Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

Kelly was staring at him, stunned. “How did you work that out?” he asked.

“I would have thought it was obvious to anyone with half a brain, Ted. I know you-know of you, rather. It was only a question of time before I remembered that you’re an espionage agent. And why else would the FBI be here? A murder? No, no matter how important the victim. The sensitive nature of Cornucopia’s contracts? Not unless the firm was already under scrutiny and Skeps’s murder confirmed federal suspicions. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Oh, yes,” Kelly said grimly. “Someone here has been giving secrets to the Communists for two years.”

“How did you find out?”

“When a top-secret missile fuel governor was stolen from the Russians with great pain and some loss of life. It turned out that the governor was ours, invented by Cornucopia Research. The Reds hadn’t even bothered to modify it.”

“Someone at Cornucopia Research is the villain?”

“If he is, we can’t find a trace of him. It’s not Duncan MacDougall. He had the same kind of job at PetroBrit, and they’ve never lost the schematics of a pencil sharpener. The trouble is the same trouble we always have with private industry-people come and go anywhere they want if they’ve got the rank. Security? It’s a piece of paper you put in a safety deposit box.”

“You’re talking about the fat cats at the top?”

“Sure.”

“Why would they steal for the Reds? They don’t need money, and it’s hard to doubt their patriotism.”

“It’s hard to doubt anyone’s patriotism, Carmine, but treason happens. It’s ideological when money’s not the object of the game. I say ‘game’ because I’ve encountered two spies who did it to show how clever they were.”

“But they slipped up in the end. What else has gone?”

“It’s hard to know, but once you know there’s a leak, you look for any Russian or Chinese device that takes a sudden leap ahead. Other firms have lost secrets too, but in things they share with Cornucopia.”

“I’m surprised you continue to use Cornucopia.”

“Oh, come, Captain, you’re nobody’s fool! Industries that produce esoteric items are thin on the ground! And whoever the traitor is-our code name for him is Ulysses-he takes fine care to confine his thefts to articles or parts that Defense can’t obtain elsewhere. There’s also the onus of proof. Cornucopia Legal has argued most persuasively that the leaks happen in Washington elsewhere than at the Pentagon, like consultants, and they’re hard to refute. The most telling point against Cornucopia is that they can be connected to everything we know or suspect has been stolen.”

“And do you think that Desmond Skeps’s filing cabinet will reveal the answers, Ted?”

“No, I don’t. Skeps’s murder suggests to me that he found out who Ulysses is.”

“Well, under ordinary circumstances I’d tell you to stick around and watch a murder expert in action, but you probably know that Holloman is snowed under with murders, and you’ve got your work cut out finding a spy. I’m not helpless, but Skeps is just one of eleven corpses, and I can’t be sure any of the deaths are related to Ulysses. Including Skeps’s.”

“You can keep your murders,” Ted Kelly said with a grin. “How about we meet again for coffee here tomorrow, ten-ish?”

“Suits me,” said Carmine.

And down seven floors, to Polycorn Plastics and Frederick H. Collins, its managing director.

Who was like Philip Smith, yet unlike him. The suit was wool from Savile Row, the tie that same silk Chubb edition, the links on his French-cuffed shirt platinum-and-enamel replicas of his old college coat of arms, the shoes custom-made in London. He looked fiftyish too, impeccably shaved and manicured, but he lacked Smith’s air of the weary aristocrat. In fact, thought Carmine, his face would have suited a butcher, and his black eyes found it hard to settle, not because they hunted for a mirror, but because they had things to hide.

“Terrible, awful!” he said, squirming in his chair.

“Were you and Mr. Skeps friends, sir?”

“Oh, yes. Very close. All of us on the Board are. We’re a trifle older than Des-there was no one in his graduating class with whom he formed a close attachment, you see.”

“Why do you think that was?”

“I have no idea, though I heard his classmates didn’t like him. He drank heavily back then, and when he was drunk he could be-er-abrasive. Desmond Skeps Senior died a week after Des graduated, so Des stepped into Cornucopia as Chairman of the Board and owner of the majority of the shares. No experience whatsoever! Three of us already worked here as junior executives-Gus Purvey, Wal Grierson and me. Chubbers all! Phil Smith was thrust on us by Des as his cousin. I think he admired how Phil looked and talked. Since the word ‘work’ is as alien to Phil as the word ‘fuck,’ we got used to his being around as decoration. He’s sixty if he’s a day, so he knew Des’s dad well. Chubb, but before us.”

“How many are on the Board, Mr. Collins?”

“Phil Smith, Gus Purvey, Wal Grierson, Erica Davenport and yours truly, with Des in the chair and Phil as his deputy.”

“That’s a very small board, surely?”

“There’s no law regulating a board’s size, Captain.”

“What about the external shareholders?”

“They’re the four of us and hundreds of thousands of strays. Erica represents the strays.”

“Does that mean she’s at loggerheads with the rest of you?”

Collins laughed. “Lord, no! Think of us as like IBM-to own twenty shares is a small fortune, but peanuts all the same.”

“How much top-secret work do you discuss?”

“The lot,” said Frederick H. Collins, looking surprised.

“You’re the head of Polycorn Plastics. Where do you make your cutting-edge advances, sir? At your factory?”

The big butcher’s face crumpled into another bout of mirth. “No, sir! All I do is manufacture tried and true plastics. The research is where it should be-at Cornucopia Research.”

“So you have no top-secret formulae lying around?”

“No, I do not! By the time I see a new plastic, it’s been thoroughly tested and looks to anyone at Polycorn to be no different from everything else. I don’t broadcast advances.”

“What makes a new plastic so desirable to the Reds?”

“Do you have security clearances, Captain?” Collins demanded.

Carmine handed over the typed contents of a wallet.

After a thorough inspection, Collins shrugged. “Super-hard plastics that will prove suitable for the manufacture of hand and shoulder weapons,” he said. “Also different super-hard plastics for armor plating, engine blocks. Enough?”

“Thank you, more than enough. Has any of your research been leaked to the Communists?”

Collins gasped, pressed his hands against his eyes. “Oh, Jesus! Not as far as I’m aware. The first breakthrough since we knew about Ulysses came not much more than a month ago, and I refused to accept the formulae. In fact, I ordered Dr. MacDougall to put them and every last vestige of the test pieces including the shavings into his vault under seal. The Reds aren’t dumb, Captain, they do research too. But I will not see the Communists profit from my research! No new plastics will go into production until Ulysses is caught.”

Okay, thought Carmine, I believe he’s sincere. Not a very likeable guy, but I pick him as a genuine patriot.

“What does Special Agent Kelly say?” he asked.

“Not a fucking thing,” said Frederick H. Collins bitterly.

Time to change horses. “Are you married, sir?”

“Yes,” said Collins, looking blank.

“For how long?”