The Shepherd File (5 page)

‘We have people here studying my methods,’ continued Mrs Wrythe, ‘from all over the world; Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand; from France and Germany and Holland — ’

‘Africa?’

‘We have had students from Africa and India and Ceylon and Burma. Indeed we have two African students here at this moment studying diet.’

‘Have you now?’

‘The students,’ she said, tactfully, ‘do not mix with the patients. They have their own quarters, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘If you come to us, Mr Holmes, one thing you will need is absolute peace and quiet; absolute rest.’

Holmes smiled wanly. When he left Mrs Wrythe after a fascinating quarter of an hour he was puzzled and slightly excited. He felt that he was on to something; if only he knew what it was. He began to make his own highly individual enquiries about Uplands. They were not exactly the same methods Morrison used but they provided the information. Uplands was genuine and many highly distinguished people swore by Mrs Wrythe and her methods. A stockbroker friend of Holmes who had been there for a week had lost nearly a stone and had come away feeling like a two-year-old. He had swum naked in the lake in the grounds, been massaged, taken hot and cold showers, sunbathed, climbed trees in the woods, and eaten nothing but oranges and vegetables and drunk nothing but rather flat and tasteless water, which he thought must have been distilled water, but all the same it cured his indigestion and gave him something of a waistline again. ‘Marvellous place,' he said, nostalgically. ‘Marvellous.’ Mrs Wrythe was a martinet, a tyrant, but she got results.

‘Is she a qualified chemist?' asked Holmes. The stockbroker, somewhat naturally, had not the faintest idea. It took two days before Inspector Post could come up with the answer. She was not. Holmes took the growing accumulation of papers about Mrs Wrythe and Uplands to bed with him and spent a sleepless night brooding over them.

The case took another turn with the deportation of Nina Lydoevna.

Like other Foreign Office decisions, no one knew anything about it in advance. It was a diplomatic matter, and diplomatic affairs were the province of the Foreign Office alone. It was true that the second secretary at the Soviet Embassy had been under suspicion for some time and that the Shepherd affair was not the only thing the Foreign Office had against Nina Lydoevna but at least — declared the indignant Morrison — Scott Elliot could have asked Scotland Yard about it first. The answer to that was that Scott Elliot probably would have told Morrison if he had not known that Lamb would have got to hear of it as well. So Scott Elliot observed protocol and told nobody. The first that Lamb or Morrison knew about it was the arrival of the copy of the Foreign Office note to his Excellency the Ambassador of the United Soviet Socialist Republics that his second secretary, Nina Lydoevna, was no longer
persona
grata
to Her Majesty's Government.

‘And that is that,' said Morrison. ‘They've done it on purpose.'

They had probably done it to avoid trouble, thought Holmes. There were many reasons why it would be advantageous to the Foreign Office to have sent Nina Lydoevna out of the country if she had been concerned in a security case. The impression would be created that MI5 had done nothing and the Foreign Office had. They had got rid of her.

‘I know she had diplomatic immunity,' said Morrison, ‘but given a chance we might have got something on her. Do you know one reason why the Foreign Office wanted to get rid of her? — she was carrying on Russian propaganda among foreign students in London.’

‘Was she?’ murmured Holmes. ‘Carrying on propaganda, eh? How very serious.’

‘There were complaints about her,’ said Morrison.

‘Were there?’

‘From the students themselves.’

‘Were there now?’ said Holmes. His eyes were suddenly bright. ‘These students who complained,’ said Holmes, — were they, by any chance, African?’

There was a slow silence. Morrison took the pipe out of his mouth. ‘As a matter of fact, they were,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing surprising about that. Nina Lydoevna is supposed to be one of the Soviet Union’s greatest experts on Africa.’

‘Is she now?’ murmured Holmes. His eyes were still bright and he was smiling. His next remark was almost inaudible, as though not intended for Morrison at all:

‘Complaints about the greatest expert on Africa? Isn’t that odd.’

Monique

She felt she could sleep quite easily during the day but if she lay down and tried to do so she merely remained wide awake. Sometimes at night she could sleep if she took capsules but sometimes even that did not work. It had been like that ever since her husband died. All the time she thought of him. She thought how it must have been horrible to drown and how he must have called out to her. It hurt more now than at first because she was no longer numb but sensitive to pain and quivered when the pain hit her; she had had no idea that mental pain could hurt as much as physical.

She walked round the house to relieve some of the tension and watched the small boy playing in the sandpit and remembered who had made the sandpit and walked away because she could not bear to remember any longer. She lay heavy with anguish on the couch under the sun umbrella on the terrace. Each moment dragged on and each moment became more and more unbearable. There was a scent of pine. The sun shone. The garden looked beautiful.

There was a bell.

She got up to go to the front door. She expected a neighbour. The neighbours had been kind but their kindness was behind a screen and did not touch her. She did not get any comfort from kindness. It was a distraction, like dope, cigarettes, brandy. She had not known she could drink so much brandy.

She opened the door and there was a stranger, a man standing there. He was youngish, pleasant-looking, well dressed. The face was long, clear-skinned, with intelligent eyes. It gave her, for a brief moment, a feeling of pleasure to look at him; and immediately she hated and resented the feeling. She knew that her emotions were abnormal; she was in a mood to find abnormality a relief and an escape. ‘What do you want?’

He said that his name was Holmes and he had known her husband. She looked at him for some time, at the grave face and intelligent eyes, the full lips, the brown hair shining in the sun. Her main feeling was one of fear and dislike, but she was curious. There was another feeling she did not recognize. Neither seemed to be in any hurry. They stood almost without movement. At length it was Holmes who broke the silence.

‘Can we talk?'

She was on the point of saying that she did not want to talk to anybody; but the other feeling took over.

‘You can come in if you want to.’

She took it as an excuse for another cigarette and another drink and another method of distracting her attention from the pain and the emptiness. He took a drink also, rather to her surprise. It was not, he said, an official visit. He had known Shepherd. He wanted to talk. He had liked Shepherd. He had admired him.

‘I am sorry — ’ she said, and stopped. She had wanted to say that she was sorry that she had been rude at the door but she was not sure now what had happened or whether she had been rude or whether he had noticed. ‘You are — ’ she asked ‘ — from the department?’

He was, but it was not an official visit. ‘Lamb,’ he said, with a grin, ‘doesn’t know.’

The sullen smile was disarming.

‘Why have you come?’

‘Why does one come?’ he said as though he was asking himself the question and had been asking it for some time, before he came, on his way, repeatedly. ‘I knew Shepherd,’ he repeated. ‘I liked him. I suppose I wanted to see if there was anything I could do. Not,’ he said, ‘that I believe I can do anything. No one can. I take it,’ he added, ‘you’re all right for money?’

‘At the moment.’

The department will look after you.’

She tightened her lips. ‘Will it?’

He nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘You think so?’

‘It always does.’

He began to ask about her family. Her mother and father lived at Liège. They were too old to travel. She had sisters and a brother. Perhaps they might come over. She had not asked them for the funeral. He got the impression she liked to be independent and was not close to her family.

The small boy came in for something, stared at the stranger and went out. He asked about the boy. He was just starting school. She had no plans for the future. She did not know whether they were going to stay in England. In one way she would like the boy brought up in England but in another way she would not.

He changed the subject.

‘When did you first meet your husband?’

‘In Brussels.’

‘You were a dancer?’

‘I worked at a nightclub called Au Poids de l’Or … ’

‘You met him there.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know who he was?’

‘Not then, no. I thought he was in the diplomatic service. We used to get a number of foreign visitors. It was one of the show spots. I liked him. He asked me to go out. That’s how it began.’

‘Did you ever know what his job was?’

‘I wasn’t interested in his job.’

‘What were you interested in?’

‘In him.’

‘Did you know where he worked?’

‘Yes.’

‘When did he tell you?’

‘Just before we were married.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That he was a civil servant, that he worked in the Ministry of Defence.’

‘Did you know what he was doing in Brussels?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Did you ever know he worked for the department?’

‘I knew it was secret work. I didn’t know what it was.’

‘You weren’t interested?’

‘I was curious, sometimes.’

‘When?’

‘Mostly about his trips abroad. He used to say he was buying army supplies. Sometimes he would be away for three or four months and I would hardly ever hear from him.’

‘You used to get worried?’

‘I didn’t like being left alone.’

‘You imagined him at other nightclubs?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you wondered about his work?’

She hesitated. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘Did you ever ask him, directly, what he was doing?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Did he tell you?’

‘He used to tell me something. It didn’t mean very much.’

‘Did you say you didn’t like him being away for so long at a time?’

‘He knew that.’

‘You told him?’

‘There was no need. He knew.’

‘But he didn’t mind?’

‘He enjoyed his work.’

‘Did he say so?’

‘I could see he did.’

‘Did you ever ask him to change his job so that he could be at home more?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He refused.’

She had no idea why she was talking so freely. She was surprised. It had seemed casual conversation but she had already gone so far that she felt much of the reserve had been broken. It made her suddenly cautious. She asked several questions in her turn, probing to see if he had known her husband well. By his answers he appeared to have done so. He spoke quite easily and freely about him. Suddenly she said:

‘He thought of nothing but his work.’

‘He thought of you.’

‘Did he?’ She spoke eagerly. ‘You think so?’

Looking at her he thought, suddenly, abruptly, that Shepherd had been fortunate in marrying her. She had the long classical head which he had always associated with the women of the Renaissance, the high forehead, the full red lips, the perfectly proportioned nose; the head of the women of the castles of Poitou and Angouleme.

‘I was entirely separate from Peter's work,’ she said. ‘Entirely separate. It was like, in a way, only living with half a man. Eventually it was his work which killed him.’

‘What makes you say that?'

‘It may not be obvious to the department, but it is obvious to me.’

‘It was an accident?’

‘Colonel Lamb thinks it was suicide.’

‘Did he say that?’

‘It’s what he thinks.’

‘But he didn’t say so?’

‘He as good as said it.’

‘Why?”

‘Because of this Russian woman he got mixed up with.’ Holmes cursed silently. He began to say: ‘I don’t think — ‘ but got no further.

‘Of course!’ she interrupted, bitterly. ‘It’s obvious! You’re trying to be nice. But it’s no good. I know what you’re all thinking. Colonel Lamb as good as said it. Well, why shouldn’t he? It is obvious, isn’t it, when you look at it? He comes back without leave and meets a woman who has now been deported. I saw she had been deported in the papers. Why? Because she’s been spying. And he helped her. That’s what you think. Then he committed suicide because he couldn’t face it. That’s what you think, isn’t it? I know you’re trying to be nice to me but that’s what you think.’

Her hands were trembling. She took a cigarette and inhaled the smoke savagely. She came back to the table and poured another drink.

‘Well, of course,’ she said, in a quieter voice. ‘It is obvious.’

Holmes spoke equally quietly: ‘It’s not obvious and knowing Shepherd it’s not what I believe.’

‘Everyone else does.’

‘Not everyone.’

‘When the department gets an idea in its head you won’t be able to get it out again.’ She was vindictive, savage, contemptuous. He could see the hatred in her eyes.

‘I can’t blame you for feeling like that,’ he said.

‘You’re all wrong about Peter,’ she said. ‘All of you.’ She spoke with that abnormal vehemence which he had already noticed. She stood up and crossed the room. She turned round. He could not help admiring her gesture. It was that of an actress. It was vibrant with indignation. Her shoulders were thrown back, breasts straining against the blouse, hips and legs wide, hair flying.

‘Peter would never have drowned,’ she said. ‘Not even when he was drunk. Not Peter. I told Colonel Lamb. He would never have drowned. Once when we were at a party he was blind drunk. They threw him into the swimming pool: at the Poids de l’Or: you can ask the manager. He swam easily, in his clothes, yet he could hardly stand upright. A man like that,’ she said, ‘would never have drowned.’

He wondered whether he ought to suggest to her that Shepherd might have drowned if he had been drugged; but he did not.

‘You think,’ he said, ‘that he might have been killed?’

‘Murdered?’ she corrected. ‘I don’t know. It is more understandable than an accident. Suicide I do not believe. Don’t expect me to think that he betrayed secrets!’

She had an obsession about Nina Lydoevna. He could tell that from her next question. ‘What was she like, this Russian; was she attractive?’

‘I don’t think so. She is over forty.’

‘Some women over forty are very attractive.’

She was intensely jealous. He imagined that at times she could be violently passionate. He wondered what her relationship with Shepherd had been.

‘What a waste of a life,’ she said.

He did not know what to reply.

‘A complete waste,’ she said. ‘He had brains, intelligence, a wonderful spirit. He had a tremendous belief in love, in idealism, in living, in creating things. So he creates nothing and does nothing and throws his life away. On what? For what? Why should he? It would not matter in a cause, a battle, something in which he could believe.’

He looked at her for a long time. In her anger she was somehow very beautiful but it was a contemptuous and violent beauty. It was no good trying to assuage her contempt, to argue otherwise.

‘He could have created a poem,’ she said. ‘Or music. He could have done something useful.’

‘Maybe he did.’

‘You seem to be the only one who thinks so.’

‘So you hated his work?’

‘I did,’ she said. The emphasis on the words implied that Shepherd had not. It was a confirmation he needed. He had got a better picture of Shepherd by talking to her than he had ever had before from all the reports which had been compiled for him.

‘Look here,’ he said, seriously. ‘Don’t think it was a waste. We don’t know. No one knows. But I, personally, don’t believe it was. And another thing. Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t be impulsive.’

She shrugged her shoulders. There was a slight smile. It came and went.

‘Peter used to tell me.’

‘What?’

‘Not to be impulsive.’

‘He was right.’

Holmes got up. He did not know quite why he should have given her advice. In any case she was not the sort of woman who would take any notice. Lamb, he was convinced, had handled her in the wrong way. If it had been a man it would have been all right; Lamb could handle men. He was hopeless with women. She was antagonized. Not that he could blame her because it was true in one way that the department had killed her husband. His work had killed him. She hated his work. As though she was following his thoughts, she said just that.

‘His work destroyed him. In the end he became obsessed by it.’

‘Was he more obsessed by it when he came back from Africa the last time?’