The roar of butterflies js-5

by Reginald Hill

  "Mr. Porphyry-" He gasped.

  "Chris."

  Joe took a deep breath. It felt like it might be his last but he wanted to be sure he got out everything he wanted to say in a form that even a Young Fair God could not misunderstand.

  "Chris. In case you haven't noticed, Chris, it's so hot that I'd jump in a pond full of alligators if one happened to be handy. I'm out of breath, and there's a bunch of guys behind us drilling little white balls through the air at a hundred miles an hour. And even if they ain't disturbed by the rumpus all them butterflies is kicking up, I guess any control over direction they've got won't hold up much if someone grabs their family jewels just as they're making their shot. So unless what you want to hire me for is to guess what you want to hire me for, I'd appreciate it if you could get to the point and tell me just what it is you want to hire me for!"

  That made things clear, he reckoned. In fact, he doubted if he could have made things clearer without adding semaphore.

  "Point taken, Joe," said Porphyry. "I'm sorry. I suppose there are some things a chap just doesn't like to talk about."

  This took what little remained of Joe's breath away. The guy really didn't want to tell him what he wanted to hire him for!

  He said, "Look, I've worked on all kinds of cases, stuff you wouldn't imagine. And, long as it don't involve interfering with kids or farm animals, I'm cool, OK?"

  "Yes, I see. Well, it's nothing like that, thank God, but it's bad. Really bad." He took a deep breath and blurted out, "The thing is, I've been accused of cheating."

  "Cheating?" echoed Joe. "You mean like cheating on Miss Emerson, your fiancee?"

  "No! Worse than that. Cheating at golf."

  "At golf? During a game, you mean?" Joe liked to get things absolutely straight, especially when dealing with an alien being. "You've been accused of cheating at a game of golf?"

  "That's it. Yes. Ghastly, isn't it? A really filthy thing to have laid on you. Filthy."

  His expression turned haunted and gloomy. It was like the sun going down, though, oddly, distress didn't age his features. On the contrary, he looked even younger, a young fair child now rather than a young fair god.

  Joe felt his own spirits sink in sympathy. It hurt him to see the young man so unhappy, even though for the life of him he couldn't work out the cause of such un- happiness. Yeah, cheating in sport was bad, but this day and age, it was part of the game. Guy you were marking tried to give you the slip, you pulled his shirt. He got by you and posed a real danger to your goal, you took his legs out. You got tackled in your opponents' penalty area, you went down hard, holding your knee and screaming. OK, if the ref was a drama critic, he might award a free kick against you, maybe even give you a yellow card, in the very worst cases a red. But it was all in a day's work, no one thought any the worse of you for it, whether you were playing five-a-side in the park or earning a hundred grand a week in the Premiership. In fact, if you got a reputation in the pro game, it could be a nice little earner after you'd left the game with articles on My Fifty Favorite Fouls or How to Be a Hard Man. You might even do a movie or get a TV show.

  So how was golf different?

  He said, "How serious is this?"

  Porphyry said, "If proven, I could be chucked out of the club."

  "Must be lots of other clubs," said Joe consolingly.

  "Not if you've been chucked out of the Hoo," said Porphyry.

  Joe doubted if it would make much difference down at the Municipal Pitch'n'Putt, but was sensitive enough to see this might be only a limited consolation.

  "So what kind of case can they put together?" he said.

  To his surprise, Porphyry reached out and squeezed his hand.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "For what?" said Joe in some alarm.

  "For not needing to ask if I'm innocent."

  He's missing the point, thought Joe. In life there was right and wrong. During his long childhood tuition at the hands of Aunt Mirabelle, that had been drummed into him by example, precept, and punishment. But in law there was only what could or couldn't be proved. But he hadn't got the heart to tell Porphyry he was misinterpreting a simple practical question as a wholehearted vote of confidence.

  Porphyry, to his relief, had removed his hand.

  Joe said, "Yeah, but like I said, can they make a case?"

  "Oh yes, I'm afraid so. Not much point in bringing an accusation otherwise."

  This at least was pragmatic. Eventually he didn't doubt he was going to have to ask, So what exactly do you imagine I can do to help you? without any expectation of a satisfactory answer. It might be kinder to ask it now and get the disappointment over.

  Instead he heard himself saying, "This cheating, just what are you supposed to have done?"

  "That's what I was going to show you," said Porphyry. "Scene of the crime, or rather scene of the non- crime. I knew you'd want to see it."

  His face was back to full radiance. Oh shoot! thought Joe. He imagines I'm going to pull out my magnifying glass, crawl around the undergrowth for a bit, then stand up with an instant solution.

  At least they'd turned off now under the shade of the trees. A couple of minutes later they emerged on an elevated ridge of land which a sign told Joe was the sixteenth tee.

  "It was exactly a week ago, Tuesday," said Porphyry. "I was playing Syd Cockernhoe in a singles. Second round of the Vardon Cup, that's the club's annual knock-out. I was lying dormy three down when we got here-"

  "Lying what?" interrupted Joe, trying to translate this into English as he listened but unable to come up with anything beyond lying bastard, which didn't make sense.

  "I was three holes down with only three to play. I needed to win every hole to halve the match."

  "To get a draw, you mean?"

  "That's right. Now, the sixteenth's a real challenge, Shot hole one-"

  "Sorry?" said Joe. It was like talking to a foreigner who knew enough of the language to sound fluent but who kept on getting words and phrases in the wrong place.

  "Most difficult hole on the course. It's a par five, four ninety-eight yards, so it's not the distance. What makes it hard is that sharp dog-leg right you see up ahead at two hundred yards. Then another hundred yards on the fairway curves away to the left. Not a right-angle bend like the dog-leg, but a distinct change of direction. Once round that you can see the green way ahead, slightly elevated and protected by the Elephant Trap, that's the deepest bunker on the course."

  "Chris," said Joe. "I don't play golf and, up till now, I thought what I knew about golf you could write on a matchbox, but now I see I wouldn't need all that space. Could we maybe try basic English?"

  "Sorry. I really don't know how else to explain things. But I'll try."

  He took a deep breath then he resumed.

  "The fewer shots you take to reach the green the better. You follow that?"

  Joe nodded.

  "Good. Now the conventional way of playing this hole would be to hit your first shot from the tee, that's where we are, straight up to the dog-leg, that's the bend. Then you would hit your second shot to the next bend, hopefully with a bit of draw, that means making it curl to the left so that it actually goes around the second bend as far as you can get it, to lessen the distance of your third shot. OK?"

  "Yes," lied Joe.

  "But what long hitters, and desperate idiots who are three down with three to play do is try to cut the first corner by hitting a drive straight over the trees on the right there, and hoping it takes a hop round the second bend and brings the green in sight."

  "So you can get there in two shots?"

  "That's right!" said Porphyry, delighted. "I'm both a reasonably long hitter and a very dedicated idiot. Also I was dormy three, so I really let one go, didn't quite catch it perfectly, and produced a slice. That means the ball started bending right. It wasn't a huge slice but it was enough. I heard the ball rattling among the trees. All I could hope was that I was lucky and had a decent lie so that I could
chip out. Of course I played a provisional…"

  He had started walking forward as he talked and Joe was once more trotting slightly behind.

  "A Provisional?" he asked, wondering how the IRA had got into things.

  "I hit a second ball in case the first were lost," explained Porphyry. "You get a penalty shot for a lost ball, so if I didn't find the first one, that would mean I'd played three with my second."

  "Even though you'd only hit it once?" said Joe.

  "Right! You're beginning to get it, Joe," said the YFG with a confidence that was totally misplaced. "Syd was up by the dog-leg but had drifted into the short rough on the left. My provisional was up there too. He went forward to locate his ball while I shot off into the woods hoping to spot my first."

  They were in the woods in question now. Again the shade was welcome. As they followed a diagonal line toward the stretch of fairway out of sight from the tee, Joe glimpsed a house through the trees, set well back.

  As if answering a question, Porphyry said, "That's Penley Farm where Jimmy Postgate lives. One of our founder members. In fact, come to think of it, the only one still with us. In his eighties, but still manages nine now and then. Lost distance, of course, but he's never lost the ability to hit a straight ball. Dead straight in everything, Jimmy. True English gentleman, which is what makes it so difficult."

  "Sorry?" said Joe, thinking, here we go! Back to round- the-houses land.

  "But I'd better stick to the proper sequence so's not to confuse you," said Porphyry. "I was poking around pretty aimlessly. To tell the truth, I hadn't much hope, when you hear a ball clatter like that, you know it could have gone anywhere. Then I glimpsed something white up ahead toward the fairway there. Thought it was probably a mushroom at first, but when I went up to it, lo and behold, it was my ball! Here it was, right here. A truly fortunate lie."

  They came almost to the edge of the trees. Here the ground was free of undergrowth, bare earth mainly with a bit of scrubby grass.

  "How did you know it was your ball?" wondered Joe.

  "Chap always knows what ball he's playing with, otherwise there could be all kinds of confusion. I'm a Titleist man myself, always Number 1, and just to make assurance doubly sure, I have them personalized."

  He pulled a ball out of his pocket and handed it to Joe. On it in purple was stamped a small seahorse with the initials CP.

  "Family coat of arms. Three seahorses rampant, and a dolphin couchant."

  Joe listened uncomprehendingly, but once the bit was between his teeth, he wasn't a man to let himself be led astray, especially not by seahorses.

  He said, "So you found your first ball. What about the other one you hit?"

  "Oh, I gave Syd a wave to show him I was all right, and he played his second shot, then picked up my provisional and brought it with him. No use for it, you see, not once I'd found the first one."

  Joe was still a bit bewildered by all this two-ball stuff. The same with tennis where if you missed your first serve, they let you have another. Imagine trying that in footie. Oh sorry, ref, says Beckham. I didn't mean to blaze that one over the bar, can I have another go?

  But it was too hot for diversion.

  He said, "Any chance of getting to the cheating bit?"

  "Yes, I'm getting there," said Porphyry with just the faintest hint of irritation. Even gods don't care to be hurried. "Syd's shot was pretty good, he drew it round the bend nicely, leaving himself a medium iron to reach the green in regulation. Now a half was no good to me-you recall I was dormy three. So I took out my three wood. As you'll have noticed, I didn't have a view of the green. I was going to need to get not only the distance but put enough draw on the ball to take it round the bend and up to the green. As if to make up for my drive, I hit a cracker. Off it went and when we got to the green it was lying four feet from the flag and I knocked it in for an eagle. That means two under par. Three shots on this hole. So even though Syd got a birdie, that's four shots on this hole, I won."

  Joe said, "My head's hurting."

  Porphyry said anxiously, "It must be the sun. You should have worn a hat. Would you like to sit down for a minute?"

  "No, I'm fine. We any nearer the cheating?"

  "Nearly there," said the YFG, heading back into the woods in the direction of the house. "What happened was that Syd was a bit demoralized. Getting a birdie and still losing the hole can do that. I won the next two holes so we ended up all square."

  "Like a draw?"

  "That's it. But you can't have a draw in a knock-out competition, so we went down the first again."

  "To play another eighteen holes, you mean?" said Joe aghast.

  "Oh no. First man to win a hole wins the match," said Porphyry.

  "Like a penalty shoot-out?"

  "Yes, I suppose so. I won that hole too, so we headed back to the clubhouse for a drink. My treat, of course, being the winner. We were standing at the bar. Syd was telling everyone who came in that I must have sacrificed a virgin to the devil or something, coming back from dormy three to win. He was particularly eloquent on my incredible luck on the sixteenth, clattering my drive into the woods, and yet still somehow managing to come up with an eagle to beat his birdie. He'd just repeated the story for the third or fourth time when Jimmy Postgate came in. That's Jimmy from Penley Farm, the house I showed you on the far edge of these woods. He speaks quite loudly, Jimmy, because he's a touch deaf. So everyone in the bar heard it loud and clear when he took a golf ball out of his pocket and tossed it to me, saying, 'Here's the one you lost at the sixteenth, Chris. Plopped right into my swimming pool! Good job there was no one in there or it might have been a burial-at-sea job!' "

  8

  Trust

  Now the Young Fair God fell silent, clearly reliving what even Joe with his weak grasp on the finer points of the game could see must have been a devastating moment. But just to be quite sure he said, "So if that was your ball went into the swimming pool, no way you could have found it sitting nice and handy right at the edge of the fairway. No way except one, that is?" "Except one?" The YFG was regarding him with hope brightening his face. Poor sod thinks I'm going to pull a rabbit out of the hat, thought Joe. Willie Woodbine must really have sold him the notion I'm some kind of voodoo priest. Well, it was disillusion time. He said, "The except one being that you put it there." The light died. "Of course. That's the obvious conclusion everyone reached."

  "Not everyone, surely?"

  "Oh, one or two like Jimmy tell me they find it impossible to believe, but I wouldn't blame them if even they had doubts. Let's face it, what other explanation can there be?"

  "Only that you were fitted up," said Joe.

  "Fitted up?"

  It was hard to believe in this wall-to-wall TV cop- show age that anybody could still be ignorant of the jargon.

  "That it's a fix," said Joe. "That someone wants you to be accused of cheating."

  "Oh," said the YFG, sounding disappointed again. "That's what Willie suggested."

  "Willie Woodbine? You called in the police?"

  "Good lord, no. I didn't do anything. I really thought it was so absurd it would just go away, some simple explanation would present itself, we'd all have a laugh and that would be that. But as the days went by, it became clear it wasn't going away."

  "People were accusing you, you mean?"

  "Of course not. No, it was people coming up to me and assuring me they didn't believe a word of it that made me realize how much everyone was talking. I'd invited Willie along for a game on Saturday-I'm putting him up for membership, you know-and while we were playing, it just sort of came up. I suppose I was hoping his professional expertise might be able to show me a way out. He was very sympathetic, but didn't see how he could help officially. That was when he recommended you, Joe. So that's why I came to see you yesterday."

  "Yeah. Great. But Willie did reckon it might be an attempt to frame you?"

  "Or a bad joke, perhaps, that went wrong. That's what he said. Told me t
o ask myself who might be capable of doing such a thing."

  "And?"

  "I haven't been able to think of a soul."

  "You got no enemies then?" said Joe doubtfully.

  "Not that I know of."

  That figured. Joe too had once had a similar sunny confidence in human kind, till his chosen profession showed him flaws in his argument. Now he knew, sadly, that the fact that Porphyry thought everyone loved him would be enough to make those who didn't hate him even more.

  So no help with who? Which meant that the poor sod wasn't going to be much help with why? either. How? was the easy one. Porphyry hit his ball into the wood. A lurking plotter hurled a similar ball into Post- gate's swimming pool, then placed the original one, or a third ball, if he couldn't find the original, on the fringe of the fairway.

  Or maybe this guy Postgate himself had orchestrated the whole thing. That would make life a lot simpler.

  A few minutes later Joe was scrubbing this particular theory.

  Porphyry now led him to Penley Farm, entering the long rear garden by a wicket gate. A man was dozing on a cane chair by a small swimming pool. He had a mop of vigorous white hair and a sun-browned complexion. As they got near, Porphyry called out, "Hello, Jimmy," and the man opened his eyes, looking rather disorientated and extremely ancient. But when he saw who it was, a smile lit up his face, reducing him to a healthy eighty-year-old, and he rose to greet them.

  "Chris, good to see you," he said, shaking the YFG's hand vigorously.

  "You too, you're looking well, Jimmy. This is Joe Sixsmith. He's a private detective. Joe, meet Jimmy Postgate, last of his kind-more's the pity."

  Joe, who'd been expecting his role as prospective member to be maintained everywhere in the club, was a bit taken aback by Porphyry's sudden attack of directness, but Postgate seemed to take it in his stride.

  "Private detective, eh?" he said. "Never met one of them before. You look a bit overheated to me, Joe. Fancy a glass of lemonade? Or do you chaps only drink straight bourbon?"

  "Lemonade would be great," said Joe.

  They sat by the pool and drank their lemonade which was home-made and delicious, but it soon became apparent to Joe that it was going to be the only profitable part of the visit, unless you could count Postgate's uncompromising assertion of his undentable belief in Porphyry's innocence. Coming from a man who had inadvertently provided the cornerstone of the case against him, this struck Joe as a bit of a paradox, which he defined as something that didn't make sense or made more sense than at first appeared, but whether it helped or hindered him he couldn't say so he sent it to the Recycle Bin.