The Peace Machine

CHAPTER 8

Detective Inspector Crombie-Carson was a lean, acidulous man who made no concessions to his own or anybody else’s humanity. His face was small but crowded with large features, as though all the intervening areas had shrunk and caused the dominant objects to draw together. Horn-rimmed spectacles, a sandy moustache, and one protuberant mole also found room, somehow, on his countenance.

“It’s damned unsatisfactory,” he said in clipped military tones, staring with open belligerence at Hutchman. “You left your home on a Sunday morning and drove from Crymchurch to here to have a drink with Miss Knight?”

“That’s it.” Hutchman had been feeling ill since he saw the television-camera team among the crowd below. “Andrea and I have known each other since our university days.”

“And your wife has no objections to these little excursions?”

“Ah… my wife didn’t know where I was.” Hutchman drew his lips into the semblance of a smile and tried not to think about Vicky. “I told her I was going to work for an hour.”

“I see.” Crombie-Carson gazed at Hutchman in disgust. From the start of the interview he had shown no trace of the behind-this-badge-I’m-just-another-human-being attitude with which many police officers eased their relationship with the public. He was doing a job for which he expected to be hated and was more than ready to hate in return. “How did you feel when you arrived and found that Mr. Welland was already here with Miss Knight?”

“I didn’t mind — I knew he was here before I set out. I told you I merely stopped by for a drink and a chat.”

“But you told your wife you were going to work.”

“My domestic situation is complicated. My wife is… unreasonably jealous.”

“How unfortunate for you.” Crombie-Carson’s mouth thinned for an instant, packing his features even closer together. “It’s surprising how many men I encounter who have the same cross to bear.”

Hutchman frowned. “What are you trying to say, Inspector?”

“I never try to say things. I have an excellent command of the language, and my words always convey my exact meaning.”

“You seemed to be implying something more.”

“Really?” Crombie-Carson sounded genuinely puzzled. “You must have read something into my words, Mr. Hutchman. Have you been to this flat on previous occasions?”

“No.” Hutchman made the denial instinctively.

“That’s strange. Both the occupants of the ground-floor flat say that your car was…”

“During the day, I meant. I was here last night.”

The Inspector permitted himself a little smile. “Until about 11:30?”

“Until about 11:30,” Hutchman agreed.

“And what excuse did you give your wife last night?”

“That I was out drinking.”

“I see.” Crombie-Carson glanced at the uniformed sergeant who was standing beside Andrea, and the sergeant nodded slowly, conveying a message which Hutchman could not understand. “Now, Miss Knight. As I understand it, Mr. Welland decided to visit you this morning.”

“Yes.” Andrea spoke tiredly, exhaling grey smoke as she stared at the floor.

“Sunday appears to be a busy day for you.”

“On the contrary.” Andrea gave no indication of having seen any semantic shadings in Crombie-Carson’s remark. “I make a point of relaxing on Sundays.”

“Very good. So after Mr. Welland had been here for about an hour you decided it would be a good idea for him to meet Mr. Hutchman.”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

Andrea raised her eyes. “Why what?”

“Why did you think a Communist high-school teacher and a guided-missile expert should get together?”

“Their professions or politics didn’t come into it. I often introduce my friends to each other.”

“Do you?”

“Of course.” Andrea was pale, but in control of herself. “Besides, people with dissimilar backgrounds often react together in a more interesting way than…”

“I can well believe it.” Crombie-Carson thrust his hands into the pockets of his gray showerproof, walked to the shattered window, and looked down into the street for a moment. “And this morning, while your two visitors were reacting interestingly with each other, Mr. Welland decided to get up on this coffee table and fix your curtains for you?”

“Yes.”

“What was wrong with the curtains?”

“They weren’t closing properly. The runners were jamming on the rail.”

“I see.” Crombie-Carson twitched the curtains experimentally. They slid easily along the rail with a series of subdued multiple clicks.

Andrea eyed him squarely. “Aubrey must have cleared the obstruction before he fell.”

“Probably.” The Inspector nodded morosely. “If he had still been working on the rail he might have clutched it when he felt the table tip up underneath him. That way he would have pulled panels and everything down — but he mightn’t have gone out.”

“I think he had finished,” Hutchman put in. “I think he was in the act of getting down when the table couped.”

“Couped! An interesting verb, that. Scots, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Hutchman said warily.

“You were both in the room when the accident happened?”

“Yes, but we weren’t looking at the window. There was a crash… and he was gone.”

Crombie-Carson gave Andrea a speculative look. “I understand that as well as teaching mathematics Mr. Welland was games master at his school.”

“I believe he was.”

“What an unfortunate time for his reactions to fail him — perhaps he had had too much to drink.”

“No. He hadn’t drunk anything.”

The Inspector’s face was impassive, compressed. “Mr. Hutchman said he was expecting to have a drink when he got here.”

“I was,” Hutchman replied irritably, “but not to get stuck into a boozing session the moment I arrived.”

“I see,” Crombie-Carson commented. “There are certain proprieties to be observed, of course.” He walked slowly around the room, pausing every few paces to make a hissing intake of breath. “I shall want you both to make written statements. In the meantime, do not make any trips outside the local area without getting permission from me. Come along, sergeant.” The two policemen left the apartment with a final look around, and during the moment the door was open men’s voices flooded in from the landing, raucous and eager.

“Pleasant fellow,” Hutchman said. “Ex-colonial police, I’d say.”

Andrea jumped up from the couch and advanced on him, head thrust forward. “I should have told the truth. I should have handed you over.”

“No, you did the right thing. Communize the cloisters as much as you want to, but don’t get any deeper into this business. Believe me, Andrea, all hell is going to break loose very shortly.”

“Shortly?” Andrea snorted.

“That’s right. I assure you — you’ve seen nothing yet.” I sound like Leslie Howard as Pimpernel Smith, Hutchman thought, as he let himself out. Several waiting men flashed press cards in his face, crowded around, and followed him into the elevator. Their presence helped him to sustain the role. He forced himself to sound civilized and unperturbed as he repeated the story of the accident, but when he got into the car his legs began to tremble so violently that he was almost unable to operate the foot pedals. The car jerked away from the knot of people gathered outside the building and as he turned it toward Crymchurch he noticed with a dull sense of shock that the sky was darkening. He had left home in mid-morning, telling Vicky he was going to the office for one hour — and she had believed him. Just as they had reached the far side of despair she had, for some reason lost in the complexities of the human condition, begun to believe in him. Now he was returning to her with the dusk, bringing as much pain as any two people could bear. Hutchman touched the white envelope in his pocket. Supposing he showed its contents to Vicky? At least one other person, still alive, had seen his work, so why not Vicky? Would it convince her? Would it make any difference to anything? Could he justify involving her to that extent just as the human chain reaction triggered off by his actions was on the point of becoming super-critical? The explosion was coming, inevitably, and he was going to be at the center of it. He was ground zero.

The house, with its warm lights glowing through the screen of poplars, looked achingly peaceful. He parked his car and stood outside for a moment, reluctant to enter, then went in through the side door. The interior, although brightly lit, was very quiet — and empty. He walked through to the lounge and found a note in Vicky’s handwriting sitting on the stone fireplace. It said: “The police have been here. Several reporters have rung me. And I have heard the news on the radio. I was beginning to hope I was wrong about you. I have taken David. This time — and I am sane — it is finally over. V. H.” Hutchman said aloud, “You, too, have done the right thing.”

He sat down and, with meaningless deliberation, looked around the room. Nothing in it, he discovered, was of any importance. The walls, the pictures, and the furniture had become slightly unreal. They were stage properties among which three people had, for a while, acted out assigned roles. Suddenly conscious that he was artificially extending his own part beyond its term, he got to his feet and went into his study. There were more than a hundred envelopes — including those destined for England — yet to be filled, sealed, addressed, and stamped. He threw himself into the mechanical tasks, concentrating on minute details of folding the papers and exactly squaring the stamps to further deaden the ponderous workings of his mind. The attempt was moderately successful, but at times strange, incredible thoughts came to the fore.

My wife and child have left me.

Today I killed a man. I lied about it to the police and they let me go, but I knew that I did it. I didn’t mean to do it, but it happened. I terminated a human life!

The news about my machine is spreading across the world. Soon the information ripple is going to reach the confines of its system, and then the direction will be reversed. I’m at the center. I’m the ground zero man, and terrible things are going to happen to me.

My wife and child have left me… .

When the work was finished and the envelopes piled in neat stacks, Hutchman looked around blankly, faced with the prospect of going on living. It occurred to him that he had not eaten anything all day, but the thought of preparing food was preposterous. The only meaningful action he could think of was to take another batch of envelopes out and mail them, possibly in London. Just at the time he most needed to preserve his obscurity he had been catapulted into the news headlines, yet it was still worthwhile to cover his tracks as regards the mailings. The police knew he had been involved in a peculiar accident — they still had nothing to make him a suspect in the massive security investigation which would ensue when the first envelope reached Whitehall. Andrea had halfthreatened to tell the police all she knew, but what she really wanted was to disengage herself as rapidly and completely as possible. There was no danger there.

Hutchman brought the small suitcase in from the car and refilled it with envelopes. He turned off all the lights, went out into the blustery, rain-seeded darkness, and locked the door. Force of habit, he thought. What is there to steal? He threw the case onto the front seat of the car and was in the act of getting in beside it when a brilliant beam of light slewed across the drive, making shadows leap. A black sedan materialized behind the lights and crunched to a halt close to his car. Three men got out immediately, but Hutchman could not see them clearly because a spotlight was shining into his eyes. He fought to contain his fear.

“Going somewhere, Mr. Hutchman?” The voice was hard and disapproving, but Hutchman relaxed as he identified it as belonging to Detective Inspector Crombie-Carson.

“No,” he said easily. “Just doing a local errand.”

“With a suitcase?”

“With a suitcase. They’re handy for carrying things around. What can I do for you, Inspector?”

Crombie-Carson approached the car, the police spotlight pinpointing him with radiance. “You can answer some more questions.”

“But I’ve told you all I know about Welland.”

“That remains to be seen,” the Inspector snapped. “However, it’s Miss Knight I’m interested in now.”

“Andrea!” Hutchman felt a sick premonition. “What about her?”

“Earlier this evening,” Crombie-Carson said coldly, “she was abducted from her apartment by three armed men.”