by Tom Sharpe
All the time he wondered where Belinda and Esmond were. Perhaps they were still at the hospital and Esmond was having his stomach washed out. In which case he’d better go down there himself …
On second and third thoughts, he didn’t think this such a good idea. They might think he’d set out to get rid of the lout by way of alcohol poisoning and hold him on suspicion. Or they might take one look at the state he was in and simply call the police.
In the end, Albert decided it would be safer to stick with his first impulse and get the hell away from the area. He fetched the keys for a Honda and presently was driving at 100mph down towards Southend. Once he got there he would book into a bed and breakfast and not some smart hotel where they’d ask to carry his luggage and why he was so wet. No, he’d find somewhere cheap and modest where no questions would be asked. He’d pay cash too.
It was then that Albert remembered he had no cash on him and that his fortune was in the safe under the carpet in the bedroom. And just as he realised this, a police car with lights flashing forced him to brake and pull over to the side of the road.
An hour later he’d been breathalysed and was in police custody charged with driving over the alcohol and speed limits at 120mph in an unlicensed vehicle with faulty brakes and worn tyres.
‘You’ll come up before the district judge in the morning,’ he was told, ‘for dangerous driving and drunk too. Think yourself lucky. You could have killed yourself, and a lot of other people into the bargain.’
The officer was wrong. Next morning Albert was in a police van and being driven back to Essexford to be questioned by the superintendent who was now convinced that both Albert Ponson and his sister were psychopathic criminals.
Chapter 25
Vera Wiley, who had been sedated in A & E, had recovered completely by the time the superintendent arrived at the hospital. She sat up in bed and demanded her clothes. The superintendent told the doctor to move the bed into a private room and the doctor was only too happy to oblige. The other patients in the ward cheered. They were sick to death of Mrs Wiley screaming she wanted her darling love child Esmond back.
‘Who is Esmond? Is he your husband?’ asked the superintendent who had just been rung up by the Home Secretary’s top assistant calling to tell him that the job of the police of whatever rank was to arrest criminals and not to destroy houses. He rang off before the superintendent could answer.
‘He told me, “You can leave that to al-Qaeda,”’ the superintendent told Vera.
‘You mean my brother. He’s not called Kyder. His name is Albert Ponson. Where’s he got to? I left Esmond with him and he’s supposed to be protecting him from my husband who tried to murder him.’
‘What a pity he didn’t succeed,’ murmured the superintendent, thoroughly sick of the lot of them, and then immediately regretted it. Vera leapt out of bed and hurled her full weight on him. As his chair fell back onto the floor he landed on his back and slashed his head on the edge of the bedside cupboard. A doctor and two nurses carried him on a stretcher to have ten stitches in Accident and Emergency.
The chief inspector took over when several policemen had managed to force Vera back into bed and put handcuffs on her ankles.
‘Try leaping out of bed with them on and you’ll break your blasted legs,’ she was told.
Vera lay back on the pillow weeping. ‘I want to know what my brother Albert has done with Esmond. My husband tried to kill him. I’ve told you that before.’
‘You mean he tried to kill Mr Ponson. Why did he want to do that?’
‘Because he said there were three of him.’
‘Three of him? Your husband has a twin brother? I mean, he has two twin brothers, like he’s a triplet, is that what you’re telling me? How do you know who’s making love to you if that’s the case?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ screamed Vera.
‘That makes two of us. Oh, of course, your husband tried to kill three bloody Ponsons. Well, I can’t say I blame him. One Al is crooked enough.’
Vera stared at him dementedly.
‘I didn’t say that. You’re putting words in my mouth,’ Vera whimpered, wishing he could put some sensible ones in.
The chief inspector did his best to clear his mind and then started again.
‘Just tell me who tried to kill two people. That’s all I want to find out.’
‘Horace did.’
‘And Horace is your husband?’
‘Of course he is. We’ve been married for twenty years.’
‘OK. I’ve got that. So now he’s gone down with some illness and you say he tried to kill Esmond. And Esmond is your only son?’
‘Yes. He tried to stab him with the carving knife.’
The chief inspector came up with what he thought was a reasonable question.
‘And was Esmond his real son? I mean, you hadn’t been having it off with another man and got a bun in the oven from this other bloke?’
The expression was not one Vera knew.
‘How could I have? I was cooking supper at the time.’
‘I mean, had you been having a love affair with a man who wasn’t your husband and got pregnant when he ejaculated?’
‘When he what?’ asked Vera, whose romantic reading had limited her vocabulary.
‘When he came his load.’
‘Load? What do you mean?’
‘All right, let’s just say making love.’
‘But if we were he’d have had to be there. Not that we were.’
‘Oh never mind. What I am trying to ascertain is why your husband tried to stab your son. That’s all. He must have had a reason.’
‘He said it was because Esmond was exactly like him.’
‘I should have thought that would have reassured him you weren’t having an affair with another man,’ the chief inspector said.
‘But I’ve told you, I’m not like that. I’ve always been completely faithful.’
The chief inspector could well believe it. Even a sex maniac wouldn’t have been attracted to Mrs Wiley. Her husband must be utterly hideous himself. On this note he stopped the interview and went to see how the superintendent was getting on. He wasn’t. The stitches hadn’t taken and were having to be redone.
‘It’s bloody hell. Much more of this and I’ll go off my rocker too.’
‘Makes two of us. This is the weirdest case I’ve ever tried to understand.’
Chapter 26
Horace was not enjoying his voyage much either. A storm had blown up once they were away from England and the Thames and nowhere near Holland. In short, the tramp steamer was living up to its reputation and wallowing about in the North Sea in a way that certainly alarmed Horace Wiley. One moment waves were breaking over her bows and then, when the wind changed, she was taking on water first from the port side and then from the starboard so that Horace who had taken to his grubby cabin was tossed about until he was violently sick. Of course, there was no washbasin in the steamer so he staggered about in search of a bathroom without any luck and finally vomited over the side while clinging desperately to the ship’s rusty guardrails and getting soaked. Below him the tramp seemed not to be making any progress and looking briefly aft he could see no wake, which suggested the engine and with it the propellers had stopped. Had he known anything about ships he would have realised the reason for the ship’s wallowing and constant change of direction. And he’d certainly have been more alarmed. Being sick, almost literally, to death, he searched for a bucket and took it down to his cabin to puke into. He wished now he had chosen to come by air. At least if the plane crashed death came quickly. But that had been impossible. He’d have had to produce his passport and the money in his suitcases would most likely have been found.
When the engine started up again and the ship began to move forward into relatively still water, he finally fell asleep.
The next morning Horace emptied the contents of the bucket out the porthole and got out the map of Europe he
had bought in London. He had to face up to the fact that he was entirely without sea legs and the thought of enduring another night in such awful conditions and in such a wretched condition was more than he could stomach. He would jump ship at Holland and might still keep his route secret if he carried on the journey via the various railway lines that would be most unlikely for any long-distance traveller to take. But the map was not detailed enough to show any railway lines other than the main ones carrying high-speed trains between large cities.
Cutting his losses, Horace decided to head for Berlin by the most circuitous route he could find. Ditching most of his luggage he disembarked and only got to the city a week after he’d started out from London. On arrival he immediately changed a large sum of pounds into euros at a number of different banks and exchanges. That evening he caught a bus into the eastern part of the city which had been in the Russian zone and spent the night in the cheapest room in the cheapest hotel he could find. He had decided to alternate between buses and trains, and take a zigzag route back out of Germany. Where he would end up he had no idea. His sole object was to prevent anyone tracing him and wherever he stayed he intended to give a different name. Best of all he bought a passport from a drunk Englishman who’d come to Munich to watch a football match and followed this up by buying a second one from a man with a beard in Salzburg. He spent two fruitless days cultivating his whiskers but in the event he didn’t have to use either of them to successfully pass the border crossing into Italy.
Chapter 27
At Grope Hall Esmond had no idea what a furore his and Belinda Ponson’s disappearance had aroused.
This was partly because he had no way of knowing where he was and partly because he was still recovering from his alcoholic hangover and the sleeping pills he was given each night. They weren’t strong ones but they were more than enough to make him dozy. Being called Joe Grope made things worse and having to call Belinda darling instead of auntie didn’t make the situation any more comprehensible. Every now and then he climbed off the bed to look out the window in the hope of seeing something he could understand, like houses, only to be confronted by endless fields of rough and tufted grass with, in the far distance, what appeared to be a grey stone wall. Nearer the house there were flocks of sheep munching away and down below the window pigs had turned the ground into a large patch of muddy earth with their snouts and hooves. More alarmingly there seemed to be two black bulls roaming the grounds completely untethered.
There was no sound of the passing cars he was accustomed to in Selhurst Road. Only the occasional gust of wind shook the glass as he stared out. Occasionally he thought he could hear the murmur of voices coming from the room below. One at least seemed to be that of a man because it was deeper and less frequent than that of what he took to be the women, though he couldn’t be sure. The floor was too thick and deadened by moss for him to hear much but every now and again he could definitely make out laughter, albeit brief laughter, before the discussion or perhaps the argument resumed.
In fact, what remained of the Grope family – Myrtle and Belinda – were mostly discussing the problem of getting rid of the old Ford Belinda had driven up in from Essexford. It was still in the barn but on the off-chance it was spotted it would provide a very good clue for someone to pass on to the police. Belinda had already removed the number plates with the help of Old Samuel who had obliterated the numbers with the flat head of a large hatchet but getting rid of the car itself was far more difficult.
‘We could always drive it down the drift mine and bury it out of sight under tons of soil from the roof,’ Old Samuel suggested.
‘And where are we going to get the coal we need for the stove if we block the main tunnel to the coal face?’ asked Myrtle.
‘Oh, there are lots of side tunnels with no coal left in them. All we’ve got to do is drive into one of those and then bring the roof down.’
‘And if someone starts digging through it, what then?’
‘Barbed wire. Lots of it,’ said Old Samuel, getting quite carried away at the thought of it. ‘Rolls of it going back under the roof fall for twenty yards. Of course, we could have a locked iron gate as well to stop people stealing coal.’
‘But no one ever comes down past the bulls and the dogs.’
‘True, but just in case …’
‘Anyway, how are you going to bring the roof down?’ asked Belinda.
‘With explosives.’
‘What explosives?’
‘Never you mind. You wouldn’t want to know,’ Old Samuel sniggered. ‘But I’m going to need the young fellow’s help.’
Excited by the thought of at long last using his stockpile of explosives Samuel hurried from the room tugging the door shut behind him.
Once they knew they were alone the women began to discuss Esmond’s future.
‘Now about this marriage,’ said Myrtle. ‘It will take place in the chapel. And if he doesn’t give you girl babies, we’ll send him back to his mother and father in Croydon and look for another one.’
‘Or he can stay on here,’ Belinda said hastily, blanching at the thought of Esmond going home and telling either his mother or his Uncle Albert where he had been held captive and who had taken him there. ‘We need more men to work the farm and there’s lots of space here in between the bulls and the sheep for lurking. Not that he’ll have much time for that. What he doesn’t know about farming and mining Old Samuel can teach him.’
At this both women cackled loudly and Esmond, listening from above, wondered once again just what the joke could be.
Chapter 28
At Essexford Police Station, Albert needed no teaching: he had already learnt that it didn’t pay to demand to have his lawyer present when he was being questioned as a suspected terrorist and a murderer of two people into the bargain.
It was made worse by his lawyer being a former suitor of the woman he was supposed to have killed. The superintendent himself had explained the situation to him and the lawyer had suggested they knock the truth out of ‘that shit of a murdering bastard’. The superintendent shared his opinion. No one apart from the police knew that Albert Ponson was in custody. The newspapers were having a field day writing about the presumed explosion at a heavily armoured house and lost no time in linking it with al-Qaeda as a storage place for bomb-making materials.
In the meantime the house had been sheathed in an enormous blue tent and more police had been brought in to keep the public as far away as possible. There were yellow ribbons stretched across the road and men and women in white jumpsuits were examining every inch of the interior. Samples of blood from both the bungalow and the DIY slaughterhouse were undergoing analysis and the extent of gore at the latter site had excited the police into believing that this was a quite appallingly organised crime.
The mixture of various animal bloods made the police work exceedingly difficult. They took samples to the top forensic laboratory where even world-renowned experts found it difficult to distinguish between the DNA of animals and that of slaughtered humans or even those who had merely cut themselves in their amateurish effort to kill their struggling beasts.
‘Whoever thought up this conglomeration of blood certainly knew exactly what he was doing. I’ve never come across anything like it in my life,’ said the head of the forensics team.
Much the same could be said for Albert Ponson. He’d never known what it was like to be cross-examined by a superintendent who had come up the hard way from an ordinary copper and who was brutally ambitious. And who was still suffering twinges from a badly stitched forehead.
‘You bloody well wait. I’m going to teach you to kick me in the balls twice,’ Albert squealed, after he’d been kicked there the second time.
‘Hardly, mate. I won’t be around by the time you come out of prison. Like in forty years. Wrap your head around that one, you murderous terrorist! Come to that, you’ll be lucky to be released in your own lifetime. We’ve got some other charges against you.’
&n
bsp; ‘Like what?’
‘Like killing two of my men and maiming three others when that roof came down.’
‘But I didn’t do that!’ shouted Albert, seriously worried now. ‘I told you the front would come off when you pulled the gate down.’
‘Did you now?’ said the superintendent and turned to the chief inspector. ‘Did he tell you that?’
‘Of course he didn’t, the lying bastard. He said he couldn’t get out and with all that bulletproof metal and glass we couldn’t get in. We were just trying to help the sod. And where’s his wife and that youngster Esmond, I’d like to know?’
‘Dead as like as not. His missus must have known too much and may have tried to blackmail him. He killed her first no doubt, and then he tried to bump his nephew off with an overdose of alcohol. Didn’t just try either. Forensic says there was enough vomit on that carpet to kill a hippopotamus. Whisky, brandy, just about every booze, including absinthe, you can think of. Talk about drinking the poor bastard into an early grave.’
‘That’s a bloody lie,’ shouted Albert. ‘I never gave the brute any absinthe.’
The superintendent grinned.
‘Didn’t give him any absinthe. Caught you that time. Meaning you gave him just about every other hard liquor in the house. That would be plenty enough to do his liver in. I know it would finish mine just looking at the empty bottles lying about the floor. Dear God and I’ve got to go and question the poor lad’s loony mother. Just keep this swine awake and go on giving him hell.’
The superintendent left Albert’s cell and dawdled down to the hospital, fingering his bandaged forehead. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to telling Vera that her darling Esmond had disappeared and was almost certainly dead.
Chapter 29
To his continued befuddlement, Esmond had been set to work at the end of the week. He was helping Old Samuel in the side shaft of the coal mine. ‘You bore two holes in the roof with this,’ Old Samuel told him, passing over a large hand drill. ‘And I’ll get the dynamite ready.’