The Peace Machine

A buzzer sounded on the desk and the sergeant nodded gravely at Crombie-Carson. He took off his glasses, slipped them into his pocket, and went into the conference room where three men were seated at the long table. One of them was a watchful stranger in a dark suit.

“This is Mr. Rea of… ah… the Ministry of Defence,” Alison said. “He has come down from London to ask you some questions about the Hutchman case.”

Crombie-Carson shook hands. “How do you do? I had an idea we might be seeing somebody from Whitehall.”

“Had you?” Rea seemed to pounce on the remark. “What gave you the idea?”

“Hutchman works at Westfield’s. A guided-missile expert and queer goings-on with a group of Communists. It seems fairly obvious…

Rea looked satisfied. “Ah, yes. Now, you interviewed Hutchman at this station for several hours, as I understand it.”

“That’s correct.”

“Did he talk freely?”

Crombie-Carson frowned, trying to get the drift of the interview. “He spoke freely, but there’s the question of how much of what he said was true.”

“Quite. I expect he covered up certain things, but how did he speak about his wife?”

“It’s all in the transcript,” Crombie-Carson said. “He didn’t say much about her, though.”

“Yes, I have a note of his actual words, but you were talking to him before the interrogation and you’re accustomed to reading between the lines, Inspector Crombie-Carson. In your carefully considered opinion, is Mrs. Hutchman involved in this affair? Apart from the marital connection, of course.”

“She isn’t involved.” Crombie-Carson thought of Hutchman’s smooth, tawny wife and wondered what madness had come over the man.

“You’re positive?”

“I talked to Hutchman for several hours all told. And to his wife for a while. She doesn’t know anything about it.”

Rea glanced at Alison and the Chief Inspector gave a barely perceptible nod. Crombie-Carson felt a flicker of gratitude. At least the old man wasn’t going to let that ridiculous business with the mattress obscure twenty years of reliable service.

“All right.” Rea examined his hands, which were finely manicured but marred by sand-colored liver spots. “How would you say things are between Hutchman and his wife?”

“Not too good. There’s this Knight woman…”

“No emotional ties, then.”

“I didn’t say that,” Crombie-Carson said quickly. “I got the impression they were giving each other hell.”

“Is he likely to try getting in touch with her?”

“Could be.” Crombie-Carson’s eyes suddenly felt tired, but he resisted the impulse to put on his spectacles. “He might be able to hurt her a bit more by not getting in contact, though. I’m keeping a watch on the parents’ house, just in case…”

“We’ve withdrawn your men,” Chief Superintendent Tibbett said, speaking for the first time. “Mr. Rea’s department has assumed responsibility for the surveillance of Mrs. Hutchman.”

“Is that necessary?” Crombie-Carson allowed himself to sound offended, to demonstrate to the others that he had every confidence in his own arrangements.

Rea nodded. “My people have more experience in this particular type of operation.”

“Well, how about the phone-tapping unit?”

“That, too. We’ll handle the complete operation. You know how sensitive an area the guided-missile field is, Inspector.”

“Of course.”

When he left the conference room shortly afterward, CrombieCarson was pleased that Hutchman’s escape had not been mentioned, but he had a peculiar conviction that the case had ramifications about which he was not being told.

CHAPTER 12

There were several others staying in the Atwood house, but as Hutchman was the only one requiring full board he was invited to have his evening meal in the kitchen with the family. It would be much pleasanter for him, Mrs. Atwood had said, than sitting alone in the dining room, which was difficult to heat anyway. Hutchman was surrounded by a swarming cloud of his own thoughts, through which the conversation of other people reached him as a semimeaningless babble. He had his doubts about the eating arrangements. After a full day in the floralpatterned room, however, the prospect of warming himself at a hearth had become more attractive. There was also the fact that he wanted to avoid behaving in a way which would appear furtive or suspicious.

He shaved his cheeks and lower lip, emphasizing his beard, and went out onto the landing. It was only when he tried to lock the bedroom door behind him that he discovered the significance of the strange bend in the shank of the key. The lock was screwed to the inner face of the door and the key, in spite of its distorted geometry, could operate it efficiently from the inside — but from the outside the key would have had to reach through the thickness of the door, and this was impossible. He could seal himself into the room, but never lock it behind him when he went out.

Subdued by a sudden insight into the way non-Hutchman minds worked on non-Hutchman planes of existence, he went down the stairs and tentatively opened the kitchen door. Warm, meaty air gusted past him from the room which was largely occupied by a table set for four. Mrs. Atwood and the boy, Geoffrey, were already seated at the table, and the biggest man Hutchman had ever seen was standing with his back to a shimmering anthracite fire. His megacephalous figure was swathed in a voluminous Arran sweater which did not disguise the fact that he had the muscles of a plough- horse.

“Come in, lad,” he said in a shock wave of a voice. “Close the door — you’re letting in a draught.”

“Right.” Hutchman went in and, in the absence of introductions, decided that the giant was Mr. Atwood. “Where do I… ?”

“Sit here beside Geoffrey,” Mrs. Atwood said. “I like to have all my boys where I can keep an eye on them.” She uncovered a white-glass casserole dish and began spooning stew onto bluerimmed plates. Hutchman was very much aware of the boy beside him, a tiny hominid the same size as his own son, with the quietly heaving chest of an asthma sufferer. He tried unsuccessfully to catch the child’s eye.

“There you are, Mr. Rattray,” Mrs. Atwood said, addressing Hutchman by the name he had told her. She began to pass him a loaded plate, but her husband advanced from the fireplace.

“That’s not enough to line a man’s stomach,” he boomed. “Give him some more, Jane.”

Hutchman reached for the plate. “No, this is more than enough, thanks.”

“Nonsense!” Atwood’s voice was so loud that Hutchman actually felt the table reverberate under his hand. He saw the boy beside him flinch. “Pay no attention to him, Jane. Fill that plate.”

“I assure you…” Hutchman stopped speaking as he saw the pleading expression on Mrs. Atwood’s face, and allowed her to heap more of the thick stew on top of the ample portion she had already served.

“Get that down you. Build you up a bit.” Atwood accepted his own mountain of food and began eating it with a soup spoon. “You eat yours up too, Geoffrey.”

“Yes, Dad,” the boy said compliantly and began to eat.

A silence fell over the room, broken only by what sounded to Hutchman like the roar of a distant crowd and which he identified a moment later as coming from Geoffrey’s chest. The boy seemed disturbed by his father and Hutchman tried to visualize how the giant must appear through a seven-year-old’s eyes. Enormous, terrifying, incomprehensible. During the soundless day in the bedroom he had passed some time by trying to adopt other people’s viewpoints and had found the experience unsettling. There was, for instance, the question of marital infidelity. Even in the final quarter of the twentieth century most men — I should know — were devastated to discover that their wives had been unfaithful; but how could a man ever appreciate the woman’s point of view? Supposing the situation were reversed and women were the sexual predators? How long would the average man hold out if an attractive woman came pestering him to go to bed with her, pushing and pleading, refusing to take no for an answer? He realized that Atwood had spoken his temporarily adopted name.

“I beg your pardon.”

Atwood sighed heavily, hugely. “I said, what do you do, lad? For a living?”

“At the moment, nothing.” Hutchman had not expected to be quizzed, and spoke coldly to ward off any further questions.

“But when you’re doing something, what is the something you do?” Atwood appeared not to notice he had been snubbed.

“Ah… I’m a designer.”

“Hats? Knickers?” Atwood gave a pleased guffaw.

Hutchman realized he had chosen too exotic a profession. “No. Steel-framed buildings. I’m more what you might call a draftsman.”

Atwood looked impressed. “Good job, that. Plenty of work for draftsmen in these parts.”

“Yes — that’s why I’m here. I’m going to take it easy for a few days, then have a look around.” Hutchman felt he had woven an acceptable story.

“I’m a greengrocer, myself,” Atwood said. “Do you take a sup?”

“Beer? Sometimes.”

“Good. As soon as you’ve finished that we’re going down to the Cricketers for a few pots of ale.”

“Thanks, but I think I’d prefer not to have a drink this evening.”

“Nonsense,” Atwood bellowed. “I’m not talking about that southern piss. We’re going to have some good Lancashire ale.” He directed a fierce look at Hutchman’s plate, which was still almost full. “Get that into you, lad. No wonder you’re so skinny…”

“That’s enough, George,” Mrs. Atwood snapped “Rember Mr. Rattray’s a guest in this house.”

“Hold your tongue!” Atwood scowled at her, his massive chin jutting. “Isn’t that why I’m inviting him to have a drink?”

Hutchman felt the boy move uneasily beside him, his breathing becoming noisier. “It’s all right, Mrs. Atwood. I can see that your husband is being hospitable, and on second thought maybe I should go out for an hour.”

Atwood nodded. “That’s more like it. Now finish your supper, lad.”

Hutchman met his gaze squarely as he pushed the plate away. “If I eat a lot, I can’t drink afterward.”

When the meal was over he went up to his room, put on his jacket, and looked out into the night. It had begun to rain and the tiny segments of rooms floating in the darkness seemed more dismal than they had on the previous night. George Atwood was a hulking lout, an insensitive animal who dominated others by his sheer size, but an evening in his company would be better than an evening alone in the room with the advancing floral walls. Vicky, the thought came against his will, look what you’ve brought me to.

He went back downstairs, walked into the kitchen, and saw his own face on the screen on the television set in the corner. Jane Atwood was watching a news program, with her back turned toward the door, and she did not see him enter the room. He left without being heard and waited in the dimly-lit hall for George Atwood to appear. The news bulletin was substantially the same as the one he had heard in the car while driving north — which might be an indication that he had been connected with the antibomb machine. He had provided the authorities with a good, publicly acceptable reason for hunting him down. They would be able to use every communication medium to the limit, and only a few people might stop to wonder why a mere witness in an abduction case was receiving so much prominence. The photograph being broadcast was hauntingly familiar to Hutchman, with its mottled background suggestive of foliage, but he could not remember where it had been taken or who had held the camera. No doubt all his friends and acquaintances had been questioned by the police and possibly by men from some nameless branch of the security machine.