Clubbed to Death (27 page)
Authors: Ruth Dudley Edwards
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #satire, #Women Sleuths
‘Which is?’
‘Let me break it to Boy.’
‘Very well. I agree. Now I fear I must deliver a formal caution before you begin.’
‘About my words being taken down and used in evidence against me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please let’s take it as read, Chief Superintendent. I abhor meaningless ritual. You can probably trace that back to those thousands of meals at High Table which were preceded by the mumbling of grace by our atheist Master. I have my failings, but I’m not a hypocrite.’
‘Please note that the caution has been given, Sergeant.’
‘Yessir.’
‘You’re very smart for a policeman, aren’t you? My bad luck – or judgement. One tends to assume all you chaps are seriously thick.’
Milton kept his expression solemn.
‘Now you’ve already got the gist and you won’t be needing much detail. Boy and I will plead guilty. In his case it should be possible to argue diminished responsibility.
‘I suppose he and I seem an unlikely pair, but in fact we suit each other very well. At Cambridge I lived in a world of aridity and intellectual combat: it was nice to meet somebody who hero-worshipped me. Besides, we were sexually terribly compatible. I should think it will be a little hard for you, Chief Superintendent, let alone your young companion here, to imagine that almost fifty years ago Boy and I had a passionate sexual relationship. I can see you’re doing sums, Mr Milton. It was not when we met first before the war, it was after he came back from North Africa, broken up by the death of his nanny. Risible, isn’t it? But not to him. He was a man who could form only intense, loyal, self-abnegatory relationships – his nanny, his parents, his sergeant-major and me. He always did what he was told.’
‘How did he get into the Commandos?’
‘Good with his hands and obedient. A definition of a good lover, as far as I’m concerned, although for the last couple of decades we’ve mostly just been friends. He’s not intellectually stimulating, dear old Boy, but one way or another, he’s the emotional centre of my life and his wittering hardly even gets on my nerves.’
‘Why did you do what you did, sir?’
‘Suggest that he kill Trueman? Gambling instinct, I fear. I was leaving for Monte Carlo, quite perturbed about what this new idiot secretary was proposing and convinced that the even tenor of our lives was going to be fatally disrupted. Boy could have financed us in a decent old people’s home, but that was not for me. Besides, I’ve never wanted to take his money. Sentimental old devil, am I not? So I had some coffee and a drink with him after lunch that day and gave him a little of what we used to call white snuff.’
‘That was?’
‘Cocaine. I’ve taken to that a bit over recent years. It’s an awfully good pick-me-up I find, especially at my age. It beats vitamin supplements, I can tell you. It certainly does wonders for Boy – livens him up no end. He knew not to talk about it. He understood about our secrets. It was a secret that we went to bed together and it was a secret that we took white snuff. I went up in the lift to my bedroom to pick up my passport and money and stopped by on the way down just to say goodbye again. He was sitting just by the lift. Then there was an altercation at the other end of the gallery and Trueman came in our direction looking cross. He stopped in front of us and said, “One can’t close one’s eyes to reality”. Almost his last words. Quite funny really. And I said, “Indeed not, Ken. And speaking of reality, there’s a very nasty crack in the plaster work in this pillar.” Trueman, eternally conscientious, switched his attention to the damaged fabric. I shuffled over, pointed out the worrying cracks – you could always rely on there being lots of these anywhere in the building – and summoned up Boy. All I had to do was gesture and whisper, “Get him, Boy”. That was what his sergeant-major used to say. He did very well. It was a lovely clean operation.’
‘Even fifty years on?’ asked Milton.
‘He had in a sense had frequent refresher courses. We used to have lots of Auld Lang Syne with an old SAS man called Selwood, a pal of his drops in from time to time, and anyway Boy’s always gone on rehearsing his skills. It’s a bit of a joke with us. You see, Boy wasn’t afraid of physical challenge himself. He worried about me, but where he was concerned, it was germs that made him anxious. Anyway, Trueman had gone, the others were responding to his scream from the other side of the gallery, and I was able to fade into the lift without being seen, merely taking the precaution of saying, “It’s a secret, Boy. Now, pretend to be asleep.” ’
‘The debts in Monte Carlo, sir?’
‘Nerves and cocaine, I fear. I had taken a large risk, most impulsively and with absolutely no guarantee that the fingerprints wouldn’t be found or that Boy wouldn’t forget it was a secret and admit everything disarmingly. He had it in his sweet and simple mind that Trueman was dangerous, like the germs, so I hoped that would keep him guilt-free. But I took more cocaine than usual and, therefore, far more risks. Hence being down a million francs, hence smuggling heroin in a zimmer. Very good way of doing it, I may say. Quick swap in the gentlemen’s lavatory at Heathrow and I was clean as a whistle.’
‘The Admiral?’
‘Oh, Boy had his little stash of this and that in his mother’s grave. It made him feel secure. I used to arrange for it periodically to get topped up, or updated, as they say. It took very little to make him happy. He just wanted to know we would be all right if the revolution came. So we had the dynamite, the detonators, the protective gloves and the rest to deal with boring old Con Meredith-Lee. Boy does this sort of thing terribly well when he’s high. Ditto of course the job he did on Pinkie Blenkinsop. Although that confused him a bit at first because he thought Pinkie was his friend. However, once I explained that Pinkie was my enemy, there was no more problem. The trouble was that he was discovered too early – before I could burn the magazine. I’ve been worried about fingerprints, even though I rubbed the cover of the magazine thoroughly before discarding it. Any other questions?’
‘How long do you need, sir?’
‘Fifteen minutes, if you’d be so kind. I need five minutes to get to him and wake him up and ten minutes to explain.’ He retrieved his crutches and swung himself to his feet. ‘Thank you for being so civilised, ’ he said. ‘ I never expected that of the police.’
‘Aren’t you afraid they’ll make a run for it, sir?’ asked Pooley, as soon as Chatterton had left.
‘Sammy’s got people on duty front and back and I just haven’t got the bottle to face Glastonbury before Chatterton’s done his stuff. Tell me when it’s time.’ Milton lay back and shut his eyes and said, ‘Why the hell couldn’t it have been Fagg?’ Pooley began to pace as quietly as possible, round and round the Rochester Room.
Lurking in the corner of the Coffee Room, Amiss observed Chatterton walking through without police escort. He was about to seek an explanation when Gooseneck emerged from the kitchen, hailed him warmly and engaged him in conversation about what measures should be taken to render life at ffeatherstonehaugh’s more attractive to the staff. Amiss had no option but to be helpful.
‘Very useful, my dear fellow,’ said Gooseneck. ‘You’re quite right about tackling the accommodation immediately. Let’s go upstairs and take a look. This place is in such disarray that I should be able to get a troop of carpenters and painters in without our dear Colonel even raising an eyebrow.’ Unhappily, Amiss trailed with Gooseneck out of the Coffee Room and into the Saloon.
‘My God! What’s going on?’ said Gooseneck, for standing round the Saloon in positions of frozen horror were Ramsbum, Blitherdick, Sunil and Ng, all of them staring up at the gallery, on the balustrade of which teetered the great form of Glastonbury, pulling at an invisible object.
‘Now, Boy, now,’ called Chatterton’s voice, and with a huge heave Glastonbury summoned up all his strength to haul his friend alongside him. Chatterton’s remaining crutch clattered all the way down to the Saloon floor and Glastonbury supported his weight.
‘Jump, Boy. Now.’ And with his arms tightly enclosing Chatterton, Glastonbury jumped. Amiss turned his head away just too late.
Epilogue
‘Holmes and Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls?’ asked Pooley.
‘A colourful analogy, if not very apposite,’ said Amiss. ‘This wasn’t a struggle, and Chatterton and Glastonbury were friends, not enemies. And anyway this time neither of them’s going to return. Oh, Christ! I really wish I hadn’t seen it.’
The three of them sat in Pooley’s flat, exhausted after a day of emotional turmoil.
‘Jim, why did you let Chatterton go?’ asked Pooley suddenly. ‘You were taking a frightful risk.’
‘I was giving him time to do what he did.’
‘You knew?’
‘Doesn’t that happen with your humane detectives in crime fiction, Ellis? I simply didn’t feel I could put Glastonbury through the process of the law if there was an alternative. That may be criminal: I think it’s humane.’
‘But it’s got you in trouble.’
‘Not big trouble. Easily smoothed out. Very minor reprimand. Anyway, I don’t care. I’m more at peace doing it this way and somehow I can live with never becoming an assistant commissioner.’
‘I wish we could be celebrating,’ said Amiss. ‘Damn it. We got there, between us, and here we are, plunged in gloom.’
‘So cheer us up, ’ said Milton.
‘I thought that was Ellis’s job. I can’t be very jolly, I’m afraid. It was all a very sad scene. I was even sorry for Fagg and Fishbane. They’re completely dazed.’ There was a depressed silence. Amiss jumped up, took the bottle, poured lavish amounts of whisky into their glasses and said, ‘Sod this. Time to look on the bright side.’
‘We’ve cracked the case,’ said Pooley.
‘Glastonbury doesn’t have to go to Broadmoor,’ said Milton.
‘And I can stop being a waiter,’ said Amiss. There was another silence.
‘Mauleverer and Gooseneck are going to take charge of the club,’ said Amiss.
‘Two jailbirds?’ said Pooley.
‘Reformed. They might turn it into a good club again.’
‘It’s not going to happen, ’ said Milton, ‘Its ethos is not going to fit the 1990s, I fear.’
‘You’re probably right. But they’re game to try, and they’re both extremely bright.’
‘What are you going to do now, Robert?’
‘Serve out my week’s notice. Gooseneck is distraught that I’m leaving, but he’ll have Sunil to console him. Then, poverty notwithstanding, I’m going to visit Rachel: I’m tired of loneliness and celibacy. Additionally, she pointed out cheerfully that in Delhi I’ll probably see enough violence and death to put ffeatherstonehaugh’s in perspective.’
‘Haven’t you got something rude from Lord Rochester to do that for us now?’ asked Milton.
Amiss beamed. ‘I thought you’d never ask. I’ve nothing relevant, but I do have a verse I learned the other day that I found diverting. The trouble is that Ellis probably won’t like it. It’s a bit close to home.’
‘I’m not a fan of Rochester,’ said Pooley. ‘You two will say it’s because I’m a prude. But don’t let me stop you.’
This is perfectly clean. But you still won’t like it.
‘How wise is nature, when she does dispense
A large estate to cover want of sense.
The Man’s a fool, ’tis true, but that’s no matter,
For He’s a mighty wit with those that flatter.’
‘If it was flattery I was after,’ said Pooley stiffly, ‘I’d hardly associate with you. I think that’s really rather cheap.’
‘Aha! He’s got the answer to that as well. “Fools censure wit, as old men rail at sin”.’
‘They’d have been a lot better off in ffeatherstonehaugh’s had they been railing at sin rather than committing it.’
‘Ellis, why don’t you become a fucking lay preacher?’
‘Like your hero, Inspector Romford,’ added Milton.
Pooley looked at him in horror. ‘You don’t mean I sound like him, do you? But he’s…’
‘A self-righteous wanker,’ said Milton.
Pooley looked at Amiss in supplication.
‘Sorry, Ellis. He’s right. You need to watch it.’
‘Oh, very well.’ Pooley rose, took the whisky bottle, refilled all three glasses and sat down again. ‘I can take a hint. Bring on the dancing girls.’
They clinked their glasses.
—«»—«»—«»—
R
UTH
D
UDLEY
E
DWARDS
was born in Dublin but lives in London. She has been a teacher, a marketing executive and a civil servant, and has written for several British and Irish newspapers. Her books include the authorised biography of Victor Gollancz and
Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure;
currently she is writing the history of
The Economist. Clubbed to Death
is Ruth Dudley Edwards’ fourth crime novel. Her three previous mysteries, all of which feature Robert Amiss, are
Corridors of Death
(short-listed for the John Creasey Memorial Award for the best first crime novel of the year),
The Saint Valentine’s Day Murders
and
The School of English Murder
.
—«»—«»—«»—
[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]
[A 3S Release— v1, html]
[May 07, 2007]
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