Death in a High Latitude, page 6
‘Then you’re just a policeman, and all that talk about a department of antiquities was a lie to get me to see you without suspecting anything. It’s damned unfair. I’ve never liked it when students call policemen pigs, but now I think they’re right.’
‘It’s not as simple as that. I am from the Home Office and I am not a policeman, although as you may know the Home Office is the ministry responsible for the police. I have told you no untruth. I should like your help in trying to discover what is the truth about this missing map, but if you are in any doubt of my credentials please ring Cambridge police and ask for the Chief Superintendent. I should prefer you to be satisfied about me before I say anything more.’
She looked even more haggard. My impression was that although she was worried about something she was not worried about the map. She was sitting across the table from me, her coffee untouched. Suddenly she put her head in her hands and broke down sobbing. After a minute or two she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to telephone about you. Either I trust you or I don’t, and I think I’m going to trust you.’
‘It might even make you feel better.’
‘You’re not unperceptive, are you? I’ve been living with all this for months, and there’s been absolutely nobody I could talk to.’
‘Your daughter’s too young?’
‘Susan’s only just fourteen. She adored her father, and I don’t want anything to hurt her memory of him. Besides, I don’t know – I’ve never known.’
‘You suspect that his death was not an accident?’
‘I don’t know what I suspect. I only know that Charles changed suddenly. It was about a year ago. I can’t explain it properly – you have to live with somebody to notice changes in behaviour. It was a lot of little things. Charles always worked hard, but he loved what he was doing, and he was an optimistic, cheerful person. He always enjoyed breakfast – suddenly he didn’t want any breakfast. He took to coming home late, and often he didn’t want any dinner when he did come home. We started having rows – we’d never had any sort of rows before. We’ve always had to worry about money, wanting to send Susan away to school, paying to keep Charles’s old mother in a home, but we never used to have rows about it. Then I spent a few pounds on material to make some new curtains and Charles was furious – scarcely spoke to me for two days. It was then that I got seriously worried about him, and persuaded him to see a doctor. I wish I hadn’t.’
‘You didn’t tell any of this to the police?’
‘How could I? Charles was dead – it could have been suicide, which would have been awful for Susan to live with. There wasn’t any doubt that Charles was suffering from a clinically diagnosed depression – the doctor helped there. I answered all the police questions, but I couldn’t tell them of the things that worried me, because I wasn’t even sure of what they were.’
‘Did you suspect that another woman might have been involved?’
She didn’t answer for some time. Then she said, ‘Yes, I think I did, sometimes. But it would have been totally unlike Charles – I mean, he might have fallen in love with somebody else, but if so he would have told me. At least, the old Charles would, but then everything was out of character in that horrible last year.’
‘Did you go to the party the night before he died?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid I rather encouraged him to go. I felt it was good for him to go out as much as possible.’
‘Do you remember who was there?’
‘It was the usual sort of Cambridge party, given by a geography lecturer called Jack Eastman who was going to a professorship in the States. We knew him well. Several of the museum staff were there, including Ingrid Mitchell who got Charles’s job – of course she wasn’t at the museum then, she had a tutorial fellowship, and geography was her subject. It was quite a crowded party. Deliberately I didn’t stay with Charles – I wanted him to get out of himself and talk to other people. There was some food, and a lot to drink – it wasn’t a dinner party, you just helped yourself to food and ate it where you could. About eleven o’clock I looked for Charles to go home and I was horrified to find him nearly drunk. Ingrid Mitchell was looking after him, and she helped me to get him out to the car so that people wouldn’t notice too much. Then she came home in the car with me, and helped me to get Charles into the house, and put him to bed. I was so thankful to get Charles to bed that I didn’t think about his pills – if I had thought I’d probably have felt that he was too far gone to bother about them. They were on a table by his bed, and he normally took two. The doctor thinks he must have taken his usual two, and then forgotten he’d taken them and had some more, probably several more. I ought to have taken them away, but I didn’t.’
‘Have you always had separate rooms?’
‘No. It was all part of his illness, or what I call his illness. He took to not being able to sleep, and he’d want to read, or get up and work half the night. So I moved out into what had been our spare room. It was quite friendly – he agreed that it was better for him to be on his own.’
‘If it’s not too painful for you, could I see the room?’
‘Why not?’
She got up and led me out of the kitchen back into the hall by which we’d entered. ‘Susan’s bedroom is on the first floor, but Charles and I lived on the ground floor,’ she explained. ‘I told you we let some of the other rooms. This was Charles’s room. Originally I think it was a music room. It opens on to the garden, and as you can see it’s a nice room.’
It was. There were french windows leading to the garden, and other windows to each side of them, so that the whole room was full of light. For all that it had a sort of musty feel about it. ‘You don’t use it now?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t since Charles died. I suppose I could let it, or move back into it myself, but I just haven’t wanted to.’
‘So it’s much the same now as it was then?’
‘Pretty much. I’ve taken away clothes and things, but I haven’t moved any furniture.’
A double bed stood against the wall facing the french windows. The room was big enough not to seem cluttered. A table with a reading lamp was beside the bed, and in one corner stood a big desk, also with its own light. The wall by the desk was lined with bookshelves, and there was a bookcase against one of the other walls. There were a couple of armchairs and two or three attractive prints. There was no washbasin – apart from the bed it was a study rather than a bedroom.
‘Did he take his pills with water?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I always put out a glass of water for him. The police took away the glass, and there were only his own fingerprints on it.’
I walked over to the french windows and looked out at the untidy garden. Even with the long-haired lawn and the weed-filled flower beds it was a pleasant outlook. At the bottom of the french windows an edge of carpet had become untacked. ‘Do you keep the french windows locked?’ I asked.
‘They are now. They weren’t then. Sometimes when he was having a particularly bad night Charles would wander round the garden.’
Something caught my eye in a fold of the loose bit of carpet. I picked it up – it was an amber bead.
‘Is this yours?’
She took it from me and studied it. ‘No, I’ve never seen it before. It may have been there for ages – I’m afraid I haven’t cleaned out the place very thoroughly.’ She did not seem much interested.
‘May I keep it for the moment?’
‘You can have it if you like.’
‘Thank you. Can I finish my coffee?’
‘It will be cold. I’ll make some more.’
‘Please don’t bother. I rather like cold coffee. The coffee doesn’t matter, anyway. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes more.’
‘And you’d be happier in the kitchen?’ She spoke almost brightly.
‘A bit, yes. I don’t want to hurt you more than I have to.’
‘You’re not hurting me now – you’re making me rather interested. I still don’t know who you are, but I said I’d trust you, and I’m not going back on that.’
I found it easier to talk in the kitchen than in that room with its dreadful memories. But the room raised several questions.
‘When you and Dr Mitchell brought your husband home, did you get him into the house by the door, or by the french window?’
‘The window. After we’d got him out of the car Ingrid Mitchell kept him standing up while I ran in and opened the window, so we could get him directly into his room.’
‘Dr Mitchell came home with you in your car. How did she herself get back?’
‘Her own car was parked near the party. After we’d got Charles safely to bed I drove her back to where her car was parked. I thought it was all right to leave Charles, and I wasn’t away long.’
‘But there was a time when your husband was alone in the house. About how long, do you think?’
She passed her hand across her forehead. ‘It’s horrible to think back to it all, and it’s hard to remember things exactly. I had to drive back into Cambridge, but I came home as soon as I’d dropped Ingrid Mitchell by her car. I may have been away about twenty-five minutes.’
‘Did you leave the french window locked after you had put your husband to bed?’
‘I can’t say for certain, but I think probably not. I can’t remember locking it.’
I changed the subject. ‘Did you know much about your husband’s work?’ I asked.
‘Yes – at least I did before his illness. One of the changes in him was that he stopped telling me about his work. Before that we more or less worked together. We were quite a good partnership, you see, he was a geographer and I’m a historian. I mean, I’ve got a history degree and I teach history, though I’m not really a historian in Charles’s class as a geographer. But I could understand what he was doing, and sometimes I could help him a bit.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘He was interested in climatic change in the Arctic. It’s a highly specialised subject, and I think I could say he was one of the world’s top authorities on it. Now his book will never be published. Dr Mitchell has taken over his work and I expect she will edit the papers that Charles left. I’d like to do it myself, but I’m not good enough. It’s all immensely complicated, but in the old days when Charles talked to me about it I found it fascinating.’
‘When you say climatic change, do you mean over historical time?’
‘Partly. There’s one theory that the climate in southern Greenland a thousand years ago was slightly milder than it is now, and that this encouraged Norse settlement from Iceland. The settlements disappeared around the fourteenth century, and some people think that this was because the climate got severe again. But all this is rather marginal. Charles was concerned with the fundamental geography of the Arctic, possible movements of the Pole with changes in the earth’s crust, and the consequences in terms of climate. These are changes over millions of years. I’m not up to the maths and physics involved.’
‘Where are your husband’s papers now?’
‘At the museum. We both made wills soon after we were married, leaving everything to each other. Charles never changed his will, so the papers are mine, and I control the copyright. But I know he’d have wanted his work to go on, and I can’t carry it on. Dr Mitchell and the museum people can. When it comes to publication I suppose I shall be consulted, but that’s probably a long time ahead. Sometimes I think that perhaps Susan will follow her father – she’s got his sort of mind, I think. But she’s only fourteen.’
‘I hope she does. And if she’s proud of her father I think she can be equally proud of you.’
‘What do you mean?’
I got up to go. ‘Precisely what I said – that your daughter can be very proud of both her parents. There’s a great deal that I don’t know, but I can assure you of one thing – there is not even a possibility that your husband committed suicide.’
‘If only I could believe that!’
‘You can. I can’t explain any more now because I don’t know, but I think you may find that what you call his illness was wholly creditable to him.’
‘You’re an extraordinary person. I’m glad I talked to you. Shall I see you again?’
‘I hope so. I can’t say when I shall have more to tell you, and it may take time, but I promise to come back as soon as I can.’
She smiled. ‘Well, you’ve given me something to look forward to. Since Charles’s illness I haven’t looked forward to anything except with dread.’
I walked back to the hotel. I had much to think about. There was remarkable new evidence in what Mrs Jackson had told me, which meant that Charles Jackson could not possibly have taken his own life. And what was to be made of the amber bead now in my pocket?
* See Death in the Caribbean
IV
A Trip to Hamburg
CAMBRIDGE POLICE LAID on a car to take me to London Airport and I flew to Hamburg that same afternoon. I did not take up Sir Anthony Brotherton’s offer of hospitality by Universal Oil, feeling that it would be better to be on my own.
I was met at the airport by a plainclothes officer and taken straight to police headquarters. There an impressive reception committee awaited me – a senior official from the German Ministry of Justice, the chief of Hamburg police, and the head of their equivalent of our Special Branch. To my shame their English was infinitely better than my German and we had no need of an interpreter. It was just on six o’clock when I got to the police building. My hosts provided wine and a substantial spread of Scandinavian-type open sandwiches, which meant that we could get to business straightaway without spending time on a more formal meal.
The man from the Ministry of Justice, Herr Hans Teck, opened our conference. ‘We are very glad to see you, Colonel, for we are all of us becoming more and more puzzled by this case,’ he said. ‘It is unlike any of the other kidnappings we have experienced. First, the ransom demand is extraordinary, and secondly, no one has so far claimed responsibility. If it had not been for the ransom note, I should be inclined to feel that Dr Braunschweig had suffered some sort of breakdown and gone off suddenly on his yacht without telling anyone, but the ransom note, strange as it is, cannot be dismissed. We are hoping that you can indicate some line of approach for us.’
I gave a quick summary of my doings in Cambridge, as I had reported to Pusey. ‘Clearly the Baffin Map has been the object of criminal attention for some time,’ I said. ‘The evidence points to its having been stolen, either on the way back to the museum from Hamburg, or, I think more probably, from the museum itself after its return. The death of Dr Charles Jackson, who was Keeper of Arctic Maps at the time, is highly suspicious. He died from an overdose of sleeping pills, supposedly self-administered, combined with the effects of alcohol. There was a glass of water by his bed, and only his own fingerprints were found on it. But I learned this morning that the glass had been put there by his wife in accordance with her normal practice. If there had been no interference with the glass her prints should have been on it as well as her husband’s. They were not, and this seems to me conclusive evidence that someone wiped the glass clean of fingerprints and imposed Dr Jackson’s. In view of what has happened since it seems almost certain that Dr Jackson’s death was in some way connected with the map: either he took it himself, and some associate decided that he could not be left alive with the knowledge of what had happened, or he was murdered so that the map could be taken by somebody else without its disappearance coming to light at once.’
‘All this is new to us and very interesting,’ the Special Branch man, Rolf Keller, said. ‘But you have not shown any connection with Dr Braunschweig.’
‘Apart from the ransom note linking his kidnapping with the map, I know of none so far. There must be a connection, but I think it can be found only in Hamburg. What do you know of him as an individual?’
Franz Schumann, the Chief of Police, answered. ‘Not very much, other than that he is one of our leading industrialists, respected and liked by his colleagues. He takes little part in public life, though his company – and I suppose this to some extent reflects his own interests – is generous in civic matters, particularly in anything relating to the university. We knew that the Baffin Map had been exhibited in Hamburg before we were told by London. As soon as we learned of the ransom note one of my officers recalled that there had been a recent exhibition of maps here and we obtained a catalogue. The costs of the exhibition were largely met by a grant from Unol – Universal Oil – but it is hard to see that this connects Dr Braunschweig with the map itself in any way.’
‘You did well to get on to the exhibition so quickly.’ Herr Schumann was pleased, and I went on ‘I have discussed Dr Braunschweig with the chairman of Universal Oil who, one would think, must know him well, but either he is not really intimate with his deputy, or he is unable to convey his qualities, for I have only a sort of passport picture of him, and no impression at all of his personality. What are his private interests? Is anything known of his domestic life?’
‘I have talked with Frau Braunschweig, a charming and intelligent woman, and I should say that she and her husband are most happily married,’ Keller said. ‘Their home has a – I am not sure of the right English word – a sense? an air? an atmosphere? – of stability and contentment. A policeman must beware of subjective feelings, but often they are all you have to go on.’
‘Your English is excellent, and I should trust your feelings here. But what of the man himself? Has he no interests outside the oil industry?’
‘He is devoted to his home and family, and he is greatly interested in his yacht and sailing. Frau Braunschweig shares these interests. They spend all the time they can together on their boat.’
‘Do you suspect any known group of organising his kidnapping?’
Keller ran his hand through his hair in a worried way. ‘There are, alas, many fanatical groups, some of which we know, some we do not. They are loose groupings, mostly of young people who share a hatred of society, and whose aim, if they can be said to have an aim, is to destroy in order that from the ruins of our social system some better order may emerge. They need money for their activities and they obtain it by bank robberies and other crimes. Some members of these groups act from a contorted sense of idealism, but they attract others whose motive is just greed –violence is a sadly easy way of getting money. Our difficulty always is that the organisation is so loose. It is like tackling – how shall I say it? – a jellyfish. You can cut away this piece or that piece, but poison remains in the rest. In addition to the more or less political groups there are also many nationalist groups promoting the aims of various movements outside Germany – some of these may attempt kidnapping to put pressure on some Government. Since we have not found Dr Braunschweig’s car and have no witnesses to say what happened, there is nothing to indicate how he was taken. And the ransom demand is so unusual that I think we have to deal with some group hitherto totally unknown.’
