Died and Gone to Devon

by TP Fielden

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, if you really want to know I have an old friend up in Ilfracombe. Been up there to stay. I’ve been very upset by the court case business – they had no right, you know. Why, under the Riot Act of 1714…’

  ‘Yers, yers,’ said Terry, lifting his Leica. ‘Just taking a quick test shot.’

  That old lie. Once he’d taken a test shot from one angle, he took another from above, then one from the side. ‘Hmm, seems to be working OK,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I’ve been havin’ a bit of a problem with it.’

  ‘You’re not going to take my photograph, are you? Because I’d prefer it if you…’

  ‘Nah, nah,’ said Terry soothingly. ‘It’s just a bit of a habit o’ mine.’

  ‘Well, is that all you want? Because I’ve got some clearing up to do.’

  Oh, have you, thought Terry. Getting a sandwich for the prisoner? ‘And where would that be?’

  ‘Where?’ The professor scratched his head.

  ‘Out there… in your…’ Terry had been only half listening to David Renishaw’s theory, so he pointed vaguely – ‘outhouses?’

  ‘I don’t have any outhouses.’

  ‘Old buildings.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sheds.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow. I was trying to say I’ve got to push the carpet-sweeper round, it’s the Hatherleigh Bridge Club in an hour.’

  The light was beginning to dawn. ‘So you haven’t got any outbuildings? Haven’t been to London? Not recently? When did you last go?’

  ‘The Proms. Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius – you know, it’s quite an extraordinary piece of…’

  ‘The Proms are in the summer, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Haven’t been up since?’

  ‘No. If you’d like to give that young Betty a recommendation for next year, though, they’ll be doing Mahler Three in the second week. Sure to be a riot.’

  ‘I’ll leave you in peace then, Prof.’

  ‘Send Betty my warmest regards. Tell her I’m sorry about her hair.’

  But Terry was gone, into the Minor and revving it up as hard as he could before sharply letting in the clutch and heading back to civilisation.

  ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ said Renishaw, who on the outward journey had been in charge of proceedings. ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’

  ‘Wasn’t him,’ said Terry, his jaw jutting out. He was a bit fed up with this reporter.

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Instinct, mate. Instinct and experience.’

  There were many sterling qualities to Betty Featherstone. She was attractive, bright but not too much so, and energetic. She played hockey every Saturday and had the leg muscles to prove it.

  She was good at her job and had a smile for everyone. If there were occasional errors with her hair, or a mishap in her choice of clothes, it was nothing that a bit of inspiration couldn’t put right.

  But she was nosy.

  In the world of journalism, surely this is a good thing – it’s no use being mildly interested in something, you really have to turn over every stone when you cover a story. But there are limits – and there have to be times when you switch off the nosiness and just become a well-mannered human being again.

  Betty couldn’t.

  There’d been the time when, on the instructions of Mr Rhys, she’d gone rifling through Judy Dimont’s notebook to discover what was going on in the Gerald Hennessy affair. It didn’t do her much good – she could read the words but couldn’t interpret their significance – but she did enjoy the thrill of seeing something she shouldn’t.

  Now she was sitting at the desk assigned to David Renishaw and her fingers were itchy. Its surface was neat – oilcloth cover neatly folded over the Imperial Standard typewriter, mug with pencils. And a spike – the nasty curved instrument on which you impaled a carbon copy of your story once typed up – together with a couple of notebooks already crammed to bursting with a tight, neat Pitman’s shorthand despite the brief time the new reporter had been here.

  The drawers were locked.

  Betty finished off writing a filler for the graveyard, the nickname given to the centre-spread of pages devoted to adverts for local businesses dressed up to look like news, and had been using Renishaw’s typewriter even though there was nothing wrong with hers. It felt comfy sitting at his desk.

  She tried the top drawer again, just to make sure. It rattled but refused to open. Looking round to see if anyone was watching, she leaned down to the bottom drawer and gave it a yank. It opened to reveal a pair of clean socks. This was an old trick – you then reach inside the bottom drawer, push up the one above and slide it out, and repeat the process till you get to the top.

  Would it be a terrible indictment of her character to say that Betty was obsessive in her determination to find out all she could about David Renishaw? That she didn’t mind using underhand methods to achieve her goal?

  Yes, it would and no, she didn’t.

  The next drawer up contained a foolscap folder. Inside was a neat pile of typing paper bearing all the hallmarks of a half-finished book. Moving on up, Betty found a few letters and some chewing-gum packets. The top drawer, with its lock, proved more tricky. Betty was not unversed in the art of breaking and entering office equipment, and with the aid of a paper knife she released the unwilling victim in no time at all.

  Whatever she was hoping to find, it came as a disappointment to discover no more than a few sheaves of paper, yellowing press cuttings, an old passport with its top corner clipped off and a packet of rubber bands.

  ‘Finished that filler?’ asked Denise, the new sub-editor, who’d wandered up behind her.

  ‘Wha—’ replied Betty, startled at being found out. ‘Y… yes, here it is.’ She looked at the girl and did not like what she saw: her features were too regular, her clothes well co-ordinated, and anyway someone said she’d been to university.

  ‘Thanks.’ Maybe Denise hadn’t noticed the burglar’s look on Betty’s face, or maybe she was still too new to work out what was going on with Betty seated at Renishaw’s desk. Betty breathed a sigh and turned back to her task.

  Now her work was done for the day and Renishaw and Terry were safely miles away in Hatherleigh, she felt safe in taking out the contents of the top drawer and sifting through them.

  What was she looking for – a photograph of Mrs Renishaw? Snaps of the children? Whatever it was, the first thing she turned up was a series of roneo’d pages clipped together with the banner:

  The Tannville Trumpet

  NEW ORGANISATION

  FIGHTS INJUSTICE

  ran the headline, with the sub-deck beneath:

  OPERATION UNDERDOG

  It began:

  Working from offices in seven provinces, without pay, 182 volunteers take up the cudgels for the little man.

  ‘I’m from Underdog,’ I said to the man behind the desk.

  Annoyance writhed across his face.

  ‘You again? Get out of here,’ he snapped. ‘The man’s been fired and that’s the end of it.’

  But it wasn’t the end of it. And after two more visits from Underdog – an organisation I created to take up the cudgels for anyone getting a raw deal – the man behind the desk gave in and grudgingly reinstated the timekeeper he’d fired unjustly six months earlier.

  Betty started to skim-read. It was a lengthy, deftly written and tightly argued piece about how Underdog’s knights in shining armour would come riding to the rescue if you were the victim of mistreatment or had been bypassed, overlooked, bilked or threatened.

  As she read, Betty realised that the publication in her hand was a home-produced newspaper for a prison somewhere in the middle of Canada. Her eye strayed to the bottom of the piece to reveal Renishaw’s name and a dateline from just eighteen months ago.

  It all seemed very odd. Renishaw claimed in the piece to have worked for newspapers, first in England and then Canada,
but from the content of the article it was clear that by now he was running a full-time organisation hellbent on pinning down those who oppressed:

  It’s no fun being an underdog. It is like being in a deep, dark pit. You see the top slowly closing over your head and desperately you fling up a hand for help. But there is nobody there.

  From now on, Underdog is there.

  She shuffled through the rest of the contents of the drawer, but there was far too much material for her to be able to concentrate on – she’d have to come back after work, claiming to be writing up an evening job if anyone happened to come into the office.

  Her original quest, to discover a picture of Mrs Renishaw (if, indeed, there was a Mrs Renishaw), had failed. There was nothing personal to offer any clues to the enigmatic reporter and yet she needed to know more. He’d invited Judy out for a drink – surely it must be Betty’s turn next?

  The problem for Betty was she had Certain Rules. But did those rules extend to a non-existent wife in a country three thousand miles away? That was a matter which required much consideration, because David needed looking after – that much was clear from the hair springing up on the top of his head.

  ‘Ach, dreamin’ your life away – as usual,’ said the nasty old Scotsman with the pot belly and the bottle of whisky, approaching at speed from the subs’ desk. ‘Here’s something for ye to do,’ and he dropped a piece of paper on her typewriter.

  EVERLASTING LIGHTBULBS!!!

  proclaimed the public relations handout.

  ‘There’s a gap in the graveyard,’ said Ross. ‘Fill it. Five pars on Why Don’t Lightbulbs Last As Long As They Used To? Take the info from this handout and give the comp’ny a plug at the bottom – nae too much, ye mind, just a mention.’

  It was at moments like this that she longed to get away. Oh, to be Betty Featherstone of the Daily Mail – Featherstone of Fleet Street! – her credentials were good enough, why couldn’t she break away, get out of the stagnant backwater that was Temple Regis?

  ‘Have you noticed how brilliantly the sun is shining?’ cooed Athene, as she wafted past on the way to her desk. ‘So magical, the sky… what a glorious day – a miracle when we’re less than a week to Christmas!’

  Time to go! thought Betty, as she jammed a wad of copy paper and carbons into the typewriter.

  Do you ever feel that lightbulbs don’t last as long as they used to?

  she hammered angrily.

  A new survey shows that four out of five households…

  Her mind drifted away as she rewrote the lies and deceits the advertising agency had come up with to promote a lightbulb that was as likely to last for ever as it was for hell to freeze over this Christmas.

  Twelve

  Sir Frederick Hungerford KBE was a man of his word. When Miss Dimont finally left the Ebury Street house, clutching her scoop to her chest and brimming with the joys of life, he did indeed lift the telephone just as he said he would. Only it was not Judy’s editor or proprietor that she rang, but another number.

  The result of that call took up a huge slab of the Daily Herald’s front page next morning.

  THE TRAGEDY THAT

  NEARLY KILLED ME

  Missing MP found by the Herald

  ‘I was in deep despair,’ says Sir Freddy

  Safe and well – pledges to fight on for constituents

  by Guy Brace, Chief Reporter

  Missing MP Sir Frederick Hungerford was found safe and well by the Daily Herald last night. He said he had suffered ‘a mighty breakdown’.

  Sir Frederick, 72, has been missing since he was seen in an altercation with an unknown man on Westminster Bridge. Scotland Yard says there is no cause for further alarm and that the case file has been closed.

  Reunited with his wife Griselda, Sir Freddy confessed that he went into hiding after the fracas, which was witnessed by several passers-by.

  ‘I suddenly cracked,’ he told the Herald. ‘Sometimes you can take the problems of your constituents too personally. But I’m all right now.’

  The veteran backbencher said he had been approached after a constituency party which was held last weekend in Temple Regis, Devon.

  ‘This person – I cannot name them – told me a story of such gut-wrenching personal tragedy that I found myself unable to think of anything else. I became so upset by it that when a member of my staff, who was walking with me towards the House of Commons, mentioned something which I considered trivial by comparison, I’m afraid there were fisticuffs,’ he confessed. ‘Fortunately my assistant does not bear a grudge and we have made it up.’

  Sir Freddy says he then felt so ashamed of his behaviour he went into hiding. But after seeing a doctor who convinced him that his breakdown was ‘emotional, not mental’, Sir Freddy said he would be reporting back for work today.

  ‘My constituents come first, second and third in my life. I love them. But I will try to maintain a balanced viewpoint from now on,’ he said, adding his apologies for any distress he may have caused.

  He(turn to page 3)

  Miss Dimont read it on the train travelling back to Temple Regis next morning.

  ‘Pack of lies!’ she cried aloud. ‘Complete nonsense!’ She was sitting in a compartment at the front of the Pullman train, and what with the thundering of the steam engine and the fact she had the compartment all to herself, she could voice her thoughts as loud as she liked without anyone thinking she was mad.

  ‘What an absolute fraud! And what a fool he made of me!’

  She went over the conversation of the night before, not for the first time. The bullying, hectoring MP had first ordered her to do his bidding by keeping quiet. Then, when that didn’t work, he gave her a glass of whisky and told her the whole story – how he’d been beaten up by the same employee because the man was overworked and was not being given extra time off for Christmas – ‘We have a lot on at this time of year and he frankly wasn’t pulling his weight. We were walking towards the House and I decided he had to be fired. I told him his time was up, and gave him a few home truths, and the chap completely lost his grip and let me have it with his fists.’

  ‘Why didn’t you report him? And why then did you run away?’ Judy had pressed.

  ‘He’s the son of an old colleague, I couldn’t have him arrested,’ replied the MP smoothly. ‘I knew he’d clear out his desk and vamoose, and that would be the end of the matter.’

  ‘But why then disappear?’

  ‘Look,’ said Sir Freddy, pushing his face towards hers. She could smell the whisky. ‘The bruises – look at them! Millie covered them up with some of her make-up, but I didn’t want tongues wagging in the House, so I thought I’d take a couple of days off. No harm done!’

  Miss Dimont compared this version of events with the one described to the Daily Herald’s Guy Brace. Both were lies, compounded by the photo of Sir Freddy sitting happily in the company of, not the woman who opened the door last night, but Lady Hungerford.

  He must have phoned the Herald the moment I left the house, she thought, and arranged for Brace to meet him at the marital home. Only a short taxi ride away from his popsy, after all.

  But what does it mean? What’s it all about?

  A steward with a trolley rolled by her door and she beckoned him in. ‘Black coffee and some ginger biscuits, please.’

  As she dunked the biscuits and watched the countryside race by, she puzzled over the true purpose of Sir Freddy’s subterfuge. There was no point in continuing to be angry with him – he’d double-crossed her, and that was an end to it. There might come a day when the situation would turn to her advantage – maybe when he retired. That wasn’t very long away, after all.

  No – what could it all be about? Was it to do with that protest outside the Con Club last weekend which Betty had been writing about? Could it be the odd professor who’d attacked him, only he didn’t want to admit it because of some business between them? Could it have been Millicent’s husband – supposing she had one?

&n
bsp; Certainly, there’d been a fracas outside the House of Commons involving Sir Freddy – there were eye-witnesses, after all. She rather wished, now the mystery had been solved by the obliging Daily Herald, that Inspector Topham was on the train so she could compare notes. But he was not; she’d walked up and down the corridors and there’d been no sign of his bulky frame.

  And why, now she was thinking about the police angle, was Scotland Yard saying the case was closed? It was obvious Sir Freddy was telling a pack of lies and surely they must know that – why drop the case? Surely they should at the very least be interviewing his assailant?

  And then what part did Mirabel Clifford have to play in all this? Could it somehow be connected to her?

  On the face of it Mirabel was beyond reproach – a solicitor devoted to her job, who did her best to look after her family, then used up all her spare time in nursing a parliamentary constituency which there was no guarantee would be hers.

  She seemed the kind of person Miss Dimont could easily befriend – brainy, charming, hardworking, and with the betterment of the community as her goal.

  But then Mrs Clifford had given away the fact that Sir Freddy had a lady friend, and knew enough about the woman to be able to pass on her name and address. Did she have spies? Was her ambition secretly to ruin Sir Freddy’s reputation? Was this the sort of behaviour to be expected from a future member of the House of Commons?

  Indeed, was the amiable Mirabel Clifford not quite so lovely as she seemed?

  Crisscrossing Miss Dimont’s mind as the train pulled out of Exeter on its final run into Regis Junction was the shadowy figure of David Renishaw. Somehow since he’d arrived in the office things had changed, and not for the better. The old pecking order had been upset and though she rightly went by the title of chief reporter, Judy could see that in Mr Rhys’s eyes, there was a new top dog – someone he could trust to come up with scoops like the entry-fee business. He’d only been here five minutes – who knew what he’d come up with after a few weeks?

  The thought made her unhappy – her track record at the Riviera Express had been exemplary, but when men got together… well, maybe it was time to move on.