The Mortdecai Trilogy (37 page)

What I am trying to say is that, had I been born into a different social stratum, I would have made a handsome living as a ‘lighthouse’. The two chaps looming behind my shoulders were unmistakably ‘fuzz’.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘I am Detective Inspector Jaggard,’ said the chap on my left, ‘and this is Detective Sergeant Blackwell. We are from the Fine Art Squad.’ I shot another glance into the baggage hall; the carousel was beginning to rotate and my fellow-passengers were thronging around it. Suddenly I realized why my anonymous benefactor had assured me cryptically that the Rouault might well be of use to me at Heathrow.

‘Flash the tin,’ I said in my Bogart voice.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the DI.

‘Let’s see the potsy.’ They looked at each other, smiling thin smiles.

‘Detectives here do not carry gilt shield-badges,’ explained the DI, ‘but here is my warrant-card, which is almost as impressive and, unlike the “potsy” you speak of, cannot be bought in toy-shops.’ It seemed to be a very valid sort of warrant-card. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ I said happily. ‘Lead me to the nearest dungeon. Oh yes, and perhaps Sergeant Blackwell might be kind enough to collect my suitcase while you and I go to the Black Maria. It’s a sort of pigskin job by Gucci, has my initials on it, can’t mistake it.’

‘That’ll be “C.M.” for Charlie Mortdecai, right, sir?’ said the sergeant.

‘Right,’ I said, giving him a nod of approval.

‘Then why,’ asked the DI, ‘does your passport say that you are Fr T. Rosenthal, SJ?’

Like any jesting Pilate, he did not stay for an answer but steered me courteously to one of those large black motor-cars which the better class of policeman has the use of. In a minute or two we were joined by the DS, who had found my suitcase. He did not give it to me. Nor did he drive to what you call Scotland Yard and what coppers call ‘Headquarters’ – he drove us over Battersea Bridge to that new place on the South Bank which they set up for the Serious Crimes Squad after that train-robbery (remember?) and which now houses all sorts of esoteric arms of the law. Such as, for instance, CII, which thinks up crimes before the villains do and has people sitting on the steps waiting for them. Such as, too, CI, which polices naughty policemen and is known affectionately as Rubber Heels; the late Martland’s Special Power Group or SOGPU, and, of course, the Fine Art Squad which is so highly trained that its members can tell which way up a Picasso should hang. (Picasso, of course, is no longer in a position to contradict them.) The whole place is most secure and secret, except that any taxi-driver in London will take you there unerringly.

In a cosy room on the ground floor they formally charged me with illegal entry or something vague like that so that they could get me remanded in the morning, then we ascended three floors in a large lift, passed through a heavy iron door watched over by closed-circuit television, crowded into a much smaller lift and went down eight floors. I am no great lover of the bowels of the earth but the said bowels were just what I craved at the time. They were peopled by large,
English
male policemen: not an American, a Chinese waiter
nor a militant woman was to be seen. They ushered me into a simply-furnished, well-lit room, stuck a telephone into a jack-plug, attached a tape-recorder to it and invited me to make my ‘privilege phone-call’. I was in no two minds about whom I should call: I dialled Mrs Spon, the best interior decorator in London and the only thoroughly capable person I know. I sketched in the outlines of my plight, asked her to get in touch with my ‘brief’ (as we rats of the underworld call our lawyers) and with Johanna, and to tell Jock to stand by the telephone around the clock. ‘Tell him,’ I urged, ‘that he is not to go out except on spoken instructions by you or me. If he must play dominoes he may have his friends in and they may drink my beer within reason. Oh, and Mrs Spon, you might make it clear to the brief that I am in no pressing hurry to be sprung – no writs of
habeas corpus
– I wish to clear my name of this foul imputation before breathing free air again.’

‘I twig,’ she said. I replaced the receiver with a certain smugness: when Mrs Spon says that she has twigged then twig is what she has done. I’d back her to take the Grand Fleet into action after ten minutes of instruction from a Petty Officer, she’s like that. She wears wonderfully expensive clothes and has a face like a disused quarry.

‘Well now,’ I said to my two captors, ‘I daresay you’ll be wanting to, ah, grill me a bit, eh?’ They looked at each other, then back at me, then shook their heads in unison.

‘I think you’d better wait for your lawyer, sir,’ said Inspector Jaggard.

‘For your own sake, sir,’ said Sergeant Blackwell. They didn’t frighten me. On the floor stood my suitcase, briefcase and the plastic bag containing my duty-free allowance of brandy and cigarettes. I reached for the plastic bag. They didn’t hit me. I toddled into the adjoining lavatory and found two plastic tooth-glasses. I gave myself a jolt of the brandy, then poured two drinks for them.

‘I think we’re on duty, aren’t we, Sergeant?’ Blackwell consulted his watch. ‘Hard to say, sir.’ I put three packets of duty-free cigarettes beside Jaggard’s glass and two beside Blackwell’s, then tactfully visited the lavatory again. When I returned the glasses were empty, the cigarettes pocketed, but I was under no illusions. Policemen like them are not hungry for a free swig of brandy and a packet of king-size gaspers; they had only taken them to lull me
into the belief that they were easy-going chaps. But I had observed their eyes, you see; they were the eyes of career-policemen, quite different from the fierce eye of a copper who can be bought. I offered them the key to my suitcase, saying that if they cared to rummage it now I could enjoy the creature comforts it contained, such as soap, clean underwear and so forth. Blackwell gave it a perfunctory rummage; Jaggard didn’t even bother to watch, we all knew that there would be nothing illegal in it. Then I indicated that I would quite like a little lie-down and they said that they were, in fact, going off duty themselves and that their guvnor, the Detective Chief Inspector, might be down for a chat when my lawyer arrived. Then they locked me in. I didn’t mind a bit – there are times when being locked in is comforting. After a quick scrub at the depleted ivory castles with Mr Eucryl’s justly-celebrated Smoker’s Dentifrice, I threw myself on the cot and sank into the arms of Morpheus. My last waking thought was one of pleasure that they had not ripped open the lining of my suitcase; it is a very expensive suitcase. Moreover, I tend to keep a few large, vulgar currency notes under the lining in case I ever need to buy a steam-yacht in a hurry.

I cannot have slept for more than an hour or so when the door made unlocking noises and I sprang to my feet – trouserless as I was – prepared to sell my life dearly. It was only a uniformed, fatherly ‘Old Bill’ who wanted to know what I would like for supper.

‘There’s a very good Chinese take-away just down the road – hoy, are you all right, sir?’

‘Fine, thank you, fine, fine. It’s just that I have an allergy to Chinese food. I’ll just have whatever’s going in the canteen.’

‘It’s rissoles tonight,’ he warned me.

‘Capital, capital. Nothing nicer. Wheel them on, do. And, ah, I daresay there’ll be a touch of HP sauce or something of that sort, eh?’

‘That
and
tomato sauce, sir.’

‘Oh, Sergeant,’ I said as he began to exit. ‘Yessir?’ replied the constable.

‘Do you have
many
Chinese chaps working in the canteen?’

‘Lord love you, no, sir. All the staff is widows of officers of the Force. Their attitude is a bit Bolshie sometimes but when
they set their minds to it they make the finest fishcakes South of the Thames. It’s fishcakes tomorrow night, sir, will you be here?’

‘I hope so,’ I said sincerely. ‘Wild horses have often tried to drag me away from a well-made fishcake, with little or no success.’

The rissoles were all that a rissole-lover could wish for; they were accompanied by frozen french beans and faultless mashed potatoes, not to mention a full bottle each of HP sauce and tomato ditto, also bread and butter in abundance and a huge tin mug of strong orange-coloured tea such as I had thought only Jock could make. Tears sprang to my eyes as I slipped a packet of duty-free king-sized into ‘Old Bill’s’ kindly pocket.

Stomach assuaged for the nonce, I was about to fling myself once more onto the cot when my eye fell upon the telephone, which Jaggard and Blackwell had carelessly left in my room or cell. I lifted the receiver and applied it to my ear. It was giving off a dialling-tone which meant that they had left it through to an open line.

‘Oh,
really
,’ I thought. I mean, people don’t achieve the rank of DI, or even DS, if they inadvertently leave live telephones about in the cells of International Art Thieves. I applied myself to the problem of how best to squeeze a little gravy out of the situation. At last I decided to muddy the wells of investigatory technique by telephoning Pete the Welshman – a person who often works for me. I should explain that all those people who work for art-dealers – re-liners, restorers, mount-cutters, frame-makers, etc. – are congenital liars and thieves: they observe that their masters sometimes depart from the truth and soon come to believe that mendacity and peculation are all that is required to make a fortune in the fine art trade. How wrong they are, to be sure. Pete is also a Welshman and a fervent chapel-goer, which puts him well ahead of the game. I dialled his number.

‘Hello, Pete,’ I said. ‘You know who this is, don’t you?’

‘Do you know what fucking time of night it is?’ he snarled.

‘Look, Pete, let’s save the social amenities; this is business. You know that big job …?’

‘Ah,’ he lied unhesitatingly.

‘Dump it,’ I said. ‘Forget it. You never saw it. Right?’

‘Right,’ he said. A casual listener – and I knew that there would be several – would believe that Pete knew what I was talking about. They would have been wrong. I hung up.

I reckoned that that little chat should guarantee me at least another twenty-four hours in the security of that stoutly-constructed nick. I decided on a digestive nap; fell asleep to dream of fishcakes on the morrow.

This madness has come on us for our sins

 

The Holy Grail

 

My lawyer woke me up to tell me that no one, after all, wanted to interrogate me that night and was there anything else I wanted. Half-awake, I imprudently told him that what I wanted more than anything was to spend a lengthy sojourn in this very room or cell, for fate’s fickle finger was feeling for my fundament and I had to find out, somehow, before I was released, who was on whose side, the only certainty being that no one was on mine. When I say that I said this imprudently, I mean that, had I been fully in my senses, I’d have realized that the place probably boasted more bugs than a Sailors’ Mission Refuge. He semaphored meaningfully with his eyebrows – only lawyers nowadays seem to be able to grow eyebrows, even bank managers seem to have lost the art – and I shut up. He said that he would be in court in the morning and warned me sadly, but with a huge wink, that I must prepare myself to be remanded in custody for weeks and weeks. Then he goodnighted me, I changed into pyjamas and in a trice was sleeping the sleep of
the unjust, which is quite as dreamless as the sleep of the just if the unjust sleeper has a litre of Red Hackle on his bedside table.

I was awakened by the arrival of another great mug of orange-hued tea and a dish of eggs and bacon. Dawn’s left hand was in the sky. The e’s and b would not have brought a smile to the face of Egon Ronay but I plied a lusty knife and fork, knowing that I must keep my strength up. The journey to the magistrate’s court was on my mind, of course: the route thereto was doubtless thick with Chinese snipers
faisant la haie
.

As it turned out, those fears were groundless, for this de-luxe cop-shop had its own magistrate and mini-court on the premises. It was a cosy little gathering: one ill-shaven Mortdecai escorted by one kindly turnkey, one magistrate who exhibited all the signs of a magistrate who has not had enough sleep, one lawyer giving me the blank sort of look which means ‘keep your mouth shut and leave this to me’, one haggard Detective Inspector Jaggard glaring at his notebook as though it had said something rude to him; one world-weary clerk and – to my dismay – one Johanna looking quite ravishing in an oxlip-yellow suit and hat.

The clerk droned legally for a while; Jaggard put on a joke-policeman voice while he read bits from his notebook about how he had proceeded from here to there on information received … but I must not trouble you with such minutiae: I am sure that you have been in magistrates’ courts yourselves. Just as I was expecting the blessed words which would remand the prisoner, C. Mortdecai, in custody for weeks and weeks, revelling in fishcakes far from the madding Triads, the blow fell. My treacherous lawyer rose and submitted that the prisoner’s wife, Mrs C. Mortdecai, had received a visit, late the previous night, from a Fr T. Rosenthal, SJ, who had explained how – after some muddle at Immigration – he had found himself in possession of a passport in the name of Mortdecai. And could he have his own passport back, please. And, no, he couldn’t be produced in court because he had gone into Retreat at Heythrop and the Preliminary Confession alone would take some twelve hours, not to mention the penance after. ‘Just an absurd muddle,’ said my brief, avoiding my glance, ‘great credit to the vigilance of the police etc. etc.’

I opened my mouth to claim that I was clearly an International Art Thief and deserved more courtesy than this but then I remembered
that I had only been charged with Illegal Entry into Her Majesty’s Domains. No word of Rouault or his gouaches had passed anyone’s lips.

The magistrate apologized to me, hoped that I had not been too much inconvenienced, dismissed me without a stain on my character. I was free to go.

I looked around me frantically: the turnkey was giving a friendly nod, Jaggard was sneering, Johanna was irradiating the most wifely smile you can imagine. I knew that the instant I stepped into the freedom of the street I was a dead man – curiously, too, the thought of those incomparable fishcakes surged into my mind. My best friends would not claim that I am a fast thinker; I like to mull these things over for a day or two, but it was clear that there was no time for mulling. I did a Fred Astaire double-shuffle around the turnkey or gaoler, strode up the steps to the magistrate, right hand outstretched. The beak’s expression made it clear that he didn’t have a lot of time for these Continental expressions of emotion but, after an inward struggle, held out his hand. I seized it, whisked his frail body from the bench and gave him the heel of my hand in the hooter. Sleepy before, he now became a sleeper in earnest. Hordes of capable people sprang out of the woodwork and restrained me (restrained means ‘hit’) but I recked little of their blows for, in the twinkling of an eye, I was once again in my comfy cell, secure in the knowledge that bail is rarely allowed to chaps who wantonly alter the appearance of Stipendiary Magistrates. I allowed myself a snort of whisky and poured the rest into the plastic duty-free bag, lest any vengeful copper should try to take it away from me.

I am not one of those who, in times of stress, sits on the edge of a bed gnashing his nails and cursing whichever fool or blackguard made this world: I am more one of those who lies down on the bed in question and snatches a nap. When the door opened at lunch-time I kept the eyes firmly closed. A voice which could only have emanated from one of those fierce young policemen said ‘Lunch.’ I remained tacit and mute. I heard him lift the empty whisky-bottle, shake it and replace it onto the table with a disgusted slam. He went out, locking the door. After counting from one to ten I opened an eye. The luncheon he had brought was in three of those little white cartons with tin-foil tops such as Chinese take-away places sell. I coaxed a little Scotch out of the plastic shopping bag, mingled
it with water and went back to sleep. A dead rat might have coaxed a reaction from my salivary glands sooner than anything with bean-shoots and soy-sauce.

Sergeant Blackwell came to see me soon afterwards; he looked at my untouched lunch and said ‘
Waste!
’

‘Thirty-nine inches,’ I quipped, ‘bust, forty-two.’

‘Neither funny nor plausible,’ he said. Both true, of course. Then he took me upstairs to the charge-room and charged me with common assault, actual bodily harm, contempt of court and many another thing including, I fancy, unimaginative potty-training in early childhood, while I hung my head in a suitable fashion.

Back in my cell I asked for something to read; he was back in ten minutes with a tattered Bible.

‘I think I’ve read this,’ I said.

‘It’s all we’ve got,’ he retorted, ‘Enid Blyton is only for trusties.’

The Good Book was printed upon fine India paper and the first few pages had been used by sacreligious chaps for rolling fags with (that’s
cigarettes
), so that
Genesis
began at the bit where Cain says ‘My punishment is more than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; … and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me.’ I never did find out what happened to Cain except that he went to the land of Nod which is to the East of Eden; I joined him there.

It was one of those days when a chap simply cannot get a good day’s sleep; it seemed I had scarcely closed my eyes before last night’s ‘Old Bill’ was warning me to get shaved for Six o’Clock Court. He watched me with something of admiration in his eye as I plied the disposable razor; many a villain, he told me, had sworn to give that particular magistrate a knuckle-sandwich but none had hitherto made good the threat. I could see that he found it hard to believe that my only motive was a determination to graze upon the fabled fishcakes.

Back in the intimate court-room, the cast was almost the same as it had been that morning, except that my custodian was now the ‘Old Bill’, the magistrate was one of those soppy, earnest chaps who long to hear of broken homes and deprived childhoods and Johanna was looking esculent in a cinnamon sheath such as you
could not buy with a lifetime’s trading-stamps. Yes, and there was a flaccid man with a big face whom I had never seen before but who was clearly one of those Harley Street chaps who charge you fifty guineas for telling you to take a long sea voyage and more exercise.

Detective Inspector Jaggard flatly recited the facts about my disgraceful behaviour that morning. It seemed to me that the magistrate permitted a thin smile to cross his face as Jaggard related how his brother of the bench would never again be quite the same around the nose. My brief called Johanna to the witness-box. She dabbed a tearful eye with a couple of square inches of cambric as she told how valiantly I had fought against my, uh, terrible, uh, disability and how she was ready to stand by me until I had conquered it. For my part I gaped. Probably I was meant to gape. Then the flaccid chap was called: I had been wrong about him, his address was not Harley Street but Wigmore Street.

He had, it seemed, been treating me for more than a year and was getting some pretty good results; all sorts of mental diseases with names I cannot remember had succumbed to his therapy and the slight, residual hostility-issue-orientation towards legal authority was fast vanishing and he would stake his reputation that this morning’s little outburst was just a preter-ultimate orgasmic sublimation which was, not to put too fine a point on it, a jolly good thing and meant that I was now cured. He also had my wife’s assurance that I was very sorry and that I would pay for the nose.

I wagged my head with admiration; so fine a liar was wasted in Wigmore Street. There had been times in his declaration when I had been on the point of believing him myself.

You must have noticed that most magistrates, when looking wise, peer over the tops of their spectacles. This one was trendy: he prodded the gig-lamps up to his forehead and peered under them. He asked the mendacious medico if he could advance any other extenuating circs., had the prisoner been the product of a broken home, a deprived childhood, that sort of thing?

‘Oh dear, yes,
very
,’ said the liar, speaking more truthfully than he realized, ‘but, er
chrmmm
, you understand, at this stage, sure you follow me …’ and he jerked his head a couple of millimetres in my direction.

‘Just so, just so,’ said the kindly stipendiary. Beaming at me, he hit me with a hundred quid for his fellow-magistrate’s conk
– well, that was the least he could do, I realized that – added a few more bobs for contempt of court, bound me over in my own recognizances to keep the peace and begged me, like any father, to listen to my doctor and loved ones who knew what was best for me. He didn’t tell me to give up smoking cigarettes.

Going down the stairs, free as a bird and terrified as a clay pigeon, I accosted Jaggard. ‘Charge me with pinching the Rouault,’ I whined; ‘I’ll plead guilty, it’s a fair cop.’ He stared at me bleakly as only Detective-Inspectors can.

‘Unfortunately, sir,’ he said (the ‘sir’ stuck in his throat a bit), ‘it seems that just before the robbery your lady wife had agreed to buy that Rouault from Miss Gertrude Weltschmerzer for you. As a wedding-present. I have spoken to Miss Weltschmerzer on the international telephone. She confirms this.’ He spoke in the bitter tones of a policeman who has to live and work in a world where ‘law and order’ has become a dirty phrase. I truly felt sorry for him.

‘Well, well,’ I babbled, ‘that was nice of her, wasn’t it. Matter of fact, I’m thinking of buying her an antique pendant.’

‘You mean, like a spare?’ he said.

I stopped feeling sorry for him.

Downstairs, I collected my possessions, gave the plastic bag of whisky to the kindly Old Bill, along with the remainder of the duty-free cigarettes – who knows when you may need a friend in the Force? – and joined Johanna in her cute little Jensen Interceptor. Not a shot was fired as she drove us to Upper Brook Street. She looked beautiful behind the wheel, as all lovely women do behind the wheels of sports cars. All she said was ‘Oh, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.’

All I said was, ‘Yes.’

Jock was at home, looking useful. I had forgotten to bring him any American comic-books but he didn’t sulk. I took him aside and murmured an instruction or two about dinner. My conversation with Johanna was desultory.

‘Charlie dear, don’t tire yourself telling me all about your adventures. I know most of it and can guess the rest.’

‘Darling Charlie, why are you keeping away from the windows in that kind of furtive way?’

‘Charlie, what on earth are those
strange
brown things you are eating?’

‘Fishcakes,’ I mumbled from a full mouth and a fuller heart. ‘Made by policemen’s widows.’

‘I see …’

‘Charlie, I expect you’re very tired?’

‘Very.’

‘
Too
tired?’

‘I didn’t say that, did I?’