The Insulators Read online

  Copyright & Information

  The Insulators

  First published in 1972

  Copyright: John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1972-2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2010 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755128907 9780755128907 Pdf

  0755128915 9780755128914 Mobi

  0755120418 9780755120413 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.

  Creasy wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:

  Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

  Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

  He also founded the British Crime Writers’ Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.

  BOOK I

  The Project

  1: The Noise

  “I can’t stand this noise,” Paul Taylor cried. “It’s driving me mad!”

  And he both looked and sounded as if he were beside himself, normally pleasant face distorted, mild grey eyes glaring, skin pale to ashen, hands clenched and body quivering. He stood at the window of a small room in a factory laboratory in the north of England, on a mezzanine floor built in one corner overlooking the main machine shop.

  A dozen machines were there, embedded in the concrete floor, throbbing, throbbing, throbbing. The floor shook. The walls shook. The ceiling shook. And the roar was constant, never slackening, never ceasing. It was like the growl deep in the throat of an enormous creature; just as it never grew less, so it never grew louder.

  Men stood at the machines or moved among them, some actually mouthing words into little mouthpieces built into the machines; one man’s face broke into a broad, idiot-grin as he said something while at another machine a man threw back his head and roared with laughter, which did not sound above the roar. Each man wore a kind of earmuff, to keep out not the cold but the noise.

  Rurrr-hurrr – Rurrr-hurr – Rurrr . . .

  Up here, on the half-floor, Paul Taylor swung round, clenched hands shaking above his head, face even more distorted; and he mouthed the words again and again. “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it!” The other three men and a girl stopped work at their benches and watched him as he strode towards the door. The girl, dark-haired and with enormous brown eyes which touched a plain, broad-featured face with beauty, put down a set of white porcelain or glass-ceramic insulators and stepped across to Taylor. She wore a knee-length white smock which only hinted at her figure but showed attractive legs and ankles.

  Taylor went out and slammed the door; but the noise of the slam was drowned by the roar.

  One of the men mouthed words which the girl picked up by inference or lip-reading; she could not possibly hear them.

  “Don’t follow him, Janey.”

  Her fingers were on the white glass-ceramic of the handle, and for a moment she hesitated, then, in deliberate defiance, she opened the door and went outside into a long, narrow, grey-painted passage, which was more like a tunnel with its arched ceiling and windowless walls. The noise was less, here; so was the reverberation; but there was still a dull roar like a wall against the ears, and still aquiver, as if movement was coming from the centre of the earth.

  Taylor stood by the far end of the tunnel, leaning against the wall, head bent, face buried in his hands. Slowly, Jane Wylie approached him and put a hand on his shoulder; a hand as beautifully shaped as her legs.

  He shook it off, roughly.

  She moved in front of him, so that when he looked up he could not fail to see her; and she did not move or touch him again. In her eyes there was such deep compassion. They stood like that for a long time, until suddenly, in a muted explosion, Taylor spat: “I can’t stand it any more!”

  Jane didn’t speak, but waited in silence until at last he lowered his hands from his face and stared at her, tears streaking his cheeks, his eyes lacklustre against his flushed face.

  “I tell you I can’t,” he muttered.

  “I know how you feel,” she tried to soothe.

  “No you don’t!” he denied petulantly. “Nobody possibly could! If you knew how I felt you wouldn’t be able to bear it, either.” When she didn’t speak or move to touch him he went on in a louder voice: “It seems to start inside me, that’s the awful thing. It’s as if someone planted a dynamo inside my body and I can’t switch it off. Do you understand that?” he almost screamed. “It’s inside me! It doesn’t matter where I am, who I’m with, it’s there all the time. I can’t leave it behind me ever. I tell you it’s driving me mad!”

  “You need some rest,” she still soothed. “Some rest and—”

  “I can’t sleep, I can’t sit back and read, if I watch television I feel as if the set’s going to blow up. I’ve got to get away, I tell you. I can’t stay here any longer.”

  “Paul,” Jane Wylie said. “You must.”

  “But I can’t!” he screamed. Now his lips were drawn back over his teeth, very white except where one incisor was gold-capped, and his face still very flushed, as if he had high fever. “I simply can’t stay!”

  “They won’t let you go.”

  “Then I’ll have to run away!”

  “They won’t let you,” she insisted.

  “They’ll bloody well have to!”

  “Paul,” said Jane Wylie. “You must ask for a holiday, a week or two away from here will do you a world of good. They might let you go for as short a time as that.”

  “You know they wouldn’t,” he sobbed. “You said yourself they’d never let anyone go from this awful place. I’ll have to escape.” Suddenly he moved forward and gripped her hands so tightly that she winced; but she did not draw back. “Janey! You won’t tell them, will you. Promise you won’t tell them!”

  “I won’t tell them a thing
,” she promised, and then she began not to free her hands but to return his grip very firmly.

  The compassion in her eyes seemed to be touched with pain. “But they will find out, you must realise that.”

  “They can’t know if you don’t tell them!” He thrust himself forward again, snatched his hands away and thrust them, fingers crooked, towards her throat. “Swear you won’t tell them, or I’ll choke the life out of you.”

  His cold fingers touched her warm flesh, and began to press.

  Jane Wylie did not move, nor did she try to protect herself; instead, she stood there as if a willing victim. She could feel the vibrations coming from his fingers, he was indeed a man obsessed, a man in deadly fear. The pressure grew tighter, the vibration fiercer, the noise seemed worse than when they had come into this passage, as if a door or a window had opened to let more noise in.

  And a door had opened.

  At the end of the passage behind Paul Taylor, but in front of Jane, a small man appeared. He was not a dwarf; not even a miniature man; yet his size and stature made him immediately noticeable. He was thin and dressed in a pale grey suit so perfect a fit that it was as if it had been built onto him. He wore a purple turtleneck sweater beneath the jacket, which was cut in a wide V but had narrow lapels.

  Standing motionless, with Taylor’s hands tight about her neck, Jane saw him, and started. If Taylor realised something had made her jump he did not show it, but the pressure of his fingers grew tighter, the twist of his lips grew more vicious, the glistening in his eyes was demoniac.

  “You won’t tell them!” he ground out. “I won’t let you, I—”

  For the first time, she moved. Very quickly, effortlessly, she did the one thing she could to make sure that he let her go: she brought her knee up into his groin with sharp impact. He gave a choking gasp, let go, staggered back and then bent double. He did not fall but leaned against the wall, drawing in his breath in little squealing sounds.

  The man from the end of the passage approached quickly yet quietly; all his movements were precise. He had regular features but none were outstanding, he was not handsome. His complexion was sallow, such as that of a man who spent most of his time indoors. His eyes were pale grey, and not so much lifeless as preoccupied.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, above Taylor’s heavy breathing.

  “Yes,” she said. “Perfectly.”

  “Why did you wait so long before defending yourself?”

  “I hoped he would stop without being forced to.”

  “I see.” The man’s voice was flat and unemotional; it seemed strange that he could talk in such a conversational, matter-of-fact way. “Has he been behaving like this for long?”

  “Don’t you know?” Jane asked.

  The other did not speak at once. There was no disapproval in his expression and yet there was a sense of disapproval in his manner and in his words, which came out very deliberately. “Whether I know or not is beside the point, Jane. I asked you a question and I expect an answer. I will repeat the question: has he been like this for long?”

  “He is worse today than I have ever known him,” Jane answered stiffly.

  “How long has he been showing signs of emotional strain?”

  “I’ve noticed it for about a month,” she answered; but in fact it had been for a much longer period, although no one could prove that.

  “Yet you did not report it?” he observed.

  She hesitated for what seemed a very long time.

  As they had talked, and now as she waited, two things became apparent. The roar of noise was subdued again, because the door through which the man had come had closed and latched of its own accord. At the same time the gasping and wheezing of Taylor’s breathing had almost stopped, and although he still leaned, crouching against the wall, his body was still. He did not look up, and showed no sign that he was aware of the fact that they were discussing him as if he had no idea they were there.

  Jane Wylie was aware of the tension in him; and she was afraid, both for him and for herself.

  At last, she answered: “I didn’t report to you because I had assumed that you would already be aware of it.”

  “I see. I also see that you need reminding that your loyalty should be absolute. If you are aware of any situation which might affect the efficiency of a colleague and so the effectiveness of your department, you should report it.” He paused, only to ask very sharply: “Have you discussed this with any of the others in your department?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Are they aware of Taylor’s emotional sickness?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t discussed it with them, nor have they mentioned it to me.”

  The man said: “Very well.” Then he shifted his position slightly, and looked at Paul Taylor.

  Jane was suddenly vividly conscious of the way Professor Capelli, the head research chemist, would sometimes look at rats or rabbits or any creature on which he was experimenting. It was with absolute coldness and indifference: he saw the animal not as a living creature but as an inanimate object; and that was how this man was looking at Taylor now. That was bad enough, but far worse was the fact that Taylor was obviously aware of it. He began to shiver, and seemed compelled to look up into the man’s face, as if the other’s effect was mesmeric. He did not glance towards Jane, just stared with pathetic helplessness at the other man. His eyes were filled with mute appeal, as if he knew it was not worth putting into words.

  Jane felt sudden, awful panic.

  It was as if she were watching a man being sentenced to death.

  That was nonsense! Utterly ridiculous. And yet the thought affected her breathing, which became faster and more shallow. Suddenly, aware of this physical effect, the sense of panic grew worse, for if her breathing became excited, then she would be seen as emotional, and they had no use for people who allowed their emotions to get out of control.

  Gradually, Taylor began to straighten up and for the first time he tried to speak. “I—” he began, gulped, and tried again. “I—I’m all—” he stopped, seemed to fight for breath, and then actually shouted: “I’m all right!” Now he was upright, fists clenched, eyes staring, and the small man was so intent on him that Jane dared to hope that he had not noticed her agitated breathing.

  “I’m all right!” Taylor insisted, this time much more quietly, but there was less doubt than ever of his fear.

  “I am very glad to hear it,” replied the small man. “Why did you come out of the laboratory?”

  “I—I needed some fresh air.”

  “The air in the laboratory, as in the rest of the plant, is perfectly air-conditioned, as you know quite well.”

  “That—that’s not the same.” A streak of defiance showed in Taylor and his voice sharpened. “You know it’s not.”

  “I know you lied to me,” the small man accused.

  Taylor’s eyes blazed. “I didn’t lie!”

  “I will ask you the question once again,” said the small man in a tone which suggested that his patience was nearly at an end. “Why did you come out of the laboratory?”

  Taylor didn’t answer at once, but stood in miserable defiance. If he gave a different reason then, he would have been caught in a lie; if he gave the same one then he wouldn’t be believed. It was the kind of dilemma in which everyone who worked here, who served those in command, was likely to find himself. Sooner or later everyone seemed to be pushed into such a position with a remorselessness which was the most ruthless thing she had ever known.

  Taylor drew in a hissing breath. “It was the noise,” he muttered.

  “Speak up, man. I didn’t hear you.”

  Taylor raised both hands, which were clenched as they had been when he had placed them about Jane’s throat. He was only a foot or two away from the small man, and trembling violently. It seemed to Jane in those moments of sheer terror that he would attack the man as he had attacked her, and she was quite sure that if he did, he would receive no mercy and
might be made to suffer terribly.

  He was glaring; his lips were working; his shivering grew worse; he was like that for a long time, then slowly he began to slacken and relax until his arms fell by his side and the tightness at his lips eased.

  He muttered: “It was the noise.”

  “Louder,” ordered the small man.

  A few notes higher but now without showing any kind of resentment, Taylor repeated what he had said in a tone of great clarity.

  “What don’t you like about the noise?” the other demanded.

  “It gives me a headache.”

  “Have you ever reported this?”

  “No,” Taylor answered, his voice falling again. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I—I thought—I thought you would disapprove.”

  “You thought! Why didn’t you find out? What made you think that we are inhuman creatures, indifferent to your well-being?” When Taylor did not answer the man barked: “Is that what you thought?”

  “I—I—no!” He was beginning to gasp again. “No, it isn’t!”

  “Then why didn’t you come to me for help?”

  Now, Paul was standing again in that aggressive stance, hands clenched and held in front of his chest, chin out, shoulders thrusting forward. For the second time Jane felt the rise of panic like a suffocating pressure within her. If Paul struck him, the little man would become a devil.

  “Now don’t be silly,” the little man said, sharply, but in a not unfriendly way. “You need a rest, and you shall have one. No one can work forever without a break.” For him, he was quite jovial. “Now, come along, Taylor – fetch your personal things from the laboratory, and come with me.”

  Paul did not hesitate; it was as if the little man had subdued all resistance, all fight, and so all spirit and courage. When they went into the laboratory the other three glanced up but made no comment. Paul simply collected a few oddments – pens, a penknife, some keys and loose change, took off his smock, and walked out in the little man’s wake.