The Skeleton in the Grass

by Robert Barnard

  “Do come and sit down. At least you can see that I don’t try to hide my interest in guns.”

  “You would gain nothing by doing so. I would have presumed that a retired military man had guns. And naturally the whole village would know of your collection.”

  They sat down. Major Coffey poured, and immediately stood up, ranging around the room, cup in hand. Minchip sipped at his brew. At least it was more palatable than Mrs. South’s concoction—coffee essence with boiling milk poured over it. He sat back in his chair and contemplated the Major. If one looked at the figure alone he was rather an impressive man: tall, trim, limber, upright. A finely preserved male animal. The face was another matter: in spite of the short haircut and military moustache it was secretive, changeable, untrustworthy. It was the face, Minchip felt, of a disappointed man, of one who had always felt his merits exceeded his promotion. Nevertheless, he had no doubt that the brain behind the face was agile, even if it was unsound.

  Major Coffey, suddenly aware he was being watched, came and sat down.

  “Good,” said Minchip. “Otherwise I should have had to stand up. I can’t start the interview at a disadvantage.”

  Major Coffey smiled an inward, prickly smile.

  “I have no desire to put you at a disadvantage. I intend to cooperate with you fully.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Tell me, Major, what was the precise nature of your connection with the young men of these villages?”

  The Major looked at him straight.

  “You are not, I hope, suggesting any kind of moral turpitude?”

  “I am not suggesting anything at all. I am merely asking a question.”

  “Because let me assure you, if there were anything of that despicable nature, it would have been round the village in no time.”

  That, at any rate, was true.

  “Perhaps you would answer my question.”

  Major Coffey, having made his point, sat back, considering.

  “The precise nature, I think you said, of my connection with the young men of the village? I think you might say that I am some kind of leader. Yes, I think you might say that. They are, as I expect you appreciate, lively, high-spirited young men, full of initiative. Well-educated, too, compared to the peasantry of my young days. As a military man it is natural that I should want to encourage in them a zeal to serve their King, country, and the Empire.”

  “I see . . . And what form does this encouragement take?”

  “Oh—drill, target practice, field exercises. I try to fan into life any spark that suggests that any one of them has the martial spirit.”

  “I suppose among the signs of the martial spirit you would count initiative?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “You encourage initiative and enterprise, then, in the boys. In what ways?”

  “It is in the nature of things, Inspector, that initiative should be allowed to take its own ways.”

  Coffey smiled a humourless but self-satisfied smile. Minchip let that go for the moment.

  “What would you say, sir, was the main purpose behind your encouragement of this . . . martial spirit?”

  “Every nation worth its salt must be willing to defend itself.” The voice had a certain ring now, as if he were addressing a meeting. “We live in troubled times, though to listen to the complacent talk of the politicians you would never think so. We are a nation under threat.”

  “You may be right, sir. But I’m rather surprised, if you don’t mind my saying so, that a gentleman of your cast of mind should be preparing these boys to fight the present rulers of Germany.”

  Coffey sat up at once.

  “Germany? Good God, Inspector, not Germany! Russia! The Bolsheviks! The enemy to the East!” He had leaned forward, his eyes glowing. Apparently he was confident that, as military man to policeman, he was addressing a like-minded soul. “That is the conflict I am preparing them for. That is the crusade all the great nations of Europe will have to undertake, and quite soon, too. And we shall win, make no mistake. In spite of the spinelessness of our present leaders we shall crush them. The struggle may be long, longer than last time, but in the end it too will be a glorious victory.”

  Minchip shifted uneasily in his chair.

  “I fought in the last war, Major Coffey. Whatever else that conflict was, it was not glorious.”

  Coffey withdrew into his chair, and veiled the fire in his eyes. There was no disguising his disappointment and disgust.

  “I am sorry to hear you are infected with the modern disease of defeatism,” he said sourly. “I myself went straight from the war to trying to stop the dissolution of our very nation itself.”

  “In Ireland?”

  “In Ireland.”

  “That must have been very gratifying, sir. Though not entirely successful. Can we get back to your encouragement of initiative in your little band of young men?”

  Coffey had withdrawn into his shell.

  “If you wish.”

  “I see no point in beating about the bush. We know the boys who have been pursuing this campaign against the Hallams. They are all members of your group. I believe they have been persecuting the family at your instigation.”

  Major Coffey sat back in his chair and again looked straight at Minchip.

  “You put it too crudely, much too crudely. I made the boys aware of the Hallams’ deplorable opinions. Not that I needed to. Their record and their opinions are all too well-known.” He leaned forward, once more seeking to forge a bond. “Do you know the rumours about Dennis Hallam’s war injury?”

  Inspector Minchip had by now been briefed in village gossip by Sergeant South.

  “I know the rumours.”

  “The opinions they propagate, the causes they espouse, are more than rumours. In any sane society they would be shot as traitors. The nation that will not defend itself deserves to die.”

  “Let’s stick to the point, shall we? I’m not interested in discussing politics with you. Because you disapproved of the Hallams’ views you got up this campaign against them.”

  Coffey sat back once more, frustrated, in his chair.

  “As I said, these are lively, independent boys. Young men. There was no need to orchestrate a campaign. I may have suggested that it would be a good idea to bring home to the Hallams the abhorrence right-minded people feel for their views.”

  “Hmm. I would have thought that some of the ‘messages’ conveyed in these pranks were rather too sophisticated for country lads. In particular the skeleton without a backbone . . .”

  A steely smile crossed Coffey’s face. It was a challenge.

  “This is the age of the newspaper and wireless, Inspector. The country lad is every bit as sophisticated as his town equivalent, with whom I have worked for years. I think you would find your opinion very difficult to substantiate.”

  “Not as the boys start talking a little more,” said Minchip, with a confidence greater than he actually felt. “But that is a side issue. No crime was being committed by Christopher Keene.”

  “Precisely.”

  “The crime was committed against him. That crime need not have anything to do with the campaign against the Hallams. Would you mind telling me, sir, exactly what you were doing during the course of the evening at Lord Wadham’s?”

  Major Coffey put his fingers together to form a pyramid.

  “I have thought about that, of course. Precisely I certainly cannot tell you. I was primarily an observer. The whole occasion struck me as a trifle—what shall I say?—effete. Contests may be stimulating but party games—they are mere trifling. I watched the croquet, watched Monopoly, a new game to me. Then I walked in the garden. I felt, to put the matter bluntly, that this was not an occasion for me . . .”

  It occurred to Minchip as an irony that Major Coffey and Dennis Hallam should react so similarly to the occasion.

  “Why did you go? The nature of these parties is well known in these parts.”

  “I was asked by Simon Kill
ingbeck.”

  “And that was enough? I see. Now, while you were walking in the garden, did you by any chance encounter Oliver Hallam?”

  “I did not.”

  “And you never went beyond the Beecham grounds?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, no.”

  “Not down to the river, over the bridge?”

  “No. Certainly not.”

  “Very well.” Minchip got up. “Now, as to this collection of guns, sir . . .”

  If Dennis Hallam had been present he would immediately have said: “The Purloined Letter!” He would probably have added: “It’s great fun, but I never found that story very convincing.” Minchip had not read the story, but he had no great hope either of finding the gun that killed Christopher Keene among the Major’s collection. However he strolled casually over to the cases. The Major came after him.

  “As a military man I am naturally interested in guns. You made the point yourself. A well-cared-for gun can make the difference between life and death.”

  “Quite. As a one-time soldier I appreciate that . . . That’s a Lee-Enfield .303, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. A rifle you would naturally recognize.”

  “An old friend,” acknowledged Minchip. “And that’s another. Would you mind if I took those guns, sir?”

  “I appreciate you have your duty to do, Inspector.”

  Major Coffey went forward to the case, but Minchip detained him by putting his hand on his sleeve.

  “There seems to be a gap. There seems to be one rifle missing from the case.”

  Major Coffey gazed at the gap between two guns with no sign of consternation. Indeed he looked, if anything, a touch self-satisfied.

  “There is. It’s at my gunsmith’s, for repair.”

  “Could you tell me the name of your gunsmith’s?”

  “Swettenham and Fulcher, in the Strand. I took the rifle there myself.”

  “Very well, sir. If you would now let me take those two Lee-Enfields, I’ll be on my way.”

  And, bearing them gingerly with the aid of handkerchiefs, Minchip left the cottage, nodding a curt goodbye, and promising himself he had not seen the last of the Major.

  It was lunch-time, and the little street that wound through Chowton seemed deserted as he made his way back towards the Police Station. He didn’t doubt, though, that he was being watched—from a closer range, as it turned out, than he had anticipated. As he passed the last cottage before the little string of shops began, a head came over a garden gate.

  “Is one o’ they the gun that killed Chris Keene?”

  Inspector Minchip paused for a moment, recalling all the village information purveyed to him by Sergeant South.

  “You’re Barry Noaks?”

  Barry nodded, in his apparently vacant way, quite unsurprised that he should be known to this strange policeman.

  “Is one of they the gun that blew Chris’s head off?”

  “I doubt it,” said Minchip.

  Barry smiled a slow, relishing smile.

  “It won’t be one of the Major’s guns that did it. He’s a sharp ‘un, is the Major. Right down cunning.”

  “You know him well?”

  “No. He wouldn’t have me along with the rest.” The tone was regretful, but not resentful. “But he’s a crafty old weasel. An’ he got those Hallams on the run.”

  He chuckled with delight.

  “Why should you be so pleased that the Hallams are on the run?”

  “Think they’re God Almighties, don’t they? But they’re nothing but rabbits. Throws up, does Hallam, if he sees a bit of blood.”

  “Ah—you’ve seen him?”

  “Might have. You’re no man if you can’t stand the sight o’ blood, are you? Stands to reason. A man’s got to be able to fight, if he’s a man at all.”

  Inspector Minchip realized he was hearing Major Coffey’s world view reduced to its lowest common denominator. He wondered just how much Barry Noaks knew.

  “You and I must have a little talk some time,” he said, going on his way.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Hallams were regaining a little of their old spirit. Oliver and Sarah had said nothing of their reception in the village, and the woman who had come to help with the cleaning that day kept well out of everybody’s way. If Elizabeth was conscious of how the affair was viewed in Chowton, she said nothing. She was talking about her Season next year, though, and with a slightly feverish gaiety, so Sarah wondered whether she wasn’t seeing her months in London as some form of escape. Oliver was pouring them all a sherry before dinner when Dennis darted over to a heap of newspapers on a side-table.

  “I found something in the News Chronicle for the ‘This England’ column,” he said with relish. The column, in the New Statesman and Nation, was a collection of clippings from newspapers, usually unintentionally comic or revealing. The New Statesman was very much one of the Hallams’ journals, and both Dennis and Helen contributed to the book pages on occasion.

  Dennis riffled through the pages of the Chronicle.

  “Here it is. It’s a letter, of course. ‘What a pleasant thing it would be if all those people earning £2000 and over a year would each adopt an unemployed man and help him to preserve his sense of proportion by sending an occasional letter or an old book.’ ” When they had finished laughing Dennis shook his head. “My God—what sort of world do these people live in?”

  “They live in the South, for a start,” said Helen acutely. “We’ve become two nations again. Most of the people in Kent or Surrey haven’t the first notion of what it’s like to be unemployed in Bolton or Bradford.”

  “I found something for the ‘This England’ column the other day,” said Elizabeth, “but in the . . . stress I forgot to cut it out. Lord Redesdale said that to abolish the House of Lords would be to strike at the very foundations of Christianity.”

  “I hope you went very carefully through the New Testament to find out where Christ extolled the virtues of an hereditary upper chamber,” said Oliver, handing her her sherry.

  “Redesdale’s the man with all the daughters,” said Dennis. “Even Mostyn says he’s practically certifiable.”

  “Oh, by the way,” said Helen to Sarah, “Winifred Hallam rang this morning while you were out. She wondered whether you’d like to take Chloe over there tomorrow. She felt it would get her away from the fuss and strain. But I thought it might be dull for you, so I didn’t commit you.”

  The phone rang in the hall, and Dennis got up to answer it.

  “Actually I’d rather like to go,” said Sarah. “I’ve been wanting to have a good look at her garden, and she’s promised to show me round.”

  “I didn’t realize you were interested in gardens. I’ll telephone to say you’ll come. Pinner or Oliver should be able to drive you, or maybe Elizabeth could.”

  “Does Elizabeth have a licence?”

  “Do you have to have a licence?”

  “Yes, Mummy, you do,” said Elizabeth, with a grin. “Mind you, there have been times, but with things as they are at the moment I don’t think tomorrow should be one of them.”

  “I’ll take you, Sarah,” said Oliver. “I’ve nothing to do except packing for Oxford.”

  “I’m sorry if I was a bit off-putting,” said Helen softly to Sarah. “I don’t quite like . . . well, to be honest, I don’t quite like the way Winifred looks at Chloe. Sort of yearning. Silly of me, I know, but I can’t help it. Somehow it doesn’t seem healthy.”

  “I know,” said Sarah. “I’ve seen that look. I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. She seems a very kind woman.”

  “Of course she is. I shouldn’t have said anything . . . Who was that ringing?”

  Dennis had come back from the hall, his face drawn.

  “Minchip. He wants to come up and talk to us tomorrow.”

  “Oh dear,” said Helen, biting her lip. “Perhaps it is a good thing Sarah is taking Chloe to Cabbot Hall. I suppose he won’t want to talk to Sarah again, will
he?”

  “No,” said Dennis, abstracted. “I didn’t get the impression he wanted to talk to Sarah.”

  “Listen to this,” said Elizabeth, from behind the Daily Sketch. “ ‘Lazy girls should be jogged into action by the news that the Duchess of Kent is doing her own nails.’ ”

  They laughed, but nervously. Soon they trailed raggedly into dinner.

  • • •

  Dennis looked haggard next morning. Haggard but immensely handsome. Even towards the end of his life he had the same ascetic magnetism. Sarah saw him on television, walking near Michael Foot among the leaders of one of the early Aldermaston marches, and she said to her daughter:

  “He’s always had this wonderful and complete moral commitment. And when I knew him he was so extraordinarily handsome.”

  “Still is,” said Sarah’s daughter, who was devoted to ‘thirties films, and admired Leslie Howard. On the screen Dennis marched forward with the wise and the good, and Sarah thought she could see the face of the man of forty-five, even that of the man of twenty she had never known.

  When breakfast was over Dennis went to his study, but not to work. He was sure that Minchip would be early—was the sort of man who got up at sunrise, and talked about not letting grass grow under his feet. When Pinner showed him in at ten, Minchip thought the room was the most overpoweringly learned he had ever been in. The study—oaken bookcases, dark wood ceiling—housed the reference books so essential to Dennis’s reviewing work, so he sat at his desk framed by the OED, Britannica, the Dictionary of National Biography and Groves, with hosts of lesser works around the walls. The picture within this frame ought to have been one of tranquil wisdom, but it was not.

  “Are you getting anywhere?” Dennis asked abruptly.

  Minchip sat down on the other side of the desk, and meditated how to answer him.

  “I have talked to Major Coffey,” he said carefully. “I’ve no doubt he was behind the series of pranks played on you.”

  “I never doubted that,” said Dennis impatiently. “Though what the fool expected to achieve by it God only knows.”

  “It was all part, I gather, of preparing the lads of the village for the next war.”