Sky High

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘I thought you might be able to,’ said his mother.

  There were lights in the church, and voices. As Tim opened the door it was plain that he interrupted an argument.

  Lucy Mallory stood by the lectern, clasping an armful of early-autumn foliage. Sue was in the pulpit. She had a bunch of white asters in one hand, some straggly gypsophila in the other and a flush on her cheek.

  ‘Why, hullo, Mr. Artside,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Hullo, Tim,’ said Sue. ‘If you dare do it, I shall probably never speak to you again.’

  Tim looked slightly taken aback but discovered that this broadside was aimed at Lucy.

  ‘What nonsense,’ said Lucy. ‘Anyway I’m sure Mr. Artside hasn’t come here to listen to us girls quarrelling.’

  ‘I’m not quarrelling,’ said Sue, giving the asters an angry shake. ‘And as he’s involved he’s got a perfect right to know about it.’

  ‘How’s he involved?’

  ‘He’s in the choir, isn’t he? Until we find out who did it we’re all involved.’ She shook the asters again, and Tim, who had been conscious that it reminded him of something, realised that it was exactly the way old Canon Bessemer used to shake his finger when he spoke of sin.

  Tell me all,’ he said.

  ‘Hand me those two vases then,’ said Sue. ‘I suppose you came here to help, not just to gossip. It’s about Maurice.’

  ‘Maurice Hedges?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘What’s he been up to now?’

  Maurice was the eldest of the Hedges children, a boy with a long, serious, Hanoverian face and the gravity that went with the headship of a large family.

  ‘That’s just what we don’t know,’ said Sue, ‘but Lucy caught him in Mrs. Simpson’s shop trying to change a ten shilling note.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound a desperate crime,’ said Tim.

  ‘That’s not all of it,’ said Sue. ‘You’d better tell him, Lucy. If you’re determined to split to the Vicar it’ll have to come out, anyway.’

  ‘When Maurice saw me come into the shop,’ said Lucy, ‘he bolted. It looked so fishy I asked Mrs. Simpson what it was all about. She was a bit surprised too. Apparently he came in, put down this ten shilling note, and asked for some sweets. None of those kids ever have any money of their own. If his mother had sent him down with a big order of groceries she might have given him a ten shilling note, you see. But if it was just sweet money it would have been a bob, or half-a-crown at the most.’

  ‘Still doesn’t seem enough to hang him on,’ said Tim. ‘Did Maurice actually succeed in changing the note? I didn’t quite get that bit.’

  ‘No. As soon as he saw me he picked the note up and bolted. But I saw, and I asked Mrs. Simpson and she’d noticed too – it wasn’t a new ten shilling note. It was one of those purpley ones – they stopped making them before the war, when they brought in the brown sort. You remember them?’’I remember them all right,’ said Tim. ‘You don’t see many of them about now, but as far as I know they’re still legal tender.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Sue. ‘That’s just it.’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘One of the notes the Vicar put in the offertory box from his American girl friend was a purple.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He told Gattie, Gattie told Queen, and Queenie told me.’

  ‘It all seems a bit second-hand,’ said Tim.

  ‘Well,’ said Sue. ‘I’m not sure. If it was just a question of the type of note I’d be inclined to agree. As you say, there are still plenty of them about. But why should Maurice have a note at all?’

  ‘They’re not paupers,’ said Tim. ‘His father runs a taxi – to say nothing of a garage.’

  ‘Then why did he bolt?’

  Lucy said, ‘Now you’re arguing against Maurice. When I first told you about it you said you thought he hadn’t taken it.’

  ‘I didn’t say he hadn’t taken it. I said you wouldn’t be able to prove it. If you go and tell the Vicar he’s bound to do the wrong thing. He’s such a silly man. Then you’ll have started something you can’t finish.’

  ‘That’s up to him,’ said Lucy. ‘I think he ought to know about it. Don’t you?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Tim. ‘I think Sue’s right, in a way. If Hallibone possibly can put his foot in it he will. And if he rubs Jim Hedges up the wrong way we shall lose five-sixths of our trebles.’

  ‘Yes, but,’ said Lucy unhappily, ‘don’t you see? People are being suspected. If it really was Maurice—’

  ‘It was a beastly thing to do,’ agreed Tim. ‘And if he did it he ought to be belted. But we ought to hear both sides of it. Why don’t you have a word with my mother? She’s got all the trebles for practice to-night and she could have a chat with Maurice. If he’s got an explanation we might as well know about it.’

  ‘All right. I’ll do that,’ said Lucy.

  ‘If you nip along now,’ suggested Tim, ‘you could catch her before the practice starts.’

  When Lucy had taken herself off they worked for some time in silence.

  ‘It doesn’t sound good, all the same,’ said Sue, at last.

  ‘I’ve just remembered something else. That practice night, Maurice was late. He came in a few minutes after we’d all started.’

  ‘Did he, though.’

  ‘Yes. I noticed it at the time, because the Hedges children usually come in a gang.’

  Tim was balanced on the pew-back, trying to edge a heavy vase on to the cill of the lancet window beside the porch. He waited until he was back on the pew-seat before he replied.

  ‘As to whether Maurice did it,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t know. As to whether the Reverend Halitosis will make a mess of the situation if you tell him, there can be no two opinions. He will. He has got as much tact and sense as a child of seven. Indeed, I know plenty of children of seven who have more savvy than he has.’

  ‘Who cares about the Vicar’s feelings? We demand justice.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tim. He was standing on the seat and in the dimness, he looked, thought Sue, perfectly enormous. ‘All right. Let justice be done though the sky fall. I must confess that I’ve never thought stealing a bad crime. It is a crime, of course. But for me it comes way down the list, a long way after cruelty and ingratitude and cowardice and self-indulgence. If there are degrees of theft, I suppose that stealing from a church is one of the least attractive, because you are probably stealing from the poor.’

  ‘Come off it, Robin Hood,’ said Sue. ‘I want to lock up.’

  They walked down the path together. Tim was glad of the dusk. It was difficult to pin it down, but he felt that the evening had started rather well.

  ‘Are you going home?’

  ‘I can’t. Grandpa’s up in London at what he calls a Gentleman’s Dinner. Lucky him. On those evenings I make do with a snack.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Where else than at that well-known combination of the Ritz and the Savoy, Gwen’s Tea Parlour.’

  Tim knew Gwen’s Tea Parlour. It was a Brimberley institution. He had himself sampled, in times of necessity, the glaucous egg on a partially warmed pile of beans that constituted Gwen’s staple supper dish.

  ‘I know what,’ he said, ‘why don’t we walk out to the Swan? What with the treble practice at home and one thing and another I shan’t get anything to eat myself till God knows when.’

  ‘The Swan,’ said Sue. She looked at Tim speculatively for an instant. ‘Do you know, that’s not a bad idea at all.’

  The Swan had started life as a simple country pub. It stands on the corner where the Brimberley side road runs out into the London-Bramshott bypass. The big world, speeding past in its big cars, has liked the look of it and has gradually turned it, as the big world often does, into something larger, louder and nastier than nature had originally intended. However, it offers lights, drinks, and reasonable food at stiffish prices.

  It was all of two miles from Brimberley, so t
hey stepped out. They were both inclined to silence. When they got there they had a glass of sherry in the Tudor Bar, followed by a meal in the Jacobean dining-room. Sue behaved well. She did not cast an anxious eye down the price list, nor did she ask if Tim could afford certain of the dishes. She assumed that as he had asked her out he had enough money to pay for it all. She disposed of a chop and a mug of cider and they had their coffee in the Queen Anne lounge.

  ‘Lucky, lucky some people,’ said Sue. She had made a pile of the glossy weeklies, and was looking at the latest copy of Country Life, which depicted the glories of Belton Park, in Essex.

  ‘It’s a dump, really,’ said Tim. He looked over her shoulder at the double page of photographs. ‘The chap who took those did a smart job. You wouldn’t guess from them that the gardens are overgrown, the roof lets in the rain, and only the East Wing is really habitable at all.’

  ‘Don’t be such a realist,’ said Sue. She lay back in the chair, relaxed. Like a kitten she was expanded with warmth and food and drink.

  ‘What about a liqueur?’

  Sue considered.

  ‘Are you planning to seduce me in that haystack on the way home?’

  ‘It’s an idea,’ said Tim.

  ‘Then no liqueur. I shall have to be able to see to bite straight.’

  Soon after that they started back. It was a perfect night. The day which had started in mist and ended in drizzle had cleared with the coming of darkness and now every star looked like a hole fresh punched in the sky.

  They walked side by side, and every now and then the back of Tim’s hand brushed against the back of hers. If it meant anything to Sue she gave no sign.

  He had never felt more conscious of her. Not her face. That was a forgotten blur. It was her body that was real to him. The girl’s body that was now a woman’s body. The exciting length of her from hip to ankle.

  As they approached the haystack, he very slightly slackened his pace. Sue very slightly increased hers.

  They passed the haystack.

  In fact, there was nothing Tim would have liked more than to have seduced her. Only his complete, his fatal lack of experience stood in the way.

  At the top of the hill the lights of Brimberley came into view.

  Then Sue started singing, very softly, ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes.’ After a minute Tim joined in, and they walked down into Brimberley together, Tenor and Alto in approximate harmony.

  As he reached his own front door Tim realised that he had not told his mother that he would be missing supper. Unlike most women, this was not one of the things that worried Liz. If people were late, meals could be put into ovens. If they missed them altogether, there were always the hens that would benefit. She did not, as most women, feel the thing as a personal insult. Nevertheless, Tim would have telephoned if he had remembered and he felt a twinge of conscience as he opened the front door and realised that his mother was in a flaming temper.

  She was speaking into the telephone.

  ‘No, I do not,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t agree. I can’t make it any plainer. I—do—not—agree.’

  The telephone squeaked back faint defiance.

  ‘You can have it in writing,’ said Liz. ‘Set it to music, or publish it in the Times.’

  A lot more squeaks.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Liz. ‘We can stand here talking from now till eternity. I’m afraid it won’t change my mind. Good night.’

  She slammed down the receiver and said, ‘Oh, it’s you, is it, Tim?’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t let you—’

  ‘That was the Vicar.’

  ‘I guessed it might be.’

  ‘He’s got about as much sense as a baby that kicks its nappy off and then cries because it’s sleeping in a puddle.’

  ‘Did you say that to him?’

  ‘Did I? I forget. No, I don’t think I actually said it. What I did tell him was that he had to choose between his miserable ten shilling note and his Harvest Festival Anthem.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘Something about his principles. I didn’t hear it all. I was too angry.’

  ‘Who told him – about Maurice?’

  ‘I did.’

  Tim looked baffled.

  ‘Lucy told me, and I tackled Maurice about it after practice. He’s an absolutely truthful child. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “I didn’t take any money from the box in church.” I believed him.’

  ‘Sounds straight enough,’ said Tim.

  That’s what I thought. So I rang up the Vicar and told him – in case he heard it by some roundabout way. He said he thought we ought to report the matter to the police. I told him that if he did he would have to resign himself to non-choral services for the rest of his stay here.’

  That ought to hold him,’ said Tim. He spoke so absently that his mother looked up and said, ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ said Tim. ‘I’ve had an idea. That’s all. Nothing to do with anything you’ve been saying. Just an idea.’

  When he reached his own room he stood thinking for a moment, then walked across to the cupboard where he kept his suits. Which coat had he been wearing on the night of the explosion? It was either the old blue or the slightly less old grey. He felt through the pockets, and it was in the side pocket of the grey that he found it. A crumpled, faded, envelope, sealed up, with nothing written on it.

  Tim hesitated before opening it. It had belonged to a man who was now horribly dead. Had fallen with him, almost on top of him, twirling and fluttering above the blast that had ripped him apart.

  It contained a single sheet of paper, as crumpled and as faded as the envelope. On it, in a shaky, uneducated hand, was written ‘Brasseys. Ask for the Captain. Talk about whisky.’

  Chapter Nine

  SPIRITOSO

  Costard: ‘Well, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a full stomach.’

  The idea remained, lodged somewhere at the base of Tim’s skull, throughout that week; through Tuesday night’s very successful choir practice – Sergeant Gattie was voted to be an acquisition; through two unsuccessful attempts to get Sue to himself again; through a lot of ordinary hard work by day and some gritty sleep by night.

  On Friday evening he called on a Mr. Smith.

  Mr. Smith had an office in Holborn. The firm for which he worked was called (if the discreet notice board was to be believed) Metal Parts & Sundries, and the office in which he sat had a name plate outside it which suggested that Mr. Smith was an assistant consultant.

  Mr. Smith greeted Tim cheerfully. He was a sandy-haired little man, with thick glasses and a Herbie Morrison quiff. He said, ‘That was a very nice job you did for me, Artside. I’m very happy about that.’

  Thank you very much,’ said Tim. ‘We strive to satisfy. Can you give me ten minutes of your time?’

  ‘Technical?’

  ‘Highly so. Look here. I want to blow you up.’

  Mr. Smith did not seem upset by the idea. He drew a scribbling pad towards him and started a slow doodle.

  ‘I’ve got a lot of cordite packed away in an upstairs room in your house. In the loft, say. You’re the householder. I can’t say exactly what you’re going to do, but sooner or later you’ll go to bed, I don’t know when. You don’t always go at the same time. Maybe you’ll have a bath, maybe you’ll just wash your hands and teeth. Then you’ll go to your bedroom—’

  ‘Bedside lamp or overhead?’

  ‘Both. And both in use. You may even listen to the wireless. There’s a portable set beside your bed.’

  ‘Do I put my suit away on its hanger, in the cupboard? Or do I throw it over the back of a chair?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

  Mr. Smith reflected.

  ‘I take it you’ll want the actual detonating device destroyed.’

  ‘Certainly. It’s absolutely essential that no sign shall be left. The official theory has got to be that
the stuff in the loft went off by accident.’

  ‘Time or remote control, or something like that.’

  That’s the sort of thing. When I was in Palestine I knew something about it but I’m rusty now. I want to find out what the up-to-date ideas are.’

  ‘Is there enough explosive to kill your man if he happens to be still on the ground floor when it goes up?’

  ‘It might. But it’d be chancy. Quite a solid little house. If he’d been two floors down, he might have got away with it. He’d have had a hell of a headache, but it mightn’t have killed him.’

  ‘If you’ve really got no idea when he goes to bed – he might sit up till three in the morning if he got interested in a book. It almost rules out time, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I was never very happy about time. The thing went off too pat; when he was in his bedroom, but not actually in bed.’

  ‘Brimberley,’ said Mr. Smith indifferently.

  Tim nodded.

  Mr. Smith returned to his doodling.

  ‘It sounds,’ he said eventually, ‘as if it might be a push-and-pull job.’

  ‘Come again.’

  ‘It’s a new gadget. Or, strictly, an old gadget with modifications. It’s rather neat. Say you set it on a door. You open the door. That winds up the device. As soon as you shut the door again it goes off. Either immediately, or after an interval. That’s the two-way. Then you can have a variation on that; the three-way type. When you open the door that winds it up. When you shut it that arms it. When you open it again you set it off. Very useful, that one, if the man you’re after is suspicious of you.’ Mr. Smith almost blinked in his enthusiasm. ‘You take him into the room with you, you see. You open the door yourself, and show him in. Then you say, just wait a minute, and go out and shut the door behind you – and take yourself off. If he’s suspicious, he’ll keep pretty quiet. He won’t go round turning on switches and touching things. But the one thing he won’t mind doing is opening the door. He’s seen you do it twice. He knows it’s harmless. Only this time is the third time and it’s no longer harmless.’