The Malcontenta (16 page)

‘So?’

‘Just that … doing nothing didn’t do me a lot of good. I’ve kept thinking about that letter. It was like an accusation that I’d given up.

‘Anyway, I did nothing. And then earlier this week I heard a rumour about Long. His secretary is a friend of Penny Elliot’s sister and told her that Long has put in for a top job at Scotland Yard - she said the Assistant Commissioner. I couldn’t believe it, and then I wondered: what if it’s true? I remembered how he’d interfered in the Petrou case, and then I thought about Rose’s phrase “people in positions who should know better”, and I thought, what if she meant
him}
The only thing I could think to do was see you, Brock. I wondered if you could find out anything about Long. Maybe check if the story was true about him applying to the Met.’

‘Oh, I already know about Long, Kathy,’ Brock said. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he lusted after a position like that. I’d hate to believe it was anything more than fantasy, but you never know … worth a phone call, I suppose.’

He got to his feet and went over to the phone on the work-bench beside the computers. While he thumbed through a small notebook, Kathy and Gordon set about clearing the lunch things, taking them through to the kitchen and washing them in the sink. They took their time, not speaking, wanting to leave Brock alone while he phoned his friends. When they returned he was sitting deep in thought, a frown on his face.

‘He’s got it,’ he said at last. ‘The bugger’s got it. Apparently the process has been going on for months, and he’s come out on top. They’re currently in the final negotiations over the package - the knighthood, I suppose. The position is a direct appointment of the sovereign. There probably won’t be a public announcement for several weeks.’ ‘Oh God!’ Kathy looked sick.

‘I can’t believe it. It seems he has important friends. But still … he’s such a …’ He searched for the word, failed and paced up and down, shaking his head.

‘We went through Bramshill Police College together in the early sixties,’ he said at last. ‘I remember being impressed by the fact that he was the first person I’d ever met who had already planned his whole life - he would have been, I don’t know, twenty-five, twenty-six. He’d done a first degree at Manchester, then gone to America to get an MBA - ahead of his time, you see. He wasn’t in the least interested in what the police
do.
The force for him was simply a structure to be climbed according to a prearranged plan. It might have been the Foreign Office or the Inland Revenue, it didn’t really matter. He chose the police because he’d read that a new spirit was afoot, sweeping away the old types, the ones who’d come up slowly through the ranks. A new culture was to be nurtured, a culture of young, tertiary-educated, managerial types who would be given accelerated promotion so as to bring about the sweeping changes necessary. Well … you know the sort of thing. It makes me tired to think about it.

‘Anyway, he was right in a way. He did rise quickly, despite the objections of one or two absurd old reactionaries who felt that policemen should probably know something about solving crimes. I thought when he reached Deputy Chief Constable, five or six years ago, that he must have finally reached the level of his incompetence. But I was wrong, it seems.’

‘It isn’t only him,’ Kathy said. ‘Tanner made Chief Inspector last month.’

‘Well, now, they’re all doing fine, aren’t they? I did wonder about Tanner, why he went along with Long’s interference. Perhaps that’s the explanation: he knew what was in the wind.’ Brock collected his thoughts for a moment.

‘Anyway, the heart of the matter is Petrou’s death. If you were wrong to smell a rat there, then there’s nothing to be done. But if you were right…’

Kathy nodded. ‘But there’s no way I can get the case reopened, Brock. Nobody could now, not without some real evidence.’

‘And if there’s any of that, it’s hidden away in Stanhope Clinic’

Brock got stiffly to his feet and stretched his back. He started talking again as if on a completely different tack. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit out of shape lately. And this damn shoulder has been getting worse. It’s been playing up all winter. I wonder if a spot of acupuncture would help.’

Kathy and Gordon stared at him. ‘You’re not serious?’ she said.

He beamed. ‘Do you know, Kathy, I’ve been worried over the past couple of months that I was about to turn into one of those old men sitting in their armchairs, tapping out their reminiscences, pontificating to the young. I do believe you’ve saved me. Anyway, I can take my laptop with me, write my paper for the conference while they’re cleaning the poisons out of my system. Do you have the phone number? I could be down there tomorrow.’

Part Two

Brock set off late on Monday morning with an expansive sense of freedom and anticipation. He hadn’t realized what a relief it would be to get back to the investigation of a crime again. The novelty of working on his own, without the need to report to or organize anyone else, was exhilarating. As if to highlight his mood, the sun came out as soon as he reached open country, bringing a blinding sparkle to the snow-covered fields. As he made his way down the Kentish back roads, he lowered the window to catch the smells in the sharp country air and listen to the shrieks of rooks wheeling out of the copses. He stopped at a quiet country pub and had a light lunch of bread and cheese and beer, in deference to the simple but wholesome diet he expected to enjoy over the next two weeks that he was booked into the clinic.

The sun disappeared shortly before he reached Edenham, and by the time he reached Stanhope the sky was dark and heavy. He pulled up under the trees in the car park and walked to the front of the house. At the top of the steps he stopped to recover his breath, admire the view and kick the snow off his shoes. He stepped into the warmth of the entrance hall and was immediately confronted by the pervasive smell which Kathy had tried to describe - earthy, institutional, yet not quite like anything he had ever smelled before.

The woman at the desk checked his name against a schedule and told him he had an appointment with the Director in just over an hour, at three-thirty. Before then he should go up to his room, get changed into the clothes he’d been told to bring and fill in the questionnaire she gave him. She took a print of his credit card and gave him a key, and on a photocopied diagram of the layout of the house she marked out for him with her ball-point the route he should take to his room in the west wing. He felt like a new boy at school, making his way in his outdoor clothes and carrying his small suitcase past the patients he met in the corridors.

The room was spartan, with basic furniture and a washbasin simply mounted in one corner. A large window looked directly out to the gardens on the north side of the house. And there in the centre of his view, brooding in its dark grove above the swell of white ground, was the Temple of Apollo.

The sense of pleasurable anticipation with which he had set off from London was evaporating. He changed into shorts and T-shirt and sat on the edge of the bed in his dressing gown and slippers. He felt absurd. The few belongings he had brought with him - the laptop, a box of disks, a couple of books - looked pathetically out of place on the small table. He picked up the file of information about the clinic which had been left for him on the bedside cabinet and flicked through it, wondering how he would pass the time until his appointment.

He turned to the questionnaire and began to fill it in. When he came to ‘Occupation’ he entered ‘Civil Servant’, a half-truth. In response to ‘What do you most want to achieve from your stay at Stanhope?’ he wrote ‘General physical well-being and relief from shoulder pain’, a lie.

At three twenty-five he went downstairs and followed the photocopied plan to the room marked ‘Director’s Office’. Dr Beamish-Newell looked sombre and impressive as he shook Brock’s hand. He held it just a little longer than might be expected, fixing Brock with his dark eyes, his expression slightly distant as they exchanged pleasantries, as if his mind was concentrating on making a diagnosis through his hand and eye contact. He offered Brock a seat and examined his responses to the questionnaire. ‘A civil servant, Mr Brock,’ he murmured.

Brock smiled absently. ‘Yes.’

‘We’ve had quite a few people from various parts of Whitehall visit us in the past. What kind of work do you do?’

‘Home Office,’ Brock replied. ‘Statistics.’ Another lie. ‘Sedentary work?’ ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Do you take any form of exercise?’

‘Well, not much, really. I used to walk a neighbour’s dog until a year ago, when she died. The dog, I mean.’

‘And you’re a single man. Divorced. How long ago?’

‘Oh, ages. 1970.’ Brock wondered if this was really necessary. He was beginning to feel like a suspect.

Beamish-Newell questioned him at length about his diet and eating habits and then moved on to his health record, confirming that he hadn’t smoked for ten years and querying his estimate of his alcohol intake. ‘Did you bring any alcoholic drinks here with you?’

‘I did as a matter of fact.’ Brock felt absurdly guilty. ‘A bottle of whisky.’

Beamish-Newell nodded. ‘Many people do, the first time they come here, David.’ The confession seemed to have earned the use of the first name. ‘But I don’t want you to touch it. What you drink is part of your diet, and diet is central to what we do. Abstinence is an important tool in the control of diet, as in the control of self. I shall invite you to embrace abstinence willingly, David. Forgoing the whisky will be the first step. All right?’

Brock nodded. This was going to be more serious than he had thought.

‘You say you want to achieve general physical well-being. Apart from the shoulder, how do you feel about your physical state, would you say?’

‘Oh … a bit flabby, I think. Need to lose a few pounds.’

‘How many?’

‘I don’t know. In fact I’m not sure how much I weigh normally. But I’d say I’m up a bit at present.’

Beamish-Newell went on at some length, discussing sleeping patterns, headaches, stiff joints, until he returned to Brock’s shoulder.

‘I got it a long time ago, when I was in my twenties. Had a fall.’

‘Sporting accident?’ He was adding notes on the back of Brock’s questionnaire.

‘No. I was in the army. Malaya.’

‘Really?’ Beamish-Newell looked up. ‘Wouldn’t have taken you for the military type.’

Brock smiled amiably, the picture of an unmilitary civil servant. ‘I took a short-service commission when I finished university, rather than do National Service. More eventful than I expected. Malaya, Cyprus, Aden.’

‘Did you enjoy that?’

‘Yes, I did as a matter of fact. Why do you ask?’ ‘Just curious. Did you kill anyone?’ He was staring at Brock intently.

Brock looked back at him, surprised. ‘No. Not directly, at any rate. But then the hand that pulls the trigger isn’t the only one that kills, is it, doctor?’

‘Indeed. Does it ever trouble you, what you were involved in doing then?’

‘Only my shoulder. As I said, I had a fall. Broke the collarbone et cetera, and was laid up for a couple of months. Ever since, it plays up from time to time.’

‘Take your dressing gown off, will you?’

Brock did as he was told and made to get up.

‘It’s all right. Sit down.’ Beamish-Newell came round the desk, moved behind Brock and began to probe his shoulder and spine. Brock winced.

‘Here?’

‘Yes, and closer to the spine … Yes, there.’

‘Which university did you go to before the army?’ Beamish-Newell continued feeling as he spoke. ‘Cambridge.’

‘Really? So did I. Which college?’ ‘Trinity.’

The fingers stopped prodding and Brock began to relax. ‘I was at King’s.’

Suddenly Beamish-Newell’s arms came round Brock’s head, gripping it hard and violently twisting it to the left. For a moment Brock thought he was trying to kill him. Then the arms abruptly released him.

‘Try moving your head and arm now,’ the doctor said, as if nothing had happened.

Brock did. ‘It feels … different.’

Beamish-Newell nodded and returned to his seat. He began writing again. ‘Should relieve it a bit. But you’ll need physiotherapy. And acupuncture - ever had that?’

‘No, never.’

‘Well, it’ll be a new experience. But not for the first few days. First we’re going to get rid of some of the accumulated poisons in your system.’

He began writing rapidly on another sheet, which looked like a chart of some kind. When he had finished he looked up.

‘What’s your real reason for coming here, David?’

Brock wondered if the surprise showed on his face. He had been finding it unexpectedly difficult to lie, something he had assumed that, having studied so many experts, he would have no problem with.

‘I, er… I mentioned the reason on the form there. My health…’

‘Is that the real reason?’

‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

‘People come here for many reasons, David. Not always the ones they put on the form. Companionship, perhaps, or time to get away, resolve some problem.’

‘Ah, yes. There may well be something of that. Sometimes one’s motives aren’t altogether clear, even to oneself.’

‘Exactly. And if we are to help you in any real way, we must come to an understanding of what it is you are really seeking here.’

Brock nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, yes, I see that.’

‘How did you come to choose us, by the way?’

‘Someone at work told me about you.’

‘Oh really? Who was that?’

‘A colleague. Not one of your patients, but they knew of you through people who had been here. I wouldn’t have thought of it except I was suddenly told by Personnel to take some of my back leave, and when someone mentioned Stanhope I thought, why not?’

‘Interesting. Some of our most important decisions are made spontaneously, you know. Let’s hope you find that this is one of them. Many of our patients have found exactly that, and they’ve then wanted to become more involved in the clinic, feel more a part of it. If you came to that view, you would find many advantages in talking to Ben Bromley, our Business Manager.’