‘Power?’
‘Sort of. You’ve no idea what a frumpish and tedious life I was leading in France with Boris and his mystical vagaries (not to mention those sordid liaisons). I felt so stultified and mere! So after his little accident, it was as if I was reborn and ready for anything!’
‘Including blackmail for fun?’
‘Well, yes. Freddie and Rupert seemed to find it amusing and didn’t do badly out of it either, so I thought I’d try my hand too. But then Rupert became so difficult and bossy and it rather took the edge off things. And when he started seeing Millie, that was the last straw. Boris was bad enough, but Rupert was repressive and dangerous. Anyway, I am free of them both now and I’m off to Rio. A girl can have a good time there, and I mean to have it!’
I stared open-mouthed, trying to gather wits and a suitable response. But before I had a chance to do either, she added coyly, ‘As a matter of fact, I shan’t be entirely alone. There’s rather a rich gentleman waiting for me. Very agreeable and … er, rather old. Convenient, really.’ She gave a gay laugh and a broad wink.
I glanced again at the desk, and in as detached a voice as I could manage, said, ‘I am not quite clear – Rupert invited me here for lunch, had some business to discuss, I gather. Did you know?’
‘Yes, he mentioned it last night. It annoyed me at first as I had everything worked out exactly and was running to a tight schedule. But then I thought, oh what the hell, I’ll just have to go ahead anyway! Which as you can see is what I did.’ She smiled and flicked a piece of fluff from her jacket. And then leaning forward, said confidingly, ‘You see, I rather think he was trying to get me certified – or simply have it rumoured that I was in the grip of some appalling depression. I overheard him telling a colleague that he was “fearfully distressed about poor Lavinia’s mental state”, and that he felt so helpless. Actually, I bet that’s why he brought you up here: to have someone to discuss it with and to spread the word. A sort of corroborating device.’
‘But why?’ I gasped.
‘As insurance, in case I started to cut up rough about that Merton cow and took it into my head to let drop a few hints about the French business. Then if that happened he could always say I was losing my marbles. But the point is, that might not have been enough for him. He could so easily have gone further, i.e. snuff me out and fake my suicide – suicide while the balance of the mind was disturbed, as they say. After all, he had done it before – and frankly, Francis, it was a risk I wasn’t prepared to take. As I said, one does have to be ahead of the game!’
‘I see,’ I murmured. ‘But even if you had started to accuse Rupert about what happened in France, in that case surely he could have retaliated with tales of your own involvement. I mean, he did rather hold a few cards of his own, didn’t he?’
‘Exactly,’ she exclaimed. ‘So whichever way you look at it, he simply had to go!’ And opening her handbag, she withdrew lipstick and rouge and started to apply them liberally.
As I watched the subtleties of the ritual, for some reason the crazed white features of Victor Crumpelmeyer* came into mind. Lavinia’s face was prettier and her speech more lively, but I couldn’t help pondering why it was my lot in life to be thrust among the dotty and insane. Perhaps they were my nemesis for the Foxford Wood incident. But that had been a mistake, surely … Hadn’t it? No, I brooded, on the whole probably not. Not really …
‘My dear, I simply must fly,’ broke in Lavinia’s voice, ‘I have no intention of boarding the Golden Arrow in a gasping heap. As it is, I shall have to walk to a taxi rank – I couldn’t possibly have a cab pick me up here. Wouldn’t be prudent! And I suggest you also slip out as quietly as you can. Look both ways!’ She started to gather her things.
‘Er, one minute, Lavinia,’ I said quietly. ‘Talking of prudence, was it wise to take me into your confidence in this way? I mean, how do you know that I won’t – well, sort of blow the gaff on things? After all, in the circumstances …’ I gestured vaguely in the direction of Turnbull.
She paused, adjusted her hat in the mirror and then said genially, ‘Oh, I’ll take a chance on that. You see, I think you did in Mrs Fotherington …’
The words tore at my stomach and I found it physically impossible to speak. Taking advantage of my silence, she continued, ‘As it happens, Mummy was a bosom pal of Elizabeth’s – they had been at school together – and she had all manner of theories about the murder. Simply wouldn’t let it rest. So boring! Anyway, one of her pet sayings was, “Believe me, my dears, it was that parson person she was so silly about. There’s much more there than meets the eye!” Naturally no one took a blind bit of notice of her – we never did. Besides, I was far too busy with dreary Boris in France to bother about Ma and her cronies, dead or alive. But after her dire warnings it was such a coincidence bumping into you like that at Berceau-Lamont!
And at the time I thought you were rather nice – still do, really – but I also remembered Mummy’s words, There’s much more there than meets the eye, and I began to think she could be right … Yes, I bet you probably did do it. I’ve no proof but I rather suspect it exists all the same, and one day someone will dig it up. Meanwhile I’ll leave you to that quiet life you seem to want – unless of course you try to upset mine. You might find that troublesome – I had good mentors in Rupert and Freddie. It’s amazing what can be achieved with a few hints here and there … Now I really must dash. Rio here I come!’
‘You’ve forgotten something.’
‘What?’
‘Attlee.’
‘Oh, have him. A keepsake!’
For a few moments I sat rooted where I was, caught in the waft of her lingering scent and listening to the faint clicking of receding heels on the landing. Then there was silence and it was as if she had not been there – no trace at all except for the huddled effigy at the desk.
Pulling myself together, I grabbed Bouncer’s lead, dragged him away from sniffing the effigy’s trouser-leg (planning another bite?), scooped up Attlee and, following Lavinia’s injunction to look both ways, fled the building.
‘But what on earth can I do with Attlee?’ I said plaintively to Primrose in the car. ‘There’s no question of my keeping him, it’s quite enough with Maurice and Bouncer without having that little tike tottering around. And if Maurice thought he were going to be a permanent fixture, goodness knows what might happen!’ I lit a cigarette and glanced in the driving mirror at the minuscule passenger seated next to Bouncer. It gazed back unwaveringly, then with a mild grunt settled down to sleep.
‘I don’t suppose you want him, do you?’
‘Certainly not,’ replied my sister, ‘I thought he treated the chinchillas most cavalierly. Karloff was particularly put out. No, I couldn’t take the risk. Besides, to be frank, I find him rather unsettling: he has a funny look. And then there are those long silences – one is made to feel such a fool! Have you thought of Mavis Briggs?’
‘I try not to. In any case, we were brought up to be kind to dumb animals. To offer Attlee to her would be a gross dereliction of duty.’ (And I thought again of the hamsters.)
There was silence as we trundled slowly out of London in the evening traffic. And then she said brightly, ‘Well one good thing, anyway, I bought the corset – two, actually. I think I shall need a new dress to go with them.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘corsets aside, do you think Ingaza might oblige?’
‘Oblige? You don’t mean take Attlee, do you? Huh, I shouldn’t think so. Though I suppose he might if he thought he could get a good price for him!’
‘Well it wasn’t so much Nicholas that I was thinking of – rather his Aunt Lil. He tells me she kept a mastiff for years and has never got over its loss. Perhaps Attlee might make an interesting alternative – sort of divert her attention from the nephew.’ I grinned. ‘In fact, come to think of it, he might be jolly grateful.’
‘Worth a try, I suppose, though knowing Nicholas he’s sure to find something to bind about. Eric could
be a better bet … Now look here, Francis, are you sure you left no trace in that flat?’
‘Absolutely. There wasn’t a single person about and I didn’t touch a solitary thing.’
‘Really? What about the door handle? They’ll check it you know.’
I shook my head. ‘Been through all that before.* Gave it a quick once-over with my handkerchief on the way out.’
‘Well, if you’re sure – then do you realize that thanks to dear crazy Lavinia we are all off the hook? Two dead and one absconded to the arms of an old man in Rio! I think I might sample a little of your malt when we get back, and then among other things we can drink to Clinker.’
‘To Clinker? Whatever for?’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I read it in the early edition of the Evening Standard when I was waiting for you in the Greek cafe. Apparently he has landed the job – that appointment as aide to the Archbishop of York. I gather it was his performance in Crewe that clinched it: what the press calls his “spirited” castigation of the failing missionaries.’
A picture of Gladys came to mind, also spirited and plaguing the angels in seventh heaven … Why, she might never deign to speak to yours lowly again! And with that pious hope I pumped the accelerator and spurred us on to Molehill and the libations.
‘My dear,’ Mrs Tubbly Pole trumpeted two days later, ‘you’ll never guess!’
‘Guess what?’
‘That toad Turnbull – he’s been found dead in Wimpole Street! Poison in his drink. It’s all over the Daily Sketch!’
‘Well I never!’ I said. A response which, although limp, was at least true.
* See Bone Idle
* See Bone Idle
39
Colonel Dawlish’s Report
I discovered his diary, you know – and disposed of it. Dynamite! But since I’m ninety now and, according to my wife, in my dotage, there’s no point in blowing the gaff to all and sundry. And even if I wanted to, nobody would believe me. ‘Old chap has finally lost his marbles!’ they would laugh. Well, marbles lost or not, I can still think about it and marvel at how he kept going for so long, or indeed how he managed to fool so many people … But then I suppose that’s just it – he didn’t set out to fool anyone, not in a malicious way at any rate. Simply wanted a bit of peace and quiet (a wish I increasingly share). And I suppose it was that very simplicity of purpose and lack of guile that forestalled detection and kept him afloat … until the Mavis Briggs débâcle, of course.
Had he been more ‘professional’, more efficient or savvy, he would probably have fallen at the first hurdle. As it is, despite the vicissitudes and blunders, he eventually found a little of that peace he had always wanted and became to all intents and purposes a reasonably competent pastor … competent in that he rarely upset anybody, could occasionally preach an intriguing sermon and was generally regarded as a useful chap to have around. Which, when you think of it, is as good a thing as most of us can achieve … Yes, I make no bones about it: murderer though he may have been, Oughterard always struck me as fundamentally a decent cove, and frankly and despite everything, I am sorry he is no longer with us.
‘So where is he?’ you might ask. To which I reply: ‘Sleeping soundly in a shady plot at the far end of the churchyard’, a situation entirely suited to his particular needs and proclivities.
‘But how did he die?’ you might also ask. Answer: cut off in his prime rescuing Mavis Briggs from plunging to her death over the side of the church tower – an event on which even now she still dines out. Indeed, not only does she dine out on it, but she has been one of the foremost sponsors of that gigantic commemorative plaque mounted in St Botolph’s nave. Among other adjectives, the terms ‘Bold and Resolute’ feature in large gilt lettering. From my knowledge of the subject and having read his diary, these are not the words that I would personally have chosen for his epitaph. But who am I to cavil at the description of one who is fast becoming not only a local legend and hero, but a latter-day Saint Francis, attracting pilgrims from as far afield as Basingstoke and Surbiton? (And his empathy with domestic pets, specifically cats and dogs, has been the topic of many an article in diocesan magazines – although I have to say he was never noticeably enamoured of my own late lamented Tojo.) Yes, quite a mystic cult has grown up around our Francis, and even Edith Hopgarden gets in on the act by asserting piously that she had always known there was more to him than met the eye – an observation as fatuous as it is accurate!
The last entry in his journal was about two years before his actual death. I don’t know why he had ceased to write … presumably because he had dispensed with the main subject, i.e. the Fotherington affair, and got it out of his system. The extraordinary details of the tale and its ramifications had been told and relived: the worst was over, the future moderately unthreatened. One imagines he had no further urge or reason to put pen to paper (other than for the necessity of parish paperwork, a chore which he heartily deplored). Why add to the burden by continuing a memoir increasingly concerned only with the humdrum? For someone as rootedly idle as Oughterard, it was doubtless quite enough to cope with that humdrum without having to narrate it as well!
So, as far as one can make out, the final span of the Canon’s life was passed without drama or incident – unless you count occasional brushes with the bishop’s secretary and Tapsell the organist. But I think by then he was sufficiently inured to both gentlemen to take them in his lolloping stride; and as long as he had the companionship of Maurice and Bouncer and access to his fags, gin and piano, he seemed entirely content to play a benign and moderately helpful part in Molehill’s less than bustling society … Thus the speed and sheer staginess of his end came as a terrible shock, particularly to those of us who were witnesses – of whom there were many.
It took place on a Monday – the Cubs’ annual outing, an occasion which happened to coincide with a rather ‘fashionable’ baptism in the church. Oughterard never liked baptisms – the infants put him off his stride – but to give him his due he was punctilious with the protocol; and unless he had over-doused or let slip the subject, parents went away generally well pleased.
As I said, it was a Monday: to be precise the fifteenth of September, one of those gloriously sunny and mellow afternoons when one was glad to be alive and when St Botolph’s tower, all moss and ivy, rose into the blue as if in some bright and enamelled painting. Picturesque it certainly was. But it was also rather noisy, as somehow Mavis Briggs had pressurized the scoutmaster into bringing his young charges to visit the belfry and thence to inspect the tower’s medieval battlements. Ostensibly this was to give the youngsters a treat and a sense of Molehill’s ancient history; in reality merely an excuse for her to stand against the flagpole declaiming those frightful ditties from her Little Gems of Uplift. A tyro reporter from the local rag had been dragooned into attendance and was required to take photographs of the whole spectacle, i.e. Cubs, battlements, flagpole, Mavis. The vicar had been invited along to complete the composition, but had regretfully declined, pleading a pressing date with a child at the font. ‘My God,’ he had muttered to me, ‘never thought I should be so glad to be taking a christening! Perhaps I can spin it out a bit …’
And so that was the set-up: Cubs and Mavis up on the roof parading around and spouting verse, Francis in full spiel and regalia sousing the baby below. Both groups commanded a fair audience. Normally I would be busy on a Monday but that day was an exception; and since Tojo seemed in particularly vocal mode I had thought I would quell him with a brisk walk round the churchyard.
When we arrived the whole thing was in full progress: a contingent of Cubs playing tag among the gravestones, Mavis and the rest looking like Lowry stick figures on top of the tower, and rousing singing from the christening party in the church. I remember saying to Tojo: ‘Listen to that, old boy, they’re airing their lungs all right. The vicar should be pleased.’ Dog didn’t answer of course, and sat down and had a damned good scratch … And then, by jove, all hell broke
loose!
Manic screeches suddenly erupted from the battlements, and when I looked up there seemed to be a sort of commotion – people leaping about and arms flailing. The old peepers weren’t too good even in those days, so I couldn’t make out the finer details, but clearly something was going on and the shrieking got worse. I was just wondering what the hell it was all about when Vera Dalrymple shot out of the south door, and pounding over to me cried, ‘Do something, Colonel! Young Billy Hopkins has just come down the staircase and told us that Mavis Briggs is hanging off one of the gargoyles!’
‘What’s she doing that for?’ I said.
‘Not for pleasure, you fool!’ she snapped. I was a bit miffed at that but said nothing. Indeed, I wasn’t given a chance, for the next instant she had grabbed me by the lapels and was yanking me into the church, crying: ‘The Canon needs you – he’s dropped the baby and is going up to help!’
As she dragged me over the threshold I just caught sight of a cassock whisking around the open door to the tower. The singing had stopped and was being replaced by wails from the jettisoned infant and furious imprecations from the godparents who evidently felt the celebrant had deserted his post when most required. It had the makings of an ugly scene. But I didn’t stay to watch and, putting Tojo in the charge of young Hopkins, I scrambled up the stairs after Francis.
I eventually caught up with him on the top landing. Somehow he had contrived to shove a cigarette in his mouth and was muttering something to the effect of ‘Bloody Mavis, she’ll be the death of me!’ And of course as things turned out, she was … However, he wasn’t to know that, poor fellow.
Anyway, we both got on to the roof and rushed to the parapet, and along with everybody else gawped over the edge to view the dangling Mavis. Well, she wasn’t dangling exactly, but rakishly astride a gargoyle – an airborne Lester Piggot, silent as the grave and legs flapping feebly. Glancing down at the turf so far below, I felt a trifle sick – as obviously did the scoutmaster, who was busy fainting in a corner and being supported and sworn at by a couple of nine-year-olds. To this day I can hear their shrill voices: ‘Cor, Mr Philpot,’ one of them piped, ‘this ain’t no bleeding good. You said we was s’posed to be ever ready … Look at you, then – ready for bugger all, that’s what!’
A Bedlam of Bones Page 23