The Body Politic (24 page)

“At the Palace at Bakhalla tonight,” trilled the PR man. “It's a dream of an address.”

Morenci hitched a shoulder. “I suppose it's important.”

“Very,” said the diplomat, mentally beginning to draft a
note verbale
for despatching back to Whitehall. He thought he would begin by paraphrasing a famous dictum from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It had once felt obliged to comment that it was not the function of British diplomacy simply to be polite to foreigners.

“Hospitality has a ritual significance in the East,” said the PR man. This much he did know.

“Indeed,” said the Ambassador warmly. It had in the West, too, but Anthony Heber Hibbs did not say so. He toyed briefly with the idea of making a reference to Banquo but decided it would be lost on Morenci. “You may,” he went on cautiously, “be invited to consume the unfamiliar and unappetising.”

“I've had sheeps' eyes,” said Morenci.

The PR man's face paled.

“And lived,” said Morenci.

Years of training kept the Ambassador from making a direct rejoinder to this. Instead he said, “There is one dish, gentlemen, reserved by the Lassertans for special ceremonial occasions. It is only served as a mark of great rapprochement but, if it appears, there is some important advice which it is my duty to stress to the utmost.”

“What's that then?” Morenci wasn't accustomed to either receiving or acting on friendly advice.

“If this particular dish is served it is absolutely vital that you chew every last morsel of it several times.”

“Like Mr. Gladstone?” put in the PR man helpfully.

“If it's dangerous then I'm not eating it,” said Morenci.

“It isn't dangerous but it would be impolitic as well as impolite to refuse their
pièce de résistance
however unattractive in appearance,” said Heber Hibbs seriously. A State banquet obviously wasn't going to be the best place for West meeting East.

Hamer Morenci, the quintessential company man, braced his shoulders. “I can take it then.”

“It is not so much a matter of taking it as of chewing it very, very thoroughly,” repeated Heber Hibbs patiently. “I'll give you a sign if it comes up.”

“All right, all right. Now, about what Ben Kisra is up to …”

“The Sheikh has heard—don't ask me how—that the Parliamentary Select Committee has been talking about the—er—undesirability of what might be called—er—circular relationships between civilian contractors and employees of the Ministry of Defence Procurement.”

“We're clean,” said Morenci flatly. “Company policy.”

“In that case,” said the Ambassador, “Sheikh Ben Kisra may argue that, if you're not paying out any bribes, then you're making too big a profit out of the Lassertans.”

Morenci's face started to turn a nasty red colour.

“But what,” intervened the PR man fussily, before his employer could speak, “does Ben Kisra really like talking about?”

“Birds of prey,” said Her Majesty's Ambassador to the Sheikhdom of Lasserta.

“Ah, Sloan, there you are.” Dr. Dabbe had reached the scene of Major Puiver's death by the time the Detective Inspector had got back from Mellamby Place to the foot of the tower. He shook his head. “A bad business.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Dr. Dabbe waved his hand. “You might say that it's a case of one for his nob and two for his heels, mightn't you?”

“Pardon, Doctor?”

“I can tell you're not a cribbage player, Sloan.”

“No, Doctor.”

“Well, as you can see perfectly clearly for yourself, a large quantity of old stone has fallen from a considerable height on to the deceased.” The pathologist grimaced. “And, until it is removed, neither I nor anyone else can tell you a great deal more about either the cause of death or its timing.”

“We're waiting for the photographic people, Doctor,” said Sloan in oblique explanation, “and more help.”

“They're on their way,” Dr. Dabbe assured him, adding innocently, “I overtook Dyson and Williams early on. And a heavy rescue unit and an ambulance a couple of miles back. No point in hanging about, is there?”

“No, Doctor.” Sloan supposed he should be grateful that the pathologist hadn't overtaken Crosby as well: that wouldn't have done anything for road safety.

The doctor took a few steps back and said, “I'm afraid I can't even tell you if he was dead before all that secondhand masonry came down. Not until I've had a good look at him.”

“Mr. Rauly said that he couldn't have known what hit him,” proffered Sloan.

“That's what old soldiers always say,” said Dabbe. “Good for morale.”

“Yes, Doctor.” As far as Sloan was concerned he supposed he might as well be bandying words with the pathologist at the scene of the crime as doing anything else. It was too soon for him to be able to read any of the alibis he'd sent for from everyone he could think of: even Hazel Ottershaw and Miss Finch. With something like a tyre lever even a woman could have prised off enough stone from the tower's parapet to start a real fall. At least, down at the Police Station nobody had ever taken the view that murder was men's work.

“He's as dead as a doornail, Sloan, anyway.” The pathologist, too, had examined the protruding foot. “And quite coldish. Who found him?”

“The younger vet, Adrian Dungey. He was on his way to Mellamby Place to visit one of Bertram Rauly's dogs and noticed that there was something different about the outline of the parapet of the tower.”

“What goes up must come down,” murmured the pathologist absently, still regarding the foot. “It's where and when that matters, I suppose.”

“No, Doctor,” said Sloan firmly. He was wholly serious now. “It's the ‘why.'”

“Let's hope you do find a motive, Sloan,” responded the pathologist with equal gravity. “Murder without motive is the most dangerous power game of the lot.” He waved a hand in the direction of the Motte. “One of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit?”

“Slighted by the Parliamentarians was how Mr. Rauly put it, Doctor.”

“Right but repulsive,” said Dabbe.

“Beg pardon, Doctor?”

“The Roundheads, Sloan. They were right but repulsive.”

“Were they, Doctor?”

“And the other side were wrong but romantic—the Royalists.”

Sloan stiffened. “Say that again, Doctor.”

Dabbe stared at him. “Say what again?”

“That bit about the other side being Royalists,” said Sloan softly.

“Dammit man, you heard me the first time. The Civil War was between the Parliamentarians and the King's Party. The Royalists.”

“That's what I thought you said, Doctor. And the Battle of Lewes was between the Baron's side—that is Simon de Montfort and his pals—and the King's party.”

“You know it was, Sloan. That's all old hat. Besides, you told me so yourself. It was what the re-enactment was all about. What's worrying you?”

“I missed something,” said Sloan. He looked down at the Major's protruding foot, suddenly chilled. “Something that was right under my nose.” He raised his voice. “Crosby, come over here a moment. I want you.”

Detective Inspector Sloan had never been in this sort of a Chase before: at least not in the variety of woodland that had once upon a time provided good hunting for a king.

King John, he thought Bertram Rauly had said. He'd been a bad king, hadn't he? The bold barons had made him sign on the dotted line—or its medieval equivalent—in a field called Runnymede and then, as every schoolboy knew, King John had gone and lost his baggage train with the Royal treasure in it in the Wash.

A simple pun on the name of an East Anglian delta had stuck far longer in Sloan's mind than any scholarly lecture delivered in the classroom. There must be a moral there somewhere.

He was sorry his quarry had taken to the woods. He must have heard Crosby being called and then seen the two policemen walking purposefully towards him.

And put two and two together and taken to his heels.

He'd left the others still standing in an uneasy group and shot suddenly northwards, skimming the water that downstream became the River Pletch and plunging into the Mellamby Chase.

Sloan and Crosby had started to run after him, but he'd gained ground early on and by the time the two policemen reached the wood the man was nowhere to be seen. Behind him Sloan was dimly aware of the rest of the group bringing up the rear—but slowly—rather as the body of the hunt follows the Master and the Huntsman.

They were chasing a man who had the cunning of a fox and the fleetness of a hare and it wasn't easy. Almost at once it became considerably more difficult. The forest way divided.

“You go left, Crosby. I'll take the right fork.” He shouldn't have been panting quite as soon as this, surely?

Crosby loped off obediently and was lost to sight almost at once although Sloan continued to hear him lunging through the trees. What he should have done, of course, was to send Crosby back to report and to summon up reinforcements, although it would take a small army to search the Chase. Derrick Puiver's mind would have worked that way. Sloan thought about the poor little Major who was dead now and who shouldn't have been, not if he, Christopher Dennis Sloan, had had his wits about him. He couldn't think how he had come to overlook something so glaringly obvious. Perhaps it was because everyone had told him about it.

Trees not planted by the hand of man had a random quality about their distribution which hindered pursuit. Sloan ran on, checking himself at the point where he saw a broken twig. He had chosen the same route through the forest, then, as the man whom he sought: which was a comfort. But had the man chosen to leave the track and lie low, then he, Sloan, might even be running away from him.

That applied, too, if he had climbed a tree like King Charles II. An oak tree that had been, hadn't it? And in consequence numberless children had celebrated Oak Apple Day ever since.

Sloan noticed another snapped twig, this time on the ground.

So he was still behind him whom he sought—he hadn't overshot the mark. Sloan travelled onward as quickly as he could, as alert now as any huntsman of old. He was without a weapon though and that might be important. He would just have to do what the Assistant Chief Constable called playing a cadenza and improvise.

From somewhere behind him in the Chase he could hear someone calling him: the words had a familiar ring but it was a full half minute before he caught their import.

“Yoicks!… Yoicks!… Tallyho!…”

Unless Sloan was mistaken that was a spiritual descendant of the de Caquevilles giving voice to an ancient hunting cry that too came directly from the Norman French incitement to hunt of
Trout tro ro rot illocques illoloco.
So must the Chase have resounded in olden times at earlier hunts when the aim was sport and food.

What Sloan was pursuing was justice.

“View halloa!” bellowed Bertram Rauly from somewhere to Sloan's left. That meant he'd heard something, didn't it? Rauly must have made good speed for an older man, but then he knew every inch of the Chase.

Sloan could hear Crosby's voice, too, faint but pursuing. “He's coming your way, sir.”

“View halloa!” repeated Bertram Rauly lustily. “Tantivy!”

Sloan veered in the direction of the hunting call. Didn't it mean “found” in hunting parlance?

Then Sloan saw where their quarry had left the main path—his tracks still showed in the forest carpet. He'd doubled back, which was how he'd been seen by the others. Sloan followed almost without thought. In fact, oddly enough, it was the Assistant Chief Constable's definition of a cadenza that occupied his mind: a passage for a solo instrument at or near the end of a movement, sometimes improvised.

Sloan froze.

He'd rounded an ancient oak and there in the middle of a little glade stood his man, preternaturally still, only his eyes moving.

For a full moment neither hunter nor hunted moved.

Then Sloan saw the man's right hand move quickly to a pocket. Summoning up all his strength, the policeman flung himself forward in a flying tackle just as Detective Constable Crosby came plunging out of the undergrowth, Bertram Rauly hard behind him.

“Adrian Dungey,” Detective Inspector Sloan addressed a figure on the ground, “I arrest you for the murder of Alan John Ottershaw.”

“And Derrick Puiver,” said Detective Constable Crosby.

NINETEEN

Dominus Illuminatio Mea

“I'm waiting, Sloan,” said Superintendent Leeyes.

“Yes, sir.”

“I take it you do have an explanation?”

“In a manner of speaking, sir.” He hesitated. “I'm not quite sure exactly where to start.”

“In the beginning,” thundered Leeyes. “Like Genesis.”

“Yes, sir.” He toyed for one wild moment with the idea of saying “Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me” but put the thought out of his mind almost immediately and said instead, “It all began with a simple road traffic accident in Gatt-el-Abbas in the Sheikhdom of Lasserta.”

“Simple?” growled Leeyes, who, like the Foreign Office, always favoured the conspiracy theory as a first option. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as we can be. Accidents do happen.”

“Not according to the psychologists, they don't,” maintained Leeyes stoutly, “but go on.”

“The Sheikh of Lasserta immediately saw some mileage in the accident from his point of view—a chance of putting the screws on the company and so forth.”

“The ability to see where the advantage lies is the essence of successful business,” pronounced Leeyes.

“Very probably, sir.” That sounded to Sloan suspiciously like a quotation from an Adult Education Class on “Business and the Community.” “When the Sheikh started making threatening noises the company withdrew Ottershaw as quickly and as quietly as they could.”