Levkas Man (6 page)

I pinned the sheets of paper together again—my mother's note, my birth certificate and the adoption papers. It was all there, the whole story. Why hadn't I realized it before? I should have known the truth without my mother's frantic confession of guilt. And he had never told me. In all those years he had never even implied that I owed him a deeper allegiance than that of an adopted son. Why? Was it just the code of an earlier generation, their greater chivalry towards women, or had it been the fear that I might not understand a love that must have been compelling and uncontrollable?

I sat there for a long time, the papers in my hand. The conviction that he was my natural father—a certainty that was instinctive rather than logical—affected me profoundly as I went over in my mind all that Dr Gilmore had said. It gave me a sense of pride I had never had before, pride in him and in that part of me that I now recognized as belonging to him. We were so entirely different on the surface—but underneath … I was smiling to myself, remembering the latent hostility, my struggle to survive against the strength of his personality, when my thoughts were interrupted by the knocker banging at the front door. I slipped the papers into my wallet and went down to find a man of about forty-five standing there.

‘You're Dr Van der Voort's son, are you?' He spoke English with a North Country accent and my body suddenly froze. But then he said, ‘I'm Professor Holroyd of London University. Gilmore told me I'd find you here.'

I was too relieved to say anything. I just stood there, staring at him. He had a pipe in his mouth and his face was round and smooth, his manner brisk. ‘I'd like a word with you.'

I took him up to the study and he went straight over to the swivel chair and sat himself down. ‘I haven't much time,' he said. ‘I'm attending a conference at the Hague and I'm due shortly at the Rijksmuseum.' His overcoat was unbuttoned and his dark suit hung on him so loosely it might have been made for somebody else. ‘I'm not a man who believes in beating about the bush. I've done some checking up on your father. I'll tell you why later.'

Though he was speaking with his pipe clamped between his teeth, he still managed to arrange his mouth in a smile. The smile, and the twinkle that went with it, were both produced to order. He thrust his head forward in a way that I was sure he had found effective. ‘He was a Communist. You know that, I imagine.'

‘What do you want?' I asked.

‘Your co-operation. That's all.' He took his pipe out of his mouth and began to fill it. ‘You're not a Communist yourself, are you?'

‘No.'

‘You reacted against your father's ideological principles, eh?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well, I presume you are aware of his political activities.'

‘He was helped by the Russians—I know that. But only from Dr Gilmore.'

‘I see.' He lit his pipe, puffing at it quickly and watching me over the flame, his eyes narrowed. ‘I'd better fill in the picture for you then. Pieter Van der Voort joined the Communist Party as a student in 1928. He resigned in 1940 following the Russian invasion of Finland. I have no information as to whether he renewed his membership following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Probably not, since he would have been suspect as a revisionist. We can, however, regard him as a fellow-traveller. Certainly he was in Russia in 1946 and was mixing freely with their most prominent academics in the years immediately after the war. Later he returned to Amsterdam, and from 1950 onwards he was kept supplied with substantial funds. This enabled him to embark on a whole series of costly expeditions, the results of which were published in Russian scientific journals. Later, they were incorporated into books produced by the Russian State Publishing House with eulogistic forewords by Ivan Szorkowski, a very mediocre, but politically powerful, professor of Moscow University.'

‘Are you suggesting the work he did during this period was purely political?'

‘No, no. The articles he wrote for the scentific journals, which concerned only the
results
of his expeditions, were of universal interest. They established him as one of the most outstanding men in his field.'

‘Then why are you telling me this?'

He held up his hands. ‘Let me finish. Then I think you'll see. The books were undoubtedly political. They drew certain quite unwarranted conclusions. And since these were favourable to the Russian image, they were widely reviewed and acclaimed throughout the Communist world. The second of them was published in 1956, the year Russia crushed the Hungarian uprising. He was, therefore, very much in the limelight at the precise moment when he was again faced with the sort of personal political dilemma that had caused him to resign his Party membership in 1940.'

He had been talking very fast, his pipe clenched between his teeth, so that I had difficulty in following him. Now he took it out of his mouth and looked across at me. ‘His father died in South Africa, I believe. Do you know when?'

‘It was in 1959,' I said. ‘Why?'

He nodded. ‘Yes, that fits in nicely—the Hungarian rising, his political doubts and then suddenly he finds himself for the first time financially independent.'

‘I don't believe it was just a question of money,' I said.

He looked at me sharply. ‘Well, no—1959 and '60 were the years of the great East African discoveries at Olduvai.' The smile switched on briefly. ‘But money makes a difference, even to a scientist. It meant he no longer had to concentrate his efforts in the East. Instead, he switched his attention to the Central Mediterranean—to Malta, Sicily, North Africa. He was in Cyprus in 1964, and the following year he made his first expedition to Greece.' He leaned back over the desk and tapped his pipe out in the onyx bowl. ‘Four years ago he suddenly offered a book to a British publishing house. That manuscript was the first indication I had that he had changed his line of thinking. It was based on an entirely new conception; nothing revolutionary, you understand, but the theories it advanced were new as far as he was concerned. The publishers asked me to advise them. I had no hesitation in recommending rejection.'

‘Why?'

‘For many reasons, most of which will probably be beyond you.'

‘And it was never published?'

‘As far as I know he never offered it to another London publisher.'

He obviously sensed my hostility, for he added quickly, ‘I'm not the only scientist in the West who has followed his career with interest, many of us envious of the advantages of State patronage while deploring the inevitable distortion of facts. But there was nothing personal about my rejection of the book. Please understand that. It was a clever piece of writing, but not definitive, and I formed the impression that he was mainly concerned to convince himself of the validity of his own arguments. He had shifted his ground, you see.' He leaned forward, his pipe clasped in both hands. ‘Just over a year ago I heard he was short of funds. He was then concentrating his energies on Greece, in the area of the Ionian Sea. As a member of a Committee that advises on the allocation of certain Government grants, I persuaded the Chairman to write to him suggesting this was something that might come within the scope of our Committee. There was no reply to this. But then, in November of last year, Lord Craigallan had a letter from him. No doubt you are well aware of your father's present financial straits. He admitted he could not mount another expedition unaided. In the end, we not only gave him a grant, but, through my university, put a Land-Rover at his disposal and also provided him with a very able assistant. I had a report from Cartwright just before I left London. He had already informed me that he had found Dr Van der Voort difficult to work with. But I had no idea how bad things were between them until I read his report.'

He paused there and I knew we had at last reached the object of the interview. He put his pipe back in his mouth. ‘You know, I suppose, that Van der Voort has disappeared. What you may not know is the circumstances.'

I stared at him, my mind adjusting slowly to this new information.

‘Cartwright has a broken wrist, and other injuries—fortunately minor.' He shook his head. ‘A clash of personalities I can understand. That's always possible in an expedition. Men get tired. The weather makes camping uncomfortable. Disappointment saps morale.' He was frowning angrily. ‘But in this case the weather was fine—cold, but fine—and after more than a month of slogging it through the mountains without achieving anything, they had just made a significant discovery. There was no justification for it whatsoever.'

‘You mean my father attacked him?'

‘So Cartwright says. Van der Voort called him out of his tent. There was an argument and he went for him with a stick. It was night, and the attack was so unexpected Cartwright didn't have a chance to defend himself. He took to his heels and that saved him. He describes Van der Voort's behaviour as that of a maniac.'

‘What happened then? You say my father disappeared?'

‘He drove off in the Land-Rover.' He was looking at me curiously. ‘You didn't know about this?'

‘No.'

‘I presumed you did—that it was the reason you were in Amsterdam.' I could see his curiosity mounting. He took his pipe out of his mouth and I said quickly:

‘Where did this happen?'

‘In Greece, near a village called Despotiko up by the Albanian border.'

‘There can't be many Land-Rovers in Greece,' I said. ‘The authorities ought to be able to trace it quite easily.'

He nodded. ‘Of course. But Cartwright thought it inadvisable to contact the police. They had difficulty enough getting into the country. In any case, he found the Land-Rover himself, abandoned in the nearby town of Jannina. What is disturbing is that the expedition's funds were gone.' Apparently they had been keeping the money in the tool locker for safety and the padlock had been forced. ‘We've cabled them additional funds, but the whole thing is unpleasant to say the least of it.' He leaned his head forward, his eyes narrowed. ‘You haven't heard from your father at all?'

‘No.'

‘It's just a coincidence then that you're here?'

‘Yes.'

He leaned back. ‘I was hoping perhaps you could help me. What I'm concerned about, you see, is my own responsibility in the matter. I sponsored the allocation of the Government grant and I feel it my duty to see that the taxpayers' money is not wasted.' He was staring at me. ‘If anything happens to him you're presumably his heir.'

I laughed. ‘I shouldn't think so for a minute.' And then, because he was still staring at me, as though holding me responsible, I said, ‘It's nothing to do with me. And anyway, as I understand it, he hasn't any money.'

‘I wasn't thinking of money,' he said. ‘But he was writing a book. That book would almost certainly give us the information we need to continue the work of this expedition. And since he hadn't got the manuscript with him, I presume it's here in this house, and if I may say so …' He stopped at the sound of the street door closing and footsteps on the stairs.

It was Sonia Winters. She burst into the room and then checked at the sight of him sitting there at the desk. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't know you had anybody with you.' She had been hurrying and her voice sounded breathless.

I introduced them. She seemed to have heard of Professor Holroyd for she repeated his name and then stood there, staring at him, wide-eyed, in that infuriating way she had.

Holroyd smiled. ‘There's a young man with Dr Van der Voort on his expedition—'

‘My brother.' Her voice was tight and controlled. Her eyes switched from Holroyd to me, and then back to Holroyd again. ‘I'd better go,' she murmured. But she didn't move and her eyes remained fastened on him as though mesmerized.

I started to tell her what had happened, but she cut me short. ‘That's what I tried to tell you last night. Your father has disappeared. It's all in the letter I had from Hans—everything, if you'd only listened.' Her gaze swung back to my visitor. ‘Why are you here?' She was suddenly so defensive, her tone so imperious, that even Holroyd was surprised and at a loss for words. She turned to me. ‘What does he want?'

‘He's convinced my father was working on a book …'

‘He wants to see it?'

Holroyd began to explain about the grant again, but the cut him short. ‘First an East German professor trying to bribe me, then threatening. Now you. There isn't any book.'

‘Come, come, Miss Winters.' Holroyd's features were still set in a smile, his whole expression moulded to charm. ‘He's had two books published in Russia. He wrote a third which he offered to a London publisher. Since then he's been on a number of expeditions. Don't tell me he hasn't been committing the results of those expeditions to writing. It wouldn't be natural.'

‘I was acting as his secretary,' she said. ‘I should know.'

‘Well, if it's not in book form, then it's in notes—nobody exhausts his personal resources on a series of expeditions without recording the result.'

She gave a little shrug. ‘You can't judge Dr Van der Voort by your own or anybody else's standards. He kept everything in his head.' And she added pointedly, ‘He didn't trust anybody, you see.'

‘Then what was Gilmore talking about?' Professor Holroyd's voice had sharpened. Her attitude had clearly got under his skin. ‘He said something about a journal.'

‘Dr Van der Voort's Journal would hardly interest you.'

‘Why not? A journal—a diary—call it what you like …'

‘His Journal was concerned with behaviourism. It was a very personal document, nothing to do with his expeditions or any discoveries …'

‘I don't believe it.' His tone was blunt, his accent more pronounced. ‘A journal is just what I would expect him to keep; the basis for another book.' He had risen to his feet, and now he moved towards her. He was a big, flabby man, and she looked tiny as she stood facing him. ‘Come on, lass. Better tell me where it is. He's disappeared, you know—with money that doesn't belong to him. I don't have to bring the authorities into it, but if the expedition is to go on, it must have all the necessary information.' He stood there, waiting, while she hesitated.