by Tom Sharpe
“I don’t know where my girls are and Henry’s gone off with the car and I’ve got no money…We should never have come.”
“All right, I’ll lend you enough to pay the taxi out of the housekeeping tin, but I’ll have to tell her ladyship. She may want to deduct the charge from this month’s earnings.” Eva gave another great sob and Mrs Bale felt even guiltier for misleading her over Lady Clarissa and Wilt. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right. Now, it’s about time we both had something to eat. I’ve got a steak and kidney pudding which needs warming, and you’ll feel better after a spot of gin and tonic. I know I would.”
After paying the driver, Eva let Mrs Bale lead her to a chair and for once appreciated the extremely strong gin with a minimum of tonic that she was given. In fact, she had three altogether, after which she felt decidedly better. So much so that she forgot all about the girls’ disappearance and let herself be helped up to Wilt’s bedroom where she promptly fell asleep.
In his study, Sir George was still extremely angry. On the way back to the Hall he had decided his violent quarrel with Clarissa in the cemetery should be resumed more decorously in the house. He didn’t want Mrs Bale to hear him shouting so waited for his wife to catch him up and then shut and locked the study door behind them. Clarissa still maintained that, because she had married into the Gadsleys, she was now a member of the family, and Sir George still maintained that she wasn’t.
“George, I haven’t wanted to bring this up before now but you’re being so horrible you’ve forced me to. Mrs Bale told me that you’re not even a Gadsley yourself…”
“Downright nonsense!” Sir George yelled at her, forgetting to lower his voice. “I’ll sack the bloody woman for impertinence! I’m more of a Gadsley than even the Gadsleys were.”
Clarissa wondered what on earth he meant by this, but before she could ask him he went on.
“I know the family history better than anyone. Ask me anything. Go on, ask me.”
“I have no desire to ask you anything, you stupid, horrible man.”
“Well, I’ll tell you then. I’ll tell you all you want to know about the cemetery you want to bury your bloody uncle in. It was first created by a Gadsley Blisett after the Battle of Hastings and remained private and secret so as to prevent the Normans from desecrating it by burying their own dead in it. And it’s not going to be desecrated now!” He glared at his wife. “It’s remained private and to an extent secret ever since. In fact, the headstones were always laid horizontal, level with the ground, so that it wasn’t immediately obvious anyone lay in graves below them – a small detail you might have observed for yourself if you hadn’t been so intent on annoying me.”
“What about the chapel? Is it consecrated ground?” asked Lady Clarissa, thinking that if only she could calm him down they might at least have a rational conversation.
“Of course it isn’t now, but it was when it was built in the sixteenth century. It’s merely ornamental today, but recognised by the family as a fitting burial place.”
This reminded him of their original argument and he banged his fist on the table so loudly that Mrs Bale rushed to the study, thinking she was wanted. An embarrassed Sir George unlocked the door and claimed that he needed to make a phone call, an important and confidential one that he needed her to take notes on, and after hustling Clarissa out of the room promptly phoned directory enquiries. Getting through, he left the receiver on the desk and helped himself to a large brandy before picking it up again and starting a one-sided conversation about shares with his nonexistent financial adviser. Every now and then he paused for a couple of minutes before going on. Finally he put the phone back in its cradle, dismissed a perplexed Mrs Bale, and poured himself another brandy.
He’d have needed several more had he known what the quads were doing in the pine wood.
∗
They had dragged the Colonel’s body to the edge of the plantation, where a band of mature conifers extending from the massive screen of mixed woodland helped to conceal the Hall from passers-by on the main road. Two hundred yards beyond them, in a wide meadow, cows and what looked suspiciously like a bull grazed.
“We’ll cover him up for now and go back a bit into the wood to gather some sticks and things to make a pyre,” Samantha told her sisters who had slumped on to the ground, exhausted after dragging the body over fallen branches. “There’s plenty of dry stuff there. But first we have to remove all the metal from his uniform and anywhere else he might have it.”
“Even coins in his pockets?” asked Emmeline.
“There won’t be any. If the family haven’t taken it, the undertakers will have. That’s probably what they regard as their tip, like you give a taxi driver or a waiter.”
They moved back through the pine wood, gathering twigs and branches and stopping every now and then to listen for voices. While they worked they wondered what to do with the coffin.
“Well, we definitely can’t take it anywhere and hide it.”
“Why’s that?” asked Josephine. “It isn’t as heavy as it looks. And without his body in it, it will be lighter still.”
“Which will make the blokes carrying it suspicious. It’s a pity we can’t burn it too.”
“Wood does burn,” said Samantha helpfully. “That’s what we’re going to use to get rid of the Colonel when we set him on fire, isn’t it?”
“If only the thing had a lock and key. If it did, we could lock it and throw the key away.”
“What are you on about? I thought the whole point was to let Lady Clarissa find it empty and think that Sir what’s-his-name, her husband, had done something?”
But Josephine came up with another idea.
“Why don’t we put something heavy inside? Not too heavy, of course. The Colonel wasn’t a heavy man. And then, when they open it up for a last look, they’ll be even more shocked.”
“Now that is good idea. Let’s separate and look for a big log,” said Samantha, the leader of the group.
By the time they had found a broken branch that fitted the coffin perfectly they were worried that they really had been gone too long and that either Eva or Wilt would have a search party out. They quickly cleaned themselves up in the lake, deliberately getting their hair wet, and returned to the kitchen where a slightly sleepy Eva sat nursing a black coffee and trying to wake up properly. “Where on earth have you been?” she demanded.
“We went down to the beach,” Josephine lied.
“And swam in your clothes, by your appearance. They’re wet through.”
There was a moment’s silence and then Samantha spoke.
“There was a small boy of about five who got out of his depth and obviously couldn’t swim so we had to go in and get him out.”
“Where were his parents?”
“His father wasn’t down on the beach and his mother…I suppose it was his mother…was hysterical. So then we had to stay a bit longer and help calm her down. Anyway, we’re really sorry.”
Eva sighed. She’d never seen the quads looking less sorry but she wasn’t sure she had the strength right at this moment to find out what they had really been up to.
Mrs Bale took the girls off to her room to get their hair dry and left Eva wondering what on earth she had done to deserve all this.
“That’s much better,” she said when they all came back. Behind her Mrs Bale smiled to herself. She had not smelt any seawater on the blouse she was wearing when Emmeline had brushed against her. She’d felt the wet patch with her hand but there had been only fresh water and not a trace of salt on her finger when she’d licked it. She was certain the girls had been nowhere near the sea.
∗
Wilt sat on the beach below the hotel, wondering where on earth his wife was. The receptionist at the desk swore she had no one by the name of Wilt staying, and in any case they were fully booked with no new arrivals all week. He ought never to have left his family here, but at the time Eva had so annoyed him that he hadn’t considered
the consequences.
He was wondering what to do next when, to his surprise, the barmaid from the village pub sat down beside him.
“Good Lord. What on earth are you doing here?” he asked.
“Well, I do have some time off, you know. In fact, I’ve been for an interview at that posh hotel. I’m fed up with working in the pub and never meeting anyone properly. Or at least only meeting men like you who are too mean even to leave a decent tip.”
“Yes, well, I was just about to go actually. I don’t think I should stay here any longer,” he said hastily, getting to his feet.
“Why is that? You’re all right. Don’t leave on account of me.”
“Oh, no, I’m not. I’m growing worried about my wife and daughters.”
“They aren’t ill or anything, are they?”
“Good Lord, no. But I thought they were staying here at the hotel and it turns out they aren’t and never were in the first place.”
Seeing the puzzled look on her face, Wilt sat down again and told her the whole story.
“So they left the Hall after they got shot at, yes? And then your wife insisted on staying here, but you weren’t happy?”
“Well, it looked bloody expensive. God alone knows how much it was costing.”
“So? You don’t have to pay. They’re not here.”
“Theoretically, no. But if they were Eva had threatened to send the bill to wretched Lady Clarissa.”
“By the sound of it, this Lady Clarissa could easily have afforded to pay?”
“Ah, but if she refused to. What then?”
“You mean, you’re going to be left with an enormous bill? Or, rather, you would have been left with an enormous bill had your wife and daughters been staying there. Here. Which they aren’t,” said the barmaid, wishing she’d gone straight home after her interview.
“Worse even than that, Eva said she was going to sue the Gadsleys if they didn’t pay up. And if she did sue, they’d hire the most experienced and expensive lawyers. And if we lost, as seems only too likely, the cost would bankrupt us. In fact, it’s not just likely: it’s damned well certain. And what really pisses me off is that Eva sucked up to this bloody woman like mad because she thought she was a so-called aristocrat and my wife is a raving snob. And she isn’t even a Lady!”
“No, she doesn’t sound like one.”
“No, she really isn’t a Lady.”
“Yes, as I said, she doesn’t sound like one,” said the barmaid, feeling increasingly puzzled.
Wilt began to wish he’d never started. They sat there in silence for a while and then the barmaid said, “I’ve been thinking about the teenager with the gun. Do you think he’s got a licence for it?”
“Probably not. On the other hand, his step-father is bound to. He has a cabinet full of the beastly things…not that I’ve seen him use them much. He did charge off once when I’d just told him I’d seen a caravan in the grounds and a woman hanging up washing on a line. He took a gun with him because he’s got some sort of obsession about trespassers. Mind you, he didn’t fire the thing.”
“Does he keep that cabinet locked?”
“He didn’t on that occasion. I didn’t stick around. I don’t like weapons.”
“What I’m getting at is the fact that he left the cabinet open, and that when you went out of the room anyone could have nicked one of the guns – it sounds like there were a lot of them.”
“I never counted the confounded things but I’d say about a dozen, maybe more,” Wilt replied. “Why do you want to know?”
“Never you mind. I’ll get to the point in a minute.”
“If you say so. All I can see is Eva landing me in the shit again and there’s sod all I can do about it.”
“Oh, but there is. You’re in a far stronger position than you realise. Number one – what was a teenager doing with a firearm for which he had no licence? Number two – why did Sir George Gadsley leave you alone in his study with the gun cabinet unlocked and open? Number three – why were Eva and your daughters driven out of Sandystones Hall. Ask yourself that and you’ll come up with the answer to your worries.”
“They left, as I keep telling you, because someone – presumably that young maniac – fired a series of shots at or near the quads when they were down by the lake and scared them out of the place.”
“Exactly. Put the situation like that and the finest lawyer in Britain isn’t going to prove you guilty of anything. Add the unlocked gun cabinet and Sir George is bound to find himself in trouble with the law and lose his gun licence or be fined. Oh, yes. You’ll have them Gadsleys by the short and curlies.”
Wilt sighed and said he certainly hoped so, although privately he wondered how he had ended up in this increasingly mad and muddled conversation.
“One thing you’re forgetting,” he went on, unable to resist, “is that Sir George is a magistrate and must have influence in legal circles.”
“That makes his position even worse! First he breaks the law himself by leaving his weapons unattended. And second, he knows that his son…all right, stepson…illegally has a gun because you told him the boy shot a deer or something.”
“He said it might have been a wild boar which had got out of a farm where they breed the brutes.”
“Well, there you are. So you’ve nothing to worry about.”
Wilt wasn’t at all sure that the barmaid’s logic made any sense whatsoever but felt grateful for her support. He rather regretted not having tipped her more, once he came to think of it, but suspected that offering her money now might not be viewed in the best light. Thanking her, he got up and offered her a lift back to the pub but she said she was going to stay on for a while.
As he drove back to the Hall he felt a little more cheerful. He’d enlist Mrs Bale’s help and ring round all the local hotels: he was certain Eva and the quads wouldn’t have gone all the way back home without him. They couldn’t be that difficult to track down. Certainly once seen, never forgotten. And once seen and heard, never recovered from. He parked in the back yard and went up the steps to the kitchen.
“Oh, you’re back. Your wife’s been here looking for you,” Mrs Bale told him. “She wanted the car.”
“I don’t believe it! Why on earth didn’t the stupid woman ring me? I’ve been sitting outside the hotel like an idiot waiting for her. Where is she now?”
“Well, she and Lady Clarissa had a flaming row about Clarissa having slept with you…”
“What? We never did any such thing!”
“I know you didn’t,” Mrs Bale said, looking rather shame-faced. “Anyway, before Mrs Wilt realised that she was wrong, she’d said so many dreadful things that Lady Clarissa had to go and lie down to recover.”
“Oh, Eva, what have you done now?” muttered Wilt, seeing the legal bill mounting by the minute.
“To make amends, she volunteered to go down to the Vicarage to make arrangements for the Colonel’s funeral.”
“I thought he was being buried here on the Estate, and that all the trestle tables and umbrellas were for a funeral tea afterwards?”
“Well, no. Sir George refuses to allow him to be buried in the family’s private plot. We’ve had to turn the mourners away at the main gate and the caterers are packing up now, Not that they were real mourners mind you. Just a load of nosey parkers from the village come to gawk at the house.”
Wilt gaped at her.
“And my wife has gone to make alternative funeral arrangements? How extraordinary!”
“I would have thought you’d have realised by now that everything about this establishment is extraordinary.”
“Yes, it’s a complete mad house, populated by lunatics.”
“Well, I did warn you. Even though I thought you were her latest fancy man.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” said Wilt.
“Having met your missus, I’d realise how wrong I was. She’s not someone I’d want to cross.”
“Eva gives me absolute hell somet
imes, it’s true, though I’m used to that. But if she’s in the village, then where are the girls?”
“Goodness only knows. They said they were going down to the beach again…but if you ask me they never went there in the first place. You’ve got your hands full with those four.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Wilt bitterly. “I’d better go and look for them. They’ll be up to something disreputable, you can bet on it.”
24
In the graveyard the quads had placed the suitably sized piece of timber in the coffin, wrapped in a blanket they’d taken from the cottage earlier. After putting the coffin lid back on they returned through the pines, though this time taking a totally different route to avoid leaving an obvious trail to the corpse. They put their plastic gloves on and piled more dry wood around the body.
Samantha was about to strike a match to begin the cremation when the sound of Wilt’s voice calling reached them through the trees.
“Oh, Christ,” Josephine said. “All we need is for him to bloody well find us.”
They stayed quiet until their fathers voice started to recede.
“Look, it’s too exposed here. Someone’s sure to see us. And we’d better go and head off Dad before he finds us here.”
“It’s absolutely fine,” said Samantha angrily. She was eager to begin and bored stiff by all the delays.
“No, Josephine’s right,” agreed Emmeline. “Let’s cover him up again and find another place…somewhere they would never think of looking. I suggest we spread out and search for the thickest patch of young pines, where grown-ups would find it very difficult to get through. In fact, we may even have to crawl ourselves.”
“What are we going to be looking for?” asked Samantha crossly. “I still think we should get on with it here.”
“Somewhere not too far away but really dense, with lots of pine needles so we can cover the body with them and anyone looking for it will think it’s a fallen log.”