The English Assassin (13 page)

“Pass yer plates along,” she said, preparing to cut.

There was a clatter as the plates were picked up and passed. Catherine, seated on the other side of her mother, stacked her brother Frank’s plate on top of her own. Frank took his friend Miss Brunner’s plate and passed it to Catherine. Frank and Miss Brunner were dressed in rather similar suits of severe grey. Frank, however, wore a rose. His ravaged face was set in a smirk which showed he was on his best party manners. Miss Brunner, too, was doing her best to be affable.

“It’s a loverly bit o’ pork,” said Mrs Cornelius as she sliced.

“It looks nice and juicy,” said Miss Brunner. She winked across the table at Mr Smiles, who was dressed as the vicar he had once been.

“Shall I be barman?” asked Mr Smiles, indicating the beer barrel on the sideboard and gesturing at the same time towards their glass mugs. He grinned nervously through a black beard.

“Good idear,” said Mrs C.

“Light?” said Mr Smiles.

“Suits me,” said Sammy.

Mr Smiles got up and put the first mug under the spigot.

For all that it was lunchtime, the heavy velvet curtains were drawn and the gas-lamps were full on at either side of the littered mantelpiece. Mrs Cornelius was suspicious of the neighbours who overlooked her rooms at the back. She suspected they might be burglars. If they saw a spread like this, they could easily guess there’d be money in the house. As there was, at this moment.

The air was close. The smell of the meat filled the room. The vegetable dishes steamed.

Slice by slice the pork and the crackling and the stuffing was heaped on the plates. Mrs Cornelius was a generous hostess, if an indifferent cook.

The noise increased as vegetables were ladled out.

“Gravy?” Miss Brunner passed the gravy boat to Frank.

“Apple sauce?” Sammy passed the sauce dish to the boy who helped himself to a large portion. He loved apple sauce.

“There’s more spuds in the oven,” said Mrs Cornelius as Mr Smiles considered the almost empty bowl. “Go an’ get ’em, love,” she told the boy. He sprang up, anxious to get the job over with so that he could tuck in.

“Greens?” said Catherine to Frank.

“Swedes?” said Miss Brunner to Mr Smiles.

“Parsnips?” Sammy held the bowl enquiringly.

“Marrer?” Mrs C. asked, looking for it.

“All the marrow’s gone, Mum,” said Catherine in a small voice.

Mrs Cornelius loved marrow. But she contained her fury and lifted her glass of light ale, toasting them all. “’Ere’s ter the lot o’ yer, then!” She drained the glass, spluttered thickly behind her red hand, and delicately picked up her knife and fork. “Ah, this is ther life!”

Her son came back with the extra potatoes and put them on the table. Hurriedly he clambered into his place and began to wolf the food. Miss Brunner, eating rapidly but discreetly, eyed him as he ate. She dabbed at her thin mouth with a napkin. He did not notice her.

“It’s a pity your friend couldn’t come,” said Mrs Cornelius to her daughter, “Ill, wos she?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Shame.”

Save for the noise of the cutlery, they ate in silence for a while until Frank said, “I heard there were some people looking for Jerry, Mum.”

“Don’t talk ter me abart ’im!” she said.

The boy, who had almost devoured his whole meal, looked up in interest. “What’s ’e done, then?”

“We won’t go into that, will we?” said Mr Smiles laughing. He glanced at Mrs Cornelius. “No offence.”

“None taken,” said Mrs Cornelius grimly. “Yore quite right. We won’t go inter it.”

“They’ll never find ’im,” said the boy.

“It’s unlikely.” Catherine looked tenderly and with some admiration at her little brother.

“Who were they?” said the boy. “These people that was looking for ’im.”

“Foreigners,” said Frank, “mainly.”

Miss Brunner tapped his sleeve with her fork and left four tiny points of grease there, like little teeth-marks. “Maybe they want to give him a job?”

“And maybe they don’t,” said Frank.

“Seconds?” said Mrs Cornelius.

Everyone, except the boy and Miss Brunner, refused.

“Yer get ter miss good ’ome cookin’, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mrs C. to Miss Brunner. She laid two small slices of meat on Miss Brunner’s plate.

“Tasty,” said Miss Brunner. She offered Mrs Cornelius a secretive smile, as if she referred to some shared experience about which only they knew.

Mrs Cornelius gave the boy what was left of the joint and then, without reference to him, piled the cooled vegetables onto his plate.

Miss Brunner quickly finished and leaned back with a contented grunt.

Catherine began to take the dirty plates into the kitchen.

“See ’ow the duff’s doin’, luv, will yer?” requested her mother. She confided to Miss Brunner: “It’s a loverly duff.”

“I’m certain of that.”

* * *

After the plum duff and the cheese and the port, the family and its friends, with the exception of the boy, who had gone to sleep, smoked their cigarettes, pipes and cigars.

“Well, that was a bit of all right,” said Sammy. “Makes a change from meat pies, I can tell you.”

Mrs Cornelius smiled complacently. “Not arf, yer cuddly ole fat pig.” She bent from where she was helping herself to a pint from the barrel on the sideboard. She kissed his bald head. He snorted and blushed.

Mr Smiles, who had hated the meal, stroked his gravy-stained beard and said, with some strain, “You are a splendid cook, dear lady.”

“A plain cook,” Mrs Cornelius replied, by way of confirmation and amplification of the compliment. “Oh fuck.” The beer mug had overfilled. She dabbed at the sides with her finger, raising the finger to her mouth and sucking it. “Sorry, vicar.”

Sammy had taken out his spectacles and was polishing them. He inspected one side carefully.

“Lens,” he said. “Cracked.”

“’Ave yer seen the rest o’ the ’ahse?” Mrs Cornelius enquired of Miss Brunner. “Not,” she laughed raucously, “that there’s a lot ter show.”

“I’d love to see it.”

“Come on, then.” The two women left the room.

“Any news from America at all?” Mr Smiles packed tobacco into his pipe.

Frank was staring at the door through which Miss Brunner and his mother had passed. He looked worried. “Do what?” he said.

“America? What’s going on over there? Much doing?”

“No, nothing much.” Frank got up, glancing absently at Mr Smiles. He leaned against the mantelpiece. “How’s business?”

“Which business?” Mr Smiles winked at him. It was a sad old wink. Frank, staring again at the brown door, didn’t notice. He began to move towards the door.

Catherine put her hand on his arm. “Cheer up, Frank. It’s not the end of the world.”

This idea seemed to frighten him. She said quickly, “A shilling for your thoughts.”

“Cheap at arf the price!” desperately guffawed Sammy from the easy chair in which he now sat. He was feeling very lonely. As he had expected, nobody responded.

Mr Smiles felt sick. “Ah, where’s the you-know-what?” he asked Sammy.

Sammy pointed at the brown door. “Through there and on yer left,” he said. He picked up an old copy of the
Illustrated London News
which had a coloured supplement on the Jubilee headed
The Glory that is England
. Sammy smiled. It was such a short time ago. He wondered what would have happened if the old queen had lived on.

On the landing Mr Smiles turned right by mistake and found himself outside the bedroom door. There were peculiar sounds coming from inside. He stopped to listen.

“At least yer don’t run ther risk o’ ’avin’ babies,” he heard Mrs Cornelius say.

“Don’t count on it, dearie,” said Miss Brunner.

Mr Smiles remembered about the bathroom.

In the dining room Frank was saying, “If she doesn’t hurry up soon, I’m off without her.”

“Calm down, Frank,” said Catherine.

But Frank was glaring now. “Why does she always have to spoil everything? The fat old bag.”

“Oh, don’t, Frank.”

His head among the used dishes on the table, the boy stirred. He groaned.

They all looked at him.

“Poor little sod,” said Sammy. “Let’s not have a row, eh?”

“Well…” said Frank, reluctant to stop before his climax. “I mean…” He felt nothing for the boy, but he did not wish to offend his sister at that moment, particularly since there was a likelihood that she knew where Jerry was.

Catherine’s perfect features bore an expression of infinite sympathy as she went to stroke the sleeping child’s hair. “He’s having a nightmare, I expect.”

Considering that he was a prisoner of war, Captain Nye was having quite a good time. It was almost like a holiday. His captors had proved to be courteous and allowed him considerable freedom within the reservation. Even now he was boating on Grasmere Lake with a very pretty girl. Save for the basic facts of his circumstances, he couldn’t have imagined a more perfect situation. The sky was a beautiful deep blue and the surrounding hills were a rich, varied green. The lake was absolutely still, reflecting in impressive detail the oaks and willows on its banks.

Captain Nye pulled vigorously on the oars and the boat shot away from the little landing stage at the end of the tea-gardens with their comforting wrought-iron balconies overlooking the water. All the iron was painted green, to blend in with the hills and trees.

The girl was called Catherine. She made a lovely picture as she sat in the stern with a Japanese silk parasol over her shoulder, a wide-brimmed Gainsborough straw hat on her golden curls, her filmy summer frock cut low at the neck and high on the ankle. With touching lack of expertise she gingerly held the rudder rope and pulled it to left or right when Captain Nye directed.

Soon they were alone in the middle of the lake. Far away on the other side there were one or two more boats. Captain Nye rowed towards a little island, eager to get a better look at the rather picturesque ruined bell-tower which stood on it. A system of these towers had once covered the area, the work of an eccentric clergyman who had erected them so that travellers or boatmen would hear them through the fog and thus be able to find their bearings. Unfortunately there were a number of tragic accidents and the flaws in the system became more than obvious when the clergyman had himself drowned on Derwent Water under the impression he had reached the sanctuary of his own churchyard. Now the towers were merely romantic and a source of speculation amongst those who knew little of the local history of the Fell country.

“What mysteries shall we discover, I wonder, in Merlin’s castle?” asked Catherine, in a fanciful mood.

Captain Nye looked back over his shoulder at the remains of the building. “Perhaps we’ll find Arthur’s sword and with it bring peace where today there is nought but strife.” She alone could elicit these fantasies from him. He wished very much that they were on the same side. He knew that essentially Catherine was his gaoler and that therefore she must be highly trusted by his enemies. It was a damned shame.

“Nearly there,” he said. “Standby for landing!” He shipped the oars as the bottom scraped on the tiny beach. Leaping into the shallow water, careless of wetting his white flannels, he took the painter and hauled the boat up to the point where Catherine, gathering her skirts about her, could reach the prow and take his hand, descending prettily to the land. She twirled her parasol and smiled at him.

“But if we find the sword,” she said, “will you be able to pull it from the stone?”

“And if I could, what would you think then?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. People play such awful tricks on one, these days.”

He laughed. “I know that.” He held out his hand. “Come. To the castle!”

They climbed the grassy slope to the tower but were less than halfway there before the smell struck them.

“Ugh!” Captain Nye wrinkled his nose.

“What could it be?” she asked. “Sheep droppings?”

He was a little shocked by her outspokenness. “Maybe. Or a dead animal, even?”

“Shall we look?” Her face became concerned. “In case it isn’t a sheep or something?”

“What?”

“I mean—”

He understood what she meant now. Reluctantly he said, “You stay. I’ll go.”

She stood, heels together, holding her parasol, while he forced himself to the top of the hill and disappeared behind the wall of the ruin. She was puzzled by the peculiar briny aspect of the smell. They were a good forty miles from the coast, surely?

She knew that she should have stayed with the captain. It was her job. But the smell disturbed her more than physically. She felt extremely nervous and depression was swiftly creeping in. The perfect day was over.

When Captain Nye returned he was pale and he could hardly look at her. He had a handkerchief over his mouth. Wordlessly, he took her arm and guided her back to the boat.

She climbed in and he shoved off. All his movements were disorganised, hasty. The boat almost turned over as he got aboard and swung the oars into the water, rowing back towards the tea-gardens. But he had only gone a few strokes when he was forced to abandon the oars and lean over the side, vomiting, as discreetly as he could, into the water.

Catherine came forward and took the oars before they could slip from the rowlocks. She did her best to keep the boat on course.

Captain Nye wiped his lips, then dipped his handkerchief into the water, wiping his whole face. “I must apologise.”

“Good heavens! Why? What was it you saw?” With a steady, accomplished stroke, she began to row for the shore.

“I must report it to the pol—to your authorities. A man, I think. Or something that had been a man. Or—I’m not sure…”

“Murdered?”

“I don’t know.”

The really awful thing about the dead creature was that it had had a certain apelike cast of features and yet at the same time the remains of the face had reminded him unmistakeably of the girl who now rowed so smoothly away from the island. Every time he looked at her frank, blue eyes, her full, pink lips, her well-shaped nose, he saw the ape face of the rotting creature which had lain amongst the débris and sheep-dung in the gloomy interior of the tower.