Wesley! He wouldn’t wait any longer. He couldn’t go on like this. First he must settle with Wesley, then his mind could grapple with his own problems; but so long as Wesley occupied his thoughts he would never get himself in hand.
He quickened his pace. In the distance Big Ben struck nine o’clock. The Strand was still crowded. The crowds were coming out of the Tivoli and he could hear their shuffling feet and their cheerful voices behind him. He cut across Trafalgar Square and stopped suddenly by one of the fountains.
There were three watchmen at the factory, he was thinking. He knew their routine well. They had supper together at eleven o’clock. He had once caught them at it. It was against the rules, and although they had been warned he knew they continued to meet at eleven. For half an hour the research laboratory was unguarded. He still had the key. It shouldn’t be difficult.
His shadow lay across the dark water of the fountain and he stared at it, his mind groping back into the past. He remembered for no reason at all the first time he met Blanche, and recaptured the feeling that had come over him as he looked into her wide, blue eyes. That was something that would never happen again; a precious moment, not valued then, but treasured now. He had nothing to look forward to, only memories to look back on; memories and revenge.
He set off quickly towards Pall Mall, passing his club with a furtive glance at the lighted windows. He would have liked to have gone in for a drink and a last look round, but his courage quailed at the thought of meeting the hall porter, an aged man who knew every member by name, knew what their businesses were and how much money they had. He did pause to look through the window of the smoking-room. The big arm-chairs standing in pairs about the room, the soft lighting, the vast Adam’s ceiling, the two fireplaces in which great logs cheerfully blazed, the sedate movements of the old waiter as he carried a tray of drinks to a group of members sitting hunched up in a circle round one of the fires formed a picture that he took away with him: a poisoned barb in his mind.
That room had been a part of his life a week or so ago. Wesley had taken it from him. There was a feverish look in his eyes as he ran into the road, waving his arms at a taxi that had just set down a fare and was pulling slowly away from the kerb.
At first the driver was unwilling to go out as far as Northholt, but when Benton thrust a pound note into his hand he grumblingly agreed.
Benton stared out of the window as the taxi rattled and banged along Bayswater Road. There was a light, airy feeling inside his head and his mouth was dry. He wanted another drink, and as the taxi passed Shepherd’s Bush underground he leaned forward and told the driver to stop at the next public house.
He bought the driver a pint of beer while he swallowed greedily two double whiskies. The driver, a thick-set, elderly man, drank the beer grudgingly. Benton could see from his surly expression he had taken a dislike to him. But Benton was used to that. Neither of them said anything except the customary, ‘Good health,’ and neither of them meant it.
It was now a few minutes to ten o’clock. Plenty of time, Benton thought and he paid for the drinks and went back with the driver to the taxi.
As the taxi passed Wood Green underground station, Benton suddenly recollected coming this way to the Kensal Green crematorium for Blanche’s funeral. He hadn’t gone into the little chapel. Wesley had been the only mourner and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to share his grief with Wesley. There had been a big crowd of morbid sightseers and he had mingled with them, nursing his grief as a man nurses a mortal pain. And when everyone had left he had gone to the grave and laid on it a bunch of violets. He had derived a little comfort and happiness to know that his were the only flowers on the wet, raised earth.
He stopped the taxi a quarter of a mile from the factory and without looking at the driver walked rapidly into the darkness. The broad two-way road was still busy with home-going traffic and he kept to the grass verge, his head bent against the blinding headlights of the oncoming cars.
The gates of the factory were closed and locked, but he had expected that. He knew of a loose plank in the fence further along the road; a secret exit used by some of the workers who slipped out in working hours to buy fruit from the lorries drawn up near the airfield. He pushed the plank aside, stooped and passed his thin body through the opening, then set off quickly towards the research laboratory.
The factory was in darkness. Even the control room and the hangars were shut down for the night. He walked on the grass, his pale eyes alert, his hands deep in his overcoat pockets.
The research laboratory, a one-storey building of brick and tile, was hidden behind the main office block, three or four hundred yards from the main entrance. Coming upon it suddenly, Benton was startled to see a solitary light in one of the windows. The moon, riding high, cast a cold, white light over the building, picking out the mortar between the bricks. Benton remembered how proud he had been of the building when it had been erected. All his careful organization had gone into it. He remembered the hundreds of forms he had to fill up to obtain the necessary building material, the plaintive bickering of the authorities who had tried to persuade him that prefabricated concrete sheds would do as well. But he had persisted, argued and cajoled, until they had given way in grudging despair.
And now he was going to set fire to the place. It would finish Wesley as Wesley had finished him. All Wesley’s money was tied up in the mass of intricate and delicate machinery housed in the building. In a little while it would be an inferno of flames. There was a drum of petrol in one of the outside sheds. He would drag it to the building. A match would do the rest.
He stood looking at the lighted window, wondering if Wesley were still in the building, and as he watched the light went out. He waited, hidden in the shadows, and after a few minutes a man came out of the building. He recognized the limping walk. It was the senior watchman. He was going to supper.
IV
Anyone looking into the room could easily have mistaken the scene to have been one of domestic bliss. Wesley sat in an arm-chair. From time to time he selected a paper from a table by his side and studied it, making neat notes in the margin. Opposite him sat Julie. She was knitting a complicated pattern in blue and white. The two coloured balls of wool rested in her lap and her knitting needles clicked and flashed as she fashioned the pattern with expert speed.
Except for the click of the needles and the rustle of papers silence had hung over the room for a long time. Julie had wanted to go out that evening but Wesley had refused. Rather than go alone she had brought her knitting into his room and, without his permission, had sat by the fire. After one surprised glance he had continued to work, and now she was sure he had forgotten her.
She had been alone all day and yearned for company. Even Wesley’s silent company was better than being on her own, and now as she knitted, the warmth of the fire against her legs, she felt herself relaxing, and for the first time for many weeks she experienced an isolated peace of mind.
Then, suddenly, she was startled out of her blank, comfortable mood by the shrill ringing of the telephone. The sharp sound of the urgent bell brought into the quiet room an atmosphere of alarm. Even Wesley started, his mind jerked away from his calculations.
‘I sometimes wish telephones had never been invented,’ he said, laying down his papers. ‘Would you answer it, Julie? Say I’m busy.’
Julie put down her knitting and, with ill grace, went to the telephone. A man’s voice asked for Wesley.