The Enemy

CHAPTER TWELVE

We found a number of surprising things in that house but nothing that did us much good, at least, not then. In the basement there was a remarkably well-equipped workshop and chemical laboratory, way beyond amateur standard. There was also a small computer with a variety of input and output peripherals including an X-Y plotter. Still on the plotter was a sketch which had been drawn under computer control; it seemed to be a schematic of a complicated molecule and it made no sense to me, but then I'm no expert. For bigger problems with which the little computer couldn't cope there was a modem and an acoustic coupler so that the little chap could be used as a terminal to control a big computer by way of the post office land lines.

In the workshop was a bench on which a thingamajig was under construction. Whatever it was intended to do it was going to do under computer control because there were no fewer than fifteen integrated-circuit microelectronic chips built into it, and that's a fair amount of computing power. Also coupled into it was a laser, a cathode ray tube, a lot of laboratory glassware and a couple of gadgets I didn't recognize.

I didn't snap any switches or push any of the unlabelled buttons because I didn't know what would happen if I did. Instead I said to Larry, 'Any of Ashton's firms connected with electronics or computers?'

'No, just chemicals and plastics moulding. Some of the chemical processes might be computer-controlled, though.'

I grunted and had the entire basement sealed. The boffins from the department would have to check it out, and I wasn't going to touch anything until they had done so.

Penny had the combination for the safe in the study, and I knew by that we were unlikely to find anything of consequence in it. I was right. There was a bit of money, less than?50, which was not much considering Ashton's resources-I suppose it was emergency pocket money. There were some account books on which I wasted some time until I discovered they related to the running of the household, the stables and the cars. All very orderly. There was a whole sheaf of balance sheets headed with the name of the firm of accountants, Howard and Page. A quick glance at the bottom lines told me that George Ashton was doing very nicely, thank you, in spite of the economic recession.

And that was all.

Ashton's own quarters were a bit more productive. He had a suite-bedroom, bathroom, dressing room and sitting room which were as clean as a whistle. He seemed to live somewhat spartanly, there was less than the usual amount of junk which a man tends to accumulate and it was all very clean and tidy. There was nothing at all in any of the pockets of the clothes hanging in the wardrobes; whoever did his valeting-Benson probably-did a good job.

But a considerable amount of panel-tapping discovered a tambour which, when slid aside after a complicated procedure involving switching on certain lights in all four rooms thus releasing an electrically-controlled lock, revealed a massive metal door of armour-plated steel. The way I've described that might make you think we were lucky to find it, but it wasn't luck. The boys were good at their jobs.

Not good enough to open that vault door, though. After Simpson had done some architectural measuring with a tape I knew that beyond that door was not merely a safe but a sizeable room, big enough to swing a kitten in, if not a cat. Now, any man who would put a door like that as entrance to a room would be sure to take other precautions. The walls, floor and ceiling would be very thick concrete, well reinforced with toughened steel, and the whole package would weigh a lot even when empty. It was on the second floor which meant that a special underpinning structure must have been built to support it. I made a note to look up Ashton's architect.

When the vault door was shown to Penny she was as surprised as anyone. She had never suspected its existence.

All this doesn't mean that I was prowling about the house personally knocking on walls. I left that to the boys and only inspected the results when they came in. I supervised the search of Ashton's study in Penny's presence, then settled down to talk to her because I assumed she would know more about her father than anyone else.

'Benson,' I said. 'How long have you known Benson?'

She looked surprised. 'He's always been around.'

'That's a long time. How long is always?'

'Always is always, Malcolm. I can't remember a time when there wasn't Benson.'

'As long as that? Twenty-five or twenty-six years?'

Penny smiled. 'Longer than that. He was with Daddy before I was born.'

'Always is a long time,' I agreed. 'He does the faithful family retainer bit very well, I must say. But he's more than that, isn't he?'

She crinkled her brow. 'I don't know. That's difficult to assess. When a man had been with a family as long as Benson he tends to become regarded as more of a friend than a servant.'

'To the extent that your father would share a bottle of whisky with him?'

'I don't think he ever did that.'

'He did on Sunday night,' I observed. 'Has Benson always been a personal servant to your father?'

She thought for a moment. 'We moved into the house in 1961-I was twelve then. It was then Benson moved in here as Daddy's valet and dogsbody. Before that we had a house in Slough; just a little one, nothing as grand as this. Benson worked in one of Daddy's factories, but he visited the house quite often-at least once a week.' She smiled. 'He was one of our favourites. He used to bring us sweets-forbidden fruit because Daddy didn't like us to eat too many sweets. Benson used to smuggle them to us.'

'What was Benson doing in the factory?'

'I don't know. I was only a little girl.'

'When did your mother die, Penny?'

'When I was four.'

I thought that was bad luck on Ashton, having to bring up two small daughters. Still, he hadn't made a bad job of it. It seemed he didn't make a bad job of anything. I said, 'Do you know how your father got started? I mean, how did he start in business? Did he have inherited money, for instance?'

She shook her head vigorously. 'Daddy never talked much about his early life but I know he didn't inherit anything because he was an orphan brought up in a foundling home. He was in the army during the war and when he came out he met my grandfather and they set up in business together. They didn't have much money at the time, so my grandfather said before he died. He said Daddy's brains made it a success.'

'What was he in the army?' I asked idly.

'Just a private.'

That surprised me. Ashton would have been twenty-six or twenty-seven when he was demobbed and it was strange that a man of his drive and character should still have been a private soldier. Perhaps his army record would bear looking into.

'Did your father ever carry a gun?'

She misunderstood me. 'He did rough shooting at times, but not often.'

'I don't mean a shotgun. I mean a revolver or automatic pistol.'

'Lord, no! He hasn't got such a thing.'

'Would you know?'

'Of course I would.'

'You didn't know about that strong room upstairs.'

She was silent and bit her lip, then said, 'You think he's armed?'

I was saved from answering that because Larry popped his head around the door. 'Can I have a word, Malcolm?' I nodded and joined him in the hall. He said, 'Gillian Ashton's rooms are clean, nothing there of' consequence. I read her diaries; she seems to live a quiet, upper-middle-class life-theatre, ballet, opera and so on. She reads a lot, too.'

'Not any more. Any liaisons?'

'Nothing very strong; a string of men who appeared one at a time and then petered out after a while.' He grinned. 'No mysterious assignations with people referred to by only their initials, nothing like that.'

'What about Penny's rooms? Have you checked there?'

Larry looked at me a bit queerly. 'But I thought…'

'I don't care what you thought,' I said evenly. 'Do it.'

'Okay.' He went downstairs again, and I thought that young Larry still had a lot to learn.

I was about to return to the study when Michaelis came through the hall. I said, 'Found anything?'

'Nothing for us. But in an attic there's the damnedest thing-the biggest model railway set-up I've seen in my life.'

'Model railway!' I said incredulously.

'It's a real enthusiast's job,' he said. 'I'm a bit keen, myself, but I've never seen anything like this. There must be over a mile of HO-gauge track up there-it's like a bloody spider web. You'd have to do some smart scheduling to keep that lot running smoothly.'

It was a facet of Ashton I wouldn't have dreamed of, but it didn't have a thing to do with the matter at hand. I dismissed it. 'Where's Jack Brent?'

'Giving the out buildings a going over-the garages and stables.'

'Tell him I want to see him when he's finished.' I went back into the study and thought it was time to try to find Ogilvie again. I'd been ringing every hour on the hour but each time he'd been out of the office so I'd passed my stuff on to Harrison. I put my hand out to dial again but the telephone shrilled before I got there.

It was Ogilvie. 'What have you got?' he said abruptly.

'I've passed it all to Harrison. Have you spoken to him?'

'No. As you may have gathered the balloon went up on schedule and I've been busy the last few hours. Give me the gist of it.'

'We've got a bloody big vault here,' I said. 'Not a safe, but a professional bank vault. We'll need experts to open it, and it'll probably take them a week.'

'It had better not,' said Ogilvie. 'You'll have them within the hour. What else?'

'I'd like some boffins-electronic and chemical. There's a cellar full of scientific stuff to look at. And you'd better send someone competent in computers.' I grinned. 'And maybe a model railway expert.'

'What's that?' he barked.

'Ashton has a model railway layout in his attic. I haven't seen it but I'm told it's quite something.'

'This is no time to be funny,' said Ogilvie acidly. 'What else?'

'Damn all. Nothing of use to us.'

'Keep looking,' he said sharply. 'A man can't live fifteen years in a house and not leave something of his personality lying around. There'll be some indication of where he's gone.'

He thought for a moment. 'But I want you back here. Put someone else in charge.'

'That'll be Gregory,' I said. 'I still have a few things to wrap up-I'll be back in two hours.' I rang off and said to Penny, 'Well, that's it, love. The boss wants me back.'

She said, 'Just before you went out you said something about Daddy having a gun. What did you mean?'

'He's armed,' I said.

She shook her head disbelievingly but, since so many strange things had occurred that day, she could not combat my statement. 'And will you find him?'

'Oh, we'll find him. What's worrying me is that perhaps someone else is looking for him who will find him first. And the hell of it is we aren't sure, one way or another.'

Brent came in. 'You want me?'

I waved him out and joined him in the hall. As I stripped off my jacket I said, 'Find anything?'

'Nothing.'

I unhitched the shoulder-holster from under my left armpit. 'Take this; you might need it.' I waited until he'd put it on, then took him into the study. 'Penny, this is Jack Brent;, he's your guardian angel from now on. He sticks with you everywhere you go, excepting the loo and the bedroom-and he inspects those first.'

Penny looked at me as though she suspected me of joking. 'Are you serious?'

'You'll have to find a room for Jack-he'll be living here as long as you do.' I turned to Brent. 'Make yourself acquainted with the burglar precautions here, and make sure the damn things work.'

He nodded, and said, 'Sorry about this, Miss Ashton; I have to do as I'm told.'

'Another man under orders,' she said tightly. There were pink anger spots in her cheeks. 'Do you really mean that this man goes everywhere I go?'

'As long as you want to keep your schoolgirl complexion.'

Maybe I was a bit brutal about it, but the force of what I said hit her hard. She went very pale. 'My God, Malcolm. What is my father?'

'I don't know; but I'm going to wring it out of Ogilvie if it's the last thing I do.'

Jack Brent gave me a look as though he thought it would be the last thing I did. Twisting the boss's arm in any organization is not the way to promotion and that indexed pension.

I said, 'I have things to do. I'll see you before I go, Penny.' I went to brief Gregory on the latest developments and to hand over to him. I found him with Simpson going over Benson's quarters which were a bit more opulent than you'd expect of a house servant-a three-roomed suite. Gregory and Simpson had torn the place apart on my instructions because I was particularly interested in Benson. 'Any luck?'

Gregory grunted. 'Not much. There's this.' He pointed to a small can of oil. 'Recommended for gun actions. And we found a single round of ammunition-unfired. It had rolled under the bed and dropped into a crack near the wall.'

It was a 9 mm parabellum round, popular with the military and the police. 'We know he was armed,' I said. 'Now we know what with-not that it helps. Anything else?'

'Not yet.'

I told Gregory the score and then went to check the activities of the rest of the team. I had to find something to take to Ogilvie. In the attic I found two of the boys playing trains. 'Oh, Jesus!' I said. 'Cut it out. We're here on business.'

Michaelis grinned. 'This is business-all in the line of duty. If you want this place searched thoroughly we'll have to look inside every engine, carriage and truck in this layout. The only way to do it is to bring them to this central control point a trainload at a time.'

I examined the layout and saw he had a point. You might have found a more complicated system in an international model engineering exhibition but I doubted it. There were about ten levels of track and a complexity of points and sidings which was baffling, and the whole lot was controlled from a central console which looked like the flight deck of a Concorde. Michaelis seemed to have got the hang of it; maybe he was a budding genius.

'How many trucks and carriages are there?'

'We've looked at about three hundred so far,' he said. 'I reckon that's about a quarter. We're lucky there's an automatic coupling and uncoupling system. See those trucks in the siding over there?' He pointed to a spot about eight yards inside the spider web of rails. 'We'd never be able to get in there without smashing the lot up-so we sent an engine in to pull them out. Like this.'

[missing] affects state security. The whole problem was that our friends to the east have no private firms, so any industrial espionage from that direction was ipso facto state inspired, and that we couldn't have. In our inimitable British fashion a new department was set up to cope. This department.'

'I know what we're doing, but I didn't know how we got started.'

Ogilvie drew on his cigarette. 'There's an important point. In an attempt to cut down on duplication of effort, several other departments had to hand over large chunks of their interests to us. In fact, a couple of them lost entirely their raison d'etre and were closed down completely. They were only small fry, though. But it all led to jealousy and bad blood which exists in a dilute form to this day. And that's how we inherited the problem of Ashton.'

I said, 'Who did we pinch Ashton from?'

'Lord Cregar's department.' Ogilvie leaned forward. 'This afternoon the Minister came down on our side. Ashton is still our baby and we have to find him. You are still inside man, and that means you find him. Any help you need just ask for.'

'That suits me,' I said. 'I want clearance for Code Purple.'

Ogilvie shook his head. 'Not that.'

I blew up. 'For Christ's sake! How can I look for a man when I don't know anything about him? Back in Marlow I had an interesting lecture on trust which has soured me to the belly, and this job has already interfered too much with my private life. Now you either trust me or you don't-and the crunch comes here. I get clearance for Code Purple or my resignation will be on your desk at nine tomorrow morning.'

He said sadly, 'I have warned you about being impetuous. To begin with, I couldn't get you clearance in that time, and even if you did you wouldn't find what you're looking for because Ashton is in Code Black.' His voice was grim. 'And you couldn't be cleared for Code Black inside three months-if ever.'

Code Black sounded as though it was the end of the rainbow and Ashton was the pot of gold. There was a silence which I broke by saying diffidently, 'That's it, then. I'd better go along to my office and type my resignation.'

'Don't be a young fool!' snapped Ogilvie. He drummed on the desk, then said, 'I've come to a decision. If it gets out I could be fired. Wait here.'

He got up and went to an unobtrusive door behind his desk and disappeared. I waited a long time and wondered what I'd done. I knew I'd laid my career on the line. Well, I was prepared for that and with my financial backing I could stand it. Maybe I wouldn't have done it if I had only my pay to depend on. I don't know. And I'd pushed Ogilvie into doing something he might be sorry for, and that was bad because I liked him.

Presently he opened the door, and said, 'Come in here.' I followed him into a small room where there was one of the ubiquitous computer terminals. 'I'm cleared for Code Black,' he said. 'The information on Ashton is coming on line. If you sit there you'll know what you need to know. The computer won't know who is pushing the buttons.' He checked the time. 'I'll be back in two hours.'

I was a bit subdued. 'All right, sir.'

'I want your word,' he said. 'I don't want you roving at random in Code Black. I want to know that you'll stick to Ashton and only to Ashton. There are other matters in Code Black that are better for you not to know-for your own peace of mind.'

I said, 'You can make sure of that just by sitting in here with me.'

He smiled. 'You made a point just now about trust. Either I trust you or I don't, and there's an end to it.'

'You have my word.'

He nodded abruptly and left, closing the door behind him.

I glanced at Nellie who was staring at me with an interrogative bright green question mark, and then glanced around the small room which was really more of a cubicle. On one side of the terminal was a small plotter, very much like the one in Ashton's cellar; on the other side was a line printer.

I sat at the console and reflected that if Ashton was so important and had been around and of interest since before the department had started then there was probably reams of stuff about him in Nellie's guts. This idea was reinforced by the two hours Ogilvie had allowed for reviewing the information, so I switched on the printer, and typed:

OUTPUT MODE-PRINTER

Nellie had an attack of verbal diarrhoea. She came back with:

PRINTER OUTPUT NEGATIVED UNDER CODE BLACK NOTE WELL: NO WRITTEN RECORD TO BE MADE UNDER CODE BLACK

NOTE WELL: NO TAPE-RECORDED TRANSCRIPTIONS TO BE MADE UNDER CODE BLACK

NOTE WELL: NO PHOTOGRAPHS TO BE TAKEN OF THE CRT UNDER CODE BLACK

I sighed and switched off the printer. I've described before how one juggles with Nellie so there's no point in going into that again. What I haven't said is that Nellie is accommodating; if she's going too fast you can slow her down, and if she's producing something of no interest you can speed her up. You can also skip about in the record, going back to items forgotten or neglected. She's quite a toy.

I did quite a bit of skipping when swanning around in Ashton's life. He'd lived quite a bit.