Graham Swift - Shuttlecock

‘With respect, sir,’ (how I hate that phrase, ‘with respect’), ‘I didn’t know that was the reason for the inquiry.’

‘Is that so, Prentis? You mean it never crossed your mind?’

‘As a possibility, yes sir. But doesn’t the evidence point towards a coincidence — a curious one — but nothing more?’ I hastily recalled the C9 inquiry, a pattern in which there were large holes and gaps where items were missing from the files — so perhaps not a pattern at all. ‘Y was fully exonerated. X’s circumstances — his previous sacking, alcoholism and so forth all suggest malicious slander, not calculated blackmail. There is no apparent link between Y and Z. And, besides, Z’s suicide can be adequately explained by other reasons.’

‘And what are they?’

I paused. Quinn was looking hard at me. I felt a sudden shiver.

‘His unsatisfactory home life.’

‘I take it, Prentis, you read the statements of Z’s colleagues and acquaintances?’

‘Yes.’

‘They all express unanimous shock at Z’s death. No apparent warning signs. No talk of ending it all. No evidence the man was unbalanced. By every account an energetic, successful, well-adjusted man, on top of his job, everything going for him. Then one day he jumps under a Tube train. What do you make of that?’

I hesitated, then tried to sound professional and objective. ‘It’s a fact, sir, that suicides often appear relaxed and calm before taking their lives — some of the cases we ourselves have handled testify to that. People — ’

I hesitated again. Quinn was eyeing me with anticipatory keenness.

‘Yes, Prentis?’

‘People are known to crack without warning.’

‘Indeed, Prentis.’ No flicker of the eyelids. ‘Sound psychology, I’m sure. But wouldn’t a simpler, not to say more likely explanation be that Z’s suicide was the result of some quite sudden external factor — for example, a blackmail threat?’

Why was Quinn — the very man who censured it in others — jumping to conclusions?

‘In that case, sir, what about the wife’s evidence?’

‘Oh you mean the wife’s story .…’ And it was at this point that Quinn’s manner became detectably impetuous and excitable. He took his eyes from me for the first time.

‘A story, Prentis. Why not? We all know that the best way to hide one guilty secret is seemingly to confess to another. Don’t we? Now supposing Z wasn’t being blackmailed by X — though X was out to make Z suffer nonetheless. Supposing, as you so rightly suggest, X wasn’t a fully-fledged blackmailer; he wasn’t after money, he was just a man with a massive chip on his shoulder who simply wanted to get his own back by hurting his betters and concocting groundless slanders. Look at him — an alcoholic, an incompetent, a dead-beat of a man.’ Quinn turned his eyes on me again — his face was pink and heated — almost as if he were inviting disagreement. ‘Supposing X merely informs Z of something he knows will shatter Z — so shattering, as it turns out, that Z commits suicide. That something relates to Z’s wife. The wife is the one with the guilty secret. After her husband’s death she herself is in danger of some unpleasant exposure. So, with the perfect cover of the distress of the moment — her grief quite genuine, who knows? — she invents some story about marital havoc, complete with candid and gruesome details. So candid and so intimate that no one dares doubt the truth of it and no one seeks another explanation. Well, isn’t it possible? And what do you think of this fellow Z? A perfectly normal man on the evidence of his own colleagues, more than that, successful, a fine career behind — and before him. Treating his wife like that? Attacking his own son? Is it credible?’

Another attack of shivers. If Quinn had worked so long in our office, dealt with the things we dealt with, why was he asking me this? His own phrase: ‘lurid imagination’.

‘It sounds — if you’ll forgive me, sir — a little … speculative.’

‘Speculative! You saw all the evidence in the files.’

‘Sir? Which —?’

‘You know about Z’s son?’

‘Z’s son?’

‘Yes. Are you telling me you didn’t chase that up too? Z’s son, Prentis, has been on hostile terms with his mother ever since his father’s death. Now why should that be? Think of it, Prentis.’ Quinn’s voice grew louder. He had got up and was pacing round the room as he spoke, one hand in his pocket, one hand gesturing in the air. ‘Think of it. Z was cleared professionally. But all that stuff was dragged out. And suicide. A man with a position and a reputation. You seem in some doubt, Prentis, about the reason for this investigation.’ He came right up close to me. ‘When your father commits suicide and his name is slurred, isn’t that sufficient reason for investigation?’

I felt as the suspect must feel when the hard lights are turned on his eyes. Quinn’s face was a mere foot from my own. The flush in his cheeks was matched by the flower in his lapel. Another rose; a small blood-red one.

‘I didn’t know — ’

‘It seems to me, Prentis, you don’t know quite a lot. Think I’m making this up?’

He bent forwards, both hands in his pockets, like a cross-examining lawyer.

‘But if the widow’s evidence claimed that Z attacked his own son, it hardly seems — ’

‘Another of her fabrications — precisely to hide the fact that the son was on the father’s side. What’s true, Prentis, tell me: what really happens or what people will accept as true?’ He began to pace again. ‘In any case, even if father and son had once been enemies, it doesn’t mean that now — Stranger things happen. We know that. Don’t we?’

The old bastard.

He turned, moved back towards his desk but did not sit. I watched his limp — a slight drag of the right foot, a lean forward with the shoulder. Crippled body: warped mind? Each of his little probing questions was delivered in an odd, contorted way, as if aimed simultaneously to provoke and deter.

‘But — with respect, sir — I don’t see why this is an official inquiry. The interests of Z’s son aren’t an official matter. They don’t concern us.’

‘Oh you think that, do you? Don’t you think that’s a rather easy distinction, Prentis — the personal, the official? We upset people’s private lives with our inquiries and then we have the gall to say that private matters don’t concern us — not official business. Our investigations caused all the stir, they created the mess — don’t you think we should clear it up?’

‘I — er — I’m confused.’

‘You’re confused. You’re confused!’

He gave me a merciless look. ‘You’re confused. You don’t know what to think?’

Then a strange thing happened. Standing by his desk, he made a delicate, sweeping, almost magician-like gesture with his hand, as if smoothing out some imaginary rough surface. His face changed, relaxed and put on that old mask of benevolence (or had the mask just been dropped?). I thought: this is madness too. Like the inmates in Dad’s hospital: one day they smile and babble affectionately, the next day they glare at you with eyes of steel.

And suddenly I remembered very clearly the face of Mr Forster (hands delving in the bright green cage): a subtle gaze; sly mouth; that strawberry mark above the lip: the face of someone who knows what you don’t.

‘Well, Prentis.’ Quinn pulled back his leather chair. ‘Shall we shelve the matter then, you and I? Go no further? Leave well alone? You know what it’s like in my job.’ He raised both hands, palms upwards. ‘You have to carry the can for ordering investigations, for giving information, which might have God knows what consequences.’