by Mike Ripley
I wondered where she’d heard that.
‘You mentioned the “hunt” when I first met you this afternoon. What did you mean?’
‘I assumed you were one of Geoffrey’s animal-lovers. They always start to appear from the woodwork when there’s a meet in the offing.’
‘A what?’ I thought for a minute she’d said ‘meat.’
‘Boxing Day Meet.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Boxing Day? It’s the day after Christmas Day,’ she giggled, thinking either she or the vodka had made a joke.
‘What meet?’
‘The local hunt always meets on Boxing Day morning near the Caxton Gibbet. Loadsapeople turn out to watch. My dad says it helps them work off the turkey and Christmas pud.’
‘And what does Geoffrey do?’
‘I expect he’ll have his student friends there demonstrating like he did during the spring. They have banners and stuff and make a lot of noise trying to distract the hounds.
Bloody childish if you ask me.’
I nodded sympathetically.
‘Geoffrey makes a bit of a spectacle of himself, does he?’
‘Yes.’ In front of Daddy too.
‘And you thought I was one of them? A hunt saboteur?’
She leaned forward and screwed up her face.
‘I couldn’t give a fiddler’s fuck if you were.’
I bet myself she hadn’t heard that in the vestry after choir practice. Oh, I don’t know, though.
She reached for the vodka bottle, which she’d put under her chair, but I beat her to it. It was already half-empty.
‘Hey!’ she grabbed at my hand but missed. ‘Don’t you tell me I’ve had enough,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t going to. I was going to tell you it was your round.’
The Reverend Bell arrived just after 10.00, and I knew he was in the Parish Room before I saw him, from the way the glow of several distant cigarettes suddenly vanished and from the number of young ladies who hastened to the loo, adjusting their clothing.
Things were pretty well under control, in fact. The last bus connecting neighbouring villages had gone at 10.00, so quite a lot of the kids had had to leave before then, allowing for the obligatory 15-minute farewell sessions with boy/girlfriends. Stephanie had sulked off for a final dance and I’d made a start on packing things up. With luck, we’d hit The Five Bells half an hour before closing.
No such luck.
‘Everything okay?’ asked the rector, flashing a weak smile. His hair was slicked down from a shower and he was wearing jeans and a Lynx sweatshirt in the same ‘Roar of Disapproval’ series (against fur trading) as my T-shirt.
‘Sure. Last waltz just about to start.’
I phased the volume down so we didn’t actually need semaphore to communicate.
‘Good. I’ll help you clear up. Lara’s over at the rectory setting up the video. I’d like you to see what we are using it for.’
I feigned an oh-yes-I’d-forgotten-about-that expression and cued up the last track of side one of the Simply Red LP.
Stephanie and Amy appeared wearing their long coats and flat shoes and began to clear away empty cans and crisp packets as Bell started to fold away some of the chairs down one side of the hall.
‘Last record, folks,’ I announced into the microphone. ‘And a real beauty to charm you on your way. This one’s even older than me.’
I flicked the turntable release and ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’ wafted out through the speakers.
Stephie gave me a filthy look, then rolled her eyes to the roof and giggled something at Amy.
The Reverend Bell just gave me the filthy look.
He’d stopped dead in his tracks with an armful of folded chairs and his head had whipped round.
I was swaying gently, singing along and the picture of innocence and determined to avoid eye contact with him.
It wasn’t easy. Even from that distance, the killer look he flashed me was mighty venomous, though it lasted maybe two seconds before he went back to picking up chairs.
For two seconds, though, I had an insight into what a treble tile or a block of timber might feel like in their last moments before their atomic structure was reorganised.
I hadn’t seen a television on my snooping tour of the rectory, or a video recorder, or Billy’s Minolta video camera or a collection of about two hundred video cassettes and an old, but professional, editing machine.
That’s because I hadn’t looked in the cellar, and that was because I’d walked by the door under the staircase at least six times thinking it was a cupboard.
There were also lights down there; professional spots with metal flaps and sheets of greaseproof paper clothes-pegged over them to filter or direct shadow. And there was a desk, like a newsreader would use, surrounded on three sides by sheets of plywood on exhibition stands. In effect, they had a homemade film studio.
Lara seemed to be in charge.
She was wearing a pale blue tracksuit and trainers, and she too was not long out of the shower. She held a hardbacked shorthand notebook and a pencil with which she occasionally tapped her teeth. It seemed like a habit to stop her biting her fingernails.
‘This is – was – very much Billy’s project,’ she said, ignoring my ‘Hello again!’
She selected a cassette from the main collection and added it to a pile of about a dozen near the video recorder, then she turned the TV on and inserted the first tape.
‘Billy collected these excerpts from everywhere he could,’ she said as the video clicked in and onto the screen came the closing credits of Hill Street Blues.
‘Not this,’ Lara said seriously. ‘Watch the commercials.’
The first was an ad for a facial cold cream, which I must have seen a thousand times but still couldn’t tell you the name of the product. At the end, in the bottom left of the frame, the words ‘Cruelty Free’ came up in small white letters. The commercial finished and the tape went blank, then a hand-lettered caption came up: ‘Cruelty Free? But still tested on animals.’
Lara stopped the machine, ejected the cassette and fed in another. This time it was for a shampoo, and the ad agency had used lush green tropical locations, mountain streams and exotic flora and fauna, partly to give a really natural feel to the thing but partly to justify a two-week shooting schedule in Tobago.
There was another homemade caption after this one: ‘The Draize Test.’
‘That’s where they drip shampoo into the eye, isn’t it? To test for irritancy.’
That’s right,’ said Bell, impressed. ‘And totally unnecessary. They know what produces the irritation. Why not stick to the substances we already know about?’
‘Because it stifles innovation?’ I said, like I was quoting from something.
‘That’s what they say,’ Lara chipped in bitterly, not taking her eyes from the screen.
The next tape featured a washing powder, the one after, an eye-liner, then a make-up remover, then a baby’s bubble bath. They weren’t all TV commercials; some were poster sites and some had been clipped from magazines, mounted and videoed. They weren’t all aimed at, or blaming, just women either. There were shaving soap and after-shave commercials, each with a caption along the lines of: ‘Tested on 93 Bunny Rabbits Before Macho Man Dare Use It!’
‘Billy’s project was all about replacing animals in cosmetic testing,’ said Bell.
‘With humans?’ I asked stupidly.
‘Of course. He would make video compilations, and the idea was to show them to young people who would volunteer to be …’
‘Guinea pigs?’
That went down like a lead balloon.
‘… product testers. Even if they weren’t taken up because the cosmetic companies knew the tests were dangerous, the bad publicity would hit their sales.’
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br /> ‘He collected 147 examples,’ said Lara, reading from the notebook.
I stretched my neck and looked at pencilled squiggles on the page she held open.
‘Shorthand?’ She nodded. ‘Pitman’s?’ It was too elaborate for T-line, the shorthand most journalists use these days.
‘Gregg’s,’ she said. ‘But I can do Pitman and T-line. I told you, I’m a very good secretary.’
I was impressed.
‘Lara can do most things she puts her mind to,’ said Bell cheerfully. ‘Do you want to see more?’
‘No. It will only make me angry.’ I kept a straight face at Bell but could feel Lara watching me. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Tuckett that you’re putting Billy’s gear to good use. I’m sure it’s what he would have wanted.’
‘Thank you.’ Bell bowed slightly. ‘And thank you for your help tonight. Lara and I are involved in teaching night classes that go towards raising funds for this and other projects.’
‘You mean like the hunt saboteurs?’ I tried.
Bell stood up and folded his arms. Lara stared at me.
‘Why do you say that, Roy?’
‘It’s no secret there’s a big Boxing Day meet at Caxton Gibbet, is it?’
‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s a well-known – some would say – social occasion. And I will be there, certainly, lodging a peaceful protest, much to the dismay of some of my nominal congregation. But we’re not members of the hunt saboteurs. Good heavens, some of them are known to the police.’
He flashed an impish look at Lara, who checked back the temptation to frown at him.
‘Are you interested in coming along, Roy?’ she said softly.
‘I could be.’
‘You could give me a lift from London if you did.’
She was looking straight at me, almost daring me to guess what she was thinking.
‘Yes, of course, that would be a great help,’ Bell said quietly, almost to himself.
‘Well then, why not? Let’s join the country set! Where do I pick you up?’
‘Can I give you a ring?’ she came back quickly.
‘Okay,’ I said, more cheerfully than I felt. I could always get Lisabeth or Fenella to field the call if I got cold feet.
I gave her the Stuart Street number and she wrote it in the shorthand book, then she closed it and stood.
‘I’d better get across to the Bells, Geoffrey,’ she said. ‘It’s way past closing.’
It was too, dammit.
‘And I’ve got a sermon to write,’ said Bell.
‘I suppose this is a busy time of year for you,’ I said, just making small talk, but Lara’s ears pricked up as if she was checking for double meanings.
‘Actually,’ Bell said with a smile, ‘my diary always seems fullest around the Easter weekend.’
‘Oh yeah. Sorry,’ I said goofily.
We trooped upstairs and Lara pulled on an anorak in the hallway.
‘Can I walk you to the pub?’ I suggested, in the hope that the landlord might be serving ‘afters.’
‘No, thanks, I’m fine. Good night.’
She turned and went and Bell closed the door after her.
‘Lara’s one of the few people who really can take care of themselves, you know,’ said Bell. ‘Nothing seems daunting to her.’
He sighed. So did I. Their relationship was, to me, more confusing than ever.
‘Would you like me to ferry the disco gear back to Wayne’s in the morning?’ I offered.
‘No. Wayne’s picking me up early. I have to go with him to the maternity ward and talk about christenings with the new mum. It’s part of the job. He can pick it up himself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some paperwork to catch up on. I’ve made you up a camp bed in the bedroom at the top of the stairs. Bathroom is next door.’
So that was it, was it? No nightcap, no offering to share a last naughty cigarette. No, maybe not.
‘I may be gone by the time you get up,’ he said, making for his study. ‘But you know where the kitchen is.’
‘If I don’t catch you tomorrow, what about Boxing Day?’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said, flicking the study light on. ‘Lara will sort you out.’
And I’m sure there was a glint in his eye as he said it.
‘Well, good night then.’
I started up the stairs and then the phone rang. Bell came out into the hallway to answer it but kept his back to me. At the top of the stairs, I paused to do a bit of earwigging.
‘Hello, Mrs Munson. Yes, I know it is late, but what is the matter?’
Pause.
‘Well, I’m sure Stephanie didn’t mean to be so rude. I can’t think what could have come over her. What did you say Manderley was asking for ... ?’
I decided it was probably a good time to go to bed after all.
I used the bathroom carefully. I rarely stray far from base without a spare toothbrush, but I didn’t want Bell to hear me as it might look as if I’d planned to stay over. I had no wish to make a man who could unroof a building with his bare hands suspicious.
There was a camp bed in the room and a table lamp that had been left on the floor beside it. Apart from that, nothing. Not even a book. After half an hour, I cracked and got my emergency packet of Gold Flake out of the inside pocket of my jacket and smoked one leaning out of the window like a naughty schoolboy.
It was so long since I’d had a whole cigarette, it went straight to my head and I slept like a log.
The sound of the front door slamming woke me next morning, and my Tissot Seastar told me it was 7.30. My eyes told me it wasn’t even properly light yet, and it wouldn’t have taken much to persuade me to go back to sleep.
But I got out of bed and dressed rapidly as soon as my body registered how low room temperature was. Those 19th Century vicars had to be tough, and you could understand why they had large families.
I sauntered downstairs and into the kitchen and put the kettle on. While it boiled, I looked out of the window across a field to the Parish Room. There was an old Bedford van with its lights on parked outside, and I could make out ‘FLYING FENMAN’ in day-glo orange down the side. Bell and a younger guy I presumed to be Wayne loaded up the disco and climbed aboard.
I gave the van a good two minutes to make sure they weren’t coming back to the rectory. Then I put boiling water from the kettle onto a tea-bag in a mug and let it brew while I tiptoed down into the cellar.
There was nothing there that hadn’t been there the night before and, to be honest, I didn’t know really what I was looking for. I fingered through a few VHS cassettes, checking the wording on the title edge. Most were handwritten, some typed; different handwriting, different typewriters. They’d probably been sent in by the faithful from different parts of the country. Some had notations like ‘Anglia TV News – 15 January’ others just said ‘Hare Coursing’. All the tapes were mixed up, some 30-minute ones, some 60, mostly 180-minutes, the most common type. They were all different brands too.
Except for one pile of four stashed behind the front rank. These were all expensive, top-of-the-range TDK tapes and they didn’t have hand-written titles, just a cross in red ink on the spine.
I took one at random. It had been used and the little plastic tag removed so that you didn’t record over it by mistake. (A square of black insulating tape over the hole makes them usable again.)
I removed the tape from its box and peeled off the spine label with just the red cross on it, transferring it to an old 180 tape that had a 1988 date pencilled on it. Then I put the TDK tape in the old box and – let’s not mince words – nicked it.
I got home to Hackney just after 11.00 and went straight to Lisabeth’s lair to ask if there had been any message from Zaria. There hadn’t.
‘You haven’t shaved,’ said Fenella, appearing behind Lisabeth
.
‘He always looks like that in the morning,’ said Lisabeth, who had the knack of talking about men as if they were dead or at least not present.
‘Don’t be chopsy,’ I said, ‘and come and help me get the Christmas tree.’
‘Oooh goodeee,’ Fenella squealed, and was withered on the spot. ‘Where is it?’
‘In the back of Armstrong.’
Out on the street, getting the thing out of Armstrong seemed much more difficult than getting it in.
‘It’s not very big,’ said Lisabeth.
‘Big enough,’ I said defensively. I’d had to use the wing mirrors all the way from that damned Forestry Commission plantation near Cambridge because the rear-view one was out of action.
‘And it’s got bare patches,’ moaned Fenella.
Well, I’d had to get a grip somewhere.
‘And there’s no roots,’ cried Lisabeth. ‘You have to have roots or the needles will drop. It looks as if they’ve been hacked off with a penknife.’
There was no pleasing some people, and I bet neither of them would think to give me a new penknife for Christmas.
Chapter Eleven
‘Are you sure there were no messages?’ I asked again as Fenella and I manoeuvred the Christmas tree, under Lisabeth’s detailed direction, first to the landing near my flat, then back downstairs again into the hallway, where I knew all along it would end up.
‘It would have looked more impressive near your bedroom if it had been bigger,’ mused Lisabeth.
I gave Fenella a slow double-take at that and she blushed, but I honestly never said a word.
‘That Mr Tomlin collared me in the street and asked after you,’ said a voice behind us.
I twisted around to see Doogie and Miranda emerging from their flat for their Saturday shopping expedition.
‘Who?’ I asked Miranda as she came down the stairs behind us.
‘Mr Tomlin, from No 23. Just wanted to know if you were in.’