The Cambridge Theorem (39 page)

Smailes had almost decided to leave when he asked casually whether the two men had talked on the telephone about what Bowles might have been working on that day, why he had changed his mind about staying an extra day.

“Not really,” Allerton had said. “But wait a minute, I think he did say something about a skiing accident. Yes, before he rang off, he said he had found out about an interesting skiing accident.”

“When?”

“Oh, he didn't say, and I didn't attach any significance to the remark. In fact, I'd forgotten all about it, until you just asked.”

Smailes said nothing, and took no notes. He thanked Hugh Allerton again for seeing him, and left.

Smailes had decided to repeat Bowles' last trips in the order Bowles had taken them, and as he gathered speed on the motorway to London he thought again and again of Allerton's last remark. Of course, he thought of Hawken, the withered, useless arm, and the explanation of the skiing accident in Bavaria while a student. Was this the interesting skiing accident Bowles had investigated? Had it led to further disclosures about Hawken's career? Smailes had to think that it had, and the information seemed to strengthen the likelihood that Bowles' increasing knowledge of Nigel Hawken's activities had been somehow involved in his death. But how? Hawken was hardly much of a physical threat with his disability, and it was difficult to imagine Hawken and Fenwick together somehow forcibly killing Bowles, and then staging a suicide. Difficult, but not impossible, Smailes reflected, and it was then that he saw the white Rover again.

Smailes had to concede that whoever was tailing him was a pro. A light rain had been falling and Smailes had turned his wipers up to high in overtaking a jacknifed truck. He adjusted the wipers again as he moved back to the center lane and kept the lorry in his rearview as he accelerated away. Just as the big machine was about to disappear behind a bend, he saw the Rover, distinguished by its flared engine cowling, overtake also. Smailes kept up his speed so as not to alert the driver that he had been noticed, and in fact only caught sight of the Rover twice again and he wove through the heavy lunchtime traffic of West London towards Fleet Street and Somerset House. No matter, thought Smailes to himself. He would contrive a way to get the number plate on the way back to Cambridge. He was sure his unexpected guest would accompany him back there.

It was awkward finding parking near the Aldwych at lunchtime, but Smailes eventually found a meter near Charing Cross Station and walked down to the Victoria Embankment, looking for the entrance to the huge, neo-Gothic building of Somerset House. Everyone in England knew that this building was the depository for all the records of births, marriages, deaths and census statistics in Britain since formal recordkeeping had begun. There was apparently quite a thriving industry in the archives, drawing up genealogical records for curious Americans. Smailes climbed the steps up beside Waterloo Bridge and onto Waterloo Bridge Road, where ornate metal gates guarded a circular driveway to what seemed to be the building's side entrance. He walked through a revolving door and confronted a government security guard, seated on a stool at a wooden podium. He produced his police badge and asked if he was in the right place for researching births, marriages and deaths.

“No, guv'nor, you're not. Mostly Inland Revenue in this building now. A few wills kept in the Family Division Court, that's all. What are you looking for?”

“I'm not sure. I'm trying to find out whether a young man visited here last month.” He produced the photograph of Bowles and said, “This is where the Public Records Office is, isn't it?”

“No, different building entirely. Chancery Lane, off Fleet Street. But if you want information on births, marriages and deaths, you'll have to go to St. Catherine's House on Kingsway. They're both just a few minutes walk. Which is it you're wanting?”

“I guess the Public Records Office. The young man had a Reader's Ticket for it.”

“That's right then,” said the guard, handing back the photograph. “You don't need a ticket at St. Catherine's. Just go up the Aldwych, right on Fleet Street, left on Chancery Lane. Can't miss it.”

Smailes was fairly sure that the driver of the white Rover was close by, following him as he strolled with the afternoon crowds along Fleet Street, past the Temple Bar monument that marked the official boundary between the City of London and the City of Westminster. He was not concerned to try and identify him, or to suggest in any way with his behavior that he knew of his presence. He walked past the ornate architecture of the Royal Courts of Justice and turned into Chancery Lane. In a few minutes he was standing in the Inquiries Office of the British Public Records Office.

“Yes, can I help you?” asked a small, bald man mildly. He had emerged from an office and was standing behind a stout oak counter, in a room that was not unlike St. Margaret's porters' lodge. Smailes produced his identification again and the civil servant invited him into the office and seated him beside his desk. Smailes produced the photograph and asked whether the man remembered meeting Simon Bowles the previous month.

“No, I'm afraid not,” he said, frowning at the picture. “But then we get so many applicants for Reader's Tickets every day. But if you have a name, we should have a record of the application. Last month you say?”

Without any difficulty the man produced for Smailes from a file cabinet behind him the very application that Simon Bowles had completed barely a month ago. Every two months or so, the physical copies were copied onto microfilm, then destroyed, he explained. On the application Bowles had had to declare what type of record he was researching, and for what purpose. Bowles had written, “Changes of Name, 1930's” and under purpose, “Thesis.”

“So he was here to research changes of name, was he?” asked Smailes rhetorically. “Do we know what he found out?”

“Well, we can go down to the Long Room and find out,” said the man. “Come with me.”

Smailes was led down a long gallery in which massive iron and leather storage chests from an earlier era stood at intervals. They entered a large, airy reading room and approached a librarian's desk. A woman was seated in front of a computer screen and turned to smile at them as they approached. She was Indian and wore a brilliant turquoise sari.

“Ah, Mrs. Dutta, this is a gentleman from the Cambridge police. He wonders whether we have information on any records requested by a young man who was here in March. What was his name, officer, Bolling?”

“Bowles.”

“Right, Bowles. There is a photograph, also. His application said he was here to inspect records of changes of name, in the nineteen thirties. I was thinking, it might have been the one doing the book research, do you remember?”

The woman took the photograph and looked at it closely. “Yes, I remember him, I think. He wanted the enrollment books of deed poll records from the thirties. I think I remember him finding something that excited him too, because he came to ask for the court records after four o'clock, and I told him he'd have to wait until the following day.” She had the lilt of Urdu in her voice, and her English was formal and precise.

“I'm sorry,” said Smailes carefully. “Can you explain?”

“Well, yes. The Long Room contains the enrollment books for deed poll records of changes of name since the late nineteenth century. You see, anyone changing their name by deed poll after 1914 had to advertise the change in the
London Gazette
, and also register the change with the enrollment clerk of the Supreme Court. The change would then be enrolled in the enrollment books. They are big ledger books, written by hand until quite recently.”

“Can I see one?” asked Smailes.

“Well, certainly.” The librarian walked over to a shelf and pulled down a fat, dusty ledger. She spread it open in front of Smailes and showed him pages of entries in elegant, copperplate handwriting. “This book is from 1928. See, it gives the new name, then the former name, and a date. Then there is a file reference to the actual court documents which can be retrieved if requested.”

“And you remember this man last month, asking you for court records?”

“I think so,” she said thoughtfully, “I have a good memory for faces, and it certainly looks like the same fellow. He wanted all the books from a certain date onwards, I think perhaps 1933, and after a good few hours came over to my desk here, pointing out an entry and asking if he could find the court records. Well, of course, it takes some time and our rule is that after four o'clock, the person must come back the following day. We hold the documents here at the desk until they pick them up. Of course, nothing is allowed to be removed from the Long Room, or photocopied. Many of the records are far too fragile for that.”

“And how did he react, do you remember?”

“Well, he seemed quite excited and said it didn't matter. He couldn't come back the next day, but it wasn't important for him to see the actual record. I think he said he'd found what he was looking for.”

“So you don't know what record it was that he had found?”

“No, if he had asked for the court papers, then of course there would be a record. But he didn't. He just put the ledger back, and left, I think.”

Smailes looked at the rows and rows of ledgers that stretched up towards a fifteen foot ceiling, and all the way down the reading room that had to be sixty feet long. It was hopeless to try and duplicate Bowles' search, even if he knew what he was looking for.

“You're quite sure that this is the same man, are you? About five foot seven, slim build, about nine, ten stone?”

“Well, of course, I can't be completely sure, officer, but it looks like the same young man. Don't you remember him, Arnold?”

The civil servant shook his head. “No, I don't. As I said, I wondered that it might be that chap who was doing the book.
Jews of Britain
, or something, wasn't it? Wasn't that the same period?”

“Yes, it was, but that was last year, and he was a very big man, I remember distinctly, and he was here for at least a week or two. This young man was much more recent, and he was very small, quite small. I remember him because it was towards the end of the day, the beginning of a week, I think, and he was really quite excited. Has something happened to him?”

“Yes, he's dead, I'm afraid,” said Smailes.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” said Mrs. Dutta, smiling sadly.

Smailes was deep in thought as he walked slowly back to his car. So it was changes of name Bowles had been interested in, not genealogy or other records. And he had found out something significant, he obviously believed. So whatever he had discovered in the Oxford library had led him to the Public Records Office. What was it he had told his sister? He had to visit Somerset House and needed to do a lot of research before he went. He had probably made the same mistake as he had that day, and been directed over to the Public Records Office from Somerset House. He had searched for hours through enrollment books and then requested court documents, but was too late to see them that day. It had not been important, and he had left, probably to take the train back to Cambridge. And the next night he had killed himself, Smailes reflected. Or been murdered. He reflected also on the precision of the librarian's memories. It heartened him that British society was beginning to give a little at the seams, regional accents on the BBC, immigrant faces in the civil service, things you would never have seen until recently.

Smailes unlocked the car and adjusted his position behind the wheel. Before turning on the ignition, he reached over to the passenger side, lowered the visor and removed the small vanity mirror from its vinyl sleeve. He tucked it inside his wallet and drove off.

He thought he saw the white Rover once on the laborious drive out to Tottenham and the A10, but he couldn't be sure. His plan called for the longer route rather than the quicker M11. As he was approaching Royston, he pulled into a filling station to buy petrol, and leaning on the roof of the car, pulled out his wallet. He adjusted the angle so the mirror showed him exactly where the traffic accelerated slowly away from the bend just before the turn into the petrol station. He pretended to riffle through the notes in the wallet, and then he saw the white Rover emerge slowly into view, then accelerate away. The letters and numbers were reversed in the mirror, but Smailes was able to read them easily. He sat back in the car and wrote them in his notebook. Tomorrow he would call Swansea and get the registration records. Then he might have something to tell George.

He saw no white Rover when he pulled into his street, and he was relieved he could finally park outside his front door again. He called Lauren when he had taken off his coat, but she wasn't home. He didn't leave a message.

I
T'S REGISTERED TO
a Michael Fowler, Precision Motors, Ely,” she said. “Does that help you?”

“It surely does, Susan,” said Smailes. Over the years, Smailes had got to know by name most of the women who worked in the inquiries office at the Vehicle Registration Centre in Swansea. Predictably, the computers had been down when he had called at the beginning of business hours, and Smailes' query had to join the pile from around the country waiting to be punched in. It was mid afternoon by the time he was called back. Susan hadn't asked why she needed to call him back at his home number. He thanked her and rang off.

So the white Rover was registered to Mick Fowler, of all people. It probably meant it was a rental car, one of Fowler's little side businesses. Smailes walked over to his front window again, and craned his neck to see whether there were any white saloon cars parked in his street, as he had done ten times that day. There weren't.

Everyone at Cambridge police knew Mick Fowler. He was one of the more unpleasant local criminals, a smalltime crook who had worked his way out of the scrap business into second hand cars, then into a custom garage that handled antique motors and special order engine and body jobs. It had also been a front for a bustling chop shop and parts fencing operation, Cambridge police had found out less than a year ago, when Fowler and three of his associates had been pulled in on theft and conspiracy charges. To Smailes' disgust, Fowler had had enough cash to hire some fancy barrister from London who managed to knock his sentence down to two years suspended and five years probation, pleading lack of previous record and remorse at the error of his ways. It was hard for Smailes to believe that experienced judges still fell for such rubbish. Meanwhile Fowler was back in business, and for all Smailes knew, up to his old tricks. He was no doubt more careful these days, but Smailes was convinced he was still as bent as a poodle's cock. If he had hired out a car to whoever was following him, it meant the underworld was interested in his investigation, that was for sure.