The Sleeping Partner (13 page)

‘I'm not dead certain whether I went in between those dates. I've been in quite a lot since. But her husband is ill and is always in the house.'

‘Bedridden?'

‘Not exactly.'

‘Would he be upstairs or down when you went in?'

‘Down. Except for once later when I went up to see him.'

‘Has he ever shown any resentment at your association with his wife?'

‘None at all.' Too little, poor devil.

‘Have you taken Mrs Curtis out in any other way – on any social occasion?'

‘No. I had to take her to Harwell once and I took her to my own home twice.'

‘Your wife would be at home, I suppose?'

‘No.'

‘Can you give me the details?'

‘The first time was on the way back to the factory from Harwell. I wanted to pick up some plans so I called in and got them. That would be about half-past twelve midday – and I was there probably thirty-five minutes. The second—'

‘Just a moment. Was there anyone in the house at all?'

‘Our daily woman was there when we got there, but she left soon after we arrived.'

‘Was it natural for her to leave then?'

‘Yes. As a matter of fact I was surprised to find her still there, as she usually left at twelve when my wife spent the day in London.'

‘Did you express surprise to the daily woman that she was still there?'

‘I really can't remember.'

Whitehouse's pad was now well covered with doodles. He tore it off and began again.

‘And the second time?'

‘I had to go back home because I'd forgotten some notes I'd made overnight, and since there was a panic on that day I took Stella Curtis along with me so that we could continue talking in the car.'

‘What time of day would that be?'

‘About the same.'

‘Was your wife—?'

‘No, it happened to be Wednesday again. And this time Mrs Lloyd wasn't there either. But we only stayed ten minutes.'

He was staring at the end of his pencil. I wondered if he was really thinking of my problems or only shadow boxing.

He said: ‘You can't think of any occasion when perhaps some casual intimacy occurred – the way things do sometimes – nowadays – which would be taken the wrong way by anyone paid to watch you …'

I said grimly: ‘ No intimacies, casual or otherwise.'

He nodded. ‘Quite. I wasn't suggesting anything serious; but these days people do call each other darling and kiss each other on the shortest acquaintance.'

I said: ‘ She was my technical assistant. People don't kiss their laboratory assistants if they want to get any work done.' But what about when the work is finished!

‘Or letters? Have you corresponded?'

‘No.'

He put the pencil down and picked up another with a sharper point. ‘What I'm driving at, Mr Granville, is this. Obviously opportunity has existed in plenty. You could have been carrying on at fine affair with the young lady for all one can tell to the contrary. But evidence of opportunity alone is not sufficient to get a divorce. Otherwise no business executive out with his secretary would be safe. There must reasonably be some evidence to show infatuation or undue familiarity. Mind you, the opportunities in this case have been unusually varied – I'm looking at it from a legal point of view, you understand. But all the same' – he made several delicate figure eights on the pad – ‘ if a woman came to me with no more evidence than this, I should tell her that she hadn't grounds for a divorce.'

I thought it out. ‘ This firm who are acting for her …'

‘Yes, it's a point. In law of course there's no bar to a wife bringing a suit on the flimsiest grounds. The only real obstacle is that a solicitor of any repute won't waste his own time and his client's money.'

‘And these people?'

He made a face. ‘They're not tip-top. But I shouldn't really have thought … I'll make some inquiries about them in the next few days.'

I got up. ‘This suit's complicated for me in more ways than I've explained up to now.' I hesitated, and noticed what looked like a glint of speculation in his eyes. I suppose solicitors' clients often hold back their own confessions to the end. ‘Mrs Curtis's husband is a very sick man. I'm not certain if you'll have heard of John Curtis, but he's well known in the scientific world. He's very devoted to his wife, has complete trust in her. That's something I wouldn't willingly see lost.'

‘Hm … It's a complication, I agree.'

‘He's a man I've got a great respect for. To me he's – one of the exalted few. At this stage of the game there isn't much I wouldn't do to avoid poisoning his thoughts of his wife …'

‘Think Mrs Granville knows that?'

‘She certainly doesn't know how I feel about Curtis. But I've been wondering whether she's trying to use this threat of divorce as a lever …'

He watched me. ‘I don't think—'

‘If my wife goes on with this thing, dragging Stella Curtis's name into it, I'll fight it all down the line. But if she really wants a divorce and is prepared to withdraw this petition … then I'd be willing to provide her with evidence that I wouldn't defend …'

Whitehouse frowned at me. ‘Collusion is a bar to divorce. Mr Granville—'

‘It happens every day.'

‘Quite. But it's not a thing I could knowingly be a party to.'

‘Has my wife to appear before her solicitors in the near future?'

‘There's no particular reason why she should. You mean because it might help you to trace her?'

‘Yes.'

‘Perhaps we could assist you over that, I'm not sure. In the meantime—'

‘In the meantime,' I said, ‘the main thing is to keep any knowledge of this trumped-up suit from John Curtis.'

‘That may be difficult, Mr Granville.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, in all probability by now his wife will have been served with a petition herself.'

W
HEN
I got to the works about four, Read had the usual problems to be solved, and there was a pile of letters on my desk no higher than the typewriter.

I said: ‘ Has Mrs Curtis come today?'

‘Yes. She's in the model shop, I think.'

I breathed again. ‘Tell her—'

‘And Piper and Burgin have turned up too. I didn't expect them after the row yesterday. There's one other thing Mr Granville. A rumour's going round that McGowrie is a Communist.'

‘Who?'

‘The red-headed chap we've had about a fortnight. He came from British Electric.'

‘Who told you?'

‘It's the people working next to him who are complaining. They say he makes no secret of it, and they don't like it.'

‘You'd better have him vetted,' I said. ‘Put a call through to London at once. And Bill—'

‘Yes?'

‘I want a session with Mrs Curtis now, so let me know the answer later on, will you?'

‘Right.'

When he had gone I pressed the speaker and said to Miss Allen: ‘I want Mis Curtis, please, and will you keep all phone calls out, and no tea till I ring.'

‘Yes, sir.'

I thought, yes, even that's suspicious if it's a woman you're dealing with, and a dirty-minded private detective comes round making inquiries.

Stella came in. She didn't look well this afternoon and not as pretty as usual. But I knew the instant I saw her. It was a recognition of loving someone as involuntary as a reflex action.

I got her a chair. She said: ‘Boss waits on lab assistant. It won't do, Mike.'

I could tell now by her manner that she hadn't yet had the petition, and her rather desperate flippancy gave me the chance to go right to the point. But I just couldn't throw it at her in the first second of meeting.

‘How have things gone with you?'

‘I'm all right.'

‘And John?'

‘I told him I was leaving here.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Didn't altogether approve. He thinks this work keeps my brain occupied. He likes you, you know.'

I picked up a pencil and began to dab it at the desk. ‘I'm a man on a skewer. Like that, and that, and that …'

Her long, dark blue eyes went slowly over my face. ‘And the more you hate yourself, the more you hate me.'

‘Stella, you know that isn't true.'

She got up and went to the window. ‘One thing follows on the other, doesn't it? I didn't tell you what you should have known about John. If you
had
known, what happened probably wouldn't have happened. You thought of him as a – a middle-aged civil servant or something, ailing, anaemic, a bit of a crank. If you thought of him at all on Sunday you thought of him that way. Isn't it true?'

‘I don't know. If—'

‘And it made all the difference. Didn't it? Didn't it?'

‘That hasn't any bearing—'

‘So you've a fairly good excuse – that's if you feel you need one. I have not. I knew all about John. I knew of his distinction, his courage, his almost saintly acceptance of this – this blasted thing that's come on him. I know it in a way that you'll never know. But it didn't count, did it? Give me a chance and I'm ready for any lark – a bit of a flirtation with the boss, whoops, it's more than that, what a good job we've found a hut,
and
some dry sacking, never mind if it's dirty this
is
fun, isn't it …' She stopped, then turned away and went to the bookshelves with the scientific and trade magazines, picked one up, looked through it, put it down, came back to the desk.

‘Mind if I have a cigarette?'

I handed her the box and she took one and I lit it for her, wanting so much to touch her. She drew at it once or twice, holding it uncertainly between lips and fingers, then took it out, stared at the tip with its faint blue smoke spiral.

‘Sorry, Mike. Sorry.'

‘So you should be.'

‘But it's
true.
One can so easily mock up excuses like those I made last night; but they don't really count at all.'

Silence fell for a minute or so. I said: ‘I've got to tell you that something else has turned up, something – quite fantastic, and I honestly don't know how to begin.'

She looked at me again. ‘About Lynn?'

‘Yes. She's petitioning for divorce. On the grounds of my …'

I took the petition out and handed it to her.

While her colour was coming back I told her quietly what I'd done so far.

She said: ‘But the whole thing – as it's put down here …'

‘I know. A hatch of lies. Up to the time the petition speaks of – up to the thirteenth of July – I'd hardly consciously thought of you as a woman at all.'

‘Thank you.' When I glanced at her she raised her eyebrows. ‘No, I mean it.'

‘The fact that since that time, since Lynn or some threadbare detective turned in this so-called evidence, we've made the substance of the case true, doesn't compel us to admit what didn't happen.'

‘I'm thinking chiefly of John.'

‘So am I – oddly enough and a little late in the day. But I don't feel a sham in denying this bogus stuff, Stella.'

‘No …'

‘The point is to stop it before it gets anywhere.'

‘Through Lynn?'

‘Yes, through her, when I find her. And before that we must somehow make sure that John is nowhere about when you're served with this petition.'

There was silence for a while. I said: ‘If it were not for John I wouldn't want to fight this at all.'

Her cigarette had mostly smouldered away. ‘Wait till you've seen Lynn again.'

‘Look,' I said, ‘ I don't know what's happened to me and I don't know why it's happened – all I know is that it has. Stella, look at me.'

She looked at me. Suddenly she gave a little shiver. ‘All right, I take it back if you feel like that.'

‘I do feel like that.'

‘All right, then … But it isn't going to make it any easier for me to stay here.'

‘I think you must until this thing works itself out.'

‘Why has Lynn brought this petition, Mike? It's such a back-door way out.'

I said: ‘ I'm coming to the conclusion I never really understood her. It's a pretty unpleasant reflection on the quality of my married life.'

‘It doesn't follow that the fault has been yours.'

‘If you can live with a woman for three years and at the end of it know as little about her and how her mind works as I apparently know about Lynn, then you can't be very intelligent or imaginative or sympathetic. And it can't make your expression of love for another woman very much to be prized or well regarded.'

‘That rather depends on the woman.'

‘It depends on her charity.'

‘No,' Stella said. ‘I think that's the wrong word.'

‘Then—'

‘Mike, it won't help now to try to find the right one.'

When she had gone I asked Miss Allen for my works diary. The 27th May, which was the first date, was the day of our visit to Harwell when I called back at our house for the plans of IDA for Frank Dawson. So I was being accused of committing adultery in my own home with a woman I then still called Mrs Curtis. The 13th of July was the night I'd worked with Stella at the factory until after midnight.

Just then Read came in and said: ‘Well, they've checked and wasted no time on it. McGowrie is an active member of the Communist Party. What do we do now?'

‘Get him out.'

‘How?'

‘The way we did with Camley; reorganise the working arrangements and create a redundancy.'

‘It won't be easy when we're so many under staff.' He hesitated. ‘OK. I'll fix it. But I doubt if we can do it by Saturday.'