Monkey Puzzle Page 19

  ‘Definitely.’

  She sighed in some gratification. ‘How splendid. I’ve always wanted to be brave, but I never seemed to have the time for it.’

  Stryker grinned and left her contemplating the end of her cigar. Toscarelli was waiting near the desk beside the lifts. ‘How’s Stark?’

  Tos shrugged. ‘Dicey. Apparently he lost a lot of blood and wasn’t in the best of health to start with. They say he’ll be in a bad way for a few days – dicky heart.’

  ‘But he’ll live?’

  ‘Barring complications, yeah.’

  ‘When can we question him?’

  ‘Maybe not for a couple of days. They’ve put him in intensive care, because of the heart thing. Apparently it stopped at one point – they don’t go much for that.’

  ‘Damn. That’s two we’ve got out of reach.’

  ‘I guess that puts Pinchman in the clear – unless he sneaked out on Calder and pattered back to the campus on his stumps,’ Tos said, wryly. ‘What do you figure, now? Did the old lady give you a description?’

  ‘Oh, sure, she gave me a description, all right. Short, dark, fat, wearing a red lumber jacket, a baseball cap, and dirty track shoes. Could even have been a black.’

  ‘Hey, great.’

  ‘Balls. It’s snowing out – how much mud and dirt sticks to wet track shoes?’

  ‘Well, maybe he . . .’

  ‘Don’t you see? She’s lying. She’s given me a description of a guy as unlike Richard Wayland as it’s possible to get. He’s her research assistant, she’s crazy about him, she doesn’t want him caught.’

  ‘But if he’s going around killing people for Christ’s sake . . .’

  ‘She doesn’t believe that. He’s her boy. He’s misunderstood. Kate’s the same – although I don’t think she actually saw him as she was hit from behind.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish to hell I could see what they see in the bastard. Have we gotten his records from the Pentagon?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What’s taking so long?’

  ‘They say they’re scattered. Something like that.’ He scowled down at Stryker. ‘I put out another APB on Wayland – they’ll find him. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Where the hell could he be?’ Stryker demanded, as they got into the lift. ‘What the hell is he doing?’

  Richard Wayland sat in the doorway, next to another huddled shape, watching the snow falling into the river on the other side of the road.

  ‘It disappears,’ he said.

  The other figure grunted, and held the paper bag more tightly. Inside, the bottle sloshed promisingly.

  ‘Good things, bad things, everything disappears in time,’ Wayland said. ‘Especially the minute you look away. Sneaky, that’s what it is. Damned sneaky.’ He turned to the shape beside him. ‘My turn,’ he said, reaching for the bag. ‘Hey!’ when the bag was withheld jealously, desperately. ‘My turn, I said. Or else.’ He produced a knife from an inner pocket, a knife with a very dirty blade. ‘You don’t want to make me mad, do you? I don’t like people who make me mad – I do things to them.’ The shape whimpered and the bottle was handed over. ‘Better,’ Wayland said. ‘Much, much better.’

  Stryker was walking the campus.

  Toscarelli, following behind in the car as best he could, muttered to himself as he watched the stocky angry figure kicking through the snow and occasionally tripping on the ridges of ice left on the pavement by careless sweepers. The pattern of snow and thaw, snow and thaw over the past few days had left the city in a dangerous state. By day, slush and trickles of melt puddled the pavements. By night, they froze, and were then covered by fresh falls of snow. Each day the mounds of snow grew beside the roads, dirty and discoloured, turning the pavements to narrow canyons. On lawns and in parks the unbroken stretches sagged and hummocked themselves into miniature glacial fields, then were deceptively blanketed afresh.

  According to the weathermen, yet more snow was on the way. A big storm, moving south from Canada, was invisibly but inexorably closing in on the city.

  Stryker, turning suddenly, jumped a low hill of piled snow, and cut across the Mall. Toscarelli drew up at the kerb and cut the engine, watching the lonely figure march to the centre of the Mall and stare, in turn, up at the front of the Library, and then at Grantham Hall.

  And at the snow that fell on everything.

  Stryker knew that murder was the ultimate expression of ego. Whether through impulse or design, a killer struck down victims whose continued existence had become intolerable. In effect the actions said ‘I am more important than you, than morals, than law. You must die so I may live’.

  What threat had Adamson and Stark been to the killer’s existence? And was he mistaken about Jane Coulter’s description? Was she telling the truth after all? Was it some stranger, a student, someone he hadn’t considered at all because of his own conviction that Wayland or some member of the faculty was guilty? Had he been focusing wrongly? Had he seen Wayland as the killer merely because of his relationship with Kate? He’d heard himself insisting to Tos that Coulter was lying, and for the first time he’d seen what a wobbly edifice he’d been building over the past few days. Death was everywhere, and he’d been wrong to assume it was only where he looked. Death walked the streets, breathed the air, smiled behind a hundred closed doors.

  ‘Come on.’ It was Toscarelli, big and stubborn and insistent. He took hold of Stryker’s arm and drew him toward the car. ‘We’ll get him.’

  ‘You’re goddamn right we will.’ Stryker’s voice was heavy with fury and revenge. It’s the girl, Tos thought. The girl got hurt, and now it’s personal. Now he’ll never let go.

  ‘Tomorrow, we will. Not tonight.’ Tos held the door open and Stryker turned for one last look at the Mall.

  Death had come here before.

  This Mall, this empty space, open to the black sky, the tumbling snow, the wind – it was only land. Land that had endured much. That a university was built on it meant nothing. It was temporary.

  In the beginning it had been forest – pack wolf and rogue bear had roamed there.

  Then the fields – the land and the mouse beneath the plough.

  In the village there had been short tempers and long knives.

  In the town, questions of honour.

  Now, in the blank-faced and mazed city, death had become vicious and secret and cold. Somewhere out there, an ego was coiled, waiting.

  The one thing that remained constant, the one thing that would never change, was the warning rattle of that ego –

  Don’t tread on me.

  Where had he heard it?

  ‘She almost lost an eye, Tos.’

  ‘I know. Get in.’

  ‘The dirty bastard almost blinded her, killed her.’

  ‘Yeah. It happens.’

  Stryker’s voice was grim. ‘Not to me. Not to mine.’

  But Death was everywhere.

  TWENTY-THREE

  When Kate opened her eyes again it was morning, and Liz was sitting in the chair at the foot of her bed, staring glumly at her through the metal frame. ‘Good morning.’

  Kate croaked something that could have been a greeting.

  Liz stood up and came around to stare down at her friend, rakishly bandaged and pale as winter. If it hadn’t been for Kate’s eyes and the scarlet line of the cut beneath one of them, she would have been nearly invisible against the white sheets.

  ‘See what comes of playing detective?’ Liz said, with some difficulty. Kate looked so small and vulnerable, lying there. How many inches had she been from death, last night? Concern made her eyes flash, and Kate mistook it for anger.

  ‘Didn’t play ’tective,’ she managed, through dry lips.

  Liz took a glass from the sidetable and made Kate sip some water. ‘Well, what else was it?’ she asked.
If she ever met this psycho face to face, she’d demonstrate to him how she felt about his attack on her idiot friend. As it was, there was only the idiot friend to yell at. ‘Wandering around alone late at night – ’

  ‘I had a seminar, as you well know. I dismissed it ten minutes early, because of the snow, and went up to get my coat. That’s all I did. You’d think, the way everyone keeps yelling at me, that I’d tried to – ’ She paused, remembered. ‘How’s Dan?’

  Liz turned away. ‘Not great. Did you know he has a heart condition? The shock brought on some kind of attack on the operating table. He’s in intensive care – but they think he’s past the worst.’

  ‘Oh, God. And Jane?’

  ‘Fighting fit and demanding instant release,’ Liz grinned. ‘They want her to stay and rest, of course, but she told the doctor where he could stick his diagnosis.’

  Kate smiled. She closed her eyes.

  Liz frowned and leaned forward. ‘Are you all right? Do you want me to call the nurse or something?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  Liz gave a ladylike grunt. ‘Stryker says you were lucky Jane came along. He went for your eyes, you know.’

  ‘Who, Lieutenant Stryker?’

  ‘No, fool.’ She turned back and saw that Kate hadn’t been told that. She was touching her face, and her fingertips encountered the cut beneath her eyes. ‘Oh, that’s nothing. It won’t even leave a decent scar.’

  ‘Give me a mirror.’

  ‘I tell you, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Dammit, I want to see – ’ Kate threw back the covers and half-swung her legs over the side of the bed. As she did, Stryker walked in on a generous display of leg and thigh.

  ‘Get back in bed,’ he ordered.

  ‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ Kate snapped, reaching a toe for the floor. ‘I want to see my face.’

  ‘Dammit, cover yourself up,’ Stryker growled, pushing her back and practically hammering the sheets back into place. He turned to Liz. ‘Have you got a mirror in your handbag?’ Liz nodded. ‘Then give it to her. The more you refuse the worse she’ll think it is.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Liz said, opening her bag. ‘Are you always so bossy?’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ said Kate, watching her friend’s search anxiously.

  But when she looked into the mirror at last, her voice was almost disappointed. ‘Oh, it isn’t much, is it?’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Stryker said, sarcastically. ‘Want me to see if they’ve got something we can rub in to make it worse?’ He frowned at her. ‘Have you remembered what Stark was doing in your office?’

  ‘No. Oh – unless he went down there to get the manuscript. I said I’d give it to him and then I forgot it because . . .’

  ‘Manuscript? This the one you left a message about this afternoon?’

  ‘That’s right. It was a book of Aiken’s.’ She told him about the girl and paying her and asking Dan for the money from the estate.

  ‘Remember her name?’

  ‘Considering my special subject, I’m hardly likely to forget it. Christie.’

  ‘Agatha?’ Liz asked, gleefully.

  ‘No. Sorry. Mary Louise. Her address is on the envelope. I left the manuscript in my desk for Dan – that must have been why he was there. I can’t think of any other reason.’

  ‘Was the manuscript there when you came in?’ Stryker demanded, writing things in his notebook.

  ‘I haven’t the vaguest idea. All I saw was Dan.’

  ‘What colour was the envelope?’

  ‘Just an ordinary large manila envelope – rather beaten up, as I recall. As if it had been re-used several times. Aiken would do that – he was always pinching pennies.’

  ‘Or athletes’ backsides,’ Liz said.

  ‘What was the manuscript about?’

  ‘Why are you so interested in it?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Because I haven’t anything else to be interested in at the moment,’ Stryker snapped. ‘Did you read it?’

  ‘Only the title – upside-down. Something about the Fourth Cavalry. I guess Aiken was branching out into military history.’

  ‘All those butch, strong soldiers with their great big . . . guns,’ Liz said, with salacious and comic pseudo-relish. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Would he be likely to write about the Army?’ Stryker asked, giving Liz a look.

  Kate shrugged. ‘He’s written about all kinds of things. It could have been the Greek army – I might have been mistaken about the Fourth part. Why don’t you read it for yourself? It must still be there.’

  ‘You can’t remember anything else?’

  ‘Nope.’ She eyed him. ‘Not about last night, anyway.’ She was rewarded by a slight flush on his cheekbones, but his eyes didn’t change. Cold blue fire, as always.

  ‘Okay. I’ll drop back later.’ He went out abruptly.

  ‘That man doesn’t like me,’ Liz announced.

  ‘He doesn’t like anyone.’ Kate struggled to sit up in the bed. Her head ached, but it hadn’t actually come loose from her neck, so she supposed it would be all right. Grateful for such small mercies, she demanded breakfast and information.

  Liz was wearing a brightly coloured handwoven skirt. She thrust her hands into its deep pockets and went over to the window to stare out. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the English Department is in disarray. Deprived of their Chairman, two of their most prestigious professors, and their prettiest instructor, they are rushing around babbling “persecution and cruelty”. Arthur Fowler is flapping so much they’re afraid he’ll achieve lift-off, Mark Heskell is having a studio portrait taken in case the papers want an in-depth interview, Underhill is home writing a sermon entitled – ’

  ‘What about Richard?’ Kate interrupted. ‘Does he know I’m here? Does he know what’s happened?’

  Liz looked down at her boots, tapped a toe, inspected a heel, did a small turn, but kept her eyes away from Kate’s. ‘Richard isn’t around. He hasn’t been around since Monday morning. The police have sworn out a warrant against him for murder and are looking for him everywhere. If he knows about what happened to you, Kate, it’s probably because he did it, himself.’

  Stryker went down to the Intensive Care Unit and asked to see the doctor in charge. ‘I’d like to talk to Stark, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s out of the question.’

  ‘Only a moment or two. I must find out if he saw the person who attacked him. It might make all the difference to catching the guy.’

  The doctor was dubious. ‘He’s in a lot of pain, and heavily sedated. He’s hardly conscious.’

  ‘Please, let me try. Five minutes, that’s all.’

  ‘Three minutes . . . and with a nurse in attendance.’

  ‘Deal.’

  The room was brightly lit and full of machines that whirred, hummed and clicked. There couldn’t have been a greater contrast to the dimly lit cocoon that held Edward Pinchman, several floors below.

  ‘Dr Stark – can you tell me who attacked you?’

  Mumbling and whispering – nothing coherent. Stryker leaned over the small figure on the bed. Stark’s head was coifed in bandage, pinching his tiny features into a triangle only marginally pinker than the bandage itself.

  ‘Who hit you, Dr Stark?’

  ‘Calvary,’ Stark whispered.

  ‘You were reading Adamson’s manuscript?’

  Stark nodded, tried to speak with dry uncooperative lips. His eyelids began to flutter.

  ‘Who hit you, sir? Please, try to tell me who hit you. Did you see him?’

  ‘Everybody saw him,’ Stark said, clearly.

  And then his eyes closed.

  ‘That’s it,’ the nurse said. ‘Sorry.’

  Stryker was standing outside the Intensive Care Unit when Arthur Fowler came bustling down t
he hall. ‘Is Dan in there?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I want to see him. Immediately.’

  ‘I’m afraid they won’t let you in, Dr Fowler. He’s in a bad way . . . Maybe later.’

  Fowler produced a handkerchief and blew his nose emphatically. ‘Old fool,’ he muttered.

  ‘Dr Stark?’ Stryker asked, surprised.

  ‘No, of course not. Myself. There’s nothing foolish about Dan Stark, except his blind faith in the goodness of man. It’s all very well, these theories about weakness becoming strength and all that, but . . .’

  ‘Sir?’

  Fowler turned to the lifts and Stryker followed him. ‘Dan had a theory about people who overcame weakness being stronger than others. He kept hiring fools and witlings, despite what we said, saying they’d come all right in the end. Well, look where it’s got him. It’s all very well to have a faculty balanced like a house of cards, as long as he’s there to watch over it, but without him – catastrophe. Catastrophe!’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It is not enough that we have four members of the faculty in this hospital and another missing altogether, is it?’ Fowler demanded, petulantly. ‘Now two more have gone off and left us in the lurch.’

  ‘Which two is that?’

  ‘Heath and Lucy Grey-Jenner. When I came in this morning there was a letter on Dan’s desk informing him that they were getting married and would be back next week. Married! I can’t tell you how shocked I was.’

  ‘They have a right to be happy,’ Stryker said.

  ‘Yes. Of course they have – but not at the start of term. And with all this other disaster going on. I am deeply disappointed in them, and will tell them so on Monday. I’m having to assign graduate students to take instructor’s classes so the instructors can take on senior classes – I have to let Heskell take two of Dan’s graduate seminars on criticism, God help the students, and Rocheleau is teaching semantics because Underhill is sick, and . . .’

  ‘Chris Underhill is sick?’

  ‘Yes – another one out. We might as well shut down the Entire Operation!’ Fowler announced dramatically. ‘Simply Shut Down until it’s All Over!’