Cold Waters

Book 110: Murder Room

by P.M. Hubbard

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries; Suspense

Synopsis

Gifford knows that he must get away. London, his office job, his suburban home and his older wife have become unendurable. Then comes the answer in Callender, whom he meets in a pub and who offers him the job of handyman on a remote island. But once there doubts began to creep in. What has become of his predecessor, Mackie? Why has all the furniture been moved out of Mackie's cottage and into the one he now occupies? What secret lies inside the power house, which he has been forbidden to enter? There is some dreadful mystery behind the isolated community on the island, and he realises that his own safety depends on remaining ignorant of the truth: that Mackie disappeared because he knew too much ...

Release date: September 6, 2012

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 226

Sample

MR. HASTINGS SAID, “Yes, well perhaps if Mr. Giffard will do a little more homework on this one, we shall be able to discuss it more
intelligently at our next meeting.” He looked at me and then round at the members of the committee. He had his Jolly Jack smile on. His face was dark red, and I noticed for the first time
that his bird’s-egg-blue eyes were very slightly bloodshot. The fact that his questions had been irrelevant did not alter the fact that I ought to have been able to answer them.

At least two other members knew they were irrelevant, but did not say so. Mr. Hastings was in the chair, and he was a bigger fish than they were. In any case, they did not really mind. They
liked being on the executive committee. Apart from anything else, it meant that they could come up to London once a month and stay overnight on a cast-iron expense claim. No one knew them in
London, and there were things to do in the evening they could not do at home. But mainly it gave them the feeling of usefulness, even of importance, though you had to be a pretty small man to feel
like that about the executive committee of the National Association of Platemakers. Anyhow, they liked being on the committee, and if you liked it, you did not argue with Mr. Hastings when he put
Jolly Jack smile, even if you knew he was being stupid as well as unjust.

Two of them met my eye with little guilty smiles of their own. They knew, all right. The rest were just a double row of faces hovering over briefcases and agenda papers. They were quite blank
but not apparently uncomfortable. Some were busy being Jolly Jacks along with Mr. Hastings. There were even one or two I did not think I knew, new faces up for the first time. I should have to get
them sorted out presently with Miss Tomlinson from the attendance sheet, but for the moment they were just faces.

I wanted to cry, but was not in the least danger of actually crying. I smiled the close-lipped smile I had acquired at school in dealing with a particular headmaster. I had hated the headmaster
a lot more than I could be bothered to hate Mr. Hastings. Mainly I wanted to get away. Out of London for a start, and to a life and job where my inability to remember irrelevant facts about
platemaking did not matter.

The meeting ran out on the usual formalities. The last item on the agenda was always to decide the date of the next meeting. Members gave a lot of real thought to this, more than to most of the
earlier items. There was a great deal of riffling through businessmen’s diaries and rueful head-shaking over suggested dates. It was surprising how heavily committed everyone was. Finally
Jolly Jack offered a choice of two dates, and they accepted one by a majority. The losers went on shaking their heads ruefully, but they would be there all right on the day. It was only that for
reasons of their own they would have preferred to come to London on another day, but you could not expect them to say so.

They collected their hats and coats and went off down the long corridor chattering in their local voices, Sheffield chattering with Cardiff, Newcastle chattering with London, Birmingham, as
usual, chattering with each other. Only Mr. Hastings went off alone. Miss Tomlinson went round gathering up the unwanted papers. She gave me a quick look over her glasses and I gave her the best I
could do in the way of a devil-may-care grin. I was, after all, her boss, and she had sat by taking notes while Mr. Hastings took my pants down in public. She knew that I ought not to have laid
myself open to it. She also knew, better than most members of the committee, that the whole operation had been unnecessary, and that the main item on the agenda had been shelved because of it. She
did not answer my grin, but she shook her head and said, “That Mr. Hastings.” It was as open a demonstration of sympathy as office etiquette allowed, and I was grateful for it. All the
same, you should not have to be grateful for your staff’s sympathy, even the sympathy of an old warrior like Miss Tomlinson. I was halfway back to my room before I remembered the
Bottlemakers’ dinner.

One of the curiosities of working for a trade association was the programme of annual mutual entertainment. It was a perquisite or a cross as you chose to look at it. The way I looked at it
varied from time to time—not according to the occasion, because each occasion was exactly like every other, but according to the way I was feeling. Every association had to have its annual
celebration, either a luncheon or a dinner. You dragooned your members into buying enough tickets to make the thing financially respectable, and you invited your own guests, who did not have to pay
for their meal. The guests included the secretary or director, or whatever he called himself, of any other trade association which invited you to its dinner. The thing was self-perpetuating, so
long as you did not ruin your digestion or lose too many members. It was also quite startlingly monotonous. There were only one or two places in London to cater for a great many associations, and
the ritual was as firmly established as the rites of the Church. There was also, for obvious reasons, the same hard core of professional guests. The difficulty was to remember whose dinner it was.
Not that that mattered, so long as it was not your own.

I was glad of the Bottlemakers’ dinner. It gave me an excuse not to go home, which might involve thinking too many hard and unprofitable thoughts about Mr. Hastings. Also it gave me the
chance to get very discreetly, but adequately, drunk at someone else’s expense. I have never been able to get drunk on my own, and I should in any case grudge the expense. But if you knew
your way around as well as I naturally did, you could get a surprising amount of solid drinking done on these occasions without being too visibly dedicated to this sole purpose. If you did enough
drinking before the meal, the meal itself, not to speak of the wine served with it and the speeches that came after it, was hardly noticeable, and this too was desirable, even to the most
case-hardened of us. I had my dinner jacket in a suitcase, and as I put it on in the deserted washroom, I achieved a sort of savage festivity. Tomorrow would be awful, but no worse than tomorrow
always was. Tonight I was going to get drunk on the Bottlemakers. The washroom had a faintly chemical smell from the liquid detergent over the basins and the stuff the cleaners used in the water
closets. The windows did open a bit, but even outside there was only the used London air, which could not make much difference. I took the smell for granted now. It was part of the life I went on
living, like my feelings for Mr. Hastings and my headache on Friday nights. I packed my office clothes into the suitcase and looked at my face in the glass over the middle basin.

Even now it did not take very much to make it look pretty dashing. All the mechanics of gaiety were still available, only they needed a pretty sharp outside stimulus to set them going. Whether
they gained piquancy from the underlying despair I was in no position to judge. The despair was too real to be traded on. I smiled gaily at myself in the basin mirror and then, after considering
the effect for a moment, smiled gaily back. I was all right still. It was the world that was wrong. Give me a new world, and I could charm the birds off the trees. That was all I wanted, a new
world. I picked up my suitcase and went downstairs to find a taxi.

The Bottlemakers did me very well. The guests’ anteroom was bigger than usual and allowed plenty of room for manoeuvre. I drifted pleasantly from group to group, always one jump ahead of
the man going round with the charged glasses. At some stage later I short-circuited the thing by simply pulling up next to the table where the whisky was. There was a friendly chap on duty, and it
was not his whisky. I was looking vaguely for Hallam. He was another sad one, and he knew my Mr. Hastings. I thought I would tell Hallam about the executive committee meeting, making a good story
of it, but getting it off my chest all the same. Hallam would say, “The bastard!” and I should get the feeling, for a moment, that I was looking down on Mr. Hastings from a very long
way off, even in Hallam’s company. Hallam had rimless glasses and the sort of curious tight ringlets that never seem to grow on upper-class heads. I would not choose Hallam for company when I
got away to my offshore lighthouse, but at the Bottlemakers’ dinner after my committee meeting I could have done with him. I never found him, and to this day do not even know if he was there.
The other man found me first.

I had got to the stage where I could see perfectly clearly so long as my eyes were focused right, but I had to re-focus them deliberately for any variation of range, as if they were telescopes.
They did not adjust automatically. I straightened up and put my head back, adjusting the focus to give me a long view right across the room. I thought it could not be long now before we were called
to the table, and I wanted to see if there was anyone in the room, Hallam apart, I might like to talk to. I found the man watching me. He was one of a group, and seemed to be taking part in the
conversation, but it was me he was looking at. I did not think I had ever seen him before. He had a square, white face, with dark hair cut short and rather heavy brows. He was smiling slightly at
the company, but his eyes, fixed on me, were full of thought. I cannot be certain, now, which of us moved, or whether we both did. He said, “Good evening, Mr. Giffard. Letting off steam a
bit? I can’t say I blame you. Only you won’t manage it by yourself, will you?”

I said, “No, I was looking for Hallam.” I can see now that this was an odd thing to say, if only because it happened to be true.

He took it in his stride. “I haven’t seen him,” he said. He stood there looking at me. He was still smiling slightly, but not at my predicament. “Anyhow, you can do
better than Hallam,” he said. “I don’t know—how strongly do you feel about this?”

He was quite gentle about it, with his square, white, massive face only a foot or two from mine. It blurred suddenly, but I felt the choke in my throat before I understood that there were tears
in my eyes. My close-lipped smile was no protection against sympathy on top of all that whisky. I gulped a bit and said, “Very strongly indeed. It’s nothing new, of course.”

He nodded. “Hastings is a bully,” he said. “It’s pretty nearly his only qualification. It’s carried him remarkably well up to a point. But of course the going gets
tougher higher up. You’re just what he wants. You’re better than he is in almost every respect except the curious accident of success. And your defences aren’t more than
skin-deep. He knows that, naturally. He hasn’t much reasoning capacity, but he’s very intelligent. That sort always is.” He tipped what was in his glass straight back in one gulp.
“What do you want to do?” he said. “I mean, really want?”

I said, “I want to get away.”

He nodded and then, after a moment or two, said, “Go on.”

I laughed outright, into his serious, hardly distinguishable face. I suddenly saw that this was very funny, and that there was nothing to be lost. This chap knew. Well, in a sense everybody
knows, but this chap had brought the knowledge to the front of his mind. He was here, at this particular moment and at the Bottlemakers’ dinner of all places, standing in front of me and
waiting to be told what he already knew.

I could hardly speak for laughing. I said, “Well—you have to have water in between, don’t you think? A lighthouse or something. And boats. You know.”

He frowned at that. It was not too grave, but slightly disapproving. “Not mucking about in small boats?” he said. He must have raised his voice or perhaps moved his face closer to
mine, because suddenly I could hear him very clearly. I was still laughing. “What about an island?” he said.

I reasoned with him. “Well, there’d have to be boats if it was an island,” I said. “And they needn’t be large boats if it’s only offshore. But not mucking
about, that’s the point, don’t you see?”

He nodded, perfectly seriously, as if I had a good point there. He thought for a moment and then said, “It must be offshore, must it? I mean—not really cut off?”

This was the key point. I had stopped laughing now. The thing was immensely serious. “No,” I said, “that sounds fine, but I don’t think it would do. I just want the thing
under control.”

He nodded again. I never for a moment doubted that I was making myself perfectly intelligible to him. He was every bit as serious about it as I was. He said, “Yes, I can see that. But
doing what? I mean—there’s got to be work, hasn’t there? Even apart from the question of making a living.”

“Obviously,” I said. “But something practical would do. Construction. Maintenance. Fetching and carrying. Not cultivation, for choice. It would worry me.” He was
listening but not looking at me, and I felt a sudden onset of desperation, as if he did not after all believe in what was, to me, so much more real than reality. I did not actually buttonhole him,
but I think I must have put my face very close to his, because it suddenly came into sharp focus again, and I could see that even when he was not frowning his eyes were very slightly slanting, like
a cat’s. They were cat-colour, too. I said, “I really am a very useful man, you know. There’s not much I can’t do.” We stared into each other’s faces, while the
Bottlemakers’ party roared into a climax of bonhomie all round us. I waved a hand comprehensively. “Except this,” I said, “I’m no good at this. Never have
been.”

His face receded slightly, but remained reasonably in focus. “No, that’s right,” he said. “I can see that.” He thought about it for quite a long time, and I watched
him thinking as if my life depended on his decision. At last he said, “Well, why not?”

“Why not?” I said. Total despair engulfed me suddenly, like a black cloak dropped over my head. I said, “Why not? Why not?” several times under my breath, and through my
enveloping wretchedness I could hear the toastmaster uttering his strange hooting cry from the door of the dining room.

The toastmaster was part of the ritual. You bought him along with the catering and the accommodation. He was charged as an extra, of course, but if you did not have him, the Banqueting Manager
would certainly look at you askance, and few people can look more askance than a Banqueting Manager dealing with a not very important trade association. Besides, the other trade associations had
him. He wore scarlet vestments and used a strange ritual speech which you never heard anywhere else. He was telling us that dinner was served and praying us to be seated. Everyone moved, but
reluctantly, and the roar of conversation took on a more subdued note, as if the best part of the evening was over, as indeed it was. People began looking for somewhere to put their empty glasses,
and there was the usual last-minute rush of the less confident for the lavatories. Wherever you were dining, the lavatories were always in the opposite direction from the dining room, so that
people had to fight their way with a sort of smiling bravado against the main set of the current. I did not want the lavatories. I said, “Why not?” again out loud, and put down my empty
glass on one of the many ledges provided by the rococo plasterwork. It fell off with a soft thud on to the deep-pile carpeting, and I stooped and fumbled for it. I put it back on a slightly wider
ledge, and this time it stayed in place. I turned round and said, “Because I can’t get away,” but he was no longer there.

He could not have gone very far in the time. I set off towards the dining room with the rest, but I was looking for him. I was determined to tell him that I could not get away and to make sure
he und. . .