The Cambridge Theorem (34 page)

“The Chief Super's out for the rest of the day, Derek,” she told him suspiciously.

“Oh, that's right,” said Smailes absently. “Well, I haven't decided yet whether it's worth the trip or not. It's not an urgent thing. Don't tell him I took the form, okay Gloria? I may just decide to return it and drop the idea.”

Gloria looked at him impassively and he knew she was unconvinced. But he knew he could count on her silence for a couple of days at least, by which time he would have decided which way to act. Gloria had always enjoyed her conspiratorial relationship with Derek Smailes and he occasionally felt guilty about exploiting her. But as far as he knew, he had never got her into trouble with George, and she probably trusted that he never would. Smailes had resolved upon an unauthorized visit to the Records Division. If he found nothing, he would contrive a way of removing a blank form from Gloria's files and returning it to her later, telling her with a shrug that he had decided to cancel the trip. If he did find something, then he would go toe to toe with George on the importance of pursuing a lead from the Bowles case. He would have to claim an anonymous tip-off, or even play the stolen file card. He might have to threaten to go to HQ with the request if Dearnley stonewalled him, but it might be worth it. He was also aware of potentially perilous consequences.

The next day Smailes pulled into the ugly complex of squat government buildings that sat anonymously on the eastern edge of town. He had not visited the archive before but thought he knew where it was housed, in one of the buildings towards the rear of the compound. He eventually found a small sign announcing the Division of Governmental Records, parked and looked at his watch. It was a little after eleven.

The archivist was a bored little man with wiry blond hair and long sideburns who sat in an office immediately inside the heavy metal door. The building seemed relatively small and Smailes was puzzled about where the miles of records were physically stored. The man was seated at a standard metal government desk on which sat a large pile of manila files and a fat, contented-looking marmalade cat. The archivist turned in his chair as Smailes leant inside the door, his face as expressive as the cat's. He was wearing a purple sleeveless sweater and a yellow paisley tie. He wore his glasses pushed onto the crown of his head and was reading a newspaper.

“Hello, guv,” said Smailes. “I need to poke around in some of the old criminal records. Can you point me in the right direction?”

The man made an expansive gesture at his newspaper and lowered his glasses onto his nose. “We're going to blow the bastards back into the sea, aren't we Clive?” he said, apparently to the cat.

“I'm sorry?”

“The Argies. Leave it to the Marines, they'll mow 'em down by the ton. Teach 'em to fool with us.”

“Oh yeah,” said Smailes. “Looks like there's going to be a dust-up. Unless Haig pulls off something.”

“Bleedin' wanker,” said the archivist. “He should stay out of it. Name's Prideaux. Albert Prideaux. You got authorization then, identification?”

Smailes produced his CID card and introduced himself to Albert Prideaux. Then he took out a manila file folder from his portfolio and showed the authorization form, with George's neatly forged signature. Underneath were selections from the Bowles file, with a series of names marked with a highlighter.

“What years you want, what type offenses?”

“Let's say thirty-one through thirty-five, political-type offenses. Disturbing the peace, riotous assembly, maybe criminal damage.”

“Constabulary or Special Branch?”

“Both.”

“You got a lot of work, mister. You know how this system works?”

“No.”

“You got files by name and year, with cross references on the case number and known associates. What you got, a lot of names?”

“A few.”

“Well, I suggest you start year by year, you might have different files in different years. Understand?”

“Sure.”

Albert Prideaux frowned at this reply. “Take a look,” he said and with a forceful backhand swept the cat off the desk. He produced from his desk drawer a three-page map which he spread on the desk in front of him, reversed so Smailes could read it. “We got approximately thirteen miles of files, see, on three levels.”

“Underground?”

“Well, where else? You think this is the bleedin' Tardis? Yeah, the vaults stretch all the way under the whole site. Not just police records, see, you got city and county government too. Course it's all on microfilm nowadays, but not as far back as you wanna go. Look, you want Vault Three, East Four. That's criminal records between twenty-nine and forty, Constabulary. Special Branch is a bit smaller, see, all of 'em through sixty are in East Six.”

He was pointing to the map of the lowest basement level, which showed a network of corridors and storage rooms. The directions seemed clear enough.

“How long are you goin' to be?” asked Prideaux.

“A few hours, I suppose. Can I keep this?” he asked, holding up the map.

“Of course, but hold on. You not goin' anywhere without a key.” Prideaux struggled with the bottom drawer of his desk and produced a huge key ring with an immense number of keys on it. Each was marked with a worn plastic tag. Prideaux furrowed his brow and began pawing through them. After some minutes he gave up and tossed the bunch down on his desk with a crash. The cat, which had begun rubbing against Smailes' legs, flinched at the noise.

“Really must sort these out, some day,” he said to himself. He fished in his trouser pocket and produced a much smaller ring, with five or six keys on it. He slowly extracted one.

“This is unofficial, see, because it's the master, understand? I'm not supposed to give this out, but if you can't trust a policeman, what's the country coming to? Just make sure you don't drop it and you give it back here to me personal. Understand? I'm here till five.”

“No problem, Mr. Prideaux, just show me the way.”

There was an eerie silence in the sub sub basement of the Cambridge government archives. Corridors stretched in four directions. Smailes aligned himself with the map and headed East. He found a door marked East Four and let himself in. He flicked on a light switch and looked in awe at the rows and rows of metal shelves, floor to ceiling, and the endless expanse of files. The smell of acidified paper was almost choking. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, he said to himself.

His first hour and a half were completely fruitless. None of the names Bowles had marked down for further inquiry had any history of arrest or criminal records of any kind. He decided to try a different tack, heading out of the Constabulary file room for the Special Branch files. He referred to the date in Bowles' notes of a college servant strike in 1933 that he knew the Trinity communist cell had orchestrated. After a little searching he found the file of Guy Burgess, as good a place as any to start. He read with some amusement a description of the subversive behavior of the improbable Burgess, and his association with known communists in Cambridge and London. And he actually ended up in the bloody Foreign Office, Smailes said to himself. There was then a description of a violent confrontation between a picket line of students and servants and University faculty, and an account of the arrests that ensued. Smailes read Burgess' subsequent statement to the police, which was a shocking and insolent document. But the real surprise for Smailes came in the listing of Burgess' known associates, where he found the name of a young college waiter, Paul Beecroft. There was a criminal record number and a bald designation,”Known member of the Communist Party.” Smailes stared at the page in silence, his thoughts racing.

Higher up in the same bank of files Smailes quickly found the case file for Paul Beecroft. He had been arrested during the picket line incident for assaulting a police officer, and eventually fined five pounds. There were statements and court documents, and a closing note indicating that by agreement with the Trinity authorities, no college servants had lost their jobs as a result of the incident. It seemed Beecroft had no further record of arrests. He had a list of known associates that included many of the more famous student communists of their day. The last entry in his file indicated that he left his employment with Trinity College in 1936.

Paul Beecroft, a communist? Smailes' mind surged at the implications. Was he still a Party member? Had he known of Simon Bowles' research? Did he know something about Simon Bowles' death that he had not divulged? And what about Hawken? Did he know about his head porter's past? And what was his role in the present? It was clear Smailes would have to pay another visit to St. Margaret's, whether George Dearnley had closed the file or not.

Smailes snapped off the light as he left the room and oriented himself using the map. He made his way to the staircase and began putting the map away, when something caught his eye. In the first basement level were file rooms marked Personnel—City, Personnel—County, and Personnel—Police and Fire. That would mean that his father's personnel file was probably stuck away somewhere in there. He felt a sudden urge to find it—he wondered if Harry Smailes' evaluations were always as brilliant as he implied, or whether his superiors ever had the kind of reservations about him that Smailes knew they had had about his son. He found the corridor quickly and guiltily let himself in. It took some half an hour of searching before he found the right year and alphabetical listing, but then there it was, nestling before Smethwick and after Slater. He pulled out the file and opened it greedily.

The first puzzling discovery was a cover sheet signed off by the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, which was a recommendation by the Chief Superintendent of his father's day that survivor benefits be approved. Why should there be any question about his mother's entitlement to his father's police pension? The next document gave the explanation and hit Smailes like an iron bar in the chest. It was a report by then-Detective Inspector George Dearnley detailing all the evidence he had compiled against Sergeant Harold Smailes of corruption, extortion and bribe-taking. It was pages long. It listed police station vendors, pub owners, businessmen and minor criminals as associates. It alleged that Harry Smailes had been on the take for a good ten years. And it alleged that had his sudden death not intervened, Harry Smailes would have been thrown out of the force, prosecuted as a bent cop, and likely served a prison term. Smailes felt his face go crimson, the blood in his ears singing.

Suddenly the events of so long ago made sense to him. The unexplained absence from work, the moping around the house, the strange visits from his Uncle George. What had his mother known? Why had he never been told anything? And what had his father's contemporaries on the force, those men who still called him “Harry's boy,” known of this investigation? Another shocking thought struck him. Had his father really died of a heart attack, or had he taken some drastic action to avoid the scandal and humiliation? And George Dearnley, cultivating Derek Smailes' police career all these years when he knew his father was a fraud, a crook, a phony? He read Dearnley's report through twice. It was a pathetic catalogue—kick-backs from the companies that supplied the station vending machines while the elder Smailes was station officer, payments from pub owners on his beat to let them serve after hours while Harry Smailes was still a PC, suspicion of bribes to suppress evidence in a couple of criminal cases, unauthorized gifts of goods and services. But Dearnley had been unable to get Harry Smailes to make a statement, to sign a confession. He had been suspended without pay while the investigation had proceeded, and then had suddenly died. It was Dearnley himself who had first brought up the issue of survivor benefits, knowing that if Harry Smailes had been convicted, all his pension rights would have been void. Smailes' mother would have been practically destitute. His initial reaction of shock had turned to cold anger. He needed to see George Dearnley. He needed to see him right away.

He was barely able to be polite to Prideaux as he returned the key and thanked him for his help. He ignored the question of whether he had found anything of use, just as he ignored the ten miles per hour speed limit in the government complex as he roared around to the exit. Within fifteen minutes he was standing in Gloria's office, his face still burning. He asked if George was available.

“He's on the phone, I think. You look a little strange, Derek. Are you going to ask him to sign the authorization?” she asked anxiously.

“Yeah, something like that.” said Smailes. “I'll just go in and wait,” he said, waving her aside. He stepped into George Dearnley's office and walked towards the desk at the end of the room, where George was seated with his feet up, growling something into the phone. He saw Derek Smailes and frowned, and then looked away. Smailes stood patiently.