Passion in the Peak

by John Buxton Hilton

  Kershaw leaned into the wind, doing his best to ignore the rain that lashed his face. Nall had not exaggerated the perils of confronting Cantrell. The man was smoothly sure of himself, would have considered it a weakness—a wetness—to sink to subtlety in any personal relationship. For all Furnival’s airy aestheticism, it was an abrasive force that he had recruited to man his support lines. Cantrell was ex-army, had learned what he knew of police work as an Assistant Provost Marshal. The worst enemy that Furnival had to fight was adverse publicity. If there were hard drugs in his camp, then Cantrell’s resources for rooting them out were in some ways superior to those of the police: he had access to premises. But it would not be a question of rooting things out: his job would be to dig them in. If a new bout of snide stories went the rounds about Larner, then he had to see that they stayed in the family. The Press were here in strength now, covering the practical joker angle.

  Kershaw turned into the drive with its castellated lodge, the dotted follies that Furnival called owl-moperies and clod-wotteries, years ago tortured into apiarists’ peacocks and squirrels, now grown out, but not quite beyond recognition.

  The blonde in Reception did not want to be disturbed from a letter she was writing. Except for the orchestra, almost the entire enterprise had succumbed to the spirit of the wet weekend. But Dyer was coming down the stairs: a shaven head, burning black, close-set eyes, tight twill trousers. Dyer was Larner’s agent. There were tales about Dyer’s control of Larner. Permission to fart, sir? It was rumoured that anything that Larner did on stage had to be vetted by Dyer; that was said to be in his contract. It was Dyer who had launched Larner in the early years of Beatle-apers, had lifted him out of some sleazy group yeah-yeah-yeahing in a cellar. Dyer must have ploughed an uphill furrow, selling Larner to Furnival. There was always something going on behind Dyer’s eyes. They were not on fire—but smouldering: a man reputed to be difficult. Yet face-to-face, Kershaw had never found him anything but mild and helpful.

  ‘Looking for someone, Officer?’

  ‘I’m going up to see Colonel Cantrell.’

  Kershaw knocked on Cantrell’s door and waited. Nothing happened. He knocked again and opened the door as discreetly as he could. Cantrell liked catching you out either way: for entering without being told to—or for not hearing him call. Just now he was too engrossed on the phone to expostulate.

  ‘Well, honestly, sir, I don’t know what I can be expected to do about it.’

  His bony face was pink with emotional exertion, his Sandhurst moustache nicotine-stained, the white patches at either side of his bald dome clipped transparently to the skin.

  ‘I’m not the guardian of their morals. I can’t call them in like a housemaster and give them six of the best for fornication.’

  He could have waved Kershaw to a chair. Kershaw, pre-empting the mood in which he meant to tackle Cantrell, sat down without waiting to be asked.

  ‘Well—what can we expect? Of course people will say there’s a shuttle-service between beds. There is a shuttle-service between beds. All I can say is that sooner or later you’ll have to show a chosen few that they’re expendable.’

  Kershaw caught sight of a corner of mauve notepaper, the fourth or fifth item down in Cantrell’s tray.

  ‘Sir, I could give you a dozen names to sack, and no injustice done. I remember a similar sort of nonsense at a Divisional HQ—two staff captains in the NAAFI quarters—When you’re dealing with people like this, I don’t see what else you can expect. Well, no, sir, if you say so—Constable?’

  ‘Wayne Larner, sir.’

  ‘I know: gone to town with your girlfriend.’

  The body-blow almost wrong-footed Kershaw.

  ‘But I wouldn’t let it trouble you. She looks a safe enough type to me. There’s not much mischief they can get up to on a wet Saturday afternoon in Buxton, is there?’

  Kershaw had to make an effort to bring his mind back to Cantrell.

  ‘That isn’t what I came to talk about, sir.’

  He waited for Cantrell to volunteer something, but nothing came. He leaned forward on impulse, pinched a corner of the mauve paper and drew it from the tray.

  ‘You’ve no right to do that, Kershaw.’

  But then he seemed to think better of antagonizing even as menial a minion of the law as this.

  ‘I hope you’re not taking this joker seriously.’

  ‘Aren’t you, sir?’

  ‘Good God, no. Somebody just being a bloody nuisance. Somebody who wants to be taken seriously. A prankster, wasting our time.’

  These tricks against Mary Magdalene: had they stopped, or hadn’t they, since the departure of Madge Oldroyd? There had been two incidents since Joan had been standing in. A trapdoor on the stage had suddenly fallen open while Joan was standing near it. No harm done—but if she’d been on it, she could have broken a leg. Then yesterday, just as she was crouching for the foot-washing scenario, an electrician had rushed forward from his switchboard and pulled away the microphone concealed under her bowl. Apparently he had spotted a frayed cable, and thought that the thing might have become live: only might.

  No lavender warning of either of these events. They might have been simply stage accidents—the sort of thing that was being narrowly avoided all day long at rehearsal.

  Again, Kershaw dragged himself back to Cantrell’s presence.

  ‘You hadn’t thought of referring this to us, sir?’

  ‘If we had, would they have sent you?’

  Cantrell smiled a snotty smile. Kershaw kept his temper.

  ‘It would help to know who’s sending them,’ he said. ‘You must have a lot of handwriting in your personnel files—on their application forms and so on. Have you checked?’

  ‘Do you know how long my working day is already, Constable Kershaw?’

  Kershaw glanced at the calligraphy, though he knew all its characteristics without having to remind himself: fussy, inelegant flourishes, superfluous underlinings, a curiously stilted phraseology.

  ‘We, on the other hand, have to take everything seriously.’

  ‘Meaning that you’re belly-aching to turn this place upside down?’

  ‘We would be discreet, sir. The consequences—’

  ‘Nothing doing, Kershaw.’

  ‘This thing has come down from my DI, sir.’

  ‘Tell him that I accept full responsibility.’

  ‘That might not impress him, sir.’

  Kershaw knew that this might be more than Cantrell would stand for. He saw the colonel stiffen in his chair—but a mild voice from the door punctured his rising fury.

  ‘Why don’t you tell him, Charles? His interests might not run counter to ours. Let him see that we’ve been able to do a bit of detection on our own account.’

  Kershaw liked Furnival. It was by being liked by people that Furnival achieved what he did. He gave the impression that he, too, liked people. Kershaw was relieved to see him.

  ‘The point is, Kershaw, we think we know who’s been writing these things. And incidentally, we’ve got rid of her for the afternoon. I’ve sent her to Manchester to do some quite unnecessary checking in the John Rylands Library. At least, she’s off our necks for the next few hours. So let’s go and take a peep at her pad, shall we? I’m sure it would be better for us to have an official witness.’

  Kershaw was dubious. Turning over a room in the absence of its tenant might strike the DI either way—according to the outcome. But he followed the pair along the hair-carpeted corridors of the residential wing. And there was laughter behind some of the doors. One stood ajar, and they saw two men bending over a model of a stage-set. A soprano was practising a recitative. Through a landing window they could see the rain, still sheeting across the landscape like the tracks of arrows.

  Cantrell had a pass-key and let them into a small bedsitter: cheap contemporary furniture, enough for reasonable comfort: a divan bed, a bedside table with a small built-in bookcase, a let-down desk that ran the length of th
e window. A skirt, fresh from the cleaners, lay over a chair. But there was little to point to the persona of the resident—the room looked more like a showcase for Larner. Mounted about the walls were a dozen unframed photographs of the singer: Larner in scuffed denims in his hippy period, his mouth wide open in front of a group who looked as if they regularly slept rough; Larner with a long string of pebble beads dangling over a sack-like shift; a still of Larner from a TV commercial for vermouth. Four of the portraits were autographed, and one could trace a progression. Ricarda Mommsen, Sincerely Yours, Wayne Larner, later Ricky with love from Wayne. The sleeve of a recent LP was prominent, released to warm the public for his come-back: Fringe of Soul. The lid of a music centre was open, and there was a cassette in place.

  ‘I thought it was all over between those two,’ Furnival said. ‘Hasn’t she been seen in company with a man?’

  ‘A right monkey of a man, too, by all reports. But when is a thing all over in a woman’s mind? It’s all over as far as Larner’s concerned. It’s the detective’s girl he’s after now.’

  ‘Oh—I thought he was stealing side-glances at Martha.’

  ‘That came to nothing, sir. He’s had a go at Jairus’s daughter since then. I happened to stroll past at rehearsal and saw the way they were playing the scene. It did not look as if either of them could wait to get back to the dressing-room. I had a word with Haiek about it. Since then he’s made a pass at the third angel from the left in the Prologue in Heaven. I suppose we’ve got to expect this sort of thing. These people have no standards.’

  ‘You’re prejudiced, Charles. Believe that if you like, but don’t let your eyes stray off them. These hills and woods will be swarming with drop-outs when the show opens—but it’s pious cash that buys seats in the stalls.’

  Cantrell grasped at a straw of achievement.

  ‘Well, at least, we’re still keeping him off the road, sir.’

  Larner had a hairy record in souped-up cars and a clause in his contract kept him away from the wheel for the duration of the show. The concession was said to have cost Furnival ten thousand. And Dyer was said to have shared his relief.

  Furnival shrugged, unimpressed. He went casually across and switched on the cassette. Larner’s voice hit the room, the volume turned up to its traumatic maximum. Larner’s was a steel wool tenor with pleading overtones. Dyer had once marketed it as sex in the groove. Mercifully for the Passion, the phrase had not clung in the public consciousness. The jangle of guitars set Ricarda Mommsen’s tooth-glass rattling on its glass shelf. A twelve-bar blues:

  Once there was a garden, couldst thou not wait one hour?

  ‘Soul in Gethsemane. I could have that young man for breach of contract. These lyrics are strictly classified material until the previews.’

  Furnival and Cantrell began to look cursorily over Miss Mommsen’s belongings. And in all conscience, she did not own much—three or four changes of unadventurous underwear, a few bits and pieces of cosmetics and a handful of books, about half of them in German. In a drawer of her bedside table was a compendium of lavender notepaper with rococo-lined envelopes. The first sheet had been started: ‘Peak Low’ and a date four days ago. ‘Dear Sir—’ and nothing more. The handwriting—neurotic flourishes, too pinched-up for elegance—was already familiar to Kershaw.

  ‘Mind if I take a sheet, sir?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Much good may it do you!’

  Kershaw carefully extracted one, folded it and put it away in his wallet. He also helped himself, largely as a show of professional activity, to a spent match-end from the ashtray—one torn from a book, and advertising, of all things, a hotel in Doncaster.

  ‘Who is she, sir?’

  ‘Jewess. Three-quarters. The family had enough money to get out of Augsburg before the holocaust. She’s a world authority on Hebrew costume, knick-knacks, environment. She’s my chief research assistant.’

  ‘Attractive?’

  Furnival and Cantrell looked at each other.

  ‘You must have heard the tales about Larner. She’s thirty-four, looks forty-eight, wears brogues like horse-troughs. Some people’s notions of Jews are based on a hideous caricature. Ricky Mommsen, I’m afraid, is that caricature in the flesh. And that is not a racist remark. Yet according to rumour, she has already found herself a new friend—odd bod though he appears to be.’

  Cantrell sniggered. There were unsavoury stories told about Larner and women. There had been one loathsome episode that had been kept from the public ear and that was no more than a subject for speculation, even among those who considered themselves well informed. It was shortly after that that Larner had cut himself loose from Dyer—only to find himself out in the cold for a decade. He was said to have a gargantuan sexual hunger, with no shortage of women queuing up to keep that wolf from his door. Adolescents screamed orgiastically over the footlights. He made obscene gestures at thirteen-years-olds with his guitar. But his amorous diet was not above hags and freaks. He was a man, it seemed, of unsavoury tastes. There were tales of provincial hotels, in the early years of his one-night stands, where he was supposed to have taken cripples to his bed. Nottingham was frequently mentioned as the scene of one of his most nauseating aberrations, but there were too many versions of the story for any of them to be relied on.

  And now he was out for the afternoon with Joan Culver—

  ‘Have you seen all you want to see, Constable?’

  There was nothing for it but the long, cold walk back to his billet. One sheet of uninformative notepaper, one spent match from Doncaster. It was to be hoped that Nall’s ale suited him tonight.

  And what had got into Joan?

  Things between Freddy Kershaw and his billetor’s daughter scarcely amounted to an understanding. He had taken her out twice: one evening for a pub snack, and once to see Mike Harding at the Buxton Opera House. He thought he was taking a chance there, that she might be offended by the comic’s happy vulgarity. But she had laughed at cracks that he had not expected her to understand. He took her for an old-fashioned girl, and had said that to her once.

  ‘Well, if that’s what you think,’ she had said, ‘you might be in for a big surprise one day.’

  When spring was a reality, and the footpaths had dried out, they were going to walk a dale or two together. In the local idiom, they had taken to each other. That was all there was to it. Joan was an attractive, well-built girl, twenty-fiveish, the sort of complexion you might see on a health-food poster, intelligent—had taken three A-Levels. But because of family circumstances, she had only gone on to a dead-end clerical job, and had left that when her mother died. Now she looked after her father and her unmarried brother who worked the small farm.

  Freddy Kershaw could not see that Wayne Larner had any place in that ethos.

  Chapter Three

  Kershaw, wet from his walk down the hill, let himself into the cottage. Joan’s father, his knees close to the fire, was watching the racing on television. He looked up apologetically.

  ‘She’ll not be late. She asked me to cook the supper. Matthew’s out courting, up Beeley Moor. I reckon we’st manage all right, the pair of us.’

  Then he summed up the position succinctly.

  ‘It’ll be a good job when these fancy buggers have gone home.’

  Kershaw invited him to come over to the pub that evening. The old man needed no persuasion.

  ‘Only there’s no need to say too much to Joan about it, is there? A half-pint of mild’ll do me no harm.’

  There followed a Saturday night that was neither the brightest nor the shortest in Kershaw’s recollection. Nall was pigging it on pint bitters with whisky chasers and ribbing him repetitively about Joan. And Sergeant Wardle, who joined them out of uniform, was either suffering from an unacknowledged stomach ulcer, or was determined to disseminate misery for its own sake. The Devonshire Arms was packed by some of the weirder and more clannish-minded of Furnival’s retinue and it was difficult for locals to struggle to the bar.
And when the policemen finally did get tankards in their hands, their elbows were pinned to their sides by Swedish clarinettists, Portuguese stage electricians and a variety of lesser contributors, including an indeterminate little man who made himself known in the lime-washed urinal.

  ‘Prepuce—a Gentile.’

  Nall was determined not to be impressed by Kershaw’s report on Ricarda Mommsen.

  ‘And you shouldn’t have gone into her room, boy. Bounce from here to hell and back if she finds out about that and cares to make something of it.’

  He looked askance at the Doncaster match-end.

  ‘I don’t see what that proves. Except that somebody’s been to Doncaster, which isn’t a crime—except against good taste and common sense.’

  ‘I might as well chuck it away, then.’

  ‘Unless you want it as a souvenir.’

  Nall belched proudly, swallowing air between pulls at his pot, then bringing it back with a gut-rumbling crack. He had done this at short intervals every night out for years—and still thought it funny.

  ‘So Furnival didn’t seem worried? I don’t think you’ve got the knack yet, Freddy, of reading these bloody aristocrats. When a man like his lordship smiles at you, that’s the time to look out. While he’s cutting your throat, he’ll expect you to be shaking his hand like a pump-handle. That’s what they mean by being a gentleman.’

  The talk moved naturally on to Larner. It generally did whenever the subject was the Passion. Opinions were strong—both ways. His fans of ten years ago were overjoyed at his come-back. Others thought it nothing less than blasphemy to have cast him in the Christ part. It was a blow struck for youth and progress—that was the legend on his latest record-sleeve. In his prime he had written and sung songs about inner city emptiness. He had sat down in traffic in the cause of conservation. He had given al fresco concerts to feed the Third World. He had preached about his progress from reefers to the hard stuff—and his ultimate self-redemption; he had written fulminating letters to the Press about middlemen and pushers. His social conscience was touched by anything that might prink his next disc with a sparkle of gold. Some said that he had never penned a lyric in his life, that every syllable had been written by somebody in Dyer’s team, that Dyer picked his causes for him and kept his engagement book free for the right demos.