Matlock's System Read online

  “I have here an order, signed by the Chief Constable and approved by the Watch Committee, for your removal from the area of his jurisdiction forthwith. Any subsequent visits must be notified within twelve hours to the Central Police Station and any request for permission to hold a further meeting within the area must be preceded by a written request at least three months before the date of the proposed meeting. It’s all in this.” He handed the paper to Matlock who received it wordlessly.

  “Now if you please. Seats have been reserved for your party on the nine-thirty Autotrain for London. We must hurry.”

  Matlock folded the paper carefully and put it into his pocket.

  “Thank you, Inspector,” he said looking at him with emotionless eyes. In the doorway beyond he saw Lizzie’s pale face with Colin’s, still paler, beside.

  “Come on, Ernst,” he said abruptly. “Let’s go.”

  “Percy?” said Lizzie. “Is he … ? Oh, Christ.”

  Matlock led her gently away and Ernst, with Colin leaning heavily on his arm, came behind. Matlock took one look back before he left the hall. Policemen were quietly picking up the overturned chairs and putting to one side those which were broken. On the walls, as he had forecast to himself, fresh scars had appeared in the plaster. The result of missiles. Chairs. Truncheons. Heads. Scrawled along the entire length of one wall were the words Matlock is getting old.

  He went out into the night.

  There was a hovercar waiting for them outside, as always, and a still corridor of police led them to the open door. Matlock looked up and down the street. Not a spectator in sight, not a face at á window.

  They climbed into the hovercar, the door slid silently to behind them, the magnetic-lock clicked.

  “Reporters, Colin?” said Matlock.

  Tonight he had no interest in reporters but needed the normal political reactions to still his confusion of thought.

  “I’ll let them know, Matt, of course.”

  The strain in Colin’s voice told the same story.

  The opaque glass sheet which separated them from the front compartment of the car filled with a pale blue light then slowly cleared. Sitting beside the driver, but facing them was an ornately uniformed figure.

  “I’m afraid we had to declare this an early curfew area this evening. Part of the Watch Committee’s new Social Drive. So it wasn’t worth while letting any reporters in, was it?”

  Matlock looked at the Chief Constable with a surprise he did not show.

  “You honour us tonight. Why let the meeting start if an early curfew was in force?”

  The Chief Constable laughed.

  “You had been given permission, Mr. Matlock, and the Committee does not give its word lightly. But I’m afraid that even without the unfortunate interruption, we would have had to bring you to an early halt. About now, I should think.”

  As if on a word of command they heard the slow bell of the Curfew Patrol quite close and a moment later the solid bulk of the Curfew Wagon moved majestically by. Matlock had never been in one but he felt his usual tremor of revulsion as he watched the great shape slide past them. He remembered the description given him by a friend who had been inside. A dungeon on wheels.

  “Chief Constable,” he said, “we will soon be at the station. What do you have to say to me? You are not here just to keep us company.”

  “Nor from choice, Mr. Matlock. Despite what you may think, I am non-political. Merely the instrument of law and order, the organization of which is the politician’s business. I have been particularly instructed to have you removed from my patch this evening. I am merely ensuring that this is done.”

  “Your instructions must have been very particular to bring you out in person.”

  There was a pause while the Chief Constable lit a cigarette. The hovercar turned onto the brightly lit ramp which coiled its way over the centre of Manchester to the A-Train station.

  “Very particular, Mr. Matlock. I will say good-bye now. I am sorry about your friend’s death. That may be a weakness, but I do not anticipate seeing you again.”

  “Hardly a weakness in a law-officer,” began Matlock, but the panel was already tinged with blue and in seconds had resumed its former dull opacity.

  The hovercar drew to a halt so close to an open door of the A-Train that they stepped from one to another without touching the platform. The train door slid shut behind them and they moved forward into their comfortably appointed compartment. Their luggage was already there, neatly stacked in a corner. The train began to move as they sat down.

  For a long time nothing was said. Matlock sat by Lizzie who had not spoken a word since they left the hall.He put his hand over hers and pressed it gently, but there was no response. Finally, Colin, obviously determined to break the silence, said, “I’m sorry they managed to keep the papers away, Matt. Shall I get in touch with the nationals in town?”

  Matlock shook his head.

  “It’s not worth it. They won’t be interested. Or if any of them are, the news will be stale by the time they get licence from the Committee. Or at best it’ll get a para. It’s not worth it.”

  Ernst leaned forward and put his hand on Matlock’s knee.

  “Couldn’t that be the point of tonight? That it’s not worth it, I mean?”

  They digested this for a while.

  “This would mean,” said Colin, “that Percy’s death was planned. A warning. Not just an accident (if that’s the word) in the general fighting.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not one of us?”

  “Because,” said Matlock, “this way they can shovel us out of the area as a complete, unsullied unit and sweep poor Percy and the rest of the meeting under the carpet. Maximum warning, minimum fuss. I think you’re right, Ernst. It’s a new part in the jigsaw. It’s a different picture.”

  Lizzie, who had been staring dully out of the window apparently not attending to a word, suddenly turned and dragged her hand from under Matlock’s. They saw that her face was wet with tears, but it was anger that twisted it now.

  “So that’s good-bye to Percy, is it?” she snarled. “A piece in a jigsaw now. He was alive an hour ago. Our friend. Telling everyone how bloody great you were, Matlock. Then someone cracks his skull wide open and suddenly he’s a piece in a jigsaw, part of a game, more significant dead than he ever was alive. Then he was just an old friend we could rely on. Now he’s important. Now he’s dead.”

  The tears had started again. Matlock reached out his hand, but she slapped it aside, stood up and flung out of the compartment.

  The three men sat in silence for a moment.

  They’re waiting for me to say something, do something, thought Matlock. They’re all waiting. Friends and foes alike. All waiting. And I’m no longer ready.

  His right hand had involuntarily moved inside his loose jacket till it rested lightly over his heart. He increased the pressure till he could feel the rhythmic beat.

  A machine. A machine running down. Ticking off years, days, hours. It is not many years since that was just a metaphor, he thought. It changed in my lifetime. I helped to change it.

  The thought made him clench his hand into a sharp-cornered fist. Abruptly he stood up and followed Lizzie out of the door. She was standing staring through one of the observation ports and did not turn as he joined her. He put his arm over her shoulder but she shook it off impatiently.

  “Go away, Matt.”

  He looked through the port with her. Their own faces, shadowy, transparent, stared palely back at them. He forced his eyes to pass beyond and looked down at the blur of lights which was all that was visible of the Multicities over which the great elevated track of the Autotrains ran.

  He did not try to touch her again and she showed no sign of awareness of his presence.

  Finally he began to talk softly, monotonously.

  “Lizzie Armstrong. Age forty-seven. Height five feet five inches. Weight eight stone two ounces. Blue eyes; brown hair; good teeth; mole on l
eft hip; appendix scar; left breast slightly larger than right. Born Perth, Scotland. Resident in England twenty-three years, eighteen of them spent in the employment of Matthew Matlock. Took English citizenship seventeen years ago. A competent secretary, consistent in her errors. Two ‘m’s in amount. Two ‘c’s in necessary. Has been known to correct an audio-type machine.”

  Lizzie’s eyes had come up to meet his from the shadow world in the port. He went on, expressionlessly.

  “Loyal to a fault. Has served her master with unquestioning devotion. Intellectually. Spiritually. Sexually. Tends to boast that she knows him inside out.”

  Lizzie turned to him.

  “I know, Matt. Yet she seems incapable of understanding what he truly feels on the death of a friend. I know what you’re thinking. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t just Percy. It is this whole business. It seems so aimless somehow. Why not make a run for it, Matt? Go for Op. We can afford it. Or at least, duck out. Retire. Marry me. You’ve got six years at the present rate. Let’s make them easy, carefree years. Six contented years.”

  Matlock grimaced.

  “Less after the Budget.”

  “Five then. Or four. Browning won’t dare go nearer the Bible Barrier than that. I’ll settle for four. And who knows? Things may take a turn for the better of their own accord. A boom perhaps. It could be ten.”

  “In a free economy it could be twenty. It could be fifty.”

  Lizzie stamped angrily.

  “It could be none. I’ll settle for five. I think Ernst was right, you know. Percy was a warning. That could be you next time with blood on your head and your head in someone’s lap.”

  Matlock shook his head.

  “They wouldn’t dare. That at least I’m sure of. Not like that anyway. But you’re right in part, Lizzie. I’ll take part of your advice at least. I’ll give the meetings up. They can win that round.”

  Lizzie had watched her employer’s expression closely as he spoke. Now she put her hands lightly on his lips.

  “Matt, you’re talking about politics again. You’re retreating from yourself, from us.”

  “It’s my life.”

  “Not any longer. I’ve been watching you change for two or three years now. It was your life once; all your life. But now these plots and plans and policies are at least fifty per cent a refuge. You can hide in them. You didn’t really want to go to Manchester tonight, did you? It was pointless long before some thug split Percy’s skull.”

  “No,” said Matlock defensively, “we achieved something. At least I got some of my words heard.”

  Lizzie laughed derisively.

  “You mean the tape and the loudspeaker? A prank. A joke. Oh I know, it took them by surprise. It broke the pattern. Percy broke the pattern too. Have you thought, perhaps they fixed Percy because you broke your precious pattern. In any case Matt, this wasn’t your idea was it? Not much lately has borne your mark. This stinks of Ernst.”

  Matlock drew away now.

  “Let’s not start on that tack again, Lizzie. Ernst is my chief assistant, my successor. And my friend.”

  Lizzie shrugged indifferently and lit a cigarette as Matlock turned and re-entered the compartment. The two men in it were talking earnestly, but stopped as the door opened.

  Ernst’s boyish face broke into a smile. He was by far the youngest there and looked another five years younger than his forty. Matlock smiled affectionately at him. There had been no doubt at all in his mind who to publicly declare as his successor when he had reached the statutory age four years earlier. The Age Law declared that every man in a position of public responsibility must at age sixty-five appoint a successor (or ‘understudy’ as he was generally and frivolously known) at least ten years younger. ‘In a position of public responsibility’ had needed a great deal of qualification and modification, and Matlock was still not wholly certain whether he as the ‘leader’ of a non-representational ‘party’ came under this section of the Bill. Dentists, youth leaders and newspaper reporters didn’t; doctors, civil servants of the top grade, broadcasting administrators did. These were only a few of the categories where doubt had arisen. Matlock had decided to be on the safe side.

  To attack a law, he always declared, one must first make sure that one does not break it.

  I must have been young and certain when I said that, he thought.

  Now Lizzie had openly suggested (among other things admittedly) what had begun to stir in his own mind recently — what must begin to stir in the minds of many men of his age.

  Go for Op.

  It sounded flippant, casual, put like that. He forced himself to think what it really meant. It was a favourite theory of his that verbal abbreviations were often euphemistic to start with and morally blinding to finish with. To ‘go for Op’ meant, he formulated carefully, to use one’s wealth illegally and selfishly to pay for a criminal operation which would extend one’s life above and beyond the maximum permitted by the laws passed by a democratically elected government. So stringently applied were these laws, moreover, that it involved illegal exit from one’s country with (if it were to be worth while) sufficient funds to maintain one during the illegal extension of one’s life-span.

  That just about covers it, he thought. Put like that, it is obviously out of the question.

  Obviously?

  Not obviously or I would not be thinking about it. This is the natural panic of age. These are last, and worst, growing pains.

  Yet who would I harm? I have no one touchable by the law. I’m lucky in that respect.

  Lucky?

  Why had he not married Lizzie when Edna, his wife, died eighteen years ago?

  Because I had not the right to involve her so closely with me in a dangerous struggle, he cried inwardly.

  Suddenly he realized that he was twisting round in his seat and the others were looking at him with concern. Matlock had always set the tone of gatherings of his intimates, they respected his silence and had not spoken since he relapsed into his brown study. Lizzie had re-entered the compartment unnoticed and was regarding him with such loving concern that he forced himself to relax and smile at her.

  It was still not too late, he thought. Perhaps that was the answer, a few final years of domestic contentment. At sixty-nine he was in the prime of life. Well, just a very little out of it. But sexually he was as active and as potent as ever he had been. He had hardly a grey hair; his body was tanned and fit. Lungs, liver and lights all in order, he thought, recalling this odd list from God knows where.

  And heart?

  Oh no trouble there. No one ever had any trouble there any more. Since the first transplant attempts in the nineteen-sixties, things had come a long way. Hearts could be popped in and out with vast speed and almost 100 per cent certainty of success.

  And everyone had at least one heart operation in a lifetime. His hand strayed again to his chest. There running down his breast bone was the only large scar on his body. He had been the first, but since then the tidying-up had become so good that nowadays there was rarely a mark to be seen.

  He had been the first.

  He looked across again at Lizzie and thought of her soft round breasts which he knew so well. They had done a good job there. Scarcely a mark. Of course, with Lizzie’s generation they were already doing them much younger.

  He had been the first.

  He suddenly saw in his mind a vision of a young girl, naked on the operating table while white-coated men with rapid efficiency carved a hole in her chest and inserted a large clockwork device, all cogs and springs. This was always how he thought of it, though he knew well the actual electronic device was a mere millimetre in circumference.

  He had been the first.

  He was among those responsible that every man, woman and child in England had embedded in the heart a clock which after seventy years plus was going to sound an alarm, then stop. And the heart with it.

  He stirred again and the others moved too. But this time it was because the smooth dec
eleration of the A-Train told them they were near their destination. He glanced at the wall-clock. It was ten-fifteen.

  Colin followed his gaze.

  “These bloody things are always late nowadays,” he said.

  Ten minutes later they were standing silently in the lift which bore them down to street level.

  “Come back to my place for a drink. We can talk things out,” said Ernst.

  They all looked enquiringly at Matlock. He shook his head.

  “No, thank you. We must talk, but not tonight. Nine-thirty tomorrow morning.”

  He watched them move away, felt the urge to call Lizzie back. Instead he turned west and began his own slow walk home.

  After a while he quickened his pace and paid more attention to the night and his surroundings. As always he admired the ingenuity of the store-artists. Nearly all the big shops were constructed of the new poro-glass which was window or wall at the turn of a switch, with the area and shape of transparency as easily controlled. He stopped outside Selfridges and watched as scene after scene revealed itself in depth as successive walls were cleared. It was like the transformation scene in the old pantomimes, he thought. It was also a very effective anti-burglar device. Though nowadays the new penalties had caused a considerable drop in the crime-rate. This was inevitably used as an argument in support of Age Laws, of course.

  Matlock shivered and started walking again. Fifteen minutes later he was approaching the main door of the block of flats he lived in. When he was about thirty yards away, he noticed two things. The first was a large grey hovercar parked opposite the entrance. The second was a man coming towards him and about the same distance on the other side of his door. It was still early and even in this highly mechanized age walkers, especially in London, were fairly common. But the man’s strange, loose flapping, one-piece garment — a cross between a cloak and a dressing gown — caught Matlock’s attention. There was something about it which touched a chord in his mind, but odder still was the certainty growing in him that this man was going to speak to him, was there for the specific purpose of meeting him.