The Ka of Gifford Hillary (37 page)

‘I can, though,’ said James. ‘Not literally of course; but it’s only mid-morning yet, and from what he said it’s unlikely that he’ll start for London until after lunch. As Toiller implied, there’s quite a good chance that by then he’ll have calmed down, and not go at all. Anyhow he’ll have to go home to pack a bag. I’ll give him to midday to cool off then telephone and ask him to see me. He can’t refuse, and I’ll do my best to straighten things out.’

‘That’s very good of you,’ Johnny said gratefully. ‘But I’m afraid he’s hardly likely to be in an accommodating mood if you go to him straight from a board meeting that has just passed this resolution he is so set against.’

James rose to the occasion. ‘All right. Let’s not pass it then. Why shouldn’t we write to the Ministry of Supply and say that, owing to the death of our late Chairman, until we have had a little time to sort things out we are in no position to make a definite acceptance of new contracts. That’s a shocking libel on poor Giff, and on myself for that matter; but they are not to know that Giff’s death has not left the finances of the Company in confusion. Anyway, it would enable me to tell Sir Tuke that as yet we have taken no decision, and are still considering his point of view.’

‘That’s it, Sir; that’s it,’ old Toiller agreed. ‘Gaining a little time can do wonders in such matters. This laying up of
Vanguard
shows the way the wind is blowing, and if other
moves are made in the same direction during the next week or two, we may then feel it unnecessary to take the drastic step by which Sir Gifford wanted to arouse public opinion.’

‘I only hope you’re right.’ Johnny gave a sigh. ‘Of course, the laying up of
Vanguard
had been on the tapis for months; but there have recently been certain indications that the Navy is now prepared to take a broader view of strategic priorities. My uncle was probably incited to make his proposal by the feeling that time was precious and, of course, it is. But it was his proposal, not mine. My only commitment is to back it whenever it comes before the board, because to do otherwise would be contrary to my convictions.’

Thus the matter was left. As the meeting broke up Johnny put through a telephone call to Whitehall. He apologised to his master for not having gone to his office that morning, told him of Ankaret’s death and asked for a forty-eight-hour extension of leave; which was granted.

After a further conversation with James in private, during which they did little more than go over the ground already covered, Johnny went down to his car. As I now expected, as soon as he reached Southampton’s city centre, he took the road to Longshot.

Sitting, invisible, beside him in the car I felt greatly distressed by his sad and worn appearance. The riddle of how I had died, and even more the idea that I might have been buried alive, must have played a great part in that; but now, in addition, he, was faced with a major worry of his own. Unless James succeeded in calling the Admiral off, poor Johnny was going to have some very difficult explaining to do. Innocent he might be, and no one could prove him otherwise; but unless he could produce some plausible explanation to account for my having been in possession of so much Top Secret information, the weight of circumstantial evidence would incline everyone to believe that it was he who had given it to me. Then, on top of all that, by extraordinary ill-fortune, it chanced that the very man who had threatened to do his best to break him was the one he hoped to make his future father-in-law.

All this, although through no deliberate fault of mine, lay at my door; but badly as I felt about it, fate had placed it beyond my power to help him.

It was a little after midday when we arrived at Longshot. Silvers was hovering unhappily about the hall. He told Johnny that he would ‘find His Lordship in the library’; so Johnny walked through to my old sanctum. Bill was sitting there slumped in an arm-chair. On a table beside him stood a cocktail glass and a glass jug a third full of pale amber liquid, which I had no doubt consisted of about one French to eight Gin.

His Lordship liked his Martinis very dry. He also liked a carefree existence. In fact I had never known a man who, despite constant financial difficulties, displayed a greater ability to glide gracefully out of trouble. He toiled not, neither did he spin; but somehow, the war apart, he had managed to idle away all but a fraction of his life in congenial company. Now that trouble had been thrust upon him he was, true to form, doing his best to ride it out on a liberal supply of Dry Martinis.

Having proffered his deepest sympathy to the bereaved parent, Johnny accepted a ration of the brew. As he took it Bill said:

‘Terrible thing. And right on top of Giff, too. Can’t remember ever having been so cut up in my life—except when I lost my wife. Poor gel. Of course I knew she was damned fond of Giff, but not this much. Still, it’s obvious now that she felt she couldn’t go on without him.’

I had very good reasons to suppose, and so had Johnny, that it was not solely on account of love for me that Ankaret had made an end of herself. Naturally he forbade from suggesting that, and said instead:

‘From the little James Compton told us at the meeting I feared that might be the case. I suppose it is beyond doubt that she did, er—take her own life?’

‘Oh yes. It was quite deliberate, too. I imagine she had been contemplating so for some days. She ordered a half bottle of champagne to drink with her dinner; then when her maid found her this morning she had a lot of Giff’s love letters scattered over her bed, and an empty phial that had held veronal tablets still clutched in her hand.’

‘Did she leave any … any note, or anything?’ Johnny asked. He made his voice sound casual but I caught an eager glint in his eyes, which told me that, despite his own
anxieties, he was still as keen as ever to get on the track of the hypothetical ‘Third Man’ who he believed had murdered me.

Bill had picked up the jug to pour himself another drink. ‘No,’ he said, without looking up. ‘Not as far as I know; but there’s just a chance that the police may find something. Naturally I had to call them in. They sent out that same Inspector chap and his pal the Sergeant. Being cautious blokes they wouldn’t give any definite opinion, and they are still up there routing round. In a clear case like this it seems all wrong they should be allowed to pry into poor Ankaret’s private affairs, but I suppose it’s their job to satisfy themselves that she really did, er—take an overdose.’

‘I’ll be staying here for the night,’ Johnny announced, ‘if that’s all right by you? As one of Giff’s trustees I’ve got to go through his papers. Unfortunately I had already removed the ones which were probably the most important from the lock-up top of his desk; and they were destroyed in the fire. But there are still the drawers underneath, and I expect he had some letter files somewhere.’

‘Glad to have you,’ Bill replied. ‘I’ve already telephoned to old Frothy Massingham and asked myself to dinner. Felt I must get out of the place for a few hours somehow. But Silvers will look after you. You’d better have the same room you slept in the night of the fire. Anyhow, make yourself at home.’

‘Thanks. And while I am here, if I can be of any help, you have only to let me know.’

At the idea of someone else taking on the tasks with which his daughter’s death had landed him I could almost see Bill’s somewhat sluggish mind rev up. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there will be the funeral arrangements as soon as the police let us know when we can hold it. Perhaps you’d see the undertakers for me, and the vicar. Then there are Ankaret’s aunts and other relatives who will have to be informed. If I gave you a list of names you could send the telegrams off for me.’

Johnny smiled. ‘All right, let’s draft a telegram and make out a list, right away. I can fill in the time and date of the funeral when we know it.’

Having no interest in the matter I left them and floated upstairs to Ankaret.

A sheet had been pulled up over her face; so to any living person she would now have been only a still form lying in the centre of the bed. But on becoming a Ka I had soon realised the super-physical qualities that my new state gave me. Not only could I pass through solids at will but I could to some extent see through them. Just as my speed of movement was limited, so was the penetration of my vision. I could not see through brick walls, but if I concentrated on a closed cupboard I could make out its contents quite clearly, and the clothes people were wearing only blurred the outlines of their figures.

In consequence the linen sheet that covered Ankaret’s face was no more a barrier to my sight than would have been a sheet of cellophane; and even through the thicker bed-clothes her slender form was visible. She looked completely calm and there was a faint suggestion of a smile about her lips, as though she was amused at having cheated the world of its chance to condemn her to years of misery. About that I could not help being happy for her, yet my emotions were sadly wrung at the thought that her loveliness must soon be stiff, cold and mottled with blotches; and that never again could we experience together the joys we had known in life.

Yet it was not only to gaze upon her that I had come there. I hoped that having been so well attuned in life we might still be linked in death; and that if, as in my case, her Ka had survived we might be able to see each other, and so be happily reunited.

In that I was disappointed. No nebulous figure hovered in the room, and some psychic sense told me that her body was completely empty. Yet I did not despair of meeting her later on. If her Ka did survive it might well be elsewhere at the moment. In fact there was every reason why it should be, for the room was so full of police that they were almost tumbling over one another; and she would have resented their presence, just as I did.

The Inspector was going through the drawers of her bed-side table; the Sergeant was examining her make-up things; a photographer was erecting his camera by the window; a fingerprint expert was scattering powder on the knob of the door leading to the passage, and a fifth man was rummaging through her wardrobe.

Sick at heart I left them to it and went out into the garden. It was again a pleasant morning, and I thought it the most likely place in which I might find her; but though I drifted disconsolately about it and along the foreshore for the best part of two hours my search proved unavailing.

Re-entering the house about half-past two I found that Johnny had settled down to go through my remaining papers in earnest. He had emptied the drawers of my desk and found the letter files which I kept in the cupboard under the bookcase.

As he went through the files he was extracting a letter here and there and putting it aside. A glance at them told me that he was no longer seeking for evidence of Ankaret’s complicity in my death, or at least not primarily. The letters were mostly from men I had met in the war, who had remained my friends and since risen to high rank. There were four Air Marshals and two Generals among them; and three Admirals of a slightly older generation who had been friends of my father.

He was, of course, hoping to find that I had been in intimate correspondence with one of them, and thus perhaps get a lead to who had given me my secret information. But the letters he had put aside contained nothing other than news of mutual friends and arrangements to meet socially; and I knew only too well that he would come upon nothing which would be of the least value to him. Being tired now from another early morning start, I went into the drawing-room and settled down for my equivalent of a nap.

I was roused by Johnny coming through the room, and saw from the clock on the mantelpiece that it was now nearly six. As he strode past to the hall I followed, and we were soon once more together in his car. He took the road to Beaulieu and pulled up on the corner where he had met Sue two nights before. About five minutes later, her pretty brown curls blown back a little from her forehead by the wind, she came walking briskly up the lane.

As a lover’s greeting Johnny’s was considerably below par. Urged on by his anxiety, before she had had time even to settle herself beside him, he abruptly enquired if her father was at home.

‘No,’ she replied, raising her eyebrows, ‘why do you ask?’

He sighed. ‘I’m sorry to say, Sue, that this morning I had another row with him.’

‘Oh darling! You promised me faithfully that at the next board meeting you would keep your temper—so as not to make matters worse.’

‘I know I did. But there’s a limit to what even a saint could stand. He accused me of being a liar, a traitor and a crook. I couldn’t just sit there and let that pass; so I told him that unless he took it back I’d sue him for slander.’

‘What!’ Sue gave a gasp. ‘You threatened to bring an action against Daddy?’

‘That’s it. Of course, I didn’t really mean to; and after he had stamped out of the room James Compton offered to pour oil on the troubled waters by letting him know that. James promised to get hold of him about midday; but he telephoned me at Longshot, just after I asked you to meet me here this evening, to say that he had been on to your home, and the woman who answered the ‘phone had said that your father would not be in for lunch. Until a moment ago I was still hoping that James might have run him to earth at the Club in Southampton or somewhere.’

‘If Mr. Compton had spoken to me I could have told him that he would have no luck. Daddy packed a suit-case before he left this morning. He is spending the night in London, and after the board meeting he meant to drive straight up.’

‘So he intended to go to London anyway?’

‘Yes; but what is there so surprising about that?’

Johnny gave her then a full account of the meeting and of the Admiral’s final outburst. When he had done she asked:

‘What will happen to you if Daddy does carry out his threat?’

‘I’m hanged if I know.’ Johnny sighed again. ‘Uncle Giff could have cleared me in a single sentence. He would only have had to name the source from which he got the gen. But as he is dead there is no way in which I can prove my innocence. On the other hand nobody can possibly prove me to be guilty, because I’m not. Yet they will believe me to be. The circumstantial evidence is so damning. For a breach of security of this kind, an officer in my position of trust would be liable to be cashiered and receive a heavy prison sentence into the bargain. As the Court can’t find me guilty it won’t come to that. But the Air Ministry can retire an officer compulsorily at any time, simply by notifying him that Her
Majesty no longer has any use for his services. That is probably the line they will adopt.