The words were there, Brock sensed, but not the feelings. There was no anger, no outrage in Young’s voice. He spoke in a monotone, giving the impression of a chess player moving his pieces forward, one by one, to establish a position.
‘Professor Haygill is understandably incensed. He feels that he always behaved with total propriety towards Max Springer, despite outrageous provocation, and he is now being pilloried by the words of a dead man against which he can’t defend himself. He is in a mood to lash out, to defend himself, against anyone he perceives as an enemy. You understand?’
‘Of course.’
‘He even suggested to me that the Herald reports may have been deliberately inspired by the police.’
He paused and looked balefully at Brock for comment.
Brock said, ‘Really?’
Young gave the briefest of smiles, as if he hadn’t really expected to provoke a reaction.
‘Naturally I will attempt to counsel him to avoid entangling us all in unnecessary complications. But at some point his interests and ours-that is, the university’s-may diverge. May indeed have already diverged.’
‘Is that so? I seem to recall you describing CAB-Tech as the flagship of your university’s research effort, Professor,’ Brock said mildly.
‘Sometimes even the flagship must be sacrificed for the sake of the whole fleet. I’m thinking that it may become prudent, necessary, for the university to review the whole operation and management of CAB-Tech. Some kind of high-powered, external committee of review, with unimpeachable credibility. A senior judge, a retired vice-chancellor, a past president of the Royal Society… that sort of level. My dilemma is, that I don’t want to set up a sledgehammer to crack a nut, you see.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Well, if the problem is endemic, and the whole body is tainted, then clearly some powerful surgery is necessary. But if it’s localised to one or two misguided junior staff who can be isolated and removed without damaging the integrity of the whole, well, that’s a different matter. To be candid, Chief Inspector,’ and here Young fixed Brock with a frank, almost intimate little smile, ‘it would help me a great deal if I could have some guidance from you as to how deep, or should I say, how far up the CAB-Tech hierarchy your current investigations are reaching.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on our inquiries.’
‘You see,’ Young went on as if he hadn’t heard, ‘we’re both basically the same. We’re both servants of the public. Just like you, my primary concern has to be the well being of the members of the public I serve, the students and their parents-you might be one of them-whose investment in their education at UCLE depends upon the good standing of the institution. I cannot permit any individual or group, no matter how prestigious, to undermine the value of the degrees our students leave us with, and which are the foundation of their future.’
Brock wondered if Young really believed he was making any impression with this appeal, for once again, although the words were said, there was no emotional force behind them. Yet somehow he seemed to feel he’d made his point, for after Brock repeated that he could say nothing about his investigation, Young nodded, promised his full cooperation, and got to his feet. When he’d gone, Brock decided that Young’s sole objective had been damage limitation-to persuade Brock that he at least lay outside whatever circle of guilt the police might be defining. He was probably on his way back to tell Haygill to stay calm, while he prepared the means to sacrifice him.
Brock’s secretary Dot put her head round the door. ‘I heard he’d gone. I’ve had another request for an urgent meeting. Mrs Haygill phoned. She wants to meet to speak to you personally. Shall I get back to her?’
Sheila Haygill was shown into the meeting room half an hour later. She was expensively dressed, with several large precious stones on her fingers, and carefully groomed. She moved into the room and sat down in the offered chair with deliberate care, and Brock thought at first that this was because the circumstances made her nervous. He thought she must have been stunning when she was young, but the buxomness had become over-ripe, and the natural beauty of youth had become formalised by make-up and hair styling into a kind of stiff counterfeit that matched her movements and also, when she began to speak, her speech.
‘I am not a genius, Chief Inspector,’ she began, ‘like my husband. In fact I’m not very bright, as most people know.’
He detected a Manchester accent, and as she went on he decided that the stiffness came from a sense of inherent insecurity, despite her looks and possessions.
‘But I know right from wrong, and I’ve tried, in my own way, to support my husband over the years to the best of my ability. However, he’s away a great deal, and he’s been under a lot of pressure recently, as you may know, and especially in the past months, and perhaps due to that, he hasn’t always been fair to me. In fact, there have been times when he’s shown…’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘his contempt.’
She paused and opened her handbag for a tissue, and dabbed her nose, then drew herself up straight. ‘This morning I got a call from a friend, who told me that my husband has been employing a private detective to spy on me.’ Her eyes narrowed in anger. ‘I don’t consider that the action of a loving husband.’
Brock shifted uncomfortably in his seat and cleared his throat. ‘Are you absolutely sure, Mrs Haygill? Sometimes people can jump to conclusions…’
‘Oh, there’s no doubt. The man was confronted. He confessed.
But anyway, that’s only the latest and final straw. It’s a private matter between me and my husband. I only mention it to explain that I’m leaving him, and I don’t feel bound to lie for him any more.’
‘Have you been lying for him?’
‘I… I’ve kept silent when I would have spoken out if it had been anyone else. Tell me, this report in the paper this morning, is it true that you suspect my husband of being involved in the murder of Max Springer?’
Brock didn’t reply for a moment. He saw the tension in her eyes as she waited for his reply, and felt on a cusp, one of those moments where everything shifts.
‘Mrs Haygill,’ he replied softly, trying to sound very calm and reassuring, ‘I’ll answer that to the best of my ability, but first I’d like to tell you that I would like to record this conversation, and also invite one of my colleagues to join us. Will you agree to that?’
She hesitated, then nodded, and Brock lifted the phone and asked for Kathy. When they were ready Brock explained the caution to Mrs Haygill and went on, ‘You asked me just now if we suspect your husband of involvement in the murder of Max Springer. All I can tell you is that we believe that Abu Khadra, a member of your husband’s staff, pulled the trigger that killed Professor Springer, but we are not entirely satisfied that he acted alone. The report in the paper that we have been interviewing your husband and his staff at CAB-Tech once again is correct. Now, you also said just now that you have been keeping silent about something to protect your husband, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please tell us what it is.’
Her carefully plucked eyebrows creased together in a frown. ‘He came to see me, you see. About three weeks ago. The twelfth of January it was. I made a note in my diary at the time. Richard was at a meeting in York that day.’
‘Who came to see you?’
‘Max Springer. He came to our house. I was amazed at the nerve of the man. He’d never been there before, and of course he knew he wouldn’t be welcome. I was just so astonished to see him standing at the front door, this untidy little man in his shabby mackintosh with his hair blown all over the place, that he was able to speak to me before I slammed the door on him.
‘He said that he had something he wanted to tell me, something important for me to hear. He seemed so, well, humble in his manner, not at all the monster I’d heard of from Richard’s accounts, that I let him in. We sat in our lounge room, and I remember noticing that he was wearing odd socks, and the collar of his shirt was dreadfully frayed. He said he’d come to warn me about something. He said he had some information about Richard’s work which he was planning to make public, and when he did it might well ruin Richard.’