“But I’ve told you all I know about Welland.”
“That remains to be seen,” the Inspector snapped. “However, it’s Miss Knight I’m interested in now.”
“Andrea!” Hutchman felt a sick premonition. “What about her?”
“Earlier this evening,” Crombie-Carson said coldly, “she was abducted from her apartment by three armed men.”
CHAPTER 9
“Good God,” Hutchman whispered. “Why should anybody want to do that?”
Crombie-Carson gave a short laugh which somehow indicated that, while he appreciated Hutchman’s display of surprise on its merits purely as a display, he had seen many guilty men react in a similar manner. “A lot of people would like to know the answer to that question. Where, for instance, have you been all evening?”
“Right here. At home.”
“Anybody with you to substantiate that?”
“No.” If Andrea has been abducted, Hutchman thought belatedly, then she must have talked to more people than Welland. Either that or Welland passed something on to…
“How about your wife?”
“No. Not my wife — she’s staying with her parents.”
“I see,” Crombie-Carson said, using what Hutchman was beginning to recognize as an all-purpose phrase. “Mr. Hutchman, I suspect that you were about to leave this area in spite of my request that you should remain.”
Hutchman felt stirrings of real alarm. “I assure you I wasn’t. Where would I go?”
“What have you in that suitcase?”
“Nothing.” Hutchman squinted into the spotlight, feeling mild heat from it on his face. “Nothing like what you’re looking for. It’s correspondence.”
“Do you mind showing it to me?”
“I don’t mind.” Hutchman opened the car door, pulled the case to the edge of the seat, and clicked it open. The light played on the bundles of envelopes and reflected in the inspector’s glasses.
“Thank you, Mr. Hutchman — I had to be certain. Now if you would lock the case away in your car or in the house, I would like you to accompany me to Crymchurch police station.”
“Why should I?” The situation, Hutchman realized, had gone far beyond his control.
“I have reason to believe you can help me with my inquiries.”
“Is that another way of saying I’m under arrest?”
“No, Mr. Hutchman. I have no reason to arrest you, but I can require you to give your full co-operation during my investigations. If necessary I can…”
“Don’t bother,” Hutchman said, feigning resignation. “I’ll go with you.” He closed the case, put it on the floor of the car, and locked the door. Crombie-Carson ushered him into the rear seat of the police cruiser and got in beside him. The interior smelt of wax polish and dusty air circulated by the heater. Hutchman sat upright, acutely self-conscious, watching the flowing patterns of lights beyond the windows with heightened awareness, like a child going on holiday or a man being wheeled into an operating theater. He was unaccustomed to riding in a back seat, and the car felt monstrously long, unwieldy. The uniformed driver seemed to maneuver it around corners with super-human skill. It was almost ten o’clock by the time they got into the town and the public houses were busy with the Sunday night trade. Hutchman glimpsed the yellow-lit windows of Joe’s inn and abruptly his sense of adventure deserted him. He longed to be going into Joe’s for the last congenial hour, not for spirits but for pints of creamy stout which he could swill and swallow and drown in until it was time to go home. As the car swung into the police station Hutchman, who normally never drank stout or beer, felt that he had to have at least one pint, perhaps as a token that he could still contact the normal, mundane world.
“How long is this going to take?” he said anxiously to Crombie-Carson, speaking for the first time since he had got into the car.
“Oh, not very long. It’s quite a routine matter, really.”
Hutchman nodded. The Inspector had sounded quite affable, and he privately estimated that he could be out again in thirty minutes, giving him at least another thirty for a beer, a chat with friends he had never met before, and a peek down the landlady’s blouse… A man with no family ties could take his fill of such simple pleasures. The last was a meager compensation, almost inconsiderable, but memories of his abysmal failure with Andrea — perhaps Vicky’s hold would relax now that she had renounced all rights. And Andrea had come on too strong that night. Was it only last night? Where is she now? And what is Vicky doing? Where is David? What’s happening to me? He blinked at his surroundings in internally generated alarm.
“This way, Mr. Hutchman.” Crombie-Carson led him through a side entrance from the vehicle park, along a corridor, past an area containing an hotel-like reception desk and potted palms, and into a small sparsely furnished room. “Please sit down.”
“Thank you.” Hutchman got a gloomy feeling it would take him more than thirty minutes to extricate himself.
“Now.” Crombie-Carson sat down at the other side of a metal table without removing his showerproof. “I’m going to ask you some questions and the constable here is going to make a shorthand note of the interview.”
“All right,” Hutchman said helplessly, wondering how much the Inspector knew or suspected.
“Good. I take it that, as a condition of your employment, you are familiar with the provisions of the Official Secrets Act and have signed a document binding you to observe the Act?”
“I have.” Hutchman thought back to the meaningless scrap of paper he had signed on joining Westfield’s and which had never influenced his activities in any way.
“Have you ever revealed any details of your work for Westfield’s to a third party who was not similarly bound by the Act?”
“No.” Hutchman began to relax slightly. Crombie-Carson was barking up the wrong tree and could continue to do so for as long as he wanted.
“Did you know that Miss Knight is a member of the Communist Party?”
“I didn’t know she actually carried a card, but I’d an idea she had socialist leanings.”
“You knew that much, did you?” The Inspector’s condensed face was alert.
“There’s no harm in that, is there? Some of the shop stewards in our missile-production factory are red-hot Party men who go to Moscow for their holidays. It doesn’t mean they’re secret agents.”
“I’m not concerned with your trade-union officials, Mr. Hutchman. Have you ever discussed your work at Westfield’s with Miss Knight?”
“Of course not. Until yesterday I hadn’t even spoken to her for years. I…” Hutchman regretted the words as soon as they were uttered.
“I see. And why did you re-establish contact?”
“No special reason.” Hutchman shrugged. “I saw her accidentally at the Jeavons Institute the other day and yesterday I rang her. For old times’ sake, you might say.”
“You might. What did your wife say?”
“Listen, Inspector.” Hutchman gripped the cool metal of the table. “Do you suspect me of betraying my country or my wife? You’ve got to make up your mind which.”
“Really? I wasn’t aware that the two activities were in any way incompatible. In my experience they often go hand in hand. Surely the Freudian aspect of the typical spy fantasy is one of its most dominant features.”
“That’s as may be.” Hutchman was shaken by the relevance of the Inspector’s comment — there had been that terrible moment of self-doubt, of identity blurring, just after he had met Andrea in the Camburn Arms. “However, I have not committed adultery or espionage.”
“Is your work classified?”
“Moderately. It is also very boring. One of the reasons I’m so positive I’ve never discussed it with anybody is that nothing would turn them off quicker.”
Crombie-Carson stood up, removed his coat, and set it on a chair. “What do you know about Miss Knight’s disappearance?”