Shattered (29 page)

“Yes.”

He knew that answer in advance, as I had told him that morning on the telephone. I had used his search-and-discard method to sort out truth from lies, and to go carefully down the cul-de-sacs, but however flatly I said the name, it would cause consternation.

The professor, tall, tidy and nearsighted, made a slow visual inspection of the damage to the most familiar of faces turned his way. No one tried to hurry him, not even the superintendent.

Adam Force, his facial bleeding down from Niagara to a trickle, had wandered dizzily into the workshop from the showroom and was standing beside Hickory, looking down on him as, on his knees, Hickory cradled his mutilated ear.

When Adam Force saw the professor he looked as if he would prefer to evaporate rather than be in the same room as his onetime boss, and George, usually the most forgiving of men, produced a thoroughly baleful glare with no pity component for his expert practitioner of treason.

One of the policemen in white overalls asked Doctor Force his name and address while another took his photograph. The flash seemed to startle him and, with a blood-red rivulet still meandering down his cheek into his beard, he looked far from the assured physician I had first met on the hill at Lynton.

A spent Force, I thought ironically.

The photographer moved on, snapping under the direction of the Scene-of-Crime Officer. Nothing was to be missed. Pernickety Paul would have been proud.

It was George Lawson-Young, saying he was hoping I'd done enough for him for the next thousand years, who related to the superintendent step by step how the data stolen from his research laboratory had caused me so much pain and trouble.

Naming each person in turn to identify them for the policeman's sake, and referring back to me for confirmation when he needed it, George quietly threaded his way through the complexities of January 2000.

“Adam Force,” he said, pointing at Dr. Bright-Scarlet-Beard, “worked for me but jumped ship and stole the cancer research that just may be worth millions and would certainly be to the advantage of the whole world.”

I could see the superintendent begin to be skeptical but I nodded and he focused back on the professor.

“We knew,” George went on, “that he had stolen the information, had transferred it to a videotape and had destroyed all other records of our research. Understandably, we searched everywhere for it, even engaging private investigators, after the police had shown little interest.”

Superintendent Shepherd flinched not at all but continued listening intently.

“All our searches were in vain. We did not expect him to have entrusted the tape to the safekeeping of a jockey. Doctor Force had passed it to Martin Stukely but Stukely preferred to hand it on to his friend Gerard Logan here away from the fingers of his own children. As perhaps you know, Martin Stukely was killed at Cheltenham races on New Year's Eve. But the tape had already begun its tortuous journey by then. Adam Force tried to steal it back. Tapes were stolen from here, from Gerard's home and from the home of Martin Stukely.”

“Were we informed of those thefts?” asked the policeman.

“Yes,” I replied, “but the theft of a few videotapes for no apparent reason hardly brought the law out like today.”

“Hmm,”
replied the superintendent, knowing it was true.

“One of your officers did come around here the following morning,” I said, “but there was far more interest in the money stolen with the tape.”

“Did Doctor Force steal the money as well?” asked the super, looking at Force.

“Yes,” I replied. “But I think that was just an opportunist theft which he might have thought would somehow smokescreen the removal of the tape.”

Doctor Force listened impassionately, his bloodied face giving away nothing.

“Anyway,” continued the professor, who did not welcome the interruption, “somehow all the thefts failed to get back the tape they wanted, and Doctor Force, with assistance from Rose Payne and others, has been trying here to coerce Mr. Logan to reveal its whereabouts. He tells me he hasn't got it.”

“And have you?” asked the voice of authority.

“No,” I replied, “but I think I know who has.”

They all looked at me. Adam Force, Lawson-Young, the superintendent and even Hickory, who had been listening with his good ear, they all waited expectantly.

Into this tableau swept Marigold, floating in emerald silk with gold tassels and brushing aside the young constable who tried to stand in her way. In her wake came Bon-Bon, Victor, Daniel and the other children like the tail of a kite.

Marigold demanded to see how her trophy was getting along, but was brought up sharply by the sight of the blanket-covered form in the workshop and the mass of evidence gatherers crawling cautiously around it on their hands and knees. Bon-Bon, realizing the enormity of the situation, swept her brood back out of the door, leaving just her mother and Victor inside, both of them stock-still, transfixed, living through their eyes.

“Gerard darling,” Marigold exclaimed. “What is going on? And where is Worthington?”

“Marigold, my dear,” I said wearily, “there's been a disaster. Please go across the road to the hotel and wait for me there.”

She seemed not to hear, her eyes steadfastly on the blanket. “Where is Worthington?” Her voice began to rise. “Where's Worthington? Oh my God.”

I took her in my arms. “Marigold, Marigold, he's all right. I promise. That's not Worthington.”

She sobbed on my shoulder, near to collapse.

Victor turned to me and said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “It's not a game anymore, is it?”

The question needed no answer, and presently the young constable led him and Marigold across to the Wychwood Dragon.

“So who is Blackmask Four?” asked Lawson-Young into the silence when they had gone.

“Who?” said the superintendent. “What are you talking about?”

The professor told him. “Gerard was attacked by four people in black masks outside his shop here. Three of them were Rose Payne, her father Eddie Payne and Norman Osprey. Gerard told me earlier today that he had worked out the identity of the fourth, so,” he turned to me and said with faith, “who is it and where is my research?”

“I don't think Blackmask Four has the tape,” I replied.

“What!” exclaimed the professor. His shoulders dropped, his expectations had been so high and he took it now that I was leading him only to another cul-de-sac, another dead end.

I put him right. “My fourth assailant, Blackmask Four, was just a hired help and I'm not sure he even knew exactly what he was looking for.” But he knew, I thought, how to inflict maximum damage to my wrists. “He is, however, a dab hand with a baseball bat and anesthetic gas.”

“Who is it, for God's sake?” The professor was finding it difficult to stifle his impatience, as was the superintendent, yet it wasn't the easiest disclosure I'd ever made. Still ...

“Who was the fourth man, Hickory?” I asked.

Hickory looked up from where he was kneeling on the floor, still holding a dressing to his ear.

“Why are you asking me?” he said.

“You bunched my fingers.”

“Of course I didn't.”

“I'm afraid you did,” I said. “You held my hand against a wall ready for a baseball bat to smash my wrist.”

“You must be crazy. Why would I attack you? Why you of all people?”

It was a piercing question and one with a complex answer. He didn't answer it. But we both knew what he had intended.

“Did you do it for money?” I asked.

I suspected that it was for more convoluted reasons than that. Something to do with my ability with glassblowing and his comparative lack of it. Envy was a strong emotion and, I reckoned, he wouldn't have needed a whole lot of persuasion to oppose me.

He still refused to admit it. “You're crazy, you are,” he said, getting to his feet and turning away as if looking for some quick escape.

“The green-and-white laces,” I said.

He stopped dead and turned back.

I went on, “You wore them here the day Martin Stukely was killed, and you wore them again the following day when you stole the tapes from his house, the day you hit me with the orange cylinder. Martin's eldest son, Daniel, saw the laces and told the police about them.”

Hickory advanced a step or two, his ear clearly hurting.

His poise cracked.

“You're so fucking clever,” he said. “I wish we had broken your wrists.”

The superintendent stopped leaning on the half-wall and stood up straight.

But Hickory had only just started.

“You and your fancy ways and your condescending comments about my work. I hate you and this workshop. I'm a damn good glassblower and I deserve more recognition.” He raised his chin and sneered.

“One day,” he went on, “John Hickory will be a name worth knowing and people will smash fucking Logan Glass to get to mine.”

Such a shame, I thought. He really did have some talent but, I suspected, it would never be allowed to develop as it should. Arrogance and a belief in skills he didn't have would smother those he did.

“And Rose?” I asked.

“Stupid bitch,” he said, holding his hand to his throbbing ear, “bloody mad she is. Tie you up, she said; use you as a hostage, she said. Nothing about frying my effing ear. Hope she rots in hell.”

I hoped she'd rot on earth.

“She promised me my own place,” Hickory said. “Claimed she'd close you down. Her and that stupid father of hers.” He began to realize the hole he was digging for himself. “They put me up to it. It was their fault, not mine.”

He looked wretchedly at the rapt faces around him.

“It wasn't my fault. It was their idea.”

No one believed him. It had been Hickory who had reported all to Rose. Hickory had had the “binocs” in Broadway.

“So where is the tape?” asked George Lawson-Young.

“I don't know,” replied Hickory. “Rose said that it must have been in Stukely's house or in Logan's but I've sat through hours of bloody horse racing and glassblowing and, I'm telling you, there was no tape of medical stuff.”

I believed him. Otherwise, I thought ruefully, I might have been saved a couple of beatings and Pernickety Paul would still be lying around in shop doorways.

A paramedic appeared and said that it was time to take Hickory to the hospital to dress his burn. The superintendent, roused into action, arrested Hickory. “You do not have to say anything ...”

“Too bloody late,” retorted Hickory, as he was led off to the ambulance by a white-overalled police officer and the paramedic.

The super turned his attention to Doctor Red-Beard Force, who had listened in silence throughout.

He said, his speech always in the pattern of officialese, “Well, Doctor Force, can you enlighten us as to the whereabouts of a videotape containing medical research results stolen from the professor here?”

Force said nothing. It seemed that he had at least learned one lesson from our discussion under the fir trees in Lynton.

“Come on, Adam, tell us.” The professor, I saw, still had some vestige of friendship for the man before him dripping blood from his beard onto my smooth brick floor.

Force looked at him with disdain and kept silent.

In his turn, he too was arrested and taken away for wound stitching and fingerprinting. “You do not have to say anything....” So he didn't.

 

In time the gallery, showroom and workshop began to clear. The coroner's representative arrived and supervised the relocation of Paul to the local morgue. The other officers stopped work to stand and watch the sorry procession of undertakers and their highly regarded and valued burden move through the gallery to the door. There were tears in my eyes as well as in theirs. He had been a good man as well as a good policeman.

A few more photographs were taken and a few more pieces of evidence were collected. Blue-and-white “Do Not Cross” tape was strung about, doors were locked and guarded, and the professor and I were gently eased out to the street into the gray appropriate drizzle.

The superintendent again asked me to accompany him to the police station to make a full statement, though this time, there was more warmth in his manner. I agreed, but first, I asked, could we all go over to the Wychwood Dragon Hotel as I was thirsty and needed a jug of tea. I looked at my cheap watch. Amazingly it was still morning though it felt to me more like teatime must have come and gone.

They were in the residents' downstairs sitting room. Bon-Bon and her four sat tightly side by side on the wide sofa in descending height from the right. Coca-Colas had been bought and a line of empty bottles with straws sat on a coffee table. Marigold occupied a deep squashy armchair while Worthington perched on its arm by her side. The manner in which Marigold clung to Worthington's hand reminded me of his flytrap warning. He didn't appear to protest.

The Dragon poured tea into large millennium souvenir mugs and told us that Pamela Jane, still badly shocked, had been given a pill by the police doctor and dispatched to bed upstairs.

Victor stood by the window unable to remove his eyes from Logan Glass opposite. I took my tea over and joined him.

Without turning his head he said, “I suppose my aunt Rose will be inside for a long time?”

“Yes,” I said. “A very long time.” For life, I thought, either in prison or a secure mental hospital. Police killers didn't get early parole.

He stood in silence a moment longer, then turned and looked me straight in the eye. “Good,” he said. “It might give me and Mom a chance.”