‘Well, let’s go back to the beginning then.’ I said. And I told George of Clare’s strange behaviour with the ceremonial masks. Then I went on: ‘You’ve seen these recent articles, obviously. About Willy’s fossil hunts: how there was something — something underhand about them.’
‘Yes.’ Benson looked up at me. He was smaller than I remembered: smaller and much more intense and in command now, as though he was on camera explaining something in one of his television series. ‘All nonsense,’ he said decisively. ‘The idea that we were involved in some kind of gun-running: sheer malicious invention.’
‘Yes.’ I agreed. ‘That oil company financed him. But what if we look at something else? At Willy’s “professional ruthlessness” for example, which all the articles mention. I never heard about that — not a hint, not even from Laura.’
‘Ruthless?’ George considered the idea dispassionately. ‘Yes. He was a bit. But then you see you have to be on expeditions of that sort, way out in the field, with a lot of other fossickers looking out for exactly the same sort of things. That’s not all surprising. Once Willy came home he was a different man: his real self. Anyway, I don’t suppose Laura knew much about his work out there. Different worlds, you know. She wasn’t …’ He paused, a low note in his voice, a touch of sadness. ‘She wasn’t in the same business after all,’ he added.
‘All right. But all these newspaper reports I’ve read, they all suggest that something strange, something violent, happened out there at some point: a raid, trouble of some sort, with some tribe way out in the wilds: bloodshed. Now come on, George: no smoke without a fire. What happened?’
George said calmly. ‘Nothing happened. Don’t you think the press have been onto me about just the same thing? They’ve turned over all the same imaginary stones, asked all the same questions. What sort of raid, for example? Who’s supposed to have raided who?’
‘You attacked someone? Or more likely they attacked you people.’
‘Listen,’ George said very sensibly, sitting on the edge of his desk and wiping his brow in the sticky afternoon heat. ‘If you knew anything about this fossil business, you’d understand: the local tribes, the very few of them left intact, well, yes, of course: some of them objected to our picking over their territory. But that’s natural. There was no real “trouble” though. Besides, you’ve got to remember, we had Kenyans with us, museum and government officials, guides, all the time. We had all the permissions, from the authorities in Nairobi —’
‘That’s just it,’ I interrupted. ‘The papers say you were out on your own, on several occasions, away from the main camp, you and Willy and Laura — and Annabelle.’
‘Well, yes, we were. And, as you say, more than once. We used to go in a Land-Rover, or the spotter plane, to look out for other likely fossil sites. No, you’ve got it all wrong, Peter. You don’t really think we went round the place as an armed gang beating up the locals? That’s complete nonsense. And you know it.’
‘All right,’ I agreed once more. ‘But if everything was so straightforward, why did the press start all this … this muckraking?’
‘That’s easy: through the jealousy of some of our professional rivals in the same line. But equally through the press’s need for a good story. And there was a good story in it, I’m bound to say: once Laura was dead and they found out you’d worked for British Intelligence, Peter.’
Benson looked at me sadly, doubtfully. ‘That may be the real problem, don’t you think?’ he went on. ‘I never knew that you had those connections. Don’t you think perhaps that’s why Laura may have been killed, because of something murky from your past, not ours? Shouldn’t we be talking about that, about you, and not about something that didn’t happen to us out in East Africa?’
‘Yes, I thought exactly like that to begin with, too: that it was my old department gunning for me. But now I’m not half so sure. There’s this African. And I don’t understand Clare’s African obsessions either, with those masks I told you about: low she absolutely lights up, seems to recover herself completely, when she’s playing with them as if she was nvolved in some secret ceremony.’
‘Yes, that is interesting,’ George admitted. And I could see he meant it. ‘But isn’t that just a reflection, some memory coming back, of her years out there? Remember, she was with Willy and Laura, with her parents all the time out there then, in the bush, in the desert. But how is she? Can you really look after her? Wherever you are?’
George was fishing. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I can look after —’ But that was all I said. I heard a sound behind me. Looking round, I saw the handle in the arched oak door turning slowly: someone was trying to open it.
‘Just a minute!’ George shouted across the room. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ Then he turned to me. ‘One of the cleaners probably.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s after five. The Museum’s closed now, you know. Don’t you — don’t you think we ought to be getting along?’
‘I don’t know, George,’ I said. ‘I’m still not happy — I’m not convinced. And I don’t think that’s a cleaner. It’s probably that African out there.’
George smiled reasonably. ‘Peter, you’re dreaming! Just like the press. It’s all fantasy: an African with a scar out to get you and Clare. Gun-running in the bush, tribal battles, midnight raids, these secret ceremonies with masks you say Clare’s involved in now. It’s all like some old Boys Own Paper yarn. Don’t you see?’ George shook his head. ‘It’s all something you’ve built up in your mind, Peter. You’ve been hidden away somewhere too long, alone too —’
But George suddenly stopped speaking. The handle of the door was turning again. He watched it with affronted surprise. And someone was pushing hard against it this time. I could see the lock straining against the jamb. And I felt a spasm of fear then, burning up my gut like a hurriedly swallowed mouthful of raw alcohol.
There was another movement, on the far side of the room beyond the desk. And when I turned I saw that George was already halfway out of the open window that led to the balcony. I ran towards him. But I was too late. He slammed the old sash window shut just as I got to it. And it wouldn’t open again, hard as I tried. George had pulled it down so firmly that it had stuck tight, and he was off now, down a fire-escape ladder. I could have broken the glass. But there were iron bars attached to the outside of the window. It was burglar-proof. The only way out for me now was through the door behind me.
Of course, it could have been a cleaner at the door. But I wasn’t going to risk that safe assumption. I got the little blowpipe out and fitted one of the darts. Then I turned the lock, pulled the door open suddenly and stood back quickly, the pipe at my mouth.
The doorway was empty, and so was the first-floor gallery beyond and the great hall beneath. The skeleton head and neck of the brontosaurus loomed up in front of me, its great snout spotlit in a shimmer of slanting, dusty light from the glass above. Perhaps it had just been a cleaner at the door after all. I knew I wouldn’t get out by the main entrance to the museum which would be closed by now. But there might be a lavatory window open, or some emergency exit I could force, at the rear of the building. So I turned and made off in that direction, moving quickly along the gallery.
Halfway round I heard the running footsteps — forceful, decisive, with nothing covert about them. The sounds were coming from somewhere behind the display cases on the far side of the gallery. But I couldn’t tell from which direction — whether the footsteps were approaching me or following me. There was a confusing echo now in the empty hall. I looked ahead, then back. There was nothing. I turned back towards Benson’s office, then hesitated. Then I moved forward again. The footsteps seemed to be coming from all sides of the hall now and I couldn’t move. I was rooted to the spot. But I was suddenly running, for I’d seen the man, the dark shape coming from behind a case and sprinting towards me past the lecture-room.