Chapter 4

Reg went on, “As I said once before, the proposition that ulcers were caused by bacteria in the stomach was initially ruled out by the medical hierarchy, because it was an established tenet of faith that the stomach contents did not allow bacteria to survive. This was based on initial tests done around fifty years before, on a limited sample of patients.

When the new proposers asked for experiments to be done to clarify the facts, these were denied because it was ‘already proved’ that the stomach did not contain bacteria. As Helicobacter Pylori is now know to exist and thrive in the stomachs of 60 per cent of the world’s adult population, there is a problem somewhere! If the earlier tests were actually of people who fell into the other 40 per cent group, then naturally you would get a negative result, similarly if the tests at the time were not accurate.

The failure to do wider tests, and simply assuming that these ancient results applied to everyone, led the entire medical fraternity astray for 50 years, and reaped millions of dollars for medical companies selling antacid tablets that had no real effect on ulcers. They were merely a placebo to make sufferers feel better. The pharmaceutical companies did not do any practical research to prove the acid hypothesis. Why should they bother, when they were making money hand over fist?”

“I get you. Science is not as unbiased as most scientists believe, is it?”

“Science, like history and other subjects, is affected by human failings just as much as other subjects. A true scientist has to keep an open mind, and test with reliable experiments any new proposal that comes to his notice. Even then, human beings are persuaded, by their own preconceived notions, to doubt new ideas. It is easy to discount results you don’t expect or don’t want to believe, and only use the results that fit your presumptions. Many researchers dismiss any such aberrant results as ‘experimental errors’. If you publish only your selected results, it is tantamount to cheating; but you are cheating yourself in that case. These aberrant results may be of immense significance.”

Erika stopped him. “Reg, that is enough; you have made your point. Don’t continue it to the point of boredom, darling.”

“Sorry, Erika. I do get carried away with my subject of the moment. I apologise, my love.”

Erika observed, “Reg, perhaps you should not consider a career as lecturer, for you will take your students far beyond their zone of comfort. A lecturer has to take his students along for the ride, so that they take everything in; not disturb their underlying foundations until they fall off the information train.”

“I see what you mean. Perhaps a business degree is more appropriate, if a career in Mr LeBrun’s business is our target.”

“Who knows, Reg? If our own business takes off, it may be stable enough to employ all of us in future.”

“A good thought, Erika my darling. We shall wait and see how business develops for us.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you: you should speak to Frances, as we toyed with that building insurance scam and came up with a few ideas.”

“Will do; in fact, I’ll get hold of Frances now, before dinner, to get the outline.”

He sought her out and persuaded her to come and speak with him.

“Frances, Erika tells me you had some thoughts on the possible arson.”

“Yes. We worked from the reasonable possibility that James Fitzgerald was the provider of the arson mechanism. In that case, it has to have a chemical process involved. Firemen are not fools; they know how to identify most arson fire starters, so the answer must rely on the type of combustion that does not require an oxidiser for a flame.

Our best candidate is chlorine gas, as that reacts with most substances. All we need to do is identify which substances will react to chlorine to start a fire. We haven’t done that search yet, except for acetylene, but how come acetylene would be in the basement? You see the problem?”

Reg was admiring of his wives. “Frances, you and the girls have a done a great job. Your selection of chlorine is excellent; I am sure it would work. However, when chlorine reacts with water it produces hydrochloric acid, and enough might remain to be found by fire investigators.”

“You mean it would not work for this case?”

“Perhaps, but I don’t know for certain. I was working on the possibility of chlorine trifluoride, which reacts wildly with practically everything, but it may be impractical as a fire starter mechanism. I think I need to reread the fire brigade’s report on the case.”

“Good idea. After dinner, you should ring Prudence to tell her you are thinking of her, but don’t overdo it, Reg. She will be anxious, so say nothing to upset her.”

Reg took that to heart, and after dinner he tried Prudence’s phone. After a few rings, she answered.

“Prudence, my love, how are you feeling?”

“Oh, Reg, thanks for ringing. I am a lot better now, with all my scratches and bruises patched up. The hospital have taken blood samples and they ran me through a scanner to check on the baby, but the doctor says there should be nothing to worry about – it is just routine for a pregnant girl after a fall. Do you think that is true, Reg?”

“I do, my love. I had to undergo loads of tests when I was in the hospital, and most of them made no sense to me: routines have to be gone through, I think, to cover them for any possible slips in diagnosis. Are they letting you out tomorrow?”

“The doctor said yes, assuming my blood pressure was normal. Are you coming for me?”

“Yes, love. I’ll come by taxi once the hospital lets me know when you are getting thrown out.”

“I am not sure if that is what they do, Reg. I may have to phone you instead.”

“Whatever. I am coming to get you, and that’s what matters.”

“Thanks, Reg. I think I can sleep, now that tomorrow is sorted out.”

“Get yourself some sleep then, my darling girl. Bye for now.”

Reg closed the call, and gave a deep sigh. He had tried to say the right words to convey his feelings, and he hoped he spoke true. Now he needed to get his mind on other matters, such as the fire report.

He waded through it, noting that the fire brigade investigator was dotting all the Is and crossing the Ts, so as not to allow any faults into his report. While admiring the concept, Reg was more interested in the details of what was found, even if the detail did not make much sense.

He noted that the fire had started at the basement level, but that there were no evident residues that pointed to an ignition source. The fire had apparently started among a pile of rubbish dumped in one corner of the basement. It was as if some item had caught fire and burned intensely for a short while, enough to get the pile to burn at a high enough temperature and for long enough to set other material alight. The report used many big words to say very little, just that a fire had begun there, but with no evidence found of a specific accelerant used: no suitable containers lying there that might have held the offending material.

Reg looked for a more general description of the basement, and one item took his interest. There was a disused coal shute with a formerly bolted wooden door at ground level, but the fire had burned it out, so there was no indication of whether the door was bolted at the time or not. The bolt had fallen to the basement floor, so its position before the fire – closed or open – was indeterminate.

Reg wondered whether someone could have crawled into the basement and started the fire, but the height of the shute suggested that anyone getting in would not be able to get out again without help. The ignition site was at the opposite side of the basement, so it would be difficult to effectively throw a match or a candle to that spot.

Reg scowled his frustration. A solution refused to come to him. That was unusual. It might be another effect of the emotional shock, with his mind not behaving properly. He needed to go and hold one of his wives for a while. He wished he could go to Prudence and give her a cuddle!

He sat there for a while, staring at the report but not seeing it. He decided a cup of coffee would help, for he had not waited for the coffee after dinner. He returned to the table and found Hermione clearing the table.

“Hermione? Any chance of a coffee?”

“The percolator is too cool now, Reg. Are you able to wait so we can put another small pot on for you?”

“Yeah, I’ll wait. Thanks, Hermione.”

“How’s Prudence? The girls said you went to phone her.”

“She’s feeling a lot better, but is going to try to sleep now. She hopes she can get home tomorrow.”

“Great! I like that girl; she has guts. I’ll get your coffee started right away, sir.”

Reg nearly told her not to call him ‘sir’ but saw little point in that niggle: it would just show he was feeling narky, and not produce any good effects.

He finally got his coffee, and he was nursing his mug, enjoying the tang of the taste, when Jessica entered the room.

“Reg? Our daughters are asking for Mum Prudence. What’s the latest?”

“Jessica, the very presence I need. Come here, woman: I need to cuddle somebody, so I’ll do that with you while I give you the update.”

“Oh, we are being masterful, aren’t we? Or is it simply you needing a woman’s touch?”

“The latter, Jessica. How’s your growing bump doing?” He gathered her in to sit on his lap, and he rubbed his hand over her tummy bump.

“Not too bad at the moment, my darling boy, though I have been showing a little blood on my panties. I am trying to work out whether it is a boy or a girl, but I can’t decide. They say that boy babies do more wriggling than girls, but that may be old wives’ tales. Anyway, it has been so long since I was pregnant before that I can’t tell the difference, not that there is any wriggling yet.”

“Occam’s razor, Jessica: the simplest solution. We’ll take whatever comes, boy or girl, and love it to bits.”

“You always manage to cheer me up, Reg. That’s one of the many things I love about you.”

“Jessica, it is merely the comparison with your first husband. I am not that special, you know.”

“You are special enough that I will devote my whole life to being with you, Reg. You understand what a true marriage is all about, my love.”

“What have we here? Looks like a couple of teenagers on their own for the first time, out of sight of Mummy,” declared Fiona’s voice, “All except for that tiny baby bump on Jessica. It is smaller than my own, despite us being about the same stage. Hi, Jessica; enjoying a cuddle with our man?”

“Yes indeed, Fiona. It is fun. Did you want a turn?”

“I can wait, Jessica: I am not desperate. I prefer a good fuck to a romantic cuddle. Does that make me a slut, do you think?”

“No, Fiona. We all have times when we need one or the other. In pregnancy, I think we need both, though my first husband never gave me a cuddle: thought it was too unmanly.”

Reg brightened. “I can do whatever is required of me, girls, but at present, I am in a cuddling mood; it is probably another aspect of my reaction to shock, but it satisfies me.”

Fiona remarked, “It is lovely when he calls you and me ‘girls’, Jessica. I assumed I was too old to be regarded as a girl, but Reg sees things differently.”

Reg objected to this categorisation. “Hey, you are only a couple of years older than me, Fiona; not a decade of difference.”

“But I am more than a decade older, Reg, and you call me a girl,” insisted Jessica.

“That is the way I view you, my lovely. You are a girl, just as the rest of my wives are girls. Age is not a factor in this, merely my perception, and I see you as a girl, a cuddly girl.”

Fiona observed, “He really has absorbed the niceties of paying compliments to a lady, hasn’t he? I find it astonishing that this time last year he would have been tongue-tied in front of a girl. Frances and company worked wonders with him, and you and I get the benefit.”

“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but then, I haven’t had a university education,” Jessica admitted.

Fiona was quick to disabuse her of that notion. “It is more a case of observation, Jessica. Had you thought about it, you would have come to the same conclusion. You are not stupid, Jessica; I have watched you, and in my estimation you are a clever woman who was unable to go to university. You should discuss with the rest of the family the possibility of you doing a university course. The family can afford to provide that now, and the children are not a bar to your or our education, dear.”

Jessica grabbed Fiona’s hand, and pressed it to her cheek. “Thanks, Fiona. You are nice to me.”

Fiona laughed, “Us girls have to stick together, Jessica.”

Reg’s attention to the girls had been distracted by a weird thought that came to him, and he pulled over his notebook to add an aide memoire: James Fitzgerald: did he have anything in his possessions that the police felt was odd? It was a vague possibility that Fitzgerald had hung onto something incriminating, rather than dumping it.

During the rest of the evening, several of his wives came to suggest possible solutions for the arson scenario, but in each case, there was another factor which undermined that explanation as a practical solution. Mostly, it was a case of residues that the Fire Brigade investigator would have picked up on. It takes a lot to fool a fire investigator!

Next morning, Reg was warned by Frances that in her opinion he was not ready to return to face-to-face university life yet, so he returned to his own thinking. After an hour, he decided to phone the insurance man and ask a question.

“Sir, can you tell me whether the entrance to the basement coal hole was always bolted from the inside?”

“Mr Robertson, it would daft to bolt it on the outside, wouldn’t it? But as to whether it was always bolted, the assumption is yes. If it was unbolted at the time, then that would be a deliberate decision linked to an arson attack. Do you have an idea about that?”

“We have a come up with several scenarios for fire-raising, but almost all of them would leave a residue that the fire brigade would have found. The only one I envisaged which would not leave recognisable residue also leaves the question of why such a substance was in the basement in the first place!

We have another scenario that involves the coal hole, but the shute is so steep and long that anyone climbing in would not be able to climb out again without considerable assistance, and that would most likely leave marks showing such activity. I am trying to envisage a solution that saves having to enter the basement at all.”

“You really are putting some effort into this, Mr Robertson. Can I take it you are accepting the challenge?”

“We are, sir. Regard it as in process of investigation before officially taking it on. We have had a series of possible fire starter mechanisms suggested, but the difficulty is the residues that would be left behind where the fire started in the basement. There is a difference between the more usual fire, which requires an oxygen source, and combustion, which does not necessarily have to use oxygen. Chlorine and fluorine are possibles instead of oxygen, but most formulations still leave identifiable residues. Chlorine Trifluoride reacts with almost anything, but leaves evidence of the activity.

The best solution is that of an apparently self-starting fire or explosion, but having that happen in a basement is another problem, except for chlorine, as that is heavier than oxygen, so would collect in the basement. Chlorine might have been found, if looked for at the time.”

“My goodness! You HAVE been working on this. Good luck, Mr Robertson. A successful solution would earn your company a significant return, and save us a huge payout. Let me know as soon as you come up with something eminently workable; a practical solution. The insurance company doesn’t have to prove it happened, just that it would be a serious likelihood, on balance of probability, and thus a justification to refuse a payout.”

Reg came to the conclusion that the content of his note should be brought to the attention of the police. He phoned the local police station and asked for Sergeant Phillips. He was, surprisingly, put straight through.

“Terence, Reginald Robertson: are you free to consider a question from me?”

“At the moment, I am at a loose end, just waiting for my tea-break to come around. What can I do for you, Reg?”

“There was a multi-storey building that burned down recently, and the fire investigators could not prove arson was involved. We are looking into it for the insurance company, and our explorations turned up James Fitzgerald’s name.”

“Fitzgerald? Oh, yes, our chemistry friend trying to sell an explosive formula.”

Reg confirmed that, saying,”When he was arrested, and his home searched, did anything turn up there that the police found odd, but could not fit it into the crimes that were being investigated? It may seem an unusual query for me to make, but I don’t put anything past that guy.”

“I’ll make that request, Reg, seeing it is you that’s asking, and I’ll tell you what, if anything, comes of it. Incidentally, Fitzgerald is out on bail, and has been for some time, pending his trial. The courts are so slow at times!”

“That would be great, Terence. I appreciate the help.”

“I presume this is in connection with that company that was helping the university with an embezzlement scam?”

“Yes, sir. Same company, set up by my family. I don’t know if you caught its name – Recovery Enterprise Group – with the initials R.E.G.”

After a moment, Sergeant Phillips roared with laughter. “R.E.G – Reg!! You say your wives set it up? Did they name it too?”

“You have got it in one, Terence. It had nothing to do with me.”

“You have quite a lively bunch there, my boy. Good luck with them.”

“Thank you, Terence. I shall look forward to hearing what you find. Goodbye sir.”

That settled, Reg had a look outside and noticed that it was dry enough for a walk; a little on the breezy side, but acceptable if he wore his new anorak After telling the twins where he was off to, he set off without any terminal point in mind, just a general area.

He breathed deeply of the fresh air, and took note of the lack of smoke in the air. This was a far cry from his mother’s industrial location which still wafted unwanted aromas towards the house. He had been able to deduce that there was a sauce factory upwind of their home. The sauce varieties varied in smells by the day, so you could tell what they were making in that establishment. Here was a dormitory area of the town, with clean air in the vicinity. It helped that there was open countryside less than half a mile distant. Mr Robson’s farm was not much further, but Reg did not propose to go there today. He supposed this was why they were being afflicted by detectorists – access to the farm was too convenient to ignore, it seemed.

His walk had brought him to beside a small play park with swings and a children’s roundabout, and a football pitch for the local amateurs to use. The park was edged with a belt of tall trees, indicating that either it was an ancient park, or that it had been an open field surrounded by trees which had been left to grow. The trees were mainly sycamore and horse chestnut which he could tell by the tree shapes and the first few leaves that were developing with the advent of spring.

The surrounding metal railings were equally ancient, judging by the amount of rust on them. He reckoned this was due to lack of repainting; an example of short-term thinking that led to longer-term high cost of replacement.

He reflected that even in a simple case such as this, waste of public money by short-termism was self-evident but never noticed by the money people of the local authority.

Further along the quiet road he saw a private example of the same thing: Trees which had been cheaply pruned, with all the branches lopped off, leaving only the main trunk or trunks. This led to a profusion of small growths the next year, making the trees look hideous. If the owners had paid for a professional job, many of the branches would have been left, and only a partial pruning done, with another set of branches dealt with the second year. It was more expensive, but the tree would continue to look good in the garden, and the birds would be able to make use of it. The cheaper lopped trees would have no attraction for birds; a disappointment for everyone except the tree loppers.

With a sigh, Reg walked on, and instead paid attention to the profusion of daffodils/narcissus flowers and the crocuses which were almost past by now. The snowdrops were already finished for the year, except for a late taller variant which he could see in a few sheltered spots.

Reg rounded a corner, with the intention of making his walk a square taking him back home. Along this street it continued to be quiet, without even anyone in their gardens. He surmised that everyone was at work or at school, this being a well-to-do suburb.

The only sign of life was a quartet of small vans parked outside one of the houses. Removal men were in the process of carrying furniture to the vans for packing inside. To Reg, the odd thing was that they must be using the back door as the exit, for the front door remained closed. It grated on his sense of normality. This was not usual, to his eyes.

As he approached, he observed that the men seemed to be in a hurry, and that did not seem right either. You have to carry furniture slowly to avoid dropping it or knocking it against something, or the owner would complain. The pieces of furniture did not even have protective packing foam round them.

Too many things were wrong here.

Reg made up his mind, and crossed to the other side of the street before facing away from the men, getting out his phone and dialling 999. “Emergency. Which service do you require?”

“Police. I think there is a burglary in progress.”

He was put through to the police, gave his location, then repeated his assertion. “It does not seem right, constable. There is no proper furniture van; they are in a rush, and have no protection for the furniture, and are bring it from the back door. Why not the front?”

“We will send a mobile unit immediately, sir. I have passed on the information, so the car will be there shortly. If it is a false alarm that is fine with us. I need your name so I can inform the responders that you are a witness. Can you remain on the spot for us, and if possible, note the vehicle registration numbers?”