Death in a High Latitude, page 25
‘Nunc seges est ubi Troia fuit,’ I said, delighted to air my little Latin to a Professor of Mathematics who had none. ‘It is better to get a crop of some sort from the ruins of Troy than nothing. And if you go into the history of the peaceful colleges of Oxford and Cambridge you will come across a fair bit of violence in the lives of some of those who endowed them. They did very well by Henry VIII, for instance. There aren’t many princely patrons around nowadays. Thank God that big business can sometimes be generous as well as grasping.’
*
I was sick of the sight of the contraption by my bed that held a plastic bottle to drip something or other into my right arm. My left arm was sick of holding Boswell’s Johnson and, if I tell the truth, I was getting rather bored by Dr Johnson. Ruth couldn’t come until the evening and it was barely the middle of the afternoon. I put down the book and was staring miserably at the ceiling when a nurse came in to say I had a visitor, and did I feel well enough to see him?
‘I shall be thankful to see anyone,’ I said. ‘You have neglected me for hours.’
‘I haven’t. And anyway, you are supposed to be asleep.’
‘Well, I’m not. Bring him in.’
It was Dr Braunschweig. ‘I was horrified to hear that you were back in hospital,’ he said. ‘I should have come two or three weeks ago, but you will understand that I have been frantically busy. I hope you got my letters.’
‘I did, and thank you very much for them.’
‘I have to thank you for saving my life.’
‘Bosh. You have to thank Rolf Keller, several brave German airmen and policemen, and a host of people whose names you will never know. We all owe our lives to other people, all the time. Tell me of the interesting things that have been happening – I’m horribly out of touch in this place. I know, of course, of your generous gifts to Cambridge and Oxford, and they have warmed my heart. But I don’t know what is happening in your company. Have you taken over as chairman?’
‘I have been acting as chairman – that was unavoidable. But I’m not sure that I want to go on indefinitely. My colleagues would probably elect me, but it would mean moving to London, and abandoning work in my own field. There are other good candidates, and in all the circumstances I’m inclined to think that – how shall I put it – a chairman less personally involved in these unhappy events would be better for the company. But that can be determined later – for the moment, I am carrying on.’
‘As far as we have been able to make out the inspiration for the whole dreadful business came from Baumgarten. But I’m not at all clear why.’
‘You know as much as we shall ever know. Heinrich was a strange man, and I think that Hilde was an even more powerful personality. They were extraordinarily thorough. They both actually travelled to Brazil before coming back to kidnap me, and Heinrich arranged for various letters he had written to be posted in Brazil to his firm in Germany, safely covering the time that he was with me on Apfel. He made a mistake in putting my car in his own garage – but it was quite a clever mistake, and he thought that he would be back before the car could be found.’
‘He reckoned without the Hamburg police.’
‘And without you . . . But we are not to talk of that.’
‘But why do it at all? He was a rich, successful man.’
‘He stood to lose a lot of money over Arabian Sands. And he wanted power. So did Hilde.’
‘And Sir Anthony?’
‘He wanted power, too. And as we know now, he was vulnerable in various ways. I think Hilde had some hold on him, but that may not have been very important. He wanted supreme power in the Middle East, and he was afraid of me, though I didn’t realise that at the time.’
‘And now? Will the North-West Passage work?’
Dr Braunschweig was silent for some time. Then he said, ‘In the way that Sir Anthony and Heinrich feared, as a surface route to Europe and the eastern seaboard of America, I think not. Or not yet. Perhaps it needs only a small change in local climate – possibly there was such an interlude in William Baffin’s day. But as things are, I see no immediate possibility of a North-West Passage as a practicable route for surface tankers. I emphasise the word “surface”. I am convinced that there is much reality in the Arctic Calorific theory, and the remarkable voyage of the US submarine Nautilus has already proved that there is a practicable route for underwater transport. Given the need, we could develop submarine tankers that would ferry oil from the Arctic by a north-west route without great difficulty. It would require huge investment, and I think they would need to be nuclear-powered – and the world is not ready for nuclear-powered oil-tankers. There are no shore bases for them – and think of the outcry at bringing nuclear-powered submarines to existing oil terminals. My own view is that they would be as safe as any other form of shipping, but that is not yet the world’s view. We shall maintain a small design staff to work on the problems – it is our job to think not years, but decades ahead. And the mere possibility of an underwater route for oil from the Arctic may yet have political advantages. But I think not yet – there is too much invested elsewhere. And yet, who knows? We cannot know the future, but we must be prepared for it.’
‘So all this dreadful toll of life was not wholly waste?’
‘I cannot define “waste”. It was part of what may come to be seen as a historical process. It was futile, and unnecessary, but Charles Jackson, Adrian Stowe, Ingrid Mitchell, even you and I, may have helped to shape the future.’
*
My next visitor was Sir Edmund Pusey. He greeted me cheerfully. ‘I have some news for you,’ he said. ‘I am delighted to tell you that the Prime Minister has decided to recommend Her Majesty to confer a knighthood on you.’
‘Good Lord! I’d far rather you got me out of this place.’
‘You must just be patient. I have had a word with your surgeon, and he is impressed by your constitution. He assures me that you are progressing as well as can be expected.’
‘As well as he expects, perhaps.’
‘He has a world reputation, Peter. And now he has an even more distinguished patient.’
‘Don’t think I’m ungrateful. But what on earth am I to say to Ruth about becoming Lady Blair? She dislikes being Mrs Blair, she much prefers to be a Professor.’
‘Leave Ruth to me, Peter. I have not served time in the Foreign Office for nothing. I shall break the news to her in the most delicate and diplomatic way. And she will be proud of you – you’ll see.’
‘That’s all very well. But how is this thing to be gazetted? No one knows anything about our job.’
‘Your knighthood is to be in the Military Division – no one ever asks questions about that. And if anybody does raise the matter, “for public services” covers a multitude of sins.’
‘I suppose I should say thank you.’
‘It would be gracious. By the way, there is one other thing. When you are feeling fitter, there’s a rather tricky little matter on which I should be glad of your advice . . .’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.R.L. Anderson was an author of fourteen mystery stories and numerous works of non-fiction. He was a journalist at the Guardian for many years, before retiring to pursue his career as an author. He had a life-long interest in sailing and adventure, which results in many of his novels (as his original author biography from the 1970s puts it) ending ‘with an exciting sea chase in a small boat’.
If you enjoyed Death in a High Latitude, why not try J.R.L. Anderson’s, The Piet Deventer Investigations . . .
A Sprig of Sea Lavender
Up-and-coming painter, Sandra Telford, races down the platform to catch her train to London.
Two hours later she’s found dead in her seat. At her feet is a portfolio containing millions of pounds worth of unlisted artwork – and a single sprig of sea lavender.
Inspector Piet Deventer, an art lover himself, is put on the case. The victim is the former lover of an escaped convict, the mastermind behind one of the largest gold robberies of the century – and Piet suspects the two cases might be connected.
Struggling for leads, Piet enlists the help of Sally Graham, a friend of the victim, to help with his investigation. But with a dangerous criminal on the loose, Piet will need all his wits about him – so it doesn’t help that he finds himself falling in love . . .
A Sprig of Sea Lavender is J.R.L. Anderson’s first mystery featuring Piet Deventer, and is an unmissable read for all lovers of English crime.
Festival
Chief Constable Piet Deventer, recently married and now a father, is thrown into turmoil by twin tragedies – a young woman is murdered at a music festival, only hours after Piet’s own baby daughter is abducted.
Forced to put aside his personal woes and focus on the murder, Piet finds himself in a seedy world of drugs and rock’n’roll. He meets Harriet, the dead woman’s sister, who has a shocking confession – might the two crimes be connected after all.
Racing against the clock, Piet must untangle the web that connects the dead woman, the festival and his daughter, before it’s too late.
Corruption runs deep in the second fast-paced mystery featuring Piet Deventer, from master of 1970s crime, J.R.L. Anderson.
First published in Great Britain in 1981 by Victor Gollancz Ltd
This ebook edition published in 2015 by
Zaffre Publishing
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www.zaffrebooks.co.uk
Copyright © J.R.L. Anderson, 1981
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-7857-6008-2
This ebook was produced by IDSUK (Data Connection) Ltd
Zaffre Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Publishing Fiction, a Bonnier Publishing company
www.bonnierpublishingfiction.co.uk
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JRL Anderson, Death in a High Latitude
