‘No,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’d have taken the shampoo away again with him.’
‘Wyfold says not if he couldn’t find it, because of its being dark and her having hidden it to all intents and purposes under her skirt and two jumpers, and not if Dave and Sammy arrived at that point.’
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ I said doubtfully.
‘Wyfold says that particular shampoo isn’t on sale at all in England, it’s American, and there’s absolutely no way at all of tracing how it got here. There weren’t any fingerprints of any use; all a blur except a few of yours and mine.’
Another day he said, ‘Wyfold told me the hardest murders to solve were single blows on the head. He said the case would remain open, but they are busy again with another girl who was killed walking home from a dance, and this time she definitely is one of that dreadful series, poor child... I was lucky, Tim, you know, that Dave and Sammy came back when they did.’
There came a fine May day in the office when Alec, deciding we needed some fresh air, opened one of the windows which looked down to the fountain. The fresh air duly entered but like a lion, not a lamb, and blew papers off all the desks.
‘That’s a hurricane,’ I said. ‘For God’s sake shut it.’
Alec closed off the gale and turned round with a grin. ‘Sorry and all that,’ he said.
We all left our chairs and bent down like gleaners to retrieve our scattered work, and during my search for page 3 of a long assessment of a proposed sports complex I came across a severe and unwelcome shock in the shape of a small pale blue sheet off a memo pad.
There were words pencilled on it and crossed out with a wavy line, with other words underneath.
Build your castle not on Sand was crossed out, and so was Sandcastle gone with the tide, and underneath was written Build not your house on Sand. Build not your banking house on a Sandcastle.
‘What’s that?’ Alec said quickly, seeing it in my hand and stretching out his own. ‘Let’s see.’
I shook my head and kept it in my own hand while I finished picking up the sportsdrome, and when order was restored throughout the office I said, ‘Come along to the interview room.’
‘Right now?’
‘Right now.’
We went into the only room on our floor where any real privacy was possible and I said without shilly-shallying, ‘This is your handwriting. Did you write the article in What’s Going On?’
He gave me a theatrical sigh and a tentative smile and a large shrug of the shoulders.
‘That’s just doodling,’ he said. ‘It means nothing.’
‘It means, for a start,’ I said, ‘that you shouldn’t have left it round the office.’
‘Didn’t know I had.’
‘Did you write the article?’
The blue eyes unrepentantly gleamed at me from behind the gold rims. ‘It’s a fair cop, I suppose.’
‘But Alec...’ I protested.
‘Yeah.’
‘And the others,’ I said, ‘Those other leaks, was that you?’
He sighed again, his mouth twisting.
‘Was it?’ I repeated, wanting above all things to hear him deny it.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘What harm did it do? Yes, all right, the stories did come from me. I wrote them myself, actually, like that one.’ He pointed to the memo paper in my hand. ‘And don’t give me any lectures on disloyalty because none of them did us any harm. Did us good, if anything.’
‘Alec...’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but just think, Tim, what did those pieces really do? They stirred everyone up, sure, and it was a laugh a minute to see all their faces, but what else? I’ve been thinking about it, I assure you. It wasn’t why I did it in the first place, that was just wanting to stir things, I’ll admit, but because of what I wrote we’ve now got much better security checks than we had before.’
I listened to him open-mouthed.
‘All that work you did with the computer, making us safer against frauds, that was because of what I wrote. And the Corporate Finance boys, they now go around with their mouths zipped up like suitcases so as not to spill the beans to the investment managers. I did good, do you see, not harm.’
I stood and looked at him, at the tight tow-coloured curls, the cream coloured freckled skin, the eyes that had laughed with me for eight years. I don’t want to lose you, I thought: I wish you hadn’t done it.
‘And what about this piece about Sandcastle? What good has that done?’ I said.
He half grinned. ‘Too soon to say.’
I looked at the damaging scrap in my hands and almost automatically shook my head.
‘You’re going to say,’ Alec said, ‘that I’ll have to leave.’
I looked up. His face was wholly calm.
‘I knew I’d have to leave if any of you ever found out.’
‘But don’t you care?’ I said frustratedly.
He smiled. ‘I don’t know. I’ll miss you, and that’s a fact. But as for the job... well, I told you, it’s not my whole life, like it is yours. I loved it, I grant you, when I came here. All I wanted was to be a merchant banker, it sounded great. But to be honest it was the glamour I suppose I wanted, and glamour never lasts once you’ve got used to something. I’m not a dedicated money-man at heart... and there’s honesty for you, I never thought I’d admit that, even to myself.’
‘But you do it well.’
‘Up to a point. We discussed all that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said helplessly.
‘Yeah, well, so am I in a way, and in a way I’m not. I’ve been dithering for ages, and now that it isn’t my choice I’m as much relieved as anything.’
‘But... what will you do?’
He gave a full cherubic smile. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll approve.’
‘What, then?’
‘What’s Going On,’ he said, ‘have offered me a whole-time job.’ He looked at my shattered expression. ‘I’ve written quite a bit for them, actually. About other things, of course, not us. But in most editions there’s something of mine, a paragraph or two or a whole column. They’ve asked me several times to go, so now I will.’
I thought back to all those days when Alec had bounded out for the six copies and spent his next hour chuckling. Alec, the gatherer of news, who knew all the gossip.
‘They get masses of information in,’ Alec said, ‘but they need someone to evaluate it all properly, and there aren’t so many merchant bankers looking for that sort of job.’
‘No,’ I said dryly. ‘I can imagine. For a start, won’t your salary be much less?’
‘A bit,’ he admitted, cheerfully. ‘But my iconoclastic spirit will survive.’
I moved restlessly, wishing things had been different.
‘I’ll resign from here,’ he said. ‘Make it easier.’
Rather gloomily I nodded. ‘And will you say why?’
He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘If you really want me to, yes,’ he said finally. ‘Otherwise not. You can tell them yourself, though, after I’ve gone, if you want to.’
‘You’re a damned fool,’ I said explosively, feeling the loss of him acutely. ‘The office will be bloody dull without you.’
He grinned, my long-time colleague, and pointed to the piece of memo paper. ‘I’ll send you pin-pricks now and then. You won’t forget me. Not a chance.’
Gordon, three days later, said to me in surprise, ‘Alec’s leaving, did you know?’
‘I knew he was thinking of it.’