Crossing the road I was torn between remonstrating about the noise and divulging my astonishing news. The latter seemed the more interesting. ‘I say, Nicholas,’ I said, manoeuvring myself into the passenger seat, ‘I’ve had the most ghastly experience, you’ve simply no idea.’
‘Oh yes?’ was the response, ‘the town clerk asked you to elope, has he?’
‘No, a different sort of ghastliness. I have encountered a headless corpse at the Chalk Hill dew pond; yesterday just after midnight. It was dreadful!’
Ingaza raised an eyebrow and observed mildly that if I insisted on roaming the Sussex downs in the middle of the night then I must expect such horrors.
‘Don’t be facetious,’ I retorted, ‘I was returning from a bridge supper and stopped to let the dog out.’
‘Ah, I see: half-cut, I suppose.’
‘Certainly not!’ I snapped. ‘Kindly be sensible and just listen.’ And I proceeded to apprise him of the gory details and my perplexity over the victim’s identity.
When I had finished he said thoughtfully, ‘I must say, you Oughterards seem to have an appetite for trouble, or do I mean aptitude? Either way, you manage to get embroiled easily enough. I wonder if it’s to do with—’
I was incensed. ‘Aptitude for trouble?’ I cried, ‘that’s rich coming from you, Nicholas! If Francis hadn’t found himself in your clutches his life might have been considerably smoother. As it is—’
‘As it is it was largely through my solicitous direction that the dear boy escaped the scaffold. Why, without my guiding gaiety to keep him sane he wouldn’t have stood a chance. Fair dos, Primrose.’ He had the nerve to grin.
‘Fair dos, my arse! What about your abortive scheme flogging my paintings to the Ontario art market under false pretences? I could have lost my reputation over that.’
‘But you didn’t. And you also made a nice little packet, initially at any rate.’
‘Less lucrative than yours,’ I reminded him sharply.
He sighed. ‘Yes, I fear that’s the way with business, the middleman takes the biggest cut. Now have one of these and let us give thought to your current situation; rather more pressing I should say.’ He whipped out the Sobranies, and in a fog of swirling fumes we assessed the matter and discussed my next move.
In fact my next move amounted to nothing; for we agreed that the best thing was for me to return home as originally planned and wait for ‘intelligence to filter through’, as filter it surely would.
‘So you don’t think I should report anything to the police?’ I had asked.
‘If they don’t know yet, they soon will,’ was the dry reply. Having once been caught in a delicate position (indelicate really) involving a Turkish bath, Ingaza regards the police with a wariness bordering on paranoia. It was a wariness that my brother, for another reason, came to share. Personally, I had no particular reason for wariness other than the knowledge that reporting a crime does not automatically exclude one from the list of suspects. ‘Speak when necessary,’ Pa had always counselled, ‘and never before.’ Had he taken his own advice, life at home would have been infinitely quieter … However, the principle was sound enough.
I was about to get out of the car when Ingaza asked if I had told anyone else.
‘Haven’t seen anyone except for Charles Penlow. I thought he might have heard something but he obviously hasn’t; kept rambling on about that po-faced cairn terrier of his, so I said nothing and went on up to the school.’
He looked surprised. ‘Penlow? I thought he was playing the flâneur in the Caribbean.’
‘Well he’s back now playing the master-builder in Sussex, though I can’t think why. That Podmore Place of his should be bulldozed and replaced by a set of smart town houses. He could make a lot of money that way.’
‘But it’s not in the town,’ Ingaza objected.
‘Irrelevant. It’s the concept that counts.’
He looked at me thoughtfully and said something to the effect that for an artist my outlook was refreshingly materialistic.
‘Well, that makes two of us,’ I replied briskly. ‘Now what about this corpse? Do you think it’s Topping? I bet you it is.’
‘Evens?’
‘Certainly not. Ten to one on.’
He nodded. ‘Cash, of course.’
‘Of course.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Cat’s Views
Alas, I have been proved right. Peace here in Sussex is as illusory as it was in the vicarage. Our mistress has taken it into her head to pursue the Top-Ho character, and from what I can make out has resumed her contact with the Brighton Type. It seems he has given her information which has turned her suspicions into certainties and we all suffer accordingly. That is not quite correct: I suffer, the dog rejoices. Bouncer has a puerile lust for excitement, hence his goading of the chinchillas, and is more than intrigued by Top-Ho and whatever shenanigans P.O. imagines he is engaged in.
Rather reluctantly, however, I have to admit that there may be some substance to her views. In my few idle moments I have passed a discerning eye over the man and am not entirely taken with what I see. Homo sapiens with small feet and glib tongues are generally suspect, and he undoubtedly belongs to that category. Besides, he rides a bicycle, a machine that I have never found appealing. I recall my mother once having a contretemps with such a contraption – or rather its rider; and while she survived with ease – clinging to the spokes and dislodging the incumbent – the incident did little to endear me to the things. Bouncer’s tale of seeing Top-Ho peddling furiously to the telephone box that night was intriguing and I still haven’t fathomed the purpose. But I shall get to the bottom of it without a doubt … I might enquire of Eleanor. She is a sound sentinel and may well have some views on the matter.
And talking of Eleanor, she has been most useful in introducing me to the better type of local feline. I am not by nature a gregarious cat but it is nevertheless reassuring to know there are others in the area who share the same cultural bent as myself. I think too that I have already established myself as a cat worthy of regard, and one not averse to waving a gracious paw when occasion requires – providing, of course, the recipient is not a tabby or a Manx; naturally a line has to be drawn somewhere. For the moment, however, such social niceties must yield to more pressing matters – the sampling of the pilchards P.O. has prepared. And after that I think a little snooze is in order …
Great Cod! What a to-do. Bouncer has found a dead head if you please! Yes, up on the downs in a pond – or at least the body was, its head being on the grass. P.O. had gone on some card-sharping jaunt and taken the dog with her, and apparently on the way back he had let it be known that he wanted to stretch his legs (or squirt the bunnies as he so crudely put it). Apparently our mistress got out with him, lit a cigarette and wandered around gazing at the stars, something humans like to do. He said that ten minutes later he heard her making a sort of gagging noise, and when he went to take a look, noted she had her nose shoved in a gorse bush. Thinking that was a bit odd even for the Prim, he started to move closer and came face-to-face with a circular apparition on the edge of the pond. ‘A bloody great bonce with staring eyes’ were his exact words. Now Bouncer, of course, is given to melodrama so one cannot vouch for the eyes, but the rest of his description has the mark of veracity. He said it was a cracking adventure because there was also ‘a thing’ sprawled in the water wearing a brown-checked jacket, but that P.O. did not seem to share his interest as she insisted on dragging him back to the car which she then drove home ‘at one hell of a lick’.
As it happens, I could see something was amiss the moment they came through the front door. Instead of going up to bed in the usual way, our mistress rushed to switch on the fire in the drawing room and then made a headlong dive for the drinks cabinet. I had seen her brother do that often enough and recognised the symptoms: blind panic. Bouncer too was in a turbulent state and once we were in the kitchen I had to speak to him very firmly. Rather to my surpr
ise, after he had exhausted his energies with the usual theatricals he went totally silent and just lay there gnawing his paw and gazing into space. I was about to retire for the night to my usual spot in the laundry room, when he suddenly said, ‘I say Maurice, I don’t suppose you would like to share my basket, would you?’
In normal circumstances nothing would induce me to get into the dog’s basket (you never know what you might find – all manner of grisly items: bones, bits of chewed rubber, hairy biscuits and other unsavouries), but it struck me that he might be in the grip of delayed shock. Now, my grandfather had always insisted that we were a family noted for our nobility and skills of self-preservation. The latter I have in abundance but as yet have had little cause to exercise the former; but here perhaps was an opportunity. Thus gritting my teeth I said, ‘By all means, Bouncer, I should be honoured’; and without more ado leapt into his basket and began to purr. I think the dog was a little surprised for his jaw hung open for at least twenty seconds. But we settled down easily enough and spent a warm and surprisingly amicable night.
With the first shaft of dawn I dug him in the ribs and urged him to reveal further details of his escapade. ‘So apart from the staring eyes, what was the head like?’ I enquired.
‘Pretty good,’ he growled.
I sighed. ‘No, Bouncer, it is not the calibre but the character that interests me. Being a cat of forensic interests I should like to know a little of its physicality, such as dimensions, density, colour, texture, amount of hair and colour of eyes etc. – all that sort of thing.’
‘Cor,’ he grumbled, ‘you don’t want much, do you?’
‘The usual aspects,’ I replied carelessly. ‘After all, if you come and tell me that you have encountered a human head resting on the brink of Chalk Hill dew pond, I think you could assume I might want the full picture.’ I flicked a morsel of chewed Chum off my left paw. ‘Reasonable enough I should have thought,’ I added.
The dog looked doubtful but then said briskly: ‘Well, as dead heads go, I should say it was definitely about average – sort of football size.’
‘Really? And how many dead heads have you seen?’
‘Hundreds,’ he said.
Lies, naturally. But I could see a mulish glint in his eye and conceded hastily that there had indeed been a couple in the past – although from what I could recall, those had been of the attached variety. However, it doesn’t do to be pedantic, least of all with Bouncer.
He picked up his bone, dropped it and then licked his chops. ‘And,’ he grinned, ‘not much hair, blue batty eyes and a bit white around the old gills and gullet.’
‘Ah,’ I said, ‘so there was a gullet?’
He cogitated and started to frown. ‘No not much, just a bit. What, Maurice, you would call a … a …’ I could see he was groping for the right word but fortunately found it before I had to prompt him.
‘A remnant,’ he shouted triumphantly. ‘That’s it – the bonce had a remnant of gullet!’ He paused, and added brightly, ‘though I suppose it might have been his wind funnel.’
I closed my eyes: partly to muffle the noise, partly to blot out the image and partly to decide whether I should congratulate him on his improved vocabulary or rebuke him for the reversion to slang. Teaching the dog the Queen’s English is a taxing task – every step forward entailing at least another backward. But I feel it my bounden duty and thus I press on …
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Primrose Version
I lost my bet. And, needless to say, Nicholas was scrupulous in exacting payment. However, such pedantry irritated me far less than learning that the headless ghoul in the pond was definitely not Topping. It was in fact one Dr Alan Carstairs whom the local newspaper assured us was ‘a much loved member of the Mathematics Department at Erasmus House’.
Personally I had never heard of Dr Carstairs and he certainly wasn’t in evidence at Topping’s little soirée; and neither was I aware that the school ran to a department – in maths or anything else. The term implied a scholastic grandeur which I couldn’t help feeling was not entirely commensurate with the institution’s status. However, this was a minor puzzlement compared with the identity of Carstairs.
My first line of enquiry was naturally Emily, who assured me that he did exist (or had) and that, as suspected, there was no such department but simply the arithmetical teaching of Dr Carstairs – who as far as she was aware had not been especially loved anyway. I found that a trifle sad. I mean not to be much loved and to lose one’s head does seem a bit of a raw deal. Clearly Emily thought the same for she kept repeating, ‘So sad! So sad!’ … until I have to admit it rather set my teeth on edge. Lamentation is all very well but there comes a point when enough is enough. That point had long been reached and I told Emily so in no uncertain terms. She regarded me reproachfully and said that clearly I had no conception of the vileness of Dr Carstairs’ fate and that lacking an imaginative sensibility I was incapable of visualising his awful end. Feeling denial might be injudicious I refrained from telling her that I recalled every grotesque detail.
As previously explained, on the night of my discovery I was so exhausted by the experience that the prospect of raising the alarm had been too daunting. However, some might wonder why, as an upright member of our community and not one for shirking her civic duty, I did not march straight down to our local police station the following morning and furnish them with the essential data. The answer is simple: wisdom. Having had a murderer for a brother (and he a vicar), I do have some small insight into such matters. And part of that insight is the recognition that silence is golden, or at least moderately useful. Francis’s part in the Fotherington episode and its embarrassing aftermath might have turned catastrophic had he not exercised considerable verbal restraint. There is no point in thrusting oneself into the limelight unless such thrusting is to one’s immediate benefit. And given the circumstances I felt that my personal knowledge of Carstairs’ fate was unlikely to confer much of that. Indeed quite possibly the reverse … It is amazing how quickly police and press jump to erroneous conclusions; and when all is said and done one does not care to be compromised by a severed head. Thus following parental advice I concluded that the less said the better.
However, it was not simply unease concerning the questionable acumen of the authorities that checked my tongue, but also unease concerning the perpetrators. Who knew what they might think – or more to the point do – were it to become known that Primrose Oughterard had been at the dew pond only minutes after the victim had hit the waters? I mean to say, they could have wondered what exactly it was that I had seen or heard. Luckily I had heard nothing other than my own retching into the gorse bush but they weren’t to know that. Thus to avoid any wrong assumptions on their part I deemed silence the best course.
Alas, it was a discretion I was unable to sustain. I had overlooked the fact of Nicholas Ingaza, and that in my initial anxiety I had been so foolish as to inform him of my experience. At the time it had rather piqued me that he had not accorded my account the respect it deserved; but now I fervently hoped he would forget about it altogether. A vain hope, naturally. Ingaza forgets nothing – particularly anything that might place him in a position superior to that of his confidant; something my poor brother learnt to his cost.
Thus just as I was deciding that silence was by far the best policy and that at least no one else should hear of my nightmare, the telephone rang and it was Nicholas himself enquiring whether I would care to accompany him to one of the Brighton Pavilion’s periodic thé dansants. Now, I was under no illusion that it was the pleasure of my company that he sought, but rather an appreciative audience for the finer points of his tango routine. This routine is invariably slick, convoluted and subtly spectacular; and in the course of time I have developed a grudging admiration for the skill of its exponent. What Nicholas Ingaza may lack in prettiness of character is made up for (nearly) by prettiness on the dance floor.
My own skill being the ordered pre
dictability of the foxtrot, it is not I who partners him in such movements but some leaden-faced girl called Mona. Other than the articulation of ‘cor’ and ‘that was a nifty one, Nick’, I have never heard Mona speak. In fact I rather doubt if Ingaza has either, their relationship off-piste being as frigidly distant as it is closely intimate on. The gulf between professional and private worlds can be wide, something which my brother’s troublesome victim had failed to grasp. Had she done so we might all have been saved a heap of vexation. Still, that was then. And now my immediate concern was what to wear when listening to tango rhythms at five in the afternoon and applauding the Ingaza gyrations.
But inevitably the sartorial question gave way to cynical suspicion. Was it sheer coincidence that Nicholas had issued his invitation on exactly the same day as the newspapers were at their most fulsome regarding ‘the butchered schoolmaster’? The item was front page and double-spread, and had even merited a reference on the six o’clock news. At the time of telling, Nicholas had received my bombshell with scepticism, not to say a bantering levity. But with the press luridly confirming my tale, his interest could have been spurred into wanting to re-hear the details – as confirmed from the horse’s mouth.
Well, I decided, the horse might just turn mulish and demand several cocktails plus dinner at the Grand before she re-spilt the beans. So with that settled I returned to the question of frock and earrings.
The Primrose Pursuit Page 7