The Peace Machine

CHAPTER 13

Muriel Burnley was going through a new and very unsatisfactory phase of her life.

She had never been happy working for Mr. Hutchman, with his thoughtlessness, and his disregard for company regulations, a disregard which caused her endless work of which he was not even aware. As Muriel drove to the office in her pale-green Morris Mini she added to the catalogue of things she had disliked about Mr. Hutchman. There was his casual attitude about money — which was all right for somebody who had married into it, but not all right for a girl who had to help support her home on a secretary’s salary. Mr. Hutchman had never inquired about her mother’s poor state of health, in fact — Muriel stabbed her foot down on the accelerator — Mr. Hutchman probably did not even know she had a mother. She had made the biggest mistake of her career when she had allowed the personnel officer to assign her to Mr. Hutchman. The trouble was that, shameful admission, in the days when she had seen him only from a distance she had been impressed by his resemblance to a young Gregory Peck. That sort of look was unfashionable now, of course, but she had heard that Mr. Hutchman often had trouble with his marriage and, as she worked so closely with him in the office, there had been a possibility that…

Appalled by where her thoughts were leading, Muriel urged her car forward, overtook a bus, and got back into lane just in time to avoid a van traveling in the opposite direction. She compressed her lips and tried to concentrate on the road.

And to think that all the time Mr. High-and-mighty Hutchman had been carrying on behind his wife’s back with that tart in the Jeavons Institute! It had been obvious that something was going on, of course. Mr. Batterbee had gone the same way, but even filthy Mr. Batterbee hadn’t got himself involved with underworld characters and brought the police snooping around the office. Muriel’s face warmed as she remembered the closeted interviews with the detectives. The other girls had been delighted, naturally. They talked a lot in the corridors in small gleeful groups which fell strangely silent when she approached. It was obvious what they were thinking, of course. Mr. Hutchman had turned out to be a… whoremaster, and Muriel Burnley was his secretary, and the police weren’t paying all that attention to our Muriel for nothing…

She swung the car past Westfield’s security kiosk and braked with unnecessary abruptness in the parking lot. Gathering up her basket, she got out, locked the doors carefully, and hurried into the building. She walked quickly along the corridors without meeting anybody, but on rounding the corner nearest her own office she almost collided with Mr. Boswell, head of Missile R and D.

“Ah, Miss Burnley,” he said. “Just the person I wanted to see.” His blue eyes examined her interestedly through goldrimmed spectacles.

Muriel drew her coat tighter. “Yes, Mr. Boswell?”

“Mr. Cuddy has been seconded to us from Aerodynamics, and he will be taking over Mr. Hutchman’s duties today. He’s going to have a lot on his plate for a few weeks and I want you to give him all the co-operation you can.”

“Of course, Mr. Boswell.” Mr. Cuddy was a small dry individual, who was also a lay preacher. He was sufficiently respectable to counteract Mr. Hutchman’s aura to some extent.

“He’ll be moving his things over this morning. Will you fix up the office before he arrives? Get him off to a good start, eh?”

“Yes, Mr. Boswell.” Muriel went to her office, hung up her coat, and began tidying the larger adjoining room. The police had spent a full morning in it and, although they had made some attempt to put everything right before leaving, had created an air of disorder. In particular, the desk’s oddments tray, where Mr. Hutchman kept an astonishing number of paper clips and pencil stubs had been left in a hopeless jumble. Muriel slid the tray out of its runners and emptied it into a metal wastebin. Several pencil ends, clips, and a green eraser fell wide and bounced across the floor. She gathered them up and was about to dispose of them when she saw something printed in ink on the side of the eraser. The words were: “31 CHANNING WAYE, HASTINGS.”

Muriel carried the eraser into her own office and sat down, staring nervously at it. The detective who interviewed her had returned again and again to the one line of questioning. Had Mr. Hutchman another address, apart from the one in Crymchurch? Had he an address book? Had she ever seen an address written on any of his waste paper?

They had made her promise to contact them if she remembered anything that even seemed like an address. And now she had found what their careful search had missed. What did the Hastings address represent? Muriel tightened her grip around the piece of India rubber, digging her fingernails into its pliant surface. Was this the place where Mr. High-and-mighty had gone when he was with that whore who disappeared? Had he been in Hastings with her all those days last month?

She lifted the telephone, then set it down again. If she called the police her involvement with those awful detectives would begin all over, and her so-called friends along the corridor had had enough fun at her expense already. Even the neighbours were looking at her strangely. It was a miracle that none of them had seized the chance to upset her mother with their gossip — but why should Mr. High-and-mighty be shielded? Perhaps he was hiding in Hastings at this minute.

Muriel was still struggling to reach a decision when a furtive sound from next door told her that Mr. Spain had arrived, late as usual. She stood up and smoothed her blouse down over her breasts time after time before carrying the eraser into his office.

Every time Don Spain accidentally met or saw a person he knew, he made a mental note of the time and the day and the place. He did this instinctively, without any conscious effort, and for no other reason than that he was Don Spain. The information was filed and never forgotten, because sometimes a piece of knowledge which was uninteresting in itself became very important when joined to another equally insignificant scrap acquired perhaps years earlier or later. Spain rarely tried to turn his stores of information to any advantage, or to use them in any way. He simply did what he had to do, with no recompense other than the secret thrill he occasionally received when — perhaps out for an evening drive — he glimpsed an acquaintance on the road and was able to deduce his destination, reason for going, and other relevant circumstances. Spain fancied that a portion of his own consciousness detached itself on such occasions and traveled away with the acquaintance, diffusing his world-line over many other lives.

Thus it was that, although he had never actually spoken to Vicky Hutchman, he had a fair degree of certainty that she would be walking through the arcade from Crymchurch High Street at approximately ten o’clock on Wednesday morning. There was an expensive beauty salon at the end of the arcade, where she had a weekly appointment, and from what Spain knew of Mrs. Hutchman she was not a woman to allow little things like a shattered marriage and a disappearing husband to interfere with the rites of self-preservation. He glanced at his watch, wondering how long he could afford to wait if she did not arrive on schedule. Maxwell, the chief accountant, had been making himself objectionable for some time with pointed remarks about the inadvisability of trying to serve two masters. Settling the score with Hutchman was important but not worth losing money over, which would be the case if he provoked a clampdown and was forced to give up some of his outside work.

Spain cleared his throat as he saw Vicky Hutchman approaching. He judged his moment, then stepped out of the doorway where he had been waiting and collided with her.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Why… it’s Mrs. Hutchman, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She looked down at him with ill-concealed distaste, in a way which reminded him of her husband, strengthening his resolve. “I’m afraid…”

“Donald Spain.” He cleared his throat again. “I’m a friend of Hutch’s. From the office, you know.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Hutchman looked unconvinced.

“Yes.” She’s just like big Hutch, Spain thought. He wouldn’t sully himself with ordinary people, either — except when he thought nobody was looking. “I just wanted to say how sorry everybody is about the trouble he’s in. There must be a simple explanation…”

“Thank you. Now if you’ll forgive me, Mr. Spain, I have an appointment.” She began to move away, her blonde hair smooth as ice in the watered-down, railway station light of the arcade.

It was time to strike. “The police haven’t found him yet. I see. I think you did the right thing in not telling them about your summer cottage. That’s probably…

“Summer cottage?” Her brow wrinkled slightly. “We have no cottage.”

“The one in Hastings — 31 Channing Waye, isn’t it? I remember the address because Hutch asked my advice about the lease.”

“Channing Waye,” she said in faint voice. “We have no cottage there.”

“But…” Spain smiled. “Of course — I’ve said too much already. Don’t worry, Mrs. Hutchman. I didn’t mention it to the police when they interviewed me, and I won’t mention it to anyone else. We all think too much of Hutch to let… .” He allowed his voice to tail off as Mrs. Hutchman hurried into the crowd, and when he turned away he was filled with a pleasant, scouredout feeling, as though he had just written a poem.

Nothing has changed, Vicky Hutchman told herself as she lay back in the big chair and the warm water flowed downward across her scalp. The nortriptyline will help. Dr. Swanson says the nortriptyline will help if I only give it time to build up in my system. The past is really the past…

She closed her eyes and told herself she could not hear the beginnings of that thin, sad song.