by Mike Ripley
‘Perhaps somebody should have,’ Rupert grinned. ‘Perdita certainly would if I started doing it now, but we’re both on best behaviour tonight.’
‘Is Albert, though? He’s usually got a party trick or two up his sleeve.’
‘I suspect Amanda will have had a word,’ said Mary casually.
‘She certainly has,’ Rupert confirmed. ‘There will be no magicians, jugglers or surprise cabaret acts, just lots of good food, some fine wines, and that trio you can hear tinkling away in the background. They have strict instructions not to play “Happy Birthday” at any point in the proceedings, no matter how much Lugg attempts to bully or bribe them. There will, obviously, be a birthday cake.’
‘And a few surprise guests,’ Guffy observed. ‘One or two faces I don’t recognize, as well as that very chic Frenchwoman. I mean, who’s that chap with a ramrod up his spine talking to Elsie Corkran?’
‘Now he,’ said Rupert in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘is really interesting.’
Mr L. C. Corkran could not have agreed more.
‘Freiherr von Ringer, it has been a long time.’
‘Indeed, Mr Corkran. I do believe it to be ten years since we had cause to meet. It was Berlin, and we were observing some rather unenthusiastic bricklayers building a wall.’
The two men released their handshake.
‘I have to admit I am surprised to see you here, Freiherr.’
‘Robert, please. The title is rarely used these days.’
‘But then you would have to call me “Elsie”, as everyone around here seems to.’
‘That is not seemly,’ agreed the German. ‘Not for two old warhorses of our age. I will call you “Brigadier” if I may, for that was the rank you retired with, was it not?’
‘Technically, yes – and your sources are as good as they ever were. I take it we are both retired now, at least officially?’
‘Happily so, for several years now. It will not be long before I am inviting Albert, and of course yourself, to my own seventieth birthday party in Germany. I have very pleasant house at Ludwigshafen on the Bodensee and you would be most welcome.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr Corkran, remembering, ‘you’re a Schwabian, aren’t you? I hear that Lake Constance can be very beautiful.’
‘It is. You must visit, especially the island of Reichenau, which we call the isle of flowers, something which should appeal to you English gardeners. It is quite a short flight these days.’
‘To Zurich with Swissair,’ said Elsie thoughtfully. ‘That would be the nearest airport, since they stopped landing Zeppelins at Friedrichshafen, wouldn’t it?’
The German gentleman allowed himself a smile. ‘Dare I suggest you have been doing some research, Brigadier?’
Mr Corkran dismissed the implication immediately. ‘Checking up on you? Perish the thought! I’m out of all of that now; it is just that I am cursed with an excellent memory. Or perhaps I should say a selective memory. I can remember the war years, for example, and I can remember your fondness for quite disgustingly vile small cigars, but it took me over an hour to locate my damned cufflinks this evening.’
Freiherr von Ringer allowed his smile to broaden. ‘On the way here I made a bet with myself, Brigadier, as to how soon the war would be mentioned and who would introduce the subject. That it would be mentioned was never in doubt, and now the cat is out of the bag, as it were, let me satisfy your curiosity without the pain of you having to ask embarrassingly oblique questions.’
‘My dear chap, I have no wish to put you on the spot,’ said Mr Corkran without much conviction.
‘Let me assure you, you do not,’ said Ringer, ‘when I tell you that I am here because of what happened during the war. Mr Campion’s war.’
‘We have casinos in America too, but I guess they’re not as swanky as yours.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Fleurey answered the delightful American girl diplomatically, without being too sure how ‘swanky’ might translate into French, ‘but that is surely only because we have a longer tradition of them than you do in Las Vegas.’
Precious Aird cocked her head on one side. ‘Are all you Europeans so goddamn polite?’
‘Only if it impresses beautiful young ladies,’ said Joseph with a delicate bow, ‘but then I am French and it is expected of us, we being the most romantic people of Europe.’
‘And the most modest,’ said the girl, ‘and that’s something nobody’s ever accused us Americans of. I guess the new world must look pretty brash to the old one.’
‘I would say young and vibrant rather than brash, and the old always find the young more attractive.’
Precious bowed her head in deference to the compliment. ‘You talk the smooth talk, as we would say, and you can probably do it in several languages.’
Monsieur Fleurey acknowledged this with an embarrassed grin, and sheepishly held up his right hand, displaying all five fingers.
‘Wow! I can just about order a cheeseburger in kindergarten Spanish.’
‘And there you have the advantage over me, for I have no idea what a cheeseburger is.’
‘Long may it stay that way, though I don’t think it will,’ said Rupert, ushering a waiter with a tray of cocktails towards them. ‘I see you have met our American friend, Joseph.’
Joseph shrugged his shoulders. ‘As a Frenchman, I always make a point of finding the two most attractive women in any room, and your wife happens to be occupied.’
‘Perdita is taking her duties as a hostess seriously and probably doing better than I am. She appears to have a full-time job on her hands keeping the old buffers away from Madame Thibus.’
Joseph nodded his head wisely. ‘She is French, of course. Such style, so chic,’ he murmured, then straightened suddenly as he caught Precious Aird’s piercing glance of disapproval.
‘Quite a cosmopolitan event,’ she said to Rupert. ‘I feel outnumbered, what with all you Brits, a German, the French contingent and those two Spanish ladies I met in the powder room.’
‘Spanish?’ said Rupert, reaching for the typed guest list he had stuffed into his jacket pocket as a secret crib-sheet. ‘I don’t think we’re expecting any Spaniards here tonight.’
‘Well, they said they’d flown in from Madrid, which is Spain, right? Nice woman, quite small, dark-skinned, black hair. Said her name was Señora Vidal. She has her daughter with her, a mousey little thing about your age called Priscilla – no, Prisca, that was it.’
Rupert gave a small snort of relief, folded the single sheet of paper and slipped it out of sight. ‘Oh, the Vidals, mother and daughter. Of course they’ve been invited, but they’re not Spanish. I think they’re as French as Joseph here, it’s just that they choose to live in Spain.’
Once again Joseph Fleurey shook his head, this time in mock bemusement.
‘There is,’ he sighed, ‘as you English say, no accounting for taste.’
There was a movement in the air in the reception area. Conversations trailed off as if a volume control had been dialled down so that the sounds of ice tinkling in glasses and leather-soled shoes squeaking on the polished floor could be heard clearly. It was not a dramatic, ordered silence, more of a pregnant pause, as the waiters – scattered strategically through the throng of guests – automatically stood to attention. Upper bodies turned and heads strained in the direction of the staircase as a couple in evening dress descended with stately grace.
‘Friends, Romans, countrymen …’ Mr Campion began modestly.
THREE
The Unsurprising Surprise Party
‘How wonderful it is to see you all here, to witness the empirical truth that you can’t keep an old dog down however much you try, and especially not if there’s a jolly party in the offing. I will now pass among you to say hello personally, while quietly accepting the lavish and far-too-generous, not to say extravagant, presents you will press upon me. And then the feasting can begin!’
There was a smattering of polite applause, naturally subdued by th
e fact that the majority of guests were holding a glass in at least one hand, but loud enough to drown out Lugg’s half-hearted whine.
‘’Bout time, too. Me stomach’s beginning to think me throat’s been cut.’
Charles Luke, who had remained within earshot, gave him the ‘policeman’s eye’, his gaze travelling downward from bald dome over the extensive midriff and ending at a pair of highly polished size twelves. Lugg was familiar with such unblinking scrutiny from officialdom and likened it to ‘being measured for a coffin, but more in hope than expectation’.
‘There are enough layers on you to see you through several winters,’ observed the policeman, ‘and you’d definitely be the hot favourite in a lifeboat if the subject of cannibalism ever came up. You could provide a few juicy cuts, I reckon, what with the muscles being so nicely relaxed due to lack of exercise.’
‘Cheek!’ grunted the fat man. ‘I didn’t come here to be insulted.’
‘Where do you usually go?’
‘Strewth, give it a rest, Charlie, or people will start thinking it wasn’t so clever paying for our senior coppers to attend Clown School.’
‘All right, then,’ said Luke, drawing himself up to his full height, the better to survey the crowded room, ‘let’s get down to brass tacks. Who’s the one we should be keeping an eye on?’
Lugg adopted his standard expression of shocked outrage. It was a familiar expression to those who knew him well, and one which Lady Amanda had once said reminded her of all three of The Mikado’s little maids from school having seen a mouse run across the footlights.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Charlie old cock. Must be an occupational ’azard, looking for ulterior motives all the time.’
‘We’re never off-duty when the likes of you are around.’
‘Now that’s harsh, Charlie, not to say mean.’ The fat man reached out a paw to lessen the weight on a passing tray of drinks. ‘Can I pass you another shampoo cocktail – oh, wait, I forgets, yer always on duty, ain’t yer?’
The policeman planted his feet together and stretched his spine and neck, the better to allow him to scan the guests, or at least the tops of their heads, the most common hair-colouring being white, apart from the odd flash of red, ranging in shade from soft auburn to fiery copper, which betrayed a Fitton heritage.
Although Luke’s eyes never stopped moving, his mouth and facial muscles offered few signs to the non-professional observer that he was still carrying on a conversation with the large bald man next to him. To the majority of the circulating guests sparing them a passing glance, they appeared as solid and as immobile as a pair of teak bookends.
‘I’m curious, that’s all,’ said Luke sotto voce. ‘Albert never made a big thing about his sixty-fifth, so why all the pomp and circumstance for his seventieth?’
‘P’raps the old boy’s feeling his age,’ Lugg said blithely. ‘The old threescore-and-ten finally hit home, simple as that.’
‘Anyone who thinks that Albert Campion does anything simple is on a hiding to nothing; there are plenty of miscreants enjoying Her Majesty’s hospitality to vouch for that. Now there’s family and friends here aplenty, fair enough; but also a few surprises.’
‘You mean the foreigners?’
‘I’ve nothing against foreigners as such, and if a caravan of Bedouin camel-traders or the Mongolian state circus turned up to a Campion party, I wouldn’t be at all surprised, but I get the feeling these ones are here for a reason. That German chap – officer class if ever I saw such – and that Frenchwoman Perdita’s been assigned to, she’s not here to make up the numbers. Then there’s the other two women who are keeping themselves to themselves. Not sure what they are, but they’re not British – they’re still on their first drink and they’ve not beaten a waiter to death to get at the canapés: both dead giveaways.’
‘You’ve not been sleeping on the job, ’ave you?’ said Lugg with reluctant admiration. ‘Still, keeping yer eyes peeled is what bein’ a Peeler is all about, isn’t it?’
‘Very droll,’ said Luke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘How long did it take you to think up that one? All I’m saying is that this party is something a bit more than your average birthday bash, which shouldn’t be surprising knowing that Albert is centre stage.’
‘Oh ye of little faith and giant enormous suspicious mind!’ intoned Lugg. ‘What’s wrong with the old boy havin’ a few friends and relatives round to eat him out of house and home, blow out a few candles and wish him more of the same? That’s what relatives are for.’
‘Friends and relatives is one thing, but there’s some business going on here; something official, maybe, I can sense it. I just can’t put my finger on what the connection is, but I’m sure there is one.’
‘You’ve a suspicious mind, Charlie Luke, and it’s probably stood you in good stead in the past, but just switch it off for tonight and enjoy yourself, will yer? It’s a party wiv no surprises.’
‘Now that makes me really suspicious,’ said Luke. ‘No surprises? When Albert Campion’s involved? That’d be a first.’
Lugg sniffed loudly, but whether it was in agreement or derision was unclear. His attention had been drawn across the room to where Mr Campion, with Amanda on his arm, was moving slowly towards the dining room. Without pausing in his effusive meeting-and-greeting of his guests, Campion caught the fat man’s eye and bobbed his head in his direction.
‘Allez-oop,’ said Lugg, ‘that’s my cue to bring order to the proceedings.’
Charles Luke, guessing what was coming, took a pace backwards and averted his ears as Lugg drew breath, inflating his chest until the shirt buttons creaked in protest, opened his mouth and let forth a majestic bellow.
‘My Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, and them that really should know better! Dinner is served!’
There would be method in Campion’s madness, thought Luke; there always was with Campion. Not that madness was the right word, eccentricity would be nearer the mark, but even that did not allow for the careful thought Mr Campion put into most things – and then went to extraordinary lengths to make it appear that nothing consequential ever crossed his mind. The seating plan for the dinner, Luke suspected, had been the subject of long and careful thought, despite the fact that Campion was faffing around like a drunken bridesmaid at a wedding trying to find his own place, even though it was obvious to all present that the centre seat on the top table was reserved for the birthday boy.
The dining tables had been laid out in the shape of an E, with the short centre wing missing; a pair of large printed charts displayed on easels in the doorway gave the key to the seating placements.
Somewhat to his surprise, Luke found himself allocated to the top table with the immediate Campion family and, it appeared, part of the contingent of guests Lugg had rather disparagingly dismissed as ‘the foreigners’.
Luke was no stickler for the boy/girl/boy/girl seating arrangement at formal dinners; his experience of such events tended to be limited to police or civic functions, where the majority of the participants were male and females were in short supply. But he was slightly surprised that, given the number of couples present and even the availability of ‘spare’ women, the Campions had seemingly made no attempt to impose the formula.
Naturally, Amanda was on Mr Campion’s immediate left, and next to her was seated the elegant Frenchwoman, then Rupert, Astrid Vidal and Hal Fitton. On Campion’s right sat Perdita (could that be in some way a protective placement?) and next to her the distinguished, certainly aristocratic, German. Luke found that he himself came next and to his right, Guffy Randall. It was a curious order of battle – if, indeed, a battle was expected. At the far end of the two elongated wings of the truncated E-shaped table, in what were often referred to as the ‘rear-gunner’ positions, L. C. Corkran and Lugg sat in isolated but imperious splendour. Whether they were guarding against unwanted intruders or there to prevent deserters was not clear.
The thought flitted across Luke’s mind that he h
ad been placed next to the German as some sort of guard or watchdog, but he did not allow it to settle as, if the German had posed any sort of threat, Campion would never have seated Perdita next to him.
Mr Campion, as if he had been tracking that floating thought on his mental radar, leaned forward across Perdita to reassure his policeman friend.
‘Excuse my rudeness, Perdita dear, but before we put our bibs on, I want to make sure that Charlie has been introduced to an old acquaintance of mine. Robert, this is Commander Charles Luke of New Scotland Yard. Charlie, please make yourself known, and by that I mean socially and not professionally, to Robert von Ringer of the BND, the West German …’
‘Formerly of the BND, Albert,’ said the German with a rueful smile, ‘formerly. I am now retired to a life of growing roses and going fishing.’
‘Sounds idyllic, Robert. Do forgive me.’
‘The West German what?’ asked Perdita innocently.
‘Bundesnachrichtendienst, if I’ve pronounced that correctly,’ Luke offered, ‘is what BND stands for. Herr Ringer is an officer of the West German intelligence service.’
‘Your pronunciation is perfect,’ said Ringer, ‘as is your deduction, apart from the word retired, which I must emphasize.’
He made that most awkward and un-English gesture of civility, the handshake from a seated position.
‘And that is how you met Albert?’ pressed Perdita. ‘Working in this BND?’
‘Oh no, I was in a completely different organization when I first met Albert.’
Luke felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
‘Would that have been …?’ he began carefully.