THIRTY-SIX

Enslow's choice for lunch alighted upon Henley's very own Cafe Rouge. Harry and Barry would naturally have preferred to be tucking into pie-and-pint pub fare. Chipchase had ample opportunity to complain about the salad-oriented menu while they waited for Enslow to join them. But he was all smiles when their guest arrived promptly at 12.30, ordering a bottle from the expensive end of the wine list with an alacrity that suggested he intended Harry to pay for it.

'I was sorry to hear Lester had died,' Harry said after they had started on the wine. 'You and he… were together a long time?'

'Twelve years.' Enslow sighed. 'Looking back, it seems hardly any time at all.'

'Did he ever mention any of us? Peter Askew, for example.'

'Wasn't he one of the two who died last weekend?'

'Yes. He was.'

'Well, I don't remember the name cropping up.'

'They might have been close,' said Chipchase. 'At some point, you know. Before you and Les…'

'They might,' Enslow coolly agreed. 'I wasn't in the habit of interrogating him about… earlier attachments. Nor he me.'

'So,' said Harry, 'he never talked about the RAF — or Operation Clean Sheet?'

'I didn't say that. As a matter of fact…'

'What?'

'It's all so long ago. It can't have any bearing on…' Enslow shook his head. 'I'm sure there's no connection.'

'Why don't you run it past us?' said Chipchase. 'Then we'll see whether there's a connection.'

'Oh, very well.' Enslow took a healthy swallow of wine. Harry topped up his glass. 'Les told me about Operation Clean Sheet after hearing of the death of someone who'd been involved in it with him. This would have been in… 1983.'

'Leroy Nixon,' said Harry.

'That's correct. Nixon. Drowned, evidently. Lost overboard from a ferry off the coast of Scotland.'

'Any idea what route the ferry was on?'

'None. I'm not sure I ever knew. I wasn't particularly interested and frankly I couldn't understand why Les was. But it became for him… something of an obsession. He went up to Scotland that autumn. And again the following year. I offered to go with him, but he insisted on travelling alone. And he refused to tell me where exactly he was going. But I know he met the old professor at Aberdeen who'd set up the experiment.'

'Professor Mac? Les visited McIntyre?'

'Yes. He did. Les was ill by then. Further travelling became impossible. And McIntyre died, of course. Of old age. Unlike poor Les. When I think of what he went through…' Enslow looked away. 'I'm sorry. It still upsets me. They could save him now, you know. They could give him back a normal life. But not then. Then he was doomed. He used to spend hours on his computer — all day sometimes, all night — searching for a cure. At least, I suppose that's what he was searching for. When I looked through the material he'd stored — after his death, I mean — I couldn't make any sense of what he was working on. It didn't seem to have any relevance to his illness at all. He was researching a drug I've never heard of before or since called MRQS.'

'What does that stand for?'

'I don't know. It was never spelt out. Even if it had been, I doubt it would have meant anything to me. He was in touch with a laboratory in Reading about preparing a sample of the stuff when he… went into his final decline.'

'Have you still got this… material, Cliff?' asked Chip-chase.

'No. There was so much. I got rid of it. Well, I had to, really, with Belle Rive passing into other hands. Oh, here's lunch, I think.'

Their meals had indeed arrived. A hiatus ensued, while the waitress served them and Chipchase blithely ordered a second bottle of wine. An oddity remained lodged in Harry's mind during this period, which he raised as soon as he was free to.

'Who inherited the house, Cliff?'

'Ailsa Redpath. She's been very kind to me. I pay much less rent than the other tenants.'

'How was she related to Les?'

'She wasn't, as far as I know. Not as such.'

'Really?' Harry judged from the frown on Chipchase's face that he too had counted the letters in Ailsa Redpath's name without arriving at the magical figure of nine. 'What was their connection, then?'

Enslow gave a sheepish little half-smile. 'I don't really know.'

'Come again?' Chipchase stared quizzically at him.

'It's true. In fact, I've never actually met her. The whole thing was handled through solicitors. And an agent deals with everything concerning the house. Mrs Redpath never comes down here.'

'Down from where?' asked Harry.

'Did I say down?' Enslow looked briefly discomposed, as if caught out, not necessarily in a lie, but certainly in a misrepresentation. 'Over would be more accurate. She lives abroad.'

'Whereabouts?'

'Er, Italy. Why do you—'

Suddenly, The Great Escape was under way — at least musically. Chipchase plucked out his phone. 'Hello?… Yes… Sorry? … Oh, hello… Yes. Just hold on.' He looked across at Harry and Enslow. 'Sorry. I'll have to take this call. You carry on without me.' The sidelong grimace he gave Harry as he rose from the table failed to convey whatever meaning was intended. He headed for the exit, phone clamped to ear.

'I hate mobiles,' said Enslow, watching Chipchase go. 'I hate the false urgency they confer on mind-numbingly insignificant exchanges.'

'Me too,' said Harry, sensing Enslow was keen to deflect him from the subject of Ailsa Redpath. The name sounded Scottish to him; distinctly so. 'You don't think Les met Mrs Redpath during his trips to Scotland, do you?'

'It's possible. I really couldn't say.'

'You must have been curious, though. About how they knew each other.'

'I was. I still am. But the lady values her privacy. And I'm her tenant. On very favourable terms. I'm sure you can understand why I'm disinclined to rock the boat.'

'Of course.'

'It's as I warned you. There's nothing I can tell you that will shed any light on these recent deaths.'

'Lester's, er… researches…'

'Yes?'

'Did he… safeguard them in any way?'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, with a… password or somesuch?'

'Password?'

'On his computer.'

'Oh, I see what you mean. Mmm.' Enslow considered the point while assembling a forkful of Caesar salad, which then remained poised between plate and mouth as he continued. 'Well, yes, he did. But I knew what it was, of course.'

'And, er… what was that?'

'It hardly matters now.' Enslow swallowed his forkful of salad. 'You should be able to guess, anyway.'

'Should I?'

'Sorry about that, chaps,' Chipchase announced, startling both of them with his uncharacteristically soft-footed return to the table. 'Irritating bloody things, aren't they, these mobile jobbies? But handy in emergencies.' He flopped down onto his chair. 'Where were we?'

'Cliff was just about to tell us the password Les used in his computer.'

'Oh yeah?' Chipchase stiffened alertly.

'Apparently we should be able to work it out ourselves.'

'You might be overestimating us there, Cliff. Brain teasers aren't our Trust House. Know what I mean?'

The blank look on Enslow's face suggested he did not. 'Forte,' Harry explained.

'Word play evidently is your speciality,' said Enslow drily. 'Les's password was his RAF nickname.'

'Piggott.'

'Exactly. Conferred by your good selves, perhaps. Or some other rapier wit you served with. But, as I explained, the files are long gone. Along with the computer. And Les too, of course.' Enslow sighed. 'A long time gone. So, the password is utterly unimportant.' He looked narrowly at them. 'Which makes your disappointment all the harder to fathom.'

'Disappointed?' Chipchase prodded himself in the chest. 'Us?'

'I'd say so, yes.' Enslow gave them a thin, faintly puzzled smile. 'Palpably.'