‘Not really. I think they just struck sparks off each other.’
‘Summers never confided in you—about his feelings for Dunkley, and the reasons?’
‘No, he didn’t. That’s why I don’t think there’s any mystery. He would certainly have said something to me. We were very close.’ And then, quite unexpectedly, Pollock stopped acting, and his eyes filled with tears. He put his pipe down, and blew his nose.
Salter gave him a few moments by pretending to scribble. Then he said, gently enough, ‘It does seem strange, though, that he never discussed such a well-known feud with you, sir, his closest friend?’
But Pollock was now too upset to speculate with him. He shrugged and fiddled with the relighting of his pipe.
Salter put his notebook away and stood up. ‘If anything occurs to you that you think I might find helpful, you can find me at the Headquarters building. Thank you very much, sir.’ He left the professor still blinking at his pipe.
As he walked down the corridor he heard someone behind him, and he slowed down enough at the corner to see Marika Tils go into Pollock’s office.
CHAPTER 3
‘What would make two guys not speak to each other for ten years?’ Salter asked. They were sitting at the back of their house on a concrete slab, looking at the grass. Their neighbours would have called it having coffee on the patio in the garden, but from motives of inverted snobbery, though different in each case, Salter and Annie referred to the area as ‘the yard’. Salter had been raised in Cabbagetown, and ‘the yard’ was the proper term for the place where Canadians cooled off in the summer; ‘garden’ was an affected, English term. In Annie’s case, the half-acre of lawn surrounding her family home on Prince Edward Island was still called ‘the yard’, and she found the term ‘garden’ Upper Canadian, and effete.
‘Don’t their friends know?’ she asked.
‘No. Bloody mystery. Probably nothing to it, but the guy who didn’t speak to Salter is my chief suspect at the moment.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason. I just don’t like the bugger.’
‘Maybe there was a woman?’
‘Nobody has said anything about it if there was.’
‘Politics, then. What about you and Albert Prine?’
‘What about it? I caught him listening to my phone calls.’ Salter was immediately irritated. What did this have to do with anything?’
‘But you couldn’t prove it.’
‘No, but the bugger knows I caught him. If I had accused him they would have called me paranoid.’
‘He was listening, though. And you’ve never told anyone.’
‘If I did, he’d soon hear about it and I would have to prove it, or get clobbered.’
‘So you haven’t talked to him for a year. You don’t even mention his name around here any more.’
‘No, because sometimes I think you think I imagined it.’
‘Oh, I believe you, Charlie. You see what I mean, though.’
‘All right.’ Salter swallowed his irritation. ‘So you’re saying these two sort of had something on each other. I don’t think it could be politics, though.’
‘Money?’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘Sex, then?’
‘One of Summers’s pals suggested they probably met one night in a body-rub parlour. From what I saw of Dunkley, something like that would bother him, all right. But Summers, I gather, would have been one to make a joke of it, once he got over his embarrassment. He wasn’t shy about suggesting they all go to a girlie show in Montreal, but Dunkley was.’
‘You mean all these middle-aged professors get away from their wives and they act . . .’
‘Just like everyone else. Especially at that age.’
She accepted the tease. ‘Charlie, would you go to a show like that, if you were on holiday away from me?’
‘No, dear. Only on business.’
But she was concerned now. ‘From what you’ve told me, half these people are having affairs their wives don’t know about.’
‘Just one, dear: Pollock. And I don’t know if he’s married.’
‘Of course he is.’
Now they were off on a familiar misery, entitled, ‘Why Do Married Men Play Around?’ with the inevitable sub-theme, ‘Do You?’ Fortunately Salter was saved by the arrival of Angus around the corner of the house carrying a cricket bat. One of the traditions of Annie’s family was that the men went to Upper Canada College, and she had used her trust fund, set up by her grandmother, to keep the tradition going for Seth and Angus. It would have been piggish to object, but their fancy ways made him uncomfortable, and he kept a firm, ironic distance from the goings-on of the quality his sons mixed with, and occasionally brought home.
‘Did you win?’ he asked now. ‘How many bounders did you hit?’
‘Boundaries, Dad. None. I was stumped first ball.’
‘That sounds bad, son.’
‘It is. It means I was out before I even hit one.’
Salter tutted. ‘Did you pitch today?’ he asked wide-eyed.
‘Bowl,’ Angus said. ‘Bowl, bowl, bowl, bowl. NO$$$.’
‘That’s enough,’ said Annie. I’ll get you some supper,’ another word she preserved in the face of Upper Canada’s ‘dinner’.
‘Angus won’t want any supper,’ Salter said. ‘He’ll have had tea. In the pavilion. Won’t you, son?’
The other two ignored him, and his wife moved into the house while his son took her chair, indicating a desire for a chat with his father. This was rare enough for Salter to stop his fooling and take an interest. Angus came to the point immediately.
‘Dad, the Civics teacher wants parents to come and give us a talk on what they do. I said I’d ask you.’
Salter was thrown into confusion. While the subject of his career did not crop up much around the house, he had the impression that the boys, once over their ‘cops and robbers’ phase, were slightly ashamed of him, especially among their moneyed friends. Now here was Angus suggesting he display himself in public. His first instinct was an immediate and derisive refusal, but he was slightly touched, so he played for time.
‘Who have you had so far, son?’ he asked.
‘Pillsbury’s father, who’s a stockbroker, a chartered accountant, two lawyers, and a big deal surgeon who transplants hearts or something.’
Salter returned to his first instinct. ‘No, thanks, son. Too glamorous for me. I’ll tell you what. I’ll get my sergeant to come over. He used to go round the schools in Safety Week, teaching them to “Stop, Look, and Listen”. The kids loved it.’
Angus got up. ‘I know. I heard him. I’ll tell Mr Secord “no”, then.’
‘That’s right. Tell him all my work is highly confidential.’
Annie returned from getting Angus his supper. 7 suggested that,’ she said. ‘He asked me and I said I thought you might. Why don’t you?’
‘Because I’d feel a horse’s arse, that’s why,’ Salter said noisily, and picked up his notebook to cut off the discussion. ‘Now