Mary Ashton died a couple of years later in 1953, from childbirth complications. The baby died, too. All his life Ashton kept a low profile. He joined no clubs or trade associations; he steered clear of politics, national or local, although he voted regularly, and generally divided his life between his work and his home. This gave him time to look after his two small girls with the help of a nanny whom he brought into the small suburban house in Slough, where he then lived. From the record he was devoted to them. About 1953 he must have opened his old notebooks and started to think again. As Chelyuskin he had never published any of his work on catalysts and I suppose he thought it was safe to enter the field. A catalyst is a substance which speeds up the chemical reactions between other substances, sometimes by many thousands of times. They are used extensively in chemical processing, particularly in the oil industry. Ashton put his old work to good use. He devised a whole series of new catalysts tailored to specialized uses. Some he manufactured and sold himself, others he allowed to be made under licence. All were patented and the money began to roll in. It seemed as though this odd fish was swimming quite well in the capitalist sea. In 1960 he bought his present house and, after fifteen months of extensive internal remodelling, he moved in with his family. After that nothing much seemed to happen except that he saw the portent of North Sea oil, opened another factory in 1970, took out a lot more patents and became steadily richer. He also extended his interest to those natural catalysts, the enzymes, and presumably the sketchy theory presented in the early notebook became filled out. After 1962 the record became particularly flat and perfunctory, and I knew why. Authority had lost interest in him and he would exist only in a tickler file to remind someone to give an annual check. It was only when I set the bells jingling by my inadvertent enquiry that someone had woken up. And that was the life of George Ashton, once Aleksandr Dmitrovitch Chelyuskin-my future father-in-law.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN What I have set down about Ashton-Chelyuskin is a mere condensation of what was in the computer together with a couple of added minor assumptions used as links to make a sustained narrative. Had I been able to use the printer it would have churned out enough typescript to make a book the size of a family bible. To set down in print the details of a man's life needs a lot of paper.
Yet I think I have presented the relevant facts. When I finished I had a headache. To stare at a cathode ray screen for two and a half hours is not good for the eyes, and I had been smoking heavily so that the little room was very stuffy. It was with relief that I emerged into Ogilvie's office. He was sitting at his desk reading a book. He looked up and smiled. 'You look as though you need a drink.' 'It would go down very well,' I agreed. He got up and opened a cabinet from which he took a bottle of whisky and two glasses; then he produced a jug of iced water from a small built-in refrigerator. The perquisites of office. 'What do you think?' 'I think Ashton is one hell of a man. I'm proud to have known him.' 'Anything else?' 'There's one fact that's so damned obvious it may be overlooked.' 'I doubt it,' said Ogilvie, and handed me a glass. 'A lot of good men have checked that file.' I diluted the whisky and sat down. 'Do you have all of Ashton in there?'
'All that we know is there.' 'Exactly. Now, I've gone through Ashton's work in some detail and it's all in the field of applied science-technology, if you like. All the things he's been doing with catalysts is derived from his earlier unpublished work; there's nothing fundamentally new there. Correct me if I'm wrong.' 'You're quite right, although it took a man with Ashton's brains to do it.
We've given our own top chemists photocopies of those notebooks and their attitude was that the stuff was all right from a theoretical point of view but it didn't seem to lead anywhere. Ashton made it lead somewhere and it's made him rich. But, in general, your point is good; it's all derivative of earlier work-even his later interest in enzymes.' I nodded. 'But Chelyuskin was a theoretician. The point is this-did he stop theorizing and, if not, what the hell has he been thinking about? I can understand why you want that bloody vault opened.' 'You're not too stupid," said Ogilvie. 'You've hit the nail smack on the head. You're right; you can't stop a man thinking, but what he's been thinking about is difficult to figure. It won't be atomic theory.' 'Why not?' 'We know what he reads; the magazines he subscribes to, the books he buys. We know he's not been keeping up with the scientific literature in any field except catalytic chemistry, and no one thinks in a vacuum. Atomic theory has made great strides since Ashton came out of Russia. To do any original work a man would have to work hard to keep ahead of the pack-attend seminars and so on. Ashton hasn't been doing it.' He tasted his whisky. 'What would you have done in Ashton's position and with a mind like his?'
'Survival would come first,' I said. 'I'd find a niche in society and look for security. Once I'd got that perhaps I'd start thinking again-theorizing.' 'What about? In your struggle for survival the world of thought has passed you by; you've lost touch. And you daren't try to regain touch, either. So what would you think about?' 'I don't know,' I said slowly. 'Perhaps, with a mind like his, I'd think about things other people haven't been thinking about. A new field.' 'Yes,' said Ogilvie thoughtfully. 'It makes one wonder, doesn't it?' We sat for a few moments in silence. It was late-the light was ebbing from the summer sky over the City-and I was tired. I sipped the whisky appreciatively and thought about Ashton. Presently Ogilvie asked, 'Did you find anything in the file to give you a clue about where he's gone?' 'Nothing springs to mind. I'd like to sleep on it-let the unconscious have a go.' I finished the whisky. 'Where does Cregar fit into this?' 'It was his crowd Ashton approached when he wanted to leave Russia. Cregar went into Russia himself to get him out. He was a young man then, of course, and not yet Lord Cregar-he was the Honourable James Pallton. Now he heads his department.' I'd come across the name Pallton in reading the file, but I hadn't connected it with Cregar. I said, 'He mishandled Ashton right from the start. He approached him with all the sensitivity of a fifty-pence whore. First he threatened, then he tried to bribe. He didn't understand the type of man he'd come across, and he put Ashton's back up.' Ogilvie nodded.