The Sleeping Partner (23 page)

As the door of the booth shut I heard the operator give the number to the London exchange again. Dawson went limping angrily back. In a minute I heard the phone ringing in Raglan Cottage. It went patiently on, twenty-one times. Then the operator said: ‘ I'm sorry, there's no reply.'

‘Thank you.' I hung up and came out. It had been hot in the booth and short of air. I decided I was feeling a bit queer. Perhaps it was one thing on top of another. Perhaps it was because I'd only had six hours' sleep since I found Lynn.

I went to the room and lit a cigarette before I opened the door. Then I changed my mind and put the cigarette out.

They were all sitting around waiting for me, but they'd all been talking about it before I came in; I could see by their faces. I came to my seat at the table and sat in it. Holborn was playing with his pencil again. Dr Steel was polishing his glasses, Rhodes stroking the end of his moustache, the others were still.

I said: ‘I was afraid you wouldn't get back before dark.'

Rhodes said: ‘ We've got non-radioactive phosphors on the panel now. All modern conveniences, as it were.'

Holborn glanced at Bennett. Bennett said: ‘Mr Holborn was just about to give us his report, Mr Granville.'

I didn't speak but stared across at nothing.

Holborn said: ‘I was explaining that “report” was too imposing a word for anything I can say after only ninety minutes' flying. You need time and varied circumstances to be able to make a thorough test. But of course I can give you my impressions, and I can link them, as it were, with the reports of the tests you have made this week and which I've studied fairly carefully today.' He still didn't look up but began to draw his figure eights again. ‘My impression is that this survey instrument – in spite of its simplicity – to some extent because of it – is an advance on any other machine yet built. On its present showing and for its present purpose, I wouldn't alter it or add to it in any way.'

I didn't go back to London that night. The meeting didn't break up until twenty-five to ten, and then it became a smaller party of Thurston, Holborn, Rhodes, Dawson and me. Porter and Bennett and Steel all left, but the others were staying the night. I still felt under the weather and couldn't face the thought of a four- or five-hour drive through the night. Also the Old Bull didn't have a night porter and it would have meant knocking them up about three in the morning.

I knew that at some future time I should probably be happy about the results of today. I didn't regret having come and the personal risk of the further delay. There was a sort of dichotomy in my feelings at present that wouldn't let me have any satisfaction out of this result and yet didn't let me forget it.

I finally left Thurston and Holborn together talking like lovers – which they were, not of each other but of the things they were talking about. I'd borrowed an alarm clock and set it for five o'clock. The roads would be clear at six.

In bed I remember being very restless at first, trying to reason out how John had found the stamina to make a visit to London. I remember feeling certain there was something in what Simon had said to me that was pretty important and after a while my mind centred on that, turning over the conversation as often as I turned over in bed. Then suddenly it was daylight and I sat up rather scared thinking someone had switched on the light. I had slept through the alarm and it was ten minutes to seven.

I got up in a hurry, scraped some beard off with a borrowed razor and went hastily out to breakfast. There was only Frank Dawson at the long table.

I sat down nearly opposite him and he looked at me, half sardonic, half hostile, hunched a shoulder and went on with his breakfast. The one orderly came out and served me and we ate in silence. Physically I was feeling better.

I said: ‘ I'm sorry I can't take you back with me this morning, Frank. I've got to see a lawyer in London and I'm driving straight in.'

‘I can cadge a lift from one of the others,' he said shortly.

Another silence fell. It was a fine morning but the sky had that brushed-over unpromising look.

He said: ‘ The scintillometer turned up trumps last night.'

‘So did Holborn. I was afraid he was going to crab it.'

‘He couldn't on its showing. Anyway he's far too honest.'

I looked at Dawson. ‘ Yes … I suppose I knew that all along, but my judgment has got pulled out of shape these last few days.'

‘Was that why you made such a wild-cat attack on me?'

I said carefully: ‘They want a man to go out with the plane when it's shipped to Africa. They asked me but I can't go. I wondered if it would appeal to you.'

He looked at me curiously, assessingly. After a minute he shook his head. ‘No, there's no point in me going. They want the brains out there or nothing.'

‘You know a lot more about it than most people.'

He buttered a corner of toast and put it in his mouth. ‘But a lot less than you.'

We didn't talk any more after that, but I finished quickly and went out to my car. None of the others seemed to be up yet. There was quite a strong wind blowing in from the west and the Auster had been run into one of the old hangars.

I threw my mack into the back seat and then remembered the briefcase I'd brought, and went back to the bedroom for it. As I came out into the corridor Frank was standing there plucking at his lip. He glowered at me.

‘Look, Mike, I don't think I've played quite fair with you. I didn't tell you the whole truth last night.'

‘About-Lynn?'

‘About Lynn – and other things. You said did it seem to me that she might be in love with someone else and trying to collect evidence to use against you, and I said no. Well, that's true up to a point.'

‘Oh?'

He hesitated. ‘It's true up to about a month ago. But I happened to go into the Leather Jacket at Heaton Corner one Friday about seven and she was in there with a man. You don't need to have it down in black and white when she looked at him the way she did. They didn't see me so I got out fairly quick …' Dawson shoved his hair back irritably.

I said: ‘What was he like, this man?'

‘Youngish, round face, looked as if he'd just come out of a bath … Slick hair, Savile Row, breezy laugh …'

‘When
was this?'

‘Oh, it would be early last month. Let's see, the Monday I saw her last was the Monday when you had that flap about the condenser and worked on till midnight.'

‘That was the thirteenth of July,' I said.

‘Could be. Well, it would be the Friday before that.'

‘The tenth. Two days after my visit to Glyndebourne.'

‘What?'

‘Did they seem – all right together, Lynn and this man?'

He stood with a finger inside his collar, moving it round as if it was too tight. ‘I told you. I only watched them for a minute or two. Come to think of it, she seemed to be making the running. On the Monday following, as I say, I met her for a drink, and though I didn't say it out she must have guessed I'd rumbled something, and in the end because I wouldn't play ball she accused me of being disloyal to her. It's lovely the way women use the word loyalty, isn't it?'

‘Have you been seeing Lynn more than you told me?'

‘We've met ever since the factory moved – once or twice a month, I suppose. I – she started complaining almost at once.'

‘Is that why you've been rather gunning for me ever since we moved?'

He flushed. ‘Well – if I have – it's been that and maybe a guilty conscience. Read and I were equally to blame for that muck-up in February, and it's easy to ease your own mind by shoving the responsibility on someone else. Perhaps if I hadn't been so sore I wouldn't have believed all her stories …'

Some seagulls were wheeling and crying in the early sunshine outside. A number of things seemed clearer to me this morning than they had done last night. I said: ‘Perhaps it's a mistake to think too badly of Lynn, Frank. She never could help using her charm on people; it was the way she was made. But I think this once she got caught by it, by something in her own nature, and by something rather similar in another person. So in her distress she put to whatever use she could those of her friends who were in any shape to help her. You were one of them. Mrs Lloyd perhaps was another.'

He didn't seem to notice I had used the past tense. ‘Do you know who the man is?'

‘I have an idea. You haven't seen her at all since then?'

‘No. I rang her a couple of times, because we didn't part too rosily and I didn't want to break with her altogether. The first time she seemed friendly again; but the second time she appeared to be having a row with someone and cut me off pretty short.'

‘A
row?
What day was that?'

He shrugged. ‘It isn't that important, is it?'

‘Try to remember.'

He stared at me curiously.

‘It would be the Wednesday or the Thursday … The Thursday, because it was the first day that man came from RRE to doctor the navigational computer. I rang her while you were with him – about three-thirty.'

‘What did she say?'

‘Not much. I phoned her and she answered and was talking to someone else while she picked up the phone, and then she snapped at me, and after a minute we hung up.'

I ran my tongue over my lips to make them less dry. ‘ Do you know if it was a man or a woman she was talking to?'

‘Oh, I couldn't tell. But usually Lynn gets angry with men, doesn't she?'

‘Walk with me to the car,' I said.

We went out.

I said: ‘Can you remember
exactly
what she said, whether she made any excuse for cutting you off sharply,
how
she sounded angry? This may be absolutely vital to me, Frank.'

‘I don't see what's vital about it.'

‘I want to know who she quarrelled with that day.'

We got to the car. ‘Actually she did say something before she answered me on the phone, like finishing the tail-end of what she'd been saying, d'you see? Flowers or Towers. Could that be his name?'

‘No.'

‘She sounded pretty mad. D'you remember when her cat was run over in London? A bit like that.'

‘Did she just say the word “Flowers”?'

‘No. I think she said, “What are you going to do, live with Flowers?” Or it could have been “live at the Towers”. And then angrily into the phone, “ Hullo!” She sounded to me near hysterics, so after a word or two I shut off. As a matter of fact, you were pretty short yourself later that night.'

I didn't get into the car. I stood staring at the old hangars. ‘Frank, is there a London Telephone Directory in this place, do you know?'

‘I haven't seen one. Why?'

‘Let's go and look.'

We went and looked. We searched around in all the old cupboards arid drawers.

‘What d'you want it for?' Dawson said.

‘Just a hunch. I'll try again when I get nearer home.'

We walked back to the car. I said: ‘ Frank, I've got to tell you. Something's cropped up that I can't explain. It may be days – perhaps
much
longer – before I get in to the works again.'

‘Something I've told you?'

‘No. But it's tied up with Lynn. You'll have to manage as best you can.'

‘If there's a strike perhaps there won't be much to manage.'

‘There can't be a strike. We can't afford it. It may be decided by now – but in any case it's up to you and Read to find a way out.'

‘Read …?'

‘Yes, Read. Because from now on – if I shouldn't be there – you've got to try to get on with him. You've got to. Otherwise we'll be in the receiver's hands.'

He stared at me, wanting to fight but perhaps seeing in time that he must fight only himself.

‘It'll be hard.'

‘Well, let it be hard.'

I put out my hand and after a second he took it. ‘ OK, Mike, if it comes to that I'll do my best.'

As I left the aerodrome a car passed me turning in.

I was in Brecon just before half-past eight and in Gloucester as the cathedral bells were ringing for ten o'clock. I stopped there for petrol and bought a paper and walked along to one of the hotels to see if they had a directory. They produced one of the old two-volume jobs, and I began to turn the pages of the C's.

Nothing under the C's. I tried the D's. De, Do, Dr, Du … Du Caine. There were four Du Canes but only one spelling the name with an
i,
The Hon. Mrs Charles du Caine. She had two numbers.

One was for a Knights-bridge flat, the other was for The Towers, Epsom.

I put the phone books back and thanked the girl at the reception desk and walked slowly down the empty gusty street to my car. The bells had stopped. Those who were not in church were worshipping at their Sunday newspapers. I sat in the car and reached for a cigarette but I was out of them, so I just sat. Was that what Lynn had said? I sat for about ten minutes chewing at the end of my thumb. Then I got out again and went back to the hotel. I rang Letherton 407.

Stella answered.

I said: ‘Darling. This is Mike.'

There was silence for a few moments. ‘Hullo.' She sounded queer.

‘Is John back?'

‘Yes … last night.'

‘Is he there? Is it possible to speak to him?'

‘… No, I'm afraid not. Oh, Mike, why didn't you tell me?'

‘About …?'

‘Yes, about her.'

‘I was scared.'

‘What of?'

‘Of seeing disbelief in your eyes.'

‘Oh, you
fool.
As if there could ever be that – about such a thing. Whatever else—'

‘Thank you.'

‘Where are you phoning from? No, don't tell me.'

‘Why? I'm on my way home—'