by Mike Ripley
The description seemed accurate for all Campion could see was scrub, brambles and thigh-high nettles covering a gentle slope down into a basin shaped depression where the ground was a reddish-grey sand in contrast to the darker loam of the ploughed field.
From across the field to his left, Marchant’s voice boomed out ‘Stop the line! Load!’ and from down in the quarried depression to his right came another blast on a whistle and even as Campion was slotting fresh cartridges into his gun, the first birds appeared some thirty yards ahead of him.
He raised his gun and fired, deliberately making his movements jerky but not wild and unsafe, ensuring that he missed his targets and giving the impression, he hoped, of an enthusiastic but very amateur field sportsman.
Along the line the guns let loose their barrage, Campion’s ears telling him that the local shooters were more than happy to take advantage of Gus Marchant’s provision of free cartridges and he allowed himself to be caught up in the moment, reloading and snapping off two more shots which both brought down birds.
There seemed no shortage of targets and after a sly glance through the gun-smoke to his left showed eight barrels pointing skyward concentrating on them, Campion took two paces to his right where a gap in the hawthorn offered him an unrestricted view down into Saxon Mills. For the first time he could see the extent of the man-made depression and, at the bottom of the slope, a glimmer of light reflecting on standing water. Other than that, there was little to see; no sign of a mill, not a hint of a Saxon and no suggestion that this had been the site of a congregation of hippies seeking free love in a rural idyll the previous summer.
He had no time to take in any more information as his thought process was distracted not by the sound of the guns and their constant banging but the sense that something had disturbed the rhythm of the firing line.
Automatically, Campion broke his gun, ejecting the spent cartridges and fumbling in his pocket for two fresh ones. His hand was still deep in the pocket, his fingers gripping the brass rim of a 12-bore cartridge when a blast of birdshot from an entirely different cartridge stung his legs with such force that he staggered like a drunk falling off a bus, through the gap in the hawthorn and plunged head-first over the edge.
Ten
Visiting Hours
‘I really don’t know which was the most embarrassing: being hauled out of an important board meeting to be told that my idiot husband has been shot in the backside, or learning that he was carried from the field of battle and transported all the way to Cambridge wearing an absolutely ridiculous deer-stalker! Really, Albert, aren’t you getting rather old for such antics?’
‘My darling lady, how sweet of you to come visiting; but, I assure you, it’s nothing serious. Did you bring grapes? I believe it’s traditional.’
Lady Amanda Campion, née Fitton, stamped the heel of a fashionably long, zippered leather boot. Though the red hair framing her heart-shaped face no longer burned quite as fiercely bright as it once had, her brown eyes positively smouldered, providing all the heat that was needed in the situation.
‘You, Albert, are a fool,’ breathed Amanda, ‘but you’re my fool, I suppose; though I feel no obligation to supply you with fruit and veg. Fortunately for you, Lugg never visits a hospital without a bunch of flowers or a pound of seedless.’
Mr Campion raised his head from his regulation hospital pillow with the speed of a jack-in-the-box.
‘Lugg? Lugg is here?’
‘Is that all you can say?’ demanded his wife, dragging a chair towards the bedside and sitting down firmly with the air of a judge waiting to hear evidence. ‘I have told the old reprobate to wait outside and annoy the nurses until I have finished my interrogation. He insisted on coming. Once he heard you’d been shot, there was no stopping him. He’s convinced you did it as part of some insurance fiddle.’
‘How on Earth did Lugg get to hear?’
‘He knew before I did,’ growled Amanda through tight lips.
‘My dear, I was out cold for several hours and in no position to contact any of my legion of nearest and dearest. To be honest, I have no idea how I got here from Lindsay. It was only when a charming angel of mercy brought me a cuppa and told me that this was good old Addenbrooke’s, that I twigged I was in Cambridge.’
Lady Amanda pulled off a pair of cut-away leather driving gloves and placed them with her matching clutch purse in her lap, then fixed her glowing eyes on her husband who, lying there in bed with his head encased in a broad white bandage gave the impression of a pyjama-ed Sultan taking his ease.
‘Let me tell you what happened after you fell down a cliff,’ she said sternly, ‘though how you found a cliff to fall down in the middle of Suffolk is beyond me. Then you tell me what happened before that. Then – and only then – will I decide whether to kiss you or not. A kiss, I may add does not necessarily imply forgiveness. That may require a long period of contemplation, the consumption of a large portion of humble pie and any number of grovelling apologies. Is that clear?’
‘Terrifyingly,’ said Campion quietly.
‘Good. Now this is what I have been told.’ Amanda took a deep breath and marshalled her thoughts like a general placing his reserves before she began her attack.
‘It seems you were shot by person or persons unknown, your gluteus maximus being mistaken for a passing pheasant or partridge or whatever it was you were slaughtering out there. Now I am reliably informed – and informed at great length and in gruesome detail by Lugg in the car coming up here – that birdshot in the derrière is (a) not fatal and (b) not at all uncommon when ruddy-faced agricultural types tramp across ploughed fields with loaded shotguns. Particularly –’Amanda lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes imperiously ‘– if they have partaken of a stirrup cup or two before setting out.’
Her husband covered his heart with his right hand.
‘My dear, if there had been a judge in the shooting party, I would have been the more sober,’ said Campion, trying out his most engaging smile. ‘And I distinctly remember thinking “Zounds! I’ve been shot” but after that it all goes rather dim.’
‘“Zounds”? Anyone who thinks that ought to be shot and “dim” is a particularly apt description for your predicament, for you chose to get yourself shot whilst standing on the lip of some sort of quarry. Quite why you didn’t go the whole hog and stand on the edge of a pool of piranhas I don’t know, but anyway, over you went, after a rather spectacular pirouette by all accounts and fortunately landed on your head.’
‘My least vulnerable spot,’ quoted Campion, only to be ignored by his wife.
‘Well you landed … eventually, after bouncing off various boulders and torpedoing through bramble bushes, finally coming to rest face down in a stagnant pool where you would probably have drowned had you not been rescued by two ancient Suffolk yeomen with Old Testament names like Jeroboam and Balthazar.’
‘They would have been the beaters working for the shoot,’ said Mr Campion reasonably, ‘rather than large measures of champagne.’
Amanda refused to have her narrative flow diverted.
‘Whoever they were, they got you to a farm – Long Tye or something like that – and the local doctor was called. If he hadn’t been in the village that morning, you’d have got the local vet instead and probably been put down. Luckily, for you the doctor remembered his Hippocrates and rang for an ambulance, and somebody had the presence of mind to telephone Eliza Jane. She tried to call me, but I was on my way up to the City for my meeting, so the resourceful girl did the sensible thing and phoned the police – a chap called Bill Bailey I think. Anyway, he knew Charlie Luke and knew that Charlie knew you, so he called him, only to find he wasn’t at the Yard but in a meeting with a highly valued informant round at Love Lane police station. You’ll never guess who the valued informant was.’
‘Lugg,’ groaned the invalid.
‘Bullseye! And so your valued retainer and fellow boulevardier, who just loves the role of bearer-of-bad-tidings, v
olunteers to trot around to the City and force his way into the board room of an ancient private bank where I am struggling to present the benefits of a delayed and over-budget British jet engine over a much cheaper American one which they could buy off the shelf. In some ways, Lugg’s interruption was a bit of a relief and it was certainly dramatic. He made quite an impression on the assembled bankers.’
‘He was wearing his working outfit was he? I can see where striped jumper, black mask and a bag marked Swag casually draped over the shoulder might not go down too well on Threadneedle Street.’
‘What are you talking about Albert? Do you have concussion or are you trying to be funny? It really is difficult to tell.’
‘My dear, it was you who said that Lugg was at the Love Lane cop shop and I naturally assumed …’
‘Hold your tongue, you buffoon. Lugg was perfectly well dressed. In fact, a bit too well dressed: formal black jacket, waistcoat and morning trousers plus shiny bowler, he was quite the butler coming on for the second act in a murder mystery to announce that ’is lordship ’as been ’orribly done-to-death in the library. It transpires that the old boy, who is perfectly useless at retirement, is looking for a job and hoping Charlie Luke would give him a reference, but that’s by-the-by. He volunteered to come and get me out of my meeting.’
‘How on Earth did Lugg know where you’d be?’
‘Unlike my darling husband,’ Amanda said with glee, ‘some people read the financial pages of the national press, not just the cartoon strips, and take an interest in my career. Lugg knew exactly where I’d be this morning and he barged in and announced, in a voice which could have called Cerberus to heel: “Sorry to interrupt yer meeting, me lady, but yer ’usband’s gorn and got hisself shot!” after which you could have heard a pin drop.’
‘At which point, I assume, you got the sympathy vote and the Board agreed with whatever you were proposing?’
‘Absolutely. Perhaps you should get shot more often.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Well, anyway, whilst Lugg was abducting me from the Square Mile, my resourceful niece insisted on accompanying you in the ambulance all the way to Addenbrooke’s. She’s still here, been mooching round Petty Cury, mingling with the hippies and the artists whilst the good doctors tried not giggle as they picked birdshot out of your nether regions with rusty tweezers. I told her to go shopping and splash out on anything she fancied as you would be happy to pick up the bill. Lugg’s offered to take her for tea at the Copper Kettle later.’
‘Then her day will be complete,’ said Campion, ‘but promise me you’ll get her back to Lindsay Carfax.’
‘No need. Some big hairy boyfriend is driving her car over as we speak. All she had to do was whistle and he dropped everything.’
‘A well-known Fitton family trait … albeit a delightful one.’
It was Amanda’s turn to frown and say: ‘Hmmm. Perhaps I will let that one pass and not add it to the list of charges I intend to bring against you, but for the moment, the prosecution will rest and allow the accused to defend himself by explaining just what the devil he’s been up to.’
‘May I ask, dearest, are you judge or jury?’
‘Both – and prosecuting counsel, bailiff, court recorder, marshal at arms, custody officer and jailer. Any questions?’
‘None at all.’
‘Then proceed.’
Mr Campion sat up straight in bed and cleared his throat.
‘May I beg the court’s indulgence, M’Lud, and request that if the dreaded Lugg is lurking in the corridor terrifying tea ladies and playing with the bed-pans, could he be invited in so that I do not have to repeat my dreary monologue?’
‘The court will so allow,’ said Amanda grandly, bowing formally to the invalid defendant before opening the door to the corridor and switching instantly from court usher to fairground barker. ‘Roll up! Roll up! Step right in here, pay merely a sixpence and see the Great Beast of Suffolk laid low by a crack squad of police marksmen!’
Mr Campion shrank into his pillows, closed his eyes and pulled his regulation hospital sheets up to hide his blushes. He emerged only when he heard a loud and pointed cough, a sound as familiar as it was fake, to find a bowler-hatted Lugg standing at the end of his bed, a brown paper bag in one hand and a green plastic cup and saucer balanced in the other. He looked for all the world like an undertaker on a tea break between deliveries.
‘I say, you haven’t come to bury Caesar, have you?’ asked Campion nervously.
‘Well I certainly ’aven’t come to praise ’im,’ growled Lugg, his face as mobile as an Easter Island statue. ‘An’ as far as I know, they don’t give out medals for them that’s been shot in the arse, if you’ll pardon my use of medical terminology, Lady A.’
‘That’s quite all right, Lugg,’ Amanda said graciously.
‘If we’re using medical terminology,’ Campion proclaimed, ‘then the wonderful surgical staff at Addenbrooke’s removed the majority of the pellets from my upper thigh. I am sorry to disappoint you but I doubt my misfortunes will be the subject of colourful postcards sold on the promenade at Clacton-on-Sea.’
‘I prefer Frinton these days,’ Lugg ruminated. ‘Much classier, far more genteel. Very rarely do people get shot in the backside in Frinton.’
‘It is not all that common in Suffolk,’ said Amanda, haughtily reasserting her judicial role. ‘Now find yourself a chair, Lugg, drink your tea and give Albert a grape while he tells us what happened to him.’
Reluctantly Lugg did as he was ordered, blithely ignoring the mock outrage on Mr Campion’s face as he produced a near-naked stalk holding no more than three or four grapes from the brown paper bag he had been handed. When settled on a creaking wooden chair, Lugg inhaled a draught from his teacup, smacked his lips and said:
‘’Suppose this tepid National Health brew will have to sustain me, though if I have to listen to one of ’is nibs’s fairy tales, I could do with a drop of something stronger.’
‘Even in Cambridge the pubs aren’t open yet,’ Campion observed, ‘but I’m sure I can amuse you until they are.’
And so Campion began to relate his experiences in darkest Suffolk: a tale of mischief past and present, involving secret societies and Humble Boxes, ending with a flourish by plucking the last grape and waving the empty stalk in the air like a conductor’s baton.
‘What a lot of ridiculous nonsense!’ declared Lady Amanda. ‘Secret passages which everyone knows about, secret societies which aren’t very secret and people who disappear then reappear after nine days. It’s all stuff and nonsense from the days of vaudeville or variety, and just as risible or it would be if my niece hadn’t almost tripped to her death and somebody had belted out a drum solo with a hammer on your Jaguar.’
‘And the fact that I was shot,’ Campion added mildly.
‘Oh well, yes, I suppose – though it probably served you right. I haven’t decided on that yet; the jury’s still out.’
‘You sure it wasn’t f’r the insurance money?’ asked Lugg leaning forward inquisitorially.
‘Positive, my Old China, but thank you for your concern.’
‘It sounds a bit of a dangerous place, this Lindsay Carfax, if the citizenry are taking pot shots at people. It’s not an ’otbed of radicalism and revolution out to topple the h’aristocracy, is it?’
‘Oh please, my dear Lugg, this is Suffolk we’re talking about and in any case, they have their own local aristocrat but instead of dragging her through the streets in a tumbril, they seem happy for her to enjoy exile haunting the roulette tables in the south of France. An amazing old bat by all accounts – Lady Prunella Redcar. She’s a distant relative of mine.’
‘There’s a surprise.’
‘How odd; everyone seems to think that,’ said Campion, furrowing his brow.
‘And you ain’t got a clue who potted you in the nether regions then?’
‘Not a clue, but I’m sure it wasn’t me. That leaves eight possible suspects, all
local residents, I suspect, so they ought not to be difficult to find.’
‘Find?’ gasped Amanda. ‘I can’t believe you are thinking of going back there.’
‘I can’t believe he thinks there’s only eight people what wants to shoot him!’ added Lugg unhelpfully.
‘Darling, I have to go back, if only to collect the Jaguar and I may be called upon to help the local police with their enquiries. That’s what decent chaps like me do cheerfully, with a smile and whilst whistling a happy tune; whereas old recidivists such as Lugg have to be dragged kicking and screaming down the High Street before they’d give a copper the correct time.’
‘Albert, if I wasn’t married to you, I’d swear you really had concussion. However, the nice doctors here have assured me that between that stupid deerstalker jammed on your head – jammed so tight it almost had to be removed surgically – and the natural thickness of your skull, you have probably escaped any permanent damage. Let me assure you, dearest, that unless you stay right where you are, I will personally remedy that!’
‘An’ if yer do go back there,’ said Lugg over a jutting jaw, ‘then I’s comin’ wiv yer.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lugg, you’re far too old for any tomfoolery.’ Campion smiled, he hoped benignly. ‘Your campaigning days are over and it’s feet-up-and-slippers time.’
‘An’ I would point out that you ain’t no spring chicken yourself. Plus, I still have the use of both me legs and I’m not the one wearing more bandages than a Hindoo fakir at a fun fair. I could slip into this Carfax place on the q.t. and blend in wiv the indigenous population, find out what’s what. Shouldn’t take me more than a couple of evenings in the saloon bar of the local hostelry. They do have a local hostelry, don’t they?’
‘Not one you’d be allowed in and if you were, you certainly wouldn’t go un-noticed. I do not, however, intend re-visiting Lindsay Carfax just yet.’