by Tom Sharpe
‘Friend of Mrs Hutchmeyer maybe?’ Hutchmeyer ground his teeth.
‘Didn’t hear that, Mr Hutchmeyer. Did you say something?’
‘No,’ said Hutchmeyer.
Chief Greensleeves scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Seems like we’ve got ourselves another little problem here,’ he said finally. ‘Your cruiser blows out of the water like she’s been dynamited and when we go look see what do we find? A mink coat that’s Mrs Hutchmeyer’s and a bag that belongs to a Mr Piper who just happens to be her friend. You think there’s any connection?’
‘What do you mean “any connection”?’ said Hutchmeyer.
‘Like they was on that cruiser when she blew?’
‘How the hell would I know where they were? All I know is that whoever was on that cruiser tried to kill me.’
‘Interesting you say that,’ said Chief Greensleeves, ‘very interesting.’
‘I don’t see anything interesting about it.’
‘Couldn’t be the other way round, could it?’
‘Could what be the other way round?’ said Hutchmeyer.
‘That you killed them?’
‘I did what?’ shouted Hutchmeyer and let go his blanket. ‘Are you accusing me of—’
‘Just asking questions, Mr Hutchmeyer. There’s no need for you getting excited.’
But Hutchmeyer was out of his chair. ‘My house burns down, my cruiser blows up, my yacht’s sunk under me, I’m in the water drowning some hours and you sit there and suggest I killed my … why you fat bastard I’ll have my lawyers sue you for everything you’ve got. I’ll—’
‘Sit down and shut up,’ bawled Greensleeves. ‘Now you just listen to me. Fat bastard I may be but no New York mobster’s going to tell me. We know all about you, Mr Hutchmeyer. We don’t just sit on our asses and watch you move in and buy up good real estate with money that could be laundered for the Mafia and we don’t know about it. This isn’t Hicksville and it isn’t New York. This is Maine and you don’t carry any weight round here. And we don’t like your sort moving in and buying us up. We may be a poor state but we ain’t dumb. Now, are you going to tell us what really happened with your wife and her fancy friend or are we going to have to drag the bay and sift the ashes of your house till we find them?’
Hutchmeyer slumped nakedly back into his chair, appalled at the glimpse he had just been given of his social standing in Freshman’s Bay. Like Piper, he knew now that he should never have come to Maine. He was more than ever convinced of his mistake when the lieutenant came in with Baby’s travel bags and pocket book.
‘There’s a whole lot of money in the bag,’ he told Greensleeves. The Chief pawed through it and extracted a wad of wet notes. ‘Seems like Mrs Hutchmeyer was going some place with a lot of dollars when she died,’ he said. ‘So now we’ve really got ourselves a problem. Mrs Hutchmeyer on that cruiser with her friend, Mr Piper. Both got baggage with them and money. And then “Bam” their cruiser explodes just like that. I reckon we’re going to have to send divers down to see if they can find the bodies.’
‘Have to start quick,’ said the lieutenant. ‘The way the tide’s running they could be out to sea by now.’
‘So we start now,’ said Greensleeves, and went out into the lobby where some reporters were waiting.
‘Got any theory?’ they asked.
Greensleeves shook his head. ‘We got two people missing presumed drowned. Mrs Baby Hutchmeyer and a Mr Piper. He’s a British author. That’s all for now.’
‘What about this Miss Futtle?’ said the lieutenant. ‘She’s missing too.’
‘And what about the house being burnt down?’
‘We’re waiting for a report on that,’ said Greensleeves.
‘But you do suspect deliberate arson?’
Greensleeves shrugged. ‘You put all these things together and work out what I suspect,’ he said and pressed on. Five minutes later the wires were buzzing with the news that Peter Piper, the famous author, was dead in bizarre circumstances.
*
In the Van der Hoogen mansion the victims of the tragedy listened to the news of their deaths on a transistor in the gloom of a bedroom on the top floor. Part of the gloom resulted from the shutters on the windows and part, from Piper’s point of view, from the prospect that his death opened up before him. It was bad enough being an author by proxy, but being a corpse by proxy was awful beyond belief. Baby on the other hand greeted the news gaily.
‘We’ve made it,’ she said. ‘They’re not even going to come looking for us. You heard what they said. With the tide running the skindivers aren’t expecting to find the bodies.’
Piper looked miserably round the bedroom. ‘It’s all very well you talking,’ he said. ‘What you don’t seem to understand is that I don’t have an identity. I’ve lost my passport and all my work. How on earth am I going to get back to England? I can’t go to the Embassy and ask for another passport. And the moment I appear in public I’m going to be arrested for arson and boat-burning and attempted murder. You’ve landed us in a ghastly mess.’
‘I’ve freed you from the past. You can be anyone you want to be now.’
‘All I want to be is myself,’ said Piper.
Baby looked at him dubiously. ‘From what you told me last night you weren’t yourself before,’ she said, ‘I mean, what sort of self were you being the author of a book you didn’t write?’
‘At least I knew what I wasn’t. Now I don’t even know that.’
‘You’re not a dead body. That’s one good thing.’
‘I might just as well be,’ said Piper looking lugubriously at the sheeted forms of the furniture as if they were so many shrouds cloaking those different authors he had so happily aspired to be. The dim light filtering through the shuttered windows added to the impression that he was sitting in a tomb, the sepulchre of his literary ambitions. A sense of profound melancholy settled on him and with it the imagery of The Flying Dutchman doomed to wander the seas until such day … but for Piper there would be no release. He had been party to a crime, a whole number of crimes, and even if he went to the police now they wouldn’t believe him. Why should they? Was it likely that a rich woman like Baby would burn down her own home and blow up an expensive cruiser and sink her husband’s yacht? And even if she admitted that she was to blame for the whole thing, there would still be a trial and Hutchmeyer’s lawyers would want to know why his suitcase had been on the boat. And finally the fact that he hadn’t written Pause would come out and then everyone would suspect … not even suspect, they would be certain he was a fraud and after the Hutchmeyer money. And Baby had stolen a quarter of a million dollars from the safe in Hutchmeyer’s study. Piper shook his head hopelessly and looked up to find her watching him with interest.
‘No way, baby,’ she said, evidently reading his mind. ‘It’s dual destiny for us now. You try anything and I’ll turn myself in and say you forced me.’
But Piper was past trying anything. ‘What are we going to do now?’ he asked. ‘I mean, we can’t just sit here in someone else’s house for ever.’
‘Two days, maybe three,’ said Baby, ‘then we’ll move on.’
‘How? Just how are we going to move on?’
‘Simple,’ said Baby, ‘I’ll call for a cab and we’ll take a flight from Bangor. No problems. They won’t be looking for us on dry land …’
She was interrupted by a crunch on the drive. Piper went to the shutters and looked down. A police car had stopped outside.
‘The cops,’ Piper whispered. ‘You said they wouldn’t be looking for us.’
Baby joined him at the window. A bell chimed eerily two floors below. ‘They’re merely checking the Van der Hoogens to ask if they heard anything suspicious last night,’ she said. ‘They’ll go away again.’ Piper stared down at the two policemen. All he had to do now was to call out and … but Baby’s fingers tightened on his arm and Piper made no sound. Presently after wandering round outside the house the two cops got back into their car and drove
away.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Baby. ‘No problems. I’ll go down to the kitchen and get us something to eat.’
Left to himself Piper paced the dim room and wondered why he hadn’t called out to those two policemen. The simple, obvious reasons no longer sufficed. If he had called out it would have been some proof that he’d had nothing to do with the fire … at least an indication of innocence. But he had made no move. Why not? He had had a chance to escape from this mess and he hadn’t taken it. Not through fear only but more alarmingly out of a willingness, almost a desire, to remain alone in this empty house with an extraordinary woman. What sort of terrible complicity was it that had prevented him? Baby was mad. He had no doubt in his mind about that and yet she exercised a weird fascination for him. He had never met anyone in his life before like her. She was oblivious of the ordinary conventions that ordered other people’s lives and she could look calmly down at the police and say ‘They will go away again’ as if they were simply neighbours paying a social call. And they had. And he had done what she had expected and would go on doing it, even to the point of being anyone he wanted in this circumscribed freedom she had created round him by her actions. Anyone he wanted? He could only think of other authors but none had been in his predicament, and without a model to guide him Piper was thrown back on his own limited resources. And on Baby’s. He would become what she wanted. That was the truth of the matter. Piper glimpsed the attraction she held for him. She knew what he was. She had said so last night before everything had started to go wrong. She had said he was a literary genius and she had meant it. For the first time he had met someone who knew what he really was and having found her he couldn’t let her go. Exhausted by this frightening realization Piper lay down on the bed and closed his eyes and when Baby came with a tray she found him fast asleep. She looked at him fondly and then, putting the tray down, took a sheet from a chair and covered him with it. Under the shroud Piper slept on.
*
In the police station Hutchmeyer would have done the same if they had let him. Instead, still naked beneath the blanket, he was subjected to interminable questions about his relations with his wife and with Miss Futtle and what Piper meant to Mrs Hutchmeyer and finally why he had chosen a particularly stormy night to go sailing in the bay.
‘You usually go sailing without checking the weather?’
‘Look, I told you we just went out for a sail. We weren’t figuring on going places, we just got up …’
‘From the dinner table and said, “Let’s just you and me …”’
‘Miss Futtle suggested it,’ said Hutchmeyer.
‘Oh she did, did she? And what did Mrs Hutchmeyer have to say about you going sailing with another woman?’
‘Miss Futtle isn’t another woman. Not that sort of other woman. She’s a literary agent. We do business together.’
‘Naked on a yacht in the middle of a mini-hurricane you do business together? What sort of business?’
‘We weren’t doing business on the yacht. It was a social occasion.’
‘Kind of thought it was. I mean naked and all.’
‘I wasn’t naked to begin with, I just got wet so I took my clothes off.’
‘You just got wet so you took your clothes off? Are you sure that was the only reason you were naked?’
‘Of course I’m sure. Look, no sooner had we got out there than the wind blew up …’
‘And the house blew up. And your cruiser blew up. And Mrs Hutchmeyer blew up and this Mr Piper …’ Hutchmeyer blew up.
‘Okay, Mr Hutchmeyer, if that’s the way you want it,’ said Greensleeves as Hutchmeyer was pinned back into his chair. ‘Now we’re really going to get tough.’
He was interrupted by a sergeant who whispered in his ear. Greensleeves sighed. ‘You’re sure?’
‘That’s what she says. Been up at the hospital all day.’
Greensleeves went out and looked at Sonia. ‘Miss Futtle? You say you’re Miss Futtle?’
Sonia nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. The Police Chief could see that Hutchmeyer had been telling the truth after all. Miss Futtle was not a little lady, not by a long way.
‘Okay, we’ll take your statement in here,’ he said, and took her into another office. For two hours Sonia made her statement. When Greensleeves came out he had an entirely new theory. Miss Futtle had been most cooperative.
‘Right,’ he said to Hutchmeyer, ‘now we’d like you to tell us just what happened down in New York when Piper arrived. We understand you arranged a kind of riot for him.’
Hutchmeyer looked wildly round. ‘Now wait a minute. That was just a publicity stunt. I mean …’
‘And what I mean,’ said Greensleeves, ‘is that you set this Mr Piper up for a target for every crazy pressure group going. Arabs, Jews, Gays, the IRA, the blacks, old women, you name it, you let them loose on the guy and you call that a publicity stunt?’
Hutchmeyer tried to think. ‘Are you telling me that one of those groups did this thing?’ he asked.
‘I’m not telling you anything, Mr Hutchmeyer. I’m asking.’
‘Asking what?’
‘Asking you if you think it was so goddam clever setting Mr Piper up for a target when the poor guy hadn’t done anything worse than write a book for you? Doesn’t seem you did yourself or him a favour the way things have worked out, does it?’
‘I didn’t think anything like this …’
Greensleeves leant forward. ‘Now I’m just telling you something for your own good, Mr Hutchmeyer. You’re going to get the hell out of here and not come back. Not if you know what’s good for you. And next time you dream up a publicity stunt for one of your authors you’d better get him a goddam bodyguard first.’
Hutchmeyer staggered out of the office.
‘I need some clothes,’ he said.
‘Well you’re not going to get any back at your house. It’s all burnt down.’
On a bench Sonia Futtle was weeping.
‘What’s the matter with her?’ said Hutchmeyer.
‘She’s all broken up with this Piper’s dying,’ said Greensleeves, ‘and it kind of surprises me you aren’t grief-stricken about the late Mrs Hutchmeyer.’
‘I am,’ said Hutchmeyer, ‘I just don’t show my feelings is all.’
‘So I noticed,’ said Greensleeves. ‘Well, you’d better go comfort your alibi. We’ll send out some clothes.’
Hutchmeyer crossed to the bench in his blanket. ‘I’m sorry …’ he began, but Sonia was on her feet.
‘Sorry?’ she shrieked, ‘you murdered my darling Peter and now you say you’re sorry?’
‘Murdered him?’ said Hutchmeyer. ‘All I did was …’
Greensleeves left them to it and sent out for some clothes. ‘We can forget this case,’ he told the lieutenant, ‘this is Federal stuff. Terrorists in Maine. I mean, who the hell would believe it?’
‘You don’t think it was the Mafia then?’
‘What’s it matter who it was? We aren’t going to get anywhere to solving it is all I know. The FBI can handle this case. I know when I’m out of my depth.’
*
In the end Hutchmeyer, dressed in a dark suit that didn’t fit him properly, and the still inconsolable Sonia were driven to the airport and took the company plane to New York.
They landed to find that MacMordie had laid on the media. Hutchmeyer lumbered down the steps and made a statement.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said brokenly, ‘this has been a double tragedy for me. I have lost the most wonderful, warm-hearted little wife a man ever had. Forty years of happy marriage lie …’ He broke off to blow his nose. ‘It’s just terrible. I can’t express the full depths of my feelings.
‘Peter Piper was a young novelist of unsurpassed brilliance. His passing has been a great blow to the world of letters.’ He paraded his handkerchief again and was prompted by MacMordie.
‘Say something about his novel,’ he whispered.
‘Hutchmeyer stopped sniffing
and said something about Pause O Men for the Virgin published by Hutchmeyer Press price seven dollars ninety and available at all … Behind him Sonia wept audibly and had to be escorted to the waiting car. She was still weeping when they drove off.
‘A terrible tragedy,’ said Hutchmeyer, still under the influence of his own oratory, ‘really terrible.’
He was interrupted by Sonia who was pummelling MacMordie.
‘Murderer,’ she screamed, ‘it was all your fault. You told all those crazy terrorists he was in the KGB and the IRA and a homosexual and now look what’s happened!’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ yelled MacMordie, ‘I didn’t do …’
‘The fucking cops up in Maine think it was the Symbionese Liberation Army or The Minutemen or someone,’ said Hutchmeyer, ‘so now we’ve got another problem.’
‘I can see that,’ said MacMordie as Sonia blacked his eye. Finally, refusing Hutchmeyer’s offer of hospitality, she insisted on being driven to the Gramercy Park Hotel.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Hutchmeyer as she got out, ‘I’m going to see that Baby and Piper go to their Maker with all the trimmings. Flowers, a cortège, a bronze casket …’
‘Two,’ said MacMordie, ‘I mean they wouldn’t fit …’
Sonia turned on them. ‘They’re dead,’ she screamed. ‘Dead. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Haven’t you any consciences? They were real people, real living people and now they’re dead and all you can talk about is funerals and caskets and—’
‘Well, we’ve got to recover the bodies first,’ said MacMordie practically, ‘I mean there’s no use talking about caskets, we don’t have no bodies.’
‘Why don’t you just shut your mouth?’ Hutchmeyer told him, but Sonia had fled into the hotel.
They drove on in silence.
For a while Hutchmeyer had considered firing MacMordie but he changed his mind. After all he had never liked the great wooden house in Maine and with Baby dead …
‘It was a terrible experience,’ he said, ‘a terrible loss.’
‘It must have been,’ said MacMordie, ‘all that loveliness gone to waste.’