by Tom Sharpe
‘Peregrine? What do you mean, where is he? He’s bound to be at the school. You don’t imagine they’d be mad enough to let him try to find his own way home?’
But Mrs Clyde-Browne had already gone into the study and was dialling the school’s number. ‘I want to speak to my son, Peregrine Clyde-Browne,’ she told the School Secretary, only to be told in turn that Peregrine wasn’t there.
‘He’s not there? Then where is he?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea. If you’ll just hold the line I’ll try to find out.’
Mrs Clyde-Browne held the line and beckoned to her husband who was examining a gas bill suspiciously. ‘They don’t know where he is.’
‘Probably lurking in the school bogs.’
‘He isn’t at Groxbourne. He’s somewhere else.’
‘If he isn’t there, he’s bound to be somewhere else. It stands to reason … What?’
‘The Secretary’s gone to see if she can find out where he went to.’
But the strain of his holiday and his fury at the travel agency had been exacerbated by the gas bill. Mr Clyde-Browne seized the phone. ‘Now listen to me,’ he shouted, ‘I demand to know …’
‘It’s no use bawling like that, dear,’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne pacifically, ‘there’s no one there to hear you.’
‘Then who the hell were you talking to?’
‘The School Secretary. I told you she’s gone to see if anyone knows where Peregrine—’
‘Damn,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne, cursing both the school and the state of his bowels. ‘Then call me back the moment …’ He shot into the downstairs lavatory and it was left to his wife to learn that Peregrine had gone to stay with his uncle.
‘His uncle?’ she asked. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know which one?’
The Secretary didn’t. Mrs Clyde-Brown put the phone down, picked it up again and called her sister-in-law in Aylesbury, only to find that Peregrine wasn’t there. It was the same with Uncle Martin and all the other uncles and aunts. Mrs Clyde-Browne broke down. ‘They said he’d gone to stay with one of his uncles but he hasn’t,’ she moaned through the lavatory door. Inside, Mr Clyde-Brown was heard to mutter that he wasn’t surprised and gave vent to his paternal feelings by flushing the pan.
‘You don’t seem to care,’ she wept when he came out and headed for the medicine cupboard. ‘Don’t you have any normal feelings as a father?’
Mr Clyde-Brown took two tablespoonfuls of kaolin and morphine before replying. ‘Considering I have just flown halfway across Europe wearing one of your sanitary napkins to contain myself, what feelings I have whether as a father or not can’t by any stretch of the imagination be called normal. When I think what might have happened if the Customs officer you tried to bluff about that silk had given me a body search, my blood runs cold. As a matter of fact, it’s running cold now.’
‘In that case, if you’re not prepared to do anything, I’m going to call the police,’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne, realizing for the first time in her married life that she was in a strong position.
Mr Clyde-Browne, who had been heading for the stairs and bed, stopped in his tracks. ‘Police? What on earth are you going to do that for?’
‘Because Peregrine is a missing person.’
‘He’s certainly missing something, though I’d qualify the word “person”, but if you think for one moment the police are going to be involved …’
It was an acrimonious exchange and was only ended by Mr Clyde-Browne’s inability to be in the lavatory and to stop his wife reaching the phone at the same time. ‘All right,’ he conceded frantically, ‘I promise to do everything humanly possible to find him as soon as I’m physically able provided you don’t call the police.’
‘I can’t see why not. It seems the sensible thing to do.’
‘Because,’ snarled her husband, ‘if there’s one thing a prospective employer – and God knows they’re few and far between in Peregrine’s case – dislikes as a reference it is a police record.’
‘But Peregrine wouldn’t have a police record. He’d be …’
‘Listed on the Missing Persons Computer at New Scotland Yard, and where the Army and banks are concerned that constitutes a police record. Oh, damnation.’ He stumbled back into the lavatory and sat there thinking dark thoughts about dysentery and idiot sons. He emerged to find his wife standing by the front door.
‘We’re leaving now,’ she said.
‘Leaving? Leaving for where?’
‘Groxbourne. You said you’d do everything possible to find poor Peregrine and I’m holding you to it.’
Mr Clyde-Browne hung on to the door sill. ‘But I can’t drive all that way in my condition.’
‘Possibly not,’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne, ‘but I can. And since we haven’t unpacked, we can leave straight away.’
Mr Clyde-Browne climbed submissively into the seat beside her. ‘I just hope to hell you know what you’re doing,’ he moaned, ‘and you’d better be prepared to stop fairly frequently.’
‘I do and I am,’ she said with a terseness he’d never heard before.
An hour later, his experience of the three motorway toilets his wife had allowed him to use had been so revolting that he was half disposed to think more highly of Italians. ‘If further proof were needed that this country’s gone to the dogs …’
‘Never mind about the country,’ snapped Mrs Clyde-Browne, hurtling past a petrol tanker at ninety miles an hour, ‘what I want to know is where Peregrine has gone to. You don’t seem to realize our son is lost.’
Mr Clyde-Browne checked his safety belt again. ‘Not the only thing we’ll lose if you continue to drive … Mind that flaming motorbike! Dear God!’
All in all it had been a hair-raising journey and by the time the car skidded to a halt outside the school Mr Clyde-Browne was in a state of shock and his wife wasn’t to be trifled with.
‘I’m not trifling with you,’ said the School Secretary indignantly, ‘I am simply telling you that the Headmaster is on holiday.’
‘Where?’
‘On the Isle of Skye. I can find the address of his cottage if you like. He’s not on the phone.’
But Mr Clyde-Browne had heard enough. To ward off the terrifying possibility that his wife might insist on driving through the night to the West Coast of Scotland he interposed himself between them. ‘Our son Peregrine is missing,’ he said. ‘He was supposed to go on the Survival Course in Wales. He has not returned home. Now since Major Fetherington was in charge of the course he’s in loco parentis, and …’
‘He’s not,’ said the Secretary, ‘he’s in the Sanatorium. If you ask Matron nicely she may let you see him. It’s across the quad and up the steps by the Chapel.’
‘Impudent hussy,’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne when they left the office. Her husband said nothing. As they marched across the grim quad and past the looming Chapel, he was praying that Peregrine hadn’t been left in Wales. The notion of being driven there was almost as bad as Scotland.
‘Is there anyone about?’ Mrs Clyde-Browne shouted when they found the Sanatorium and had tried several empty rooms in vain. At the end of the passage a door opened and a woman peered out.
‘We want to see Major Fetherington,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne.
The woman looked doubtful. ‘I’m just giving him a bed-bath,’ she muttered, ‘if you’ll just wait a minute …’
But Mrs Clyde-Brown wasn’t waiting for a second. Pushing past her husband, she bore down on the Matron. For a moment there was a confused scuffle and then the Matron managed to shut the door and lock it.
‘Bed-bath indeed!’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne, when she had got her breath back. ‘If you’d seen what I saw …’
‘Which, thankfully, I didn’t,’ said her husband, ‘now for goodness’ sake try to get a grip on yourself …’
‘Grip on myself? I like that. If you ask me those two were …’
‘I daresay,’ snapped Mr Clyde-Browne, ‘but if we’re to get the Major’s co-opera
tion you’re not going to help matters by intruding on his private affairs.’
‘Private affairs indeed! That depraved creature was stark naked and wearing a French tickler and if you call that a bed-bath, I most certainly don’t,’ said Mrs Clyde-Browne, managing to combine a sexual knowledge her husband had never suspected with a grievance that he’d never bothered to use one. But before he could reply the bedroom door opened and the Matron appeared. Mr Clyde-Browne was grateful to note that this time she was wearing a skirt.
‘Well, I must say …’ she began.
‘Don’t,’ begged Mr Clyde-Browne, ‘we’re extremely sorry to have …’
‘I’m not,’ interrupted his wife, ‘considering that that filthy man in there—’
Mr Clyde-Browne had had enough. ‘Shut up,’ he told her violently and, leaving her speechless, explained the situation as swiftly as he could to the Matron.
By the time he had finished she was slightly mollified. ‘I’ll go and see if the Major is prepared to see you,’ she said, pointedly ignoring Mrs Clyde-Browne.
‘Well, I like that,’ Mrs Clyde-Browne exploded when the door was shut. ‘To think that I should be told to shut up in front of a—’
‘Shut up!’ roared Mr Clyde-Browne again. ‘You’ve already done enough damage and from now on you’ll leave the matter in my hands.’
‘In your hands? If I’d had my way none of this would have happened. In the first place—’
‘Peregrine would have been aborted. But since he wasn’t you had to delude yourself that you’d given birth to a bloody genius. Well, let me tell you—’
By the time he had got his feelings about Peregrine off his chest, Mr Clyde-Browne felt better. In the next room Major Fetherington didn’t. ‘If he feels like that about the poor sod I’m not surprised Perry’s gone missing. What I can’t understand is why that maniac wants to find him. He’d be better off in the Foreign Legion.’
‘Yes, but what are you going to tell them?’ asked the Matron.
‘Lord alone knows. As far as I can remember, he told me he was going to stay with his uncle and then pushed off. That’s my story and I’m going to stick to it.’
Five minutes later, Mr Clyde-Browne’s legal approach had changed his mind. ‘Are you suggesting, Major, that my son was guilty of a deliberate falsehood?’
The Major shifted uncomfortably under the bedclothes. ‘Well, no, not when you put it like that. All the same, he did say he’d phoned his uncle and …’
‘The inescapable fact remains that he hadn’t and that no one has seen him since he was left in your care.’
Major Fetherington considered the inescapable fact and tried to elude it. ‘Someone must have seen him. Stands to reason. He can’t have vanished into thin air.’
‘On the other hand, you were personally responsible for his welfare prior to his disappearance? Can you deny that?’
‘Prior to, old boy, prior to. That’s the operative word,’ said the Major.
‘As a matter of fact it’s two words,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne, getting his own back for being called an old boy.
‘All right, two operative words. Doesn’t make any difference. As soon as he said he was going to his uncle’s and shoved off I couldn’t be responsible for his welfare, could I?’
‘Then you didn’t accompany him to the station?’
‘Accompany him to the station?’ said the Major indignantly. ‘I wasn’t capable of accompanying anyone anywhere. I was flat on my back with a fractured coccyx. Damned painful I can—’
‘And having it massaged by the Matron no doubt,’ interrupted Mr Clyde-Browne, who had taken out a pocket book and was making notes.
Major Fetherington turned pale and decided to change his tactics. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll do a deal.’
‘A deal?’
‘No names, no pack drill. You don’t mention anything to the Headmaster about you-know-what and …’ He paused to see how Mr Clyde-Browne would respond.
The solicitor nodded. ‘Do go on,’ he said.
‘As I was saying, no names, no pack drill. The chappie you really want to see is Glodstone …’
Outside, Mrs Clyde-Browne sipped a cup of tea reluctantly. It was a peace offering from the Matron but Mrs Clyde-Browne wasn’t mollified. She was wondering how her husband could have condemned her Peregrine to such a terrible environment. ‘I blame myself,’ she whimpered internally.
*
In the school office her words would have found an echo in Slymne. Ever since he had wrecked the Blowthers’ brand-new Jaguar he had been cursing himself for his stupidity. He had been mad to plan Glodstone’s prepackaged adventure. In an attempt to give himself some sort of alibi he had returned to the school, ostensibly to collect some books, only to learn that events had taken another turn for the worse.
‘I’ve never seen parents so livid,’ the School Secretary told him. ‘And rude. Not even Mr and Mrs Fairchild when their son was expelled for tying a ferret to the crotch of Mr Paignton’s pyjamas.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Slymne, who remembered the consequences of that awful occasion and had examined his own pyjamas very carefully ever since.
‘And all because that stupid Peregrine Clyde-Browne hasn’t gone home and they don’t know where he is.’
Slymne’s heartbeat went up alarmingly. He knew now why the youth he had seen washing the Bentley in Mantes had seemed so familiar. ‘What did you tell them?’ he asked tremulously.
‘I told them to see the Major. What I didn’t tell them was that Mrs Brossy at the Post Office says she saw a boy get into Mr Glodstone’s old banger down at the bus stop the day he went away.’
‘Who went away?’ asked Slymne, his alarm growing by the minute.
‘Mr Glodstone. He came back here all excited and—’
‘Look,’ said Slymne, ‘does the Headmaster know about this?’
The Secretary shook her head. ‘I said he was on holiday on the Isle of Skye. Actually, he’s in his caravan at Scarborough but he doesn’t like that to be known. Doesn’t sound so respectable, does it?’
‘But he’s on the phone?’
‘The campsite is.’
‘Right,’ said Slymne, coming to a sudden decision, ‘rather than have them bothering you, I’ll deal with them. Now what’s the number of the campsite?’
By the time the Clyde-Brownes left the Sanatorium Slymne was ready for them. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said briskly, ‘my name is Slymne. I’m the Geography master here. Miss Crabley tells me you’re concerned about your son.’
Mr Clyde-Browne stopped in his tracks. Mr Slymne’s reports on Peregrine’s lack of any academic ability had always struck him as proving that at least one master at Groxbourne was neither a complete idiot nor a barefaced liar.
‘More than concerned,’ he said. ‘The boy’s missing and from what I’ve been able to gather from that man Fetherington there seems to be good reason to suppose he’s been abducted by Mr Glodstone.’
Slymne’s mouth dried up. Mr Clyde-Browne was evidently an expert investigator. ‘Mr Glodstone’s abducted your son? Are you quite sure? I mean it seems …’
‘Of course I’m not sure. I’d have called the police if I were,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne, bearing in mind the law on slander. ‘I said I’d been given reason to believe it. What’s your opinion of Glodstone?’
‘I’d rather not comment,’ said Slymne, glad to be able to tell the truth for the time being, ‘my relations with him are not of the best and I might be prejudiced. I think you ought to consult the Headmaster.’
‘Who happens to be in the Outer Hebrides.’
‘In the circumstances I’m sure he’ll return immediately. I’ll wire him to say that you’re here. Now would you like me to find some accommodation locally? There’s an excellent hotel in Leominster.’
When they left, the Clyde-Brownes were slightly happier in their minds. ‘Thank God someone round here seems to have his head screwed on the right way,’ said Mr Clyde-Browne.
&nbs
p; ‘And he did seem to think that Peregrine was in safe hands,’ said his wife. ‘I do hope he’s right.’
Mr Clyde-Browne kept his thoughts on the subject to himself. His hopes were different. He was wondering how best to intimidate the Headmaster into paying considerable damages for the loss of a son.
*
In the school office Slymne picked up the phone and dialled the campsite in Scarborough. About the only bright spot he could see on the horizon was that the Clyde-Brownes were evidently reluctant to call in the police.
17
It was mid-morning before the Headmaster arrived to be met by a haggard and desperate Slymne. His conversation with the Major the previous night, assisted by a bottle of whisky, had appalled him. Glodstone had told the Major where he was going. And since he had confided so much it seemed all too likely that he had kept those damning letters. Slymne had spent a sleepless night trying to think of some way to dissociate himself from the whole ghastly business. The best strategy seemed to be to show that he had already acted responsibly.
‘I’ve checked the railway station and the bus people,’ he told the Headmaster, ‘and it’s clear that Clyde-Browne didn’t leave by bus or train on the 31st, which is the day he went missing.’
‘That’s a great help,’ said the Headmaster. ‘What I want to know is where he did go. I’ve got to have something to tell his bloody parents.’
‘Well, Mrs Brossy at the Post Office thinks she saw Glodstone pick a young man up outside her shop around midday.’
The Headmaster slumped into a chair behind his desk. ‘Oh, my God! And I don’t suppose anyone has a clue where the lunatic took him?’
Slymne played his ace. ‘Strictly in confidence, sir, I did manage to get Major Fetherington to tell me that Glodstone had said he was going to France by way of Ostend.’
‘Going to France by way of Ostend? Ostend’s in bloody Belgium. Are you seriously telling me that that one-eyed maniac has dragged the son of a prominent solicitor out of this country without asking his parents’ permission?’