Stephanie by Winston Graham
‘Yes, of course. Indeed.’
‘What was her grammar like?’
‘Grammar? D’you mean English, or –’
‘English.’
‘Very good.’ Masters smiled wryly. ‘She was well brought up.’
‘Did she ever split an infinitive?’
Masters’ expression became slightly strained, as if he were not following the line of questioning. ‘Surely not. I would have noticed. She was rather a stickler for that sort of thing.’ He smiled again. ‘Nowadays, alas, most people don’t even know what split infinitives are.’
‘She did,’ said James.
‘I’m sure. As I’ve said … Fortunately such problems don’t arise in French or Spanish.’
Crichton, having seen that Brune had finished his drink, was now leading the way into Hall. A few other Fellows were already there, but places had been left for the main group. They were already a few minutes late, and the students all stood when they came in, though a few were getting restless at the delay.
Brune sat next to Crichton, with Lord Caterham on his right. James was between Henry and Martin Goodbody, a little way down the table with his back to the students. Food and wine came and went. Although they had spoken frequently over the telephone, it was the first time Henry had seen James since the Corfu visit. Henry noticed James kept his eyes on Peter Brune, who looked more relaxed than his host, with his handsome hair, hooked nose, deeply indented sardonic smile that came and went as he talked. And bright dark eyes that occasionally met Henry’s, but never James’s stare.
The food was no better and no worse than usual, but the wine was specially excellent. Brune probably expected some word of appreciation for having donated it to the college, but Crichton unexpectedly gagged and couldn’t find the words.
They went downstairs for the customary coffee and port and grapes. According to tradition, the seating had to be changed, and James found himself next to Lord Caterham, who had been Home Secretary in the mid-sixties. Conversation at the new table was wide-ranging: congratulations on St Martin’s good showing in the Norrington Scale, progress of repairs to the tower, the bitterness of the miners’ strike and the tightrope that had to be walked by those responsible for law and order. Brune had his share of the talk; James was silent; Henry in his high-pitched voice contributed ever and again. At the extreme end of the table two dons could be heard arguing about the influences of the Swahili language on East African politics.
‘I imagine law and order was quite a different matter in your day, Rupert,’ Crichton said to Caterham.
‘Well, my day doesn’t seem so far away to me!’ Caterham said. ‘It’s a different problem now, I agree, but no one is likely to forget the student unrest in the sixties.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Professor Shannon, ‘ for I was one of the protesters at Berkeley at the time! Mind, I’d say we had a lot to protest about, what with the Vietnam War and the general disillusion with American social and foreign policy. Let me tell you …’ He went on for a couple of minutes.
‘Is it true what I hear, Principal,’ asked Herbert Norris, ‘ that students today have moved away generally from rebellion towards conformity and from drugs back to drink as a part of the social scene?’
Crichton smiled and shrugged and deferred to Henry, who said: ‘At the moment we’re probably producing more churchgoing Tories than revolutionary socialists, but I don’t think it’s much to do with us – more a sign of the times, a swing of the pendulum. And of course it’s a relatively small proportion of the students who make the change, just as a small proportion of the voters in England swing an election.’
Talk returned to the miners’ strike and the risk of its spreading to other industries. An aged Fellow who had just joined the table for coffee was the only man there old enough to remember the General Strike of 1926, and he stirred his memories for the benefit of the company.
Then in the general talk James heard Norris say, almost it seemed out of the blue: ‘I understand, Sir Peter, that you have unorthodox views on the drug scene.’
Brune made a disclaiming gesture. ‘ Somebody’s been telling on me. I have to do with it, of course, as I am a director of the Worsley Clinic. And I have views. Yes, I have views. Perhaps by some standards they could be called unorthodox.’
There the matter would have rested. No one was going to pursue it further but, as if on impulse yet quite deliberately, he chose to go on, as if personally to Norris but with most of the table listening.
‘D’you know, my mother was the formative influence in my life. She was a highly gifted teacher at a good girls’ school who gave up her vocation – as many women did in those days – when she married my father. So she turned her attention to me. I was educated, forcibly but kindly. Every day in my bath from the age of three onwards she had records in the bathroom playing over famous men speaking in classical Greek.’
‘That explains a lot, Peter,’ said Professor Shannon.
‘When I was fifteen she developed cancer of the pancreas.’ His voice was unemotional. Then he shrugged deprecatingly and went on: ‘ For too much of the time she was in appalling pain. I used to hear her screaming. The fault of the damned Welsh doctors, and maybe it was partly my father’s doing: he was well able to take a Puritanical view of things where he was not personally concerned. I went out into the streets – into the docks of Cardiff – and with money I had “borrowed” from my father I bought heroin and a syringe – much more difficult to get hold of in those days – and began to give her injections. The doctors were surprised and suspicious but whatever they suspected they held their peace. The effect was miraculous. Not only was the pain taken away but she was at peace with herself and the world. She faced death with an almost benign acceptance. It was my first introduction to the underworld!’
In spite of the last sardonic sentence the uncomfortable silence remained. The two dons nattering at the end of the table were now talking about the Bantu tongue and its infusion of Arabic.
Crichton said: ‘I knew some of your views, Peter, but not the cause.’
‘Heroin, I understand,’ said Lord Caterham stiffly, ‘ is scarcely ever refused a dying cancer patient these days.’
‘Oh no, you’re probably right,’ Brune said. ‘But if you go into it, as I have, it’s not only terminal cases that show enormous benefit. If it were allowed, heroin would have a tremendously good effect on all sorts of disorders. Bronchitis, angina, shingles; and on burns, painful bowel disorders, rheumatic fever. It was some English chemist, wasn’t it, who discovered that by boiling morphine with acetic anhydride this exciting new compound was created?’
‘I thought it was a German discovery,’ said Mary Fisher.
‘No. They took it up twenty or thirty years later, called it the Wonder Drug. It’s only about ninety years since it was put on the open market, like aspirin or senna pods, and recommended as a general palliative for all painful complaints.’
‘That was before its addictive and lethal properties were understood,’ Lord Caterham said.
‘I know. Of course. But don’t forget that it’s less than two hundred years since tea was condemned as addictive and harmful. Someone called it “the deleterious product of China”. And when it was first introduced into France it was only available on prescription.’
‘Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for making cocaine and heroin available on prescription in England,’ Norris said. ‘But that surely is what happens now in drug dependence clinics?’
‘Less and less,’ said Goodbody, entering the conversation unexpectedly.
Caterham said: ‘It puts the doctor in an intolerable position. Whom to supply, whom to refuse.’
‘Isn’t that what doctors are for?’ Brune replied. ‘ It’s a matter very much under constant review at the Worsley.’
‘A relative of mine,’ said Goodbody, and stopped. ‘Actually it was my son.’ He stopped again. ‘Made a hash of his life, but he’s come through it. One hopes …’ His
Peter Brune said: ‘ Some of you may know of a man called Dale Beckett. One of our leading consultant psychiatrists. For years he’s been involved in the treatment of drug addiction.’
‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Norris.
‘Well, not so very long ago he wrote an article saying that when he first started treating heroin addicts he was “stuffed full”, as he put it, of current newspaper myths, and that it took years for it to dawn on him that heroin was in fact “very gentle”. If care is taken in self-injecting, he said, it’s extremely safe.’
‘Well,’ said Norris. ‘Chacun à son gôut. Whatever the paradoxes and contradictions of the present situation I have to come down emphatically on the side of total prohibition.’
‘A significant word,’ replied Brune, smiling now.
‘On, indeed, prohibition as we all know created the drink barons in the States. But it’s a price we have to pay for civilisation.’
James said: ‘In the end most of the Al Capones were gunned down.’
Shannon said: ‘Cut down the tares and more sprout, I guess. That’s the way it’s been in the States. There’s a big campaign against drugs, but I’m not sure we’re even holding our own.’
‘The important thing,’ James said, ‘ is to cut down the tares as soon as they show. Or gun them down, as the case may be.’
‘That’s a murderous philosophy,’ said Crichton, very red in the face now. ‘Of course, it’s the age-old paradox: how do you defeat dictators without having to use some of their methods? How do you combat crime yet keep strictly within the limits of the law?’
‘You don’t always,’ said Henry with a short high laugh, which some of the others, knowing Henry’s reputation, joined in. But Henry’s laugh had not been a pleasant one.
Brune said: ‘We all step out of line, one way or another, sometime in our lives. Isn’t that so? Isn’t it in Matthew? “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” ’
James said: ‘And would you have a man do to you what you have done to him?’
The challenge was there but now Brune refused it. ‘I was brought up on the Bible, but can only quote it at random –’
‘Like the devil, for his own purpose?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose that’s true. Aristotle says that man is either a beast or a god. “? ??piov ? ?eós.” Or better still, Aristophanes: “You cannot make a crab walk straight.” Do you shoot the crab because he disobeys the general rule?’
The conversation went on for a while. Henry was able to whisper to James: ‘No need to face him out here. There’s trouble waiting for him when he gets home.’
‘I’d like to believe you,’ James muttered.
‘Graham Greene,’ whispered Henry, thrusting his hair back. ‘He once said in one of his books that it’s only in Europe that a rich man can be a criminal. Overstated, but there’s a basic truth. Perhaps my old friend has miscalculated and thinks it applies here. My old friend, my good and amusing and long-standing friend, my generous friend, my wise and learned friend. Christ, I can’t believe it! It calls into question so much of what life is about!’
II
Parsons and the Daimler were waiting for Sir Peter Brune outside the college gates. Almost always the Principal walked out with him and saw him off. Not tonight. Crichton had muttered a bumbling excuse.
It was a chilly night for June, and as Brune got in he said: ‘Drive me to Carfax, will you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
It was nearly midnight, and the streets were already emptying. A few town boys lurked in a corner; a group of students linked arms on their way home.
The car slowed. ‘ Is this right, sir?’
‘It will do.’
When the car stopped Brune got out before Parsons could do so and went to the driver’s window. ‘I have one or two things to do. I’ll drive myself home later.’
‘Er – yes, sir?’ said Parsons, in some surprise. ‘ D’you mean – without me?’
‘Without you. The bus stop is just down there in the Cornmarket. The bus passes our gates.’
‘I think it might be a bit late to get one now, sir.’
‘What? Oh, I see. Well, there’s a taxi rank close by. Here, take this.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Parsons watched his master take his seat, finger the unfamiliar controls, then drive away. Parsons stuck his hands in his pockets and found a cigarette as he walked towards the taxi rank.
Peter Brune, KBE, MA, did not drive far. He went round a couple of streets and stopped near a phone booth. Then he waited to see if anyone was following him. When he was sure that was not so, he went into the booth and dialled his own house.
A familiar voice. ‘Sir Peter Brune’s residence.’
Brune said: ‘ This is Michael Carpenter. I rang to know if my television men have been round to see your set.’ (Have the police been?)
‘Yes, they have, Mr Carpenter.’
‘Are they still there?’
‘No, they went about nine.’
‘Is the extension line on?’ (Are we being tapped?)
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Did our guest get away safely?’
‘No. The ambulance was stopped outside the gates.’
‘Ah. I shall be some little time, John.’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘Naturally you’ll tidy up.’ (Burn everything you can.)
‘Already have done. But of course it’s a big job.’
‘Do your best.’
‘When shall we be seeing you again, Mr Carpenter?’
‘If the set is working properly I’ll send you our account.’
Peter Brune hung up and climbed into the Daimler. He stopped to light a cigar, meanwhile glancing around the empty street. He was still in his dinner jacket.
He drove west.
It was a fine night, and stars sprinkled the sky like confetti. He drove slowly and was overtaken by other cars. He did not at this moment fear pursuit, and he had not yet altogether made up his mind. He had ample private money in Zurich and Luxembourg, and some in New York and Hong Kong. He could never be anything but a rich man.
But he most bitterly regretted what he was leaving behind and wondered if there was too much risk in staying to brazen it out. On the whole he thought so. The stopping of the ambulance (with the little Indian spy inside), the record of what he had said at the interview, these were likely to be final bricks in the prosecution’s case.
It was a crying cursing pity. He had looked forward to the university honour with almost as much enjoyment as when five years earlier the Queen had tapped his shoulder with her sword. He enjoyed his joint position as scholar and benefactor. It was his life – one he had made for himself and believed in.
His brilliant classics career, which he had begun at Lampeter and completed at Oxford, had not fitted him for taking over a bankrupt business when his father died, and he had soon sold it piecemeal to pay off the debts. Contacts with the subworld of drug dealing had led him into a career of huge profits and quick returns, for which he had discovered a talent that surprised himself. In no time he had developed a thriving trade of which he was owner and controller until he was taken over, firmly if not quite forcibly, by a larger and more ruthless organisation led by Mr Erasmus of Hong Kong.
With profits quadrupled he had had no cause to regret this, and by the time he was fifty much of his money was invested in legitimate and profitable enterprises – mainly property – from which he was able to extend his benefactions.
He was not self-critical of his way of living; but he very much regretted the death of Stephanie – chiefly for the mismanagement of events which made such a repulsive choice necessary, but also for the inescapable fact that was now emerging, that it had led to his own personal involvement.
When she had invited him into her flat that morning and told him that she was coming to the con
Before even Errol and Stephanie returned from India, Erasmus had been on the phone to him, ferociously angry that Errol had taken a girl with him on such a sensitive trip, and blaming Brune for ever recruiting so unstable and unreliable a character as Colton. It was not Peter Brune’s way to raise his voice or show anger, but he had replied acidly that the recruiting had already been done by a man called Lake – now dead – and by Mr Erasmus himself before he, Brune, ever set eyes on Colton. Mr Erasmus did not like his own mistakes pointed out to him, and only someone as senior in the organisation as Brune would have dared to do it.
They had discussed the measures that might be taken to correct Colton’s error, to close the loophole, as it were, and there was talk of eliminating Errol himself. But that would not necessarily keep the girl quiet, and anyway by now Colton had too many contacts and might well have protected himself by leaving papers in a bank in the event of his death. (When his death did take place it seemed that in his usual casual way he had not even taken that precaution.)
So one flawed operator had brought the whole edifice tumbling down. Of course it would be built up again. It was a temporary setback. Money was the answer to everything.
It was not, however, the answer to his own future. Money could take him far out of reach of the British law. It could not, unfortunately, be used to grease the palms of British policemen. He had many friends in high places, but only one or two could be tempted that way, and none of these was in a position to influence the course of justice.
What was the future for him if he returned to face it out? The Lilliputs would tie him down. And then what? Could anything at all be proved about Stephanie? Unlikely that Arun Jiva would ever talk.
But whether or not the girl’s death was involved he would be pinned down on the drugs charge. A sentence, then, of some sort. Ten years? Fifteen years? You couldn’t tell. Some slow-witted arrogant old fool in a faded horsehair wig might think it necessary to ‘make an example’ of him, just because of his eminent position. When he came out, Postgate would still be there and all the trappings of his wealth. In prison he might begin a new translation of Aristophanes. He’d had that ambition as a young man but had never got round to it.