Mr. Campion's Abdication

by Mike Ripley

  ‘Glad to be of help,’ said Lavinia.

  ‘Yer just couldn’t resist, could yer?’ said Lugg, examining the empty plate in front of him as if expecting a miraculous replenishment. ‘Calling in the local bluebottles, throwin’ your weight about teaching them how to do their jobs. Not that most of them don’t need a bit of help now and then.’

  ‘I am merely using the official channels, as recommended by our mutual chum Charlie Luke – to gather some local intelligence,’ said Campion with a sigh.

  ‘Intelligence gathering, is it? I thought that was my billet, ’aving gone undercover for yer in Heronhoe.’

  ‘Listen, old fruit, the last piece of word association that I would make, even if my life depended on it, would be “Lugg” followed immediately by “intelligence” but I cannot deny you have a rat-like cunning for sniffing out fellow rats. So have you anything to report?’

  Mr Lugg did his best to look aggrieved at this perceived sleight from his long-time friend and sometime employer, primarily by turning his planet-sized bald head to profile and jutting out his lower lip.

  ‘’Course I have, otherwise I’d have been having a lie-in listening to the seagulls fighting over the dustbins, which seems to be the main spectator sport over in Heronhoe. I ’ear people come from miles around to watch.’

  ‘Oh, do let’s have it if there’s anything to have.’ Campion’s face was immobile but Lavinia caught the sly wink of an eye aimed in her direction.

  ‘Right then,’ said Lugg, daintily pushing his plate, which had sadly remained empty, to one side, ‘I did as I was commanded and slipped into the social ’ierarchy of Heronhoe wivout causing barely a ripple.’

  ‘So you’ve spent one night there and not been arrested,’ Campion remarked. ‘Bully for you, that’s an improvement on your usual track record. Pray continue.’

  ‘You didn’t give me much to go on, just some airy-fairy description of your burglar disappearing into the night like a crow, I think you said. Well, you hit the bullseye there, I can tell you, because the odds-on favourite if it’s a bit of low-level breaking-and-entering you’re after in the parish of Heronhoe is a crow: Bill Crow, to be precise. Our Mr Crow ’as a reputation for cack-handed burglaries and amateur thievery and is generally thought of as the type wot gives an honest rogue a bad name. Officially he runs a rag-and-bone yard of sorts called the Heronhoe Emporium, though being near the sea they probably call it salvage, but Bill Crow’s your visitor from the other night – I’d stake my name and your pension on it. Any more tea in that pot, missus?’

  ‘Don’t indulge him, Lavinia,’ said Campion. ‘Once he gets his feet under a table he’s in for the duration. Any other news fit to report?’

  ‘The talk of all the public bars – for the saloon bars and lounges I cannot speak – is about this treasure hunt your lot seems to be on down the road, and you can bet five quid to a bag of toffees that was what prompted Bill Crow’s night on the prowl. Daft thing is nobody has any idea what this so-called treasure is made of. Could be gold doubloons or a knock-off Mona Lisa for all the locals know. They’re just convinced there’s a treasure of some sort, somewhere between this place and Sweethearting, though nobody’s seen it for thirty-five years, if there was ever anything to see in the first place.

  ‘Oh, and one piece of stop-press news: the arrival last night of some foreign television crew. That seems to have got tongues wagging, especially a rather tall blonde who seems to be the boss lady. They’ve been put up at Heronhoe’s one and only restaurant that isn’t a chip shop or a whelk stall, a place called Stephano’s. Eyetie, I reckon, does a lot of spag Bol and frothy coffee, not that I’ve had the chance to patronize it yet. The telly people turned up in one of them highly strung French cars, and you know what? It was a dead ringer for the one I saw parked outside the front here; that’s why I thought it best to adopt a low profile and conceal myself in the undergrowth.’

  ‘Again, two words I would not normally associate with you, dear Maggers: low and profile,’ said Campion, ‘but I have to say that was most productive for your first night of eavesdropping. Now, as soon as Precious gets here, we can …’

  ‘Precious? A precious what?’

  ‘Not “what” but whom – a very bright young American girl, daughter of a friend of Amanda’s. She’s my archaeologist and she will be providing our transport today.’

  ‘Where we going, then?’

  ‘We’re off to Statio Tranquiliatis, as the astronauts say.’

  ‘I beg yours?’

  ‘Tranquility Base – on the moon – the place where the moon landing happened.’

  ‘You’re still not making sense.’

  ‘Tranquility Base is the rather disparaging name adopted by the popular press for that admirable seaside resort of Frinton-on-Sea.’

  ‘Aw, Gawd,’ moaned Lugg.

  ‘We’ll have to smarten you up, though,’ said Campion. ‘Dressed like that you’ll certainly frighten the horses, never mind the residents.’

  Oliver Grieg Bell stood atop the Sweethearting Barrow looking down at the two rival groups of people below him at either end of the mound of earth now devoid of vegetation. This must be what a watchtower guard on the Berlin Wall experienced, he thought, or perhaps what the wall itself felt like.

  He had been so taken with the tall gorgeousness of the glamorous Italian woman that it had never occurred to him that a young and presumably ‘with it’ girl such as Precious Aird would not also be instantly attracted, perhaps not by her voluptuous figure but by her air of supreme confidence and her fashion sense. Oliver was not, however, so naïve that he did not recognize the cold front which descended between the two females as soon as he introduced them. But that was women for you: unfathomable. And hadn’t Lavinia gone suddenly rather distant when the delightful Daniela had turned up?

  Perhaps Oliver had made a faux pas when he had introduced Precious as the ‘chief digger’. Did that make her sound too menial – even agricultural? It had been rather stupid of him not to remember the names of the other diggers, especially as Simon, Dave and Cat were presently living under his roof, and certainly remiss not to recall the names of Daniela’s technicians or whatever they were. As a consequence, Oliver was pretty sure he had put his foot in it from the moment they had arrived.

  But he was used to people who did not know him well regarding him as bit of a fool, so it could not have been that which had lowered the social temperature. It had been something deeper, more sensory when Precious and Daniela had met on the mound – it had been almost as if two felines had found themselves suddenly whisker-to-whisker on strange ground, neither sure who had the better territorial claim. A worldlier or less-innocent man than Oliver might have sensed the tension and a more cynical one would instantly thought in terms of claws being unsheathed like flick-knife blades.

  Oliver, of course, blundered on, escorting Daniela across the site, giving a running commentary on how the 1934 excavation had been undertaken by rival teams of vicar-led amateur enthusiasts. The deep central trench running north–south across the Barrow had, of course, been back-filled with the soil removed by the original diggers but, for Daniela’s filming purposes, a long, deep trench edged by planks to be used as walk boards and perhaps a ladder were all that were needed to recreate the scene. Oliver offered this information as fact because he had a personal collection of Xerox copies of newspaper cuttings written by local journalist Sam Salt and the few photographs taken at the time, but failed to register Precious Aird’s dry protest that perhaps such intelligence might have been shared with those actually doing the re-excavation.

  Under the approving eye of the dominant Daniela, Oliver took matters into his own hands, or rather feet, and began to scrape the outline of where the trench should go with the heel of his boot. Meanwhile, Daniela had produced a small leather-bound notebook (which Precious was not surprised to find matched her outfit) and a tiny silver propelling pencil, with which she made copious notes as she strode around the Barrow, pausi
ng every few steps to make a rectangle out of forefingers and thumbs and peer through it as if lining up a filming angle.

  Her two ‘assistants’ circled Daniela like moons around a planet as she crisscrossed the site, speaking only occasionally and always in Italian. Eventually Daniela waved Oliver over to her and announced that the site ‘was acceptable’ and that he should begin digging the trench he had marked out as soon as possible. A depth of a metre would be enough ‘to begin with’ with the dug earth piled along the long eastern edge of the trench.

  The woman slipped her notebook into an invisible pocket with the sleight of hand of a magician, folded her arms and waited for Oliver to pass her instructions on to the digging team.

  As he was doing so – totally oblivious to Precious’ icy glare – he remembered Campion’s request for her to report back to the hall. It was a call which Precious responded to with surprising enthusiasm and, after a brief encouragement to ‘get digging’ to Dave, Simon and Cat, she trotted up and over the mound to the road where her VW van and the television crew’s Citroën were parked.

  At the hall she was greeted by Lavinia Bell and the sound of a harpsichord rendition of ‘I Get A Kick Out Of You’ floating from the front drawing room.

  ‘Do come in, Precious.’ Lavinia greeted her with mock weariness. ‘You might as well – it seems we’re having an open house this morning. Lugg has nipped across the fields back to Heronhoe to smarten himself up and Albert, as you can hear, is serenading us on Hattie. Oliver would be terribly jealous if he knew.’

  ‘I think Oliver has a different female on his mind at the moment, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘So you’ve met the Italian siren, have you? Oliver was struck quite dumb in her presence.’

  ‘Dumb is one word for it,’ said Precious, ‘but in America we have several others.’

  ‘Being American, I am sure you do, my dear, but you are young and yet to experience the full ridiculousness of men.’

  ‘How old do you have to be?’ said Precious out of the corner of her mouth. ‘By the way, what’s a Lugg?’

  ‘He’s a friend or possibly associate of Albert’s and I think he’s harmless, though he looks quite fearsome: a bit like a bald orangutan although more jowly, with the face of a disappointed bulldog. I think he was once quite a colourful character and perhaps he still is.’

  ‘Well, we surely can’t have too many of those, can we? Any idea why I’ve been recalled to base camp?’

  ‘I have no idea what’s going on, my dear. Let Albert explain.’

  Mr Campion looked up from the harpsichord keyboard as the women entered the room, but continued to vaguely hum the lyrics to the song he was playing, then finished with a flourish and a resonant final chord. Lavinia noticed with some glee that Campion had placed the bust of Lord Breeze on the floor when he had opened Hattie’s lid and turned the noble lord’s face to the skirting board.

  ‘That would be one of my Desert Island Discs, I think,’ he said, ‘but a version done on a piano in a smoky nightclub at midnight, perhaps. Hattie the Harpsichord is not the right instrument for Cole Porter – far too, too churchy, wouldn’t you say? Oddly enough, that was the hit song of the year Lugg and I came to the hall as advanced scouts for the royal visit. We had a great time driving through Constable Country in the Lagonda bellowing, “I get no kick from cocaine” when we passed a church and “Mere alcohol” whenever we saw a pub. Quite disgraceful behaviour really, just the sort of behaviour I would be calling the police about nowadays.’

  Campion had changed into a dark-blue faint pinstripe suit, a white shirt and a red tie patterned with small shield motifs.

  ‘I can’t believe you were ever a young tearaway,’ said Precious.

  ‘Oh, I tore with the best of them,’ Campion grinned, ‘and now Lugg and I are about to go on another madcap road trip – that’s what you call them, isn’t it? – to cause mirth and mayhem in dear old Frinton-on-Sea.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes indeed, but we need to steal your van to do it.’

  Precious recoiled slightly. ‘Steal my VW?’

  ‘I told you we were tearaways and there’s no tearaway like an old tearaway. If I were you, I wouldn’t trust us as far as you could throw us.’

  ‘Are you sure you can handle it?’

  ‘My dear young thing, German engineering holds no fears for me. I once drove a Mercedes, a Maybach and a thing called a Kubelwagen in the space of one week, though admittedly I only had the owners’ permission for one of those. I can assure you that I am fully insured, familiar with the Highway Code and have considerable experience of driving on the correct side of the road.’

  Precious narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that a swing at my driving?’

  ‘Good heavens, no.’ Campion looked suitably offended. ‘It is just that I have need of transport today and foolishly have entrusted my car to my wife who is, unlike myself, engaged on legitimate business activities and far away in somewhere called the north or possibly the west.’

  ‘Then let me drive you.’

  ‘A kind offer, my precious Precious, but I must decline. Much as I am sure Lugg would find it an education to be driven anywhere by you, Frinton is not a place for the young at heart and, while old fogies such as Lugg and myself will blend in perfectly, you would not. In fact, the last time anyone in Frinton saw an American it was probably at the controls of a Flying Fortress going overhead – and, by the way, one should never go on holiday to a place where they look skywards in wonder at aeroplanes. Besides, while I’m away I need your eyes and ears here, or rather at the Sweethearting Barrow. I want you to keep an eye on the Divine Daniela if you can bring yourself to do so.’

  ‘You should have asked Oliver,’ said Lavinia through gritted teeth. ‘He can hardly take his eyes off her.’

  ‘I need,’ Campion chose his words carefully, ‘a more objective view, a professional assessment of what she’s up to.’

  ‘But I don’t know diddly about film making,’ Precious protested.

  ‘But you are American and Hollywood is in America.’ Campion raised his eyebrows as if challenging the girl to dispute this. ‘And that’s close enough.’

  ‘And unlike Oliver,’ Lavinia observed, ‘Precious isn’t likely to get distracted so easily.’

  Mr Campion diplomatically refrained from comment, especially when Lavinia added under her breath, ‘So very easily.’

  ‘OK, I’ll bite the bullet,’ said Precious, pulling a ring of car keys from the pocket of her jeans and handing them to Campion, ‘as long as you promise to take care of the old bus and realize that you owe me one heck of a pub crawl at some point.’

  Campion smiled. ‘I will put my best man on it, and by that I mean Lugg. I am sure he will be delighted to plan an itinerary which is both sociologically enlightening and highly entertaining.’

  ‘It’s a deal, then, and just to prove that I already have my eye on our Italian friends, I took a good look through the rear window of their car before I came up here. It’s stuffed with camera cases and microphones and the stuff you’d expect from a film unit, but why do you think they need two metal detectors?’

  ‘I suspect,’ said Mr Campion gently, ‘they intend to do a bit of treasure hunting.’

  EIGHT

  Inside the Gates, by the Sea

  By the time they arrived outside the Hythe Inn in Heronhoe, Mr Campion was confident that he could handle the VW Dormobile, partly because Precious Aird had resisted the urge to throw herself out of the passenger door and on to the road.

  Their approach was closely monitored by a figure shaped like an overweight bowling pin standing as if a reluctant sentry on the doorstep of the pub.

  ‘Now don’t be afraid,’ Campion told Precious, ‘it’s only Lugg and he’s really quite harmless. Be a dear and jump out and let him in, would you? The sliding door will completely baffle the old chap.’

  Precious Aird did as she was bid, even throwing in at no extra cost a cheery ‘Hi there, Mr
Lugg!’ which probably surprised the new passenger as much as did seeing Campion at the wheel of such a vehicle.

  With a considerable amount of grunting and shuffling, Lugg settled his girth on the bench seat which doubled as a bed for the enthusiastic camper, though only one of half the diameter of Magersfontein Lugg, and rested an elbow on the wooden cabinet which housed a small sink and a pump action tap next to a brace of gas rings. As Campion turned the van in the narrow Heronhoe street, the cupboards rattled with bouncing crockery and the rattle of loose cutlery.

  ‘If this doesn’t take the dog’s biscuit,’ he moaned loudly. ‘Yer spends half yer life below stairs and then when you gets the chance to be chauffeured to a day at the seaside, yer finds yerself back in the kitchen! You sure we’re going to Frinton and not some Ban the Bomb rally or one of them pop festivals like they ’ave on the Isle of Wight – all drugs and tie-dyed blouses?’

  ‘I assure you, Frinton it is, although I admit this isn’t the most inconspicuous vehicle for such a destination,’ said Campion.

  ‘You can say that again,’ grumbled Lugg. ‘Now Clacton, we’d fit right in.’

  Mr Campion observed his faithful companion in the rear-view mirror and expressed his approval. ‘That’s as may be, but I’m delighted to see you’ve made the effort to smarten up.’

  ‘Thought it best to conform,’ agreed Lugg seriously, smoothing down the front of the chocolate-brown squared pattern V-neck pullover. He had completed his ensemble with a bright green with black spots silk cravat and a dark-blue blazer which was fastened across his midriff, should he remember to breathe in, with shiny silver buttons bearing an anchor motif. ‘If yer going to mix with the blazered buffoons, you might as well try and pass for one.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ said Campion over his shoulder, then to Precious, ‘You see, he’s not as oafish as he looks, if you keep one eye closed and squint a bit.’