Free The Conspiracy Theorist by Mark Raven

checked mine.   Then I
went back upstairs to wait for his call.
    It was our little code.   Carstairs would go into his office and
phone the golf course, and then he would call me with the tee off time.   We tried to keep business and pleasure
separate in such ways, or at least maintain the charade in front of the juniors.  
    When the phone rang, however, it was
not Carstairs.
    ‘Mr Becket.   Jennifer Forbes-Marchant.   I’m ringing to apologise.   There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding.’

 
    That
evening, after a long round of golf, one strewn with many errors and at least
two balls lost to the heavy rough, I got home, showered and packed an overnight
bag.   In the lounge the answer
machine was blinking.   I listened
to the message twice.   It went
something like this.
    ‘This is a message for Mr Becket.   I would like to advise you to keep your
nose out of our business.   We won’t
warn you again, Mr Becket.   Your
actions could have serious consequences.’
    At least it sounded professional.   They were using a voice distorter so
there was no accent, no giveaways.   But I pressed ‘save’ anyway.   An electronic voice—female this time—informed me that my
message would be stored for five days.   It sounded like the caller’s sister.
    I wondered who it could be.   I had received any number of threats
over the years, but you generally knew who they were.   Not that it mattered.   The really dangerous people tend not to call ahead.
    I made a quick call and left my own
short message.
    Then I left the flat.

 
    I
went to the garage where the Spider was stored and opened up.   I struggled to recall the last time I
had used her for a long journey.   I
checked the oil and the plugs, topped up the radiator and the screen wash, and
being Italian, I checked her brake fluid.   After several attempts, the engine fired and I ran her for a few minutes
while she cleared her throat, and asked me where the hell I thought I’d been.
    We were on the road by seven, and
missed most of the traffic.   Outside the city I put her hood down and a cap on my thinning locks.   We headed towards Rye across Romney
Marsh where the road dwindled to a single track that splintered at its edges.   Out on the marshes, there was a sense
of impermanence.   The feeling that
our civilisation built around oil and the motorcar would come and go.   The icecaps would melt and the sea
would reclaim the land.   But right
now the Spider was the only car in sight: a red blur on the grey-green
landscape.   Only
a few sheep for company.  
    There is nothing better, I thought,
than travelling westwards on an English summer’s evening.   The sun was still relatively high but
had already begun to blur in its transit from yellow to orange to red.   For some reason, I thought of the
Mondrian doors on the Alconbury Estate.  
    How fortunate I am not to have that
kind of existence, I thought.   I
have a freedom of sorts.   Freedom
to pursue whatever interest I want.   Whether people want me to or not.
    In the Met, quite often I had been told
to give up on a case, abandon it, told to wind my neck in, not be so damned obsessive;
get some treatment for an obvious case of autism or OCD.   The fact that I would not—or could not, in some cases—had made
me unpopular.   Perhaps they really did
all hate me there, as Richie said.   Or those that remained did: those that had stayed and been able to
withstand the increasing bureaucracy, back-protecting and political
interference.   There was no reason
for people like that not to hate
me.  
    I felt the wind chill my face.   I had caught the sun on the golf
course.   We negotiated Eastbourne,
took the route over Beachy Head—the Seven Sisters stained nicotine-yellow
in the waning sunlight—and then Birling Gap,
Seaford, and crossing the swing bridge at Newhaven drove inland towards the
A27.   The coast road wasn’t much
fun at Brighton, and besides the South Downs were