by Tom Sharpe
“‘No names, no pack drill’, as my late husband used to say.”
She smiled coyly at Wilt and went into the kitchen.
He decided to ring Eva later and followed Mrs Bale instead.
She started preparing lunch, saying, “If you’re looking for Edward, he’s in the study. He always makes a beeline for it if Sir George is out.”
“What on earth is he doing there? He can’t be going through the old man’s papers, surely. What could there be in there to interest him?”
“The guns, of course,” said Mrs Bale, raising her eyebrows. “He’s mad on the horrid things.”
“But surely Sir George has another lock for the cabinet? It can’t be right for it just to be left open. It’s illegal, isn’t it? Guns…”
“And who is the law round these parts? His Majesty, that’s who, and if you think he lets the local police into his study to check the security of his weapons, you’re mistaken. Anyway, they always phone him up first, if they want a warrant or something like that.”
“In that case, I don’t think I’ll go near the study just yet. I don’t care for guns at the best of times.” Wilt paused and then decided to take the plunge. “What do you really think of Edward?”
“Thick as two short planks. No, more like four very thick ones. I’ll put it another way. If I’d known I was going to have a son like that, I’d have had an abortion. And I’m against that, which ought to tell you something. Fortunately I had just the one daughter. She’s a single mother, but that’s better than being married to an idiotic self-satisfied shit, if you’ll pardon my language. I got the impression from Her Majesty that you’ve got daughters too?”
“You can say that again,” Wilt agreed, and was about to tell her that he would rather have a dozen daughters who were single mothers than the four she-devils it was his misfortune to have fathered, when over her shoulder he saw the back gates opening and the Jaguar driving through. “Lady Clarissa has evidently finished her shopping. I think I’ll make myself scarce for a bit.”
He scurried along to the library and pretended to be looking for a book to read. Through the partly open door he would be able to hear anything that was said in the hall when Lady Clarissa found out where her son was. He didn’t have to wait long. After a hasty exchange with Mrs Bale in the kitchen, she came hurrying down the corridor and evidently entered the study.
“Oh, really, Edward! How many times have I told you never to come in here and play with those dreadful weapons? If George found you, he’d be furious. Why do you continually have to do these things?” Lady Clarissa was virtually shrieking.
“Because I like guns and he won’t let me have my own.”
“Well, you can put that beastly thing back in the cabinet at once. And stop waving it round like that! It may be loaded.”
“I’m not waving it round, I’m aiming it out of the window, and of course it’s loaded. No point having a gun if it’s not got a bullet up the spout.”
“Well, remove the bullet and get out of here.” As the pair of them passed the library door, Wilt wondered what the hell he was going to do. He now realised that the noise he’d taken for the car backfiring as he’d walked back to the house was almost certainly the sound of Edward taking a shot at him, and he was willing to bet the boy had ignored his mother’s instruction to unload the gun. Wilt certainly didn’t relish the prospect of spending the summer trying to tutor a backward lad who clearly had far more interest in aiming loaded guns through windows. History was definitely out – or at any rate it looked as though he’d have to concentrate purely on battles, just to hold the boy’s attention.
And what about Eva and the quads? He wasn’t worried for their safety – they could more than take care of themselves – but the combination of his girls and the gun-crazy Edward was too dreadful to think about. He’d have to phone Eva and warn her not to drive up. On the other hand, he couldn’t phone from the Hall or he’d be sure to be overheard. Not unless Mrs Bale could get him into Sir George’s private bathroom, and he wasn’t sure that was a risk worth taking. No, he had to get down to the village and use a phone there. He couldn’t go through the gates at the back of the blasted house because they were overlooked by anyone in the Hall. Oh well, he’d just have to find his way back down that terrible track through the woods that he’d found so alarming in the taxi. There was nothing else for it.
∗
Wilt set off across the drawbridge, turned to his left, and ten minutes later was negotiating the sharp and dangerous corners that had practically scared the pants off him when he had arrived. Twice he heard the sound of distant gunfire, and spent several long minutes in a ditch after a pheasant scuttled across his path, scaring the life out of him. After losing his way down several wrong turnings, it took him three-quarters of an hour to reach the main road on which he was able to trudge to the nearest village.
The first phone booth he tried seemed to have become something that simply sent emails and the second was vandalised. By mid-afternoon Wilt was beginning to wonder whether he was the last man on the planet not to have a mobile but he finally found a booth that worked, even if it only accepted credit cards and not the 10p he had hopefully got out of his pocket in readiness. He spent at least fifteen minutes trying to get through to Eva’s mobile but there was no answer.
Finally Wilt gave up and looked for a pub. It was a hot day and he was desperately in need of a drink…several drinks…and something to eat. He ordered a pint of beer, finished it and asked for another and some ham sandwiches. The barmaid went off and presently came back with some thick white sandwiches on a plate.
“You’re not one of our regulars,” she said when she’d brought the second pint over. “Are you passing through?”
“Not exactly. I’m staying up at the Hall. It’s a weird place.”
“You can say that again! My old man used to deliver brandy up there but he wouldn’t go near the place now. You’d best take care…I daren’t say any more.”
“Why not?” asked Wilt, but two men had entered the pub by then and the barmaid went to serve them and, having poured their beer, stayed on chatting. Wilt finished his sandwiches and went through the door marked TOILET where he relieved his bladder of the beer, estimating that it had taken all of twenty minutes to make its way through his body. When he came out there were half a dozen drinkers in the bar, keeping the barmaid busy. Wilt took out a £5 note and signalled that he wanted to pay.
“You had sandwiches too,” she said as she worked the till. “That means seven pounds ninety in total.”
Wilt gave her three more pounds and told her to keep the change. She looked at him with some disdain before handing back the 10p, saying that from the look of him he needed it more than she did.
“So why wouldn’t you go to Sandystones Hall?” he asked, pocketing the coin.
“They give me the creeps, that lot. They’re all…Well, I don’t like to say really. What with you working for them an’ all.”
“Loony?” suggested Wilt, glancing round the bar cautiously as if he didn’t want to be overheard.
“You could put it like that,” said the woman. “Why do you ask?”
Wilt lapsed into Cockney without quite knowing why. “It’s just something I heard. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll apply for a permanent job there.”
“I don’t blame you. I’d get out as soon as I could, if I were you. That’s my advice. And it’s free an’ all.” She glared at Wilt who had the grace to blush.
The barmaid went down the counter to serve a customer who had just come in and undoubtedly looked a more promising prospect. Wilt took a last swig of his beer. When he had finished it he went back to the phone booth and tried to call Eva again. She still didn’t answer. He looked at his watch and saw it was earlier than he’d thought but decided enough was enough. He would have to give up. It had been something of a wasted day. But that was a minor problem compared with his real concern, which was the potentially lethal combination of Eva, the quads
and a gun-toting Edward. What on earth was he going to do about it? Eva had got them into this mess, of course, just to keep the girls at that damned expensive school and satisfy her own inherent snobbery. Why couldn’t he sit back and let her sort it out?
By this time Wilt was back on the winding, overgrown drive to the Hall. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. A moment later he was crouching down behind the trunk of an enormous oak tree. Round a bend in the road ahead he had caught sight of Edward. The vicious lout was carrying a gun but, fortunately, looking away from Wilt, into the wood on the other side of the drive. A moment later he heard a shot and something thudding to the ground. He peered cautiously round the tree trunk and saw Edward trudging towards whatever poor creature he’d evidently brought down. Wilt fervently hoped it wasn’t the Philly woman, although of course Lady Clarissa might feel differently.
He waited no longer but walked diagonally away from Edward in the direction of the Hall, trusting to the pine needles to muffle his retreating footsteps. He came out of the woods after twenty minutes on to what was evidently the back lane. As he stood and watched, the large metal gates slowly began to open outward. Wilt got down on all fours and crawled across to the one on the far side, hiding himself behind it.
19
As Sir George’s Bentley passed him and the gates were shutting, Wilt whipped across the yard behind it and into the garage where he lurked for a while. Now all he had to do was reach the back door and he’d be safely inside the Hall. The old devil would almost certainly be in a filthy rage on finding one of his guns was missing, though, and he must have heard the shots from it as he drove in. Wilt dusted down his trousers as best he could, climbed the exterior steps to the kitchen and went into the corridor leading into the main part of the house. All he wanted to do was get up to his room and make himself respectable, but this meant first passing the study door. Oh, well, there was nothing else for it. He walked on, only to find Sir George standing in the doorway with glass in hand, looking positively genial.
“Come along in and have a glass of whisky. You look as if you need one. Been dodging dear Eddie’s gunfire, have you?”
Wilt nodded and dropped into the nearest chair.
“You could put it like that,” he said. The magistrate poured neat Scotch into a glass and handed it to him. Then he took a seat opposite Wilt. “Did the young bastard take a pot-shot at you?”
“No, I was lucky enough to see him before he caught sight of me. He did hit something, though…something heavy by the sound of it,” said Wilt, amazed that Sir George was so relaxed about his step-son running around the Estate, firing at anything that moved.
“Probably one of the deer or a wild boar escaped from the farm where they breed them locally. We occasionally get one or two in the woods. Well, it’s a start. Next time, with any luck, he’ll have a crack at something human.” Sir George smiled at the thought and winked at Wilt, who was midway through a large gulp of whisky and nearly choked.
“If you’ll take my advice,” continued Sir George, fetching the decanter, “you’ll stay in the house while dear little Eddie’s out and about. Not that he will be much longer. He’s bound to kill someone soon.” And in spite of Wilt’s protests that he didn’t need any more, Sir George filled his glass practically to the brim before refilling his own. “You see, I’ve laid an irresistible temptation in his way by leaving the gun cabinet unlocked. Cheers!”
He paused for a moment and then began to explain. “You gave me the idea when you ran off, leaving the cabinet open. You see, if the brute shoots and kills some poor bugger, I’ll be only too happy to have him arrested and sent for trial. Hopefully at the Old Bailey.”
He picked up the decanter again. Wilt shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing.
“Just as you please. Well, as I was about to say, I have never approved of the modern sentencing system. When my father was a JP, a murderer was hanged by the neck until he was dead. All right, the death penalty was abolished, and frankly I approved of that because the occasional poor devil was found to be innocent when it was too late to matter. Then in place of capital punishment there came life imprisonment, which was far better for three reasons. The first was that there was no longer any possibility of an innocent person going to the gallows. The second was that a life sentence used to mean imprisonment until death – with penal servitude thrown in. Harsh work like breaking rocks and excavating quarries. I can tell you, that did no one any harm at all. Third, and best of all, hanging was too damned quick! Blokes who spent the rest of their natural in prison instead had a long time…some a very long time…to regret their crimes.
It was only when the namby-pambies came along that things went wrong. Does ‘life’ mean life today? Not at all. For the most part, it’s twelve or fifteen years, and with what they call ‘good behaviour’ the scum can be out in eight years or even less, which is the main reason why there are so many murderers around today.”
He reached for the decanter again. In the momentary silence Wilt tried to think of something to say in answer to this tirade, but Sir George hadn’t finished yet.
“As for this bloody government…they spend billions on things like submarines and waging a war that has nothing to do with us but haven’t the money to build enough prisons. The whole country’s gone to the dogs. Yes, may as well give up and go and live in a bloody kennel…”
Sir George lurched over to his desk and started looking at some papers. Wilt had no wish to trigger another outburst. He could hear Lady Clarissa and Mrs Bale talking in the kitchen. He tiptoed out of the study and up the stairs, ignoring the dubious safety of his bedroom and choosing instead the bathroom opposite it. He had no intention of further discussing with her ladyship Edward’s chances of getting into Cambridge. They were obviously nil. He could no more pass A-levels than fly. In fact, it was a wonder he could even write his name. Wilt locked the door behind him and turned off the light in case Lady Clarissa came looking for him.
He hadn’t at all liked Mrs Bale’s remark about his hostess being ‘on heat’. In fact, he disliked the whole situation. As soon as Edward’s gun had been safely put back in the cabinet, Wilt intended to find out what the wretched young fellow really wanted to do. On the other hand, he was glad he’d brought those videos about Verdun and the Battle of the Somme with him. They might just hold the lad’s attention in the short term – wholesale slaughter seeming likely to appeal. Best of all, Lady Clarissa would get the impression that the ass really was being tutored.
Wilt waited half an hour and then went very quietly down the back stairs to the kitchen. Having checked that Mrs Bale was alone, he asked in a whisper where Lady Clarissa was and learnt that she was getting sozzled on dry martinis in her bedroom.
“Here’s your supper,” said the housekeeper, putting a plate of cold chicken and salad in front of him. “I’ll take hers up when she shouts. She’s in a sulk because the boyfriend in the garage is still down with ‘flu – or more probably that’s just an excuse. Everyone knows he’s fed up to the back teeth with too much sex and no booze every weekend because of having to drive her…Not that I’m one to gossip. And although she’s secretly glad her old uncle has died, I think she feels a bit guilty, too. She’ll almost certainly sleep it off before she’s even eaten.”
“She’s obviously an alcoholic,” commented Wilt.
Mrs Bale smiled.
“And a nymphomaniac. That’s why she’s got her eye on you! I told you she was on heat…I mean, the old man can’t do anything for her – he thinks she’s too thin – besides which he drinks heavily himself. He eats the most awful food too…He’d never eat anything like this unless the chicken had been stuffed with something or other and there were game chips fried in lard to go with it.”
“Sounds grim. Anyway she’d better not try anything with me.” Wilt thought it best not to tell Mrs Bale of the encounter he’d already had with Lady Clarissa. “Eva…that’s my wife…would kill her. She’s already warned me off what she call
s any ‘hanky-panky’. What puzzles me is why you stay here?”
“Well, like I said, since my old man died, I have hardly any income. The only good thing I can say about them is that they’re rich enough to pay me well. So I just put up with their rudeness. And I do have a soft spot for her ladyship, despite everything. Maybe it’s on account of her first husband dying like he did…or rather like mine did. She doesn’t have a very pleasant time of it, that I do know.”
“I’m desperate to get through to Eva and put her off coming to this loony bin, but I don’t want either of them to hear me.”
“Why don’t you use the phone in his private bathroom then? I can unlock it for you and keep watch too, if you want?”
Despite his misgivings, Wilt agreed to the plan.
After finishing his supper he found himself inside Sir George’s private bathroom, which was equipped with phone and computer, as promised, and also with a large padlocked filing cabinet. To Wilt’s disgust, the walls were lined with drawings of obscenely fat women getting up to God knows what. He found it difficult to envisage speaking to Eva, surrounded by such ghastly pictures. He needn’t have worried: once again there was no answer from her mobile.
He left the bathroom and waved his thanks to Mrs Bale. He walked to the entrance hall and opened the front door, standing on the drawbridge to stare down thoughtfully at the green scum on the surface of the moat. Where the hell had his wife got to? It was already early-evening – surely she had picked up the quads by now.
He decided to wait on the front step until Edward came back. Wilt wanted to ask him a very pertinent question. He didn’t have long to wait before he saw the boy crossing the lawn, swinging the gun carelessly in one hand, the other thrust into his trouser pocket. Wilt started to recede cautiously into the house.
“It’s all right. This thing’s not got a magazine and I’m out of ammunition. Shot a wild boar or something. Didn’t kill it. Couldn’t see its head. Brought it down, though. Must have got it in a leg, I think.”