The Strange Attractor (14 page)

“Not too early for you, is it?”

“No, indeed not,” Dobie said.

The whisky bottle in Alec’s sturdy hands made musical noises and Wendy, who had been gazing glumly out of the front window at the goings-on outside, came to plump herself ganglingly down on the sofa beside them. “Those people. They’re not going to go away.”

“We’ll see about that,” Corder said grimly.

“You’ll just have to get used to it, Daddy. The policeman
did
warn you.”

Dobie could understand their perturbation. You didn’t have to look out of the window to be aware of that lurking presence outside, not in the least threatening but docilely inquisitive, like the audience at an Alan Ayckbourn play intent upon watching other people going quietly bonkers, bored wives and unassuming husbands being pushed to the ends of their respective tethers. The house itself was a little too much like a stage, its furniture a little too unused and a little too carefully arranged; Dobie had always thought so, but he also knew that the houses of most wealthy people were like this. Perhaps they wouldn’t feel comfortable if things were otherwise.

“What I can’t make out,” Corder said, “is what they expect to
see
.” He raised his laden glass vaguely in Dobie’s direction. “Oh well. She’s right, of course. Daughters usually are, you know. It’s a most annoying habit of theirs.”

“Not true,” Wendy said. “I wish it were.”

This morning she was wearing sky-blue knee-length shorts and a yellow rollneck pullover and wasn’t looking at all secretarial. She looked sort of Home-Counties and
horsy
, Dobie thought, which was odd because to the best of his knowledge she didn’t ride at all. But then his knowledge didn’t amount to very much. Her last remark seemed to have irritated her father slightly and Dobie couldn’t see why. “All right – now that
this
has happened I’m sure we both wish things had worked out rather differently. But it’s no good letting your mind dwell on it. Business as usual and carry on regardless. That’s the ticket.”

“I’m
not
dwelling on it. I didn’t mean that at all.”

Corder stared down at the whisky swirling restlessly around in his tumbler. “Let’s take these into my study, shall we, John? Those bloody people out there, they’re getting on my nerves.”

Corder’s study at least faced the other way; nothing could be seen through the picture window but a blue-grey expanse of shifting sea and the shapes of a few distant merchant ships lying off Sully Roads. A desk and a shelfload of red-bound books seemed to be there chiefly in order to justify its description; it wasn’t study-like in any other sense and Corder appeared to be aware of this, to the point of feeling a need to apologise for it. “… Never much liked this place, to tell you the truth. Never did. Nor does Wendy, really.”

“I gather she doesn’t live here any more.”

“No,” Corder said, giving a leather-backed armchair quite a vicious kick before turning and sitting down on it. “Not since she started working with us. I found her a nice little room in Fairwater, right above the shop, so to speak. Well, a five-minute drive, anyway. Jane made a hell of a fuss at the time but you know what mothers are like. Or you can imagine it, anyway.”

“Jane made a fuss about most things.”

“So she did. Still, the kid wanted to be independent, the way kids do, and I could see her point of view. Anyway, I’m all for peace and quiet. Aren’t you?”

“Very much so.”

“Yes,” Corder said. “Ironical, that.”

He stared down again into his whisky glass, holding it cupped in both hands. It was a pose of deep despondency, but not a studied one. It was probably true that he’d never liked the house; the house was Jane’s choice, and all its furnishings, and now that she was gone he had to feel himself, in a strange way, to be on foreign territory. Even here. Even in his study. “… I suppose,” he said, “I’d better hear all about it. That’s if you feel like telling me.”

Dobie didn’t, not really, but it was something that had to be done. Yet again. With the coherence developed of practice, he went through his story and Alec listened to it. Since at no point did Alec show any obvious signs of surprise, Dobie deduced that he’d heard most of it already, probably from Pontin. But the story admittedly did seem to sound a little more extraordinary each time he told it. “… That’s what
happened
, though, Alec. And I haven’t held anything back. I’d have no reason to.”

“Funny about Jane’s not being here when you arrived, if that was what you’d arranged. Most unlike her.”

“That’s what I thought at the time. But—”

“And you’ve no idea what it was she wanted to talk to you about?”

“None at all. Unless maybe it had something to do with Jenny. But that doesn’t make much sense, either. Jane wouldn’t have told me anything bad about Jenny, it wouldn’t have been… l
oyal
.”

“Why would it need to be something bad?”

“Isn’t it usually?”

Corder shook his head, but not in disagreement. “Yes. With women, I suppose it usually is. That note she left… You’ve given it to the police?”

“Not yet. I’ve got it here in my pocket, as a matter of fact.”

“Could I see it?”

Dobie handed it over and Corder read it. Several times.

“… Well, it’s her typewriter all right. Red part of the ribbon because the switch got jammed. I was wondering if… ”

“Yes,” Dobie said. “Anyone could have put it there.”

“But not anyone could have written it.”

“Jane could have written it but at some other time.”

“Well, yes.” Corder shook his head again and returned the note to Dobie. “You’ve been doing some thinking about it, obviously.”

“Of course I have.”

“Me, too. Are you
going
to give it to the police?”

“No,” Dobie said.

“No. All right. I shan’t mention it. All the same… Yes, Pontin’s an idiot, but when all’s said and done the police are professionals. I’m not sure we’d be wise to get mixed up in this thing ourselves.”

“I
am
mixed up in it,” Dobie said.

“Any more than you are already, I mean.”

“The trouble is, I know one thing that they don’t.”

“What’s that?”

“That I didn’t do it.”

“Good God. Are you
serious
?”

“Very.”

“They couldn’t possibly believe it was
you
who…?”

“They not only could, I think they
do
.”

“But that’s ridiculous. I’ve known you for thirty years. It’s the most preposterous… Yes. I see what you mean.”

The glass of the picture window vibrating gently. Corder ignoring the sound, Dobie looking up. The whine of jet engines, growing louder and louder. From other, rounded windows the passengers would be looking downwards at the house and the people outside it and the line of the beach and the grey rocks and the smooth unruffled surface of the sea. Under that unruffled surface, the abyss. The nothingness of infinity. Once again, Dobie felt fear.

Corder wasn’t altogether ignoring that sound, after all. It was too loud, too penetrating to be ignored. “Bloody aircraft,” he said. “I think I’ll get rid of this place. I’m starting to
hate
it.”

Outside the house. Outside the church. Only three days ago Dobie had been like that himself, one of that numberless multitude soberly going about their daily business, talking to students, conferring with colleagues, walking quietly from staff room to lecture hall, upstairs, downstairs, work work work, and treading all the time on that glass-fine crust holding them all briefly up from nothing. A crust as thin as a sheet of paper pinned to a door that opened, again, on nothing. No, he wouldn’t show that paper to the police. They wouldn’t understand. Alec wouldn’t, either.

“It’s like this every day in the summer. Paris flight coming over. Twice every day we have to put up with it, taking off and landing. It doesn’t worry me as much as it might,” Corder said, “I’m always at the office, but I’ve complained about it all the same. Jane’s complained. Doesn’t do a blind bit of good.”

“No,” Dobie said. “It doesn’t.”

… Why hadn’t anyone
told
him? The Paris flight, coming in. That was what had woken him up, that racketing roar. Jenny passing by. Overhead. So close to him at that moment, and he hadn’t known.

“I wish Wendy had a bigger place. She could put me up. As it is, I’ll just have to stick it out. How are
you
coping?”

Alec was right. It didn’t do a blind bit of good. Nothing does.

“Remember a boy called Cantwell? On your staff?”

“Cantwell?”

“I’ve borrowed his room. In Cardiff.”

“Cantwell? He’s dead.”

“Yes. Well, not borrowed. Sort of taken over.”

“Shot himself, didn’t he? A bad business, that.”

“Yes, it was.”

“So is this a bad business. Maybe,” Corder said, “we should both get pissed.” Clambering rather awkwardly to his feet, he opened an adjacent cupboard and took out yet another bottle of the double malt. “Where’s your glass?”

“Here.”

“Here. Right. Well, the truth of the matter
is
, he blotted his copybook. Pretty badly.”

“Who did?”

“That Cantwell fellow. We had to sack him. He’d been given notice. Of course, no one imagined that he’d go and… do
that.
But the fact remains.”

Get pissed. It wasn’t a bad idea. “Nobody said anything about that at the inquest.”

“Hell, no. No point in washing your dirty linen. He wasn’t a special friend of yours, was he? Or a protégé? Or anything like that?”

“Not really, no. I was just a little puzzled—”

“You see, that’s how it
is.
We all know there’s a lot of it going on but no one wants to admit to it. Because if you do that, you imply it’s been successful. And then the fat’s in the fire, as the saying goes.”

Dobie had already suspected that that other whisky bottle in the sitting-room had taken a certain amount of punishment that morning. “ … I’m sorry Alec. I don’t follow you at all.”

“You really don’t?”

“I really don’t.”

“Well… Perhaps I’m getting whatchamaycallit about it. Paranoid. That’s the word. Oh God,” Corder said. “Industrial espionage, we call it. Professional misconduct. Of course when you’ve got the evidence you’ve no choice but to act on it. It’s quite a serious matter. You can understand that.”

“Yes, but… Is that what he was doing?
Cantwell?
”

“It’s what a whole lot of people are doing. All over the country. Picking up a little piece here, a little piece there. And somewhere there’s a clever chappie who collects it all together and adds it all up. Of course
he
wasn’t the clever chappie. Cantwell wasn’t. A snippet provider, you might say. But that’s bad enough.”

The aircraft had passed on now, was gaining height over the Channel. Dobie was having some difficulty in collecting his thoughts. In adding them all up. His mind was still on a small safety-belted figure, leaning forwards a little in her seat, gazing fixedly out into the hard-driving rain. “But you make hi-fi components, don’t you? Stereo speakers and so on?”

“Yes, we do. But now we’re going into hearing aids. No great harm in my telling you that, the cat’s been out of that little bag for some time back.” Alec’s voice had gained a little in confidence and enthusiasm; he was talking shop and back on familiar ground. “We’re going into hearing aids in a very big way, in fact I’ve just been looking at a new production site in Birmingham. It’ll be hard getting hold of the workforce I’ll need down here.”

“You think that’s likely to be lucrative?”

“You know what they cost, those little miniaturised ones that go inside your ear?… Three to five hundred they’ll set you back. I plan to produce a
more
effective model that’ll retail at sixty pounds and that’s including VAT. Not just in the UK, either. Throughout the Common Market and in the USA. You know how many partially deaf people there are over an area that size?… No, nor do I. But the mind boggles, right? And all that with a guaranteed six per cent profit margin. A good investment opportunity, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’re going to end up pretty rich, if it all works out.”

“I’m rich already.”

“Well, yes. So you are.”

The classic one-two with the shotgun, Dobie thought.

First you blast the ears off the kids with your high-voltage amplifiers, then you sell them cheap hearing aids when they’ve grown up. It can’t fail.