than that. But she's in the Intensive Care unit at the hospital.' We had rather an uncomfortable meal, just the two of us because Ashton wouldn't come out of the study, sayi ng he wasn't hungry. An hour later, when I was wondering if he'd forgotten I was there, Benson came into the room. 'Mr. Ashton would like to see you, sir.' 'Thank you.' I made my excuses to Penny and went into the study.
Ashton was sitting behind a large desk but rose as I entered. I said, 'I can't tell you how sorry I am that this awful thing should have happened.' He nodded. 'I know, Malcolm.' His hand grasped the whiskey bottle which I noted was now only half full. He glanced at the tray, and said, 'Be a good chap and get yourself a clean glass.' 'I'd rather not drink any more this evening. I still have to drive back to town.'
He put down the bottle gently and came from behind the desk. 'Sit down,' he said, and thus began one of the weirdest interviews of my life. He paused for a moment. 'How are things with you and Penny?' I looked at him consideringly. 'Are you asking if my intentions are honourable?' 'More or less. Have you slept with her yet?' That was direct enough. 'No.' I grinned at him. 'You brought her up too well.'
He grunted. 'Well, what are your intentions-if any?' 'I thought it might be a good idea if I asked her to marry me.' He didn't seemed displeased at that. 'And have you?' 'Not yet.' He rubbed the side of his jaw reflectively. 'This job of yours-what sort of income do you make out of it?' That was a fair question if I was going to marry his daughter. 'Last year it was a fraction over?8000; this year will be better.' Aware that a man like Ashton would regard that as chickenfeed I added, 'And I have private investments which bring in a further ?11,000.' He raised his eyebrows. 'You still work with a private income?' 'That?11,000 is before tax,' I said wryly, and shrugged.
'And a man must do something with his life.' 'How old are you?'
'Thirty-four.' He leaned back in his chair and said musingly, '?8000 year isn't bad-so far. Any prospects of advancement in the firm?' 'I'm bucking for it.' He then asked me a couple of questions which were a damned sight more personal than digging into my finances but, again, in the circumstances they were fair and my answers seemed to satisfy him. He was silent for a while, then he said, 'You could do better by changing your job. I have an opening which is ideal for a man like yourself. Initially you'd have to spend at least one year in Australia getting things off the ground, but that wouldn't hurt a couple of youngsters like you and Penny. The only trouble is that it must be now-almost immediately.' He was going too fast for me. 'Hold on a moment,' I protested. 'I don't even know if she'll marry me.' 'She will,' he said positively. 'I know my daughter.' He evidently knew her better than I did because I wasn't nearly so certain. 'Even so,' I said. 'There's Penny to consider. Her work is important to her. I can't see her throwing it up and going to Australia for a year just like that. And that's apart from anything I might think about the advisability of making a change.' 'She could take a sabbatical.
Scientists do that all the time.' 'Maybe. Frankly, I'd need to know a lot more about it before making a decision.' For the first time Ashton showed annoyance. He managed to choke it down and disguise it, but it was there. He thought for a moment, then said in conciliatory tones, 'Well, a decision on that might wait a month. I think you'd better pop the question, Malcolm. I can fix a special licence and you can get married towards the end of the week.' He tried to smile genially but the smile got nowhere near his eyes which still had a hurt look in them. 'I'll give you a house for a dowry-somewhere in the South Midlands, North of London.' It was a time for plain speaking. 'I think you're going a bit too fast. I don't see the necessity for a special licence. In fact, it's my guess that Penny wouldn't hear of it, even if she does agree to marry me. I rather think she'd like to have Gillian at the wedding.' Ashton's face crumpled and he seemed about to lose what little composure he had. I said evenly, 'It was always in my mind to buy a house when I married. Your offer of a house generous, but I think the kind of house it should be-and where it should be-are matters for Penny and me to decide between us.' He stood up, walked to the desk, and poured himself a drink. With his back to me he said indistinctly, 'You're right, of course. I shouldn't interfere. But will you ask her to marry you-now?' 'Now! Tonight?' 'Yes.' I stood up.
'Under the circumstances I consider that entirely inappropriate, and I won't do it. Now, if you'll forgive me, I have to go back to town.' He neither turned nor made an answer. I left him there and closed the study door quietly behind me. I was at a loss to understand his driving insistence that Penny and I should marry quickly. That, and the offer of the job in Australia, had me worried. If this was the way he engaged his staff, not to mention picking a son- in-law, I was surprised how he'd got to where he was. Penny was telephoning when I entered the hall. She re- placed the receiver and said, 'I've been talking to the hospital; they say she's resting easier.' 'Good! I'll be back tomorrow evening and we'll go to see her. It might make her feel better to have someone else around, even a comparative stranger like me.' 'I don't know if that's a good idea,' said Penny, doubtfully. 'She might be… well, self-conscious about her appearance.' 'I'll come anyway and we can decide then. I have to go now-it's late.' She saw me to my car and I kissed her and left, wondering what kind of bee was buzzing in Ashton's bonnet.
CHAPTER FOUR Next morning, when I walked into the office I shared with Larry Godwin, he looked up from the Czechoslovakian trade magazine he was reading and said, 'Harrison wants to see you.'
Harrison was our immediate boss. 'Okay.' I walked straight out again and into Harrison's office, sat in the chair before the desk, and said, 'Morning, Joe. Larry said you wanted to see me.' Harrison was a bit of a stuffed shirt, very keen on formality, protocol and the line of authority. He didn't like me calling him Joe, so I always did it just to needle him. He said stiffly, 'On checking the weekend telephone log I found you had disclosed yourself to a police officer.
Why?' 'I was at a house party over the weekend. There was a nasty incident-one of the daughters of the house had acid thrown in her face. She was taken to hospital and, when the police pitched up, I was alone in the house and they started to get off on the wrong foot. I didn't want them wasting time on me, so I disclosed myself to the officer in charge.' He shook his head disapprovingly and tried to hold me in what he supposed to be an eagle-like stare. 'His name?'
'Detective-Inspector Honnister. You'll find him at the cop-shop in Marlow.' Harrison scribbled in his desk book, and I leaned forward.
'What's the matter, Joe? We're supposed to co-operate with the police.' He didn't look up. 'You're not supposed to disclose yourself to all and sundry.' 'He wasn't all and sundry. He was a middle-ranking copper doing his job and getting off to a bad start.' Harrison raised his head. 'You needn't have done it. He would never seriously suspect you of anything.' I grinned at him. 'The way you tell it co-operation is a one-way street, Joe. The cops co-operate with us when we need them, but we don't co-operate with them when all they need is a little setting straight.' 'It will be noted in your record,' he said coldly.
'Stuff the record,' I said, and stood up. 'Now, if you'll excuse me I have work to do.' I didn't wait for his permission to leave and went back to my office. Larry had switched to something in Polish. 'Have a good weekend?' 'A bit fraught. Who's pinched our Who's Who?' He grinned. 'What's the matter? Wouldn't she play?' He lashed out Who's Who from among the piles of books which cluttered his desk and tossed it to me. Our job called for a lot of reading; when I retired I'd be entitled to a disability pension due to failing eyesight incurred in the line of duty. I sat at my desk and ran through the 'A's and found that Ashton was not listed. There are not many men running three or more factories employing over a thousand men who are not listed in Who's Who. It seemed rather odd. On impulse I took the telephone directory and checked that, and be was not listed there, either. Why should Ashton have an ex-directory number? I said, 'Know anything about high-impact plastics, Larry?' 'What do you want to know?' 'A chap called Ashton runs a factory in Slough making the stuff. I could bear to know a little more about him.' 'Haven't heard of him. What's the name of the firm?' 'I don't know.' 'You don't know much. There might be a trade association.' 'Great thinking.' I went to our library and an hour later knew there were more associations of plastics manufacturers than I believed-there was even one devoted to high-impact plastics-but none of them had heard of George Ashton. It seemed unnatural. Gloomily I went back to my office. It's a hard world where a man can't check up on his prospective father-in-law. Ashton, as of that moment, knew a hell of a lot more about me than I knew about him. Larry saw my face and said, 'No luck?' 'The man keeps a bloody low profile.' He laughed and waved his hand across the room.
'You could ask Nellie.' I looked at Nellie and grinned. 'Why not?' I said lightly, and sat at the console. You don't have to cuddle up to a computer to ask it questions-all you need is a terminal, and we called ours Nellie for no reason I've ever been able to determine. If you crossed an oversized typewriter with a television set you'd get something like Nellie, and if you go to Heathrow you'll see dozens of them in the booking hall. Where the computer actually was no one had bothered to tell me. Knowing the organization that employed me, and knowing a little of what was in the monster's guts, I'd say it wa s tended by white-coated acolytes in a limestone cavern in Derbyshire, or at the bottom of a Mendip mineshaft; anywhere reasonably safe from an atomic burst. But, as I say, I didn't really know. My crowd worked strictly on the 'need to know' principle. I snapped a couple of switches, pushed a button, and was rewarded by a small green question mark on the screen. Another button push made it
