after half a lifetime, least of all a crime which had gained him nothing but a bad conscience. It was a poor recompense for Normandy, Arnhem and the Rhine, the days of fear and danger.
There was a peremptory rap on the door, which caught him unprepared. He had expected to hear the familiar klaxon first.
'Dr Audley? You put through an emergency call?'
'I am Audley. I put through the call. Mr Morrison appears to have fallen down the stairs into the cellar–through there. He's dead.'
He lead the party, which had shed a uniformed man at the door, through into the stockroom. Roskill, still busy on the phone, nodded to them without pausing in mid-sentence.
The leading member of the squad peered down the staircase for a moment, nodded to the other two men and turned back to Audley.
He was a large man, taller even than Audley, with a mild, quizzical expression. He looked as if he had seen everything, heard everything, believed very little of it, and could no longer be surprised by anything.
'I'm Detective Inspector Roberts, sir. Could I see your identification please?'
Audley passed the folder over.
'And this gentleman?'
'Squadron Leader Roskill, my colleague.'
'Might I ask who he is telephoning?'
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'The Ministry.'
'Are you here on official business, sir?'
'We are.'
'Might I know the nature of that business, sir?'
'Mr Morrison was helping us with some information concerning a matter we are investigating, inspector. A matter falling under the Official Secrets Act. He was only marginally concerned with it.
We spoke to him briefly early in the afternoon and arranged to see him again at 5.25, just before he closed. We found the shop locked, and Squadron Leader Roskill went round to the service entrance.
He found the body at the bottom of the stairs.'
Roberts nodded. 'You said in your message that you were not altogether satisfied with the circumstances here, sir. Could you tell me why?'
Audley repeated what Roskill had said.
'Inspector, there was no question of any proceedings against Mr Morrison. He was disturbed by our visit, but there was no reason why he should take his own life. If he wanted to, in any case, I don't think he would have used such a method. When I first saw him down there I thought it must have been an accident. I still think so.
'But if there is any question of foul play it is of the very greatest importance that this is established quickly.'
Roberts gave him an old-fashioned look.
'Can you think of any reason–any reason that you can tell me–why anyone might harm Mr Morrison, sir?'
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'Honestly, inspector–no. This sort of thing just doesn't happen. Not now–not here.'
'A lot of strange things happen now — and here, Dr Audley.'
'Not this sort of thing, inspector. But if it has, we have to know, so I'd like you to make a special effort.'
Roskill joined them, thrusting out a hand to be shaken.
'I'm to blame, inspector. Sorry about that, but when you don't like the look of a thing you can't make it look right by thinking about it.'
The inspector smiled for the first time, and it occurred to Audley that his own confidence over being able to handle the police from a lofty height was misplaced. Everything he had said had been either pompous or stilted, while Roskill had set everything in perspective and at the right level in a couple of easy sentences.
'Dr Audley's right, of course–this sort of nastiness is out of date now,' Roskill continued. 'But people don't fall downstairs when I want to talk to them either. They run away.'
He passed over a sheet of paper to the inspector.
'You'll want to do some checking on us. There are some names and telephone numbers to check on.
'And just to set your mind at rest I can detail our movements for you. There was a family in here when we left–I can describe the badge on the boys' blazers. And there were two lads outside all the time–from a local secondary school almost certainly. They may have seen something, and they'll remember me. I can give you a full statement.'
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The inspector relaxed visibly, and it further dawned on Audley that he had equally stupidly overlooked the need to establish not their status, but their innocence. His own assumption of authority and their equivocal position had set an awkward question of protocol, which he had not had the sense to resolve simply because it had never occurred to him.
The shop doorbell rang.
'That'll be our surgeon,' said Roberts. 'Are you a medical doctor, sir?'
