by Anne Morice
‘Used to, in my younger days. Don’t get time for gambling now. Don’t approve of it, either.’
‘But you do bet on horses?’
‘No, never.’
‘Really? On principle?’
‘It doesn’t appeal to me. It’s the breeding and bloodstock side of racing which interests me, plus all the skill and know-how which goes into bringing a horse up to its best, when that’s what you need from it. Prize money now, that’s something else. I’ve no objection to that. It’s the reward which comes from a combination which I’d call ninety per cent knowledge and ten per cent luck. Fair enough, in my opinion, but for the punters it’s the other way on. More like ninety per cent luck and no one should expect to be given that more than once or twice in a lifetime.’
‘Will you have any horses running at Chissingfield this week?’
‘Two. One on Friday, one Saturday.’
‘But you wouldn’t advise me to back them?’
‘No, and if you find that inconsistent, I’ll explain. I may believe that I know all I need to know about my own horses, and they wouldn’t be entered if they weren’t intended to win, but what do I know about the other runners in those two races? Not enough is the answer. No way of being sure that one of them can’t produce that extra burst of speed or stamina to outdo mine. That’s a chance I’m willing to take, but I wouldn’t risk money on it and I wouldn’t advise anyone else to.’
I regarded this homily as the ideal introduction to some advice about another form of investment which he would recommend someone to put their money into, but he let it go by and I said:
‘Were you here two years ago, when they had that murder at Chissingfield?’
Mr God looked across the room at Robin before he spoke, but his answer contained no reference to him, nor much to the question either:
‘I have good reason to remember that meeting. Not because of the murder, we didn’t hear about that until weeks later, but it was a classic example of the point I’ve just been making.’
‘In what way?’
‘I had a horse running on the opening day. It had marvellous form and the going was just right. We didn’t think anything could beat him and no one else did either. He started at four to five on. When it came to the race he went over every jump like a bird and then right at the end he just gave up. Nothing wrong with him, he was as fit as a fiddle when he came into the ring, but he somehow seemed to lose interest. Beaten by his stable companion, too. Funny creatures, horses.’
‘Very disappointing for you, but doesn’t it rather contradict your theory?’
‘Not a bit of it. Confirms it. Everything was right, except for that one unknown factor, which at the end of the day was what counted.’
‘Then I must be stupid, because I was under the impression that the unknown factor came from ignorance about the rival horses. Surely, if these two were from the same stable, your trainer must have known them both equally well? So why didn’t he realise that this was liable to happen? Or is the luck element after all more powerful than you care to admit?’
‘Good question, young lady, and I must remember to pass it on to Jock some time,’ Mr God remarked reflectively, tapping half an inch of ash from his cigar.
I could scarcely believe that he had failed to do so, either at the time, or at regular intervals ever since, but it was no part of my plan to create animosity, while the chance of hot tips on the stock exchange hung in the balance, so to steer the boat into smoother waters, I said:
‘Do you read crime stories?’
‘Can’t say I do. Enough of it about, without turning to fiction. What made you ask?’
‘I was reminded of something my cousin said this evening. How fiction can often be one jump ahead of fact and I believe it may apply particularly to crime stories.’
‘Perhaps because they make popular reading among criminals, gives them ideas? What reminded you, though? Been reading one of those yarns about bent jockeys and crooked trainers?’
‘No, but one might have supposed that only in a novel would you be likely to find a gathering of more than a dozen people, some of them strangers to each other, but nearly all with some particular reason to remember an event which took place over two years ago. Yet here we are, in real life, you see, in exactly that situation. Don’t you find that weird?’
‘Up to a point, but I’m not over impressed. Coincidence has played its part in my life more often than luck. And when you look at it you’ll realise that it has only played a small part tonight. It’s really confined to the single fact that you happen to know my son. The rest of us are either friends or business acquaintances from way back, and frankly I doubt whether that particular event you mentioned affected any of them very much. In fact, my dear young lady, the only person for whom it did have any special importance is your husband, who I understand was in charge of the case?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Irene. I forget how it came up, but it seems she recognised him as soon as you came into dinner tonight. Met Irene Gayford, have you? She’s the one talking to your husband now. Having a good natter about old times, I daresay.’
It was not something I would have dared to say myself, because Robin, although conducting himself in a reasonably civilised way, to the initiated eye was displaying unmistakable signs of boredom and fatigue. However, I was not quite ready to leave yet and returning my attention to Mr God, I said:
‘Which category is she in? Friend or business acquaintance?’
‘Irene? Bit of both, you could say.’
‘And why would Robin have met her when he was here before?’
‘She was the girl’s employer.’
‘Oh, I see! So, after all, it would have a special importance for her, presumably? Did she have any theories about who the murderer was?’
‘Expect so, although I can’t remember what they were. People round here were talking about nothing else for weeks afterwards and theories were two a penny in those days. Perhaps your husband has been asking her the same question.’
‘I doubt it. He’s been switched to another department now and that case would no longer concern him, even if it were still open.’
‘So this is just a holiday, is it?’
‘For me it is, but I’m not so sure about Robin. Perhaps I ought not to say this, although it’s not really giving anything away because he never tells me anything that I couldn’t read in the papers, but I have a feeling this may be one of those times when he’s throwing in a little business with the pleasure.’
‘That so? Funny it should have brought him back to Chissingfield?’
‘Not really. This new job takes him all over the place.’
‘What sort of thing does it involve, then?’
‘All sorts. Racketeering, arms and drug smuggling, mainly; and some of the people he’s trying to track down have their headquarters in places you’d never associate with crime on the grand scale.’
‘Well, it’s nice to know we’ve got chaps like him beavering away on our behalf. And now, have you time for another brandy, or are you one of the early birds?’
There was only one polite answer to that, so I gave it, then rounded up the rest of our party and said goodnight.
Jimmie accompanied us as far as the hall and, when I had arranged with him for three tickets to be left at the box office on the following evening, I said:
‘It would be depressing to believe that I’m not pretty enough, so I must conclude that your father is not so eager to placate Robin as you supposed, since I have nothing to tell my stockbroker tomorrow.’
‘Yes, something has thrown him, I can tell. You seemed to be doing so well, but then I noticed that expression on his face which I have learnt to associate with the bottom falling out of the mustard market, or some such catastrophe. God knows what you’ve been saying to him, but the trouble with you, Tessa is that, once started, you’re all too liable to get carried away.’
(7)
‘The only expla
nation that springs to mind,’ I said, when Robin and I were back in the cocoon of Numbers Two and Three, ‘is that I took the liberty of hinting that you were on the track of some big-time operators in the smuggling racket.’
‘And a most diabolical one, I may say. Whatever possessed you?’
‘It had dawned on me that nobody, however much you protested, was prepared to believe in your claim to be here as a private unwinder. I am afraid that is the effect the word “police” has on people. It creates a malaise and brings out all their guilt feelings and they simply cannot accept the fact that a policeman is ever off duty. I daresay they are right not to, but the sad fact is that he has only to set foot in some pub, for instance, for all present to assume that he has done so for the sole purpose of making sure the landlord isn’t giving short measure, or bending the licensing laws.’
‘I know all that and I’m not denying it. It was my bad luck that Jake should have recognised me and spread the news to everyone within earshot, but I still can’t see how you expect the situation to be improved by putting it around that I’m looking for smugglers.’
‘Well, don’t you see, Robin, it’s one of those crimes which the vast majority have neither committed, nor been tempted to. Most people have done their share of cheating and fiddling at some point along the way, but high powered racketeers are a million miles out of that league. So once they know that’s where your interest lies, they relax. They can look you in the eye and stop behaving like guilty schoolboys. That was what I had in mind, but the annoying thing is that I may have misjudged the situation. I was slightly unnerved by Jimmie’s parting remark about his father, because I’d noticed it too.’
‘Noticed what too?’
‘That he was quite loquacious and at ease when the subject of Pauline’s murder came up, but as soon as I started babbling on about this new job of yours, the wind veered to the north east. So the conclusion I draw from that is that he’s mixed up in some shady financial deal, is now afraid that you’re on to him and is in a great hurry to cover his tracks and send out directives to the accomplices to lie low for a bit.’
‘Yes, it would be, of course. It would never occur to you, for example, that he was feeling tired after a long hard birthday and wished to spend what remained of it tucked up in bed?’
‘No, because Jimmie told us the party would go on till the small hours. Obviously, his father is one of those frenetic people who can manage with three hours’ sleep, when all about them are dropping with fatigue. People who can get through an evening like that on tonic water must have twenty times the average stamina.’
‘On the other hand, if he were involved in something fishy, wouldn’t it have been more natural to try and draw you out, instead of snubbing you?’
‘He’s too wily for that. I’d already made it clear that I only had the haziest idea of what your job involved, so trying to pump me about it would have got him nowhere and might have aroused suspicions which hadn’t existed before.’
‘And, knowing your threshold of suspicion, I applaud his judgement.’
‘Me too, because it had been aroused already by something else. Jimmie said that when he told his father during dinner that you were a policeman, he started like a guilty thing upon a dreadful summons, but Mr God gave me a different version.’
‘What was that?’
‘He said it was Irene Gayford who told him who you were.’
‘Did he, indeed?’
‘Yes, and the construction I put on that is that it really was Jimmie who told him and that, as a result, he instinctively saw you as someone to be on his guard against. But a few minutes later, when they had moved to the bar, Irene told him she’d recognised you as the Inspector who’d been in charge of the murder case. So that made everything all right again. If you were here in some official capacity, it must have some connection with the earlier case, which neither was, nor ever had been, any concern of his, so he could stop worrying. The next thing is, of course, that I come bobbing along and undo all the good work, and off he goes into another flat spin. Don’t you think that would explain it?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, if Miss Gayford did tell him that she had recognised me when I came into the dining room, she’s most likely a frantic liar.’
‘But you recognised her?’
‘Only because I’ve seen her photograph so often and I’ve been trained to remember details of that kind, as part of my job, but we never came face to face. Someone else further down the line had the job of taking her statement. I knew her name and all about her position in the firm, but that was conveyancing and it very rarely brought her into contact with Pauline. Pauline worked, and always had done, for Young Mr Winthrop. I interviewed him, of course, on several occasions, as well as some of the other members of the staff, particularly those who were friendly with her outside the office, but I never once spoke to Miss Gayford.’
‘All the same, she could often have seen you coming and going.’
‘No, not often. Most of the interrogation was done in people’s homes.’
‘Well, perhaps she has one of those photographic memories; once seen, never forgotten.’
‘Maybe, or maybe Jimmie told her who I was and she passed it on to Godstow. I’m inclined to take everything that young man says with a pound of salt. Anyway, I don’t suppose it’s important.’
‘Ironic, though, isn’t it? You come here to lay that ghost, by one means or another, and all it does it to keep jumping out at you round every corner.’
‘And I’m getting tired of it. Tonight was the last straw. And another thing I didn’t come here for was cold ham and salad. What do you say we cut our losses and move?’
In the perverse way in which things so often turn out in life, it was now I who felt a reluctance to leave, although I should have found it hard to explain why. I heard myself making feeble excuses about the impracticability of exchanging the devil we knew for a devil as yet unnamed, and pretending that Jimmie would be driven to suicide if we did not turn up at the theatre, but I am sure we both knew it was nonsense. In the end we compromised by agreeing to give it another twenty-four hours and then to decide whether or not to stay for the races.
DAY THREE
(1)
By nine o’clock on Wednesday morning another bout of wavering had set in, with the discovery that during the night it had started to rain. The valley was shrouded in a grey woollen blanket, with the sheep buried somewhere inside it, and the rain dripped remorselessly down into the puddles on the drive. Staring out morosely at this dismal scene, my eye was caught by a small green van, parked just below the window and proclaiming itself to be the property of Messrs Denny and Fairbrother, Heating Engineers of Chissingfield.
Turning round, I said to Robin, who had spent the past five minutes staring morosely into the mouthpiece of a dead and silent telephone:
‘Well, at least Anthony will be pleased.’
‘Why? What have we ever done to him?’
‘He wouldn’t have been able to run his horse if the ground hadn’t softened up a bit. What game are you playing with that telephone?’
‘I am trying to ring Reception, to ask Verity to be so kind as to order us some breakfast. She does not answer.’
‘I expect they’re all busy pouring incense over the man who has come to mend the stove.’
‘Including the receptionist?’
‘Oh, certainly, if he happens to be good looking.’ Being more inhibited than me about appearing in public in déshabillé, it took him another ten minutes to make himself presentable enough to go downstairs and start the wheels turning. There was then another yawning interval, followed by a knock on the door, which, to my chagrin, did not herald the arrival of steaming coffee, but Toby, who could find nothing better to do than stare at me morosely.
‘There is no reply from Reception,’ he informed me. ‘Never mind, Robin is in charge. Did you get a newspaper?’
‘No
.’
‘Neither did we, but there’s a radio over there. You could see if it works.’
It was tuned to a local station and the announcer was in the process of winding up the news bulletin. He concluded by saying:
‘And here is the main story again. During the night a fire broke out at Poltdean Towers, home of millionaire Denzil Godstow. No details have come in, but it is estimated that a number of valuable works of art have been destroyed. We hope to bring you more on this in our next news at ten o’clock.’
The door opened and Robin appeared, morose as ever, carrying a tray laden with tea bags and an electric kettle.
‘This is supposed to be a token,’ he announced. ‘Breakfast proper is promised downstairs in half an hour. Don’t get into a white heat of excitement. Something tells me it may be cold ham.’
‘Surely it can’t take all that long to unblock a pipe?’
‘Oh yes, it can. Lupus has seen to that.’
‘That wolf in dog’s clothing? What’s he done?’
‘Bitten a lump out of the engineer’s hand. Jake has had to drive him to the doctor to get it stitched up and now they’re waiting for the firm to send out a replacement.’
‘That decides it,’ Toby said. ‘I shall be leaving before lunch. If you take my advice, you’ll do the same.’
‘I am tempted to, I have to admit and so, I suspect, is Tessa, but it seems a bit rough to desert the ship now. They’ve got enough worries, as it is, and I think we ought to do the decent thing and try to stick it out a bit longer.’
‘Have they heard about Mr God’s fire yet?’ I asked.
‘Yes, the radio has been giving it out since seven o’clock. That hasn’t exactly cheered them up, either.’
‘Well, at least it sounds as though the replacement has arrived,’ I said, returning to my look-out, as I heard a car approaching, and just in time to see the headlights come creeping through the sodden mist. ‘So, providing someone has had the forethought to put Lupus in chains, we may yet get our bacon and eggs. On the other hand,’ I added after a pause, in which the car came to a stop and the lights were switched off, ‘we may not. This one looks to me more like a police car and my long experience in these matters tells me that it’s a plainclothes policeman who is now getting out of it. Let’s get a move on, shall we? I can’t wait to get downstairs and find out what hell has broken loose now.’