Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice

by David Coubrough

  ‘It wasn’t an accident. She had known about her husband’s friendship with Clive for a long time, and she suspected it was rather more than it seemed. While Margaret had been curious to know what was going on, she was also worried at what she might discover. She had noticed earlier in the week a sign indicating the opening of Clive’s new gallery on Saturday and made a beeline for it.’

  ‘How did Bob react?’

  ‘By this stage he had become quite accomplished at handling chance encounters. The story went that when she turned up he said, “Oh, hello, Margaret. This is the artist Clive Holford. Welcome to his new gallery. Would you like a guided tour?” She apparently replied, “We need to talk”, to which he said, “Not now, dear. I’ll give you the full story when we’re back in London next week.” She tried one more time. “What’s wrong with here and now?” This caused him to become more assertive, saying something along the lines of “Look, I’ve invested a great deal of money in this venture. Now’s not the time, and I need to return to London to the office for important meetings on Monday.” Margaret knew this tone all too well and retreated angry but knowing there was no mileage in pursuing matters there and then.

  ‘On her return to the hotel she decided to confide in her two close friends, Anne Jessops and Lucy Charnley, the Duchess. It didn’t take long for Justyn to hear the details, and, being at loggerheads with his father at the time, he tried to persuade several of us to join him in seeking out the gallery. This was one adventure we declined. We later heard that Bob was arrested at his desk in his office on Cheapside on Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘That must have caused quite a shock. The thin blue line stretched to London pretty quickly.’

  ‘Yes, the information originally gathered from Bill and corroborated by Ivan was sufficient to require interviews with all five suspects tout de suite. Don’t forget, the police were worried that a poisoner was at large and might strike again. Some might say the policing was a bit clumsy or random. The problem was there was just too much going on. It was a very unusual type of inquiry. All five suspects had motives, but, more significantly, the police were now more convinced than ever that all five had the opportunity.’

  14

  23 AUGUST 1972

  Richard Hughes-Webb, Paul Galvin and Arnie Charnley met outside the hotel at seven a.m. for their regular morning run on the beach. Bob Silver had disappeared the previous week, and Ted Jessops, who occasionally joined them, was yet again confined to barracks. There was a muted atmosphere between the three, and instead of being sent on their way as usual by Tom’s banter they saw only a sleeping youth at the sentry post – probably a kid on a work-experience year from college – who had been allocated the night shift as Tom’s replacement. If they suspected one another of foul play it certainly wasn’t evident in their manner. Richard looked as imperious as ever, although Paul’s usual lock-jaw grin was reduced to little more than the relaxing of muscles around his mouth. Arnie appeared pale and wan from too many interrupted nights, worrying not about the police investigation but his missing cash.

  As they ran down through the woods below the hotel, the scent from the escallonia, which the rain had refreshed, enriched the early morning air and accompanied them to the road they crossed before the beach.

  Their initial conversation concerned Ted Jessops, and Richard was quick to inform the others. ‘Still in a bad way, I’m afraid. Had electroshock treatment yesterday in Truro. However, I heard he was seen thumbing through magazines in the large lounge yesterday afternoon, so that’s progress of sorts, although I can’t imagine the warrant for his arrest later on would have done much for his state of mind.’

  They pounded softly along the beach, leaving three perfect sets of footprints on the otherwise unblemished golden sand. Each man was wrapped in his own thoughts.

  It was Arnie who broke the spell. ‘Strange thing, this depression lark. Does anyone understand it?’ he asked in his thick Mancunian accent.

  ‘Oh yes. We do,’ Richard announced, in such a way as to brook no further discussion.

  The three joggers continued further than usual along the beach. There was no disputing that this had now become a car crash of a holiday and thoughts were turning to departure the next day. The men defied their usual thresholds of pain and distance, running as if they were never going to stop, determined to forget the traumas of recent days.

  After putting some extra miles on top of their usual, all three were desperate for a break and slowed down as if to order.

  It was Richard who opened the conversation. ‘So, do either of you believe any of this nonsense that the three of us, along with Bob and Jessops, are under suspicion for attempted murder?’ He spat out the name Jessops in such a way that it looked like he was trying to dislodge a very hot pepper from under his tongue as quickly as possible. Ted had greatly lowered his standing in the eyes of his former friends by being thought to be the Sunday-morning telephone-box hoax caller. Paul was the first to respond to Richard, opining it was inconceivable that any of them would want to harm Tom but suggesting that the police should prioritize interviewing the porter’s nephew Ivan. Arnie, his mood already fairly dark, listened but decided to keep his own counsel. He observed Paul with a knowing side glance so piercing that if Paul had spotted it he would have stopped in his tracks. Arnie’s face was contorted in a frown that suggested complete mistrust. He regarded Paul as somewhat schizophrenic, prone to change from an affable, relaxed Dr Jekyll into a rather mean and unpleasant Mr Hyde whenever financial matters were involved. He frowned at Richard as well, still angry with him for being so unpleasant when he requested what he deemed would be a very short-term loan.

  They had been running, walking and discussing matters for some two hours when they realized they had lost all grasp of time. They would now be too late for breakfast at the hotel, and the weather was deteriorating rapidly. A jagged bolt of lightning ripped across the sky, and the heavens opened to unleash a storm of terrible proportions. It seemed some latent elemental force had been set loose. The sky, an expanse of clear, azure blue when they had set off, had been set alight and was spewing rain that would have challenged Noah’s flood. Richard urged his two friends to run to the National Trust café at the end of the headland, which he calculated would now be open, it being past nine.

  As they arrived, panting and wet through, their state of miserable discomfort was forgotten in sudden amazement. Standing before them, with his hands behind his back in his Humphrey Bogart raincoat, looking as if he hadn’t slept in ten years, was a haggard Bob Silver.

  ‘We thought you left Cornwall last week,’ yelled Richard as they approached.

  ‘I did, but I had a little local difficulty yesterday in the square mile with a visit from the boys in blue. I paid bail and decided to get down to Cornwall pronto. I thought you fellows would be jogging. I tried to contact you at the hotel when I came off the night sleeper at Penzance, and I guessed where you’d be. Old habits die hard. Incidentally, Yvie, Alison and the Duchess were not best pleased to hear my voice at that hour, so sorry about that.’

  The three were incredulous. Paul spoke first. ‘Bob, you were never famed for your diplomatic skills, were you? You turn up out of the blue, and now we’re all going to cop it from the trouble and strifes! Henry Kissinger you are not.’

  ‘Sorry, Paul, and of course you two as well, but I tracked your movements from the coast road,’ Bob continued. ‘I saw you heading for the Trust café, and I knew, with this belter of a storm, you would go straight here. The thing is, gentlemen, we need to talk.’

  They received this information without demur and took four seats at a large wooden table on decrepit white plastic chairs. The three strained like dogs on leashes to hear what Bob had to say.

  Richard, as usual, was the first to speak. ‘We’re all ears.’

  ‘I know we all seem to have been implicated in this most unfortunate business of Tom’s stroke,’ Bob commenced, ‘and, as ridiculous as the whole thing seems, it would appea
r we have all had secrets to keep, and now we are all under considerable pressure –’

  ‘Oh ’eck, funny thing pressure,’ Arnie interrupted. ‘Take a good batsman, technically brilliant, got all the shots, gets a couple of noughts and next match is scratching around like rooster in the backyard.’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Arnie,’ continued Bob. ‘By the way, I have settled your account with old Simpkins on my Diners Club card. You can deliver the readies to my house by the month end.’

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ beamed Arnie, his face creased in a very broad smile. ‘But why didn’t you tell me? I’ve had Rickety Humphrey-Bumfrey blasting me for being some sort of low life.’

  ‘Apologies, Chutney,’ he fired back in a good-natured way. (They had now regressed to the familiar nicknames they had for one another, and Richard had long ago dubbed Arnie Charnley ‘Mango Chutney’.)

  ‘Look, I said I would pay, and my word is my bond.’ Bob sounded aggrieved that he could have been doubted.

  Richard was keen that the four of them should get to the point. Despite some misgivings about each other, a strong kinship had developed between them over many years. In a typical male-fellowship kind of way they shared a feeling of injustice that they were the providers and that the world was an ungrateful place. They knew they had to stick together, that the heat was on and that they were unsure of the direction of the next line of fire.

  ‘I think one or all three of you, in fact, may know about my pioneering work into human heart disease, using animals for research and experimentation here at Zennor,’ Richard commenced in his authoritative manner. ‘I have already dealt with the police’s rather cack-handed inquiry in this regard.’

  ‘You probably all know about my financial disaster with the house-building project in Penzance,’ Paul put in.

  ‘And you know I lost my loot at Tom’s cottage,’ added Arnie.

  Bob was next. ‘With me it’s more complicated. Tom was one of the few people to know about my relationship with Clive Holford, and – before any of you put two and two together and get the wrong number – I should tell you I am probably going to adopt him legally as my son.’ He went on to explain the circumstances in which he had first found Clive and how his patronage had turned the unfortunate boy’s life around so he now had a promising future as an artist.

  When Bob had finished, all the men admitted they knew some of each other’s circumstances and were pleased to set the record straight with one another. Bob inquired about James Simpkins, saying he had sounded most strange when he phoned to settle Arnie’s bill.

  ‘Well, he’s had a ripe old time,’ responded Arnie. ‘He collapsed when the rozzers were all over the place Sunday lunchtime. Anyone would’ve thought Jack the Ripper was at large. Simpkins blacked out at reception, chipped two front teeth and was rushed in an ambulance to the hospital at Truro.’

  ‘Good grief! How’s he now?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Well, you spoke to him,’ said Richard, taking control as usual. ‘He’s back at the hotel. They stitched him up, checked his heart, pulse and blood pressure and wanted to keep him in overnight for observation, but I gather he more or less discharged himself.’

  ‘True,’ continued Arnie, ‘and good old Jean, the wife, drove him home and told the Duchess next day. They must have made him high as a kite. He was yelling the lyrics to songs on the radio, rocking all the way back to the hotel.’

  ‘So, what happened when he got back?’

  ‘Well, a rock has to roll.’ Arnie was now getting into his stride. ‘He retreated to his flat and would only answer questions from the other side of the locked door or on the phone.’

  ‘Yes, a hotel manager with a mashed-up boat race is not a good advert for his gaff,’ said Paul.

  It was at this moment that Bob spotted Ken Holford, father of Clive, whom he immediately recognized from the pub in St Buryan. The four fell silent when Bob told them who Ken was, and they saw that the man was in earnest conversation with someone they all recognized: Ivan Youlen. None of them was keen to enter into conversation with the pair, so the men paid their bill and, slipping away, headed back to the hotel.

  On his return to his room Richard summoned his daughter on the hotel’s internal phone. ‘Suzie, I need your attention. That old tape-recorder of yours. Fetch it. I need to set out the events of this morning’s run. Be quick, girl, and bring it to my room.’

  ‘Certainly, Father. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Don’t you worry your young head about that. We need everything properly recorded, all our ducks in a row. There are dark forces at play.’

  ‘Certainly, Father.’

  Suzie dutifully recorded Richard’s recollections of the morning’s discussion before extracting the tape and handing it to her father, as obediently as a slave to a master.

  15

  24 AUGUST 1972

  The following day, Thursday the 24th, was the last day of the holiday. All guests had to adhere to the strict check-out time of twelve. Some of the group remained; those scheduled for the overnight train from Penzance were allowed to put luggage in storage until it suited them to depart. Danny Galvin’s small transistor radio was blazing away in the large lounge, the Partridge Family’s version of ‘Breaking Up Is Hard to Do’ bringing down the curtain on the two-week vacation.

  Richard Hughes-Webb was first off, marshalling his family into position and formally saying goodbye to what he saw as both his supporting cast and his audience for the past fortnight. A sort of guard of honour surrounded his Bentley outside the main entrance. Suzie lost control of her emotions and sobbed uncontrollably, having been prised free of an amorous Danny Galvin. Rose Morrison was quick to put a consoling arm around her, saying, ‘We’ll remind you of this when you are older.’ Yvie Hughes-Webb glared at Rose, looking as though she could have happily carried out one of her husband’s operations on the spot, preferably a badly botched one.

  Soon Richard’s impressive motor was purring its way down the long drive, and several onlookers might have wondered if that would be the last they would see of the Hughes-Webbs. He had made his unflattering views of the police inquiry well known and for good measure had added a tirade against the hotel’s handling of events. He had indicated that he would holiday with his family abroad the following year; it was unlikely that his family would have any say in the matter.

  Next up were the Silvers, minus Bob; his reappearance at the art gallery in St Ives the previous Saturday and his rendezvous with the joggers on Wednesday morning had not developed into a family reunion at the hotel. He had taken the sleeper to Paddington the previous night and was back at work on Cheapside. Margaret Silver was being driven by her older son, Henry, while her daughter, Fiona, was waiting for Justyn to finish his goodbyes before driving them off in his Peugeot 204. Justyn, whose usual attire featured extensive cheesecloth and plenty of tie-dyed T-shirts, was now dwarfed by a huge Afghan coat as he appeared from around the corner with an emotional Jenny Charnley. He sped off down the drive blasting the Doors classic ‘LA Woman’ at full volume, shouting, ‘Goodbye, Grant. Hello, Jim!’

  The Galvins set about their departure next; Paul with his grey hair carefully greased back, Alison looking strained. She had a rather pale, heavy face, but behind her horn-rimmed spectacles lurked a pair of remarkably alert, inquisitive eyes that darted from left to right with quick precision and could unnerve people. Physically the Galvins couldn’t have contrasted more. Paul was short, rotund and immaculate while Alison was taller and somewhat unkempt. In her mid-forties, she displayed a sagging fleshiness around her chin and neck. Her Mary Quant overcoat was buttoned up high, and her overall demeanour gave the impression that she was nobody’s pushover. When the assembled crowd realized that Danny wasn’t with his parents they immediately dispersed, leaving only Alison’s close friends Anne Jessops and the Duchess to say their goodbyes. Danny, having his own wheels, had decided to stay to the end of the day and enjoy things to the very last. Paul, the unpopular father, was keeping Alison wai
ting while he harangued the receptionist over his bill one last time, claiming the discount for Sunday’s interrupted lunch hadn’t been credited.

  The disturbance at the front desk drew the luckless Simpkins out of his office for the first time since the accident. His upper lip was still badly swollen from the removal of fourteen stitches and gave an unsettling view of his two chipped front teeth. This didn’t prevent him from doing his managerial best to placate Paul. After several minutes of deadlocked negotiations Simpkins offered to refer the matter to Head Office if Paul settled the bill in full there and then. This agitated drama undoubtedly affected the number of holiday-makers who stayed to attend Mr and Mrs Paul Galvin’s departure.

  Anne Jessops revealed to the waiting gallery that her family would not depart until later that day; it was widely suspected that this was down to Ted being unable to climb out of bed again. Anne had managed to get a late booking on the sleeper train, so at least the problem of driving back to the Midlands was averted. This enabled further teenage playtime, so Caroline and Grant disappeared into town to buy some silk fabric to sew into their jeans; she enjoyed inserting colourful triangles into trouser legs below the knee to create massive flares. They were later tracked down by a breathless Nick Charnley in a sound booth inside a music shop, where they were listening to pop records.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ he blurted out, barely able to contain himself.

  ‘What?’ asked the pair in unison, rapidly removing their headphones and emerging from the booth.

  ‘A naked man’s body has been found washed up on Carbis Bay Beach. They think he’s from the hotel.’ Grant and Caroline stood frozen to the spot, uncomprehending.

  ‘What?’ Grant was alarmed. Tom’s collapse had destabilized things enough, but he had an overwhelming sensation that this dramatic news could be totally disastrous.

  ‘Who is it? Anyone we know?’