Cat Among the Herrings (6 page)

‘May I interrupt?’

‘Yes, Tuesday, you may. I think I’ve already said all I need to. As I tell my writers, you don’t need to explain every little detail. I’ll email it to you to pp and send.’

‘You don’t want to sign it personally?’

‘You think the author might prefer that?’

‘Yes, I do. Absolutely. They’d know they had been taken seriously. It might lessen the pain of rejection that they’re bound to feel. They will have worked on their book for years. They will be sitting there waiting for some tiny bit of praise that will make their day. And it’s such a small effort on our part.’

‘True, but I can’t be arsed. Was that all?’

‘No. I wanted to tell you I’ve checked hotels in West Wittering. There are in fact one or two places doing B and B—’

‘Don’t worry. I’m going to stay with Ethelred. He insisted.’

‘Ethelred …?’

‘Ethelred Tressider. He used to be one of our authors. Do keep up, Tuesday.’

‘Yes, of course. I just thought—’

‘Just thought what? That I would cold-shoulder some author just because, having had his career carefully developed by me over many years and having had his nose wiped and his various gripes and whinges put up with, he leaves us on a whim to join some clearly inferior agency?’

‘No. Absolutely not. We wouldn’t be so petty – would we?’

‘Do you think I would bear a grudge against Janet Francis because she stole, perhaps not my best or most respected, but certainly one of my oldest authors?’

‘You did steal three of hers.’

‘They had minds of their own.’

‘Unlike Ethelred?’

‘Your words, not mine.’

‘So are you planning to sign him up again? That would be great. I’ve always enjoyed his books.’

‘Have you? You actually
liked
some of them? Which ones?’

‘I love the Master Thomas series.’

‘Really? The Master Thomas series? Even though they’re full of Middle English poetry?’

‘Yes. I did Chaucer at uni.’

‘And that didn’t put you off for ever?’

‘Gosh, no! Love Chaucer to bits.’

I looked at her. Either she was serious or she was getting very, very good at irony.

I had driven into Chichester by car and so stopping at Greylands House on my way back was easy enough. I swung off the main road shortly before it entered the village and drove along the muddy track towards the estuary. After a while the track split into two, the left-hand fork being marked ‘
PRIVATE
’, the right unsignposted. Somebody had not planned to be helpful to the merely curious. But I had been here before and needed no additional directions. The last few hundred yards to the house were on good, clean gravel, edged with overgrown grass and weeds.

Greylands was a half-timbered farmhouse, which had grown in fits and starts, a room or so on average every generation, sometimes extending laterally, sometimes making an experimental stab in some other direction. It had ended up with a broadly Tudor front, facing the track and the farmland, and a broadly Victorian rear, exposed to
the salt winds and with distant views over the sleek, green marshes and tidal flats. I parked close to the front door and rang the bell.

Catarina had prepared some refreshments – strong tea flavoured with mint and very sweet cakes dripping with honey. A knowledge of eastern European cuisine might have helped me locate her place of birth.

‘You are late,’ she said, before I could even sit down.

‘I wasn’t aware we had agreed a time.’

‘How long does it take to get here? Not so much, I think.’

‘I had work to do. I am researching Robin’s ancestors.’

‘That will help find his killer? You think maybe some family feud? Yes, perhaps … It is like that with us too. Is not good kill somebody’s grandmother. Is worse than steal horse.’

‘A family feud? No. That’s not how things are here. Tom thought I might be interested professionally – as a crime writer.’

‘
A crime writer?
’ Elsie herself could not have said the words with greater disdain.

‘It’s what I am. You know that. Look, if the police won’t help, maybe you should employ a private detective?’

‘They do cheating husband. They do divorce. They do fraud by bastard you thought was friend. Not murder.’

‘You’ve tried them, then?’

‘They are no good. Nor are Mafia.’

‘You’ve tried them too?’

‘Of course. But I need somebody who lives here. I need somebody people will trust. People here do not trust Mafia.
But if it is somebody they think is friend … Then maybe they say stupid thing and we catch them.’

‘You want me to cynically exploit my neighbours’ trust in me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because Robin is your friend. You are at funeral.’

‘Yes,’ I said. I was at funeral.

‘You would not wish his murderer to escape justice.’

‘Even if Robin was murdered …’

‘He was.’

‘Even so, I still don’t think I can help.’

‘But you will try.’

‘You don’t think the Mafia might like the first shot at it, anyway?’

‘You are afraid?’

‘I have no idea what I am getting into.’

‘If you are killed, I will make sure you are avenged. Ten will die in your place.’

‘You could really arrange that?’

‘Of course. Why not?’

‘Which ten would die?’

‘Any ten you wish. Send me text with names.’

I sighed. This conversation was not going as planned. ‘You said you have new evidence?’

‘I think so. Is like this. This morning I go to see Robin’s lawyer. He is working on the will. I want to make sure he is not doing stupid thing – telling government how much money Robin had. He say he has good trick – quick something or other. We not pay much tax. I say good – you learn. Then, like you tell to me, I ask: who Old Man? Why
Robin say we have money when he die? He look at me odd, then say: no more money. I say, why? He say, all that finished now – Old Man and money – finished; Robin must have tell you that. I say:
who is Old Man
? He say: so, Robin
not
tell you who is Old Man? I say, maybe. Yes, maybe he tell me. Of course. He tell me everything. I just want to know if there is money and if
you
know who Old Man is. He shake his head and say can’t tell me any more. I say, yes he can if he doesn’t want balls cut off. He say nothing. I say: I can have him killed – before or after balls cutting, whichever he prefer. He makes very worried but he say nothing. Then he look at me and say: you pregnant? What, I say,
you mean I fat
? No, he say – you not fat but maybe have baby? I say I not some stupid village girl – I don’t just
have baby
. After wedding, then maybe yes. Six, seven babies, why not? But not before wedding. He think I try to trap Robin into wedding with making baby? He say no, no, no – not that. I say: what, then? Nothing, he say. Just wondering – maybe you have baby soon, even though definitely not fat. No, I say. He say: you sure? Yes, I say. You think I not know if I have baby coming? OK, he say. Just asking.’

‘You think he did know who the “old man” is? And wouldn’t tell you even under threat of having his balls cut off?’

‘He say Law Society will cut off his balls if he tell me.’

‘So he knows but can’t divulge what he knows? Maybe this Old Man is also a client and he can’t reveal what he has on him?’

‘Maybe Old Man pay him more than I do?’

‘Well, he’s not saying, anyway. As for whether you are pregnant – could Robin have made provision in his will for a child? Or maybe his father set up a trust for the benefit of grandchildren as yet unborn? If so, the lawyer would have needed to know whether there might be such a child in order to carry out his work. Hence the question about pregnancy.’

‘So, why not just say me that? You think lawyer is bullshit to me?’

‘I think there’s something he’s not telling you.’

‘Why?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘I wish too. So, you will help me?’

I thought about this. There was a lost part of the jigsaw. Something obvious I was missing. I chewed on the last of my sticky cake and took a sip of tea. It was tempting in a way to take up Catarina’s offer, but what was I supposed to do – arrive at her solicitor’s office and demand to know full details of his clients’ affairs under the Freedom of Information Act? Bribe him to tell me? Kidnap the solicitor and extract the information by force? Tell him he was on my list of ten? Catarina had already tried naked threats of violence – Sussex solicitors were tougher than I thought. Anyway, intriguing though this proof of the existence of the ‘old man’ was, we were miles from connecting him with a sailing accident off the Sussex coast.

‘The Mafia would do a much better job for you,’ I said. ‘And they’re not constrained in any way by the Law Society. I’m sorry, Catarina. I really am. But I’m not the person you need for this.’

I do not know what the translation might be of the words Catarina muttered to herself as she showed me out, but I do not think they were in any way complimentary. And if I were to be gunned down on the way home, the guarantee that ten villagers would die was almost certainly now invalidated.

‘Sorry – are you writing to accept an author?’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘It was just that you looked quite happy.’

‘There is always satisfaction in a job well done. As you may discover yourself one day. As for accepting Ms Green, I would rather be stranded on a desert island with nothing to read but that manuscript we enjoyed so much yesterday.’

‘The one I had to go to the post office to collect because the author hadn’t put any stamps on the envelope?’

‘That’s right.’

‘The egg and chips diet book?’

‘Precisely. Three hundred and sixty-five variants on egg and chips, one for each day of the year. And with no trace of irony. So he may not quite understand my reply saying that it was well worth paying for.’

‘I could do you a standard rejection letter. It would save you so much time. We used to have them at Francis and Novak. The letter just said that we loved the book but that we didn’t think we were the right agency to represent it. Sometimes we added a nice PS.’

‘Wouldn’t that just give the writers encouragement?’

‘Yes.’

‘So … why would you want to do that exactly?’

‘Because it’s a nice thing to do.’

‘Nice?’

‘Yes.’

‘You think you should be nice to writers?’

‘Yes, don’t you?’

Sometimes you know it’s going to be just too much effort to explain something properly.

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘But only if all else fails. I’m off now, anyway. Ethelred is expecting me, and I don’t want to
disappoint him, poor agentless little lamb. A few days by the sea await me.’

‘Wrap up warm,’ said Tuesday. ‘The weather forecast is for wind and rain. Are you planning wintery walks on the beach? I always think you need a dog for that.’

‘I’ve got a writer,’ I said. ‘That’s almost as good.’

‘It’s quite a big house,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten.’

Ethelred put my tea on the table in front of me, next to the biscuits. ‘Not as big as some,’ he said.

‘Lucky you inherited that money a few years ago,’ I said. ‘I doubt that your royalties would have paid for that conservatory. Not with your last agent. What was her name – Janet something …?’

‘My royalties are fine,’ he said.

‘The two books that she placed have sold well, then?’

‘You can look them up on Nielsen.’

‘I have. I just wondered if you were planning to lie about it. It was a bit of a mistake switching to her, wasn’t it?’

‘My earlier books didn’t sell that well either,’ he said.

‘As I know to my cost,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had to calculate fifteen per cent of nothing. I meant more from the point of view of mixing business with pleasure. Sleeping with your agent. I doubt if there actually was that much pleasure, of course.’

‘I have no complaints,’ he said, trying to look daggers, a thing that he has never done that well.

‘I didn’t mean from your point of view,’ I said. I took a ladylike sip of tea and selected another Jammy Dodger.

‘Elsie, have you come here just to insult me? And there’s no need to pretend to be thinking deeply about that
question. When you were my agent I had to put up with all of your snide remarks, but I don’t any more.’

‘Not even in return for my assistance in solving a murder for you?’

‘There is no murder to be solved. And if there were, which there isn’t, I wouldn’t be asking for your help.’

‘But you did ask.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Tuesday said that you’d told her about this friend of yours – Robin Pagham – who may have been bumped off. I think his so-called fiancée with big tits is the most likely suspect. Tuesday said there was a lot of money involved. Does the fiancée get any of it?’

‘All of it,’ he said.

‘Then we probably don’t need to look much further. Case solved. You see how useful I am?’

‘Catarina
wants
me to investigate. She can’t be the murderer.’

‘I beg to differ. Oldest trick in the book, that one.’

‘The coroner has already said it’s an accident. If she does nothing then she’s completely in the clear. She’s got the money. Nobody is accusing her of anything. If she killed him, then reopening the case is the last thing she’d want.’

‘Is she blonde?’

‘No. Why?’

‘I’ve just noticed that, in the past, a sachet of hair dye seems to cloud your judgement.’

‘Well, she’s got black hair. Brown eyes. I think she’s eastern European.’

‘You are still putty in women’s hands, Ethelred. Not all women, of course, because not all women like handling
putty. But merely because she has brown eyes doesn’t mean you’re safe. Far from it. Who are the other suspects?’

‘There aren’t any. It’s not a murder case. You don’t get suspects when it’s accidental death.’

‘Who does Catarina think did it?’

‘She thinks it was somebody who wanted to stop her marrying Robin and inheriting the money.’

‘But Robin’s death means she
does
inherit,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Ethelred. ‘So there was no point in killing him. While Robin was alive he might have called the whole thing off. But killing him made it certain Catarina would get the cash. Her premise is fatally flawed.’

‘Did Robin have enemies?’

‘Not really. He was one of these rather idle but amiable people who have no need to make enemies. I think some people – the police for example – disapproved of his drug habit. And others felt that he didn’t treat his girlfriends that well – but there’s only the one proven case of actual physical violence. Plenty of people would disapprove of the way he behaved, but not so much as to contemplate killing him.’ Then he added: ‘One of his ex-girlfriends was at the funeral – Sophie Tate.’

‘Did she dance on his grave?’

‘I think she was quite upset that he had died. She happened to be staying in the village when she heard about it.’

‘Pure coincidence?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Yeah right.’

‘I believe her. And don’t ask if she’s blonde.’

‘But she is?’

Ethelred pulled a face. He seemed not to subscribe to my putty theories, but he clearly did not believe everything that Sophie had said either. ‘Tom thought she was a bit of a fantasist. She told me that she’d been engaged to Robin, but Tom reckoned not.’

‘Why did she and Robin break it off? If they were engaged.’

‘She didn’t say,’ said Ethelred. ‘Just that they were.’

I thought about that for a bit, then said: ‘So what did Robin do for a living? When he wasn’t sailing or beating up his girlfriends?’

‘Not much. He was supposed to be an actor – I mean he studied at Bristol Old Vic or somewhere. He was on television quite a lot fifteen or twenty years ago. He was in a series with Richard Briers or Tim Brooke-Taylor or somebody. He played the son of a neighbour. It wasn’t a big part, but it was regular work. Then he was in a Bond picture as a British agent who gets killed ten minutes into the film. He did a short stint in
EastEnders
as somebody’s posh cousin, who turned out to be a conman. Finally there was a toothpaste ad that ran for quite a long time. After that the work dried up a bit. Thinking about it, the rector didn’t even mention his acting at the funeral. A lot of people here possibly don’t remember it at all. Even Robin brushing his teeth and spotting blood on the bristles is now a forgotten masterpiece. He was still asked to open the occasional village fete, when all else failed. But the hurdle you have to jump to be a celebrity is a low one these days. He’d have been a natural for
Celebrity Big Brother
.’

Ethelred grinned smugly, like he was a candidate for celebrity anything.

‘So, do
you
ever get asked to open fetes?’ I asked.

The smile faded. ‘I haven’t lived here very long,’ he said, guardedly.

‘But, thinking about it, you didn’t get asked in the other place you lived either, did you? You were there for ages and ages. And, correct me if I’m wrong, you also didn’t get asked in Islington before
that
, and you must have been there for quite a while too. And before that—’

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I suppose Robin’s father kept him while the father was still alive. After that Robin inherited the Pagham estate, but there would have been death duties to pay. Catarina said he claimed to be short of cash. He was apparently expecting to inherit some money soon.’

‘From …?’

‘That’s not clear. He talked to Catarina about getting the cash when the “old man” died. It meant nothing to her. Catarina even asked the lawyer about who that might be.’

‘And …?’

‘The lawyer said there was no more money from that source.’

‘No
more
money?’

‘Yes, that’s what he said. That was finished.’

‘So there must have been money from there before?’

‘Clearly. But Law Society rules prevented him saying any more than that.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Client confidentiality or something. Catarina was as persuasive as she reasonably could be.’

‘So, a nice regular source of income that cannot now be revealed. Could Robin have been blackmailing somebody?’ I asked.

‘I did wonder about that. But he was to get the money
when the old man died
. Dead men pay no blackmail. And you’d hardly do it through your family solicitor, anyway. It has to be legit, but the lawyer still wouldn’t tell Catarina anything about it.’

‘Maybe if I had a word with him?’

‘I don’t think you could come up with any threats Catarina hasn’t tried,’ he said. ‘The lawyer also asked Catarina if she was pregnant.’

The answer to this last puzzle seemed fairly obvious, to me at least. ‘A clause in the will leaving money to a purely theoretical and as yet unconceived heir of his body? Or a family trust?’ I suggested.

‘Again, that’s precisely what I thought,’ said Ethelred. ‘But you’d have expected the lawyer to say that up front, wouldn’t you? Anyway, Catarina would have seen the will and would know if that was an issue, so to speak.’

‘Just a thought, but could Robin have had heirs of his body that he didn’t know about?’ I said. ‘I mean, you say he was a bit of a lad. There could be all sorts of Pagham offspring out there. Would they have a claim on the estate?’

‘I suppose they might. But surely they would just pitch up and make their claim? Catarina hasn’t mentioned anyone who has done that. This is getting a bit hypothetical, isn’t it?’

‘It’s called lateral thinking. What about the two teacups thing?’

‘Coffee cups. Tuesday mentioned that to you as well, did she? It’s no more than that, unfortunately. A visitor on the day he died. Again, I don’t think it goes anywhere.’

‘OK – so, what are your theories then, Lord Peter?’

‘I don’t have any theories, Elsie, because this isn’t murder and I’m not investigating it. I do realise that one of the many clichés of crime fiction is the amateur detective who says they won’t investigate a case and then does just that. But that isn’t going to happen here. I am not Lord Peter or Miss Marple or Albert Campion. I am a mid-list writer, trying to produce another book with as few distractions as I can manage.’

‘This is the historical miscarriage of justice thing?’

‘Yes, an ancestor of Robin’s, coincidentally, was hanged in 1848 for a murder that I am almost certain he did not commit.’

‘True crime or fictionalised?’

‘I was thinking of turning it into a novel, but now I’m not so sure. It’s an interesting story as it stands.’

‘So, who did it?’

‘It may have been the murdered man’s brother, George Gittings. Actually that seems very likely. He was certainly the one who benefitted most. I still need to do more research.’

‘And it has no bearing on Robin’s death?’

‘How could it? It was more than a century and a half ago. It marked some sort of low point in the Pagham family history. They were down to owning just one small field that nobody else wanted – except to drive cattle from one plot of land to another.’