A Shock to the System (27 page)

He also shared, for the first time, some of the belittling contempt for the Personnel Department which prevailed throughout the rest of Crasoco. Even the job for which he had strived so hard, he realised, was a failure's job, chief elephant in the elephant's graveyard. He had taken all the risks for nothing.

Cramming himself into normality like a smaller man's clothes, he waited for the Post Office engineer, then watched the fitting of the new jack plug and made suitable jokes about the sort of outgoing messages he could leave. When the engineer departed, Graham congratulated himself that the man would have found nothing untoward in his client's behaviour.

But that small triumph gave only brief respite from the fear. Next Graham had to go into the office.

Terry Sworder was sitting at his desk. The right side of his face was red. His eyebrows and the fringe of his hair were frazzled to wisps of woodshaving.

Graham was momentarily immobilised by shock, then felt a perverse kind of relief. At least now he could find out how much the police knew, and begin to put some time limit on his fate.

‘Terry, are you all right?' he asked as he sat down.

‘Still pretty shaken.' The young man withdrew a thin cigar from his mouth with trembling hand as if to emphasise the point. ‘Physically O.K. But it's the shock, you know.'

‘Of course. What actually happened?'

In the previous forty-eight hours Terry Sworder had become accustomed to this question and polished his reply into a neat little dramatic routine. But none of his audiences had listened to it with as much attention as the current one.

‘It was terrible. So quick, for a start. And I was bloody lucky. What happened was . . .' He paused, warming to the performance. ‘I was in the rubber dinghy and Bob had stepped on to the boat. He told me to hang on a min. till he'd opened the cabin, because it's fairly cramped in the well there, and fortunately I didn't tie the dinghy up, just hung on to the back. They reckon that's how I was saved from worse injury. Because what happened was, the minute Bob opens the hatch – woomph, the lot goes up like a bomb . . .'

Even through his anxiety Graham felt a little spurt of excitement.

‘Well, the blast tosses the dinghy back just like it was a balloon and that's what saves me. It seems I keep hanging on to a bit of rope on the dinghy's side and, God, I go through the water upside down, arse over tit, don't know where I am. When I come to, I'm beside the dinghy and that's upside down and deflating fast, and I'm still hanging on to this bit of rope.'

‘What about
Tara's Dream
?'

Terry Sworder would not have his narrative hurried. ‘And I look across the waves and there I see this great column of flame on the water, and black smoke pouring out above it. There's other boats rushing there to help, but
Tara's Dream
burnt down to the waterline before anyone can do anything.

Then there's this great hiss and a load of steam and what-have-you. And down she goes.'

‘The weight of the keel . . .'

‘That's it. And whatever's left of Bob gone down with it.'

‘Yes.' Well, at least it had worked. There was comfort in that. And not much had been left for forensic examination – also a bonus. But there remained a grave danger to Graham's safety, a danger that the accident's witness could unwittingly have unleashed in his account to the police.

Graham shook his head. ‘It's terrible, really terrible.' Time for the big question. ‘How do the police reckon it happened?'

‘Well, it was the Calor Gas of course that went up. Must've leaked. The police don't reckon Bob would have left it on by mistake. He was too careful for that. Anyway, he hadn't been on the boat for a couple of weeks, and most of the gas would probably have leaked out and dispersed in that time if it had been left on.'

‘Oh?' Graham had difficulty keeping the tension out of his voice.

‘No, what they reckon happened was that the boy from the boatyard who changed the cylinder, he left it on.'

Another ‘Oh', equally non-committal.

‘Apparently, Bob gets down there so rarely, so pushed for time usually, that he gets the boatyard to do all that routine stuff, so's the boat's ready to sail when he wants it, see. And this poor sod who changed the cylinder must've left it turned on. Only put in last Friday, so just nice time to build up a really explosive mixture of gas and air.'

Graham could hardly believe how miraculously everything had worked to his advantage. One detail remained, though, one detail that could either destroy him or free him for life.

‘But what on earth sparked it off? Surely there must have been a flame or something to . . . ?'

Terry Sworder hung his head. ‘This is where I feel really shitty, Graham. You know, like guilty. Just when we were in the dinghy on the way out, I gave him one.'

‘One what?' ‘One of these.' Terry gestured with the little cigar in his hand. ‘He said, no, not so early in the morning, and I said go on and he . . . well . . .'

The young man shook his head. Perhaps it was as well that he wasn't looking and didn't see the blaze of joy in his colleague's eye.

Graham could hardly contain himself. He had won; everything was on his side; now he was truly invincible.

But he controlled his exhilaration. He too shook his head and murmured, ‘Terrible business.'

Then he looked firmly at the young computer expert.

‘Still, life has to go on. Work in particular has to go on. You know that Human Resources survey you were doing for Robert . . .'

‘Yes. The model for –'

‘When were you reckoning to finish?'

‘I don't know . . . Ten days . . . ? Mind you, now Bob's not around, I don't know whether –'

‘I'd like it by the end of this week,' said the Assistant Head of Personnel.

It was just under a fortnight till George Brewer was finally to leave, but Graham Marshall could do a lot in a fortnight. All the old sporting imagery reasserted itself. He felt he was in peak condition, had just put in another superlative performance and was equal to any new challenge that might be thrown at him.

His first move was to be nice to Terry Sworder. Rather than treating the young man like some boffin unfit for civilised society, as he had done in the past, Graham started to take an interest, and even had the humility to let Terry show off some of his beloved computers. Graham understood little, but he was properly appreciative and afterwards took his guide to the company bar, where he was introduced to more of the staff who had risen on computer skills. He proved to them to be affable and properly impatient of the company's laggardly approach to the new technology.

At the same time Graham started to be less nice to George Brewer. He had never doubted his influence over the older man, but always previously had humoured George's rambles through his early days in the company, problems with
The Times
crossword and increasingly maudlin melancholia. Now he showed less patience, and was often short to the point of brusqueness.

He also began to disparage his retiring boss behind his back, in the canteen, or the company bar, or round the office. This he did with some subtlety. He knew a complete volte-face would be suspect and so only hinted his criticisms. He gave the impression of a man who had gone along with his superior's ideas from a misplaced sense of loyalty, but whose mask, as that superior's departure grew more imminent, was beginning to crack. Though it hurt him to disagree with George, he really didn't feel he could hold back his real views much longer.

The most public difference between the two came at another of George Brewer's farewell drinks parties. This one was set up to coincide with the visit of some of the company's top brass from the Middle East. Among these were a couple of old mates of George's and once again the conviviality of the occasion lifted him out of his habitual depression.

‘God, when I think back to how we started . . .' He was addressing a massively fat red-faced man in a blazer, and Graham stood by his side. ‘All very
ad hoc
, wasn't it? If any calculations needed doing, did them on the back of an envelope, or a Craven ‘A' packet or whatever was to hand. None of these bloody calculators and computers and . . . dear, oh dear. Mind you, we didn't often get the answers wrong, did we?'

With a guffaw, the fat man agreed that they didn't.

‘Don't see the need for it all myself,' George continued.

‘Technology for its own sake, I call it. Glad I'm getting out before the bloody government makes understanding it compulsory!'

This merited another guffaw from both of them, though George's was muted by the mention of his impending departure. He picked himself out of the trough by turning to Graham for support. ‘I've been lucky, though, having an assistant who thought the same as me.'

‘Not about everything, George,' Graham interposed gently.

‘No, no, of course not. Had our disagreements, but in outline . . . thought on the same lines. Neither of us had a lot of time for the Space Invaders, eh?'

‘Well, I know you didn't, George, but I always rather thought you underestimated the contribution computer science could make to our business.'

George just stared, his mind not working fast enough to catch up with this new development.

‘Sorry, George, but since you raise the subject, I'm afraid I've always found your attitude rather head-in-the-sand. I think if we'd put more reliance on computers a few years earlier, you'd be leaving a much more efficient Department.'

There was a silence. It had been said quietly, but enough people had heard. Graham gave a little diffident smile. ‘Sorry,' he lied, ‘but you did ask.'

George looked pained and confused. To cover his embarrassment he reached in his pockets for another of his little cigarettes. He put it in his mouth and blinked around for a light.

Graham's hand was instinctively in his pocket, but he was relieved not to find his lighter there. Must have mislaid it. Good. His toadying to George Brewer was at an end.

The other crease on the surface of his life that needed ironing out was Stella. He felt nothing for her. She had done all that he had needed at the weekend in her role as safety net, and, though it now seemed unlikely that his alibi would ever be checked, he was glad that he had taken the precaution.

Now she had outgrown her usefulness – though, from the odd whispered aside in the office, it appeared that she was unaware of that. She evidently had seen the weekend as the beginning of a relationship. It was a notion from which she had to be disabused.

He could of course just tell her to get lost, but Graham didn't want to draw attention to himself. Given her proximity to him in the department, that approach could lead to undesirable scenes along the corridors.

No, obviously he had to let her down gently. He managed another wine-bar drink after work, but regretfully cried off the next weekend on the grounds that he was sorting out the children's final transfer to Islington.

He didn't want to repeat the physical encounter of the previous weekend. Complete insensitivity to desire had returned after that savage moment of triumph. He was not sure whether any women would be involved in his new lifestyle, but he knew that if he did look for other companions, they would need to be more glamorous than Stella.

So he resorted to the established company procedure for shaking her off. On the Friday afternoon, five days after Robert's death, Graham went to see the Secretarial Organiser, Miss Pridmore, known throughout the company, with typical office wit, as ‘Head of Secs'. She was a daunting lady of stout moral principles, who ruled her charges like a malign Mother Superior.

He took great pleasure in telling her at least an edited version of the truth. ‘I'm sorry, Miss Pridmore. I'm sure you've heard this sort of tale before, but mine has a rather nasty twist. No doubt most executives are worried that their wives will discover about their liaisons with secretaries. In my case I'm afraid it was because of my wife's death that the liaison started. I've been in a very confused state since it happened and . . .'

He was good. He knew he was good. As he shed more and more of his real emotions, the ability to manufacture convincing imitations increased.

Miss Pridmore was of course disapproving, but also sympathetic. She could understand the anguish he must be going through. And yes, of course, it would be advisable to have the girl in question transferred to another department. No, it wouldn't be done straight away. And yes, it would be done discreetly. Of course.

And so, following the anti-feminist convention that still rules in most offices, Graham's inconvenience would be removed.

Robert Benham's funeral was scheduled for the following Monday. This delighted Graham; he knew it meant there had been no awkwardnesses at the inquest.

The ceremony was in Rugby and a contingent of half a dozen from Crasoco attended. Tara Liston was there, attracting a couple of local newspaper photographers, and Robert Benham also proved to have had a mother, father and two sisters.

Like Merrily's, the ceremony was a cremation and, as the velvet curtains did their dramatic close, Graham couldn't help wondering how much of the body was left to cremate. He felt better than at any other time in his life.

On the train back to London, most of the time was spent in the buffet. At one point, Graham found himself alone over a drink with David Birdham.

‘Know I shouldn't really talk business at a time like this . . .'

‘Business doesn't stop, Graham. It goes on, whatever happens.'

‘Yes. Well, just to say there'll be a report on your desk tomorrow morning. A model, a sort of blueprint for the future of Personnel Department over the next decade. Some of it's quite strong. There'll be people who don't like it.'