Pictures of Perfection (9 page)

‘And just what was this sin?’ persisted Wield.

Digweed laughed his superior laugh and said, ‘That’s where you could really impress with your detective skills. You see, no one has yet been able to find out. Sniff it out, Sergeant, sniff it out!’

I’d rather sniff out one of Dora’s pies, thought Wield, his nose twitching at the delicious smells wafting from the café.

But duty called.

‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ he said to Digweed. ‘Thank you for your help.’

And hoping, though doubting, that his courtesy might give the bookseller a brief frisson of shame, he headed for the Eendale Gallery.

‘Our Improvements have advanced very well.’

In England, before the Great War destroyed the eternal verities, for a noble family to stop ‘improving’ their country seat was pretty clear evidence of financial difficulties.

In the years since, however, it has been the arrival of the contractors which has signalled trouble, for no longer are ‘improvements’ made in the name of beauty, taste or even convenience, they are offerings on the altar of commerce.

Such thoughts ran through Peter Pascoe’s mind as he negotiated the driveway up to Old Hall and came to a halt on a building site.

It was not a particularly large building site but typical of the genus in that order was minimal and activity non-existent. The work seemed centred on a building separate from the main house and he guessed this was the stable block which was going to house the Holistic Health practitioners.

Like many men who see the clouds of middle age on the horizon, Pascoe’s scientific scepticism about alternative medicine cloaked a superstitious hope that some astounding revelation would blow the clouds back before it was too late. So it was with
the reverence of a man entering a church that he pushed open the stable door.

The smell that met him was just about right for a man in search of a quasi-religious experience. Thuriferously spicy, malty and leafy, it seemed to emanate from a column of smoke. A burning bush perhaps. If so, it should speak.

It spoke. A warbling bird-like note, once repeated. Then a female voice. God after all was a woman.

‘Yes, this is Girlie Guillemard. No, I do not see the point of checking again, but I shall do so. Wait.’

Out of the smoke emerged a woman. Her tangle of ochrous hair was restrained by a fillet of baling twine. She wore a moulting brocaded waistcoat over a once elegant silk blouse tucked into a pair of overlarge jeans whose rolled-down waist underpinned her heavy breasts and whose rolled-up legs overhung a pair of wellingtons, one green and one black. Her face was round, her eyes were grey, her nose was snub, her mouth too large, allowing plenty of room for both the meerschaum which was the source of the smoke, and the mobile telephone into which she was speaking. She was incredibly attractive.

At sight of Pascoe she halted and said, ‘You from Wallop?’ Or perhaps it was ‘You for wallop?’, meaning some startling new therapy. But Pascoe knew he was fantasizing, having glimpsed the sign proclaiming that the mess outside was the responsibility of Philip Wallop (Contractor) Ltd.

He said, ‘No.’

‘Is there anyone out there?’ she asked.

Assuming the question was neither theological nor thespian, he shook his head.

‘There is no one here,’ she bellowed into the phone. ‘And as it is now past the hour when Mr Wallop’s employees start packing up when they are here, I doubt if anyone’s coming today, wouldn’t you agree? So just tell Mr Wallop this when he finally emerges from his box of Transylvanian earth. Tomorrow lunch-time the whole village will be turning up here for my grandfather’s annual Reckoning Feast, and if the area in front of the house isn’t clean as a new penny by then, a new penny is a bloody sight more than Mr sodding Wallop will get out of me. Got that, dearie? Goodbye!’

She switched the phone off and said, ‘Right. Now who the hell are you? And what do you want?’

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Peter Pascoe,’ he said winningly. ‘And I’d like to talk to you.’

‘Why? You found some little regulation I’m breaking?’

‘Not my line, believe me,’ he said. ‘No, it’s nothing to do with the Health Park.’

‘In that case what you want is the Squire,’ she said, setting off at a rapid pace through the door and across the building site towards the main entrance of the house.

Breathlessly, Pascoe pursued her up some steps and through an imposing door into a sort of baronial hall. Compared to the acreage across which Errol Flynn swash-buckled with Basil Rathbone,
this was small beer. Nevertheless, armed with one of the weapons festooning the wall and encouraged by the Korngold soundtrack his fertile imagination was conjuring up, Pascoe felt he could have buckled a fair swash in defence of Girlie Guillemard’s honour.

Then the music swelled again and he realized he was confusing cause and effect. No ditty of no tone this, but a tape of virtuoso ’cello being played in a minstrels’ gallery at the far end of the hall.

The volume faded again to be overlaid by a human voice chanting words roughly in time with the music.

           
‘Then up spake Solomon Guillemard

           
A gradely man was he,

           
“These nuns ye seek ha’ ta’en their wealth

           
And fled across the sea.

           
I serve the king, the king serves God,

           
The Church served God and king” …’

‘Grandfather!’ bellowed Girlie.

The voice and music died together and slowly a figure arose in the gallery. It was an old man cloaked in a velvet curtain and made taller by a moth-eaten Cossack hat.

‘Who calls so loud? Can you not see I am in the throes of composition?’

‘Tough tittie,’ said his granddaughter. ‘An inspector calls. You could be in trouble or a play. I’ll put him in the study.’

She was off again, a hard woman to keep up with but well worth the effort, Pascoe assured himself, puffing.

The study was an octagonal room, presumably fitting into one of the castellated towers (a nineteenth-century improvement?) flanking the Hall. It had the kind of wainscoting an extended family of mice could happily colonize and, from the holes at floor level, probably had. There were rows of dusty bookshelves but very few books, a rocking-chair minus one rocker, a chesterfield which looked as inviting as a basking alligator, and where one might have expected to see a handsome old desk stood a rather battered kitchen table.

Pascoe touched its rough surface. It must have come across as a comment for Girlie said, ‘Sorry it’s so Spartan but we had to realize a few assets. Banks are not so free with their money as once they were, not unless you’re a Third World dictator or a crook in the City. The Squire should be along shortly. If not, just bellow. He sometimes gets sidetracked.’

‘Me too,’ said Pascoe as she made for the door. ‘Look, couldn’t I just ask you a couple of questions, please. I’m looking for a policeman.’

‘Thought you were a policeman,’ she said.

‘Constable Bendish. Your local bobby. That’s who I want.’

‘Oh, him. Cheeky sod. Once asked me for a sample of my mix for analysis.’

Pascoe, who had wondered himself about the possible presence of some illicit substance in the
pipe, flushed gently and said, ‘It is certainly rather exotic.’

‘Herbal. I’m trying to wean myself off nicotine. Trouble is, I’m even more addicted to this stuff now. So you’ve lost Childe Harold?’

‘I thought he was known as Dirty Harry?’

‘That’s down in the Morris. Up here, as you’ve probably gathered, we’re more into balladry.’

Was he being sidetracked again?

Pascoe said, ‘Yes. What exactly is that all about?’

‘Senility. It’s our vices keep us going. You get too decrepit for the old ones, you’ve got to fill the gap with something new. Usually it’s slanderous gossip or avarice. With the Squire it’s a bad attack of History. The Guillemards are mentioned in one of the old northern ballads. Now the Squire’s got it into his head to compose a whole ballad history of the family. Worse, he likes to give public performances. The WI got two hundred stanzas before Mrs Hogbin had one of her turns. Fifty people rushed out to find a doctor. Two returned.’

‘That must have nipped his public career in the bud.’

‘No way. Round here you don’t reject the Squire so lightly. He’s got firm bookings for the Local History Society and the WEA creative writing group. He’d have been on
North Light
by now if that turd Halavant didn’t run it. Here he comes. Ask him to give you a sample if you have an hour to spare! ’Bye!’

She was gone. Through the door came the
Squire, now curtainless and hatless, these props (if props they were) resting in the arms of a young woman who hovered obscurely in the doorway, not quite in or out.

Even without the ermine extension, the Squire was a good six foot six, and he bore himself like a guardsman. Age had creased his face like a cotton jacket after a long journey, but though his gait was laboured, his eyes showed no sign yet of being ready for the terminus.

‘You are the police inspector?’ he said magisterially. ‘How is it that such tyros bear such titles?’

He seemed to be addressing his question to someone situated where second slip would have been on a cricket field.

‘Detective Chief Inspector, actually,’ said Pascoe.

The gaze adjusted to take him in.

‘Just so. You have come about the unspeakable Bendish?’

‘That’s right,’ said Pascoe, marvelling again at Enscombian prescience.

‘Not before time. It is several weeks since I wrote to Tommy Winter.’

‘Tommy … You mean Mr Winter who used to be Chief Constable?’

‘Used to be?’ The eyes bored into him like a jeweller’s drill.

‘Yes, sir. He retired some while back. We have a new chief now. Mr Trimble. But he should have got your letter …’

‘Why so? I marked it personal. You did not tell me of this Trimble.’

This was directed at the slip fielder again. Pascoe decided it was best not to let himself be tempted to flash his bat at any deliveries swinging past him in that direction.

He said, ‘In that case, sir, it would probably be forwarded to Mr Winter in Barbados where he’s retired to. Could I ask you, sir, what it was you wanted to consult Mr Winter about?’

The eyes fixed him doubtfully, wandered to second slip questioningly.

The woman, who was so unobtrusive Pascoe had forgotten her, said, ‘Shall I order some tea, Uncle?’

She offered the suggestion meekly, almost inaudibly, but it recalled the Squire to his hostly duties.

‘Of course, my dear. Chief Inspector, do sit down.’

Pascoe declined heavily on to the chesterfield and wished he hadn’t. The leather upholstery seemed to have been moulded by generations of men with more than the usual number of buttocks into something like a relief map of Cumberland.

The woman had slipped out, leaving Pascoe with no impression other than that she was small and slight. This, he guessed, was Franny Harding, the poor relation, a guess confirmed when the Squire, balancing his length precariously on the deficient rocker, said, ‘Don’t know what we’d do without
Fran. Always there when you need her. And she eats next to nothing, you know.’

Ignoring this tantalizing glimpse into the domestic economy of the upper classes, Pascoe, deciding that in this case ambiguity was the worse part of discretion, said bluntly, ‘Constable Bendish may have gone missing, sir.’

‘And you’ve come to spread the good news? That’s what I call service.’

Was he for real? wondered Pascoe.

He said, ‘So could you please tell me why you wrote to Mr Winter. What had Bendish done? Booked you for speeding, something like that?’

‘Speeding? What’s the fellow talking about?’ (This to the slip.) ‘I haven’t sped for twenty years or more. Anyway that’s what you people get paid for, isn’t it? Booking chaps for speeding, that sort of thing. Sneaky kind of work, I give you that. But it’s in your job description, and I wouldn’t whinge about a fellow doing what he gets paid for. But
striking
, that’s something else. Conduct unbecoming, get my drift?’

‘Striking?’ said Pascoe, a whole new area of explanation for Bendish’s absence opening up. ‘You mean Bendish went on strike? He wasn’t doing his job?’

‘Of course he was doing his job. Is the fellow braindead or what?’ (To the slip.) ‘Look here, I’m not complaining about the fellow’s work. Zealous he was, by all accounts. But this other business. Striking. Not the thing, you know. But a delicate
matter, with ladies in the house. So I thought, a word in Winter’s ear. Barbados, did you say? Thought only crooks made enough to retire to Barbados. Have you checked your pension fund?’

‘This
striking
, sir,’ said Pascoe, determined not to be diverted again. ‘Are you sure you’ve got it right …?’

‘That’s what they call it on
Test Match Special
. Seem to think it’s a bit of fun, but I don’t know. Had none of it when I was a yonker. Not so bad when it’s a girl, I suppose, but more often than not it’s a fellow. And what happens if they harm the wicket, eh?’

‘
Streaking
,’ said Pascoe. ‘You mean streaking.’

‘That’s the chap.’

‘And you say that Constable Bendish is a streaker?’

‘Certainly. Saw him myself. There I was in the conservatory potting my pelargoniums, and I looked up, and there he was, running along the wall around the walled garden, naked as the day he was born.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Pascoe. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Couldn’t be surer. Hung like a bull, he was. Prize bull at that.’

‘This walled garden, could I take a look?’

‘Sorry, it’s a bit inconvenient at the moment. Lost the key after old Hogbin had his stroke. Not much to see so early in the year anyway. You interested in gardening? Young men should have an interest. Old men too. Mine’s family history.
Did you know I was working on a ballad chronicle of the Guillemards? Perhaps he’d care for a few stanzas?’

The question was addressed to slip, but this time Pascoe, scenting danger, flashed his bat in an attempt at interception.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have much time …’

‘In a hurry? Quite understand. I’m very busy myself. Fran, you there?’

The young woman was, standing in the doorway with a tea tray in her hands.

‘The Inspector hasn’t got time for tea after all. Leave the tray here, my dear, and show him out. Good day to you, Inspector. Give my regards to Tommy Winter.’

And Pascoe found himself being steered out of the room with the uncomfortable feeling that by concentrating so hard on the outswinger, he had allowed himself to be comprehensively yorked.