Pratt a Manger (37 page)

‘No. I had a closed mind. Bradley, I won’t go public yet, I … I just don’t feel certain enough to do that, but I’ll promise you this … I’ll investigate. I’ll investigate thoroughly. I haven’t investigated at all. I should have. If I’m wrong, Bradley, you’ll get the most handsome apology a man could ask for. Oh God. Oh shit, if you’ll pardon the expression, it
isn’t
you, is it?’

‘No, Henry. It isn’t.’

‘Oh dear. When this comes out …’ Henry shook his head gloomily. ‘Already I feel as if I’m a sinking ship.’

‘You mean rats are leaving you?’

‘Yes. Another one today. Production of my monogrammed tableware is being discontinued. Oh, they
didn’t
say, “We think you’re on a slippery slope and we’re abandoning you before it’s too late.” They said, “Unfortunately, the rise and rise of Harry Potter means that it is no longer viable to base a design on the letters HP. The range has done very well and we are hopeful that we will be able to work together again some time in the future.” ’

‘Welcome,’ said Bradley Tompkins, ‘to the wonderful world of obscurity.’

‘Are we on for a third glass?’ asked Henry.

‘Sounds rather a nice proposition to me.’

When their new glasses arrived, Bradley raised his to Henry, with a wry expression on his face.

‘There’s good news and bad news,’ he said. ‘The good news is, we will appear on television again. The bad news is, the programme will be called
Where Are They Now?
’

18 On the Trail

TWO DAYS LATER,
after the Saturday evening rush in the Café had ended, Henry and Hilary drove along increasingly deserted roads to Grayling-Under-Witchwood, to spend all of Sunday and most of Monday in a time warp, steeped in idleness. It was to be the calm before the storm.

Late on the Sunday afternoon the calm was rudely broken.

They’d just finished a game of Scrabble. They often had a game of Scrabble on Sunday afternoon, in the elegant sitting room of The Old Manor House. Henry had beaten Hilary by three hundred and sixty-eight points to three hundred and forty-seven.

The phone had a pleasant ring to it. It was gentle and mellow. It didn’t sound like a harbinger of bad news.

Henry answered it. Hilary, listening to just one end of the conversation, found it distinctly unnerving.

‘Hello … Hello, Jack.’

He sounded pleased. No worries so far.

‘No, we don’t bother with the papers when we’re here … What??? … Naked??’

Hilary began to feel slightly worried.

‘Urinating??’

Hilary began to feel rather more worried.

‘Good God! … It said what?? … Bloody hell!’

There was a long pause while Henry listened, grim-faced. Hilary wasn’t enjoying it one bit.

‘I see. Well, they’re certainly going to town, aren’t they? It’s Open Season for Shooting at Henry Pratt. I’m flavour of the month for not being flavour of the month … Jack, I didn’t! … I didn’t … It’s a set up. You can do anything digitally these days. You can’t trust any photos any more. Mohammed told me. He didn’t know how prophetic he was being. It probably isn’t even my penis.’

What? What is all this? Get off the phone. Tell me.

‘Well of course I’m upset … No, not with you, Jack … No, of course you had to tell us.’

Us? I haven’t heard a thing yet.

‘No, of course you haven’t spoilt my Sunday. Well, you have, but you had to … Don’t apologise. How are things? … A hundred and forty-eight days behind schedule. That’s terrific …’

Never mind the small talk. Not now. Get off the phone.

‘Kids OK? … Great. Flick OK? … Great. Look, I’ll have to go, Jack. Hilary’s bursting to know what this is about.’

Bursting isn’t the word I’d choose. Terrified, more like.

‘Bye. I love you too.’

I?
What about
me
?

‘Oh, and Hilary’s making frantic signs. She sends her love too … Bye … Yes. Bye … Bye.’

At last he put the phone down. He gave Hilary an intense look.

‘Jack says there’s a photo of me in the
Sunday Grime
,’ he said. ‘I’m standing on a restaurant table. I’m stark bollock naked. I’m peeing into a wine bottle. There are people round the table, laughing, men
and
women, and
I’m
holding up a board which says “Cock au vin”. That’s cock with a k.’

‘Henry!’

‘I didn’t do it. It’s a fake.’

‘Are you sure? Absolutely sure? When you were drunk once?’

‘I don’t get drunk like that.’

‘You did the night you were on the snooker table with Helen.’

‘That was a one-off. And it was years ago. I don’t do things like that any more. All right, I drink too much sometimes, but I do it in a civilised way, and I can hold it. I’ve never stood on a table naked. I’ve never peed into a wine bottle. I’ve never held up a board which says “Cock au vin” with a k. I haven’t.’

‘All right, darling. I believe you.’

‘Are you sure you do, absolutely and totally? You see, this is what they rely on. That mud sticks. There’s no smoke without a fire. I can hear them all saying it. Fickle bastards. It says “Is this the kind of behaviour we want from the People’s Chef – the holier than thou chef who never swears?” ’

‘Somebody’s really gunning for you.’

‘I know. Oh God. There’s also a photo of that photo in the Gents at the Café, with my head and the body of Michelangelo’s David. Bradley could have done that.’

‘The cock au vin, though. The thought for that could have come from the painting in our hall.’

‘Bloody hell. So it looks as if it’s someone who’s been to our house.’

‘Almost everyone’s been to our house.’

‘But not Bradley.’

‘No, not Bradley.’

‘Oh God. I want it to be Bradley.’

‘This probably isn’t the time to mention it,’ said Hilary, ‘but I do hate that painting. I mean, who else would have a picture of a portion of coq au vin in his hall?’

‘Exactly. That’s why I like it,’ said Henry.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

‘This can’t go on,’ said Hilary. ‘You’ve got to stop it or it’ll get worse. You’ve got to get off your arse and do a bit of detection.’

‘I will. As soon as we get home. I’ll start with the two farms. They have to be at the heart of it.’

On Tuesday, 22 April, 2003, thousands of commuters returning to London after the Easter break found chaos because ‘a fresh breeze’ had delayed signal repairs, and Paddington Station had remained closed; Cherie Blair defended the invasion of Iraq as acceptable under international law during a speech in Perth, Western Australia; and Henry went into the Sussex countryside with his beloved daughter, Kate.

As they drove to Martin Wildblood Farms, Organic is Their Middle Name, the conversation inevitably got round to Kate’s love life, or the lack of it.

‘So?’ asked Henry, after they had at last left the shabby, congested streets of South London behind and were travelling through the rich, rolling countryside of East Sussex, studded with magnolias and camellias and the pink and white blossoms of cherry and apple trees at this most beautiful time of the year.

‘No,’ replied Kate.

That was the beauty of their relationship. They understood each other so well.

‘But not because I’ve ruled it out,’ she added. ‘I did think about what you’d said.’

‘So?’ he asked again, but with a completely different meaning. Again Kate understood.

‘I just haven’t met the right person. I haven’t met anyone good enough for me.’

Henry winced and smiled at the same time.

‘I’ve shocked you.’

‘A bit. I’d be more comfortable with me saying it, as befits a proud parent with a marvellous daughter. It did perhaps sound a trifle arrogant coming from you.’

He turned off the main road on to the side road that would lead to the farm. His spirits usually soared when he left main roads. Today, though, he felt only a sharp increase in tension.

‘I didn’t mean it in an arrogant way,’ said Kate. ‘I just meant that there isn’t a vast gap in my life, I’m not lonely or pathetic, I don’t feel unfulfilled, so I wouldn’t want to share my life with anybody who wasn’t pretty special.’

‘What about actors? You must meet plenty of them.’

‘Actors tend to be specially pretty rather than pretty special.’

They wound through a long, unpretentious village, pretty houses among plainer ones, council houses at both ends.

‘But, yes, Dad,’ said Kate, ‘I would like to give and receive love. I remember sex with a nostalgic glow. Only … don’t hold your breath. Your daughter is fussy.’

Henry turned into the drive leading to the farm.

‘Is this the place?’ said Kate. ‘It’s lovely.’

When they got out of the car, Henry went up to Kate and kissed her on both cheeks.

‘Very continental,’ he said, ‘and talking about continental, I see the point of what you say, but I just wouldn’t want you to be left on the shelf.’

Kate gave him a dry, exasperated look, and he felt obliged to explain like a second-rate comic.

‘Continental shelf? Get it?’

‘Oh, I got it,’ she said. ‘Good old Dad with his jokes – but I just have a fear that it was a warning dressed up as a joke. It’s a disastrously chauvinist expression – “on the shelf”. Missed the great experience of a man’s love. I certainly don’t feel like that.’

Henry didn’t reply. He didn’t feel the need to. They had reached the front door of the mellow old farmhouse. There was nothing more to be said. He had made his point, Kate had seen through him, and he had been reassured – to a certain extent, at least. At times he almost wished that he didn’t love Kate so much. Caring deeply was hard work.

At the last moment he remembered that Marie and Martin didn’t use the front door. They went round the side.

Marie broke into a smile when she saw who it was. So she did find him cuddly!

‘This is my daughter, Kate,’ he said, trying to hide his pride, knowing that it would irritate Kate if he showed her off as if she was a prized possession.

‘Lovely,’ said Marie.

Henry explained that he wanted to make further enquiries. Marie made them mugs of steaming coffee, and fetched their man, Colin, who had returned from Madeira. His face was tanned. His manner was apologetic.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘All it was was, a man rang, and said he wanted to play a practical joke on a chum, and would I just make myself scarce for a couple of hours on Saturday morning. Two hundred quid. A hundred an hour for doing sod all. I didn’t think there was any harm in it.’

‘Of course not. Did you ever see this person?’

‘No. Just heard his voice. He left the money as arranged, and I thought no more about it.’

‘Was there anything you can usefully say about his voice? Can you describe it?’

‘I
have
thought of one thing,’ said Colin, ‘because I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot. I’ve sort of tried to play the voice back, in my mind, and one thing struck me, though in a way it tells you nothing. The person who phoned me – I don’t think they were using their own voice. I can hear it now. It was careful, it wasn’t natural, and it was rather odd: high-pitched.’

‘So he must have thought you’d recognise his real voice,’ said Kate. ‘That narrows it down.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Colin. ‘That’s clever of you. It never crossed my mind.’

Nor mine, admitted Henry to himself wryly. Black mark, Sherlock Pratt. Well done, Kate Watson.

‘I’m in the theatre,’ said Kate. ‘We do improvisations a lot. When you start you think you’ll never be able to think of anything, but in the end you find yourself thinking of far more things than you ever thought you could think of.’

The two men laughed.

‘I know,’ said Kate. ‘I thought it sounded ridiculous as I was saying it.’

‘It’s great, though,’ said Henry. ‘A great thought. You said the voice was high-pitched, Colin. Could it have been a woman?’

‘I wondered about that,’ said Colin. ‘I think I was a bit stupid not to suspect the voice at the time, but you don’t, do you? You don’t answer the phone thinking, “I wonder if this person is using their real voice”, do you? I think now …’

He paused.

‘Yes?’

‘I think now … I could be wrong … but I think it could have been somebody pretending to be the opposite sex to what they were.’

‘Mrs Scatchard and …’ Kate saw Henry’s urgent warning look and stopped without mentioning Bradley’s name. She blushed slightly as she realised her carelessness.

‘Possibly,’ said Henry. ‘Or possibly not. Do you think, Colin, that it sounded more like a man trying to sound like a woman or a woman trying to sound like a man? Can you say?’

Colin thought long and hard, and it looked as if the process was hurting his brain.

‘Could have been either,’ he said.

‘I know this is going to sound ridiculous, Colin,’ said Henry, ‘but could you make a list of everyone you know?’

‘Everyone I know?’

‘Yes. I mean within reason. Everyone who might know
you
well enough to feel that they needed to use a false voice.’

‘Well I suppose I could. I could rack my brains. Is it important?’

‘It could be.’

‘I’ll have a go tonight.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Also …’ Henry paused, narrowed his eyes, looked at Colin severely, lowered his voice and spoke slowly and intensely, in the vain hope that, just for a few moments, he might sound like a great detective. ‘… could you particularly try to remember people who’d have known that Marie and Martin were going to be away?’

‘A lot would. They had a big silver wedding party not long before they went. They told everybody. It was no secret. They were that excited about going. They don’t get away much.’

Henry thanked Colin warmly, and called out to Marie that they had finished. She came back into the kitchen, and said, ‘Was he helpful?’

‘Possibly very. Marie, this isn’t going to sound very nice, but I have to ask it.’

‘Of course. These things are important.’

He explained Colin’s feelings about the voice of the person who telephoned.

She nodded gravely. She realised the implications.

‘Could you possibly give me a list of everyone who might have known you were going to Majorca at that time?’