The Empty House Read Online Free Page B

knees pricked up his ears and gave a single sharp bark. Charlie, the deerhound, unfolded himself from the sofa, padded across to the window, and looked out. From where he sat, Peter could see the road. A car had drawn up, ten yards past the gate. It did not seem to be doing anything in particular.
    “That’s when the trouble started. Alex wrote an article.”
    “About his work?”
    “Nothing to do with his work. He wrote it after one of his trips to the Middle East. If he hadn’t been becoming wellknown in his own field, no one would have dreamed of publishing it. I wish to heaven they hadn’t. It was the sort of mad, infantile, totally apolitical argument that scientists might indulge in while talking over their port after dinner but should certainly never commit to paper. What he said was that a surgeon would remove even a sound organ from the body if the presence of that organ was, on balance, potentially dangerous to the rest of the anatomy. On this analogy, the course of wisdom was clearly to excise the state of Israel. It might be, probably it was, a well-run and peace-loving state. What was wrong with it was that it was in the wrong place. Set down somewhere else, it would be harmless. Established exactly where it was, it was a source of infection in the body politic. Can you imagine the reactions?”
    “Easily.”
    “The national press got it, of course. ‘Israel a Plague Spot. Move It to the Sahara’ was one of the mildest.”
    “Why did anyone take it seriously? Couldn’t they see it was meant as a joke?”
    “It’s one of the things you mustn’t joke about. Like immigration and South Africa. Poor Alex found that out, quickly enough.”
    “I imagine a lot of people got very angry,” said Peter, “but there wasn’t much anyone could actually do about it, was there?”
    “Was there not? It didn’t take long for someone to point out that Alex was doing the sort of job which might, quite easily, lead to important developments in the military field. The public thinks in cliches. Alex was working in a biological research unit. They’d heard of something called biological warfare. One and one make two. Here was a scientist calling for the destruction of Israel, and he was one of the few men who might be in a position to do it. You know how television has conditioned people to think of scientists as evil little men with bald heads and steelrimmed glasses who are plotting to destroy the world. Here was one of them in the flesh. It was nonsense, of course, but the press and the Jewish lobby between them worked up such a head of steam that the government withdrew Alex’s security clearance. And that meant, in practice, that no laboratory would accept him. He was so far ahead in his own field that his reputation was already international. And the only job open to him was teaching small boys O Level and A Level science. Now do you see?”
    “I’m beginning to,” said Peter.
    “It was a subtle offer they made him. He could pursue his own line of research, but he had to do it inside a government military institution. The fruits of his research would be covered by the Official Secrets Act, and would be available to the government alone. Subject to that, he was given the run of the most up-to-date facilities, and a free hand. He made two provisos of his own. He would report fully, in writing, but only once every two years. And he was to have as much time off as he wanted, up to four months every year if he felt he needed it. The government didn’t like either condition, but they accepted them because they wanted Alex. It was the second condition which worried them most, because Alex used to take those long vacations abroad. As I told you. He shipped his car across to France and simply drove off into the blue. That put them on the spot. If he’d flown, they could have put a man on the plane with him and found out where he was going to. It was driving his own car made it impossible. He hadn’t committed