The Sound of Trumpets

by John Mortimer

  Willock had maintained his lead, but Terry told Penry and Nabbs that the Lib Dems, aware that he was by far the strongest opposition candidate, would ditch Velma Warrington, the well-meaning lecturer on statistics, and vote tactically. His political advisers, when he said this, looked sceptical and faintly disgusted, as though they would rather lose than have the purity of their campaign sullied by furtive Lib Dem votes. Willock told Gregory Inwood that the Lib Dems would, on the contrary, vote for him, as the entire population of Hartscombe was determined to keep that Socialist menace, Red Tel, out.

  In a feverish burst of activity canvassers on all sides were identifying their supporters and arranging fleets of cars to ferry them to the polling booths in style and comfort. Penry was surprised and a little embarrassed by the huge fleet unexpectedly made available to Labour, including many Range Rovers from hunt supporters in country areas.

  To Terry the last days of the campaign seemed to pass in a sort of dream, and what he was dreaming of was Agnes. What had started as a love affair, self-indulgent, enjoyable and interesting, a colourful and unexpected alternative to the wife he had grown used to, had become, since that moment of abandon in Tom Nowt’s hut, a continuous obsession. He thought of Agnes constantly, when making speeches, invading doorsteps, taking part in a university Brains Trust and even when he was making love to Kate. The picture of Agnes, her amused smile which contradicted the urgency of her body, hovered always in his mind.

  Walking back to Penry’s house late at night, after a rally of local Party workers in the baptist hall, Terry took a detour which led him by the side of the river and past her house. He saw a light on in a downstairs room, looked up and down the street and rang the bell. When Agnes opened the door he emerged from the shadows and hurried inside.

  ‘I came to tell you I can’t stay.’ He stood looking at her, concerned as though a bringer of bad news.

  ‘Well, thanks.’

  ‘I mean, Kate wouldn’t understand. She knows what time the meeting was going to end.’

  ‘Well, then. You’d better go, hadn’t you?’ She was mocking him, he knew, although she put on a look of sympathetic understanding.

  ‘It won’t always be like this.’

  ‘Won’t it?’

  ‘When the election’s over.’

  ‘And you’re the Honourable Member.’ She said that as though it were a joke.

  ‘I’ll come down often. When I do my surgery. Kate’ll be up in London.’

  ‘You mean, I’ll be another public duty, like your surgery.’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’

  ‘I’ve got this problem, you see. I fancy our local Member and I’m still on the waiting-list. Is that what I’ll come and whine about at your surgery?’

  ‘There won’t be a waiting-list.’

  ‘You think you’ll be able to fit me in?’

  ‘I know I will.’

  ‘A quickie before the pager gets you back for the debate.’

  ‘Will you mind?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have not to.’

  ‘There’ll be other times. Foreign travel.’

  ‘You’re going to disguise me as a young researcher, fresh out of Manchester University with a First in politics? Might be tricky.’

  ‘We’ll think of something.’

  ‘You think of winning. That’s all I want you to do.’

  She kissed him and let him go. He was thinking how wonderfully well she behaved, and how tolerant she was of Kate; although Kate wouldn’t, if she had known, have been in the least tolerant of her. As he left Agnes’s house a large black car, waiting by the river, started its engine and switched on dimmed headlights. Terry didn’t stop to notice that it was an ancient government Rover.

  Neither did he know that Tim Willock had, that evening, made a speech at a Conservative dinner in the Worsfield rugby club. Titmuss was also an honoured guest, and he sat, apparently unmoved, through the Willock peroration.

  ‘Perhaps, in the Thatcher years,’ Willock had said, ‘we were seen as the hard-faced, hard-hearted Party of big business, ruthless competition and an “I’m all right, Jack” attitude to the poor and disadvantaged. When I’m elected you will be voting for today’s and not yesterday’s Tory Party. For the Party that stands for One Nation. For the Party that cares deeply for the poor, the handicapped and the single mother. For the Party that abolished slavery and cherishes freedom under the law. For the Party of compassion and tolerance and understanding. When you elect me you will elect a Tory who cares.’

  Lord Titmuss sat listening to this in silence, his arms crossed and his eyes closed. But it was then that he decided he would have to back Terry to the bitter end; although the Labour candidate might well put his foot in his mouth and his private parts into a totally inappropriate woman, he was the only contender available to defeat Willock, and Wee Willie had to be defeated. He would have to solve Terry’s problems and, pointing his nose in the direction of victory, give him a final shove. Despite Terry’s obvious political immaturity and inability to avoid trouble, Titmuss thought it might just be managed. He started by ringing Paul and asking for Slippy’s help in dusting the books in the Manor. He expected much to come of this.

  ‘Sorry about the transfer to Blackenstock, Johnson.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘Just watch your step, mind. Don’t spend longer there than you absolutely have to. And it wasn’t my decision.’

  ‘Not your fault neither.’

  ‘Thank you for that. And there’s things to look forward to before you go. As You Like It …’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘As You Like It, the play.’

  ‘Oh, you mean the concert?’

  ‘I know you always call it that. Looking forward to it, aren’t you?’

  ‘I suppose it’ll be all right.’

  ‘Anne Hopkins in Education says you’re doing really well. You even say some of the lines out of the play.’

  ‘I makes most of them up. Inwood does most of the talking. I just says I’m shagged out, walking through the forest. And that.’

  ‘She says you try hard. I’m grateful to you for trying.’

  There was a silence between them. Slippy seemed to be anxious for the governor to leave his cell so he could get on with not doing very much. Then Paul said, ‘There’s a little ray of hope.’

  Slippy was silent, not looking especially hopeful.

  ‘Someone, a man with a lot of influence, doesn’t approve of your transfer to Blackenstock. Did you notice who I was having lunch with in the canteen a couple of days ago?’

  ‘Not particular.’

  ‘A very well-known politician.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Lord Titmuss!’

  Slippy looked unimpressed, and Paul had to explain. ‘He’s very famous. And he’s got a bit of pull with the Home Secretary and the prison service and all the powers that rule our lives. Yours and mine. And I know he’s interested in you.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Seeing he was so deeply uninterested in Lord Titmuss, Slippy couldn’t see why his Lordship should be interested in him.

  ‘He wants you out for a day. Work experience. The books in Rapstone Manor.’

  ‘Books?’ Slippy looked more alarmed than he had at the prospect of Blackenstock.

  ‘Don’t worry. He wants you to dust them. Not read them. You won’t get days out for that at Blackenstock, so you’d better make the most of it. And if you can please Lord Titmuss …’ There was a pause during which Slippy was stony-faced, uncertain of what might be in store for him. ‘If you do a good job, who knows, you might be able to stay with us. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’d like it all right,’ was as far as Slippy would go.

  The library at Rapstone Manor had been used, during the house’s brief and unhappy period as the headquarters of a rabbit farm, as a place to store wire netting, hutches in need of repair and sacks of rabbit food. Titmuss had cleared out the rubbish, but the long room, wi
th its dusty shelves and shrouded furniture, its fading, yellowing globe of the world, steel engravings of the church and the surrounding countryside, its dim green-shaded lamps and portraits of Fanners long dead, was rarely visited, as Titmuss preferred to work on his memoirs in the study, converted from the old estate office along the corridor. The rows of books, unopened for years, had indeed gathered dust, so that the History of the English Counties, the Complete Works of Walter Scott, the adventures of long-forgotten explorers and volumes bound in crumbling leather by Gibbon, Livy and Herodotus, the stored tedium of sermons, the unremembered lives of Lords Chancellor and archbishops, the careful illustrations of fossils and rock formations, the involved and bewildering history of Byzantium, represented a storehouse of work now wasted and a world of knowledge unexplored.

  Now, faced with ten volumes on the Early Fathers and an atlas of the ancient world which he flicked with a duster, Slippy Johnson wished he was back in his cell, comfortably asleep or gazing peacefully up at the ceiling. But then he began to rub industriously at a Life of Saint Augustine as he became aware that the tall figure of Lord Titmuss, the man it was in his interest to please, had stolen into the room.

  ‘Working hard?’

  ‘No problem. The blokes that lived here must have liked reading.’

  ‘Probably not. That’s why the books are so dusty. I was talking to Mr Fogarty. I told him I might be able to help you.’

  ‘I don’t know why you should bother.’

  ‘Don’t worry about why. There’s absolutely no need for you to understand why anything. I imagine you don’t want to be transferred to Blackenstock?’

  ‘Not if I can get out of it.’

  ‘Not if I can get you out of it. But you’ll have to do something for me.’

  ‘I’m dusting as quick as I can.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a little more difficult than dusting.’

  Titmuss moved to open the window. The room smelt stuffy. The boy was waiting to hear what was going to be demanded of him but suspected it wouldn’t be anything he was going to enjoy. ‘I want you to tell me the truth.’ There was silence, and Titmuss added, ‘You don’t understand that, do you?’

  Slippy shook his head.

  ‘All right. Let’s take it in steps. I’m going to ask you about Sir Gregory Inwood.’

  ‘The bloke what had me out to do his garden and that?’

  ‘That’s the bloke.’ Titmuss gave what was meant to be an encouraging smile, an expression which looked merely threatening. ‘He’d met you before that, hadn’t he?’

  ‘He came round the nick.’

  ‘And talked to you in your cell?’

  ‘Had a bit of a chat, yes.’

  ‘The governor says he knew you come from a family of lockpickers.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Oh, yes, you do. Sir Gregory knew your father specialized in cracking safes. And your convictions are for opening a variety of locks without keys. He knew that, didn’t he?’ Titmuss had moved very close to the kneeling Slippy and seemed to tower over him.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I’m not interested in what you suppose. I’m asking you to tell me the truth. Did he know that or didn’t he?’

  ‘I reckon he knew.’ Slippy made a reluctant admission.

  Now Titmuss jerked a chair under him and sat, so that his face was on a level with the boy’s. ‘Do you know why you’re being transferred to Blackenstock?’

  ‘I reckon it’s the authorities,’ Slippy shrugged, ‘and that.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know that Sir Gregory Inwood wants you transferred to a tough nick at the other end of the country with no days out?’

  Slippy looked at him, a boy who could be surprised by nothing.

  ‘He wants you out of the way, Slippy. So you don’t owe him any favours. But you might owe me something.’

  ‘What you want exactly?’ Slippy almost whispered, now convinced the old guy was after sex.

  ‘I told you. I want the truth. About the job he asked you to do that morning when he sent a car for you. Tell me. It won’t get you into any trouble.’

  ‘What you want to know then?’

  ‘Let’s start with a simple question. Did he take you to a swimming pool?’

  And then Slippy, held in the stare of his Lordship’s pale eyes and profoundly relieved that no act of love was required of him, began to tell the old politician what he wanted to know. It didn’t take very long, no more than ten minutes, and then, having promised Slippy to do his best to keep him in Skurfield, Titmuss left the boy to his dusty books and went to his study to make a telephone call.

  The Whips’ office keeps files on all the parties’ M.P.s, their voting records, financial situations and sexual preferences. Titmuss rang Raleigh Truscott, who had been Chief Conservative Whip when he was in the Cabinet, and asked for confirmation of what he remembered about Peter Millichip. Then he was in a position to launch the attack.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a quarter to nine in the morning when Sir Gregory Inwood, not troubling his driver and behind the wheel of his impeccably polished Daimler, drove through Hartscombe, up a hill behind the church and away from the river. He had got up early, anxious and unable to sleep, and had bathed and dressed before daylight; but now the wintry sun was shining, the sky was blue with a grey curtain of cloud and in it he saw, as he changed gear and climbed higher, a Red Kite hovering. And he could also see, nearer the sky, the white house, naked of any covering of trees, and its impressive spread. He had no idea why Linda Millichip had invited him to breakfast or why the invitation had been made with such a note of urgency.

  He parked on the neat, well-raked gravel and rang the doorbell which, as he knew from bitter experience, chimed. The few notes of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, however, produced no sound of footsteps and shooting of locks. He had been invited for nine o’clock, and it was now seven minutes past. The Conservative Chairman decided to walk round the side of the building. The house was sleeping, there was no sound but the scrunch of his feet on the gravel. He came to a high hedge of leylandii with a small, unlocked gate. He pushed through it and stood blinking at the glitter of low sunlight on the swimming pool.

  At first his dazzled eyes saw no one, and then, in the shadow of a striped awning, on a white plastic chair at a white plastic table, he realized a tall, balding man in a dark suit was patiently waiting. Sir Gregory seemed to find this presence reassuring. He called out, ‘Is that you, Leslie?’ and walked along the concrete path beside the water. It was, he had time to think, rather odd; most people keep their pools covered in the winter.

  ‘So you got an invitation to a breakfast party?’ Sir Gregory joined Titmuss at the plastic table.

  ‘Not a party. I think it’s just the three of us.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we go inside?’

  ‘I think not. Linda’s going to bring things out.’

  ‘Won’t it be a bit cold?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I wonder the pool’s open,’ Sir Gregory said as he sat.

  ‘I believe Linda had it uncovered, as more appropriate to the occasion.’

  ‘What occasion?’

  ‘Some sort of ceremony, I think, in memory of Peter Millichip.’

  ‘Not scattering of ashes in the pool?’ Sir Gregory looked seriously perturbed.

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘If the wind gets up they might go anywhere.’

  ‘You mean, in your breakfast?’ Titmuss was unsmiling.

  ‘Well, you never know. But now I remember’ – the Chairman looked considerably relieved – ‘they buried Peter Millichip in Hartscombe churchyard.’

  ‘Then you needn’t worry about ashes.’

  ‘No. No worries on that score. But what are we here for exactly?’

  ‘Perhaps a sort of service of remembrance.’

  ‘You mean Holy Joe Fairweather’s going to come creeping up here?’ Sir Gregory had no particular liking for the Rector of Hartscom
be, who spoke about Jesus as though he were the Labour Member for Nazareth East.

  ‘Oh, I think not,’ Titmuss reassured him. ‘I think any service, if there is a service, will be of an entirely secular nature. By the way, how are you getting on with proving that young Flitton lied about his father?’

  Sir Gregory seemed startled by the sudden change of subject. He said, ‘It’s rather odd.’

  ‘What’s odd?’

  ‘Half his records seem to have vanished from Worsfield Road Furnishings. They’ve got his wages on the shop-floor recorded, but all the stuff about his promotion seems to have been pulled out. I wouldn’t put that past the Labour Party.’

  ‘Oh, I would,’ Titmuss was certain of it. ‘They’re not nearly well organized enough.’

  ‘We’ll get hold of someone who worked with him. We’ve got a few names. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Oh, my worry is quite different. I don’t think accusing your opponent of lying was particularly clever, was it? The whole thing may well backfire.’

  ‘Backfire? In what sort of way?’

  ‘Here comes Linda. I’ll tell you later.’

  The two men rose as a mark of respect to the immense figure which had come gliding out of the house like an overweight soprano about to burst into some ear-piercing lament. She was wearing, that winter morning, a pale green négligé topped with a white fur coat, a number of scarves, earrings, full make-up, and feet zipped into fur boots. She was carrying a tray on which rested a coffee pot, milk and sugar, cups, a large plate of assorted sweet biscuits, the Cointreau bottle and three balloon-like glasses. Sir Gregory took the refreshments from her politely, and Linda apologized.

  ‘Sorry, chaps. I couldn’t manage the full English breakfast. The ghastly smell of bacon always reminds me of Peter. But I thought you’d like a nice drinkie and some choccy bics.’

  ‘You want us to have it out here?’ Sir Gregory shivered a little as a curtain of cloud closed over the sun. ‘Or shall I help you indoors with it?’

  ‘Leslie suggested we meet by the pool.’ Linda Millichip looked at the former Cabinet Minister as though for instructions.