The Mortdecai Trilogy (42 page)

‘Perfectly obvious,’ said George; ‘the beggar was one of these witches or witchmasters. It all comes back to me now. The plumber told me all about it when he came in drunk just after Christmas. Seems it wasn’t this Paisnel fellow at all, all the locals know who it was, including most of the Honorary Police … or did he say that Paisnel was just part of it?’

‘That strain again,’ murmured Sam, ‘it hath a dying fall …’

‘Quite right. And this Paisnel had a secret room, hadn’t he, with a pottery frog or toad in it and
that
was supposed to be “part of it” too. And there was one of these Papist Palm Sunday crosses in the car he was nabbed in and they say he screamed when they asked him to touch it.’

‘Codswallop?’ I prompted.

‘Not necessarily. Seen too many funny things myself to be ready to scoff at, ah, funny things.’

‘In India, I dare say?’

He glared at me suspiciously.

‘Yes,’ curtly. ‘There and elsewhere. Well, mustn’t keep you chaps any longer. Good of you to help, very.’

Hunger stabbed me as I drove home. There was nothing inviting in the fridge, certainly not the half of a cold duck, but I happen to know where Jock hides his ‘perks’ and I spitefully wolfed a whole tin of caviare (the real Grosrybrest; Jock steals nothing but the best, he spurns Beluga and Ocietrova) on hot toast and left the kitchen in a horrid mess. On purpose.

Upstairs, Johanna appeared to be asleep and I slunk gratefully into bed like a thief in the night.

‘Gotcha!’ she yelled triumphantly.

‘Have a care, for God’s sake, you’ll have me singing alto.’

‘Where have you been, you naughty little stud?’

I told her the whole story and she listened enthralled.

‘Let’s play rapists,’ she said when I had finished.

‘I’m not climbing through any bloody window.’

‘I’ll let you off that bit.’

‘But I haven’t a rubber mask.’

‘Extemporize.’

‘Oh, really.’

‘I shall pretend to be asleep and you shall
sneak
into the room and
leap
upon me and work your wicked will and I shall scream and scream but very softly so as not to wake our nice landlord.’

‘Promise not to scratch?’

‘Only gently.’

Much later I crept down to the kitchen to make myself a jam-sandwich. Jock was there, moodily eating baked beans. He bore all the marks of a servant who has lost heavily at dominoes. We did not speak. I, for one, was thinking.

Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,
Knowledge of me?
Has the wilderness told it thee?
Hast thou learnt of the sea?
Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds
taken counsel with thee?

 

Hertha

 

Johanna and I do not share a bedroom, still less a bed. To sleep in the same bed with a member of the opposite sex is barbarous, unhygienic, unaesthetic and, in these blessed days of the electric blanket, quite unnecessary. It means, too, that wakefulness in one is visited upon the other partner and, worst of all, it is conducive to carnality in the mornings – terribly bad for the heart and makes you eat too large a breakfast. When I find a woman that I want to spend the whole night with – I mean, including sleep – in the same bed, then I shall know that I’m in love – or senile. Probably, by then, both.

It was in my dressing-room, then, that Jock aroused me on Easter Tuesday. His ‘good morning’ was no gruffer than usual; there was perhaps hope that he had declared a truce. Nevertheless, I tasted my tea guardedly, for the keenest weapon in Jock’s arsenal is to make tea with water
which has not quite boiled
: a fearful revenge, but then Jock is a man of violence, this is why I employ him.

The tea was good. Jock had selected the Assam Flowery BOP from Jackson’s
atelier
and had made it with his deftest touch. I beamed upon the honest fellow.

‘Jock, today I am to be a member of a posse. Pray lay out for me a suit of Levis, a ten-gallon hat, high-heeled boots, a Winchester ’73 rifle and a strong, durable horse.’

‘We ain’t got none of that, Mr Charlie.’

‘Then plus-fours, stout boots and a great cudgel.’

‘Right. Am I coming?’

‘Not at this stage, but please stay near the telephone until I call.’

‘Right. ’Course you know you won’t catch him, don’t you?’

I gaped.

‘Catch whom?’

‘The bloke who rogered Mrs Breakspear, of course. Silly bugger, he only had to say please, didn’t he?’

‘Watch your tongue. Mr Breakspear’s a friend of mine.’

‘Sorry, Mr Charlie. But everybody …’

‘Shut up. Anyway, how do you come to have heard of the, er, incident?’

‘Girl who delivers the newspapers.’

‘But the papers come from Grouville and they’re here before eight. How can it have got so far overnight?’

‘Jersey,’ he said enigmatically.

‘Yes. Of course. But what’s this about never catching him?’

‘Use your common-sense, Mr Charlie. Where are you going to
look
, for one thing?’

‘I had been asking myself that, I admit. What was the other thing?’

‘
They
say you won’t. The Jerseys.
They
know.’

‘Hm, yes, that is another thing.’

‘Yeah.’

At noon, clad in thick Irish thornproof tweeds and brandishing an ashplant, I clumped in my great boots into the drawing-room at Les Cherche-fuites. George was wearing flannels and a white shirt, Sam was wearing Bermuda shorts and a silk Palm Beach shirt. They gazed at me wonderingly.

‘This is only a conference,’ George explained gently.

‘Oh. I see.’

‘Have you brought many beaters?’ Sam asked.

‘No.’

‘But a
loader
, perhaps?’

My riposte was swift as light.

‘I usually drink a glass of bottled beer at about this time,’ I said, and went out to the kitchen to fetch it.

Back in the drawing-room I noticed a large, ill-assembled man in a blue suit fidgeting on the edge of an upright chair. His head was many sizes too small for his great frame but his hands made up for it; they were like shovels. He proved to be the Centenier, one Hyacinthe le Mignone, and he shook hands with great gentleness, like a man who is afraid of breaking things. His voice was just such a melancholy, long, withdrawing roar as Matthew Arnold used to delight in.

The conference had barely begun, only civilities and things had thitherto been exchanged. The Centenier began to utter.

‘Well, Mr Breakspear,’ he roared, ‘I ’aven’t yet turned up anything you could call a positive lead. We ’ave only two known sex-offenders worth the name in this Parish and neither of them seems to fit the bill. One of them has a diseased mind all right, eh? but ’is modus operandi is quite unlike that what your lady has related. ’E is chiefly interested in little girls’ bicycle-saddles which we reckon a ’armless hobby for an ageing man, though we keep a sharp eye on ’im, eh? ’E did indeed once coax a liddle lass into a daffodil field but as soon as ’e started getting above ’imself she stuck ’er finger in ’is eye and run and told ’er father, who ’appened to be the Vingtenier and ’urt the old man real nasty; I don’t reckon ’e’ll try that again, eh?’

This was entrancing stuff, it made me wish that I were a novelist.

‘The other one is just a kid of fifteen or so. ’e ’as bin blessed with a unusually large member, which ’e cannot resist showing to respectable women once in a while, eh? None of them ’as ever made a complaint but the boy always comes to me and confesses and tries to wag it at me – says ’e wants me to understand!’

‘And do you
look?
’ I asked, with a straight face.

‘My Chri’ no. I tell ’im to show it to the College of Surgeons and give ’im a kick up the arse, eh? I probably seen better anyway,’ he added with a betraying modesty.

‘The only other possibility,’ he went on, ‘oh, thanks, I shouldn’t really, my wife will give me hell if she smells it on me breath; the
only other possibility is some person or persons unknown who in the Spring and early Summer months persists in stealing ladies’ knickers from washing lines. But this doesn’t sound like a desperate bloke who climbs in windows and takes on strong young ladies, does it? It sounds more like someone addicted to what we call the Solitary Vice. What’s more, he always pinches these great big old bloomers, eh? what we used to call bumbags, not the sort of pretty frilly things your lady will likely wear.’

He lapsed into a thoughtful silence, his eyes hooded.

‘Get on, man,’ barked George.

‘So we reckon ’e’s not likely from our Parish but where is ’e from then? Trinity’s the nearest next Parish and they ’aven’t anyone there to compare with us.’

There was a pardonable pride in his voice.

‘They got two or three poofs like we all ’ave and a couple of little tarts on the game – Dirty Gertie and Cutprice Alice and them – but they stick to St Helier, where the money is, eh? Oh, and there’s a geezer who rings up ladies and goes on about what he fancies doing to them but we all know who ’
e
is and ’e’s a well-liked chap and does no harm, ’e’s terrified of ’is wife. And that’s it.’

‘What about St John’s?’ said George, levelly.

‘Don’t reelly know. Lot of savages there, but nothing like this that I’ve heard of. Old La Pouquelaye, of course, but ’e’s just disgusting. Calves, ’e does it with.’

We sat silently; dazed at this revelation of how the other half lives. I felt that life had passed me by.

‘Have you talked to the Paid Police?’ asked George.

‘Of course, sir. They said they were always glad to hear about our country goings-on but they didn’t see how they could help. Unless me and my Vingteniers could give them something to work on.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, footprints first. Any good ones, they said they’d come and take casts of.’

‘No luck, I’m afraid. I’ve already looked. I sort of landed heavily when pursuing the beggar and must have wiped out his traces under the window. After that he seems to have kept to the gravel. No sign at all.’

‘You sure, sir?’

‘I helped to form the Reconnaissance Corps in 1942.’

‘Ah. I was helping to form the Jersey Resistance just about then meself.’

They gave each other keen, soldierly looks, such as strong men exchange in the works of R. Kipling.

‘Then they said about fingerprints and other clues.’

‘Bad luck there, too. My wife’s maid did the room thoroughly before we were up. Officious bitch. Usually can’t get her to empty an ashtray.’

‘That’s unfortunate, eh?’

‘Very. But I don’t suppose you have much of a fingerprint file on the Island.’

‘Not what you’d call an up-to-date one. Well, the other thing is semen stains. It seems they can get them classified now, like blood.’

‘No,’ said George.

‘So if you could let me have the lady’s sheets, or any garments –’

‘I said no.’

‘Perhaps the doctor took some samples –’

‘Positively bloody NO!’ George bellowed, quite startling us all.

‘Yes, of course, sir. There’s a sort of delicacy –’

George stood up.

The Centenier shut up.

‘You won’t stay to luncheon?’ asked George in a voice from the nineteenth century. ‘No. Well, I must thank you for all your help. Most kind. You hadn’t a hat? No. A fine day, is it not. Goodbye.’

He closed the front door, quite gently. When he was back in the room he eyed us, defying us to grin. At last, he grinned himself.

‘The phrase you are groping for,’ I said carefully, ‘is “Fuck an old rat”.’

‘Fuck an old rat,’ he said. ‘A good cavalry expression. The cavalry has its rôle, after all, in modern life.’

Sam seemed to awake from a heavy slumber.

‘I could
eat
an old rat,’ he said.

‘There was half a cold duck in the fridge,’ George said apologetically, ‘but I’m afraid I ate it last night just after you men had left. Sonia is in no shape for cooking and the maid cannot tell an Aga from an autoclave. Let us go to Bonne Nuit Bay and eat lobsters.’

‘But will they let Charlie in?’ asked Sam sweetly. ‘I mean, he does look just a little
farouche …
’

I gazed at him thoughtfully. His tongue was ever sharp but lately he seemed to have been gargling with acid.

‘I shall go and change,’ I said stiffly. ‘Please order for me. I shall have a medium-sized hen lobster split and broiled with a great deal of butter, three potato croquettes and a salad made with the hearts of two lettuces. I shall dress the salad myself.’

‘Wine?’ said Sam.

‘Thank you, how kind. I shall drink whatever you offer; your judgement in these matters is famous.’

Over lunch we agreed that very little could be done until we had more information. George set up a fighting-fund of £100: ten £5 bribes to be slipped to gardeners and other venal fellows who might lay their ears to the ground, and five £10 rewards for any of them who brought in concrete information. Larger rewards, he shrewdly pointed out, might well provoke imagination rather than hard news.

We parted at three; I, for one, in that state of tentative eupepsia which only a broiled lobster and a bottle of Gewurtztraminer can bestow, augmented by the fact that Sam had, indeed, paid for the wine.

I drove to St Helier and the Library of the Museum of the
Société Jersiaise
. They said it was private but I murmured the name of a learned Rector and, instantly, red carpets blossomed beneath my feet.

The material I wanted was dispersed and hard to find, for I particularly did not want to enlist the librarian’s help, and, when I found it, a great deal was in
Patois Jersiais
and the rest in antique Norman-French. A sample of
Patois
will, I think, give you an idea of the horrors of that tongue: ‘
S’lou iou que l’vent est quand l’soleit s’couoche la séthée d’la S. Miché, ché s’la qu’nous etha l’vent pour l’hivé
.’ This is supposed to mean that the direction of the wind at sunset on Michaelmas Day will be the prevailing wind throughout the following winter – a likely story, I must say.

I staggered out into the evening sunshine and the monstrous regiment of tourists with my head buzzing-full of recondite information. It was clear that scholarship of that kind was not for Mortdecai: a specialist was called for. Nevertheless, I now knew a few things about Paisnel which the police didn’t. For instance, both he and his china toad had indeed been ‘part of something’; something which is
supposed to have died three hundred years ago, something almost as nasty as the people who stamped it out – or thought they had.

Johanna was out when I arrived at the flat; she would be playing bridge, the least strenuous of her vices, bless her. With luck she would get home very late and too tired for romps.

I wrote to Hatchards for a copy of
Malleus Maleficarum
, that great compendium of medieval horrors, and begged them, with many an underlining, to see that it was in
English
.

Jock and I, on friendly terms again, feasted in the kitchen on pork chops, fried peas and mashed potatoes, capping them with a
croque-monsieur
in case of night starvation.

Then, aiding digestion with a bottle of Mr Teacher’s best and brightest, we watched Bogart and Bergman in
Casablanca
, that flawless pearl of a film. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. If television didn’t exist, someone would have to invent it, is what I say.

I was in hoggish slumber when Johanna climbed into my bed, she was glowing with the radiance of a woman who has just won more than eighty pounds from a close friend. She spends at least that sum each month on her breakfast champagne but her pleasure was intense and she tried to communicate it to me in her own special way.

‘No, please,’ I protested, ‘it’s very late and I am suffering from Excess at Table.’

‘Well at least tell me what happened today,’ she pouted. ‘Did you catch the Fiend in Human Shape?’

‘We didn’t look. We’ve decided that all we can do for the present is lay our ears to the ground and hope for gossip. But we did meet a lovely Centenier who told us all about the local sex-maniacs.’

She listened, saucer-eyed, as I related all I could remember about the neighbourhood satyrs.

‘And in St John’s,’ I ended, ‘there’s a well-respected man who does it with
calves
: what do you say to that?’

She rolled over on to all fours, her delightful bottom coquettishly raised.