Corridors of Death (7 page)

‘This must be rather hellish for you, Superintendent. It can’t be easy finding anything out from such glib individuals as all of us suspects must be.’

Milton was so taken aback by this expression of human sympathy – and the ready acceptance of suspicion – that it took him a minute to get rolling with his routine lead-in. He was so familiar with it by now that he could virtually switch off his brain as Parkinson helpfully made the appropriate replies, and he was able to observe his companion with more attention than he had initially been able to give to Nixon or Wells. He was particularly struck by Parkinson’s extraordinarily handsome face. He had the high cheekbones and keen eyes of a scientist in a romantic novel. Milton found it incredible that anyone who looked like that, had such an agreeable manner and was, in addition, a highly intelligent man could have been held back from promotion by even a first-rate machinator. He felt a grudging respect for Sir Nicholas. At least he had set himself one real challenge.

He pulled himself together to hear his voice going on to the question about personal relationships.

‘I resented Nicholas,’ said Parkinson, ‘and he seemed to hate me, but I never managed to work out why. Until about eight years ago I thought of him as a good and amusing friend. I doubt if any people who got to know him well in recent years would believe that, but he could in the early days be a perceptive and sympathetic confidant.’

‘Things changed?’

‘With a vengeance, Superintendent, if that’s the right word. I was, I admit, shattered by the alteration in my old friend once I began to work for him. You should know that I used to be a scientist and came late to administration.’

Milton wondered if he was imagining the bitter edge in Parkinson’s voice.

‘It was Nicholas who first persuaded me to come into the scientific civil service, as it was he who later persuaded me that I could make a better contribution in a wider context – and incidentally a brilliant career – if I switched to the administrative class. I was delighted to find that he would be my first boss. For the first few months I tried to explain away his unhelpfulness and lack of sympathy with my inevitable ignorance, and to interpret his taste for showing me up in front of colleagues as an over-enthusiastic attempt to show that he would not let our friendship affect his judgement.’

‘But you didn’t convince yourself for long?’

‘No. It rapidly became unarguable that he was deliberately setting out to damage me.’

‘Why did you put up with it, sir? Couldn’t you have transferred to a different post or even left the civil service altogether?’

‘I couldn’t find the grounds for a transfer. No one would have wanted me until I had some worthwhile experience. Anyway, I’m naturally obstinate and I wouldn’t give up. I was determined to show that I could do anything I turned my hand to. I couldn’t believe that anything Nicholas could do would hide my virtues from my other colleagues. Call it arrogance, if you like, but I wasn’t used to failing.’

‘And did you succeed?’

‘You know I didn’t. Even one morning in a civil-service building must have shown you that a man’s success can be measured by the size of his room, the quality of the furniture and the number of staff in his outer office. I have exactly the same status as I had eight years ago and I owe it all to my old friend.’

Milton was feeling taken aback by all this frankness. He wasn’t going to need any of his inside knowledge for this one.

‘I stuck it out for the two years I worked directly for Nicholas and with his elevation to Deputy Secretary I breathed a sigh of relief and began to look forward to happier days. I was a fool. I got a new Under Secretary – a most fair-minded man – who thought highly of me and told me so, but he didn’t have the clout to dissipate the view of me which had gone round the department. I don’t know if it’s the same in your profession, Superintendent, but certainly here, once those who don’t know much about you have heard that you are superficially bright but have no depth, they write you off without even thinking about it as a “fly-weight”, or a “good front man”. Any mistakes made in your area are your fault. Any triumphs are due to some clever young member of your staff. By the time I realized that this was the way things were inevitably going I had left it too late to be employable again as a scientist. All I could do was to take whatever job was offered me, do the best I could and hope that someone, somewhere, would recognize my worth. Nobody did. You see, I had no old-boy network. I had come into the service years after my contemporaries and no one had got to know me before Nicholas’s assessment of me got about.’

‘You mean you hadn’t the faintest chance of promotion?’

‘I wouldn’t say that. I felt – and feel – reasonably confident that they’ll give me one step up before I retire. Even fly-weights get to be Under Secretaries. But that’ll be all. Even Nicholas’s death is unlikely to change things much. Certainly not enough to have made it worthwhile murdering him.’

‘It would certainly seem, sir, that if you were going to murder him you left it a bit late in the day.’

‘Precisely, Superintendent. It’s been going on so long that I’ve had to come to terms with it. I now take a minimalist view of my work. I do as much as I think is required to keep me in line for promotion, but no more. I delegate a good deal. I enjoy my life outside: my golf handicap is down to six; I see a great deal of my wife, children and friends – and there aren’t many senior civil servants who can boast of that.’

‘Nor many senior policemen, sir,’ said Milton morosely.

Parkinson laughed. ‘You should try it, Superintendent. It’s surprisingly enjoyable. I feel compassion but little sympathy at the fretting and panic my colleagues indulge in every time there is some hiccup. They even talk about their families sometimes as if they are a sort of extra burden placed on them by politicians.’

‘So you had no reason to be particularly angry with Sir Nicholas yesterday morning?’

‘No, I had no more reason to dislike him than I’d always had, although I felt a considerable distaste for the way in which he landed our unfortunate Secretary of State in the lurch. No doubt you’ve heard about that.’

‘I have, sir. And I gather you weren’t able to do anything to help Mr Nixon.’

‘No. I have never had anything to do with paper recycling. It was silly to have me there, but for some reason the appropriate people couldn’t make it. Not that there was any need for them to attend. It was an area of special interest to Nicholas. No one was a better choice to be at the minister’s hand. God knows what he thought he was doing leaving like that. I tried to take the charitable view that he had a stomach cramp or something.’

‘Well, sir. I am extremely grateful to you for being so frank with me. I must be getting on now. I have several more interviews ahead of me.’

‘Goodbye. And remember, take up golf. It alters your perspective. Or are you anxious to be a Chief Superintendent?’

‘I’ll be lucky to stay a superintendent if I don’t get this case sorted out soon,’ said Milton and they exchanged smiles of understanding as he hurried off to find some lunch.

10

Amiss had felt light-headed as he walked into his office shortly after 9.00 that morning. He put it down to lack of sleep, excitement and a glorious sense of freedom from the demands of Sir Nicholas. Working for Douglas Sanders was going to be a doddle. It wasn’t just that he would be pleasant to his Private Secretary; he was known to be considerate about all his personal staff. Amiss looked forward to a future in which the office would run smoothly without his having to cajole, charm, inject team spirit and rally the troops ceaselessly to forestall the riot he always feared on the days when Sir Nicholas was in an offensive (bad) rather than distant (par) or patronizing (good) mood. They would even be able to get rid of the Greek typeface which Sir Nicholas had demanded for the golfball machine. Amiss had often wondered if the sod deliberately inserted Greek words into almost everything he wrote primarily because he knew they would annoy the recipients or because he took pleasure in the knowledge that they compelled Julia to change the golfball several times in the course of typing even one page. Amiss shuddered at the recollection of the rows that used to ensue every time Julia got a letter wrong. Nothing snapped Sir Nicholas’s cobweb-like patience so quickly as a misplaced omega. He could hear running through his memory the thrice-weekly tirade about cretins, universal illiteracy and typists who couldn’t read, let alone type.

Only Julia was in the office, and Amiss could see that she was in good spirits. There was no crap about that kid. She wouldn’t pretend to be sorry about Sir Nicholas. She had already gone home on the previous evening by the time Amiss had got back to the office, so she was all set for a pleasurable chat about the good news. Her first words didn’t disappoint.

‘The old bastard had it coming. Any idea who did it? I’d like to get up a collection for him.’

‘You can put me down for a fiver.’

‘So it wasn’t you, was it? No. I suppose if you were ever going to do it, you’d have done it the time he made you cancel your holiday to go with him on that tour of Glasgow recycling works.’

They fell to discussing the details of the murder, and Julia sighed contentedly as Amiss rehashed the details which had appeared in his morning newspaper.

‘I’m only sorry it was so quick. I’d have preferred him to die of slow poisoning.’

‘Ssshh,’ hissed Amiss warningly, as Gladys came stumbling in, plastic bags crammed with provisions from the supermarket, destined for reprocessing that evening into a meal for her unpleasant husband. Nose dripping, tightly belted coat setting off her thick hips and covering only partially the uneven crimplene hemline of her most unattractive dress, apologies and complaints tumbling from her in confused and overlapping sentences which betrayed not the slightest connection between brain and mouth (unless it was, as Sir Nicholas had been wont to point out – usually to her – that there was none of the former to be connected to the latter), Gladys was ready to give her best in the service of Her Majesty’s Government.

Amiss gave her his commiserating look – for Gladys’s lot was too miserable at work or home to make encouragement more than an insult – and watched her absently as she divested herself of her top coverings, lamented over the torn lining, dropped one bag of shopping with cries of alarm, knocked her leg painfully on the corner of her desk, and settled down ready for her daily work of making a hash of the appointments diary and the logging of the endless flow of papers. It was Gladys’s malign fate to have been landed in the most fraught office in the building while being wholly unable to cope with its demands.

Amazing as it seemed, she hadn’t heard the news. She had had Monday afternoon off to wait for the gasman – who, of course (Gladys’s ill-luck being constant), hadn’t turned up. And Gladys never listened to or read the news. She watched seamy soap operas and read romantic novels as an antidote to the dreary awfulness of her life. It took several minutes before he and Julia could stop her disjointed wails about the gas board and get the story of the murder through to her.

Gladys went faint and had to be revived with a cup of coffee. Amiss felt he couldn’t stand it any more when she began to produce pious sentiments about the tragedy of it all and the blow it must be to his poor wife and son. If anyone should have been dancing on Sir Nicholas’s grave it was she, but then, Amiss supposed, anyone who could be fond of a husband like hers was hardly likely to be a harsh critic. When she started on the generosity of Sir Nicholas in giving her a box of chocolates the previous Christmas, Amiss decided it was time to leave before a second murder was done.

‘Look after Gladys, Julia,’ he said. ‘Sanders won’t be moving up here until this afternoon, so I’ll have to go down and spend a few hours in his office this morning. Ask George to stand in for me when he gets in.’

‘What about a drink at lunchtime?’ asked Julia. ‘Seems to me we’ve got something to celebrate.’

‘Shut up,’ hissed Amiss savagely, fearful of the effect of such heartlessness on Gladys. But there was no danger there. Gladys was still maundering on about ‘cut off in his prime’. ‘Why not? We’ve all had a shock and a communal drink will help to steady our nerves. Have the office manned on a rota system. See you in the Cardinal at 1.00.’

He picked up a batch of papers and escaped.

11

He found himself a spare desk in Sander’s outer office and dealt with the urgent paper work. Sanders called him in at 10.30 to take notes at the regular Tuesday morning Deputy Secretaries’ meeting, which he was now chairing in place of Sir Nicholas. There were perfunctory expressions of shock and regret from the four Dep. Secs present. They were all too intelligent to put up more than an adequate pretence of being personally bereaved, but they certainly weren’t going to let their hair down in front of a junior colleague. (That they might do later – probably seeking each other out individually on pretexts and settling down to a series of cosy reminiscences. In all likelihood, there would be an informal competition to compose the best barbed epitaph.)

It was a relaxed and pleasant hour. Sanders was helpful, constructive, and understanding about the problems caused by new legislation, under-staffing and all those other obstacles to achievement which Sir Nicholas had always discounted as feeble excuses. Only last week there had been a fraught ten minutes over the brief which Blows had sent in on a Monday morning, apparently the work of a palsied typewriter afflicted with quavering capitals and sticking letters. Sir Nicholas had held it up between finger and thumb and had ignored the information that Blows had had to write it – and type it with two fingers – over the weekend. He had almost succeeded in making the serene and accomplished Miss Beckett lose her temper by his open contempt for her wetness in allowing her subordinates to produce such messy work, garnished with the implication that as a woman she should at least be capable of overseeing the typing. It had been one of those meetings which left Sir Nicholas in excellent spirits and his colleagues sick with fury. None of that with Sanders, Amiss was happy to note. This
was
going to be a doddle.