Provender Gleed

by James Lovegrove

  Then there was a click on the line and a deep, threnodic bass-baritone voice said, 'Dashlands House.'

  'Carver? It's me.'

  'Master Provender.'

  'Yes.'

  'Master Provender, what a relief. How good to hear you. Where are you? How are you?'

  'I'm as well as can be expected, and I'm at the Shortborn Theatre on New Aldwych, of all places.'

  'May I enquire how you came to be there?'

  'Long story. Another time.'

  'But you're not being held hostage.'

  'Not any longer.'

  'That's news indeed. You're safe. Out of danger.'

  'Completely.'

  'I shall alert the household.'

  'Do that. My father specifically. Tell him the Kuczinskis aren't to blame. They've had nothing to do with this. Tell him to call off the dogs. I'm OK, everything's OK, let's not have a war. Is that clear?'

  'Uncontestably.'

  'I'm heading home right now. Should be there in an hour or so if the trams behave.'

  'Your arrival will be eagerly awaited.'

  'And Carver? That detective you hired to find me. Excellent choice. He did some brilliant work.'

  'He found you? I am most impressed.'

  'I'll tell him you said that. It'll make his day.'

  Provender replaced the receiver and looked at Is, then Moore. 'Right, who's coming back to my place with me?'

  Is looked doubtful, Moore flabbergasted.

  'My Family'll be breaking out the champagne. I really think we all deserve a celebration. And it is still, officially, my birthday. More than one good excuse for a party, wouldn't you say?'

  Is shook her head, while Moore was too astonished to do what he wanted, which was nod.

  'Oh go on, Is. What harm will it do? Please?'

  'We should stay till the police get here,' Is said. 'Someone should.'

  'What for? It's open-and-shut. There's the bad guy lying on the floor, dead to the world. We've got eyewitnesses galore who'll say that he attacked me. And you can bet, with Mr Moore having mentioned my name to the cops, there'll be reporters and photographers on their way here too. This'll go berserk, and I'd rather not be around when it does. Look, soon as I get home I'll send Carver back here to deal with everything. In the meantime, I'm sure our friend' - he indicated the theatre manager - 'can handle the situation.'

  The theatre manager professed himself only too happy to do so.

  'There we are,' Provender said. 'I need to get back to Dashlands. I need to see everyone. I've had three days of hell and I just want to go home, and I want you two to come with me. What do you say?'

  If he had spoken an ounce more commandingly, a smidgeon less imploringly, Is would have dug her heels in and refused. As it was, he gauged his appeal just right. To judge by her expression she had reservations but, with effort, she managed to set them aside. 'OK,' she said.

  As for Moore, what else could he do but splutter out yes?

  62

  And so Romeo Moore, Anagrammatic Detective, wound up aboard a Family tram, sipping at a nip of Family brandy, on the afternoon of a day which without question was the most remarkable of his life.

  They took the taxi to the tram stop, Moore tipped the driver, and soon they were trundling westward in a tram and Moore was urging himself to take this all in, remember it, savour it, record every detail in his memory because surely nothing like this would ever happen to him again. Dashlands! He was going to Dashlands House, for heaven's sake!

  If there was a fleck on the lens of this moment, a wart besmirching its beauty, it was that Milner wasn't there to share it with him. Now that the case was solved, Moore felt somewhat guilty that he had won their bet and Milner hadn't. Milner did not like losing and would like it even less because the bet had been his idea. It would have been nice, too, for Milner to be here with him right now so that Moore could be magnanimous in victory. If the roles were reversed, Moore had no doubt his partner would have crowed and preened and taken every opportunity to rub his nose in his defeat. This would have been Moore's chance to set an example, show how a winner ought to behave: with dignity and quiet satisfaction. Well, that would come later.

  Or would it? Within Moore there was a nagging, wormy sense of concern that would not go away. Where was Milner anyway? Having contacted the police from the theatre manager's office, Moore had then phoned work to see if his partner was there. This was the call he had been finishing when Provender, Is and the theatre manager walked in. No one had picked up, so he could only assume his partner was still out in the field pursuing his investigations. Which was all well and fine, but Moore now knew, from things gleaned over the past hour, all about Damien Scrase, the knife-wielding thug who had held Provender captive in Needle Grove and who would have killed him at the theatre if not for Is's timely intervention with the syringe full of sedative; and the unsettling thought that hunkered at the back of his mind was that Milner might have encountered the selfsame individual in the course of his enquiries and fallen foul of him. Nothing anyone had said had given Moore cause to believe his supposition had any grounding in fact, but the anxiety nonetheless remained. Had Milner gone to Needle Grove? If only he hadn't been so cagey and had revealed something about his line of approach to the case. Then Moore would have genuine reason to be fretful, or alternatively no reason at all, either of which would have been better than the nameless, nebulous unease he was feeling.

  Thus, Moore's joy was not entirely unalloyed. It was sufficient, still, to fill him with a warm glow inside, which he nurtured and stoked with the brandy. As the tram raced on he thought of the money that would now, thanks to him, be coming the detective agency's way, and soon he was daydreaming again about the secretary he and Milner were going to employ. She would have to love words, of course. In fact she would, perforce, require a vocabulary far more extensive than most people's if she was going to cope with their paperwork. She would be pretty, presentable, demure, with nice legs - Moore liked a well-turned lady's leg as much as he liked a well-turned phrase - and with, perhaps, a soft spot for a softly-spoken man who would happily compose flattering anagrams of her name, pen pangrams for her filled with bouquet-bursts of consonants such as waltz and nymph, offer her acrostics that capitally expressed his liking of verbal engagement and his laudably orderly esteem for her...

  ...and while at one end of the tram car a quiet, reflective Moore entertained this fantasy of the future, at the other end Provender and Is found themselves all too uncomfortably in the present moment, neither talking when both felt they ought to. The tram was almost at Heathrow before one of them spoke, and then it was only Provender saying, banally, 'I'm starving. I just realised. When we get to Dashlands, first thing I'm going to do is get someone to rustle me up a huge sandwich. Roast beef with pickle and horseradish. How about you? Sound good?'

  Is nodded noncommittally. 'It's a nice world where you can say the word sandwich and a moment later one appears.'

  'It's not the only world, I realise that, Is. God, I realise that more than ever now.'

  'Doesn't it worry you?'

  'Does what worry me? The unfairness of life? You know the answer to that.'

  'No, does it worry you that there's still a snake in this paradise of yours? That somebody in your household wanted you gone for some reason?'

  Provender thought about it. 'Right now, no. Right now simply getting back there is all I'm concerned about. The rest I'll take care of in due course. Whoever it is will become clear pretty quickly, I reckon. I'm keen to know why they did it, what they've got against me, and when the time's right I'll find out and I'll respond accordingly. There will be payback. There will be. I just don't know at the moment what form it'll take. What I do know is that I'm not going to be intimidated. I feel, now, that I can face anything. I feel that there's nothing so bad it can't be tackled head-on. Rather like I tackled Damien.'

  Is laughed. 'After I'd pumped him full of sedative.'

  'Well, yeah, but when he turned
on you and attacked you...'

  'Full of sedative. With about five seconds of consciousness left in him.'

  'But he still attacked you, and I barrelled into him and he went down...'

  Is understood what he was after from her and, feeling generous, gave it to him. 'Thank you, Provender. And thank you, too, for when we were on the balcony and you got me to make the jump. And for when we were surrounded by the Changelings and you got us out of there.'

  He was pleased. 'It was nothing. Thank you for all you did for me.'

  There was a brief, genial lull, then Is said, 'And now you're taking me to meet the Family.'

  She tried not to chuckle at the way he squirmed in his seat. 'It's not like that.'

  'Of course not. Anyway, I've met them already, haven't I?'

  'Yes. You have. But not properly.' He added, as if as an afterthought, 'I think you and my mother will get on.'

  There was no easy response to that, and Is pretended something out there in the passing countryside had distracted her, permitting her to turn away from him. It so happened that the only eye-catching thing on view was a pair of swans who were afloat on a pond by the trackside, nuzzling bills and forming a heart shape with their necks. Drat nature! Where was a gloomy omen when you needed one? Is stared at the birds anyway, and sniffed, as if unimpressed.

  From then onward till arrival at Dashlands the awkward silence was back between her and Provender and neither of them could figure out a way of breaking it again, least of all Is, who sensed, with heart-sinking certainty, that at some point later today Provender was going to say something to her she didn't want to hear and she was going to have to say something back that he didn't want to hear. And Provender, she felt, sensed this too.

  63

  One of the kitchen staff had to show Cynthia where the coffee beans were stored and how the grinder worked. The staff member, a sous-chef, offered to make the coffee for her but she would have none of it. 'I really ought to be able to do this sort of thing for myself,' she said with an airy laugh, sounding just as a doyenne of Dashlands should, ashamed by but not apologising for her lack of practicality. 'I've never fixed coffee for my husband before. It strikes me it's about time I learned.'

  The sous-chef looked on as she ground the beans, boiled the water, filled the cafétière, found cups and saucers and a milk jug and a sugar bowl and spoons, all with a halting determination, a keenness to get the procedure exactly right first time, and he didn't know whether to feel admiration or pity, but settled on admiration, for who could not, in the end, admire Cynthia Gleed?

  She carried the tray with the coffee on it through the house, a six-minute journey that took her past Triumph. In the statue's shadow she paused, glanced about to make sure she was unobserved, set the tray down, and swiftly and deftly introduced Oneirodam pills into one of the cups. She tapped out a dozen of them all told, then returned the small brown bottle to her pocket and resumed walking. The pills were so tiny they didn't cover even half of the cup's bottom. They were potent, though. One alone was enough to ensure a deep night's sleep.

  Entering the television room, she laid the tray on a teak chiffonier which was out of Prosper's direct line of sight and high enough that, as long as he remained seated, he could not see into the cups. She then turned to the Phone and told him to leave the room; she wished some privacy with her husband. As the Phone exited, Cynthia heard the far-off trilling of another phone, one of the house's standard landlines. Someone would get it, Carver most likely. It didn't matter. What was important now? Nothing. Nothing except what she was about to do.

  She poured out the coffee, making sure she knew which cup was which. It was simple: Prosper took his white with sugar, she took hers black. She stirred the one with the pills thoroughly until she was sure they had dissolved. Would the taste of the Oneirodam be detectable? She thought not. She had made the coffee strong, and, from experience, the pills had only the merest flavour, a faint acrid tang which you were aware of, if at all, after rather than while swallowing them. They would slip down unnoticed.

  She brought the two coffees over to the sofa, handed Prosper his, then sat down in an armchair cater-corner to her husband. She reached for the cabinet into which was set the control panel that operated everything in the room - curtains, lights, television - and rotated the TV volume dial down to zero. In silence, she waited for Prosper to look round at her. Eventually he did.

  'What?' he demanded. He looked haggard, irritable, old, uncharming.

  'Do you love me?' she asked.

  'That's an extraordinary question.'

  'Well?'

  'Yes. Of course. What do you think?'

  'I still mean something to you, even after all this time, even after all your ... strayings.'

  'Is that another question?'

  'It is.'

  'Same answer. Of course. You're my wife. It would be ridiculous if you didn't mean something to me.'

  'You're sure about that?'

  He stared at her levelly, sincerely, and said, 'I'm sure.'

  Cynthia believed him. The eyes did not lie. Whatever feelings Prosper had for other women, they were fleeting, whereas what he felt for her was a constant in his life, a guy-rope which kept him tethered and which he could always count on. It was love. It wasn't passionate love, or lustful love, but a well-aged, weathered emotion he was so accustomed to and comfortable with he barely realised it was there any more. She had reminded him of it now. In the midst of all these tribulations, he knew once again where his heart and hope and health lay. His expression became almost fond. Years eased from his face.

  'What's this about, Cynthia?'

  'Nothing. I just wanted to hear it from you. Drink your coffee.'

  'It's the strain, isn't it? I thought you'd stopped feeling it but I was wrong. Oh Lord, Cynthia, I love you, my daughters, my son, the whole of my Family. I may not show it as readily as you, but I do. You have to trust me on that. All the time, beneath it all, it's you. You I care about.' He was bordering on tears. Cynthia could not recall when she had last seen him that way. 'You want confirmation of it? Here it is. I'm saying so now. It's you.'

  'Thank you, Prosper. Drink up.'

  'Silly creature,' he said affectionately.

  'It'll get cold.'

  Prosper, smiling lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip. Cynthia, mirroring him, sipped too.

  PART VI

  64

  Is was on edge from the moment she stepped off the tram. Returning to Dashlands was in effect revisiting the scene of the crime, and although she was confident there would be no reprisals from the Gleeds, she suspected they would not take to her. Provender had assured her he would tout her as a heroine, the woman he owed his life to, but his life would never have been endangered in the first place had he not been kidnapped, and she had played a part in that, and his Family would learn that fact soon enough, and why would they not resent her then? All she had done for him after the kidnapping did not, in her mind, atone for the original offence.

  That she cared at all what the Gleeds thought of her struck her as odd. She intended to stay at Dashlands for, what, a couple of hours? Enough time to join in the celebrations, drink a bit of the promised champagne, keep Provender company as he had asked - then she would demand a ride home. If she had to call a cab to come and take her back to London, so be it. Hang the expense. She didn't think she could cope with more than a couple of hours at the house, and setting herself a time limit was a sensible tactic. If things got uncomfortable for her, all she had to do was count the minutes till she could leave. The Gleeds could hate her if they wanted - they were welcome to - but they had only a fixed period in which to do so. Two hours, then she was gone.

  The tram stop at Dashlands was roughly a mile from the house and set in a wooded glade where leaf shadows rippled and birdsong blared. As the tram car rolled away, Provender inhaled a deep, bracing breath - the sweet, sweet air of home - then struck off along an asphalted road that curved through a trunk-ribbed t
unnel of deciduous forest. Is and Moore, of course, had no choice but to follow, and soon all three of them were out in the open, in the simmering flare of a summer afternoon, passing through the bowl of a shallow valley with parkland rising on either side: swathes of grass just starting to turn sere, dotted with oaks and chestnuts of venerable ancientness. Other than the drowse of insects, there was nothing but silence in the air. Moore encapsulated in two words what both he and Is, and perhaps Provender too, were feeling:

  'Another world.'

  'It is, isn't it,' she said.

  'May I ask you something?'

  'Go ahead.'

  'Your full name.'

  'Isis. Why?'

  'And surname.'

  'Necker.'

  Provender glanced over his shoulder. 'I didn't know that.'

  'Why should you? I never told you.'

  'Isis Necker,' Provender said, trying it out.

  'ISIS NECKER,' said Moore, and hummed. 'Oh yes.'

  'Oh yes what?'

  'Well, as you know, I anagrammatise. It's what I do. The truth of a person is encoded in their name. And yours came out as...'

  'Oh God, I dread to think.'

  '...NICE KISSER.'

  'That's it? That's my truth?'

  'If we take "kisser" in the American slang sense of "face", I would say yes, unquestionably.'

  'Thanks. I think.'

  'Not pleased?'

  'I suppose I was hoping for something a bit more spectacular.'

  'Well, give me time, I might be able to come up with another.'

  'If you ask me, it's spot-on,' said Provender. 'And maybe you're a nice kisser in another sense, who knows?' He had one eyebrow raised. His gaze was hopeful.