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  -4

  “You say you were murdered,” Peter said, fierce again.

  “Would you have killed yourself?”

  “No.”

  “But you did, in effect.”

  John leaned on the desk and looked earnest.

  “I’m very anxious it shan’t disqualify me,” he said. “It would be an awful waste otherwise.”

  “Why did you agree to be killed if you did not want to die?” Peter’s mouth twisted.

  “There were lots of reasons,” John said, looking for some and finding what he had curiously thin and unpersuasive. “I was broke again.”

  “You spent this ten thousand pounds you had from your father?”

  “Oh yes. That was what it was for. Dad always said it’s

  no good saving it. If you want some more, work harder and make some. Saving it’s behaving like a squirrel.”

  “A what?” said Peter.

  “A squirrel. You know, small bushy-tailed tree rat. Eats nuts, or if gray, other squirrels. Like people.”

  “How did you agree to die?”

  “It was a business proposition really. I suppose I ought to be ashamed of it.”

  “Tell me how it happened!” Peter shouted in anger and slammed a handful of pills into his mouth.

  “I came back from South America broke,” said John. “I’d spent up, and when I got back our promoters had wound themselves up. I went to my bank and told them. The manager said it was about time I got connections with more responsible set-ups, and I told him the more responsible ones didn’t pay the flash money. In fact banks never back anything but people sitting at desks faking the profits for the next AGM. I said so. He got colder. In the end he said I could draw ten pounds and that was all. I drew ten pounds, and on the way out I put it in the box for sick animals. It wasn’t worth anything, you see. It just didn’t wash any shirts.

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  A couple of sick dogs would be better off than me with ten pounds.” He watched Peter’s unconvinced stare. “Look,” said John very earnestly, “if you’re going to start again, you start again. From the ground up.”

  John shook his head.

  “No, you don’t see, do you?” He sighed. “Well, walking along from the bank I kept spotting a big Rolls coming on behind me, keeping pace. In the end I turned round and stared at it. It stopped. There was this fellow Packard in the back. He invited me in—

  “And suggested he should kill you?” Peter said icily.

  “Not then. He chatted a lot, and finally got round to if I was interested in space travel. Well, travel has been my line. Or I should say, going somewhere where nobody else has been. That was getting very difficult. Right in the middle of the jungle you see a sticker on a tree about contraceptives.

  “Well, I saw him several times and gradually he got round to it. He offered a lump sum, half before and half afterward. Then, as he pointed out, he wouldn’t take any share of the television rights, or any film offers, or the book or anything. That would all be mine. It seemed very generous, and to tell the truth, I was very keen to go—I should say come.”

  “In the old days there was a law against committing suicide?” Peter queried, calmer again.

  “Yes. I think there was.”

  “Which included conniving at your own murder?”

  John hesitated. “I don’t think you really' connive at it, do you? I mean, it’s no worse than going about killing yourself all the time smoking or drinking yourself stupid, or taking a wrong turn on a superhighway. It’s all the same, really.” “You are twisting it to suit your case,” said Peter. “Where do you think the law against suicide came from?”

  John felt uneasy. He seemed to recall from history suicides being buried at the crossroads, or in rubbish heaps, anywhere so long as it wasn’t hallowed ground. Who hallowed it? he wondered, and then caught Peter’s eye and stopped thinking of the horrid question.

  “I’m afraid I’m not well up in the law,” he said quickly, and smiled. Peter’s grim expression stayed, and suddenly John thought of a possible answer he might have wanted instead. “Or the Bible.” The best-seller, he thought, for presents, children’s prizes, doorsteps, table levelers— He felt hot with guilt.

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  “Why did you agree to die?” Peter shouted.

  John felt a sinking sensation. He was sure now that Peter's attitude and his reiterated questions meant that he was to be disqualified because of this bargain. But what was there to do? He couldn’t start telling a lot of lies, because in this place they would soon find out the truth.

  A very cold chill began creeping through him. Peter was talking as if he had agreed to die forever. Suppose he had done that? Suppose Packard couldn’t bring him back?

  Up to now he had felt a certain confidence at knowing that he was a temporary caller, a sort of traveling journalist, who could be whisked back into a familiar world by the touch of a switch.

  But suppose that didn’t happen? Suppose he was really here for good and this interrogation was the key to his existence for the next millennium? Suppose this was indeed the deciding point as to whether he proceeded to some Heaven, the like of which had probably never been imagined, or to some Hell, more easily envisaged, now that he knew he could feel just as he had before. Some hell of burning skin, of aching thirst, of searing cold, terrifying tortures and beautiful women sans vagina?

  Again guilt flushed his cheeks. The shock of his realization made him very uncertain of himself. As if he had gone to visit the criminal in the condemned cell and found himself being strapped up.

  “Did you do it because you thought Heaven would be a better place?” Peter rapped out.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What did you think it would be like?”

  He hesitated. In that moment he realized he had often thought about Hell, and very seldom about Heaven, except in the last few days. For all its heat and steam and incorruptible women, Hell had a glamour, an inexplicable attraction. ...

  “I—” John gathered courage, because he realized that in this place they would find out anyhow. They probably read thoughts. It would be no use now or in the future to invent something grossly untrue. “I didn’t think about Heaven much.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought that, as an existence, it must be a dead bore.” He felt a sudden anxiety, a need to try and explain why,

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  “I couldn’t see what they did all the time, sitting on the right hand of God, harping, everything dressed up detergent bright—I’m sorry.”

  “Is that all you were ever told?”

  “Yes. Gold and blue skies, white angels . . . I suppose they listen to God, but what He talks about all the time I can’t imagine.”

  “Where do you think this image came from?”

  “From people who were tired of worry, and wanted to imagine Peace, but could only think as far as boredom.” Peter sat back and made a steeple of his fingers. Then he bit the top pair of fingers and regarded John from the corner of his eye. His look was suspicious and unfriendly.

  I’ve done it now, John thought. Suddenly he felt real fear, as he had on earth. Fear of instant retribution.

  5

  Edward Marshall, the Home Secretary at the time of John Brunt’s death, was a man of such smooth appearance that cartoonists drew his head as a bladder with painted cheeks but no features. It was said he had attained high position by the insistent intrigues of young Lord Lorrellmore, his boy-friend.

  Lord Lorrellmore, young, gay, debonair, and deceitful, had inherited wealth and position from his father, and having no need for any more of either, sought power and disruption. He was fired by the one and amused by the other. He made any friendships that suited his maneuvers, breaking them again when done. For this he was known from Packard’s invention, as The Inconstant Poof, a title which amused him. He liked amusing himself, as when interviewed on television after the repeal of the Homos
exual Acts he said, “A good thing, too. Women are already pricing themselves out of the market.”

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Softing, was that afternoon in Lorrellmore’s flat. Together they listened to Edward Marshall’s account of the Archbishop’s telephone call.

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  “Well, Packard would too, if he felt it might do any good,” Softing said, his voice bubbling in his chest. “Murder, I mean.”

  “The man,” said Lorrellmore, “has become a bloody nuisance.”

  “That’s all very well,” Softing said, “but he’s managed to switch a lot of projects off sidings on to the right lines. You must admit he has a gift for smelling out faults.”

  “He has a gift for sticking his monkey wrench in too many works,” said Lorrellmore. “The trouble is our dear Prime Minister will keep on supporting him so long as he’s right. Now this incident seems to me to be an opportunity to prove Packard wrong in a considerable degree.”

  “He has a big following,” Softing said. “In the House and out of it. He has everything for that, the humor, the presence, the means of putting it over, and the smell for anything that’s wrong.” Softing began to chuckle. “Yesterday he listed our Militant Minister for Education as Little Annie Thud- bugger, an Orphan.”

  Lorrellmore laughed suddenly.

  “I’m not complaining about his whimsy,” he said, watching Softing carefully. “I’m complaining about him getting too big a pull, ft’s time he went down and someone else stepped in.”

  Marshall shifted uneasily in his deep chair.

  “Yes,” he said. “I think we would all agree there, but—”

  “Look,” Lorrellmore said, “apart from his scientific interests for the government, he has already ruined the veal- calf and pig industries by exposing their methods, as if anybody cares what a pig feels if it hasn’t been out to see what life is like—”

  “Don’t let’s have all that again!” said Softing abruptly. “He had the public on his side, and quite frankly all he destroyed was a few too fat profits. I side with him there, if only because the public would have turned against it anyway. It was destroying the flavor.”

  “Don’t let’s waste time with these side issues,” Marshall said jumpily. “I’ve had to put Hoskins on to this. I had to persuade the Archbishop I was doing something.”

  “Putting a spy on to his brother ought to have pleased him,” said Lorrellmore.

  “Well, you can hardly expect an Archbishop to support a

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  murder, now, can you?” Marshall protested. “His idea is to stop it!”

  “Suppose Packard has done it already?” said Lorrellmore. “That would be an unholy mess,” said Sotting, pouring himself a Scotch. “In which we might all sink.” He hissed soda into his drink and watched the others.

  “Not so,” said Lorrellmore. “You heard Edward say this is a personal and private experiment of Packard’s. The rest of the government would be shocked and horrified if they knew. In fact, the public might even be relieved to find that such infamy had been discovered and that the righteous Ministers had kicked out their black brother.”

  “Your imagery is offensive,” said Softing.

  “Nonetheless, it’s true,” said Marshall. “After all, we have a potential murderer among us.”

  “And a potential Minister of Science, Edward,” said Lorrellmore easily. “Who knows, and even a potential Premier?” “It’s all very attractive,” said Softing. “But it’s also too surprising to be taken in all at once. I mean, there is the man, champion of humanity, softening the harsh touch of science to the human cheek, friend of calves and pigs and broiler chicks, suddenly deciding to slaughter one of his friends just to see what happens. I don’t swallow the whole, as it were.” “I tell you it’s an experiment,” Marshall said.

  “What kind?”

  “The Archbishop said it was an attempt to send a man into Heaven and get the information back from him somehow.” Marshall explained it uneasily.

  Softing considered this while Lorrellmore watched him. “It could be that, too,” said Softing. “David Packard is a bit of a contradiction. He’s a science man all right, but I always think he’s a bit of a God-fearer, too. I mean, he doesn’t go to ceremonies in church if he can help it, and of course his robust type of humor rather hides it, but all the same, I’m not sure.”

  “It certainly is odd to have a top scientist believing in Heaven,” said Lorrellmore. “To my knowledge they’ve always been trying to prove there isn’t one.”

  Marshall shifted in his chair again.

  “I felt very awkward about sending Hoskins,” he said. “But luckily some trouble with Flightend has broken out, so I gave him that as cover.”

  “What’s happened with Flightend?” Softing asked sharply.

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  “There’s been a lot of money playing around that product recently.”

  “Apparently the bloody stuffs poisoned a lot of people up in East Anglia,” Marshall said. “The details are still coming in.”

  “Oh Christ!” said Softing. “That’ll jolt the market just at a tricky time. The balance of payments—”

  “But that’s Packard’s responsibility, too, isn’t it?” Lorrell- more said.

  “Yes, but you can’t blame one man for that,” said Softing. “He’s got a staff of twenty thousand. Be reasonable!”

  “Yes, a plain, straightforward private murder would be better,” said Lorrellmore. “Because that would be final. There would be no argument. He would be treated as any other criminal. It would be The End and no reprise.”

  Softing laughed.

  “1 still don’t believe it,” he said. “I mean, after all, if he needed to test for a Hereafter, why didn’t he get somebody who was dying anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” said Marshall irritably. “But obviously he has some very strong reason why not. One thing that Packard is not is a fool. He would always take a calculated risk, but not a blind one.”

  “I can’t believe he’d do it at all,” said Softing, shaking his head slowly.

  “Well, I’d say he has something on his mind,” said Lorrellmore briskly. “I had a long talk with Senator Devlin this morning. You know he is on a three-day visit, returning tomorrow for Blackout. He’s a really good, honest-to-God all- American Middle West Irishman proud of both his countries and hating this one. Apparently Dave Packard makes him laugh, which is something. But this time he didn’t laugh. He was sour.”

  He waited for the “Why?” which Marshall put in quickly.

  “He said Packard is knocking Blackout.”

  “Why?” Marshall said again.

  “Well, Devlin says it’s just sour grapes, the Old Country going down while the Ould Country is putting the New Country up. You know the argument. But Devlin was rattled. In fact I would say he was angry. He had gone for praise and adulation and come away with a graze on his nose.”

  “Packard’s been kept informed of all this all along?” said

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  Softing. “I understood so. We are contributing a thousand

  million—”

  “Yes, I believe he has,” Lorrellmore cut off his figures. “But anyhow there was a disagreement with the Senator, who claims it is just a drop in the bucket.”

  “Of course,” said Softing, “if Packard, with his American reputation, says he didn’t like Blackout, Devlin would practically lean on his nose to justify it. That would be his automatic reaction. But why did Packard object?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lorrellmore. “But anyway, it’s outside our discussion. It’s the private life of Packard that is inside.”

  “I should hear from Hoskins soon,” said Marshall, and got to his feet.

  Not long after, Lorrellmore called at the top flat, Dorran- more Gardens, SW3. Lance Keeping, the owner, was a writer.

  “You’re doing a life of Packard for Main Line Press,” said his lordship, smiling. �
�I’d like to talk about it.”

  “Come on in,” said Keeping.

  His working room was lined with books, dog-eared manuscripts, and Bass bottles full and empty. Three cigarettes, in three different ashtrays, burned around his electric typewriter.

  “Packard,” he said, gesturing toward a gin bottle. “That’s all him there.”

  The table was covered with manuscript, press cuttings, photographs, current books laid open, Hansard, and scientific publications of several nationalities. Lorrellmore looked at the mess and took a half tumbler of gin from his host. Keeping filled a silver tankard with two bottles of Bass.

  “Has he told you much about himself?” Lorrellmore asked.

  “He jokes all the time about himself,” Keeping said, sitting on the corner of the working table. “Somewhere in the cracks you see a little gold, but mostly he plays himself down too much for us. We want something sent well up. I get most stuff from his old tutors, colleagues, fellow members. They all paint him big. That’s what we want. As an instance, asked about his marriage to a rich farmer’s daughter he refers to her as the Sweet Popsie from the Dirt Round. That’s not our brand. All right for a TV comedian. Not for the Minister of Science.”

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  “I want a resume.”

  “Eton, St. John’s, Cambridge. Read theology. Rugger blue, cricket cap, Olympic sprinter. Switched physics and biology. First position Rocket Motor Division, International Electric, hit top administrative job development project on rocket fuels. Lent California Twying Aircraft three years on exchange; on return switched National Physical Laboratory, space research program, effects meteor intrusion on storms, weather, crops, brains. Hit high spots again, switched fibers research, same thing—”

  “Seems he changed as soon as he reached top,” said Lor- rellmore. “I’ve heard that, but I didn’t know he did it so often.”

  “The man was intense. Problems burned out under his analytical eye—”

  “Was?”

  “In his early days, yes. Couldn’t hold him down. Everybody was after him. Seems he was out to get the gen. on every branch he could, but he didn’t only take it, he gave it, too. Took Chair at Cambs. Extraordinary character. No wonder his wife ran off. No girl could hold up to that kind of brilliance. Must have scorched her in bed.”