Tomorrow Is Too Far Read Online Free PDF Page B

interrupted by Patrolman Briggs from the other side of the office.
    ‘One of the men was Mr Daniels, sir,’ he said quickly, while his eyes shouted Shut up, you fool--can’t you see he’s in one of his moods tonight? He went on, ‘Mr Daniels was writing on the blackboard. The others had their backs turned to me so I couldn’t see who they were--except for Mr Tillotson, of course, who left the meeting about half an hour ago and came back shortly before you arrived.’
    ‘Any idea of what they were doing?’
    ‘No, sir. Mr Daniels was talking while he wrote on the board but stopped when he saw me. He has been saying something about the major problems on a minus trip home being largely psychological. Yes, that was exactly what he said. The diagrams and maths on the blackboard I couldn’t understand at all.’
    Carson nodded approval. ‘At least you keep your eyes and ears open, even when there is nothing to see or hear … ‘
    ‘It’s breaking up now, sir,’ Briggs said, jerking his thumb at the office window and the corridor beyond. ‘They’re coming out of the elevator.’
    There were only six of them. Somehow Carson had been expecting more than that. But they were all top people: Tillotson, capless now and wearing a topcoat over his flying suit so that the blue-grey gaberdine visible below it might easily have been ordinary sports slacks: Dreamy Daniels, the design chief: the head of electronics George Reece: Brady and Soames from the module production side and Reg Saunderson, the company chief accountant. It was Daniels who tossed the bunch of keys to Briggs and wished him good night. They did not appear to notice Carson, whose face was above the cone of light thrown out by the desk lamp.
    As Briggs was returning the keys to their numbered peg Carson forestalled him. ‘I’ll take them. It’s time for rounds and I need some exercise.’
    Briggs nodded and moved to accompany him. He said, ‘That bunch are usually very good at switching off lights and locking doors and windows--we haven’t caught them out in nearly three years.’
    ‘That’s what I like to hear,’ said Carson. ‘But I can do without your company. You two make some coffee and talk about me behind my back until I get back. In case you’ve forgotten I like it black with three lumps and ...’ ‘... Two plain biscuits,’ said Briggs, grinning.
    Carson had chosen to walk up to the design office, not because he needed the exercise but because at this time of night the lift could be heard all over the building and, if it was not heard while he was supposedly moving from floor to floor, the two patrol officers might wonder if something was wrong. As things were they would be expecting him to check all the floors on foot and would not expect to hear the lift until just before his return to the office. And if they needed him for something they, being somewhat elderly and beefy individuals, would come looking for him in the lift, giving plenty of warning of their approach.
    He was intending to spend all the available time in the design office.
    All the windows, filing cabinets and waste-baskets in Daniels’s office were secured, locked and empty respectively. No documents had chanced to fall behind or between the office furniture, no used sheets of carbon paper were lying balled-up and unnoticed in a corner and there were no scratch pads lying around which showed indentations from the writing on preceding pages. But on the long, baize-topped conference table near the freshly cleaned blackboard there was a crisp, neatly folded drawing whose reference number and title were partially obscured by the overflow from an ashtray.
    Three cigarette butts and a small quantity of ash had spilled on to the drawing and the baize. There seemed to be a strange hint of order to this untidiness, in the positioning of the butts, the ash and the angle made by the drawing against the edge of the table.
    The cleaning staff for this particular building had long since