by Clive Mullis
‘Well, I tell you, if you were there you wouldn’t have found it funny. At one point we had to make him do a cartwheel along the bloody corridor.’
Cornwallis stifled the laugh building up inside him.
‘And then we had the stairs: Gods, what a farce that was. He couldn’t go down flat on his back, and when you turned him sideways you had a leg and an arm out of reach.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Cornwallis, straining to hold it all in.
‘In the end, after he got wedged at the first turn, I sent a lad out for a washing pole. We strapped the top arm and leg to it and hoisted him like a litter, had to slide it out at every turn of the stairs and spin him like a dancer, and then slide the pole back in. I left them to it in the end and went to wait in the cart, it took them nearly an hour to get him down.’
Cornwallis eyes began to water from the sheer effort of trying not to burst out laughing, but in the end he lost the battle and creased up hysterically.
‘Glad you find it so funny, Jack; next time you can sort the sodding corpse out yourself.’
Cornwallis was so grateful to MacGillicudy for lightening his mood that he paid for all the beer over the next two hours. The place had become rammed with feelers, leaving hardly any room to get a truncheon out, let alone swing it, but then the pub song started up so Cornwallis decided it was time to leave. He forced his way out to the strains of “A Policeman’s truncheon is a wondrous thing, grab it by the handle and watch it swing, hold the end so good and tight, hold it up for the girls delight…”
The refrain followed him down the street, but after a couple of turns, he could barely hear it at all. There were a few people out and about; a couple of drunks lurching from side to side until they eventually knocked into one another and collapsed in a fit of giggles, a few couples arm in arm, smiling and talking in low voices. He did feel a little pang of jealousy, as he would have been hoping to do the same — had his bloody father not got in the way. However, it didn’t dampen his mood too much, and he chuckled to himself as he walked, thinking of the problems that MacGillicudy had had. Traffic was light: there were a few Traps clipping along Broad Street, a couple of carts, the late-night rubbish collectors, and one or two lone horsemen. He kept to the pavement and managed to filter most of it out of his mind. The problem of the case seemed to force its way back into his head, and he wrestled with the thought of what he had to do tomorrow; then a sharp crack of a whip intruded into his reverie. He hadn’t really been paying much attention to what was going on around him, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake, because the driver of the coach thundering towards him, was.
Cornwallis looked up as a twin-horsed low-slung sports coach came hammering towards him. He noticed that it was the type favoured by the rich young arse-wipes who were becoming the bane of the city, earning big money in the finance and technology areas and spending vast sums on all the latest gizmos. He also noticed that the lanterns had been extinguished and that the wheels had been especially widened to give more stability around corners. He noticed that it had been painted black with blacked out windows, and that the driver sat in a lowered seat. He noticed all this in the brief half-second it took to realise that the cart was aiming for him.
The coach slewed across the street and mounted the pavement; Cornwallis couldn’t help but notice the four nostrils of the jet black stallions steaming with effort. A whip cracked above them as they thundered onwards and he stared transfixed at the ensemble as his life flashed through his mind, the regrets, the mistakes; why is it, he thought, that when your life is about to end, it’s always the bad things that come to mind? Never the good stuff, like when he took a turn in the broom cupboard with that young scullery maid called Gilly, or that time he played strip poker with the three girls from that travelling fair and won. Or that time when he got pissed up to the eyeballs and bet a hundred dollars on the spin of a wheel and his number came up at odds of forty to one. His brain worked in quick motion while the world slowed down. The coach seemed to take an age to reach him, and he felt as if he could’ve had a quick cup of tea and a ham sandwich while he waited. He heard another crack of the whip, and the horses soon loomed above him; they were snorting with snot flying out in torrents, a fleck splattering into his face just as he willed his legs to move. He flung himself sideways just as the overhanging lantern clipped his shoulder, spinning him like a top through the air. The coach lurched onto two wheels as the driver dragged the thing back onto the road, then it sped away down the street and screamed around the corner. Cornwallis landed and bounced to a stop hard up against the billboard advertising “Gumpy’s Special Cyder, like mother used to make.” He groaned, his shoulder felt on fire, his head swam, but pain was good in these circumstances, because that meant you were still alive.
The few people around rushed to his side, the women hovering at the back of the crowd, not wanting to see just at that moment in case his head had gone missing; but the groaning soon convinced them that at least that part of him still functioned normally, and they pushed their way to the front.
‘Somebody should run and get an ambulance, there’s a depot just around the corner,’ said one.
‘Shouldn’t we move him?’ asked another.
‘No,’ answered a man who thought he knew what to do. ‘His head might fall off, and besides, he’s lying on a dollop of dog shit.’
Someone sniffed loudly. ‘I thought that were him; you sure he ain’t cacked himself?’
‘Well, I ain’t gonna check.’
A horseman galloped off to call the ambulance while Cornwallis listened to all the advice and observations; his shoulder stung like mad, but his head now began to clear. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the sea of faces.
‘Did anyone see the coach?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Did it have a name or something on it?’
‘No, mate,’ answered a male voice. ‘It was unmarked, nice coach though. Looked like a custom build based on a Truly and Hope sling-back, them wheels must have cost a fortune. Good turn o’speed, them, especially when it’s got two horse power like that one. It had a lovely paint job.’
‘Thanks, I must remember to get one.’
Cornwallis sat up and tried to move his shoulder, it creaked a bit but it still moved as it should; he sniffed, and noticed a dog turd hanging from his sleeve. He flicked it off to the annoyance of a bloke who stood at his side.
‘That’s nice, trying to help you and you’re chucking shit at me. Sod you mate, I’m off.’
Good riddance to you too, thought Cornwallis, next time I’ll make sure I get you between the eyes. He managed to get himself to his feet and then tried a few unsteady steps; nobody helped him as they were watching to see if he would drop down dead or something equally entertaining. When it became clear that he was going to survive, and there wasn’t too much damage done, people began to drift away, much to Cornwallis’ relief.
He stretched to ease the aches and then just started to dust himself down when from the distance he heard a Dingalinga, Dingalinga, Dingalinga, getting gradually louder. Then a single-horsed wagon came around the corner with a big red cross painted on the side. Dingalinga, Dingalinga, Dingalinga, it went. Cornwallis turned around to see nothing else on the road. He shook his head in bewilderment; somebody obviously liked playing with his bell.
The wagon skidded to a stop right next to him and the driver called down. ‘You seen an accident, mate? Someone said one ‘appened right here.’
‘There was,’ replied Cornwallis, ‘but it’s all done with now.’
‘Bugger,’ exclaimed the driver. ‘Not done anything the last three nights and just as you put the kettle on you gets a shout. Drop everything you do and rush out, and when you gets there, everyone has buggered off. That’s people for yer.’
‘Yeah, very unreliable,’ agreed Cornwallis.
‘Come on, Smudge,’ said the driver to his mate, ‘let’s go back and you can make the tea this time. I’ve made the last twelve cups, ‘bout time yo
u done something.’
Cornwallis watched the ambulance turn around and slowly make its way back down the road, thankful that he wasn’t going with it. He finished dusting himself down and then started to walk back home. He wanted to dismiss the incident when it occurred to him that the coach must have been waiting for him; it was the only street on the way back that you could get up a good turn of speed, which meant that it must have known that he had to walk down there, which in turn meant that it knew he’d been in the Truncheon and that he had to come back this way, which also meant that it or somebody must have followed him from the office in the first place. Frankie and Rose had left just before him; did they have someone tailing them as well? He broke into a run. His shoulder hurt like hell, but that didn’t matter. Frankie could look after himself, but Rose was with his father and they were a different matter entirely.
*
Roland Goup rested; he had no real choice in the matter as the room had just a chair, a table, and a flea ridden mattress lying on the floor. It didn’t have a window, and the light, if you could call it light, came from a cheap tallow candle that sat high on a ledge where he couldn’t reach. The candle had been replaced a few times via a little hatch just behind it, but no one had spoken to him; the only noise being the metallic scrape as the little hinged door slid up and a new candle took its place. They had been generous enough to give him a crust of bread and a little water, which had come through another little hatch in the door, but it could hardly be described as a feast. He had nothing to occupy his mind so he had difficulty in judging how long he’d been there, as all he could do was either just sit there, or walk around and around the little room. He’d slept, but it had disorientated him, and he had no idea whether it was day or night. The big problem was that he had time to think, and he didn’t want to think, he had done too much thinking, especially when they first approached him. Just a little false accounting, they had said; hide a little bit of money here and there, which wasn’t a problem for a good accountant and, even if he said so himself, he happened to be a very good accountant, one used to hiding money in figures that could just be considered legal under scrutiny. But this now had grown too big and the money he had recently been hiding definitely erred on the illegal side. Now all that had come to an end with Miss Knutt’s murder, and it brought home to him just how serious his situation had become.
When he got into that carriage and that brute tied him up and put that bag over his head, he realised that perhaps he wouldn’t be going to the accountant’s seminar after all. He tried to think where it went wrong, what he had done. The thought came back to that man over the road who had given him a bag of cash a week; he knew that it was illegal money, but he enjoyed the challenge, and he’d hidden it so well. His mind drifted and then settled on something else, the receipts and invoices handed in by a gentleman’s wife last week, together with a Gold Bond issued by the Gornstock Bank. That had been an enormous amount, but not so unusual. So which one was it? Only one person could tell him, and then he might be able to find a way of making it right again. He must have upset someone, unless Miss Knutt, had upset someone, but he couldn’t for his life think how. She was just a temporary cleaner, so her demise wouldn’t really affect anyone.
He thought he had been his friend. Roland Goup laughed to himself; a bad mistake where money was concerned. When he came to the office after that thug of an investigator had questioned him, he thought he was safe. He could hide away for a while, and then maybe set up again in another city. It didn’t matter where, he just wanted to play at the figures; it gave his life meaning. Accountancy made him feel alive, it got all his juices flowing, giving him a buzz like nothing else. Some people needed to live dangerously, like hurling themselves off of a bridge, some people needed war and conflict, and some needed to risk all they had for a turn of a card. He just needed a double-entry ledger and a tax return. It was sexy, it was exciting, it was nearly as good as… No, he couldn’t think about her in here, it wouldn’t be right.
*
Bertram Radstock felt very tense; it had been a long day in the House as the business kept going on and on and on. There had been a debate on expenses and it was in his best interest to make sure that nothing changed. Though the debate really only payed lip service to the general public, there were a few naive radicals who thought that everything should be open, transparent, and above board. It wouldn’t do to look too closely at most members’ claims, as like his, they were more often than not to do with “incidentals”. Fortunately, the radicals lost in a most gratifying manner and most of the members could relax again. He checked his watch; it had gone nine, but he didn’t want to go home just yet. He had a little victory to celebrate and he wanted to use the expense account on something very close to his heart. He left the House and walked down the Trand, at first quite casually as if out just for a stroll, but then he quickly dipped down a side street with a quick furtive look over his shoulder. He didn’t have far to go, though the closer he got to his destination the quicker his pace became. Another couple of side streets and he came out into a crescent of grand houses fronted by a small park, a neat row of four-story red brick houses with small flowered gardens enclosed by ornate iron railings. He took another quick look over his shoulder and then lifted a latch on one of the gates; he then skipped up the small flight of steps and rattled the knocker on the door. After a few moments, the door opened and a smiling face appeared.
‘Oh, Mr Radstock. You're late tonight; busy day?’
‘Yes, Mrs Fitchley, I’m afraid things seemed to go on forever.’
‘Well, never mind, come through, and would you like a nice cup of tea while you wait?’
He thanked Mrs Fitchley and followed her in, his tension departing as soon as the door closed behind him. He followed the housekeeper into the parlour and sat down in the green velvet armchair that he always used. He cast his eyes around the room, pleased to see that things were just the same as always. Mrs Fitchley excused herself and scuttled off to make the tea while Radstock picked up the paper and pretended to read.
The housekeeper returned a short while later with the cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. She set them down on the table and handed the cup to Radstock.
‘I made these myself, Mr Radstock,’ she said, proffering the plate. ‘Proper dunking biscuits that won’t collapse.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Fitchley, you’re very kind.’ He reached forward to take one and tried it out. ‘Oh superb, Mrs Fitchley, they don’t even wobble. How do you do it?’
‘That’s a trade secret, Mr Radstock, must keep some things to ourselves, you know.’ She smiled, pleased at the reaction.
Radstock smiled back and dunked the other half of biscuit.
Mrs Fitchley, thought Radstock, as he looked at her, always very efficient, but that came with age and wisdom; a handsome woman, mature and sensible, not like some of them young flighty ones. He had thought to offer her a position at his house, should her situation change. Always soberly dressed, always neat and tidy, always prim and proper; he liked that in a woman servant. He supposed that she had never indulged in too much of anything, as her clear, smooth complexion showed, though her hands did have a few signs of work on them. Her hair, a dark nut brown, could do with a little attention but she was what she was and he felt that that’s how it should be.
He finished his tea and she took the empty cup, placing it back on the tray. ‘I should think things should be ready for you now, Mr Radstock. I’ll show you through.’
He got up and followed her back out into the hall. She led the way, taking him further into the house and into a back sitting room, not quite as posh as the parlour, with a small door on the side wall. Mrs Fitchley smiled as she opened it.
‘Down you go, Mr Radstock, and don’t forget to be careful of the bottom step; needs a little work as it’s a bit loose.’
‘Thank you, I will’
Radstock descended the stairs, hopped over the bottom step, and then hesitated in front of the do
or to the den. The door above him had closed and now he stood in the dark, all alone. He sighed deeply and felt that all was well in the world.
He looked longingly at the faint outline of the door into the den for a few seconds before grabbing the handle and going in.
As soon as he got inside, he turned his attention to the row of silver ornaments spread out over the table. He walked over, picked up the cloth, and began to gently rub a small figurine. It didn’t take long to get the shine he wanted, so a couple of minutes later, with that one done, he turned to another.
‘Did I tell you to start?’ asked a stern female voice from behind him. The door had opened silently and he started at the sound of her voice. ‘Don’t move,’ she ordered. ‘You know the punishment for not doing as you’re told?’
‘Yes, mistress,’ said Radstock meekly. He replaced the ornament and the cloth and turned around.
‘And keep your eyes to the floor.’
‘Yes, mistress,’ he replied, sighing deeply in remorse, before proceeding to strip off his clothes.
She gave him permission to look up once he had removed his clothes and Radstock gave an involuntary shudder of excitement. Miss Lena stood there in all her glory: long thigh-high black leather boots with thin high heels and wearing long black leather gloves, her head covered in a black leather mask with just holes for her eyes and mouth. Her long shiny black hair hung down her back but she wore little else apart from a couple of strategically placed strips of leather. She looked magnificent.
She held a riding crop in her hand and as she stepped forward, she pointed it towards him. ‘What do you call that? A hamster has more to offer than you. Clean.’
‘Yes, mistress.’
And Radstock did, and he was as happy as a pig in shit.
Mrs Fitchley laid out the tea and Radstock again sat in the chair. He felt particularly satisfied tonight and he loved the way she had tied his hands behind his back when he had to lick the bowl on the floor. The clatter of the tea cup brought his reverie to a close and he took the empty cup with his hand still shaking.