The Floating Body (21 page)

‘Whatever the motive,’ said Crispin, ‘and however it got started, we’re now convinced it has being going on for some time. Long enough to earn the McKells enemies.’

This interested Jack. ‘What enemies?’ he asked.

‘We believe a London gang has become aware of the McKells’ small but efficient operation. We suspect the gang wants to take over.’

‘There was,’ Jack reminded us, ‘that very large man we saw in conversation with McKell at the pub two nights ago.’

‘And,’ I added, ‘it didn’t look like a very friendly conversation.’

‘That’s it!’ said Warnie. ‘That explains McKell’s black eye. He “had a fall”, he told us. Poppycock! The man’s a mountain climber. Had a fall indeed! He was thumped by that visiting thug from London.’

‘It might also have been,’ I suggested, ‘one of the London gang who stole McKell’s rucksack.’

‘How long have you been aware of this?’ Jack asked.

Crispin explained that Scotland Yard had first become aware of the Nesfield connection, and the McKells’ involvement in black market diamonds, some months before.

‘What’s held up our investigation is just how they do it. Because we’ve had our eye on McKell, we’ve tipped off customs and his baggage has been very thoroughly searched every time he’s come back from the Continent. But we’ve found nothing. Despite this, our sources have told us a fresh supply of diamonds has appeared on the black market just after each of those trips. So how does he get the diamonds in? Even allowing for the small size of gem stones, we’ve been very careful, very thorough. We have no idea where he hides the stones in his luggage, or how he gets them into the country. That’s the puzzle.’

Jack asked Inspector Crispin what steps Scotland Yard had taken so far to uncover McKell’s mysterious method of diamond smuggling.

‘We put a man here,’ said the inspector, ‘to watch McKell at close range. Firstly with a view to discovering his smuggling method, and then to collect enough evidence to convict him.’

‘An undercover operation,’ said Warnie, puffing out his cheeks in delight. ‘I’ve read about those in my detective novels.’

‘Did you place your man here in town or in the school?’ Jack asked.

‘Right in the school itself,’ Crispin replied.

He stirred his tea for a moment and then said quietly, ‘Your murder victim, Dave Fowler, was an undercover police officer.’

This explosive revelation, delivered in Crispin’s quiet, thoughtful voice, bowled us over, and we were silent for the next minute absorbing this startling news.

‘That explains a lot,’ said Jack, ‘including his lack of references and job history.’

Warnie was still sitting at the tea table in stunned silence when suddenly his face lit up.

‘That’s why he was killed, wasn’t it? Somehow McKell tumbled to the fact that this chappie was an uncover police officer and murdered him! That must be it.’

‘You may very well be right, major,’ said Crispin. ‘And Inspector Locke knows the full truth about Dave Fowler and his role here. However, there’s not a shred of proof. Not one scintilla of evidence against the McKells at this stage.’

‘Is Muriel McKell also involved in the smuggling operation?’ I asked.

‘We believe she plays some role, yes,’ the Scotland Yard man replied. ‘But the connection of either of them to the murder—well, all we have is speculation, just that and nothing more.’

‘And you think we might play a useful part in this?’ Jack asked.

‘Now you know this much,’ Crispin explained, ‘I’m rather hoping that if you keep your eyes and ears open you might pick up some useful fragments of information for us.’

‘Happy to help, if we can,’ I said. ‘But the problem, as I see it, is that none of this gets us any closer to a solution to our impossible murder.’

Crispin sipped on his tea in silence for a moment, and then said, ‘My own belief, Mr Morris, is that in this case the key is the method by which the crime was committed. If we discover the method, we’ll discover the murderer.’

We tossed theories back and forth for the next five minutes without getting any closer to a solution. At least Warnie, Crispin and I did. Jack was mostly silent. I suspected he was chewing over some idea of his own and was waiting until he had developed it, and collected more information to support it, before he told the rest of us.

Stepping back out into the afternoon sunshine, Warnie announced that he thought he might pop across to
The Pelican
for a pint, ‘and possibly another game of darts’.

Jack was in the mood for walking so I fell into step beside him.

We got to the end of the high street then branched off into a country lane. The road was bordered by high hedges, and beyond them, fencing the fields, was a line of poplar trees thick with green spring foliage, standing as straight and tall as guardsmen at Buckingham Palace.

‘There it is,’ I said, ‘nature clothed in beauty. That’s the stuff that knocked Wordsworth sideways.’

Jack chuckled. ‘I’m glad you never used those exact terms in the essays you read to me in tutorials. However, Wordsworth would agree with your sentiment—he saw the splendour in the grass and the glory in the flower.’

‘And human nature shares in this beauty,’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s the point I’ve been trying to make: what is natural is beautiful and good, and when people behave wickedly they are acting against nature.’

‘Mind you,’ said Jack, pausing to light his pipe, ‘Wordsworth also said: “I have learned to look on nature while hearing the still, sad music of humanity.” I’m not sure he was quite as sanguine as you about human nature.’

‘But just look at that peaceful scene,’ I said, sweeping my arm in a wide gesture that claimed everything from our heels to the horizon.

‘In those fields,’ Jack responded as we continued to stride purposefully along, ‘rabbits dwell, safe at the moment in their burrows. But tonight they’ll creep out to feed and be hunted by predators—hawks and owls. Nature is not all serenity; it is also red in tooth and claw.’

‘So now you’re saying the whole of Nature is corrupt! Is that it?’

‘Far from it: rather it seems to me that Nature is neither the perfection that God first made nor merely evil and corrupt. It is much more complicated than that—a good thing spoiled.’

‘But if God is good, how can God’s creation not be good? How can it be spoiled?’

‘The doctrine of the Fall is the only intellectually satisfactory explanation. If the Materialist Darwinians are right, Nature—and our life within Nature—has been a bitter competition from the beginning. For them there is no right or wrong, only survival. But our moral instincts reject that cutthroat view. Our intuitive understanding that there is a Natural Moral Law which holds us accountable tells us there is more to life than survival. There is also good and evil—right and wrong.’

‘And this natural world around us, you say, is a mixture of both good and evil. So how can it come from the good God you believe in?’

‘As I said, the doctrine of the Fall makes sense of this as nothing else does. What God created was perfectly good. And that included our primeval parents—and his good creation included genuine free will for those ancestors of ours. Not pretend freedom, not sham freedom, but real freedom. They were not puppets—nor, to use Karel Capek’s word, were they “robots”. They were truly free people. And they used that freedom in such a way as to damage themselves and damage creation.’

‘So you’re saying they chose evil over good?’

‘Not at all. Our primeval parents became primeval sinners not by choosing evil but by choosing a lesser good—choosing themselves—and in so doing rejecting a greater good, God. It was pride that did the damage.’

I didn’t respond immediately, so Jack continued, ‘That original freedom was genuine, but not infinite. Each choice confines the range of available choices from then on. Each choice draws the margins, the borders as it were, and so channels the direction of our future choosing. There came a time when those first humans were fully shaped and fully directed by the path they had chosen. Their choices meant they would end up irrevocably attached to either the Heaven of God or the Hell of rebellion against God. What they chose was the latter: the cold, dark fire of self-imprisonment.’

Jack stopped to relight his pipe, which had gone out, then said, ‘And this Nature around us was caught up in the rebellion of humanity against God.’

‘How so?’

‘Picture it like this: a kindly landlord builds a cottage. Everything about the cottage and fittings and fixtures is perfect. To keep it that way the tenants need only follow the landlord’s instructions for maintaining and managing the property. But if the tenants are wilfully rebellious—if in their pride they think they know better than the landlord—they may well make a mess of the cottage and the gardens. After they’ve splashed paint on walls that needed no paint and tipped garbage down the well in the backyard and allowed weeds to overtake the flower beds, the original beautiful perfection is still there, but seriously damaged—it is a good thing spoiled.’

‘Hence all of this—Nature itself—is a good thing spoiled?’

‘Exactly. And even more importantly, human nature itself is now a good thing spoiled. You know yourself that if you make a habit of doing something unhelpful—let’s say, gambling away your week’s earnings every Friday night—as time goes on it becomes harder and harder to break away from that habit. Habits are first cobwebs and then cables.’

‘And it’s pride that drives this?’

‘Pride is the original sin.’

‘Aha! That’s the doctrine of Original Sin.’

‘Although in a sense,’ said Jack, ‘only our primeval parents were guilty of truly original sin. The rest of us are guilty of the less inventive, but still serious, offence of plagiarised sin!’

We walked on in silence for a bit, then Jack said, ‘Even scientists now admit the universe has a history. Just as nations are shaped by their history, so our natures are shaped by human history. And that history began with the first humans telling God to buzz off. They were too big for their britches. They thought they knew better than God. And in their pride they decided that creation should be all about them, not all about God.’

‘My head is starting to ache with this flood of big ideas, Jack. Let me see if I’m understanding you here. Are you saying that the choices we make—particularly the big choice made by the first humans—is directing our nature down a particular channel?’

‘Not a bad picture, young Morris. We’ll make a poet or a novelist out of you yet! Yes, human nature should be a crystal clear mountain stream bubbling over the ancient rocks of its river bed. Instead it’s a meandering river, spreading across soft, peaty soil and picking up all kinds of impurities along the way.’

Our feet were crunching on the gravel of the country lane as we walked and talked. Without our making any conscious decision, somehow our path had led us in a wide circle, and we were now approaching the Nesfield railway station again—this time from a slightly different direction to that in which we had departed from it.

‘That’s human nature?’ I said. ‘A good thing spoiled? It’s still a flowing river—the water is still there, the hydraulic power is still there—but the river is now heavily polluted?’

‘Sadly, my dear chap, that’s the case.’

A train was standing at Nesfield station, the locomotive wheezing and hissing like an elderly asthmatic uncle trying to catch his breath after a brisk walk up a steep hill.

The air was filled with the distinctive smell that all working locomotives have: a mixture of hot oil, steam and coal smoke. It’s a smell I’ve loved since I was a small boy. We stood at the rail crossing and watched as the guard on the platform lowered his flag and the big brass piston rods began to slowly turn the steel wheels. With a steady chuffa-chuffa-chuffa, the train slowly picked up speed and pulled out of the platform.

As it disappeared around a curve, I turned back to the station and saw a figure I thought I recognised.

‘Jack—that young woman on the platform, the one with the small suitcase . . . I think that’s Henry Beard’s wife.’

‘The one who’s been away visiting her mother?’

‘Yes. Now what was her name again? Ah, yes—Samantha.’

As she came down the steps from the platform we caught up with her.

‘Hello, Mrs Beard,’ I said.

She smiled shyly and said, ‘Good afternoon, Mr . . .’

‘Morris. Tom Morris. And this is my friend, Mr C. S. Lewis—he’s here as the guest speaker for Speech Night.’

We fell into step beside her as we walked up the high street towards the distant cluster of old stone buildings on the hill above the town—the cathedral and school.

‘And how is your mother?’ asked Jack politely.

Samantha Beard looked puzzled.

‘Your husband told us your mother was unwell and you’d been taking care of her,’ I explained.

‘Oh, yes . . . yes, of course. Mother is much better, thank you.’

‘And did Henry write to you,’ I asked, ‘and tell you our news?’

‘What news?’ enquired the young woman.

‘Why, the death of Dave Fowler, of course,’ I replied.

Samantha Beard stopped suddenly in her tracks. Her face went pale and her small suitcase fell from her limp fingers onto the footpath.

‘Dead? He’s dead?’

‘You hadn’t heard then?’ I asked as Jack stooped to pick up her suitcase.

‘No . . . I hadn’t . . . What happened? Was there an accident?’

‘Worse than that,’ I said, feeling pleased, in my ignorance, at having a dramatic story to tell. ‘He was murdered.’

The young woman opened her mouth as if to say something, but no sound came out. Then she started to sway, and she appeared to sag at the knees.

I reached out an arm and took her weight before she could fall in a dead faint onto the footpath.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that,’ I gabbled. ‘Too much of a shock. I’m really sorry.’

She groaned and her eyes flickered open.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Jack, deep concern in his voice.

She tried to stand upright, wiped a hand over her face and said in a faint voice, ‘I’ll be fine in a minute. Just give me a minute.’