Death Takes the Low Road Read online

  Caroline reached for the side of the pool and with a single easy movement pulled herself out of the water. Nevis again tried to feel avuncular as he admired her sun-browned frame—small, compact, but full of strength and grace. Not that she was an athlete. If she could just as easily ride somewhere as walk, she saw no reason not to choose comfort. It was a source of much contention between her and William Blake Hazlitt.

  Exactly what she felt about him she was far from sure. But his sudden disappearance a week earlier had left a considerable gap in her life. She frowned now, realising that ‘disappearance’ had completely dislodged ‘departure’.

  There had been a phone call, breaking a date. Sorry, but a conference he was organising had been cancelled, leaving a fortnight’s gap in his work schedule, and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss to take up some back vacation, so he was off on the night plane. … Where? she had asked. But the night plane, it seemed, would not stay for an answer.

  That had been odd. Odder were the descriptions from common acquaintances in the university administration of the brutal suddenness with which Bill had made off, leaving stacks of work for others to cope with.

  And oddest had been seven days’ silence. Not a call, not a postcard.

  ‘How’s the thesis?’ asked Nevis.

  ‘So so. It needs a little structuring, I guess. There’s just so much material.’

  But her mind was not on the problem of Robert Southey’s influence on the poetry of Walt Whitman which had been occupying her working hours for the past three years and which felt as if it might occupy them for the next three also.

  Her mind was on the problem of William Blake Hazlitt. It was time she did something.

  He must be in trouble.

  And, boy, if he wasn’t in trouble, was he in trouble!

  The sun was warm on her shoulders. She looked longingly at the pool, but resisted the temptation to plunge back in.

  There were much more important things to be done.

  The Old Etonian had been born in a Huddersfield back-to-back and educated at the Mill Lane Charity School for the Children of the Destitute, whose ranks he might well have joined had not the Army’s ranks been even more eager to claim him. Here low cunning, ruthlessness and the gift of mimicry proved the exact qualities needed for self-advancement, and the Special Operations Executive the best place to practise them in.

  His new elevation had not ended with the war. Instead he found his talents in even greater demand, till finally he became a giver of orders rather than a taker. For so long now had he been living in his Sloane Street flat as an Old Etonian race-goer of independent means that he had practically forgotten his Yorkshire childhood.

  In his flat there were two phones, one of which he always answered with great distaste. This was the one his team used for reporting in. Or for his masters checking up on him.

  It rang now.

  ‘Hello,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘This Hazlitt business. What’s going on?’

  The voice at the other end cultivated northern brusqueness as assiduously as the Old Etonian his own lengthened vowels.

  ‘Pretty straightforward, sir. We made an approach, offered him a deal.’

  ‘Which he accepted?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. No; in a few words, no.’

  ‘So you took him in.’

  ‘Wrong again, I’m afraid, sir. He made a break for it, got clear away. But we’re close to him now.’

  ‘That’ll be nice. You’ll take him then?’

  ‘Well, no, sir. You see, I think he may lead us to them, if you follow me.’

  ‘Why not just thump it out of him?’

  The Old Etonian sighed with distaste, remembering the old days when only gentlemen got to the top, with a few remarkable exceptions.

  ‘I doubt if he’d talk, sir. It will be better this way, I assure you.’

  ‘You’d best be right. What about Lincoln? Is that covered?’

  ‘Yes, yes, rest assured. We’re covering any likely contacts. There’s an American girl he seems to have been interested in.’

  ‘American, you say? We want no truck with the sodding Americans. You keep her out of this, do you hear? Make sure she stays clear.’

  ‘Of course, sir. I’ll put one of my best men on it.’

  ‘You do that. Keep me posted. Right?’

  The phone was thumped down. The Old Etonian shook his head, depressed the rest, dialled a number.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Tell me, who’s active in Lincoln just now. Who? Durban? Oh, I see. Well, I suppose he’ll have to do. Tell him to fasten on to the girl. I want to know everything she does. Everything.’

  Durban, he thought gloomily as he replaced the receiver. He had a sudden presentiment it was going to be a bad week.

  Hazlitt idly splashed around in the water and wondered what the man in the tartan shirt proposed to do now. Not shoot him, it seemed. His mad, panic-stricken sprint away from the shore had brought no pursuing shots. It had been a stupid reaction brought on by violent scrotum-twisting fear. But it turned out to have been the right one.

  The tartan-shirted man, whom Hazlitt now thought of as Tom (Mark II) as opposed to the probably wholly innocent Tom (Mark I) in the fawn raincoat, had not fired. Bullet holes caused talk. But Hazlitt was certain that, had he climbed out on to the bank, Tom (Mark II) would have found some undectable method of rendering him unconscious before returning his body to drown in the loch.

  Tragic Accident on Skye. Two lines in the dailies.

  Or some enterprising muck-raker caught short in the silly season might make a little more of it. Nude Registrar Probe. That was a nice come-on. A police spokesman said that drowning while under the influence of drugs and attempting to have illicit intercourse with a cormorant was not suspected.

  If he couldn’t be tragic, he might as well be titillating. But at the moment he saw no immediate need to be either. All he had to do was splash around in the middle of the loch for a couple of hours, which to a swimmer of his capacity was no problem. Then the afternoon boat would arrive, the trippers would appear over the ridge and Tom would be most reluctant to try anything nasty under the gaze of all those Japanese binoculars.

  Idly he wondered what excuse Tom had made for wanting to be left alone till the boat returned. Bird-watching, perhaps. Or a sudden attack of pantheism. Whatever the reason, his fellow-travellers must have thought it odd of him to abandon his young bride.

  He smiled at the thought of fellow-travellers. An outmoded term now, but still with lots of emotive power for the over-thirties. Some more than others.

  Something splashed in the water not far from his face. A fish rising perhaps. He had by strictly illegal and unsporting means supplemented his imported rations with a couple of fat trout during the past week.

  Splosh.

  No fish that. He trod water and peered short-sightedly at the shore. At this distance outlines were blurred and Tom might have been a bright-shirted scarecrow with one arm outstretched.

  Splosh. Splosh. Splosh.

  A slow suspicion began to mature in Hazlitt’s mind and he duck-dived in terror as the water spurted up in his face.

  The scarecrow’s arm was outstretched because he had a gun in it, which was presently pumping bullets into the unresentful loch. What had brought about this sudden change in Tom’s plans he couldn’t guess. Perhaps the knowledge that he could not afford to wait till the boat returned. And while accidental death would have been preferred, at a pinch cold-blooded murder would have to do.

  He surfaced for a quick bite of sun-flavoured air, but didn’t stay for seconds. His mind registered that Tom must have fitted a silencer. Clever. There were always ears, even in so remote an area. Walkers, climbers; on a day like this, gun-shot sounds could carry for miles.

  Which was more than could be said for bullets from such a small pistol, he reassured himself as he made landfall on the opposite shore. He glanced back over the loch. Tom was still standing there. It would need
a miracle for the man to hit his target at this range.

  Hazlitt made a derisive gesture which, superstitiously, he immediately regretted. God was not mocked. It might be wise to hop out on the bank and increase the size of the required miracle by a few feet of solid rock.

  Gingerly he clambered out, happy to feel the full heat of the sun once more. The waters of the loch had chilled him more than he realised. He stretched luxuriantly and turned his face upwards so that the sun filled his eyes. For a few moments after he looked away he could see nothing but a golden glow. After a while he began to see shapes again. And then he could see colour.

  Last of all he turned round and saw why Tom’s fellow-travellers had not thought it odd of him to abandon his young bride.

  She was standing before him, looking remarkably like her ‘husband’. Not only did their shirts match, so did their guns.

  Perhaps she was as reluctant to use it. He would put it to the test.

  With an apologetic smile, he grabbed for her arm. Somehow he missed by a mile and instead found his own arms seized, crossed, felt pressure applied, bent with it to prevent the bones breaking, and found himself floating gently through the summer-perfumed air.

  He hit the ground with a crash that knocked all the breath out of his body. More than breath, he suspected. When he staggered to his feet again he half expected to see many vital internal organs scattered around.

  The woman and the gun were before him once more. After vainglory, modesty is the most strongly conditioned reflex of the English. He found that, dazed though he was, he was standing like a footballer facing a free kick, his hands crossed defensively over his crotch.

  She made a gesture with the gun.

  ‘Hands up,’ she said.

  Surprisingly, he found he was still able to laugh.

  3

  Caroline knew how a private eye worked. He slapped photos on bars and said out of the side of his mouth, ‘Know him?’ Or wore his shabby raincoat in the houses of the rich, was more than a match for their sneers, and finally provoked them into an admission of guilt.

  But that was in California, USA. In Lincoln, England, things were different.

  To start with, she hadn’t got a photo. And at three o’clock in the afternoon there were no bars open to bang her non-photo down on. It wasn’t the weather for shabby raincoats either, so she compromised with sun-top and slacks and started collecting sneers at Hazlitt’s office.

  Miss Plackett, his secretary, was totally unhelpful. Of an age with Hazlitt and twice his size, she had built up a substantial matrimonial fantasy based entirely on what might or might not have been a deliberate side-swipe of her left buttock at a Christmas party two years ago. Caroline (quite unconsciously) was her rival. Only constant self-reminders of her mother’s dictum that little men liked big girls kept Miss Plackett’s hopes alive.

  She managed to imply totally fallaciously that she knew more than she cared to say and Caroline went away more worried than ever.

  In a neighbouring office two very smooth young men, who were called administrative assistants and wanted (according to Hazlitt) Hazlitt’s job, were drinking tea.

  They greeted her with little cries of pleasure. They were called, unbelievably, Tarquin and Sholto, and Hazlitt tried to counter the feelings of inadequacy their youth and elegance gave him by pretending he could not distinguish between them.

  Caroline had no such difficulty. Tarquin Adam was the one she had found in her uncle’s pool late one night swimming naked with the Reader in Moral Philosophy. She had never mentioned this to Hazlitt, and Tarquin always greeted her conspiratorially, as though bent on advertising to the world that they shared a guilty secret.

  Sholto Greig, on the other hand, who was the elder by about three years, presented quite another problem in that he had paid fervent court to her during her first few weeks at the university and had said some biting things about American father-fixations when she started seeing a great deal of Hazlitt.

  But he was the more helpful of the two when she started making her casual, non-alarmist enquiries about Hazlitt’s possible whereabouts.

  ‘Not even a dirty postcard,’ complained Tarquin. ‘Mind you, duckie, we’re not entirely surprised, I can tell you. Oh no. The poor chap’s been abrogating his responsibilities for some time now. No paper in the gents’, waste-paper baskets not emptied, lipstick on the coffee-cups. We’ve been positively carrying him for months, you know.’

  Sholto took her arm and led her away into another office.

  ‘You’re not really worried, are you?’

  ‘Yes. Well, to tell you the truth, I am, just a bit. It’s not like him, going off like this. At least I don’t think it’s like him. I haven’t known him all that long, I guess.’

  Sholto’s thin, finely-boned face creased in sympathy.

  ‘You’re right,’ he assurred her, adding reluctantly, ‘Tarquin’s a fool, I know, but there’s just a bit of truth in what he says. Bill has been a bit edgy of late. It’s nothing at the office, I’m sure. I even thought it might have something to do with …’

  He tailed off. Caroline shook her head.

  ‘No. Nothing to do with me. At least I don’t think so. I noticed it too.’

  ‘Look,’ said Sholto, ‘would you like to speak to Stuart?’

  Caroline hesitated. Stewart Stuart, the Registrar, was a man who intimidated her considerably. His physical bulk was bad enough, but it was his manner, perfected and refined during thirty years of distinguished service in Whitehall, that bothered her most. Nothing seemed to be done without forethought. Even his absurdities seemed as well organised as a grandmaster’s moves in a chess match. Sir Walter Tyas, the erstwhile Cabinet Minister, disappointed in his hopes of the party leadership eight years earlier, had soon afterwards slipped gracefully out of political life and become Vice-Chancellor of Lincoln. With him from the corridors of power he had brought Stuart. Together they had re-organised ramshackle structures and raised standards to a pitch where Sir Walter could claim that Lincoln University was perhaps the only one in the country which could guarantee the literacy of all its students.

  Hazlitt had assisted with this work for six years now, too long career-wise, but with an unspoken promise that when Stuart retired in a couple of years the job would fall into his lap. He and the Registrar had a good working relationship and shared a taste for excellence in food and wine. Sometimes Caroline felt herself cut out by the two of them together and memory of this made her shake her head now.

  ‘Later perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘I wish you would,’ said Sholto. ‘There’s this African trip coming off soon and Bill really ought to be here making sure his work’s organised.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Sholto,’ said Caroline.

  Thanks for what? she wondered. She was leaving the registry even more worried than when she had arrived. The African trip referred to was only five weeks away and its proximity certainly made Hazlitt’s behaviour even more difficult to understand. He had been invited to be the Acting Registrar of the new African University of Balowa for a six-month period. He had been out there in an advisory capacity some eighteen months earlier and had done an excellent job. While out there he had renewed the acquaintance of George Oto (now Colonel Oto), whom he had known vaguely at Oxford. Now after a sudden but bloodless change of government Oto was Premier and he personally had issued the invitation to Hazlitt, making the whole business still more prestigious.

  This was certainly something Hazlitt would not want to mess up. Perhaps, thought Caroline suddenly, perhaps that was where he had gone. Africa. But why?

  Hell, it was just a wild guess, she told herself angrily, leaving the university. Let’s go and get some facts.

  Next stop was Hazlitt’s flat. He insisted on living centrally, a necessity, since he had foresworn cars some years earlier and did not wish to be a slave of the bus service. He sometimes rode an enormous bicycle, but a few spots of rain on his thick glasses turned him into a pavement-mounting, policem
an-bashing menace.

  The bike stood in the entrance hall like the centre-piece of an industrial museum. Mrs Searle, Hazlitt’s landlady, who lived in the basement, had opened the door for Caroline, who now stood alone in the lounge and wondered what she was looking for.

  She had only been here four or five times before. On none of these occasions had there been any suggestion that she might stay all night which had slightly disappointed Caroline. She was not a girl who slept around, but she was used to the company of young men who would rapidly and persuasively make the suggestion.

  The worrying thought that Hazlitt’s interest might not be developing at the same pace as her own occurred again. She was not really certain if she had any right to feel so concerned about him. But she was here now and to leave without looking would be stupid.

  Five minutes later she was ready to give up. Her fears were stupid, she decided. For whatever reason, Hazlitt had wanted to get away for a few days. Why shouldn’t he? He was a mature man. Too mature, perhaps. Why involve a mere slip of a girl in your business?

  She looked at herself in the mirror.

  ‘Bullshit,’ she said aloud. Small she might be, but definitely not a mere slip of a girl. She went through into the bedroom and began opening drawers.

  Half a minute later she found his passport. Its significance escaped her for a moment, then it dawned. Wherever else Hazlitt was, he was not in Africa. Or anywhere out of the country.

  She opened the wardrobe. Not having known the man for a full round of the seasons, her acquaintance with his clothes was incomplete, so what had been taken was difficult to say. She recognised his two well-cut office suits, made by a Bradford tailor, visits to whom saved Hazlitt twenty pounds a time, or so he claimed, and also made him the best-dressed man in the senior common room. It was one of his dearest affectations. He had been genuinely hurt when Caroline suggested they were from C and A with the labels cut out.

  In for a penny, she thought, and went through the pockets. He was a great collector of rubbish; all the litter of a hypochondriac was there: indigestion tablets in silver foil, throat lozenges, bits of Elastoplast; plus restaurant bills going back for eighteen months, bus and train tickets, pieces of newspaper, shop receipts.