Pratt a Manger (38 page)

‘Good Lord. Well, I could try.’

‘I’d be grateful, if you would. That … er … that would
include,
I suppose, everyone who came to your silver wedding party.’

‘But, Mr Pratt, those are our family and our very best friends.’

‘Yes, I know. Obviously nice people, and innocent, but just one of them … you never know … it might mean something. I’ll use the information very discreetly, I promise. Please.’

‘Well, all right. I’ll do it tonight.’

Henry was very quiet on the way home.

‘You’re very quiet,’ said Kate.

‘I’m depressed.’

‘Waste of time?’

‘I fear not.’

‘What?’

‘A couple of remarks, nothing brilliant, things I knew before, have fallen into place. All too easily. No real detective work needed. Kate, there are people I expect to see on that list, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.’

‘Who?’

‘I’m not telling. I might be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Except …’

‘Except what?’

‘It has to be somebody.’

They were silent for several miles.

‘Kate?’

‘Yes?’

‘What are you doing the weekend after next?’

‘I don’t think anything. Why?’

‘How would you like to come to Grayling?’

‘Has that anything to do with all this?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well … yes … I’m intrigued.’

‘Good. You made models of people for one of your plays, didn’t you, if I remember? Dummies. Puppets. People brought them on to the stage and worked the arms and legs, making extra characters out of them.’

‘Yes. Created less out of artistic inspiration than economic necessity.’

‘I seem to remember that they were quite realistic.’

‘Fairly.’

‘Would they pass for real people travelling in a car at thirty miles an hour, if somebody just caught a casual glimpse?’

‘I would think so.’

‘Will you make some models for me, and bring them with you to Grayling? Realistic, life-size models of real people.’

‘What real people?’

‘Well … you.’

‘Me??’

‘You. And me?’

‘You??’

‘Me. Possibly one or two others. Jack, if he’s free. He’d be useful.’

‘Mum?’

‘No, probably not your mum.’

‘What is all this?’

‘I’m going to lay a trap.’

‘Dad!’

‘What?’

‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘Not very, I wouldn’t have thought.’

‘Is it wise to take the law into your own hands?’

‘I don’t think I was ever wise – and do you have any faith in the police?’

‘Of course not, but it all seems a bit melodramatic.’

‘Like one of your plays.’

‘Sorry, Dad, no. It’s not at all like one of our plays. It’s much sillier.’

On Wednesday, 23 April, 2003, the World Health Organisation warned that the Sars epidemic had made Toronto unsafe to visit; the Headmistress of Harrogate Ladies’ College locked herself in a boarding house with forty-three pupils (or, as
The Times
put it, ‘with forty-three other pupils’, as if the headmistress was a pupil) because they had been in infected parts of the Far East; bird watchers were questioned after a 31-year-old woman was murdered, burnt and dumped at her favourite woodland spot – the Pulborough Brook RSPB nature reserve in West Sussex (which led to Greg being asked, in the Café in Frith Street, what he thought of the RSPB, to which he replied, ‘Well, I think it’s a good idea. You need to know how many people are coming if you give a party’); and Henry Pratt drove not to West Sussex but to West Kent, accompanied by his very good friend, Lampo Davey.

When he’d asked Lampo if he fancied a day in the Kentish countryside, Lampo had surprised him by saying that he’d love it.

‘I thought you hated the country,’ Henry had said.

‘I hate staying in it. If I can be safely tucked up in Chelsea at bedtime, I’m happy to enjoy its beauties.’

‘Of course, don’t come if the Café can’t spare you,’ Henry had said.

‘It can,’ Lampo had answered drily. ‘I’ve got it running so efficiently that I’ve rendered myself unnecessary. First big mistake of an inexperienced manager.’

It was a lovely spring morning. The air was fresh, the visibility was sharp, the countryside was bathed in sunshine with the passing shadows of fluffy clouds. The sun shone on mellow oast-houses and lazy rivers, on deep woods and tidy orchards, in a corner miraculously untouched by the motorways and railway lines that marched across East Kent like invading armies.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Lampo, ‘what’s left of it. The best landscape in the world.’

‘No better than Tuscany, surely, Lampo?’ He imitated the youthful voice of Lampo, laying on the sophistication to discomfort Henry at school a thousand years before: ‘ “The English countryside in summer is a featureless confusion of weeds. Compare it with Tuscany, Pratt.”’

‘I was full of shit. But how do you remember that? I must have made quite an impression on you.’

‘Oh, you did. We didn’t have people like you in Thurmarsh.’

They crossed a hump-backed bridge. They passed a duck pond, the ducks arranged on it like blobs of sauce on a plate.

‘How are you really, Lampo?’ Henry asked. ‘Are you … well, I suppose you must be … missing Denzil as much as ever?’

‘More than ever.’

‘You’re not … you haven’t …?’

‘Oh no. My libido has finally bitten the dust, Henry. That’s the only good thing about growing old. These days there are youngsters with T-shirts boasting that they’re asexual. I wouldn’t want to go that far. I get some pleasure from my memories. Oh, but Henry, what a relief it is not to fancy boys any more.’

A rabbit ran across the road in front of them. Lampo didn’t spurn the conversational opportunity.

‘If only asexuality could become fashionable for rabbits,’ he said. ‘It’d be so much more painless than myxomatosis.’

They passed a deserted cricket ground, dipped into a village of slate-hung houses, rose through a wood, and dropped slowly towards the only ugly thing they had seen since they left London – Happy Fields Farm.

‘Good God,’ said Lampo, as he surveyed the bleak bungalow, the low grey sheds, the huge pylons. ‘Is this it?’

‘There’s no need for you to come in with me,’ said Henry. ‘It would offend your sensibilities.’

‘Thank you.’

Henry knocked on the door. There was no bell.

The door opened one and a half inches.

‘Yes?’ said the farmer’s wife, whose name Henry suddenly remembered – Cynthia Brown. She should never have been a Cynthia.

‘I called to see you after that advert about Happy Fields on the TV,’ said Henry.

‘Oh yes. Come in.’

She took ages to unfasten the chain.

‘You can’t be too careful these days,’ said Cynthia Brown. ‘There are some funny people about.’

She looked across to Lampo as she said this.

‘My friend Lampo Davey,’ said Henry.

‘You don’t have to leave him in the car.’

How could he tell her that Lampo would hate every second he spent in her home?

‘I know,’ he said, ‘and thank you, but he’s allergic to bungalows. Gets terrible claustrophobia if there aren’t any stairs.’

The bungalow smelt of disuse.

‘I was just making a cup of tea,’ said Cynthia Brown. ‘Would you like one?’

‘That would be very nice,’ said Henry overoptimistically.

‘Howard’s out, I’m afraid. He’s in Tunbridge Wells, changing his will. He’s cutting out a cousin who sent him a saucy birthday card. He was disgusted.’

‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Never mind.’

The tea was weak and milky. Henry found that he was closing his eyes every time he took a sip, as if that might help.

He really had only one question to ask, but he dreaded the answer, so he kept putting it off. He explained that he was searching for information on anybody who might have known of the name Happy Fields and used it. Had they had any suspicious callers?

‘We don’t have callers,’ said Cynthia Brown proudly. ‘We’ve made the house what you might call
caller-unfriendly.
We have each other, you see, and we’re happy with that. Well, we get plenty of company from the telly.
Corrie, EastEnders. Neighbours
. Who needs real neighbours? You probably think we’re saddos.’

‘Not at all,’ said Henry. Having begun to lie, he thought he might as well go the whole hog. ‘Nice cup of tea.’

‘Thank you.’

He felt an overwhelming urge to escape from the bungalow. He felt a surge of the claustrophobia that he had invented for Lampo. It was the spur that gave him the courage to ask the question. He mentioned a couple of names and asked Cynthia Brown if they meant anything to her.

Her face hardened.

‘They’re relatives,’ she said, as Henry had feared she would.

Then her face softened, as if she’d remembered something nice about them – and indeed she had.

‘They never visit us,’ she said. ‘Never ever.’

Henry had known that he would feel depressed after his visit to Happy Fields, which was why he had needed someone to accompany him, and Lampo had been the perfect choice. He had a talent for not being interested in what was going on around him that amounted at times almost to genius. Henry was glad of it now. ‘Mission accomplished,’ he said, as he got back in the car, and not a word did Lampo say in reply.

It was too early to tell anyone of his suspicions. He still didn’t have any proof. The names that had meant something to Cynthia Brown might not appear on the lists sent by Marie and Colin. There was still hope.

‘Lunch,’ he said. ‘Let’s find some nice lunch.’

As Henry drove around the lanes, Lampo let off steam.

‘I should have lived abroad,’ he said. ‘Found some little paradise somewhere. If only the Cretans had been more artistic. Lovely people, but not artistic. I’ve been cocooned, you see. Chelsea. Sotheby’s. Antiques. Cocooned. You know what I hate about the British most. Their hypocrisy. On and on about the cruel French and their
foie gras
. I’ve seen those geese. Their life is paradise compared to battery chickens, of which we eat millions without giving a shit. Maybe I should go abroad now, while there’s still time. Somewhere in the Med. Spend my time looking at all the bronzed and beautiful boys and giving thanks that I’m no longer tormented by desire.’

Lampo sighed as Henry turned into a pub car park.

‘Sorry,’ said Henry. ‘I know you hate pubs, but I’m the driver.’

It was a proper pub, with bar stools and tables for drinkers as well as eaters. The food was simple but good. The beer was good. The wine was good. The landlord was friendly. The young barman was good-looking and had earrings that glinted in the sun.

‘Do you have rooms?’ asked Lampo. ‘I might fancy a day or two in the country.’

The next day, Henry received three unwelcome letters. There was Marie’s list, and the two names that he hadn’t wanted to see were on it. There was Colin’s list, and there were the names again. And there was a letter from Asbo Supermarkets, whose turn it was to let the Good Ship Pratt sail off into the sunset without them:

Dear Mr Pratt,

This is to inform you that, sadly, we decided, at yesterday’s marketing meeting, to discontinue both Pratt’s Tyke Treats and Henry’s Foreign Frolics.

While the appeal of Tyke’s Treats was mainly local, we have been very pleased with the success of Foreign Frolics, which has done well for us throughout the country, apart from the one little blip.

We will be ordering no more of your goods when our current contractual arrangements cease. This is a sad moment for us, but change is the lifeblood of the supermarket world.

Henry shuddered at the memory of the blip to which they referred.

He had slipped into the range, without consulting the marketing men, or ‘the suits’ as he called them, an entirely juvenile and irresponsible private gastronomic joke.

Richard Avec Taches Provençale was, simply, garlicky spotted dick – Henry’s final revenge against a dessert that had haunted him almost as much as Cousin Hilda’s sniff.

A cluster of complaints had reached the marketing men, and they had not been amused.

What they had never told Henry was that there had been another cluster of complaints when it was withdrawn.

‘I hope this trap works,’ he said to Hilary, at the breakfast table, ‘and works quickly, or I’ll have no career left to save.’

19 The Trap

IT WAS NATIONAL
Aubergine Day. As he made that lovely Greek aubergine, lemon and garlic dish cum dip, melitzanasalata, slightly rough in texture as he liked it, Henry told Greg, casually, that he and Hilary were going to Spain for a week. Later he told all his regular customers, and Michelle, and any other members of his staff with whom he spoke both in the Café and on the phone.

To each person he added the information that he had felt it necessary to get house-minders for the Clapham Common property, for security reasons.

He found an excuse for ringing Bradley, and told him too.

He phoned Jack and explained the rough outline of his plans. Jack expressed not a little surprise, but said that of course he would come. He was pleased to have the chance to do something for his Dad. Henry explained that they might have to stay in The Old Manor House for a week. Jack said that it was no problem. If they got even further behind with their work, all well and good.

Henry hadn’t told Kate that she might have to stay for a week, but when he did she also said that it would be no problem. She trusted her deputies to run the theatre in her absence. It would be good for them, as she tended to be a bit autocratic. She would bring her pile of unread
plays
from all the hopeful dramatists who littered our beautiful island.

Stocking up for a week required careful planning. The food was comparatively easy. He bought a week’s diet as recommended in the appendix to
The Pratt Diet
, although it has to be admitted that he did increase the quantities in view of Jack’s presence and because eating would assume enormous importance in the tedium that was to come. Household goods were more difficult. It would be important to have enough toilet rolls and kitchen rolls and cling film and foil and cleaning materials and torches – no lights would go on at night – and a really good, reliable camera. Nothing, however trivial, must be forgotten. It wouldn’t be possible to go to the village shop.