P James - Devices & Desires

'And she felt the same?'

'I imagine so. We both had some regrets at the break but I don't think either of us ever imagined that we were indulging in a grand passion, or indeed expected our relationship to be lasting.'

'There was no other man?'

'None that I know of, but then there's no reason why I should know.'

Rickards said: 'So you would be surprised to learn that she wrote to her solicitor in Norwich on Sunday morning to make an appointment to discuss her will and that she told him she was expecting shortly to be married? We found the unposted letter among her papers.'

Mair blinked rapidly but otherwise showed no sign of discomposure. He said evenly: 'Yes, it would surprise me, but I'm not sure why. I suppose because she seemed to live rather a solitary life here and it's difficult to see how she could have found time or opportunity to enter into a new relationship. Of course, it's perfectly possible that some man from her past had re-emerged and they had come to an arrangement. I'm afraid I can't help you.'

Rickards changed the tack of his questioning. He said: 'There seems to be a feeling locally that she wasn't much help to you during the public inquiry into the second reactor here. She didn't give evidence to the official inquiry, did she? I can't quite see how she was involved.'

'Officially she wasn't. But at one or two public meetings, unwisely, she got embroiled with hecklers, and on one of our open days the scientist who normally escorts the public was off sick and she took his place. She was, perhaps, less tactful than she should have been with some of the questioners. After that I arranged that she wasn't directly involved with the public'

Rickards said: 'So she was a woman who provoked antagonism?'

'Not enough, I should have thought, to provoke murder. She was dedicated to the work here and found it difficult to tolerate what she saw as wilful obscurantism. She hadn't a scientific training but she did acquire considerable knowledge of the science done here and perhaps undue respect for what she saw as expert scientific opinion. I pointed out that it was unreasonable to expect this to be shared by the general public. After all they've probably been told by experts in recent years that high-rise flats don't collapse, that the London Underground is safe from fire and that cross-channel ferries can't keel over.'

Oliphant, who had until now remained silent, suddenly said: 'I was one of the visitors on that open day. Someone asked her about Chernobyl. She made a remark, didn't she, about "only thirty dead, so what were people worrying about?" Isn't that what she said? It rather begged the question: how many dead would Miss Robarts agree was an acceptable figure?'

Alex Mair looked at him as if surprised that he could actually speak and, after a moment's contemplation, said: ‘In comparing the Chernobyl death toll with fatalities in industry and in mining fossil fuels she was making a perfectly reasonable point, although she could have done it with more tact. Chernobyl is a sensitive subject. We get rather tired of explaining to the public that the Russian RBMK-type of reactor had a number of design weaknesses, notably that it had a fast-acting positive power coefficient when the reactor was at low power. The Magnox, AGR and PWR designs don't have this characteristic at any power level so that a similar accident here is physically impossible. I'm sorry if that sounds over-technical. What I'm saying is: it won't happen here, it can't happen here and, in fact, it didn't happen here.'

Oliphant said stolidly: 'It hardly matters whether it happens here or not, sir, if we get the results of it. Wasn't Hilary Robarts suing someone in the community for alleged libel arising out of the meeting I attended?'

Alex Mair ignored him and spoke to Rickards. 'I think that's generally known. It was a mistake, I think. She had a legitimate case but she wasn't likely to get satisfaction by going to law.'

Rickards asked: 'You tried to persuade her not to in the interests of the station?'

'And in her own. Yes, I tried.'

The telephone on the desk rang. Mair pressed the button. He said: 'This shouldn't take much longer. Tell him I'll ring back in twenty minutes.' Rickards wondered whether he had arranged for the call to be put through. As if in confirmation of the suspicion, Mair said: 'In view of my past relationship with Miss Robarts you'll need to know my movements on Sunday. Perhaps I could give them to you now. Both of us have a busy day ahead, I imagine.' It was a less than subtle reminder that it was time they got down to business.

Rickards kept his voice steady. 'That would be helpful, sir.' Gary Price bent his head over his notebook as assiduously as if he had just been reprimanded for inattention.

'They're hardly relevant until Sunday evening, but I may as well cover the whole of the weekend. I left here just after 10.45 on Friday and drove to London, lunched with an old university friend at the Reform Club and went on at 2.30 to a meeting with the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Energy. I then went to my flat in the Barbican and in the evening attended a performance of The Taming of the Shrew at the Barbican Theatre with a party of three friends. If you later need their corroboration, which seems unlikely, I can of course give you their names. I drove back to Larksoken on Sunday morning, lunched at a pub en route and arrived home at about four. I had a cup of tea and then went for a walk on the headland and got back to Martyr's Cottage about an hour later. I had a quick supper with my sister at about seven and left for the station at 7.30, or soon afterwards. I was working here in the computer room alone until 10.30 when I left for home. I was driving along the coast road when I was stopped by Commander Dalgliesh with the news that Hilary Robarts had been murdered. The rest you know.'

Rickards said: 'Not altogether, Dr Mair. There was some delay before we arrived. You didn't touch the body?'

'I stood and looked down at her but I didn't touch her.

Dalgliesh was rather conscientiously doing his job, or should I say yours. He very rightly reminded me that nothing should be touched and that the scene should be left undisturbed. I went down and walked by the sea until you arrived.'

Rickards asked: 'Do you usually come in to work on Sunday evenings?'

'Invariably if I have had to spend the Friday in London. There is a very heavy pressure of work at present which it is impossible to fit into a five-day week. Actually I stayed for less than three hours, but they were valuable hours.'

'And you were alone in the computer room. Doing what, sir?'

If Mair found the inquiry irrelevant he didn't say so. 'I was engaged on my research which is concerned with the study of reactor behaviour in hypothesized loss-of-coolant accidents. I'm not, of course, the only person working in what is one of the most important areas of research in nuclear reactor design. There's a great deal of international co-operation in these studies. Essentially what I'm doing is evaluating the possible effects of loss of coolant by mathematical models which are then evaluated by numerical analysis and advanced computer programmes.'

Rickards said: 'And you're working here at Larksoken alone?'

'At this station I am. Similar studies are being carried out at Winfrith and in a number of other countries including the USA. As I have said, there's a considerable amount of international co-operation.'

Oliphant asked suddenly: 'Is that the worst thing that can happen, a loss of the coolant?'

Alex Mair looked at him for a moment as if deciding whether the question coming from such a source warranted an answer, then he said: 'The loss of coolant is potentially extremely dangerous. There are, of course, emergency procedures if the normal cooling arrangements fail. The incident at Three Mile Island in the United States has emphasized the need to know more about the extent and nature of the threat posed by that kind of incident. The phenomenon to be analysed is in three main groups: severe fuel damage and core melting, migration of released fission products and aerosols through the primary coolant circuit, and the behaviour of fission products in released fuel and steam in the reactor container building. If you have a genuine interest in the research and enough knowledge to understand it I can provide you with some references, but this hardly seems the time and place for scientific education.'