Life Goes On (28 page)

‘I've never heard of such a thing.'

‘Neither had I. But Blaskin – so he told me later – regretted not being able to control his actions, and he slipped his waistcoat off with the excuse that it was hot under the lights, and after a few more minutes he got her blouse off, both of them mumbling away about where a writer finds his ideas and discussing in an otherwise perfectly normal way how he lets politics in the twentieth century influence his work. The TV crews were fascinated by that – as Blaskin and Marylin slithered onto the medium piled carpet. Blaskin's hand went up her clothes and fumbled at her tights with a look of beatific malevolence as he told her about his horrible childhood at boarding school and the poems he wrote when he was seventeen on the Spanish Civil War.'

‘You're joking.'

‘I'm certainly not. It's as true as I'm sitting here. She unzipped his flies with salacious speed, while questioning him in deadly earnest about his first book called
Walking Wounded in Eritrea
. They kissed passionately, and went on about society and the writer, till his trousers came off at the mention of Suez. He said that for a writer reality is a prison and that you should live only in order to rub your nose in the delectable cunt of reality. He threw her tights in the air, saying he couldn't be a communist, but left that sort of thing to the Russians and those leftwingers who ought to know better. Her tights landed across a camera lens, and one of the quick-witted crew snatched them off and stuffed them in his mouth for a souvenir, so that they hung out of his mouth as if he'd swallowed an overdose of textile spaghetti.'

‘It's disgusting,' Alice said.

‘Maybe it is, but Marylin's legs opened as she mentioned the Two Cultures, and Blaskin said there was nothing like a bad novel to set you questioning the purpose of the novel, and then he got it in as he mentioned Flaubert's syphilis and hoped Marylin's husband Charles wasn't looking at the telly that night. “No,” she said, “no, he's shooting grouse, and do you write with pen and ink or on the typewriter?” and he said, “Yes, of course, because all art is the product of an obsessively robust selfishness.” Marylin unhooked her bra so that he could get at her delicious girlish tits, and told him that he should stick to the point and only answer questions that were put in good faith, at which some of the crew cheered while others nodded in agreement. With a hand under her arse and her hands around his, which were pitted with old shrapnel scars from an Italian fieldgun, she asked about the reviewers and at his devastating response she came, and moaned so that somebody put the mike closer as if she was about to phrase her final question. It was a useless gesture because Gilbert shouted that if God existed the novelist should be shot and, being as far into her as he could get, praised the Lord and passed the ammunition.

‘The producer realised he had something priceless in the can, and cut at that point, having decided to tack the end credits over stormy waves beating on the seashore. It really made good television and letters from Birmingham pleading for more such programmes ran into thousands. The switchboards were blocked for days. It was submitted for the Italia prize and they even thought it'd get a Ramrod from Hollywood.'

She was breathing heavily. ‘I didn't see it.'

‘Neither did I, but with Blaskin, anything's possible. It is with me, as well, and I only say so because I sincerely believe that everything's possible with you. But I'm sorry if I stopped you reading your book. I'm sure it's much better than my idle chatter.'

She pushed my hand from the top of her thigh, but still held two fingers. I didn't know whether that was because she thought I might continue my attempt to get them into her, or because she was prudishly affectionate. ‘Perhaps it's safer if I get back to my book.'

‘I wish you two lovebirds would stop billing and cooing,' Moggerhanger called out, ‘so that I can get some sleep. We'll be there in an hour.'

Fifteen

Spleen Manor was a house, Moggerhanger said, in which you could fart without the windows rattling, or without somebody down the lane on his way to church turning away in horror at the unmistakable sound.

From a B road I went down a paved lane to a narrow bridge over a stream, and halfway up a hill turned left into the grounds. The first glimpse, through bushes and across the garden, was of a longish dwelling of two storeys, with lights glowing from the downstairs windows.

I carried in five suitcases for Moggerhanger's overnight needs, then mine and Alice's. Three of the chief's were so heavy they must have contained a thousand sovereigns apiece, or their equivalent in bullion, suggesting that he was to pay someone off for a very expensive job. The ceiling in the hallway looked low enough to bump your head on if you didn't duck because the beams, quite ordinary in their arrangement, had a motif of grey arrowheads painted in between, which gave the impression that the beams were closer to your skull than they otherwise were. Even Moggerhanger ducked, and he was used to the place.

The rooms were fairly well proportioned, as Blaskin might have said, and the house was quite large. Moggerhanger sniffed at the smell of cooking from the hall and said he was ready for his dinner. He wasn't the only one, but he told Matthew Coppice to show us to our rooms and said that we were to come down in half an hour.

A corridor along the second floor connected the five bedrooms. At one end, where the staircase came up from the ground floor, was Moggerhanger's quarters, because I saw Coppice taking his luggage in. He was well placed to hear anyone who might be tempted (me, for instance) into going down in the middle of the night to look through the house and see what I could learn. No matter how light the footfall, the floorboards creaked so that even someone in bed across the valley would stir in his sleep. Moggerhanger might even hear my lecherous thoughts meandering into Alice Whipplegate's room which, I was glad to see, was next to mine.

My own cell had no, lock to the door, and I hoped it was the same with hers. I should have known better than to have nothing in my mind but sex, because the reason I'd locked myself into the cogs of Moggerhanger's big wheel was to find out as much as possible for Bill Straw so that he would be more able to protect himself when it was decided to round him up. An equally important reason was that such information might help me to get even with Moggerhanger for having put me behind bars ten years ago. My aim was a mixture of public duty and private revenge, which told me that I ought not to let lechery interfere with my actions. That kind of itch could well be left to Blaskin, who often only indulged in it to flesh out the characters in his books. Thinking rarely did me any good, especially the sort that put me off trying to go to bed with Alice Whipplegate, when to become intimate with her might be the only way of learning something about Moggerhanger which I couldn't come across in any other way.

Putting on a clean shirt and a different tie in the bathroom, I noticed another of Moggerhanger's framed quips on the wall saying: ‘Look before you speak.' He must have had Polly working in a regular little sweatshop. I expect she posted one a week back from Switzerland when she was eighteen.

Matthew Coppice had laid a buffet-style meal on a round mahogany table in the middle of the dining room. There was a dish of boiled potatoes, a flank of roast meat, a bowl of salad, a basket of sliced bread, a board of cheeses and a cluster of plastic-looking grapes. Four bottles of Italian red stood on sentry-go at various points. Moggerhanger's oval platter was already laden and he sat at a separate table with his own bottle of champagne, talking to someone who had not come up in the car with us.

Since reacquainting myself with Moggerhanger I decided that when I had enough evidence to get him sentenced to everything short of hanging I would go to the police station with my locked briefcase, to which only I had the combination, and spread the papers out on the large table in the interview room. ‘Would you do me the favour of looking these over? It'll take a while, but I'll just sit down and have a smoke, if you don't mind.' Every few moments I would hear exclamations of shock and indignation from the honest constables and their officers. Eventually the inspector would say: ‘We get the drift, Mr Cullen. Leave the stuff with us and think no more about it. There's enough here to send even an archbishop down. We've been waiting for stuff like this for years.'

You can imagine my chagrin, which included a twinge of despair, when I realised that the man talking to Moggerhanger at their separate table was none other than Chief Inspector Jack Lanthorn, one of the cops who was so bent he could get through the maze at Hampton Court in one minute flat. I knew now that the police raid on Peppercorn Cottage hadn't been carried out by a RADA acting class, but had been done by real coppers giving Moggerhanger a hand on instructions from Lanthorn. And the inspector had come up incognito to Spleen Manor to collect payment for services willingly given. I hoped he'd retire in a couple of years to Jersey, which might make it easier for me to sink the boots of retribution into Moggerhanger's backbone. His long thin face and pinpoint grey eyes beamed at me. ‘Haven't I seen you somewhere before, lad?'

I did not like his disrespectful way of addressing me, and looked stonily back saying: ‘You arrested me at London Airport for gold smuggling twelve years ago.'

He turned to Moggerhanger. ‘I thought you had enough old lags on your staff, without having to take on a young one.'

‘Here's somebody who doesn't intend to be an old one.' I resolved from then on to bring that bastard crashing down as well if I could. ‘I don't live at Number One Kangaroo Court anymore, not in the Garden Flat, anyway.'

Moggerhanger laughed. ‘Steady on, Michael. None of us do – or will.'

Lanthorn thought me too small to worry about. Perhaps I shouldn't have spoken. I was usually able to uphold my standard of being the quiet sort, except where women were concerned, but here I had slipped up, because I should have denied being who I was when Lanthorn recognised me. That was the expected response, so that he could have chuckled inwardly, both at having spotted me and made me lie. Maybe there were some lies I was getting too old to tell. He forked red meat into his cavernous gob, then slopped half a glass of red Polly after it. ‘None of us knows what the future holds.'

‘That's why we're here tonight,' Moggerhanger said. They were two crocodiles in the pool together.

‘Among other things, Claud.'

I loaded my plate. The radiators along the walls gave off a faint warmth, but Moggerhanger called: ‘I expected to see a fire in the grate, Matthew.'

Coppice stood by the door looking into space, a man in his late forties, with a pink face that would have seemed well fed if it hadn't had an expression of worry stamped indelibly on it. The lines must have been there from birth, or from when he first went to prep school at six. Wavy grey hair was spread thinly over his skull. He wore flannels and sports jacket and heavy, highly polished shoes. A cravat decorated the spread of his Viyella shirt instead of a tie. He stank of whisky, and shook himself out of his vacant stare, saying with no tone of apology: ‘I thought the place was warm enough.'

‘I know what you thought,' said Moggerhanger. ‘I can usually tell a mile off what somebody like you is thinking. You didn't want to get your hands dirty, right?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Well, we all know that you can't make a fire without getting your hands dirty, but that shouldn't put you off when you know very well I like to see a bit of fire in the grate. It might not matter down south, but in Yorkshire it cheers me up. If you can't do better than that you'll find yourself back in Peppercorn Cottage. It's a good dinner, though, I will say that.'

Lanthorn walked to the window and pulled a corner of the curtain to look out. ‘Throwing it down with rain. What a goddamn fucking hole Yorkshire is.'

‘Steady on,' Moggerhanger said. ‘It's no worse than any other, Jack.'

‘I was born not twenty miles away. Thank God I got out of it at fourteen.'

‘Stop worrying. He'll be here in the morning. Come and get some more of this lovely grub.'

Lanthorn took his advice and advanced on it, and plied with his knife and fork as if the meat was helping him with his enquiries.

‘And I also noticed,' Moggerhanger said to Coppice, ‘that my bed was made. Quite an advance on last time. Do you remember, when you served half-cooked pizza and a bucket of Algerian jollop?'

Several expressions passed over Matthew Coppice's phizzog which our self-opinionated boss didn't catch. If he had, he would have been careful from then on with his apparently humble servant. All the same, I felt sorry for Coppice and wondered why he didn't walk out. Instead, he took a cigarette from his case and lit up with trembling fingers, then came to the table and poured a glass of wine.

Moggerhanger pulled a bundle of papers from his pocket and passed them to Lanthorn. ‘The only thing to do is do it, Jack.'

‘I'm not so sure whether I dare,' Lanthorn said. ‘Or care to, if it comes to that.'

‘It's a matter of options.' Moggerhanger filled their glasses. ‘And how many of those do we have, these days?'

Lanthorn said something I couldn't hear, so I sat closer to Alice. ‘I hope you realise I was serious about what I said to you in the car.'

She had changed into a skirt and blouse and freshened herself with new perfume. ‘I only remember the amusing parts.'

‘Maybe you already have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. I'm not old fashioned. Or maybe you have a husband, though as soon as I saw you I thought you looked too happy for that.'

‘I do like my commons, Claud,' I heard Lanthorn boom out. ‘I smoke all I want, and eat red meat, and drink what I can hold. I don't put weight on, either. I think it's those vegetarians, non-smokers and mad dieters who are responsible for the country being in a decline. They've got no bloody drive or energy. If you can't consume, what incentive have you got to produce?'