‘Plans which he freely shared,’ remembered Chris. ‘And every one of these plans that I can remember, I’ve investigated as best as I can.’
‘So,’ asked Victor, for whom this was all academic, ‘on these trips, you think that your Professor was forming an escape-route?’
‘Bradley was in Tunis already,’ thought Ellie aloud. ‘Perhaps he was taking Anna the same way?’
Beck countered, ‘There hasn’t been a word of her in all the coverage of Ingrid Pitt and her “mystery lover”. Those grainy long-rage shots in the papers have never shown a maid or sister. And don’t you think the press would jump on stories of “another woman”?’
‘Then what about America?’ she asked. ‘The Professor always spoke of his friends there.’
To which Victor amazed them all by answering,
‘Getting someone into North Africa is easy, I expect – you only need a yacht to scoot around France and through the Gates of Gibraltar – we could hire one tonight and be there by morning. But for America you’d need a commercial flight or an ocean liner. And for those she’d need a passport.’
‘I think our friend is right,’ said Beck.
Chris added, ‘And as Ellie and I have found, if you’re going to hide out, then it might as well be in a country whose customs you know.’
‘Indeed,’ she concurred.
‘Which means a safe-house,’ summarised Beck.
‘And we can narrow it down from there,’ continued Chris. ‘The weekend trips only started in the weeks before the raid.’
‘Doesn’t it take months to buy a house?’ asked Ellie.
‘Too right,’ said Victor. ‘Even renting you need references, credit checks.’
‘But you did it, Chris?’ said Beck.
‘But Doctor, we were in motels for months, Danny, Ellie and myself, as I arranged our work and papers.’
‘I don’t think Anna would have liked that life,’ said Ellie.
Beck continued, ‘Then if that was all that Schmidt was doing those weekends, then why take Anna with him?’ Beck was metaphorically pulling his hair out, asking the dark sky, the cawing birds, the warm-lit diner, ‘What did he have time to put in place? Chris, you were at Springfields more than me – he’d never disappeared before?’
‘He always had his business trips. But nowhere that he didn’t tell us where he was going.’ Chris asked Beck then, ‘So what of the early days, before we were created? Was there anywhere especially that he liked to go?’
‘He used to like to go to different places. And always hotels, he never owned a holiday home. There were too many places he wanted to visit, and not enough time to worry about cooking his own meals.’
Chris considered, ‘Maybe we need to go back to the obvious then: Doctor, what homes do you know he had?’
‘God, you’re asking a lot from this battered old memory.’
‘Please think, Doctor. Remember, even the obvious.’
‘The flat in London.’
‘Rolled up – there’s a new couple live there now.’ Here Chris revealed another of his nocturnal sorties. He urged, ‘Don’t lose the thread now, Doctor. Details.’
To which the Doctor obliged,
‘He rented a house at the University, when I first knew him.’
‘Now held by a female lecturer in Social Studies, lives alone.’
‘And he had somewhere near Heathrow, for when he flew out early in the morning.’
‘He stayed with a friend in Uxbridge, I traced their address – there’s no sign of any other lodgers.’
It was Ellie who took the conversation in a different direction, when she said,
‘Maybe we should look at it from Anna’s side. If they were really planning something, I don’t think Anna would have liked keeping secrets.’
‘Did she seem different in the final weeks?’ asked Beck.
‘Not at all, just as trusting and loving as ever, the best sister I could have hoped for. I miss her.’
‘We all do,’ said Beck, his head lowering a little. ‘But she never said where they were going?’
‘No. Thinking back, she never did.’ And Ellie seemed sad about that.
Beck pondered, ‘Then the only other place I can think of was Ivy Lodge...’
Which left them all with the mental image of Ingrid’s former London home, one of the most famous houses in the capital after Buckingham Palace, and offering about as much privacy.
All groaned, including Victor, he asking,
‘Didn’t Ingrid sell it to that tennis player?’ (All nodded.) ‘Then there must be as many photographers outside of it now as there were then.’
Chris reasoned, ‘But I did ask the Doctor even for the obvious.’
Ellie chimed in with, ‘It’s interesting you mentioning Ingrid. I think of her often.’
‘As do I,’ said Chris.
‘The Professor always spoke of her so kindly. I think they must have had such happy times, even after they split up.’
Chris concurred with his sister, ‘Their friendship lasted longer than their affair, which can be a very kind thing.’
‘Happier than the other way around, at least,’ grimaced Beck; while also wondering: what does Chris know of affairs? Perhaps he hadn’t been such an island after all?
‘Oh Doctor,’ asked Ellie, ‘do you think they miss each other?’
‘The Professor and Ingrid? I’m sure they do, Ell.’
‘And they went away together, too. I remember him saying. She had that lovely place on the South Coast.’
And all had the same thought at the same time.
Day 5 – Schmidt
Chapter 82 – A Trip to the Seaside
‘We’ll split into two groups,’ had declared Christopher. ‘An artif each. We can charge as we drive.’
Now Chris sat in the new estate car with Victor, watching Beck and Ellie head off into the night. All were still stunned after their collective revelation.
‘I’ll drive off the other way,’ Chris told his passenger. ‘It should lead us to a different main road.’
Chris negotiated the narrow lane. Victor feared it may prove a dead end, before it came out at a T-junction by a road-sign advertising a different town.
‘I vote for there,’ said Victor, and neither dissented.
‘I wish we still had Springfields,’ lamented Ellie in the first car as she drove through the dark. Wire trailed from her side to the batteries on the backseat. ‘We were happy there, weren’t we?’
‘We were,’ said Beck.
‘Have you been back?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Just the other night, in fact.’
‘How is it now?’
‘Best remember it as it was, Ell,’ was all Beck could say, echoing both Chris and Eris.
‘The Professor loved the countryside, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he did. He always did.’
Once on a faster road, Chris explained to Victor,
‘I hope you don’t mind me putting Ellie with the Doctor. I sensed they needed to catch up.’
‘No, I understand,’ he said.
‘And... I needed time away from the pair of them – I feel less judged in your company, perhaps because you’re new – there’s something infectious about bright eyes taking in a situation. But that pair know my capabilities and know I should have seen this.’
‘What,’ asked Victor, ‘remembering a holiday home from years ago? And we don’t even know that they are there.’
‘But a logical connection existed, and I made a mistake to miss it.’
‘Well, I think you’re being tough on yourself,’ said Victor. He knew that there was nothing he could do to save Chris’s angst though. Still Victor added,
‘But it just goes to show – that one mind is no match for many, no matter how powerful.’
‘So, Doctor, how have you been?’ asked Ellie.
‘Good,’ he answered, and honestly so.
‘But no more robots?’
He shook hi
s head, ‘I’ve been working at a botanical gardens in London. It’s been great, really. A second chance that I didn’t think I’d have.’
‘And your family?’
Beck showed her a photo of them from his wallet, which she turned to see,
‘Lovely,’ she remarked, before returning her gaze to the road. She asked, ‘How do you think this will end, Doctor?’
He answered, looking at the photo, ‘I really can’t believe I won’t see them again.’
‘Which means we can’t be on the run forever.’
‘We can’t be, can we?’
‘We three have been.’
‘And you and Chris need repair, and Danny is... Look, I don’t know how it will end. I only tell you I will do my utmost to find a good conclusion.’
‘As will I.’ She added, ‘And for what it’s worth, I didn’t ever believe that I wouldn’t see Anna again, either.’
‘No, nor me.’
‘So,’ asked Victor, to make conversation, ‘how do you feel about this Schmidt character now?’
Chris didn’t take long to answer, ‘Professor Schmidt was the finest man in Europe. He and Doctor Beck created us.’
‘And he just ditched out one day? He didn’t say goodbye?’
‘No. We were apart when the scandal broke. He simply never returned.’
‘The scandal that Doctor Beck thinks he had forewarning of?’
But Chris didn’t answer. Victor followed with,
‘Well, from what you’re all saying, he skipped off on this mysterious trip with Anna just in time.’
‘That is one interpretation of the situation.’
‘So you don’t distrust him? You don’t think he left all you to face the music?’
Again, no response.
‘Well, I know what I’d be thinking.’
Chris broke his driving concentration a moment,
‘Are you trying to help here, Victor?’
‘I’m only asking – I hadn’t heard of you people till two days ago. And now I’m on my way to meet “The finest man in Europe.” I only want to know what to expect.’
‘Of course.’ Chris resumed his focus on the wheel. ‘You wonder if I think the worst about Professor Schmidt? Well, the answer is no. We don’t like to, do we, not about the people we love.’
Beck had been sleeping. As they neared their destination, Ellie asked,
‘So, you never looked for Anna?’ By which she meant: looked for any of us?
He answered, feeling sleepy and cowardly, ‘I never knew who was monitoring my movements.’ Lord, even for all the danger of being free, after two days it was so easy to forget the pressure he’d been living under for nearly a decade.
She lamented, ‘The hours I’ve spent on the net, looking for the slightest trace of her. And for Bradley.’
He quipped, ‘Well, as for him, you’ve had Google for eight years so you know as much as me.’
‘Rumours, you mean? And you don’t remember the Professor saying anything to you before that last weekend? You, his closest ally? The one he trusted best?’
‘I went over our conversations every day for months.’
‘Well, you might be talking with him again soon.’
And there was nothing that Beck could do to prepare.
Chapter 83 – The Universalist
The car gave a sigh of relief, as Christopher pulled around the corner to see Ellie and Beck talking beside his old familiar hatchback. Ellie had her smartphone in her hand; and said to the arrivees as they got out of their car,
‘A property website says the house is on offer for holiday lets. The agency handling it is just along this road.’
‘So is that good?’ asked Victor. ‘Weren’t we hoping there’d be tenants in there – your friends?’
Chris pondered, ‘I still feel it’s our best bet.’
‘I agree,’ said Beck. ‘Then who goes? Christopher and I are known to Eris; and we’ll be on CCTV.’
‘Then it has to be our young couple here.’
Victor queried, ‘But they know I’m involved, they searched my flat.’
‘And I’d go further,’ worried Ellie. ‘They might have my schematics and have a photofit from them.’
Chris shook his head though,
‘I still think, of all of us, that you’re the cleanest.’
She asked, ‘But still, wouldn’t the authorities have checked the summer house out years ago?’
Chris answered, ‘Not when they knew for certain that Ingrid Pitt had already left the country.’
All agreed that the plan might be just mad enough to work.
‘So how do we play it?’ asked Ellie.
‘You just be the lovey-dovey couple that you really are.’
Which advice they tried to follow.
‘We’ll be back here in exactly twenty minutes,’ said Chris before driving himself and Beck away.
The remaining pair left their car where it was parked at the end of the road, and began the walk into town.
‘The air’s lovely, isn’t it,’ said Ellie as they strolled past the cafés and shopfronts. ‘I love being by the sea.’
‘But doesn’t it...?’ Victor began to ask.
‘What?’
‘Well, interfere? Cars rust quicker in the sea-air; don’t they say?’
She laughed, ‘Silly, there’s nothing in me that rusts.’ She pecked him on the cheek, ‘There, I’ve left a rusty splotch on you.’ And both smiled.
Soon enough they reached the estate agents. The pair braced, and walked in.
‘Hello,’ stammered Victor, trying to recall Christopher’s directions. ‘I wonder; you manage a house called The Universalist?’
The lady at the desk laughed,
‘Yes, a ridiculous name, but a lovely place. You know it?’
‘A friend of mine stopped there last summer, and suggested we look it up if we were in the area.’
‘Oh yes, and what’s your friend’s name? I wonder if I remember them?’
‘Oh, he only visited others who were letting it, I don’t know their name sadly.’
‘Probably the Johnsons. They were there last season. I don’t remember them having many guests though, they were a quiet couple, and quite elderly.’
The lady smiled with each new piece of information like an unwitting torturer taking pleasure in her work. Victor tried not to show how much he was shaking as he said,
‘Oh, my friend was only with them for an evening, on his way to Devon.’
Thankfully the queries stopped coming then, the woman instead advising,
‘The house is owned by a Mrs Howe, but she’s been away for many years. I’ll let you into a secret – that isn’t her real name. She was an actress, you know, quite famous apparently. I didn’t know till... Well, anyway, I’m rattling on.’
People have such short memories, thought Victor, remembering ‘Mrs Howe’ on television what didn’t seem too many years ago, even though he was younger than the agent.
Ellie asked, ‘So, is anyone there now?’
‘Oh no, the place is quite empty this time of year. It is for a lot of the year, actually. It hasn’t been updated, you see – no central heating, double glazing. It will need quite a lot of work done to it for young couples or families to want to stay there now. It doesn’t even have the Internet.’
Victor thought the place sounded just the perfect hideout.
The agent continued, ‘I’ve tried to contact the owner to suggest these improvements, but she’s abroad and very hard to get hold of.’ The woman rose from her desk then, slapping its top with both hands, ‘Well, I’m afraid I’m off on an appointment presently, but I’ll be back in an hour if you wanted to view it?’
Christopher had advised them to refuse this offer, once they knew for certain if the place was empty, as they could conduct a better search on their own. Ellie answered,
‘No, that’s fine thank you. I’m an artist, I wanted to paint the area, so it’s the views around the house
that are more important than what it’s like inside.’
Victor looked at Ellie then, thrilled at her improvisation. The agent brought her overcoat down from a stand behind her desk, closing her pitch with,
‘Okay, then you two have a drive past, take a look around, and then you come back here if you want a viewing.’
‘And it’s quite safe to have a nose?’ asked Victor. ‘We won’t be tripping any burglar alarms?’
All laughed then, the agent saying,
‘No, as I say, the place is years behind the times. In fact, I often go past on my way home just to make sure no vagrants are in there. So no, you won’t disturb anyone. Except for maybe the gardener. He lives in a small house at the back, if you didn’t want to rouse him.’
‘A gardener?’
‘Well, he calls himself a gardener, though he’s getting on a bit now. It’s his granddaughter who does most of the work, poor little thing.’
‘Thank you,’ stammered Ellie. ‘Thank you for your help.’
Chapter 84 – The Road to the Coast
The pair left with the agent, as she locked her front door and wished them good day. Victor went to the edge of the kerb, and looked up along the street. Ellie stayed by the door, bowing her head,
‘Did she really say that, Victor?’
‘Yes, I think she did.’
‘I can’t move.’
And he came back to hold her before she keeled over.
They didn’t go back to their own car, instead waiting maybe ten minutes for Chris to pull by and pick them up in his. Therein the news was calmly relayed, and was received in similar fashion.
The four travelled in the one car together, as silent as if coming from a funeral, as light as if from a christening. Beck looked around at each member of the group, with a look of, are we going to do this? To which the silent answer came back, Yes.
The car was almost out of petrol, Ellie needed further charging, and Beck was dog tired. But at a sedate pace they arrived, first at the coast, and then at a road running along the ridge of a hill. The hill fell off on one side to meet the sea, and on the other undulated into low round dunes. Soon the group arrived outside the house.
‘Wait,’ called Victor. He asked, ‘We’re not leading Eris right to them?’