by L. C. Tyler
I went over to the relevant piece of woodwork and pressed, just as Ethelred had done. Various Victorian cogs and pulleys whirred away efficiently behind the panelling and the outline of the entrance appeared. Like the lack of dust, the lack of noise was telling. This was a well-maintained Victorian mechanism – not some long-unused and rusty piece of ironwork. I ran my hand over the panelling. It felt good to the touch. It was well-polished 0ak that would yield plenty of fingerprints – mine for the most part, I realized, though possibly still with odd traces of the murderer’s.
Time to go through a few drawers.
Most of what was in Shagger’s desk was of minimal interest. Ethelred hopefully still had the poem safely stuffed in his pocket, and would remember to take it out before he sent the trousers to the cleaners. The middle drawer was now just a receptacle for high-class stationery. Then, nestling at the bottom of the lowest drawer I found something really interesting. Had Shagger been hiding this from his wife? And why? I flicked through it and it proved quite rewarding. I tried cramming the whole thing into my handbag but it was a bit of a tight fit, so I tore out the relevant pages and stuffed them well down amongst the many useful things that my bag usually contains.
Back to the secret passage then.
Taking a torch with me, I pushed the panelling to one side as before and stepped into the gloom. I pulled the panel closed behind me. It clicked into place. It felt sort of cosy once you were inside. The sounds from the house were muffled. I tiptoed along the stone floor as I reckoned the killer must have done. I found the lever at the far end. Another well-maintained piece of machinery opened the panelling for me. I was in the billiard room. I pushed the woodwork closed. I had travelled from the library to the billiard room in total secrecy and in about thirty seconds. Had I bolted the library door, there would now be no way back in, other than breaking a window or finally locating that elusive oak bench. I checked the billiard-room windows – they were fastened but not locked. I gave one a push – it had a rubbish catch and swung open with minimal pressure. If I could have been arsed, I could have completed my reconstruction by jumping out of the window onto the lawn and making a break for the shrubbery.
Instead, I walked round by the corridor (which I noticed took slightly longer) and back in through the library door. In my absence somebody had been sitting in my chair, and it wasn’t Goldilocks.
Ethelred and a badly dressed woman looked up at me from where they were seated. She already looked cross but I reckoned I could wind her annoyance up a notch or two.
‘No, Ethelred,’ Felicity Hooper said, looking in my direction. ‘This really is the last straw. I’m willing to talk to you, but I am not being interrogated by some panel of . . . of . . . Well, I’m not. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Elsie’s just passing by,’ said Ethelred with more hope than genuine conviction.
‘What gave you that idea?’ I asked.
‘I’m going back to London,’ said La Hooper, getting up.
Fine by me.
‘Look, Felicity,’ said Ethelred, ‘you’ve kindly stayed on to help us. It would make no sense at all going back home now without telling us what you saw. I am sure that Elsie wouldn’t mind leaving . . .’ Again, the beseeching look in my direction. ‘Alternatively, of course, I don’t see the harm in Elsie staying and . . .’ He turned to the stony-faced Hooper woman.
Poor Ethelred. I wasn’t sure which of us was the rock and which of us was the hard place, but I had no doubt as to who was between the two.
‘Perhaps . . .’ he began, looking at each of us in turn.
‘Oh, very well,’ muttered the Hooper woman. ‘Let’s just get this out of the way, shall we? What can I tell you that the others haven’t?’
‘How long have you known Robert?’ Ethelred asked quickly, before she could change her mind.
‘What’s that got to do with the price of fish?’ demanded Hooper. But I thought that I detected just a hint of a blush on her unmade-up cheek.
‘I’m just trying to get some background,’ said Ethelred. ‘Robert told us that we were not just some random group of people. What connected us may be important.’
‘I’d known him a very long time, as you are well aware.’
Ethelred looked puzzled.
‘We did meet occasionally in Oxford,’ said Hooper.
‘Who – you and Robert?’
‘Robert and I, you and Robert, all three of us.’
‘You were at Oxford? Which college were you at?’ asked Ethelred, still groping his way towards an identification.
‘I wasn’t at any college. I was training as a physio at the Radcliffe.’
‘Ah,yes . . .’ said Ethelred.
‘All right, since you obviously don’t remember me, Felicity Hooper isn’t my real name any more than Amanda Collins is yours.’
‘So, at Oxford I would have known you as . . .’
‘Amanda Collins.’
Ethelred’s mouth looked as if it was saying ‘oh’, but no sound emerged.
‘I went out with Robert in his first year,’ she continued. ‘Not for that long, perhaps, but long enough that I do remember meeting you from time to time.’
‘I always wondered,’ said Ethelred, ‘where I got that name from.’
‘You got it from me,’ said Felicity Hooper.
‘How funny,’ said Ethelred.
‘Amusing? For whom?’ demanded Hooper.
‘Well, I mean—’
‘When I started writing fiction, Ethelred, I had planned to write under my own name. My publisher informed me, however, that this would be inadvisable since there was already an established writer called Amanda Collins and it would be unwise to allow the public to confuse my work with the drivel that the other Collins was chucking out twice a year. I’d worked out that Collins was just a nom de plume for some third-rate hack. When I found that the third-rate hack was you, I saw it as a strange sort of compliment, I suppose, but since you clearly don’t even remember me, I no longer have even that small crumb of comfort.’
‘No, of course I remember you,’ said Ethelred, but not in a way that would have convinced even the most charitable of former acquaintances.
‘Whatever,’ said Hooper. ‘I went out with Robert for two terms, actually. He was known as “Shagger” then – a nickname not bestowed lightly or without mature consideration.’
‘He was good then?’ I enquired.
‘He was crap,’ said Hooper with a sudden vehemence. ‘He earned the name by dint of quantity rather than quality. Of course, I was a virgin when I first encountered him. I had nothing to compare him with. The first time, you have no idea whether you’re getting the proper service or not, do you? You just decide that sex isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be – if you run into somebody like Shagger Muntham.’
‘So,’ said Ethelred,‘he was your first . . .’
‘Absolutely. It was his first time too.’
‘Really?’ asked Ethelred.
‘I certainly hope so,’ said Hooper. ‘Otherwise some poor girl got him when he was even less clued-up. It doesn’t really bear thinking about. Shagger’s theory on most things, which he extended to sex, was that if he was having a good time everybody else was having a good time.’
‘And you put up with that for two terms?’ I asked. I was beginning to see her plucky little heroines in context.
‘Well, from late Michaelmas term until midway through Hilary’ said Hooper.
‘When you dumped him?’ I asked.
‘When it all just drifted to a conclusion,’ said Hooper without bitterness. ‘I could put up with the bad sex. It was the fact that he was always covered in mud and drunk that really wore me down. I qualified and moved to London shortly after. Didn’t see him again for years – not until about twelve months ago, actually, when he wrote to me to say how much he’d enjoyed one of my books.’
‘Did you know any of the other guests last night?’ asked Ethelred.
‘Well,you,’ said
Hooper pointedly. ‘And you,’ she added, looking briefly in my direction.
‘None of the others?’
‘I’m not a lawyer, banker or doctor. I had no reason to have met them.’
‘You left the room briefly during dinner . . .’
‘To go to the loo. Do you want me to spell it out for you?’
‘No,’ said Ethelred, wisely.
‘I didn’t murder Robert,’ said La Hooper. ‘I didn’t need to murder Robert. But I did need a pee badly.’
‘Can you think of any reason why anyone would wish to murder him?’
‘Where do you want me to start? He cost a lot of people a lot of money towards the end of his banking career; some might feel a little aggrieved. There must be plenty of his ex-girlfriends out there. And their husbands. But above all – and you must have noticed this, Ethelred – Robert’s great talent was making people feel insignificant. He was a patronizing shit, to put it another way. He had the ability to be charming, but most of the time chose not to be. That can be quite a put-down. It can get up people’s noses. You can get killed for very much less.’
‘I’m not sure we’re making much progress.’
‘On the contrary, I think you’ve done very well,’ said Annabelle, reaching out to touch Ethelred’s arm.
Ethelred tugged at an ear (his own) and looked doubtful. ‘The only new lead is this man in a blue suit, seen in the garden.’
‘And the piece of blue fabric found by Elsie,’ said Annabelle. ‘And the cigarette butts.’
>‘And the secret passage,’ I added.
‘Exactly,’ said Annabelle, guiltily avoiding my penetrating gaze. ‘And the secret passage.’
‘Up to a point,’ said Ethelred. ‘We’ve found a secret passage but there’s no evidence it was used by anyone to get into or out of the library. Then, as I say, a couple of people think they saw somebody suspicious – possibly wearing a beanie. In the end it doesn’t amount to much.’
‘A beanie?’ asked Annabelle.
‘Clive thought so.’
‘We’re all tired,’ said Annabelle, ‘and we’re all naturally upset. Let’s call it a day and come back to it fresh tomorrow.’
‘Maybe I should speak to Gillian Maggs,’ said Ethelred.
‘Why?’ asked Annabelle.
‘She may have seen something earlier that day.’
‘Oh, I doubt it. She was in the kitchen most of the time.’
‘Still, I think I should just have a word with her. Mrs Michie said you would have the number.’
‘Did she? Yes, I must have it somewhere, I suppose. I’ll look it out for you tomorrow.’
‘I could phone her today.’
‘No, take a break. You can catch the end of the Sheep Fair. Elsie would enjoy that.’
Ah yes, the Sheep Fair. I had forgotten that.
‘Would I?’ I said.
‘Everyone goes to the Sheep Fair,’ said Annabelle.
Ethelred drove me back into the village, but not before he and Annabelle had had a short conversation out of my hearing. The truest thing that Annabelle had said that day was that we were all tired. Maybe I would be able to think more clearly tomorrow. After the Sheep Fair.
Thirteen
I cannot pretend our visit to Findon Sheep Fair was a great success.
‘So where exactly are the sheep?’ demanded Elsie.
‘There aren’t any,’ I said. ‘It’s still called the Sheep Fair, but there aren’t any sheep these days.’
‘Doesn’t the Trade Descriptions Act apply in Sussex?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to go on one of the nice merry-go-rounds?’
‘No, I want to look at sheep, just like you promised.’
‘Wouldn’t you like to purchase some charming examples of rural arts and crafts?’
‘Are they mainly made of wood and bits of old wool? Are they all coloured beige or grey?’
‘I expect so.’
‘You really know how to treat a girl right, don’t you?’
It was a warm early September afternoon. It had rained on and off for days, but now the sun shone on the ‘Sheep’ Fair. Local families, less concerned than Elsie about accurate nomenclature, had blocked Nepcote Lane with a crawling line of saloon cars and estates that stretched back to the centre of Findon village. On foot, we had overtaken the whole queue in five minutes or so. Now those at the front were being ushered efficiently into an adjacent field, and we were proceeding through the madding crowds of Nepcote Green. Elsie was good at negotiating throngs of this sort. Her technique had little to do with dodging and weaving and more to do with making it clear to oncoming traffic that it was entirely their problem. By sticking in her slipstream, I too made good progress. The ground was soft but not yet soft enough to be called muddy. The late summer sward was flattened and trampled dark green underfoot. The smell of crushed grass hung in the air. Inside the booths and marquees it intensified and mixed with mildew, sweat and the aroma of country crafts (two parts leather, one part lavender, one part pure nostalgia). It was what people were breathing, at that very moment, at country fairs up and down the land.
‘Do you want to try fishing for things at that stall over there?’
I indicated a round edifice painted bright yellow and red at which one or two children were trying to capture plastic ducks with short, hooked rods.
‘What do I get if I hook one?’ asked Elsie.
‘If it’s a prize-winning duck, then one of the things on the shelf there,’ I said.
Elsie eyed up the cuddly toys, the blow-up mallets and other enticements.
‘Which have an average value of what?’
‘A fiver, maybe.’
‘A fiver, absolute max. And with what chance of winning?’
‘Elsie, this is just for fun.’
‘You can’t afford fun, Tressider, unless you deliver that manuscript to me PDQ. Any progress yet?’
‘Lots,’ I said.
‘Do try to be more convincing when you lie,’ said Elsie. ‘Fiction is supposed to be what you’re good at.’
My gaze drifted back over the green to where Dave Peart was engaged in duck fishing. He had already won a giant inflatable mallet. I wondered briefly what people did with them, other than carry them around fairgrounds looking slightly embarrassed. Perhaps at another stall you could win inflatable nails.
‘That’ll be useful,’ said Elsie, watching as Peart was presented with a second, identical, inflatable. ‘Does everyone in the village come to this, then?’
‘Most people,’ I said. ‘Look, there’s Mrs Michie over there, selling cakes.’
‘As in “chocolate cake”?’ asked Elsie.
I was about to reply, but my agent had already gone.
‘I know Sir Robert’s dead,’ said Mrs Michie, a little defensively, ‘but I didn’t want to let the Women’s Institute down. Always have a stall here every year.’
I nodded. It was unreasonable to expect the entire Muntham household to go into full mourning, and Dave Peart could in any case be seen trying to win a coconut, impeded only slightly by the two mallets he was trying to control. Possibly other members of the Muntham Court staff were there too.
‘I suppose,’ I said to Mrs Michie, as Elsie calculated the calorific content of the various cakes in front of her, ‘I suppose you haven’t seen Gillian Maggs here?’
Mrs Michie had been rearranging what seemed to me to be a perfectly well-ordered display of cakes on the table in front of her. She paused at this point and stood up straight, her hands on her hips. ‘What if I have?’
‘I was just wondering,’ I said. ‘I need to talk to her.’
‘I know,’ said Mrs Michie. ‘You said. You’re doing quite a lot of talking, aren’t you? If Gill’s here, I expect she’ll be here to enjoy herself, not to answer questions.’
‘Well, yes, of course, but . . .’
‘It’s all a waste of your time, anyway. If there was something to find, the police would have found it. And I doubt you�
�ll get much out of Her Ladyship’s friends either.’
‘Won’t I?’
‘They’ll stick together as per usual. That’s what they’re good at. Anyway, there’s nothing Gill Maggs will be able to tell you.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘You do that.’
‘But if you did see her, could you say I was looking for her?’
‘If I see her. That’ll be three pounds fifty.’
‘Cheap at any price.’ Elsie counted out the money and her chosen cake was put into an old Tesco bag.
‘I can’t help feeling,’ I said to Elsie as we walked away, ‘that Mrs Michie doesn’t want us to talk to Gillian Maggs.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Elsie, looking down into the bag with affection. ‘You see, Mrs Michie still divides the world into “us” and “them”. Because you can employ the subjunctive – or at least you have some idea of its possible uses – and because you get invited to dinner at Muntham Court, you are “them”. Gillian Maggs, Dave Peart and John O’Brian are, however, “us”. If there’s any conflict of interest, it’s no contest which side she’ll be on.’
‘So, because I’m a writer, I’m “them”?’
‘Not just because you’re a writer,’ said Elsie, ‘though it doesn’t help your case.’
‘I’m sure I used to be “us”,’ I said.
‘Maybe a long time ago,’ said Elsie, patting my arm. ‘A very long time ago.’
‘Shall we just go back to the flat?’ I asked.
‘You should probably get on with some work. We need to keep your publisher happy. Just remember that writers are to publishers what sheep are to shepherds. Viewed collectively, you’re essential – in fact they’d look a bit silly without you. Individually, however, you are all just so many mutton chops and a woolly hat.’