Реджинальд Хилл - Matlock's System

“Then tomorrow let it be, eh? It’ll have to be after lunch. I’m off North in the morning. Shall we say two-thirty here? Shall I send you another car, Matt? But you must promise to ride in it this time.”

“That would be kind of you.”

“Think nothing of it, old chap. Well, see you then. Cheery-bye.”

The ’phone went dead. Matlock nursed it on his shoulder as he considered the interchange.

No curiosity. Not a trace. He had shown no curiosity at all. Supreme confidence? Or bluff? Or genuine unconcern?

Analysing Browning’s thought-processes was a pointless exercise, he had long ago decided. But it was with difficulty that he put it out of his head, and after a quiet evening spent listening to records and making certain small preparations for the next day, he needed a small hypo to put him to sleep and out of reach of the troublesome thoughts which pattered round the dome of his mind.

Tomorrow will tell, he thought banally as he fell asleep.

He was right. Tomorrow told.

He awoke with a thick, heavy head and glanced at his bedside clock. Instead he saw a pair of elegant shoes resting on the table. They were occupied. He followed the sweep of the neatly-trousered leg, the white shirt, the blue tie with the thin silver line. He ended by looking into the face of the police inspector who had called to investigate the force-gun shooting.

The man was sitting in an armchair and seemed to be asleep. Matlock began stealthily to edge to the side of the bed, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the sleeping man’s face.

There was a cough from elsewhere in the room. He looked round. Seated on an upright chair by his dressing-table was a uniformed policeman with a gun resting in his lap.

The Inspector opened his eyes at the cough.

“Good-morning, Mr. Matlock. Now what the hell am I doing here, is the question you’re about to ask. Or how the hell did I get in? Well, technically we had to force an entry, but you’ll be pleased to know that we had keys and no damage has been done. As to why I’m here, Mr. Matlock, the answer’s simple. To protect you. And at ten a.m., which is now, to conduct you to the telephone. Better still we can conduct a telephone to you.”

He clapped his hands, the door opened and a constable came in bearing before him, like a butler with a tray, the telephone. Matlock saw through the open door that the living-room was full of cigarette smoke. And men.

The telephone was put down beside him, the Inspector rose and with a curt nod dismissed the constable and the man with the gun. He himself followed them, turning as he went through the door to say reassuringly, “Don’t worry. We’ll just be next door.”

Matlock slowly picked up the receiver.

“Matt! I hope I haven’t woken you. I’m just ringing to say don’t bother to come this afternoon. I’ll be a bit busy. Though actually I might have fitted you in this morning sometime. I didn’t go North after all. There’s been a bit of trouble up there. A lot of arrests; so I was probably better out of it. In any case, something came up, Matt. I’ve just come from the House. We’ve been in emergency session for a couple of hours. Incredible eh? They managed things better in your day. Well, the long and the short of it is, Matt, that as things turned out, I’ve had to bring in an emergency budget. Mind you, I often think that’s the best way. It cuts out speculation. But the really important thing, Matt, is that I’ve had to cut the E.O.L. Well, you knew I’d have to do that, didn’t you? So I did it. And I thought I’d let you know in case you missed it on the News.”

Matlock’s mouth was drier than even a drugged sleep warranted.

“What’s it down to Prime Minister?”

“In for a shilling, in for a pound, Matt. We’ve broken all records. We’re down to seventy. We’ve reached the Barrier, Matt. Are you listening, Matt? Hullo, are you still there?”

Matlock had no difficulty in drawing out the silence into the long dumbstruck pause he felt Browning expected. No difficulty at all.

Then, “I’m still here,” he said. “For a while. I’m still here for a while.”

“For a while, Matt? What do you mean? Oh yes. Of course. Your nearly seventy yourself, Matt, aren’t you? Two weeks time, I think. Or is it one and a half? I’m sorry about that, but we politicians can’t allow personal considerations to bend us from public duty. You should have accepted my offer the other day. But there it is. I’m afraid the post isn’t vacant any longer.”

“I thought that you were of sufficient stature not to gloat.”

There was an indignant snort from the other end of the line. Matlock was pleased to find he had recovered sufficiently to be able to admire its perfection.

“Gloating? Over what? No, what I rang to say was that I’ve been very worried about your safety since I heard someone took a shot at you. So I’ve decided to increase your protection and extra men have been detailed. They should be there now. Don’t worry about a thing, they’ll be keeping a very close watch. You deserve to live out your life in peace, Matt. The country owes you a lot. And by the way. Don’t bother to go down to the Heart Centre for your adjustment. I’m sending my own doctor round. You’ve earned a bit of privacy. Cheery-bye for now Matt.”

Matlock put the ’phone down and stared at the wall. The impact dents from the force gun looked like a pair of breasts, he thought. Perhaps I won’t have it repaired, just paint around them.

“I think you had better get up now, Mr. Matlock,” said the Inspector briskly from the door. “Have your brekkers before the Doc. comes.”

Matlock got up.

An hour later Matlock was fastening his shirt and the very young-looking Doctor was packing his portable adjuster.

“A lot of people would give a lot of money for one of those, Doc.,” laughed the Inspector who had watched the brief operation with keen interest.

“They would,” agreed the Doctor. “But there’s not much chance. They’d need me with it, and I have a wife and family. Or they’d need to cut this chain,” he indicated the fine silver thread which ran from the box to his wrist, “and then the whole thing blows up. Or even if they surmounted these obstacles, the thing can be blown up from the Heart Centre by radio. Shall I do you while I’m here, Inspector?”

The policeman drew back.

“I haven’t got my card with me.”

The Doctor tutted with disapproval.

“That’s an offence, you realize. Still you’ve got another day. I’ll be off now.”

As Matlock finished dressing he thought of the similar scenes going on all over the country, but mostly in the big Heart Centres. Everyone had to report within forty-eight hours to the nearest Heart Centre for readjustment, taking with them the simple metal card which had magnetically imprinted on it full age details of its owner. This was fed into a computer as the Master Adjuster Clock rapidly deducted the requisite number of years from the individual heart clock. The new information was printed on to the card, and the computer meanwhile checked the card against the previous information it held on the owner. If this tallied, the name was marked in its information banks. At the end of forty-eight hours, unmarked names were spewed out and the police went to work looking for those who did not report.

There were surprisingly few. The penalty for not reporting was a five-year cut in E.O.L. for each day’s lateness. After a week, the penalty was transferred to the next of kin.

But after a cutting Budget there was always unrest even if it was only atmospheric. There were more policemen than ever around the streets, temporary curfews were suddenly imposed, the Curfew Wagons tolled their way in sinister profusion through the scarcely dark streets.