‘Oh well, as good as,’ she replied. ‘Though, as a matter of fact, when I mentioned that my brother was a clergyman they did seem very eager to know your parish, and I remember that when I told them what it was, Mullion had laughed and said, “Ah, yes, of course, the Reverend Francis Oughterard of Molehill – that’s the name. I remember.”‘ She turned to me: ‘Don’t know why he should exactly, but I suppose you were in the papers over that frightful Crumpelmeyer rumpus … Or only being in the next county perhaps he read it in one of those dreary diocesan magazines they strew in dentists’ waiting rooms – though can’t say he seems the type to read that sort of thing. On the ferry he kept muttering about how nice it was to be out of “blinking uniform”, and it crossed my mind he might be a fireman or one of those cinema commissionaires …’ She broke off, looking towards the pink lady. ‘I say, have you ever seen such an enormous gâteau! My goodness, I can’t resist it, I shall have to have some.’ And picking up the menu she started to peruse the dessert section with avid concentration.
‘Hmm,’ said Nicholas, frowning slightly, ‘think I’ll just settle for a smoke and a Scotch – although blowed if I’m paying inflated Frog prices when we’ve got our own supply in the car. I’ll see you two later.’ And he got up and strolled towards the door, ignoring Climp and Mullion but flashing the pink one a smile of lavish charm. When this was beamingly reciprocated over the mound of gâteau I was reminded of how adroit he was at handling old ladies. Perhaps if I had possessed the same talent I should now be a free agent and in thrall neither to him nor to nightmares. As it was …
After coffee in the lounge I bade goodnight to Primrose, exchanged a few pleasantries with Climp and Mullion, and went out to the car to retrieve Maurice. With a pang of guilt I realized I had completely forgotten to get him any food and felt nervous about my reception. A pinpoint of light glowed near the car and I smelt the familiar scent of a Russian Sobranie. Nicholas was leaning against the bonnet, cigarette in one hand, plastic cup of whisky in the other.
‘So there you are, dear boy,’ he greeted me. ‘Thought you’d forgotten the cat. Not that it matters – little bugger’s fast asleep. In fact, you could probably leave him there all night.’
‘No fear! He’d make a mess deliberately, just to show who’s boss.’
‘Ah – well, that’s the last thing we want,’ he said nervously. ‘Better get him out pronto!’
I opened the door and yanked out Maurice while Nicholas rootled for another cup and poured a generous ration of whisky. Given the amount stashed in the boot this seemed an entirely proper offering. We sipped in silence and I kept a straining eye on Maurice as he prowled around the shadowy car park.
And then Nicholas said quietly, ‘Your sister hasn’t been too bright, has she?’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Pouring out our business to those two.’
‘I would hardly say “pouring it out”. Anyway, why worry? The main thing is she didn’t reveal that I had been left the deeds by Mrs Fotherington and am thus technically the owner. The last thing I want is for that particular link to be publicized. Otherwise I can’t see that it really matters. It’s not as if she gave the name of the place – and in any case they’re only a couple of rather intrusive chaps on holiday from their work or wives. We shan’t see them again – at least I hope not, three times is quite enough!’ I laughed, and scanned the car park searching for a feline shape with glittering eyes.
There was a long pause, and then Nicholas said, ‘Look, Francis, I know you’re not the brightest spark in the box, but hasn’t it struck you that there’s a rather consistent pattern emerging?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For a start they come from Crowthorne. And then, according to Primrose, Mullion seemed unduly curious about your parish and clearly recognized your name. They are also heading roughly in the same direction as we are, i.e. into the Massif Central – a large area admittedly – and just happen to have chosen for their first night the selfsame place as ourselves. The odds for that particular coincidence are very long indeed, especially as we had already seen them whizz through that village in Normandy at a hell of a lick … so by rights you would expect them to be miles ahead of us, and yet they drive in here within minutes of our own arrival.’
‘Perhaps they took a long diversion,’ I suggested.
‘Perhaps – but try looking at the whole picture.’
‘The picture would be clearer,’ I said irritably, stung by his earlier jibe, ‘if I knew why you keep harping on about them coming from Crowthorne. You mentioned it in the car as well.’
He groaned. ‘Crowthorne, Francis, is where bloody Broadmoor is and your fat chum Crumpelmeyer! Or had you forgotten?’
As a matter of fact I had forgotten, and apart from being startled by his words, I also felt a fool. Such was the notoriety of that grim establishment that, despite once learning otherwise, my schoolboy imagination invariably placed it vaguely in some desolate mythic outpost far removed from the security of conventional life. That it was situated in the vicinity of a pleasant Home Counties village rarely registered with my consciousness … It did now.
I cleared my throat and took another mouthful of whisky. ‘Are you saying that they have something to do with the prison and are thus interested in my connection with Victor Crumpelmeyer?’
‘Got it in one, old cock.’
‘But that’s absurd! I grant you it’s a coincidence that they come from Crowthorne and also seem to know my name, but there must be hundreds of people living in the neighbourhood who have no connections with the asylum at all.’
‘Not if they are “on leave” and glad to get out of their “uniforms”.’
‘You mean that they are …’
‘Yes, of course I do. Screws. Bloody screws!’
I stared into the dark, digesting his words. ‘So you are saying that these screws know Crumpelmeyer and that it is through him that they have heard of me, and for some reason, having bumped into us on the boat, are keen to cultivate my company and to discover precisely where I am going?’
‘Something like that,’ he murmured.
I laughed nervously. ‘Oh really, Nicholas,’ I protested, ‘you read too many cheap thrillers. Just because there are one or two rather tenuously linked coincidences you have created a whole scenario in your head!’
‘That’s just it, old cock, I do not have a scenario in my head. Far from it – which is why I need to work things out.’ He sighed. ‘However, clearly nothing helpful can be expected from your direction, so I’m off to bed.’ And thus saying, he stubbed out his cigarette and ambled off back to the hotel, leaving me to finish the whisky and round up the cat.
11
The Cat’s Memoir
It is just as well I am a cat of stoical disposition for, as earlier mentioned, the indignities I had to undergo on that foreign journey were disgraceful! No doubt lesser felines would have collapsed under the strain, but being of fine fortitude and not easily thwarted by the slights and blunders of human beings (even those of the vicar), I naturally persevered. Having made it my mission to protect F.O. from his own ineptitude I had no intention of failing. But I can tell you, the deprivations were considerable.
Take that first night in the hostelry the Brighton Type had chosen … they forgot to feed me, if you please. Yes, so intent were they on their own food that they entirely overlooked my nutritional requirements – wasn’t even offered a pre-prandial saucer of milk. When F.O. and the Type later woke me from my nap on the car seat I fully expected to be offered some choice titbits – but all they did was shove me out to stretch my legs while they smoked and guzzled whisky. Not a word about my supper! And then the vicar whisked me off to his room assuming I would be content to sleep the night through. Well, I certainly wasn’t having that, oh no!
The moment he was in bed and had started to snore, I quickly moved to the bedroom door which fortunately was only on the latch. After teasing it with a paw I was able to open
it a crack and insinuate my way into the corridor. From thence I padded downstairs towards the kitchens – easily located by the lingering odours – and slipped into a pantry and commenced my midnight forage. Very productive it was too: I liberated a wealth of enticing scraps, threatened a mouse, harried a cockroach, and enjoyed what Bouncer would doubtless describe as ‘a right old feast’.
Satiated but by now far from sleepy, I decided to take the air before retiring. No difficulties with this – the pantry window was gaping wide and I easily jumped on to the lawn below. Here I crouched by what seemed to be a ground-floor wing with a number of sash windows, some still lit. Being curious by nature I thought I would practise my skills of reconnaissance. So with a lithe leap to the sill I crept along, peering into the various rooms. Disappointingly there was nothing of note: people stumbling around in pyjamas, cleaning their teeth, arguing, reading books, clambering over each other – the usual nightly antics of human beings.
But just as I was losing interest and about to seek diversion elsewhere I encountered a window that was open; and sitting at a nearby table were two men, still fully dressed, stooped over a large map. Nothing remarkable in that, you might think. Not normally. But when alongside the map there is a folded newspaper with a clear picture of your master squinting up from the page, it does tend to give you pause for thought … And that is exactly what I did: paused, thought, looked and listened.
As soon as I caught their words I realized they must be the same pair I had heard muttering outside the car on the boat. It is not always easy to grasp what humans say – their vocal cords are defective and they enunciate poorly – but over the years I have developed a fair grasp, and the conversation was roughly as follows:
‘Apart from that cock-up earlier, so far so good. Just as well you spotted them when you did otherwise we wouldn’t have stood a chance. We’ll have to stick pretty close tomorrow … But my God, that was a stroke of luck bumping into him on the boat like that – obviously “meant”!’ There was a coarse guffaw which made me flinch and I backed into the shadows.
‘It’s only meant,’ said the other voice, ‘if he can be used, i.e. if we can relieve him of that map of the Fotherington place you seem so sure he’s got – though I still think you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
‘Look,’ said the larger one slowly, ‘our friend Crumpelmeyer may be a blathering loon but there’s shrewd cunning there all the same … he was probably quite bright before he flipped and murdered his wife. If Oughterard is travelling to the Auvergne and looking for some property, as the sister let drop on the boat, ten to one he’s on the same trail as ourselves and going to the same place. Crumpelmeyer didn’t knife him for nothing, deranged though he is. There’s method in that madness and I’m damn sure he knows the vicar’s got the plan … You do realize that according to him the likely positions of that gold are actually marked on it by two dots? We’d be mad not to follow this up!’
‘But Crumpelmeyer never had a sighting of those documents. How does he know there are two dots?’
‘Apparently the wife was always going on about them. Her mother held the title deeds and had told the daughter all the details. That’s why Victor murdered her, stupid sod. When the old girl died he assumed her daughter would automatically inherit the deeds and plans as well as the money – only she didn’t. Left it all to the parson instead! Poor old Victor was so incensed he strangled the wife out of spite and then went on to knife the vicar while trying to get hold of the things.’ There was another snort of laughter.
‘Cor,’ replied the other, ‘what you might call a fated family. Didn’t he do the mother in as well?’
‘That’s the story and what the authorities reckon, but I’m not convinced of it myself. During the last couple of months I’ve got to know our friend pretty well – sort of made a study of him. And the odd thing is he freely confesses to murdering the wife and attacking the vicar – one of his most favoured topics of conversation in fact, sort of takes a pride in it – but he almost never mentions the mother, shows no interest at all. It’s as if she never existed for him. No, I think someone else was responsible for that one.’
There was a chortle from across the table. ‘Maybe it was the vicar. That’d be a laugh!’ He picked up the newspaper and stared quizzically at F.O.’s photograph. Some laugh, I thought, flinching nervously. This was getting too near the hind leg! ‘But I still think it’s a long shot,’ he continued. ‘On the other hand, if Crumpelmeyer’s right and the stuff is there like you think, I don’t see why some poncy parson should get his mitts on it. What about the Workers, I say!’
There was a pause, and then the other said slowly. ‘As it happens, you could be right. Crumplelmeyer’s bonkers all right, but all the same he’s clearer in his mind than when he first came in; and although he barely mentions the mother-in-law, just recently he made an interesting comment on Oughterard.’
‘Oh yes, what was that then?’
‘It was something like, “I know that sort – cool as they come, and devious as hell. I wouldn’t put anything past him. Not anything.” Well, at first, of course, I thought it was just old Victor having another of his mad rants, angry about his lost money … Except that he wasn’t ranting. He was thoughtful, very thoughtful. I asked him what he was getting at, but he just smiled that fat smile, muttered something that sounded like “killer clerics”, and then clammed up … didn’t utter another word. But I could see he was still thinking, sort of preoccupied. And you know, I keep remembering that … and wondering if he wasn’t on to something, something which could prove exceedingly useful – what you might call a handy little lever … Though, mind you, it’s not only the parson we’ve got to deal with – there’s that other one, his minder or whatever. Smarmy bastard. Didn’t like the look of him at all – pretty shifty if you ask me. Snooty with it!’
I was just thinking how right he was, when with a gasp and an oath he leapt to his feet. ‘There’s a bloody cat out there. Get down, you little bugger!’ And before I had a chance to retreat I was knocked roughly from the sill, landing heavily on some stony ground below. ‘Can’t abide cats,’ I heard him exclaim. ‘Mean slinking creatures.’
Hell hath no fury like a cat maligned, and I made it my mission there and then to get my own back on such a gross specimen. Even the Brighton Type treats me with more respect than that! However, it is not for nothing that I am Great Uncle Marmaduke’s nephew. And taking a leaf out of his discerning book I limped valiantly back to F.O.’s room, where, having told Bouncer exactly what I thought of the human species, I spent the entire night under the bed plotting my revenge.
12
The Vicar’s Version
My bed was extremely comfortable despite the large bolster favoured by the French, and for the first half of the night I slept soundly. However, I awoke at about four o’clock and, although enjoying the softness of the mattress, had the greatest difficulty in getting off to sleep again. Nicholas’s comments in the car park were bothersome, and try as I might I could not rid myself of images of our fellow travellers and their apparent interest in my movements. As in the car park, I kept telling myself that Nicholas was jumping to conclusions and that his suspicion of their being Broadmoor warders and knowing the wretched Crumpelmeyer was wildly off beam. But the more I thought the less I slept, and thus the more I thought …
Finally I must have drifted off, for the next thing I saw was the sun shining through the blinds and Maurice’s petulant face thrust close to my own. He was clearly impatient to be out, and dutifully I pulled on shirt and trousers and discreetly took him down to the side door into the car park. (Better than tempt fate and risk bedlam, I had left Bouncer snoring and chasing dreamtime rabbits.)
Hoping to snatch a little longer in bed I was about to go upstairs again, when a voice behind me said, ‘Well, you’re up early, Reverend. Must be like us, making an early start.’ Climp stood there grinning amiably. Clutching a raincoat and a large holdall, he was evidently on his way to the ca
r.
‘Well, actually,’ I began vaguely, ‘I was about to check the oil –’
‘And let your cat out, I dare say.’ He must have seen my startled look for he went on. ‘Oh yes, I guessed that little geezer was yours. Saw you with him last night. Put him in your room, you did. And then when we heard the dog bark we knew he had a friend in there too. Still, don’t worry, your secret’s safe with us.’ And he leered conspiratorially.
‘What secret?’ I asked defensively.
‘You carrying animal contraband,’ he laughed. ‘Going to put them in six months’ quarantine when you get back to England, are you? Seems a long price for the old mop and mog to pay for such a short trip.’
‘Ah … well, you see – uhm – extraordinary really, they seem to have jumped into the car at the last moment and it was difficult to know quite what to do.’ My voice trailed off. I was annoyed to be put on the spot like that and could hear the confusion in my tone, which annoyed me even more.
‘Oh well, you’re bound to get them through all right. After all, you being a vicar and on the straight and narrow and all that, I don’t suppose Customs will bother. And if that’s your only fiddle you can’t have much to worry about, can you?’ He grinned, opened the door to the car park and added, ‘See you at breakfast before we go, I expect. Toodle-oo.’
It was ridiculous, but for some reason I was rattled. In itself the animal business was less than minor, and yet I was irked to think that their concealment had been noted by Climp and Mullion: something to do with loss of face and dignity, I suppose. But there was another thing that nagged. Was that reference to the ‘straight and narrow’ and my ‘only fiddle’ merely the crude banter that it seemed, or did it veil a more sinister meaning? The Fotherington affair has coloured my sensitivities, and sometimes the most innocent remarks seem to hold a menace never intended. I tried to persuade myself that I was overreacting, and would doubtless have succeeded had it not been for Nicholas’s remarks the previous night. As it was, I climbed the stairs back to my room irritable and disheartened.
Bones in High Places Page 6