‘You hit me for nothing, Dad. Nothing at all. I never threw it away.’
I looked at him. Then at the book. I opened it at the flyleaf: there was Dad’s writing. ‘Your loving …’ I looked at Martin again for several seconds. At the book.
The jacket of the original edition has the picture of a man, in silhouette, dangling from an opening parachute. For the first time I seemed to see the terrible vulnerability of this position, and the attempt of the artist to make the image resemble a shuttlecock.
‘Why did you —?’ I started fiercely. But my anger had spent itself. ‘Why did you take it?’
‘Because you took away the television.’
And I suppose, I thought, you want me to follow your example and bring it back.
‘I see. The television didn’t belong to you though, did it?’
But I knew we weren’t talking about just the television. I looked into his face. His cheeks were bright pink from the slapping he’d had. I thought of the cunning with which he must have planned this little operation, and the guile and resolution with which he had carried it out. Those glances out of the window; the readiness to go hungry, to provoke and endure punishment. He was brave, he was resourceful, all right. He was his grandfather’s grandson. His eyes bored into me. How much did he understand?
‘If someone takes something from you — even if that was wrong of them — it’s no answer to take something from them,’ I said feebly.
He nodded, uncontrite.
No, not just the television; but all that went with the television. The Bionic Man and Kojak and Captain Kirk, and all the other made-up heroes who were better than his father. For some unaccountable reason I felt in awe of my own son, as if I should make things up to him, beg his mercy, but I was unable — unworthy — to do so.
I was going to be very late for work.
‘Martin,’ I said. ‘All this was stupid, wasn’t it? Why did you do it?’ Then I added suddenly: ‘Why haven’t you ever read Grandpa’s book? You wouldn’t find it difficult.’
He shook his head — as if sorry for me. I knew he would never read the book. And I understood, too, his complex reasons — part suspicion and contempt, and part some nagging child’s fear (only now did I see it), all of which might have been expressed, and at that very moment, in one word: Loony.
[13]
Today (Monday) it struck me that Quinn could be inventing everything. Those inquiries. Supposing they are all in some extraordinary way figments of his imagination? How am I to know what’s true and what isn’t and what really stems from an official directive? Supposing he sits in his office picking out file numbers at random, adds a few fancy details of his own; has it all drawn up by a typist, who’d be none the wiser, on an instruction sheet, and then hands it on to me as part of some sadistic trick? It sounds far-fetched, I know — but if Quinn were really round the bend —?
He called me in today. I thought he was going to speak again of my promotion — it is two weeks now since the subject was first mentioned — but he didn’t; though I could see him reading my expectations and playing with my hopes.
‘C9, Prentis, C9. I’ve been looking over your report. There’s nothing here about the past histories of X or Z’ (the blackmailer and the second civil servant). ‘If we’re trying to establish a connexion between the two, I would have thought that was the first thing to look at. Blackmailers don’t operate by chance — you have to discover the link in the past, the common ground.’
‘With respect, sir,’ (how I hate that phrase, ‘with respect’), ‘I didn’t know that was the reason for the inquiry.’
‘Is that so, Prentis? You mean it never crossed your mind?’
‘As a possibility, yes sir. But doesn’t the evidence point towards a coincidence — a curious one — but nothing more?’ I hastily recalled the C9 inquiry, a pattern in which there were large holes and gaps where items were missing from the files — so perhaps not a pattern at all. ‘Y was fully exonerated. X’s circumstances — his previous sacking, alcoholism and so forth all suggest malicious slander, not calculated blackmail. There is no apparent link between Y and Z. And, besides, Z’s suicide can be adequately explained by other reasons.’
‘And what are they?’
I paused. Quinn was looking hard at me. I felt a sudden shiver.
‘His unsatisfactory home life.’
‘I take it, Prentis, you read the statements of Z’s colleagues and acquaintances?’
‘Yes.’
‘They all express unanimous shock at Z’s death. No apparent warning signs. No talk of ending it all. No evidence the man was unbalanced. By every account an energetic, successful, well-adjusted man, on top of his job, everything going for him. Then one day he jumps under a Tube train. What do you make of that?’
I hesitated, then tried to sound professional and objective. ‘It’s a fact, sir, that suicides often appear relaxed and calm before taking their lives — some of the cases we ourselves have handled testify to that. People — ’
I hesitated again. Quinn was eyeing me with anticipatory keenness.
‘Yes, Prentis?’
‘People are known to crack without warning.’
‘Indeed, Prentis.’ No flicker of the eyelids. ‘Sound psychology, I’m sure. But wouldn’t a simpler, not to say more likely explanation be that Z’s suicide was the result of some quite sudden external factor — for example, a blackmail threat?’
Why was Quinn — the very man who censured it in others — jumping to conclusions?
‘In that case, sir, what about the wife’s evidence?’
‘Oh you mean the wife’s story.…’ And it was at this point that Quinn’s manner became detectably impetuous and excitable. He took his eyes from me for the first time.
‘A story, Prentis. Why not? We all know that the best way to hide one guilty secret is seemingly to confess to another. Don’t we? Now supposing Z wasn’t being blackmailed by X — though X was out to make Z suffer nonetheless. Supposing, as you so rightly suggest, X wasn’t a fully-fledged blackmailer; he wasn’t after money, he was just a man with a massive chip on his shoulder who simply wanted to get his own back by hurting his betters and concocting groundless slanders. Look at him — an alcoholic, an incompetent, a dead-beat of a man.’ Quinn turned his eyes on me again — his face was pink and heated — almost as if he were inviting disagreement. ‘Supposing X merely informs Z of something he knows will shatter Z — so shattering, as it turns out, that Z commits suicide. That something relates to Z’s wife. The wife is the one with the guilty secret. After her husband’s death she herself is in danger of some unpleasant exposure. So, with the perfect cover of the distress of the moment — her grief quite genuine, who knows? — she invents some story about marital havoc, complete with candid and gruesome details. So candid and so intimate that no one dares doubt the truth of it and no one seeks another explanation. Well, isn’t it possible? And what do you think of this fellow Z? A perfectly normal man on the evidence of his own colleagues, more than that, successful, a fine career behind — and before him. Treating his wife like that? Attacking his own son? Is it credible?’
Another attack of shivers. If Quinn had worked so long in our office, dealt with the things we dealt with, why was he asking me this? His own phrase: ‘lurid imagination’.
‘It sounds — if you’ll forgive me, sir — a little … speculative.’
‘Speculative! You saw all the evidence in the files.’
‘Sir? Which —?’
‘You know about Z’s son?’
‘Z’s son?’
‘Yes. Are you telling me you didn’t chase that up too? Z’s son, Prentis, has been on hostile terms with his mother ever since his father’s death. Now why should that be? Think of it, Prentis.’ Quinn’s voice grew louder. He had got up and was pacing round the room as he spoke, one hand in his pocket, one hand gesturing in the air. ‘Think of it. Z was cleared professionally. But all that stuff was dragged out. And suicide. A man with a position and a reputation. You seem in some doubt, Prentis, about the reason for this investigation.’ He came right up close to me. ‘When your father commits suicide and his name is slurred, isn’t that sufficient reason for investigation?’