Crooked Herring (9 page)

5 January. I’ve just had a long conversation with Ethelred about Emma Vynall. Why didn’t I realise before? Some people might describe Ethelred as an unreliable narrator, but I prefer the term ‘liar’. From the moment I first told him that Crispin had it in for him, I could tell that he knew there might be a good reason for it. He just took her back to her room and left her with a chaste kiss on the cheek, did he? Yeah, right. I’d noticed something in Ethelred’s manner in West Wittering over lunch – a sort of jauntiness that comes over him whenever, usually against my advice, he has allowed himself to become ensnared by some predatory female. And he couldn’t wait to get over to Brighton. That he failed to follow it through and stay the night – well, that was Ethelred all over. Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ like the poor cat in the adage.

Though Emma claimed that Crispin didn’t give a toss, I wasn’t so sure. The fact that he allowed himself to go off with anyone he fancied didn’t mean that he extended that right to Emma. That isn’t the way that men like Crispin think. If Crispin imagined the two of them had been up to something, it would more than explain why he took to Amazon as Thrillseeker and rubbished each of Ethelred’s books in turn.

But it doesn’t help at all in understanding why Crispin has disappeared. Or why Henry Holiday has commissioned Ethelred, the most incompetent amateur detective in England, to investigate New Year’s Eve on his behalf.

Unless Ethelred actually knows far more about things than he is letting on. He wasn’t entirely honest with me about his relations with Emma Vynall. And he certainly knows something about the Mary Devlin Jones plagiarism business that he hasn’t told me yet.

This needs thinking about.

Sunday the 6th. At the present rate I’ll have used up this diary by July, so I’d better not do anything interesting from August onwards.

Still, something fairly interesting has just happened. I went down to the local newsagents as usual on Sunday morning and bought a copy of the
Sunday Times
. I’d worked my way through the Style section, which seemed to be predicting that nice clothes would be designed this year mainly with tall, thin, attractive people in mind. Of course, I keep myself pretty fit just thinking about going on a diet, and I always reckon if you pay your
gym subscription promptly, you are morally entitled to the occasional bar of chocolate. So I lingered over the section on this season’s pencil skirts. I did however eventually turn to the book reviews, just in case there was a stinking review for somebody I didn’t like. And there it was. Half a page by Henry Holiday devoted entirely to Ethelred’s
oeuvre
. I now copy some of it down for posterity to read:

Universally? Henry wasn’t counting Thrillseeker, then. And it continued in this vein paragraph after paragraph. There was occasionally a vagueness to Henry’s literary criticism, suggesting that with some of the books he might have just read the blurb on the back of the cover or maybe just got the title off Amazon and winged it from that point on. Every now and then he spelt the name of one of the characters wrong because he couldn’t be arsed to flick open the book and check.
Still, you couldn’t fault his sycophancy. His general position was that Ethelred could do no wrong. Even the romantic novels, which Ethelred hasn’t dabbled in for a couple of years at least, came in for their share of adulation. And those really are crap.

Time to phone Ethelred, then.

‘It’s eleven o’clock, Elsie,’ I said. ‘Of course I’m up.’

‘It’s Sunday,’ she pointed out.

‘When you’re a writer it makes very little difference,’ I said. ‘One day is much like another.’

‘The thickness of newspapers varies, though. Have you seen the
Sunday Times
?’

‘Henry’s piece? Yes, it’s very good.’

‘Good? It reads like a Nobel Prize citation.’

‘If you say so. He said he’d give me a good review if I helped him. Virtue is occasionally rewarded.’

‘But you haven’t helped him,’ said Elsie. ‘You’ve farted about and failed to get Emma Vynall to sleep with you. That’s worth a cursory mention in “Recent Paperback Releases”. If you’d rescued his daughter and her cute little puppy from a gang of flesh-eating zombies, I can see that he might owe you one – but this would be a bit over the
top even then. Do you know, Ethelred, I’ve spent my life trying to bribe and blackmail critics. The best I ever got out of blackmail was “another interesting book from this strangely neglected author”. When I read the review, I was
that
close to telling his boyfriend what I’d caught him doing.’

‘Well, it was kind of you to threaten a critic on my behalf,’ I said.

‘Oh, good grief, I wouldn’t have wasted perfectly good blackmail on one of
your
books,’ said Elsie.

‘So, you are ruling out that Henry might genuinely like my work?’ I asked with all the sarcasm I could muster.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am. There is something very, very odd about the whole piece. People will know it’s overdone.’

‘Will they?’

‘If they’ve read your books, yes. Though obviously that will be only a tiny minority of
Sunday Times
readers.’

‘I thought Henry had some fairly insightful things to say. He says that Sergeant Fairfax’s interest in church architecture gives him greater depth.’

‘Except it doesn’t really, does it? It just gives you a chance to spend days in the British Library reading up on Norman fonts, when you should be typing out another five thousand words. Saying he’s interested in church history is really a bit like saying his shoes are brown or he likes Abba. You know a bit more about him but not enough to actually like him.’

‘You don’t like Sergeant Fairfax?’ I asked.

‘Is he supposed to be likeable?’

‘I’d always hoped so,’ I said.

‘He’s a tedious, middle-aged alcoholic, who smokes
fifty a day and grunts at his colleagues when they wish him good morning. Even in Book One his workmates were looking forward to the day he retired. Since then he’s trodden on the toes of pretty much every one of them.’

‘That doesn’t mean he isn’t loveable.’

‘Yes it does.’

‘DC Wendy Hobbins likes him.’

‘She’s
fictional
, Ethelred. You can make her like anything. Anyway, I’ve always thought that her admiration for Fairfax was completely improbable. She’s a lot younger than he is. She’s good company. She’s attractive in a bookish sort of way. It’s difficult to see why you think she would go for somebody like Fairfax, other than to pander to some middle-aged male fantasy that this sort of thing ever happens. Are you actually trying to build her up into a genuine love interest or something?’

‘Maybe,’ I said guardedly. It was in fact central to the plot of the next book but I hadn’t yet told Elsie.

‘Fairfax is just a lonely, middle-aged man,’ said Elsie. ‘Things don’t work out like that for lonely, middle-aged men. It’s their lot in life to be lonely and middle-aged. They don’t get beautiful young women throwing themselves at their feet.’

‘Don’t they?’

‘No.’

‘Thank you for that clarification,’ I said.

‘I didn’t mean you, of course,’ said Elsie.

‘It hadn’t occurred to me until this moment that you did,’ I said.

‘Obviously you are a bit middle-aged … and you’re a man … and …’

There was a pause, which I initially took to be embarrassment on Elsie’s part, but she proved, in fact, to be opening a packet of biscuits.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘These wrappings are really tricky. The first one’s all broken.’

There was another pause. Then a crunching noise.

‘The fourth one’s fine. What were you saying?’

‘We were just talking about the plot of my next book. DC Hobbins gets moved to another police force and Fairfax drowns himself in a Norman font.’

‘Would there be enough water for that?’

‘It was a joke,’ I said.

‘It’s a good plot, though. Are you working on that today?’

‘I’m driving over to Didling Green again,’ I said. ‘Henry thinks I’m not doing a thorough job. He’s checking my work for accuracy. How about you?’

‘I need to go to the shop for some more biscuits,’ said Elsie. ‘I’m about to run out completely. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

The review was, however, only the first surprise of the morning.

I receive so few texts that it took a moment or two to identify the buzzing noise that announced the arrival of a message. I located my phone and tapped on the Messages icon. ‘Bloody hell,’ I said.

The new message was from Crispin Vynall.

As I read the message a wave of relief flooded over me.

Then, almost immediately, the relief started to trickle away into the metaphorical sands and very real doubt set in. Anyone could send a message and sign it Crispin. And why was Crispin sending the message to me anyway? Surely he would contact Henry or even Emma. I would be way down the list, after many other, much closer friends, his
agent, his editor, his publicist, his builder … There would be dozens of people for whom this information would be more important. Unless he knew I was looking for him. I checked the mobile number that the message had come from. It was unfamiliar to me. But I had Crispin’s number on my phone from when Henry had tried to contact him. It was relatively quick work to scroll back through the calls. I had just verified the number as being Crispin’s when Henry showed up in person.

‘I’ve heard from Crispin,’ I said, as Henry got out of his Jaguar. ‘Just a text. He says he’s out of the country and not to worry.’

‘A text?’

‘Yes.’

‘But it’s really him?’

I read out the number. Henry immediately took out his own smartphone and ran through his address book, as if unwilling again to accept my word that the job had been done properly.

‘That’s Crispin’s mobile, all right,’ said Henry. ‘So, whoever I may have killed, it wasn’t Crispin.’

‘So, it certainly sounds as if Crispin really is alive,’ I said. ‘But why is he texting me? I mean, how does he even know I’m aware he’s missing?’

‘I agree it’s slightly odd, but the message does seem to be genuine – I mean, it’s from his phone. It sounds like Crispin.’

‘I’m also not sure why I have to keep anything a secret. Why contact me at all if I can’t let anyone know? You don’t suppose that somebody else could have got hold of his phone?’

‘A complete stranger? But how would they have known
to contact you? I doubt you’re in his phone book. It’s more likely that it is actually Crispin. Perhaps Emma told him you had been looking for him?’

‘Yes, of course. Actually, that’s almost certainly it.’

‘Well, it’s a good job you didn’t tell the police he was missing,’ said Henry. ‘It sounds as if he’s just gone off somewhere, after all.’

We both thought about that for a bit, then Henry said: ‘OK. We have to assume he’s alive. But I still have no idea what happened on New Year’s Eve and I’d still like us to go and take a look at Didling Green as arranged.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Thank you, by the way, for that write-up in the
Sunday Times
. It’s a while since I’ve had a review there at all. I’m really grateful.’

‘My pleasure,’ said Henry.

‘I hadn’t realised you had read so many of my books,’ I said.

‘Life is full of surprises,’ he said.

‘But you genuinely liked them?’

‘You read the review.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

I paused to see if he would expand on this.

‘Thank you,’ I said eventually.

‘My pleasure,’ he repeated.

We got into the car.

It was raining again. I peered through the misty windscreen and checked the traffic in both directions before pulling onto Rookwood Road. My foot pressed down on the accelerator and we were soon out of West Wittering and on our way north to the Downs.

‘Why do you keep looking in the rear-view mirror?’ asked Henry. From his position in the passenger seat he couldn’t easily see the road behind. He half-turned, constricted by the seat belt, then slumped back again.

‘I was just checking whether anyone is following us,’ I said. ‘You remember that death threat?’

‘Of course. But it didn’t seem very serious. I’m not sure it even said specifically that you were to be killed.’

‘I suppose not. It was clearly intended just to frighten me off the case. But whoever it was knew that I was doing some detective work on your behalf. Look, Henry, I have to admit that, at the beginning, I was pretty sceptical that anything much had happened on New Year’s Eve. But I’m beginning to wonder if somebody is out there pulling our strings – sending us haring round the county for reasons that completely escape me – unless the person concerned
has
killed Crispin and is trying to pin it on you and to stop me discovering the truth. In which case that text from him is certainly a fake – just another deliberately planted red herring.’

‘But who would want to kill Crispin?’

‘Lots of people, I would think, many of them women. And we know he’s attacked me on the Internet, so probably there are other writers too who’ve been sockpuppeted by him. I knew he had a talent for annoying people, but I’m only just discovering how comprehensive it was. If this were an Agatha Christie novel, they’d probably all band together to commit the crime. In real life, it would take just one of them.’

‘And where do I fit in? Why am I the one to be fingered?’

‘You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps
you were both followed on New Year’s Eve. Somebody slipped something in your drink, then abducted Crispin while you were out of it, leaving Crispin dead and you with no recollection of the latter part of the evening other than a nagging feeling that something dreadful had happened.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Henry.

For the first time I got the impression that Henry thought I was onto something important. Except I wasn’t.

‘The problem is that it’s not terribly likely,’ I said.

‘No?’ said Henry. He had clearly rather liked the idea. I suppose the whole business of doping somebody to abduct their friend was one of his standard plot devices. The death threat too and the strange text message – he’d have used those. But even as I had spoken the words, I had realised how improbable it was that anything like that could have taken place. But then what had happened?

‘Or maybe the text
is
real and it’s all some bizarre game of Crispin’s,’ I said. ‘Agatha Christie’s disappearance was after some row with her husband. Maybe Crispin’s playing the same sort of game. He and Emma were not getting on well.’

Henry nodded thoughtfully, staring at the wet road ahead.

‘Emma throws him out and he tries to get one back at her,’ he said.

‘I think he just left her,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she threw him out.’

‘But maybe something like that,’ said Henry. ‘A faked disappearance for whatever reason.’

‘In which case,’ I said, ‘today’s trip is unlikely to yield much by way of evidence. Still, Didling Green is said to be the prettiest village in West Sussex, so our journey will not be wasted.’

‘Absolutely. And it’s possible that walking over the Downs will bring back all sorts of memories.’

‘Though it’s more likely we’ll just get soaking wet. I hope that Barbour of yours is waterproof.’

My smile was confident, but I still glanced again at the mirror. There was currently a large black Mercedes right on our tail. It stayed there all the way to the Chichester ring road, when it shot past us and vanished off into town. We went left at a more cautious pace and continued on our way to Didling Green and whatever evidence it might hold.

The track that rose steeply to the top of the Downs was no better than last time – if anything the rain had made it more softly glutinous and hidden the giant flints more cunningly. Once or twice the wheels spun alarmingly in the creamy mud and we almost ended up in a hedge. But we bounced and slid our way up to the small car park, where we got out and breathed in the cold, damp air that is peculiar to remote hillsides in the dead months. The winter landscape smelt of decay – black and bitter. The grass, long-since flattened by the wind and the frost, lay lifeless and still. The tree branches waved only half-heartedly, as if calling for help that would never come.

Henry stood in his Barbour, surveying the scene. The coat, I noticed, was too big for him. Perhaps when buying it he had forgotten his relatively modest size; or maybe he
simply liked to wear a roomy topcoat over multiple layers of clothing. Sherlock Holmes would doubtless have looked at it and made instant conclusions about his profession or his state of mind. But I am not a real detective. To me, he was simply a small writer wearing a large coat. I turned my attention to more important matters. My last trip here had been to hunt for dead bodies; this one was apparently to jog Henry’s memory.

‘Do you remember that area of woodland?’ I asked.

Henry shook his head. ‘I do remember the village,’ he said.

‘It’s on lots of postcards,’ I replied.

‘Yes, but I remember the green and the cottages on the far side. I also remember the row of council houses on the outskirts, which wouldn’t feature in most guidebooks. Even without the photograph of me in the pub, I’d be certain I’d been here before.’

‘It would have been pretty dark.’

‘There was a moon.’

I looked at the landscape, dark green and burnt ochre under a winter sky. It was, if nothing else, remarkably peaceful.

‘Look, Ethelred, would you mind terribly if I strangled you?’

‘Sorry?’ I said, emerging from my reverie and wondering if I had misheard.

Henry took out of his Barbour pocket a length of rope, holding it at about the height of my neck. Just for a moment the jacket seemed not ridiculously large but rather a practical and well-designed means of concealing a range of lethal weapons. Then Henry laughed. ‘This is the
rope I found in my car boot. If I really did use it up here, then perhaps re-enacting things might help me recall what happened …’

I took the rope from him and examined it. It was about as thick as my little finger, originally white with a blue fleck, but now grubby and bleached by the sun – the sort of thing you might find washed up on the beach. I grasped it firmly in both hands and gave it a tug. It was old but still strong enough. Even so, the idea of Henry strangling somebody up here on New Year’s Eve was ridiculous.

‘You could try it on your own neck if you’re that interested,’ I said, handing it back.

‘That clearly would not have been what I did.’

I sighed and allowed Henry to wander round behind me, gathering up the rope in his hands as he did so.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘if I creep up behind you like this and give the rope a double twist …’

The rope was cold and slightly damp round my neck. I felt it rasp against my skin as he pulled the ends. I could scarcely breathe. The rope tightened again. Of course, if I resisted now, I had little doubt I could overcome Henry, but could I still do so in another thirty or forty seconds? How long until I passed out? I’d told him he could do it. Was I going to die because I felt that it would now be impolite to ask him to stop?

‘Don’t worry,’ I heard him say behind me, ‘I’m not going to pull it really tight …’

Actually it already seemed tight enough. It occurred to me that my face must be turning an interesting shade of red. I doubted that I could speak even if I wanted to. It
struck me that Henry had more strength than I had given him credit for. Of course, he was twenty years younger than I was. Then at last I felt the rope slacken and slip from my throat.

I suddenly realised how relieved I was. It was a lonely spot. Today even the woman with her dog was absent. Nobody would have heard my final frantic call for help.

‘Did that assist in some way?’ I asked, rubbing my neck gently.

Improbably Henry said: ‘Yes. It did. Thank you very much.’

‘And you recalled doing it before?’

‘Quite the reverse. If I murdered somebody, it wasn’t standing here.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘What now?’ I asked. I hadn’t hoped for much from the trip, but I had hoped for more than this: a bit of pointless play-acting. I waited for him to do something else with the rope – make it vanish up his sleeve, say. But his attempt to strangle me was the only trick he had.

‘Perhaps I should have a stroll round,’ he said. ‘Which bits of the wood did you check before?’

‘There and there …’ I indicated two broad areas with a wave of my hand.

‘Fine – I’ll take a look along that path there if you would very kindly check around those holly bushes.’ But, as I approached the bushes, Henry changed his mind and sent me off to inspect a more promising patch of brambles. All in all, we spent a fruitless half-hour poking into the vegetation, with several abrupt changes
of strategy on Henry’s part. Had I been expecting to find anything, I might have objected to the randomness of his approach, but it was always clear to me that this was going to be a waste of time. By the end of it, we were both wet and muddy and one of us was distinctly fed up. Only the memory of that review kept me from terminating the search much earlier. Henry finally seemed satisfied, but I had no idea what we had achieved today that I had not accomplished earlier.

Henry had thoughtfully removed his Barbour and flung it into the boot of my car to stop it soiling the seats. I kept mine on as I climbed into the car by his side. A bit of mud would brush off. My Volvo descended the hill with due caution and no alarms.

Henry declined my suggestion that we should visit the pub in the village. He said that the photograph was enough proof that he had been there. I looked at the warm, yellow glow shining through the leaded windows on a grey world outside and sighed inwardly. Then we set off again on the long drive home.

The feeling that it had indeed been a completely wasted day was reinforced by Henry’s abrupt farewell as we reached my house.

‘Thanks, Ethelred,’ he said, opening the passenger door. ‘I owe you one.’

I watched him sprint over to his Jaguar as if expecting imminent sniper fire from the bushes of April Cottage. He was driving away within thirty seconds or so of our return.

I got out of my own car and walked slowly over to the
house in the cold drizzle. I unlocked the door. There was no post on the mat and there were no messages for me on the answerphone.