The Shift Key (22 page)

He had completely lost track of what he was saying.

Alarmed, Steven leaned towards Nigel. But already the chairman was signalling to Mrs Judger. She marched up the three steps to the dais, took the parson by the hand, and led him away. When the door closed behind him, Mr Thummage had taken the place he had vacated.

‘With your chairman’s permission,’ he said in a resonant baritone, ‘I shall claim the privilege of substituting for my unfortunate brother in Christ. Far be it from me to put words into his mouth, but it does so happen’ – he glanced modestly down at the table – ‘your chairman and I had a brief telephonic conference today, and reached a modicum of agreement … I do not deny, nor shall I ever do so!’ – this time he banged the table with his fist and glared around the hall – ‘that the Evil One exists! How could anybody claim that he does not, confronted with the reality of evil in our modern world?

‘What I do say, though, is this!’ He straightened in his chair, shoulders back, eyes blazing.

‘It is not yet in a placid English village that one may seek his rule! Oh, certainly there are signs that it may one day come to pass.’ His voice dropped. ‘Immorality is rampant everywhere! There are countless persons who seek false happiness in relationships unsanctified by the Church! There are stupid people who resign themselves to the artificial gratification that can be got from drugs, when all such transient joy is but a shadow of what can be obtained through dedication to the love of God! Perhaps – I do not say this is the case, but certain evidence I’ve been given inclines me to suspect it may be – perhaps here in Weyharrow these forces, due less to evil than to mere stupidity, have overcome your parson and undermined his –
mind.
I say the poor man is overwrought. He needs caring for, and a long rest. I would
rather believe so than think that you, you ordinary decent English people, have consciously and voluntarily allowed that being whom we know as Satan to enter your hearts, your minds, and your souls … despite your willingness to welcome pagans in your midst!’

He concluded with a glare directed at Chris and Rhoda.

Someone said faintly, ‘You mean Parson was wrong? The Devil didn’t take him over like he said?’

Smiling indulgently, the archdeacon said, ‘Even those of us who have spent long years in the service of Christ are vulnerable, if not to the Evil One, then to human weakness. You can hardly expect Mr Phibson to be immune.’

Nigel tapped Steven on the arm. Leaning close, almost chortling, he said, ‘He’s doing our work for us, isn’t he? Sounds as though I may not even have to call on you!’

Swallowing hard, Steven said, ‘I’d like to speak anyway. I didn’t really want to before. Now I do.’

Surprised, more than a mite dismayed, Nigel stared at him. But he said at length, ‘Don’t want to miss your moment in the spotlight, is that it? Well, I can understand that. How about now?’

It seemed like as good a time as any, if he hoped to make a rational contribution to the proceedings. Half the audience were sitting stunned, as though to have their parson contradicted was unthinkable. The rest were whispering among themselves, and from the susurrus of their voices arose a change in the formerly quiet mood.

‘We – ah – we thank Archdeacon Thummage for his levelheaded appraisal of the situation,’ Nigel said, rising and staring down the hubbub. ‘Now I call on Dr Gloze, whom some of you – most of you, perhaps – already know despite the brief time he’s been with us. Steven?’

He was on his feet, nodding acknowledgment of scattered applause … and his mind was absolutely blank.

He said at length, ‘Friends – I hope I may call you so
despite, as Nigel said, the short time I have been here … Friends, I’m sure you were as pleased as I was to hear the archdeacon ascribe Mr Phibson’s actions to excessive stress and mental pressure, rather than to supernatural forces. Had I been called upon to voice a professional opinion’ – thank goodness the poor fellow wasn’t in the room! – ‘that, I’m afraid, is what I too would have been forced to say. For a medical man, it’s something of a relief to hear one’s views confirmed by a theologian.’

He paused, hoping that there might be a smile or two, even a chuckle, in response to his sally. Instead there was silence, tense as a fiddle-string.

His mouth dry, his throat hoarsening, he launched into the carefully reasoned, statistically defensible, wholly and absolutely logical argument he had prepared in every spare moment during the day. He had a sheaf of paper in his hand, and every page bore solid data, authoritative and documented …

And no one, after the first minute, listened to it. He wound down with a weak statement that sounded more like an apology, even to himself: ‘So, you see, what happened here could well have happened anywhere.’

There was a pause.

At length, beaming, Nigel Mender said, ‘I hope that sets everybody’s mind at rest. We could scarcely have hoped for a clearer exposition of the facts, could we?’

Was that going to be it? Steven stared out across the audience. From their expressions he could tell that they were as dissatisfied as he. But as Nigel went on to say something about a vote of thanks to the speakers, his fellow councillors started to shuffle and rise from their chairs. Obviously they were past masters of the art of sweeping dirt under the carpet. So …

Despondent, on the verge of renouncing once and for all any ideas of taking over from Dr Tripkin, he mechanically folded up his papers.

He would have liked to know for sure what had afflicted him. And Jenny, and the parson and everybody else. It looked as though he wasn’t going to get the chance. Not tonight, at any rate.

And then there was a cry from the body of the hall.

‘Oh no you don’t! We didn’t come here to be fobbed off with doubletalk! We still got questions – lots of ’em!’

Praise be!

That outburst had come from Mary Flaken, resisting her husband’s attempt to restrain her. He might have succeeded but for the chorus of support that followed. Advancing down the left-hand aisle, Ella Kailet shouted, ‘I came all the way from London to find out what happened to me here! For pity’s sake, you can’t stop us talking about it!
Something happened here that drove me mad!’

‘And a lot of other people too!’

For a second Steven didn’t realize it was his own voice that had rung out from the platform. Then he realized that Nigel was scowling at him, and the archdeacon was looking like thunder.

And the parish councillors,
par force majeure,
were resuming their chairs.

He sought desperately for a way to excuse his intervention, and realized abruptly that there was no need. Shouts of approval were greeting it. Several people were on their feet, waving their fists. Loudest, and attracting most attention, was Tom Fidger.

‘Doctor! We won’t hold it against you that you had to spin that reassuring yarn! It’s just what most of us have learned to expect around here! But you weren’t enjoying it – were you? I could tell!’

Nigel was pawing at his arm again, but all of a sudden Steven felt reckless, as he had when he decided to take Jenny to the Marriage for a drink instead of treating her as a patient. He brushed the chairman’s hand aside and rose to his feet.

What the hell difference did it make if he had to suffer another three weeks in this place? He need never return!

‘You’re right!’ he bellowed. ‘You’re absolutely right! While I didn’t tell you a single lie I don’t believe I told you half the truth!’

‘But that’s only ’cause you didn’t know it!’

Tom Fidger was pulling back his jacket and raising his hands as though to adopt the classic posture of thumbs in waistcoat armholes – only to realize he didn’t have a waistcoat on. He covered his mistake by clapping.

‘Now I agree with Mrs Flaken! We do have questions! And we want some answers! First of all!’

He thrust out his right arm, forefinger pointed, and his target was the man in the superbly-tailored mohair suit.

‘Dr Gloze doesn’t know you, but I do! You’re from the factory at Trimborne! Eight-ten years ago I used to see you every day, back when people from Weyharrow worked at your place! You fired them one by one, didn’t you? Our buses don’t go up there any more! You don’t have any more connection with our village!
So what the hell are you doing at our parish meeting?’

The man in mohair looked disconcerted; Steven wished the people sitting behind could have seen the expression on his face. It being impossible to conjure up an instant mirror, words would have to suffice.

He shouted above increasing hubbub, ‘And
I’d
like to know who’s sitting next to Chief Inspector Chade!’

Beside him Nigel Mender buried his face in his hands.

‘Would you permit a stranger to intervene?’ said a mild voice that nonetheless carried to the four corners of the room. ‘As it happens, I can answer both the questions that have just been posed.’

Rising from his seat in the press section, it was Donald Prosher who spoke. At the same time, Wilf Spout began to shoot flash pictures of the assembly. The man next to the Chief Inspector bridled and tried to object … but in the chair immediately behind sat Harry Vikes, who laid a hand on his
shoulder and squeezed, hard. Wilf caught that.

‘Well done, Harry!’ called a voice from the other side of the hall – it was Ken Pecklow’s. For a moment the audience was distracted by the improbability of those two becoming allies; then everybody realized, as one, that in this situation it was not just logical but necessary.

‘Mr Chairman!’ It was Vic Draycock on his feet at the back of the room; no doubt he had chosen to sit near the entrance to keep up his pose of befriending the ‘pilgrims’. ‘Some of us don’t know who just spoke up, but if he does have any answers we’d all like to hear them!’

There was a rattle of applause.

Nigel Mender was looking around as though for guidance. Steven supplied it in a whisper.

‘This isn’t going to be a walk-over after all. Those people are scared, and I didn’t persuade them out of it. I did try. You heard me. But they’re right and I was wrong. Call on Don!’

‘Who?’ Nigel said foggily as the archdeacon plucked his arm and drew his attention the other way.

Not much future in that …!

Steven jumped to his feet. He shouted, ‘Could we have a bit of hush for Mr Donald Prosher of the
Globe?’

He glanced down at the press row again. Wallace Jantrey was pounding his forehead repeatedly with the heel of his hand, as though trying to punish himself for some sort of oversight. Like Wilf, Lisa Jopp was snapping pictures, flash-flash-flash, but she was scowling.

And where the hell was Jenny? Her chair was empty!

Uproar subsided as Don’s identity sank in. Attempting to preserve the conventions, Steven turned to Nigel.

‘Does the chair recognize Mr Prosher …?’

The only answer was a wave. Steven concluded it was up to him to get this particular bit of the show back on the road. He caught Don’s eye and spread his hands and sat down. That was enough.

In a didactic tone Don said, Traditionally it’s no part of a reporter’s job to influence the news, but only to report it. During my brief visit to Weyharrow I’ve been driven to the conclusion that unless I do more there won’t be any news. And there must be. There needs to be. You see …’

He drew a notebook from his pocket and flipped its pages. He had left his tape-recorder on his chair, its cassette turning on battery power.

‘You see, Mr – Mr Fidger, isn’t it? We spoke yesterday morning when I stopped to fill up the car. The person you asked about is Dr Walter Frass of Helvambrit Pharmaceuticals. I met him yesterday afternoon.’

Steven’s fingers clenched into his palms as he recalled Jenny saying that it would be worth finding out where Don had passed the time between his visit to the Court and his return to Weyharrow.

Where was she? Why the hell had she ducked out on this tremendous scoop? His own mind was running ahead of Don’s words, and so should hers be!

Don was continuing. He composed himself to listen.

‘The reason I went to Helvambrit was to ask about the leak that occurred late on Wednesday night … Don’t let him run away!’ – with sudden force.

Of a sudden there were grins all round the hall. Stick jumped up and took station between Dr Frass and the exit. As two or three other husky young men copied him, he called out, ‘Not to worry, man! Keep rolling!’

Joe Book looked uneasy, but made no move.

‘Thank you … Naturally, Dr Frass claimed there had been no such leak. The evidence is against him.’

‘Can’t hear you!’ shouted someone from the back. Don glanced around. Nigel had his head buried in his hands again, and the archdeacon was scowling and signalling to his aide. That left Steven, who shrugged and beckoned. Don climbed up on the dais.

‘Better? Okay, I’ll carry on. There
was
a leak from Helvam-brit on Wednesday night. A compound escaped in significant quantity – “significant” in this case means just a few grams, very finely dispersed – and it may not have been the first time. However, you see …’ He drew himself up.

‘On that particular night there was an inversion above the valley of the Chap: that’s to say, warm air was trapped under a colder overlying layer so that mist was formed. Anybody here –? Wait! Let me test my theory!’

Steven saw the man next to Chade starting to his feet. He signalled to Stick with a tilt of his head. At once the stranger was scowled back into his seat.

‘If I’m right,’ Don went on, ‘everybody who was affected must have been in the open air, and near the river. Let’s start with one person who definitely was. Mrs Kailet?’

The tour guide’s eyes were closed and she was breathing hard. Some of the nearby hippies were growing alarmed and offering assistance. Brushing their attentions aside, she glanced up in response to Don’s mention of her name.

‘Yes! Yes! I stood in the mist for nearly two hours, and afterwards I slept at a hotel with the tourists and in the morning I did this stupid thing!’

‘What about the passengers on your coach?’ Don stabbed.