The Malcontenta (24 page)

‘Sheep as a lamb, isn’t it?’ Kathy grinned.

‘Whatever. So what’s the answer?’

‘Belle says her marriage is in need of a boost. She suggests she gets her mother-in-law to come and look after the baby at home while she takes her husband away to have a night of wild sex at some hotel, in the name of Mr and Mrs Smith of course. She’ll take her laptop, which has a modem, and which she can plug into the hotel’s phone line.’

‘That sounds good. Tell her it’ll be my treat.’

‘She can’t go tonight, but maybe tomorrow if her husband and mother-in-law are free. But anyway, she says access to the files will probably be protected by a password. She wondered if you could find out before she tries to break in.’

‘How?’

‘Each operator probably has their own password, maybe their initials or something like that. She wonders if you could watch them when they open up the computer first thing in the morning.’

Brock nodded, munching away.

‘Good?’

‘Wonderful. It restores your perspective on life. I think Beamish-Newell uses starvation to exercise personality control over his patients. One other thing, Kathy. Did you ever find out about Petrou’s financial situation? If he was doing rich people favours, presumably he was doing it for money.’

Kathy shook her head. ‘We never got that far.’

‘His estate may have been wound up by now. Maybe something could be found out about it discreetly.’

Brock drained the pint glass, wiped his mouth with the paper napkin and got to his feet. ‘I’d better be going,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow morning. What have they got you working on this week?’

‘There’s a tyre-slasher on the loose in Crowbridge. It makes a great start to the day to have to interview another dozen or so angry people who’ve had their cars done during the night. Best if you ring me at lunchtime, say between one and two. I’ll make sure I’m in the office.’

The cold air outside was like a sharp slap in the face. Brock took a deep breath and hurried across the street, ducking into the bookshop he’d noticed opposite the Hart Revived. At least no one from the clinic had seen him coming out of the pub. The doorbell tinkled behind him and he looked around. The shop was newly painted and some of the shelves were bare. A woman at a small counter was talking energetically on the phone at the same time as she was wrapping a book for a customer. A man wandered through from the back of the shop and languidly said as he passed her, ‘The van’s arrived, dear.’ She covered the mouthpiece and urged, flustered, ‘Couldn’t you deal with them, darling?’ but he ignored her and moved to the shop window, where he shuffled one or two of the books on display.

Having found it impossible to find any words of his own in response to Grace Carrington’s tragedy, Brock had hoped to find someone else’s words to say to her instead, but as he looked along the shelves his heart sank. He recognized one or two titles which dealt with the subject of death, but doubted whether he would have got much comfort from Waugh’s
The Loved One
or a collection of the metaphysical poets, were he in her situation.

‘Can I help you?’ The man at the window had come over to him, presumably to avoid having to deal with the van. His wife finished with her phone conversation and customer, and hurried out to the back.

‘I’m having difficulty finding a present for someone. She’s not going to be around long.’

‘Going overseas? How about something on scenic Britain?’

‘No, she’s going to die.’

The man blinked and looked appalled, as if Brock had said something in very poor taste. ‘I … I’m not sure I can be of much help. Our religious section is over there.’ He waved a hand and hurried off to the counter, where he busied himself with a publisher’s catalogue.

Brock was about to abandon his search when he saw a long-forgotten title. He pulled it down from the shelf and turned to the opening words.

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders …

Kenneth Grahame’s evocation of his particular Arcadian dream brought a smile of recognition to Brock’s face. He read some more, then went over to the man at the counter.

‘Found something?’ He looked doubtfully at the cover of
The Wind in the Willows.

Brock shrugged. ‘I’d like you to wrap it in some decent paper if you would. And I’d like to write a message on a card.’

‘Well, here’s a card. But my wife does the wrapping. I’m useless, all thumbs. She’ll be back in a minute.’ He returned to the catalogue.

Brock wrote: ‘From a fellow-inmate in Arcady. Best wishes and good luck. David Brock.’

He tucked it inside the book and they waited for the woman to return. She did the job briskly and smiled at him as she took his money, wiping her hair back from her forehead.

‘Family business?’ he asked.

‘Yes, we’re just starting. It’s difficult getting established, especially in a small place like this. But we’re really keen. We’ll make a go of it.’

‘All the best,’ he said.

She smiled her thanks. Her husband ignored him.

The road out of Edenham was so winding that Brock was forced to concentrate on the way ahead and didn’t notice the white car behind until its blue lights started flashing. He slowed down, but it took him a while to find a place where he could safely pull over in the narrow lane.

The uniformed man asked him if he was the owner of the car, demanded to see his licence and took a slow and careful walk around the vehicle, looking at tyres and lights.

‘Have you had a drink recently, sir?’

Brock nodded. ‘I’ve just had a pint in the Hart Revived. One pint.’

‘I’d like you to blow into this, please. Don’t touch it with your hands.’ The policeman produced a breathalyser and inserted the mouthpiece.

Brock said nothing and did as he was told.

The officer seemed to take an age examining the result, and as he did so Brock was suddenly overtaken by a wave of nausea. The interior of the car seemed suffocatingly hot and short of oxygen. He pushed the door open, ignoring the look from the policeman, and ran through the slush of the verge towards the hedge behind his car and abruptly brought up his lunch into the ditch.

He stood for a while, leaning his weight against the car, waiting to see if there was more to come. In the background he could hear a large truck slowly manoeuvring round their parked cars.

‘You all right, sir?’

He didn’t reply.

‘Do you want some help?’

There didn’t seem to be any more. His stomach, empty again, seemed quite settled. He shook his head and stepped back through the mud to his door. He looked at the policeman as he took hold of the handle. ‘That was a daft place to pull me over. Narrow road like this.’

The man held his eyes. ‘You were driving erratically, sir. Just go carefully now. You got far to go?’ Brock shook his head again and got into the car.

That evening at dinner-time he slipped the book on to Grace Carrington’s tray and then went searching for his own, when he heard Sidney Blumendale cough unobtrusively at his shoulder. ‘Over here, old chap.’

Brock followed him to his table, where Martha was waiting.

‘Since this is your night to celebrate finishing your fast, David, we thought we should all try to be friends together again. I told cook to do something special for you.’

From her tightly pursed lips it was clear that Martha was still very much in two minds as to whether she was doing the right thing in giving Brock a chance to redeem himself. He decided to play it with a very straight bat.

‘Martha, how very thoughtful of you. I’ve been very unhappy about the way we left things the other day. I think it’s extremely gracious of you to make this gesture.’

She looked closely at him, searching for any hint of sarcasm, but, detecting none, she smiled generously and tilted her head forward intimately. ‘Look what you’ve got for being a good boy.’

He lifted the lid on the tray which they had waiting at his place.

‘What is it?’

‘Stanhope lentil soufflé. It’s cook’s speciality. Normally she wouldn’t do it, but I persuaded her. Red lentils, onion and garlic cooked gently in stock until tender, than add some cheese and beaten egg yolks. Whisk up the whites and blend into the lentil mixture, then bake in a moderate oven for half an hour. She does it with such
flair.
We were worried you might not come down straight away and it would be ruined.’

‘Well, it looks splendid. And carrot juice, too.’

Brock was worried as to how his stomach would react, but in the event it behaved as well as he did. Sidney Blumendale seemed particularly relieved.

On the following day, Friday 22 March, the vernal equinox, Brock was waiting by the locked door to the office when the receptionist arrived.

‘You’re early, Mr Brock,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Had your breakfast already?’

‘Yes, my first breakfast in four days, Joyce.’

‘Jay,’ she corrected him. ‘I hope it was something nice.’

‘Orange juice and cereal. Look, I’m sorry to be so early, but I got in a bit of a panic last night, and I wonder if you could help me out. My sister rang to say she’d arranged a meal with friends for me when I get out. She said Sunday the 31st, but I was sure I’d booked till the Monday. I was wondering if you’d mind checking for me, and I’ll ring her straight back now, before she goes off to work.’

‘Yes, that’s no problem.’

He followed Jay into the waiting room with the book-racks of material for sale, and watched while she unlocked the inner door to her office and raised the roller shutter over the counter. She took off her raincoat, which was dripping wet from the short distance from the car park to the front entrance to the house, for the day had begun dark and wet. The desk with her computer was set at right angles to the counter, and Brock positioned himself at one end to get as wide a view of the screen and keyboard as he could.

She sat chatting about the foul weather after the beautiful couple of days they’d had, and he watched as she switched on her terminal. The machine gave a ping and the screen lurched into life. Almost immediately a box came up requesting a password, and Jay pressed three keys. The letters appeared only as stars on the screen, but Brock had been watching her fingers: something in the middle of the centre row, then extreme centre-left, then top centre.

She waited while the hard disk whirred into action and icons began appearing on the screen, and then started using the mouse and keyboard to open them. After a minute of this she said, ‘Your sister’s right, Mr Brock. Sunday the 31st is your last day.’

‘Oh, marvellous. Thanks very much, Jay, I really appreciate that.’

Up in his room he opened his laptop and considered the letters of the keyboard. It didn’t take him long to work out that Jay’s access code was most likely the three letters of her name.

Again feeling like a doomed schoolboy, he reluctantly made his way down to the basement for a second attempt at acupuncture.

‘How was your first meal, David?’ Beamish-Newell looked keenly at him as he sat on the couch, offering his arm.

Avoiding his eye, Brock replied, ‘Good. Stomach’s been feeling a bit shaky, though.’

‘Diarrhoea?’

‘No. I just felt a bit nauseous after breakfast this morning. Nothing serious.’

‘Let me know if it persists. We must look after you. Ben Bromley tells me you’ve been to see him. You think you might be interested in joining us?’

‘Yes. I found it all very interesting.’ Brock caught Rose staring at him. She quickly looked away and busied herself at the trolley.

He forced himself to think about something else while, one by one, a dozen needles were inserted into his back, from shoulder to hips. He imagined going through his house slowly, from room to room, checking that everything was in its place, as if he were spring-cleaning it like the Mole, drawing up an inventory of all that he owned.

Rose’s role was to move the needles gently once Beamish-Newell was satisfied with their placing. He murmured something to her that Brock couldn’t make out, and left the room.

‘Well, Rose.’ Brock cleared his throat. ‘How are things with you?’

‘OK.’ Perfunctory, preoccupied.

‘Why don’t you talk to me while you’re doing that? Might be the best chance we get. Tell me what’s bothering you.’

‘You’re sounding like an amateur psychiatrist today, Mr Brock. Just what are you?’ She was belligerent now.

‘You were the one who contacted Kathy, Rose. I just want to help.’

‘Do you? How do I know I won’t just make things worse for-’

She stopped mid-sentence and tugged at one of the needles. He winced. ‘For whom?’

She didn’t reply.

‘I really don’t think you’ve got a choice, Rose. I believe, in your heart, you know you’re going to have to talk to someone.’ Brock was finding it hard to make his point when all he could see of her was the toe of her shoe.

‘Never you mind about what’s in my heart, mister,’ Rose leaned over him and hissed in his ear.

He sighed. ‘Look, you’d probably be more comfortable talking to Kathy. Why not give her a ring? I can give you her home phone number.’

She didn’t reply until they heard Beamish-Newell’s voice outside the door, and then she said quietly, ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Well, you survived this time, David.’ Beamish-Newell came back in and looked him over. ‘I think we can get down to things in earnest next Monday.’

Brock waited while the needles were withdrawn, then got unsteadily to his feet and headed for the door.

It seemed everyone wanted to use the pay phone that lunch-time, and it was almost two o’clock when Brock eventually got through to Kathy.

‘How’s the tyre-slasher?’ he asked.

‘Another eight cars last night. How’s the human pincushion?’

‘Thoroughly punctured, thank you. The closest I can get to the computer password is that the receptionist’s name is Jay, and she typed in three letters that might have been J, A, Y, or something close to those.’

‘Upper or lower case?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see her touch the shift key, but she might have.’