The Tightrope Men / The Enemy (44 page)

I said slowly, ‘The first creature
designed
…That’s a frightening concept.’

‘In a way - but we’ve been designing creatures for a long time. You don’t suppose the modern dairy cow is as nature intended it to be?’

‘Maybe, but this strikes me as being qualitatively different. It’s one thing to guide evolution and quite another to bypass it.’

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later there’ll be some hack or graduate student who will go ahead with a bright idea without taking the time to study the consequences of what he’s doing. There’ll be a bad mistake made one day - but not if I can help it. And that brings us to Scotland.’

‘How?’

‘What I’ve just described is biological containment. There’s also physical containment to keep the bugs from escaping. Laboratories are classified from P1 to P4. P1 is the standard microbiological lab; P4 is the other extreme - the whole of the lab is under negative air pressure, there are air locks, showers inside and out, changes of clothing, special pressurized suits - all that kind of thing.’

‘And you’re running into trouble with your recommendations in Scotland?’

‘They’re upranking an existing P2 lab. In view of what they want to do I’m recommending P4, but they’ll only go to P3. The trouble is that a P4 lab is dreadfully expensive, not only in the building, but in the running and maintenance.’

‘Are there no statutory regulations?’

‘Not in this field; it’s too new. If they were working with recognized pathogens then, yes - there are regulations. But they’ll be working with good old
E.coli
, a harmless bacterium. You have about a couple of hundred million of them in your digestive tract right now. They’ll stay harmless, too, until some fool transfers the wrong gene.’ She sighed. ‘All we have are guidelines, not laws.’

‘Sounds a bit like my job - not enough laws.’

She ruefully agreed, and our talk turned to other things. Just before I left she said, ‘Malcolm; I want you to know that I think you’re being very patient with me - patient and thoughtful. I’m not the vapouring sort of female, and I usually don’t have much trouble in making up my mind; but events have been getting on top of me recently.’

‘Not to worry,’ I said lightly. ‘I can wait.’

‘And then there’s Gillian,’ she said. ‘It may have been silly of me but I was worrying about her even before all this happened. She’s never been too attractive to men and she looked like turning into an old maid; which would have been a pity because she’d make someone a marvellous wife. But now - ‘ she shook her head - ‘I don’t think there’s a chance for her with that face.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that, either,’ I advised. ‘Michaelis has a fond eye for her.’ I laughed. ‘With a bit of luck you’ll not have one, but two, spies in the family.’

And with that startling thought I left her.

The British weekend being what it is I didn’t get to the War Office until Monday. Anyone invading these islands would be advised to begin not earlier than four p.m. on a Friday; he’d have a walkover. I filled in the necessary form at the desk and was escorted by a porter to the wrong office. Two attempts later I found the man I needed, an elderly major called Gardner who was sitting on his bottom awaiting his pension. He heard what I had to say and looked at me with mournful eyes. ‘Do you realize the war has been over for thirty years?’

I disliked people who ask self-evident questions. ‘Yes, I’m aware of it; and I still want the information.’

He sighed, drew a sheet of paper towards him, and picked up a ball point pen. ‘It’s not going to be easy. Do you know how many millions of men were in the army? I suppose I’d better have the names.’

‘I suppose you had.’ I began to see why Gardner was still a grey-haired major. ‘George Ashton, private in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers; demobilized 4 January, 1947.’

‘In London?’

‘Probably.’

‘Could have been at Earl’s Court; that was used as a demob centre. The other man?’

‘Howard Greatorex Benson, sergeant in the Royal Army Service Corps. I don’t know where he was demobilized.’

‘Is that all you know of these men?’

‘That’s it.’

Gardner laid down his pen and looked at me glumly. ‘Very well, I’ll institute a search. You’d better give me your address or a phone number where I can find you.’ He sniffed lugubriously. ‘It’ll take about a month, I should say.’

‘That’s not good enough. I need the information a damned sight faster than that.’

He waved a languid hand. ‘So many records,’ he said weakly. ‘Millions of them.’

‘Don’t you have a system?’

‘System? Oh, yes; we have a system - when it works.’

I set out to jolly him along and by a combination of sweet talk, name-dropping and unspoken threats got him out of his chair and into action, if one could dignify his speed by such a name. He stood up, regarding me owlishly, and said, ‘You don’t suppose we keep five million army records here, do you?’

I smiled. ‘Shall we take your car or mine?’

I had what I wanted four hours later. At the time I thought I’d been lucky but later decided that luck had nothing to do with it because it had been planned that way thirty years earlier.

We started with the records of Earl’s Court, now an exhibition hall devoted to such things as cars and boats, but then a vast emporium for the processing of soldiers into civilians. There they exchanged their uniforms for civilian clothing from the skin out - underwear, shirt, socks, shoes, suit, overcoat and the inevitable trilby or fedora hat of the 1940s. There was also the equivalent of a bank which took in no money but which lashed it out by the million; the service-man’s gratuity, a small - very small - donation from a grateful nation. At its peak the throughput of Earl’s Court was
5000 men a day but by early 1947 it had dropped to a mere 2000.

The ledgers for 4 January were comparatively small; they had coped with only 1897 men - it had been a slack day. Infuriatingly, the ledgers were not listed in alphabetical order but by army number, which meant that every name and page had to be scanned. ‘What was the name again?’ said Gardner,

‘Ashton.’

‘Ashton,’ he muttered, as he started on the first page of a ledger. ‘Ashton…Ashton…Ashton.’ I think he had to repeat the name to himself because he had the attention span of a retarded five-year-old.

I took another ledger and started to check it. It was like reading a war memorial with the difference that these were the survivors; a long list of Anglo-Saxon names with the odd quirky foreigner for spice, and even more boring than checking Heathrow passenger lists. Half an hour later Gardner said, ‘What was that name again?’

I sighed. ‘Ashton. George Ashton.’

‘No - the other one.’

‘Benson, Howard Greatorex.’

‘He’s here,’ said Gardner placidly.

‘Benson!’
I went to the other side of the table and leaned over Gardner’s shoulder. Sure enough, his finger rested under Benson’s name, and the rest of the information fitted. Sergeant H. G. Benson, RASC, had been discharged on the same day, and from the same place, as Private G. Ashton, REME. I didn’t think coincidence could stretch that far.

‘That’s a piece of luck,’ said Gardner with smug satisfaction. ‘Now we have his army number we shall find his file easily.’

‘We haven’t got Ashton yet,’ I said, and we both applied ourselves to the ledgers. Ashton came up three-quarters of an hour later. Gardner scribbled on a piece of paper and
drifted away in his somnambulistic manner to organize the search for the files, while I sat down and began to sort out what we’d found.

I tried to figure out the odds against two specific men in the British Army being demobilized on the same day and from the same place, but the mathematics were too much for me - I couldn’t keep count of the zeroes, so I gave up. It was stretching the long arm a bit too far to suggest that it had happened by chance to two men who subsequently lived together as master and servant for the next quarter of a century. So if it wasn’t coincidence it must have been by arrangement.

So who arranged it?

I was still torturing my brain cells when Gardner came back an hour later with the files. There was a sticky moment when I said I wanted to take them away; he clung to them as though I was trying to kidnap his infant children. At last he agreed to accept my receipt and I left in triumph.

I studied the files at home, paying little attention to Ashton’s file because it had nothing to do with the Ashton I knew, but I went over Benson’s file in detail. His career was exactly as Ogilvie had described. He joined the army in 1940 and after his primary training and square-bashing he was transferred to the RASC and his promotions came pretty quickly at first - to lance-corporal, to corporal, and then to sergeant where he stuck for the rest of the war. All his service was in England and he never went overseas. Most of his duties were concerned with storekeeping, and from the comments of his superiors written in the file, he was quite efficient, although there were a few complaints of lack of initiative and willingness to pass the buck. Not many, but enough to block his further promotion.

His pay-book showed that he was unmarried but was contributing to the upkeep of his mother. The payments
ceased in 1943 when she died. From that time until his discharge his savings showed a marked increase. I thought that anyone who could save out of army pay in those days must have lived a quiet life.

His medical record was similarly uneventful. Looked at
en masse
it appeared alarming, but closer inspection revealed just the normal ailments which might plague a man over a period of years. There were a couple of tooth extractions, two periods of hospitalization - one for a bout of influenza and the other when he dropped a six-inch shell on his left foot. Luckily the shell was defused.

My attention was caught by the last entry. Benson had complained of aches in his left arm which had been preliminarily diagnosed as twinges of rheumatism and he had been given the appropriate treatment. He was thirty-three then, and rheumatism seemed a bit odd to me, especially since Benson had a cushy billet for a soldier in wartime. Not for him route marches in the pouring rain or splashing about joyfully in the mud; he worked in a warm office and slept every night in a warm bed.

Evidently the medical officer had thought it odd, too, when the treatment didn’t work. In a different coloured ink he had appended a question mark after the previous diagnosis of rheumatism, and had scribbled beneath, ‘Suggest cardiogram.’ The amendment was dated 19 December, 1946.

I went back to the general service file where I struck another oddity, because his immediate superior had written as the last entry, ‘Suggested date of discharge - 21 March, 1947,’ Underneath another hand had written, ‘Confirmed’, and followed it with an indecipherable signature.

I sat back and wondered why, if it had been suggested and confirmed that Benson should be discharged in March, 1947, he should have been discharged three months earlier. I consulted the medical record again and then rang Tom Packer.

This account started with Tom Packer because it was at his place I first met Penny. I rang him now because he was a doctor and I wanted confirmation of the idea that was burgeoning. If he didn’t know what I wanted he’d be certain to know who could tell me.

After a brief exchange of courtesies, I said, ‘Tom, I want a bit of free medical advice.’

He chuckled. ‘You and the rest of the population. What is it?’

‘Supposing a man complains of a pain in his left arm. What would you diagnose?’

‘Hell, it could be anything. Have you got such a pain?’

‘This is hypothetical.’

‘I see. Could be rheumatism. What’s the hypothetical age of this hypothetical chap?’

‘Thirty-three.’

‘Then it’s unlikely to be rheumatism if he’s lived a normal civilized life. I say unlikely, but it could happen. Did he say pain or ache?’

I consulted the medical file. ‘Actually, he said ache.’

‘Um. Not much to go on. Doctors usually have real patients to examine, not wraiths of your imagination.’

I said, ‘Supposing the man was treated for rheumatism and it didn’t work, and then his doctor thought a cardiogram was indicated. What would you think then?’

‘How long has the man been treated for rheumatism?’

‘Hang on.’ I checked the file. ‘Three months.’

Tom’s breath hissed in my ear. ‘I’m inclined to think the doctor should be struck off. Do you mean to say it took him three months to recognize a classic symptom of ischæmia?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Ischæmic heart disease -
angina pectoris.
’

I suddenly felt much happier. ‘Would the man survive?’

‘That’s an imponderable question - very iffy.
If
he’s had that ache in his arm for three months and
if
it is ischæmic
and
if
he hasn’t had treatment for his heart then he’ll be in pretty bad shape. His future depends on the life he’s been living, whether he smokes a lot, and whether he’s been active or sedentary.’

I thought of Sergeant Benson in an army stores office. ‘Let’s say he’s been sedentary and we’ll assume he smokes.’

‘Then I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s dropped dead of a coronary one morning. This
is
hypothetical, isn’t it? Nobody I know?’

‘No one you know,’ I assured him. ‘But not quite hypothetical. There was a man in that condition back in 1946. He died about a month ago. What do you think of that?’

‘I think that I think I’m surprised, but then, medicine isn’t a predictive sport and the damnedest things can happen. I wouldn’t have thought it likely he’d make old bones.’

‘Neither would I,’ I said. ‘Thanks for your trouble, Tom.’

‘You’ll get my bill,’ he promised, and rang off.

I depressed the telephone rest, rang Penny, and asked her the name of Benson’s doctor. She was faintly surprised but gave it to me when I said my boss wanted to tidy up a few loose ends before I was transferred. ‘It’s just a matter of firm identification.’

The doctor’s name was Hutchins and he was a shade reserved. ‘Medical files are confidential, you know, Mr Jaggard.’

‘I don’t want you to break any confidences, Dr Hutchins,’ I said. ‘But the man is dead after all. All I want to know is when Benson last had a heart attack.’

‘Heart attack!’ echoed Hutchins in surprise. ‘I can certainly tell you all about that. It’s no breach of confidentiality on a doctor’s part if he says a man is perfectly well. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Benson’s heart; it was in better condition than my own, and I’m a much younger man. He was as fit as a flea.’

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ I said warmly. ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’ As I put down the telephone I thought I’d handled that rather well.

I sat back and checked off all the points.

ITEM
: Sergeant Benson was suffering from heart disease at the end of 1946. His condition, according to Tom Packer, was grave enough so that no one would be surprised if he dropped dead.

HYPOTHESIS
: Sergeant Benson had died of heart disease some time after 18 December, 1946 and before 4 January, 1947.

ITEM
: Civilian Benson was discharged at Earl’s Court on 4 January, 1947 and subsequently showed no trace of a bad heart condition.

HYPOTHESIS
: Civilian Benson was a planted substitute for Sergeant Benson, exactly as Chelyuskin was a substitute for Private Ashton. The method was exactly the same and it happened on the same day and in the same place, so the likelihood of a connection was very high, particularly as Benson worked for Ashton for the rest of his life.

COROLLARY
: Because the methods used were identical the likelihood was high that both substitutions were planned by the same mind. But Ogilvie had told me that the idea was Chelyuskin’s own. Was Benson another Russian? Had two men been smuggled out?

It all hung together very prettily, but it still didn’t tell me who Benson was and why he had shot Ashton.