The Care of Time Read Online Free Page A

Captain. It told him to call in the bomb-squad. Received Monday. Right?’
    ‘Right, but I didn’t get a chance to show you the actual letter. You were already all suited-up for the bomb when Halliday brought them both in. But it’s like he says. Look.’
    He had the photocopy of Zander’s letter in a plastic folder and pushed it across the desk. Both bomb-squad men read it together. When Lampeter had finished he looked almost cheerful.
    ‘Well, Captain,’ he said, ‘sooner you than us. When you said threatening letter I thought you meant one of the normal kind. What you’ve gotten here is a nut-case. And a nut-case who can package bombs as good as this should be able to give you and the Postal Service a whole lot of trouble.’ As he got up to go he showed me a friendlier face. ‘Know what I’d do in your place, Mr Halliday? For the next six months I wouldn’t open any mail at all that I can’t see through when I hold it up to the light. And, if the Captain here would let me, I’d take a long vacation as far away from home as possible. Been nice meeting you. Captain, that package is defused and safe now. Do you still want us to deliver to the FBI or will one of your men take care of that?’
    When the business was finished and they had gone, Captain Boyle looked at me again.
    ‘Think of taking some of that advice he gave you, Mr Halliday?’
    ‘About taking a vacation?’
    ‘I’d prefer that you didn’t take it so far away that we couldn’t reach you by phone. The FBI just might want to talk to you so that they have their own record of what you’ve already told me, and they can turn sour if witnesses aren’t always there at the ready. Naturally, you’ll be careful to look at mail before you open it. You have a secretary I suppose.’
    ‘Part-time. She gave me your name as a matter of fact.’
    ‘That so? Well, you’ll warn her, I guess. Although the Postal Service will be running a check for a while on all packages addressed to you. Did you notice, by the way, that this Zander says parcel when he means package? That’s British usage.’
    ‘Yes, I’d noticed.’
    ‘You’ll be letting me have the original of this letter, eh Mr Halliday? There’s always a chance that the forensic lab people may come up with something we didn’t know already.’
    ‘I’ll put it in the mail to you.’
    He was re-reading the photocopy. ‘What’s your thinking about this last paragraph?’ he asked. ‘He knows you’re a newspaper man. Have you followed up on his suggestion about newspaper morgues?’
    It was simple enough to lie. ‘I used to be a newspaper man, yes, but I’m out of touch these days. I’ll probably call around, but if the FBI say they don’t know this Zander it’s unlikely that I’m going to be able to come up with anything.’
    ‘But you’ll try all the same?’ he persisted.
    ‘Oh sure.’
    ‘And be letting us know when Zander makes the next approach?’
    Captain Boyle was a big, handsome man with an old-style politician’s smile. It had been a mistake on my part to underestimate his intelligence.
    ‘I see that you don’t accept the nut-case diagnosis, Captain.’
    ‘Of course I accept it. Anyone who sends bombs through the mail has to be some kind of nut. But in this case, I think, not Lampeter’s kind. What do you think?
    ‘I agree. This bomb is a one-off, a show of muscle if you like. I don’t think he’s going to send any more. Dammit, I don’t even think he sent this one, I mean not with his own hands. I’m inclined to think, as you seem to, that the writer of that letter means exactly what he says. He wants somethingdone. He thinks I can do it, that it’s something that would specially appeal to me. He just has a funny way of asking.’
    ‘And what’s your reaction to it, Mr Halliday? I mean now that you know what was in the package. Are you laughing?’
    ‘No, Captain, I’m not. I’m as mad as Detective Lampeter. But I’m also intensely curious, and quite