by Mike Ripley
Not that Oliver was an ogre, a philanderer, a drug addict or white-slaver; he was rather a good and kind man. True, he was a musician, but not a long-haired, guitar-scraping loud one; in fact, quite the opposite, as his instrument of choice was the gentle harpsichord and his repertoire limited to the late eighteenth century – sadly a repertoire also limited in its twentieth-century demand. Which was at the heart of the problem with Oliver – or the problem as perceived by Lord Breeze: he was virtually penniless and, with the exception of the ability to give piano (or harpsichord) lessons or to teach music in elementary schools, he had no visible means of earning a living.
Oliver was the sort of young man unlikely to be bothered a single jot by such considerations. He was of modest intelligence, modest tastes and little ambition, who floated through life without, seemingly, the need to dirty his hands scrabbling for money or possessions. His soulmate, Lavinia, also floated through life but for different reasons. Thanks to the wealth of Lord Breeze, his only daughter would never have to chip her nail polish in the sordid scrum of gainful employment and certainly had never expected to. Much to the surprise of those who knew them, the differences in their respective financial circumstances and prospects did not appear to be a sleeping policeman on the road to a secure marriage, for the couple clearly adored each other and there are some things which cannot be expressed on a balance sheet.
That was why, when Lavinia nudged Oliver sharply in the ribs just after four a.m. on a cold and frosty February morning and hissed, ‘Darling wake up! There’s somebody rummaging around downstairs!’ Oliver did exactly that.
He woke but, apart from his eyelids, he did not move a muscle. The fireplace in the master bedroom had been removed and the central heating still not fully installed, and Oliver was determined to remain in the cocoon he had created with his half-share of the five blankets and the car rug under which the couple sheltered from the draughts of the yet-to-be-replaced sash window.
‘It’s probably one of the archaeologists pottering around making tea,’ said Oliver, straining his ears for any sound out of the ordinary night-time concerto of rattling window panes, creaking floorboards and settling roof tiles.
‘Nonsense,’ said his wife firmly, ‘they’re all in the Orangery,’ adding pointedly, ‘because it’s warmer than this damned house, and anyway they have their own kettle. Besides, it’s the dead of night and they’re never around before dawn. Listen!’
Next to her, Oliver used his shoulder blades to move his head infinitesimally up the pillow until his chin was clear of the blankets. The bedroom was in pitch darkness, any moonlight repelled by the heavy curtains hung to minimize draughts, but Oliver imagined he could see his breath frosting, which only added to his conviction that it would be foolish to leave the snugness of his nest. But, dammit, his wife was right. He had heard a noise, a distinct thump, which could not be explained by the house easing its old bones.
‘Dining room?’ he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
‘More like the study, I think,’ Lavinia replied calmly and quietly across the surface of a white, ice-cold pillow.
There was another muffled thud and Oliver felt his wife stiffen. He knew by instinct that her delicate fists would be clenched tight.
‘Do you think it’s an animal that’s got in?’ he said slowly, hoping to diffuse the tension.
‘The wildlife around here isn’t stupid,’ whispered Lavinia. ‘They know it’s warmer out there on the saltings than inside this house. It must be an intruder.’
Oliver smothered the urge to giggle. ‘A burglar? What have we got worth stealing?’
‘Only Hattie,’ Lavinia said softly, the mischief in her voice muffled by the blankets she was quivering under.
‘Hattie? Burglars don’t steal harpsichords, darling, unless they’ve got a truck parked outside.’
‘I know that, dearest, but now you simply have to go and look, don’t you.’
It was not a question, nor a proposition up for debate; it was a statement by a wife who knew her husband only too well. Oliver carefully peeled back the blankets and swung his legs out of bed, his toes urgently seeking shelter inside the wool slippers parked strategically on the carpet and his fingers scrabbling over the bed to retrieve the woollen dressing gown spread there as an extra blanket.
Once insulated, but still shivering, he slid across the bedroom, his hands outstretched in front of him until he located the door handle, turned it and eased the door open. On the landing there was some light as the tall, rectangular window here was un-curtained and Oliver paused at the top of the staircase, allowing his eyes to adjust before he began to walk carefully down the steps, pausing only once when he heard another distinct bump and what could have been a muzzled oath. Lavinia had been right: whatever or whoever the intruder was, they were in the study, just across the hall, the door nearest the hall’s front door.
But at the foot of the staircase, Oliver turned back on himself and edged his way along and under the run of the staircase until, by touch alone, he located the cupboard under the stairs where the inevitable jetsam of any household is stored. For a moment, Oliver paused, then took the risk of reaching into the cupboard, locating the light switch and flicking it on. It was, he knew, only a twenty-five-watt bulb in there and any spillage of light would be unlikely to be noticed under the door of the study further along.
It took Oliver longer than he had hoped to locate what he was looking for, as he had to carefully move several pairs of Wellington boots, four walking sticks, an empty picnic hamper, a croquet mallet and an ironing board he had never seen before to one side and without making a noise. At last, he could reach what he wanted without the contents of the cupboard spilling out into the hallway: a battered duffle bag hanging from a bent nail hook. He took it and stepped carefully backwards into the hall, working the drawstrings with both hands to stretch the neck of the bag open.
Plunging his right arm deep into bag, he located two three-inch cartridges, one of which he slipped into the pocket of his dressing gown; the other he put to his lips and clenched the brass base cap between his teeth. Then he drew from the bag a Belgian folding .410 shotgun with a skeletal butt, a remarkably light, single-barrelled weapon which he had been assured was useful for eradicating rats assuming they came within range, moved slowly and were feeling suicidal. Oliver straightened the gun until it clicked into one long piece, pressed the side lever to open the breech and loaded the cartridge he had held between his chattering teeth. He gently closed the breech and thumbed back the hammer. With the gun at port arms, he advanced on the closed door of the study.
He strained to hear anything which might provide a clue as to what was behind the door, pressing the side of his head up against its solid oak panelling. He was instantly rewarded, but in a way he least expected, and it took his brain several seconds to decipher the sound which reached his ears. In any other circumstances, the tumble and click of a key being turned in a lock would have been a perfectly normal, almost comforting sound, unless the ear hearing it belonged to someone in prison. In these circumstances, it was bizarre. The intruder had turned the key from the inside; the burglar was not breaking in but locking himself in.
Without thinking, Oliver grabbed the handle and rattled the study door, and was rewarded by a bump and a curse from the other side, followed by a discordant screech which he recognized as coming from the base keys of Hattie the harpsichord as somebody or something fell against them. Oliver’s brain registered the sound of his beloved harpsichord and immediately felt a flush of anger that some criminal might be blundering about in the dark damaging it, then came another familiar domestic sound, that of the sash window squeaking in protest – as all the windows in the house did – as it was opened. That meant, Oliver realized furiously, the intruder was standing on his beloved Hattie in order to haul up the sash window. A further two or three seconds passed before it sank into Oliver’s brain that this meant the intruder was in the process of escaping.
; ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ he shouted at the study door then loped towards the front door. As he slammed back the bolts top and bottom and then turned the large iron key in the impressive lock, he heard Lavinia’s voice from the upper storey.
‘Oliver, are you all right? What’s going on down there?’
‘Stay upstairs, darling, don’t come down.’
Oliver heaved the door open, levelled his gun and stepped out into the cold, inky night. He registered that the sash window of the study was pushed up and fully open and a shadowy figure like a tall, flapping crow was running down the path through the wintry stubble of the rose garden towards the drive and the road beyond.
Oliver brought the shotgun up to his shoulder and let fly, to be rewarded by a distant cry of ‘Bloody hell!’ but no slowing in the pace of the fugitive. He pressed the side lever to eject the spent cartridge and fumbled in his dressing-gown pocket for a replacement, but before he could reload the lights in the hallway behind him came on, spilling out through the open door, illuminating him as if he were an attacking soldier caught in a searchlight.
‘Was that the breakfast gong I heard?’ asked a languid voice from inside the house. ‘Or are we actually hunting for our breakfast? As we’re still months off the grouse season and it’s the middle of the night, I can only assume that it will be either bat or owl on the menu. Frankly, I think they’re both overrated and I will probably stick to Corn Flakes.’
‘Nope,’ said the American girl, ‘we didn’t hear diddly-squat.’
‘Sound sleepers, are you?’ asked Mr Campion.
‘We had help.’ The girl smiled broadly at her elderly passenger. It was a beautiful smile, full of perfect teeth, but Mr Campion would have preferred the smiler kept her eyes on the road. ‘Not dope or pills, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Nothing was further from my mind,’ Campion lied politely.
‘We’d been drinking,’ the girl said with relish, ‘and in this country it’s legal! Where I come from you have to be twenty-one to buy booze.’
‘And yet you can drive at – what – sixteen? Interesting.’
‘Not as interesting as being able to buy beer without some guy demanding ID. That was fun! I think I’m gonna enjoy this vacation.’
Mr Campion pressed his glasses more firmly into his face and wondered if his driver would be insulted if he fastened the seat belt provided. She seemed blissfully unaware of this safety feature so thoughtfully fitted by Volkswagen.
‘So where,’ he said, to take his mind off the vehicle’s increasing speed on the narrow lane running alongside the salty mud banks of the River Bright, ‘did all this imbibing take place? No doubt there was carousing as well. Was it the Hythe Inn at Heronhoe, which I am told is the haunt of old sea-dogs and pirates, or the half-timbered, if faded, charms of the King’s Head in Sweethearting?’
‘Neither,’ said his chauffeuse, twisting the steering wheel dramatically. ‘Was that what you guys call black ice? We didn’t go pub crawling as you limeys would say – hey, you don’t mind me calling you limeys, do you?’
‘Not at all, Yank,’ grinned Campion, ‘though by virtue of my great age and the rules of chivalry I feel obliged to call you Miss Aird.’
‘Precious.’
‘I wouldn’t say that, merely good manners.’
‘No, you must call me Precious – it’s my name: Precious Simcox Aird.’
‘How interesting, and you must call me Albert.’
‘Like the memorial?’
‘Exactly so. In fact, Memorial is my middle name. Now, tell me, Precious, how long have you been an archaeologist?’
‘About six months, off and on, with breaks.’
‘Breaks? Would those be study breaks, the sort of thing we would call reading week? My son went to Harvard and he was always talking about breaks. I think spring break was his favourite.’
‘I’ve not actually started college yet,’ said Precious, flicking back a long blonde fringe which, to Campion’s concern, did nothing but obscure her view of the road ahead. ‘Pop thought I should take a year out to consider my options, which for my mom means looking around for a husband, but Pop signed me on as a volunteer on a dig in New Mexico on an abandoned Navajo village. There was no way I would find a husband there,’ she ended triumphantly.
‘I am sure it was good practical experience and your breaks were for more theoretical study, I presume.’
‘Heck, no! The breaks were for surfing. I’m a California girl, after all.’
Mr Campion looked suitably impressed.
‘You must find England very dull.’
‘Little bit, but buying the beer yesterday, that was cool.’
‘So our pubs meet with your approval, do they?’
‘Ain’t been into one yet – hey, maybe you could show me a few – but we found this liquor store in Heronhoe. What do you call them? Off-licences … something like that? They had these really big cans of beer, called them Party Sevens, so we took one back to the hall and had a party. I was the most popular person there since I had a church key.’
‘I’m sorry, did you say church key?’
‘Yeah, an opener. You know, those pointy metal things for punching a hole in the top. Everyone has one in the States for opening cans of soda.’
‘Fascinating,’ Mr Campion said to himself. ‘I can see your fellow diggers would have been impressed. How are you getting on with your team?’
‘We haven’t had much time to get to know each other but Si and Dave seem OK; not sure about Cat, though. She’s not a party girl, at least not on last night’s performance, and she says her prayers every night before turning in. I think she must have got religion.’
‘But you all get on all right, sleeping together in the Orangery?’ Campion asked in his best I’m-not-really-prying voice.
‘Oh, sure – boys at one end, gals at the other, all dead respectable; no monkey business going on.’ The girl turned and flashed her smile again. ‘It’s so goddam cold in there at night nobody dares get out of their sleeping bags. So what did we miss last night?’
‘Actually it was earlier this morning, about four o’clock.’
‘I thought in England four o’clock was teatime; I didn’t realize there was a four o’clock in the morning.’
Mr Campion laughed out loud. He was definitely warming to this girl.
‘So what happened at four a.m.?’
‘Oh, something and nothing,’ said Campion smoothly. ‘Just a bit of a kerfuffle.’
Now it was the girl’s turn to laugh, and as she did she beat out a short drum roll with the palms of her hands on the van’s steering wheel, somewhat to Mr Campion’s concern.
‘Kerfuffle. Is that a word?’
‘A perfectly good one,’ said Campion, ‘which I think we borrowed from the Gaelic or perhaps the Irish; it means a minor confusion. Our host, Oliver, was disturbed from his slumbers by some local wildlife which had got in through a downstairs window, so he got out his little rifle – what you would call a “vermin” gun, I suppose.’
‘Varmint,’ drawled Precious Aird.
‘Quite so. Anyway, Oliver took a pot-shot but didn’t hit anything.’
‘What was it? A fox?’
‘No, probably a badger. You have badgers in America? Usually quite harmless chappies though they have a reputation as burglars because of their black-and-white markings, like the traditional burglar’s jersey.’
The white-haired man trained his spectacles on the girl’s face for a reaction but there was no discernible change in her expression.
‘Yeah, we have badgers, but don’t you mean raccoons?’
‘An animal with similar felonious mimesis thanks to their little masks. We don’t have raccoons over here.’
To his consternation, Mr Campion’s otherwise charming young driver gave a most unladylike nasal snort of laughter, and for a moment Campion thought the aftershock would swing the Volkswagen over to the American side of the road.
‘You ta
lk funny,’ giggled Precious as she recovered both her and the VW’s composure. ‘And I don’t get most of it, but I think you could be cool if you weren’t a Brit. Is this where we turn?’
Mr Campion gave the road ahead his full attention on the grounds that one of them really ought to.
‘No, keep right on into Pontisbright. That road leads down to the river and The Beckoning Lady.’
‘Is that a pub we could visit?’
‘No, it’s not a public house,’ said Campion quietly, ‘it’s a private house, quite a well-known one. I used to know the people who lived there rather well.’
‘But not any more?’
‘No, sadly, not any more.’
There were clear signs of habitation now, with cottages, bungalows and the occasional barn to the right of the road and water meadows to the left leading down a slight slope to the river lined with trees which looked stark and faintly menacing in their leafless wintry state.
‘This is Pontisbright,’ said Campion, assuming the role of navigator. ‘We need the first right turn alongside the heath. It should be signposted to a place called Great Kepesake.’
‘If there’s a Great Kepesake, what’s Lousy Kepesake like?’
‘Oh, very funny,’ said Campion with a smile. ‘If I had a guinea for every time I’d heard that, although it is usually a less-polite version, then I would be a very rich man.’
‘What’s a guinea?’ asked the girl with an almost straight face.
‘Oh, just drive, woman! Here’s the turning – don’t forget to indicate. That’s it, now straight up here, past the pub – it’s called The Gauntlett for future reference, and you’ll see the church at the top of the hill.’
‘Who is it we’re meeting?’
‘I’m meeting an old friend,’ Campion said firmly, ‘and while I think you’ll be interested in meeting him, we may need to have words in private, so forgive us if we are rude and ignore you for a few moments. Perhaps you could take the opportunity to explore the church. Would you mind awfully?’