Dunster

by John Mortimer

  ‘Philip’s gone creative,’ Pam, the physio, explained, it’s what he’s always wanted.’

  ‘Producers and directors’ – as Muriel spoke, she blew out a little cloud of cocktail biscuit – ‘I can never remember the difference. Isn’t the producer the chap that looks through the camera and says “cut”?’

  ‘No, darling. That’s the director.’

  ‘Really?’ Dennis, the dentist, looked astonished, ‘Is it really? What does the producer do then?’

  ‘I suppose,’ I told him, ‘he worries about things.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ Dennis raised his glass to me. ‘Congratulations and happy birthday.’

  They all drank. George looked at me and said, ‘At your age, Mr Progmire, you must spend a lot of your time thinking about death.’

  ‘It’s a theory George has,’ Tash explained. ‘People over forty think about death a lot.’

  I .said, ‘I don’t think about it much more than when I was seventeen.’ That had been true – before we started to do the War Crimes series.

  ‘Who gave you this. Dad?’ Tash was holding up the yellow shirt. ‘Isn’t it a bit of a positive statement?’

  ‘Nina brought it.’ The Mummers laughed and I corrected myself. ‘Not Nina, of course! Lucy, it was incredibly kind of you.’

  ‘You can always change it.’ Lucy was calm and practical, unfazed by my daughter.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of changing it. It’s extraordinarily ... elegant.’

  ‘I thought it was right for an associate producer. Bit showy for a Trigorin, perhaps. Your dad was a wonderful Trigorin,’ Lucy told Natasha. ‘Are you an actress too?’

  ‘She did Hermia in the Dream at school,’ I told them, if only to get these disparate elements of the party together. ‘She was remarkable.’

  ‘Don’t boast about me, Dad. It’s so embarrassing.’

  ‘I never really got Arkadina.’ Pam was peering anxiously about the room, as though still searching for this elusive character. ‘There was something wistful about her that I could never quite catch.’

  ‘I would call it wet.’ The dentist had the same view of Chekhov that Nan Thorogood had of Hamlet. ‘What a hopeless collection of wallies! That’s what you couldn’t get, Pam. The wimpishness. We’re a couple of medics, you and I. Practical people. You have to have a bit of energy to be a physio.’

  I wanted to tell them that Chekhov was a medic also, but I was too concerned with Natasha’s look of terminal boredom. This turned to contempt as Lucy said, ‘Nina had enough energy to run away with a man who didn’t really love her. That was a pretty positive thing to do.’

  I saw Tash look inquiringly at Lucy when she said this, and so to change the subject I asked, ‘You’re sure Mum didn’t mind you coming over? Leaving her alone, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, she’s not alone. Dick’s back. He flew in from Bologna early this morning. He’s terribly excited.’

  ‘Is he?’ The one thing I didn’t want to hear about was Dunster’s excitement.

  ‘He woke us up to tell us he’d got the entire story for his latest script. And he says he’s absolutely thrilled to be working with you.’

  And as she said that, they were all there, uninvited, at my birthday party: the SAS and the Germans, the Italian fascists, the singing procession carrying the Saint, Beth, Jaunty, Dunster. The lot.

  The phone rang very early on Monday morning, the second day of a new year in my life.

  ‘Progmire, my dear old man. Great news! We’re going to be working together again.’

  ‘I hear you had a successful trip.’ I hadn’t remembered us working together before.

  ‘You’ve no idea just how successful. We’ve got something absolutely stunning on our hands.’ I should have known that it couldn’t be good news.

  ‘You’d better come into the office.’ As associate producer I was, after all, meant to be in charge of Dunster. ‘You can tell me all about it.’

  ‘This is a bit too sensitive for the office, Progmire. Besides, I don’t want to run into that swinging little sixty-year-old in the funny clothes. Have you seen his wife? She’s a little old lady in a tweed skirt and a twin set. Funny, isn’t it? Look, I’ve got a bit of serious research to do. Just to dot the i’s, you understand. Why don’t you meet me there? Shall we say eleven o’clock?’

  ‘Meet you where?’

  ‘The Imperial War Museum. Where else?’ He was laughing as he put down the phone, no doubt at my extraordinary inability to guess where he was going to be.

  I decided that I wouldn’t go, that I would wait until he came into the office in a normal and businesslike way. There was something ridiculously theatrical in our meeting among a collection of old weaponry and relics of forgotten wars, but ‘theatrical’ was a word of powerful attraction to me. Having first rejected the idea of going at all, I started out far too early and reached the river by ten o’clock. By a quarter past I was crossing Lambeth Bridge in sunshine, with light shining up from the water, drove up Lambeth Road and parked on a meter in front of an imposing domed building exactly forty minutes early for my appointment with Dunster.

  I had no alternative but to sample the entertainment offered. The engines of death and destruction were set out in the sort of chic surroundings usually associated with modern American art. Small fighter planes dangled from the ceiling like mobiles. Battle-scarred tanks were mounted and shown as though they were abstract sculptures. The air was filled with discreet officer-class voices, recorded on tape, whispering the virtues of the Churchill tank or the Focke-Wulf bomber. I stood before an ancient, beautifully polished, double-decker bus which had rattled up to Ypres and the Somme on a free ride to the slaughter Enticing notices pointed to the World War I trench ‘complete with sounds, smells and other special effects’ Somewhere Neville Chamberlain was telling the nation we were at war, somewhere else soldiers were singing ‘Roll out the Barrel’ In a hidden corner, no doubt. Dunster was dotting the i’s of history. I went and sat in the canteen and had a coffee among parties of uncontrollable schoolchildren for whom war was a welcome day out. Then, still having time on my hands, I bought a ticket for the Blitz experience.

  So I sat in the darkness of a mock-up air-raid shelter, listening to the excited whispers of German tourists. ‘My name’s Charlie.’ said a recorded Cockney accent, ‘and I’ve been an air-raid warden down this street for the last couple of years. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t come over tonight.’ The sirens started whining and another voice in the darkness said, ‘Enjoying the war games, are you, Progmire?’ Dunster sounded young, eager and fatally enthusiastic. ‘I saw you bolting in here for safety.’

  We left together before the All Clear. ‘Don’t you like it?’ The attendant looked disappointed. Dunster told her it was hugely pleasurable but we had business to attend to. ‘What I suggest,’ he said as we walked under the fighter aircraft, ‘is that we go outside to talk.’

  Two mammoth naval guns protruded over the circular flowerbeds in the museum’s garden. As we walked down the gravel path towards a seat we were back to our boyhood when we had pretended my parents’ house was bugged and we had to talk in the grounds of Alexandra Palace. And the strange thing was that, now we were together. I was almost pleased to see Dunster.

  Years had vanished for a moment and it was as if I had seen that familiar figure in a flapping coat, with long, uncovered wrists, running towards me with some secret of the prefects’ room to tell, or a scandal among the staff to reveal. Today, however, Dunster was dressed differently. The jeans were familiar but they were topped by a black leather jacket, decorated with zips, which gave him a military appearance, perhaps adopted for the work in hand.

  ‘We’re going to make the most sensational programme together!’ he promised me, as we found a bench to sit on.

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘The snappy little dresser ...’

  ‘Peregrine?’

  ‘When he’s not deeply concerned about spilling coffee on his cashmere, Perry worr
ies about how we’re going to make the last war interesting to “nowadays”. I suppose he means to the ordinary, down-to-earth chap in the male boutique.’

  ‘How do you want to make it interesting?’

  ‘It’s not the war we’re on about.’ Dunster’s eyes were bright with enthusiasm, his forehead pale and a lock of dark hair, untouched with grey, still fell across it. He clutched at his knees, as though to prevent himself from jumping up in his excitement. ‘It is about nowadays. It’s about the old men that run our lives. It’s about them being murderers.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit exaggerated?’

  ‘You wait, Progmire. You wait until I tell you what I’ve found out.’

  ‘I’ve read the story,’ I assured him, ‘of the church blown up.’

  ‘Of the massacre?’

  ‘If you want to call it that.’

  ‘Oh, I do. I certainly do. A reprisal for two British prisoners, betrayed to the fascists.’

  ‘That’s your theory.’

  ‘It’s a lot more than a theory, old man. I’ve got the evidence. Do you want to know who put me on the scent?’ He was hugging himself now, his hands nursing his elbows, rocking with delight. ‘Our mutual father-in-law.’

  The March sunshine was thinner than I had thought and I felt cold. A middle-aged man came jogging by, music from a Walkman plugged into his ears. He wore a T-shirt with Madonna’s pout stretched across his pigeon chest and bright-green shorts. His thin legs ended in purple trainers. I wanted to get up and go, away from Dunster and this absurdly peaceful garden with two great guns mounted over it.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Dunster said. ‘Major Blair is a great source of information.’

  ‘Jaunty took me to dinner,’ I told him. ‘He said the war crime was done by a young man, and he’s not that young any more. Everyone changes, he said, over the years. For once I thought I understood him.’

  ‘I don’t think you did, quite.’ Dunster seemed amused.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean. Jaunty didn’t have anything to do with it. He was in the SAS section, that’s true. But he was left behind, back in the caves above Pomeriggio. Jaunty wasn’t in that select little group of hand-picked murderers. Only four of them did in the church.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’ I had never thought that I would feel grateful to Dunster.

  ‘You’re relieved for Jaunty?’

  ‘No For Beth.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She wouldn’t like a scandal involving her father.’

  ‘Don’t worry your head about Beth. Progmire Jaunty didn’t do it but, of course, he knows who did. You want to know how I got him to tell me?’

  ‘Go on.’ Now I didn’t mind what I discovered, ‘I was talking to him one night, quite late, actually. We’d gone down to stay I’d brought a bottle of brandy and we were drinking the stuff Well. I knew we were doing this series and I wanted to know if Jaunty had any stories about the Italian campaign – and if he’d ever heard of Pomeriggio I think he rather likes me, in a sort of way.’

  I thought of Dunster in a tailed coat, jumping a hedge when he couldn’t ride. I remembered Jaunty’s look of admiration.

  ‘He started to talk about what happened. He also began to look very important. You know, the way people do when they know something that nobody else does? And then he said, "Bloody bad luck for the poor buggers that went to church that day, but it’s been a wonderful little nest egg for Jaunty.”’

  ‘What on earth did he mean?’

  ‘Didn’t you ever notice? Jaunty’s tight as hell, of course. But if it comes to it, he always seems able to produce a bit more cash than you’d expect from an army pension and looking after a few horses. He helped Beth and me out of a bit of a hole once.’

  And contributed to the down payment on my house. I also remembered ill-kept cashbooks and chaotic accounts in Jaunty’s office, and bank statements that seemed healthier than could reasonably have been anticipated.

  ‘I asked him what he meant’ – Dunster was smiling – ‘and sloshed the four-star Remy about a bit. He said two things that I remember. One was “Silence is golden, old boy. Silence is the equivalent of a golden handshake." The other was “The fellow who commanded that church parade has always been good enough to look after Jaunty. And Jaunty’s always been suitably grateful.”’

  So blackmail wasn’t a young man’s crime, something done in a vanished age, but a source of continuing profit. Would Beth have to discover that about her father? ‘So who was paying him? Did he tell you?’

  ‘Not directly, no. I couldn’t get that out of him. I’ve found out now, though. That’s what’s going to make our programme so sensational. Forget Megapolis. Any company would take it on.’

  ‘What do you mean, forget Megapolis?’

  ‘The party that did for the church was very small.’ Dunster was now sitting with his legs stuck out, his arms crossed comfortably, staring at the ground between his feet. I can still see him and hear his quiet, careful, dangerous voice. ‘Only a young captain, a sergeant, the demolitions specialist and a Lance Corporal Sweeting, who helped hump the gear. Sweeting went missing some time after the incident. He was a deserter who took up with an Italian girl, and her family hid him. He never came back and he’s still there – an old man who speaks Italian, calls himself Andreini and owns a small café in a backstreet in Maltraverso. That’s who I went to see.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Only what I’d already figured out, long ago.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The captain in charge is now one of the great and good, of course. A pillar of the establishment. A chap who controls what we see, and suggests what we should think, on so many questions of political morality.’

  I wanted to shout at him, Keep quiet, Dunster! For God’s sake don’t say any more! But I waited.

  ‘He’s your boss, Progmire. Sir Crispin Bellhanger. The Santa Magdalena’s Day murderer.’ He was looking at me then, smiling in what appeared to be perfect happiness.

  ‘Balls!’ was what I said, after a long silence.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘That is complete and utter rubbish!’

  ‘At last! I’ve found something you feel strongly about.’

  ‘Is that why you made it up?’

  ‘Don’t lie to yourself, old man. And don’t let him lie to you. I happen to know it’s the truth.’

  ‘And I know it’s not.’

  ‘Have you been out and found that old soldier in the High Apennines? Perhaps you’ve spoken to the sergeant?’

  ‘I don’t need to.’

  ‘It might be difficult, anyway, seeing that Sergeant Blaker was killed later in the war. I’d like to know if you’ve found the demolitions specialist. I think I’ve got a lead to him. But we’re supposed to be working on this project. Perhaps we could investigate it together.’

  ‘There’s nothing to investigate. I know Cris.’

  ‘Such touching loyalty. You’ve always been such a simple soul, old man!’

  ‘He’s not a murderer.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t suppose he’s ever called himself that. He was just doing his patriotic duty. Avenging the deaths of those two thoroughly good chaps. Troopers Ashley and Pickering, who’d been handed over to the fascists.’

  ‘He couldn’t have killed women and children. In a church. Forget it, Dunster.’

  ‘How do you know what people are capable of? In a war? You’ve never been in a war, have you?’

  ‘Neither have you.’

  ‘But I haven’t got your simple faith in the morality of the chairmen of television companies. I can imagine exactly how it happened.’

  ‘Your fatal imagination.’

  ‘We’ll get the facts. Find the man who planted the explosives. He’ll confirm who gave the orders.’

  I thought of an irresistible argument, ‘If Cris had been guilty of anything like that, would he have been so dead keen to do a series about war crimes?’

 
; ‘Yes.’ No argument seemed likely to stop Dunster. ‘Of course he would.’

  ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘Have you never heard of the need for confession? Murderers have it. They hang around police stations. They offer to help the police with their inquiries. They make witness statements. In the end they have to give themselves away. Don’t you know that’s what happened? Sir Crispin Bellhanger’s been longing to tell the world about this for years.’

  ‘For almost half a century!’

  ‘It’s a long time to keep a secret. Too long for your friend Cris. Your hero.’

  ‘I don’t have heroes.’

  ‘I forgot. You don’t, do you? Nothing so positive as that.’

  There was a silence and I could only repeat, ‘It’s just something he wouldn’t do.’

  ‘You weren’t sure Jaunty wouldn’t.’

  The answer was no, I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t give Dunster the pleasure of hearing me say it.

  ‘Beth told me. You got terribly steamed up, for you, Progmire. You thought I was on the verge of exposing the galloping Major. You thought she’d mind dreadfully. Do you think he’s a more likely killer than your boss in the office? That doesn’t say much for your opinion of your ex-wife’s family.’

  Was Jaunty so entirely different from Cris Bellhanger? The answer was yes, but, again, I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to argue with Dunster. I wanted to be rid of him and his awful, smiling certainty. I said, ‘I’ve got to get back to the office. I’ll have to talk to Cris.’

  ‘You mean warn him?’

  ‘Tell him what’s happened.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be interested.’

  ‘And I expect it’ll be the end of the series.’

  ‘You’re going to kill the story?’ Dunster was laughing now.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s gone far enough?’

  ‘Oh, no, not nearly.’ The joke, for Dunster, seemed to be getting better all the time. ‘Not nearly far enough.’ And then he was serious again. ‘You can’t stop it now. There’s no way you can stop it.’