Out of the Sun (8 page)

"When was this?" Harry had asked. "I mean, exactly."

"Hard to say. David was transferred here from Charing Cross on the fifteenth of September. A few days after that, I suppose."

"And another few days before she left?"

"Probably."

Unlike his son, Harry was no mathematician. But simple arithmetic was not beyond him. Donna Trangam's sudden departure for the States coincided more or less with Gerard Mermillod's death in Paris on 22 September. Of course, her destination was an assumption on Baxendale's part. She might actually have gone to Paris. Or via Paris. Either way, it did not sound like the workings of chance. Not much did to Harry any more. Conspiracy. Concealment. Confusion. They were the prevailing echoes.

"What happened to you, David?" he asked, crouching forward in his chair and gazing into his son's softly closed eyes. "Did you inject the insulin into your bloodstream? Or did somebody else? The same somebody who pushed Mermillod from the Metro platform and tampered with the heating system at Kersey's apartment? The same somebody who could be hunting down your other friends while you lie there and I sit here, while they run and we wait? Is that what '

He looked up and saw Iris standing in the doorway, fresh flowers cradled like a child in her arms, a smile frozen on her face. She had heard what he was saying, but seemed not to know how to respond. They stared at each other for a long silent moment. Then she lay the flowers gently down on a table, their cellophane wrapper squeaking above the respiration of the ventilator, and drew up a chair facing Harry across the bed.

"Hello, Iris. Surprised to see me?"

"A little."

"Ken confident he'd seen me off, was he?"

"He thought he'd made you understand, yes."

"But he never mentioned this." Harry took the newspaper cutting from his pocket and passed it across to her. "Nor did you." He saw her swallow hard as she scanned it. "Why was that?"

"How did you find out?"

That doesn't matter. What matters is what it means."

"Nothing. It means nothing."

"Come on, Iris. What was David doing at Globescope? What were all these people doing?"

"I don't know. I've absolutely no idea."

"Haven't you even wondered?"

"Globescope predict the future. Companies even some governments pay them to forecast economic developments. David worked on something called predictive modelling. What else is there to say?"

"Did he work with Kersey and Mermillod?"

"He may have done. He never mentioned their names to me. Why should he? I wasn't that interested."

"Aren't you interested now?"

"I'm interested in doing what's best for David."

"So am I."

"Then do as Ken asked. Leave us alone."

"How can I when you seem so reluctant to find out the truth?"

"The truth is that David took an overdose of insulin, probably accidentally. If somebody had ... if somebody had done what you obviously suspect.. . there'd have been signs of a struggle in his hotel room. But there weren't any. He'd have had ample time to get medical help in those circumstances anyway. Unless you're suggesting he was bound and gagged till the insulin took effect to stop him raising the alarm. Again, there'd have been signs. But there weren't. There wasn't a mark on him. Not one. He was alone when it happened, Harry. Don't you see? This journalist is just cobbling together a story to fill a space. There's nothing to it."

"So you think these two deaths are .. . purely coincidental?"

"What else can they be?"

"Why was David sacked by Globescope?"

"He wasn't, as far as I know. He told me he'd resigned, in order to concentrate on '

"Higher dimensions? A talking point at his dinner with Adam Slade, no doubt. Something else you omitted to mention."

"Because of how you might react, Harry. Because of how you are reacting. Mr. Slade was actually most solicitous. And as helpful as he could be. Whether he really does have these powers he claims I rather doubt. But there's nothing sinister in his meeting David to discuss them."

"What about Donna Trangam's flying visit? Don't you see anything sinister in her sudden departure?"

"Not at all. She had a teaching post at Berkeley to return to. Once she'd satisfied herself there was nothing she could contribute to David's treatment, she and Mr. Hammelgaard '

The Dane was here too?"

"Briefly. Then he went back to Princeton. What's so strange in that? They're friends of David. They wanted to help him. But they realized they couldn't."

They told you that, did they?"

"Not in so many words. I only met them once. Here, a few days after David's admission. I wasn't in a state to take much in, but it seemed obvious She broke off and pressed two fingers to her forehead, then said in a calmer voice: They simply went their separate ways, Harry. People do."

"When? When did they go?"

"I don't know. They didn't notify me. Why should they?"

"But they arrived within a week of David being taken ill and left again a few days later?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so. But what '

"Have you heard from them since?"

"No."

"Are they still all right, do you think?"

"All right? Well, of course. Why shouldn't they be?"

"For the same reason Kersey and Mermillod aren't, I should have thought."

That's nonsense. Kersey's death was accidental. Carbon monoxide poisoning kills hundreds of people every year. Probably thousands worldwide."

"And throwing yourself under a train is a common method of suicide."

"Well, so it is."

"But within a fortnight of each other? Among a small group of scientists sacked from the same company at the same time for '

"David wasn't sacked!" Iris glanced round at her son, as if afraid she might have disturbed him. But she need not have worried. His rest was impenetrable. "He resigned. Of his own accord."

That's not how Hope tells it."

"What would she know? They were divorced by then."

"She implied there could have been something between David and Donna Trangam."

"Well, what if there was? They're both adults."

"You agree there may have been, then?"

"I suppose it's possible. They're both attractive people. They have a lot in common. It would certainly explain why he telephoned her that night." She tensed. That is ... I mean .. ."

"He telephoned her from the Skyway Hotel?"

Iris looked solemnly across at Harry. "Yes. He did."

"How do you know?"

"Because the hotel had the effrontery to send me David's bill for settlement. It showed a phone call he made just after eleven o'clock that night. I dialled the number and it turned out to be the university switchboard at Berkeley. San Francisco's eight hours behind us, so '

"What did Donna say when you asked her about it?"

"I never had the chance to ask. She'd gone by the time the bill came through."

"But you must have spoken to her since."

"No. I haven't."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because she isn't there any more."

"Not there? What do you mean?"

"She's not been seen at Berkeley since taking leave on the fifteenth of September. That must have been when she heard about David."

"And she's not been back since?"

"Apparently not. They gave me her home number, but it's just an answering machine. She's not responded to any of my messages."

"Could she be with Hammelgaard?"

"Possibly."

"Have you tried to contact him?"

"Yes."

"At Princeton?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"Same story. Absent without leave."

"You mean missing?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I do."

"For God's sake!" Harry jumped up and strode to the window, where he took a few calming breaths before turning to look back at Iris. His anger drained away at the sight of her crushed expression. She seemed suddenly old and fallible and in need of help. She was not going to ask for it, of course. But that did not mean she would refuse it. Even from him. "A few moments ago, you said there was no reason to think they were in any danger."

There isn't."

"You don't believe that."

"Ken advised me to drop it. He said there was no point pursuing the matter. He said it couldn't help David to antagonize his former employer."

"Well, good old Ken."

"But he's right, isn't he?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I do know one thing, though. The least the very least we owe David is to find out how this happened to him. And why. Did Donna say anything when you met her to give us a clue?"

"Not that I can remember. We discussed David's condition. Nothing else."

"But she didn't mention the telephone call?"

"No."

"Which means either he didn't get through to her or '

"The call cost more than ten pounds, Harry. I should think he must have got through to somebody. Miss Trangam's the obvious candidate."

Then she can't have wanted you to know what he said, can she?"

"No. It seems not."

The thought clearly hurt Iris. But in her sidelong glance at David Harry detected a fear he was equally eager to stifle. Could the call have been a farewell message to a former lover? In that case, her reticence would not merely be forgivable, but admirable. "What about Hammelgaard? Did he say anything when you met him?"

"Not much. He offered his sympathy, of course. Apart from that, I don't recall..." She shrugged. "He seemed preoccupied with the whereabouts of David's notebooks, actually, but '

"His mathematical notebooks?"

"Yes."

"The ones Hope said he was never parted from?"

"Well, I don't know about '

"Weren't they in his hotel room?"

"No. As a matter of fact, they weren't."

Too taken aback to speak for a moment, Harry walked slowly across to the bed and sat down in his chair. There was a flush of guilt in Iris's cheeks when he looked up at her. "You mean they're missing?"

"I mean he didn't have them with him."

"Did he have them with him when he came to see you in Wilmslow?"

"I don't know. I didn't search his luggage." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I assume he must have left them at his house in Washington."

"Has anybody checked?"

"I haven't. Perhaps Mr. Hammelgaard has since."

"Only we can't ask him because he's gone missing."

"Apparently so."

"Hope specifically told me they went everywhere with him."

"Well, she would know that much, I suppose."

"So, if they weren't in his hotel room, either somebody removed them or he didn't take them there in the first place. Could he have left them somewhere else for safekeeping?"

"Why should he have done?"

"Because he thought they might otherwise fall into the wrong hands. Because he foresaw circumstances in which he could no longer protect them."

Iris looked at Harry long and hard. "You realize what you're suggesting?"

"Oh, I realize. But I don't understand. The abstract jottings and abstruse calculations of a higher mathematician. What value would they have?"

"None you or I are capable of comprehending."

"But it would be a different story for Hammelgaard, wouldn't it?"

"Yes. I imagine so."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I had no idea whether or not the notebooks were in David's possession while he was staying with us. I suggested he should contact Athene Tilson, David's old tutor at Cambridge. David mentioned he'd been to see her before coming on to us. She's a mathematician, of course. He might have shown her his latest work."

"Or left it with her?"

That too, of course."

Harry leant forward across the bed. "Where can I find her, Iris?"

"Southwold. On the Suffolk coast. She's retired there."

"Have you heard from her since David's illness?"

"No. Strangely enough, I haven't."

Then don't you think it's time she heard from us?"

"Perhaps."

"Don't you want to know what she has to say?"

That depends on what it is."

It was the earlier fear re-echoed. A man preparing to make a voluntary exit from this life might well leave the fruits of his most recent intellectual endeavours with his trusted mentor. Just as he might pay a last visit to his mother and make a farewell call to his ex-lover. Before hanging up the DO NOT DISTURB sign outside his hotel-room door and filling a syringe with enough insulin to stretch his night's sleep into eternity. That was really why Iris had shrunk back from probing the mystery of her son's final hours. Because she was not sure the truth was preferable to not knowing. Because ignorance was safe even if it could not be blissful.

"You don't have to do this, Harry. You can still take Ken's advice. Stay out of it. Leave well alone."

"I don't think so," he replied, glancing round at David's calm unchanging face. "I really don't think that's an option any more." He looked back at her. "Do you?"

THIRTEEN

Harry reached Southwold by bus from Ipswich on a bright breezy morning of fluffy fast-moving clouds and wide blue East Anglian horizons. Local poets might have been moved to verse by the bustle of the High Street and the gull-loud air of seaside purpose-fulness. But Harry was in far from poetic mood. He had just the sort of leaden headache and incipient liverishness he might have expected as a result of a heavy night at the Stonemasons', a bolted breakfast and a rush-hour tube journey to Liverpool Street. He was troubled by the memory of Crowther's sarcasm when agreeing to let him take the day off "Working here isn't making too many demands on your time, is it, Harry?" And he was not at all sure that flogging out to the marshy margins of Suffolk was actually going to achieve anything he could not have accomplished in a telephone conversation.

He had phoned Dr. Tilson, of course, but had spoken only to a housekeeper, through whom he had managed to fix an appointment without having to say more than that he was a friend of David Venning's mother. Reticence had seemed only prudent till he could meet David's old tutor and weigh her expression along with her words. Now, trudging out to the se afront and reeling before the brain-scouring force of the wind, he could not help doubting whether he had played his hand wisely.