pronouncement. For most of the women incarcerated there to exchange the state of being a prisoner on remand with all the privileges of an unconvicted—and therefore a potentially innocent—person with that of a convicted and sentenced inmate marked a very real decline in status.

There was a ranking order in prisons. They might not be a microcosm of the outside world in other ways—indeed they weren't—but this much they shared with the rest of society, and with most of the animal kingdom as well. Lucy had read George Orwell in her day and knew very well that though all animals were equal, some were more equal than others. Even so, it had come as something of a surprise to her to find how low those accused of killing somebody ranked in prison society.

And not because of the nature of the crime.

“Murder's usually only a family affair,” one of her cellmates had sniffed.

“Mostly one-off breakers of the law, murderers,” said another, an accomplished young “law-breaker” with a long record of convictions behind her.

“Not professional criminals,” a prison officer had added in an unguarded moment.

Lucy had suppressed a smile. The jibe of amateur was the last thing she had expected in this environment. One way and another, Gentlemen v. Players somehow didn't seem to strike quite the right note. But she had noted the received wisdom of it all and kept her peace.

Murder charge or not, from the moment that Judge Eddington had sentenced her to seven days' imprisonment for contempt of court her situation had changed. Literally. She had at once been moved across from the unconvicted wing of the prison to that of the convicted and lost the rights and privileges of the potentially not guilty. After that there was no possibility of having daily visitors descend upon her, of receiving and being able to send unlimited mail, and of choosing whether to have her meals brought in.

Since she had rigidly refused to see any visitors at all, had answered no mail and consistently declined her friend Cecelia Allsworthy's warm offer to bring home-baked delicacies from Braffle Episcopi to the gate of Cottingham Grange daily in a haybox, she felt less deprived than many others who had made the crossing of this great divide.

She had, however, read Cecelia's last letter with uncommon interest.

As usual it was cheerful as Cecelia could make it. “… Two different policemen came yesterday. I hadn't seen them before. It sounds as if they are going over the ground again so perhaps they'll find something helpful this time. There was a young constable—a bit gangling but trying hard. I rather liked him. The inspector didn't miss much—no one can say they aren't being really thorough … Hortense is still missing St. Amand-sur-Nesque. I'm afraid Braffle Episcopi does not stand up well in comparison with Provence! It's much colder and the flowers here in the spring do not compare with home, she tells me. I think I'll have to ask Ronald Bolsover if she can sit in his hot-house on her day off. At least his flowers should be up to scratch … Don't despair, will you, Lucy dear?”

In spite of this breath of fresh air from home, Lucy Durmast heard the clang of the cell door behind her with something approaching relief. The gates of the prison were locked against the outside world to keep it out as well as to the prisoner in. For the first time in her life she began to appreciate that the word “security” had two important but very different interpretations. From the outside looking in, it was one thing. From the inside looking out it was a horse of quite another colour.

There were two ways of looking out, too. She had discovered that very early on in herself and in other inmates as well: there had been something she remembered quite clearly which put it very well.

A prisoner looks out between bars

One sees mud, one sees stars …

Just at this moment though, Lucy Durmast wasn't looking out at all. The warrant from the Court to the prison charged the governor with her care and safety as well as her security and as such it was heartily endorsed in spirit by Lucy herself. Institutional life of any sort did have drawbacks but it had advantages, too, and security was one of them. The shelter it provided could be most acceptable in time of need …

Institutional life, though, was usually strong on rules and by her determined silence she was breaking those rules.

The governor reminded her of this from time to time.

“The judge,” she said to Lucy, “has indicated that he wishes to be informed should you end your silence.”