Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense (15 page)

The village's brief starring role in the national press was over and its people, disgruntled and cheated, returned to more domestic scandals. Humphrey Partridge came back to his house, but no one saw him much as he hurried to catch up on the delay to his emigration plans which his wrongful arrest had caused him.

It was two days before his departure, in the early evening, when he had the visitor. It was December, dark and cold. Everyone in the village was indoors.

He did not recognize the woman standing on the doorstep. She was dressed in a short black and white fun-fur coat, which might have been fashionable five years before. Her hair was fierce ginger, a strident contrast to scarlet lipstick, and black lashes hovered over her eyes like bats' wings. The stringiness of her neck and the irregular bumps of veins under her black stockings denied the evidence of her youthful dress.

“Hello, Humphrey,” she said.

“Who are you?” He held the door, as usual, ready to close it.

The woman laughed, a short, unpleasant sound. “No, I don't expect you to recognize me. You were a bit small when we last met.”

“You're not . . .?”

“Yes, of course I am. Aren't you going to give your mother a kiss?”

She thrust forward her painted face and Partridge recoiled back into the hall. The woman took the opportunity to follow him in and shut the front door behind her.

“Nice little place you've got for yourself, Humphrey.” She advanced and Partridge backed away from her into the sitting-room. She took in the bareness and the packing cases. “Oh yes, of course, leaving these shores, aren't you? I read in the paper. Canada, was it? Nice people, Canadians. At least, their sailors are.” Another burst of raucous laughter.

“'Cause of course you've got the money now, haven't you, Humphrey? I read about that too. Funny, I never met anyone before what'd won a premium bond. Plenty who did all right on the horses, but not premium bonds.”

“What do you want?” Partridge croaked.

“Just come to see my little boy, haven't I? Just thinking, now you're set up so nice and cosy, maybe you ought to help your Mum in her old age.”

“I don't owe you anything. You never did anything for me. You walked out on me.”

“Ah, that was ages ago. And he was a nice boy, Clinton. I had to have a fling. I meant to come back to you after a week or two. But then the council moved in and Clinton got moved away and—”

“What do you want?”

“I told you. I want to be looked after in my old age. I read in the paper about how devoted you were to your old mother.” Again the laugh.

“But you aren't my mother.” Partridge was speaking with great care and restraint.

“Oh yes, I am, Humphrey.”

“You're not.”

“Yes. Ooh, I've had a thought—why don't you take your old mother to Canada with you?”

“You are not my mother!” Partridge's hands were on the woman's shoulders, shaking out the emphasis of his words.

“I'm your mother, Humphrey.”

His hands rose to her neck to silence the taunting words. They tightened and shuddered as he spoke. “My mother is beautiful and kind. She is nothing like you. She always loved me. She still loves me!”

The spasm passed. He released his grip. The woman's body slipped down. As her head rolled back, her false teeth fell out with a clatter on to the floor.

Sergeant Wallace appeared to be very busy with a ledger when Humphrey Partridge went into the police station next morning. He was embarrassed by what had happened. It didn't fit inside the neat borders of his mind and it made him look inefficient. But eventually he could pretend to be busy no longer. “Good morning, Mr Partridge. What can I do for you?”

“I leave for Canada tomorrow.”

“Oh. Well, may I wish you every good fortune in your new life there.”

“Thank you.” A meagre smile was on Partridge's lips. “Sergeant, about my mother . . .”

Sergeant Wallace closed his ledger with some force. “Listen, Mr Partridge, you have already had a full apology and—”

“No, no, it's nothing to do with that. I just wanted to tell you . . .”

“Yes?”

“. . . that I
did
kill my mother.”

“Oh yes, and then I suppose you buried her in the garden, eh?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Fine.” Sergeant Wallace reopened his ledger and looked down at the page busily.

“I'm confessing to murder,” Partridge insisted.

The Sergeant looked up with an exasperated sigh. “Listen, Mr Partridge, I'm very sorry about what happened and you're entitled to your little joke, but I do have other things to do, so, if you wouldn't mind . . .”

“You mean I can just go?”

“Please.”

“To Canada?”

“To where you bloody well like.”

“Right then, I'll go. And . . . er . . . leave the old folks at home.”

Sergeant Wallace didn't look up from his ledger as Partridge left the police station.

Outside, Humphrey Partridge took a deep breath of air, smiled and said out loud, “Right, mother, Canada it is.”

“Y
OUR WIFE TELLS
me you're going to take up shooting,” said Alex Paton, during a lull in the dinner party conversation.

Kevin Hooson-Smith flashed a look of annoyance at his wife, Avril, but smiled casually and responded, “Well, thought it might be rather fun. You know, at some point. When I've got time for a proper weekend hobby. Old Andersen keeps us at it so hard at the moment, I think that may be a few years hence.”

He laughed heartily to dissipate the subject, but Alex Paton wasn't going to let it go. “But Avril said you'd actually bought a shotgun.”

“Well . . .” Kevin shrugged uncomfortably. “Useful thing to have. You know, if the opportunity came up for a bit of shooting, one wouldn't want to say, No, sorry, no can do, no gun.” He laughed again, hoping the others would join in. Surely he'd got the words right. If Alex Paton or Philip Wilkinson had said that, the other would certainly have laughed. But they didn't, so he had to continue. “You shoot at all, Alex?”

“Not much these days. Pop off the occasional rabbit if I go down to the country to see Mother. Father left me his pair of Purdey's, which aren't bad. What make was the gun you got, Kevin?”

“Oh, I forget the name. Foreign.”

“Dear, dear. Some evil continental pop-gun.” They all laughed at that.

“Absolutely,” said Kevin. At least he'd got that right. “More wine, Alex?”

“Thank you.”

“It's a seventy-one—Pommard.”

“I noticed.”

Kevin busied himself with dispensing wine to his guests, but Alex was still not deflected from the subject. “Avril said she thought you were going off shooting this weekend . . .”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe. Will you have a little more, Elizabeth? Fine. No, I saw something about one of these weekend teaching courses, you know, in shooting. . . . We all have to learn some time, don't we?” Kevin laughed again.

“Oh yes,” Alex agreed. “If we don't already know.”

Philip Wilkinson came kindly into the pause. “You know, anyone who's keen on shooting ought to chat up that new girl who's just started cooking the directors' lunches. Davina Whatsername . . .”

“Entick,” Kevin supplied.

“Yes. Her old man's Sir Richard Entick.”

Alex Paton was impressed. “Really? I hadn't made that connection. Well, he's got some of the best shooting in the country. Yes, keep on chatting her up, Kevin.”

Kevin laughed again, but again alone. They were silent, though there was quite a lot of noise from the cutlery. Avril hoped the steak wasn't too tough. She had done it exactly as the cordon bleu monthly part-work had said. Well, except that had said
best
grilling steak, but the best was so expensive. The stuff she had got had been expensive enough. She was sure it was all right.

Maybe they weren't talking because they were too busy eating. Enjoying it. The other two wives hadn't said much all evening. Maybe the wives of stockbrokers from Andersen Small weren't expected to say anything. Well, she wasn't going to be totally silent and submissive. Particularly with an empty wine glass. “Hey, Kev, you missed me out on your rounds. Could I have a bit more wine?”

Kevin somewhat ungraciously pushed the wine bottle towards her.

“Kev,” Alex Paton repeated. “That's rather an attractive coining.”

Kevin was immediately on the defensive. Though he smiled, Avril recognized the tension in his jaw muscles. “Actually, the name Kevin is quite old. Came across something about it the other day. Means ‘handsome birth'. There was a St Kevin way back in the sixth century. A hermit, I think. In Ireland.”

“Ah,” murmured Alex Paton. “In Ireland.”

They all laughed at that, though neither Kevin nor Avril could have said exactly why. Emboldened by his success, Alex Paton went on, “And tell me, what about Hooson-Smith? Does that name go back to the sixth century?”

After the laugh that greeted that one, they were all silent again. Kevin didn't start any new topic of conversation, so Avril decided it was her duty as hostess to speak. The sound of a car at the front of the house provided her cue.

“I bet that's our next door neighbour moving his car. You know, he's really strange. Very petty. He gets terribly upset if he can't park his car exactly outside his front door. And I mean exactly. We have known him to get up at three in the morning and move it, if he hears someone moving theirs and leaving a space. I mean, isn't that ridiculous? It's no trouble just to walk a couple of yards, but he always wants to be exactly outside. I hope we never get as petty as that.”

They were all looking at her. She didn't know why. Maybe she had spoken rather louder than usual. She felt relaxed by the wine. It had been a long day. All the usual vexations of the children and tidying the house and then, on top of that, cooking this dinner party. Kevin insisted that everything had to be just so for his colleagues from Andersen Small. She didn't really see why. It was not as if they had ever been invited to them. And the wives didn't seem real, just exquisitely painted clothes-horses, not real women who you could have a good natter with.

Alex Paton broke the pause and responded to her speech. “Yes, well, fortunately that's a problem we don't have to cope with. We are blessed with a rather quaint, old-fashioned device called a garage.”

After the laugh, Philip Wilkinson started talking about the intention of Andersen Small to open an office in Manila, and the attention moved away from Avril.

Only Kevin was still looking at her. She seemed to see him through a swimmy haze. And there was no love in his expression.

“I don't like to leave the washing-up till the morning, Kev.”

“Well, do it now, if you feel that strongly about it.” He was already out of his suit and unbuttoning the silk shirt that had been a special offer in the
Observer
. “All I know is, it's after one and I have a heavy day tomorrow. I have a long costing meeting with Andersen first thing.”

“I've got a lot to do tomorrow too.”

“Having coffee with some other under-employed woman, then tea with someone else.”

“No, not that. I've hardly met anyone since we've been in Dulwich. Not like it was in Willesden.”

“Equally the people here are rather different than those there were in Willesden. Better for the boys to grow up with.” Kevin was now down to his underpants. He turned away from her to take them off, as if ashamed.

“But the boys don't grow up with them. They spend all their time travelling back and forth to that bloody private school and don't seem to make any friends.”

“Don't say ‘bloody'. It makes you sound more Northern than ever.”

“Well, I am bloody Northern, aren't I?”

“There's no need to rub everyone's face in it all the time, though, is there?”

“Anyway, I'm no more Northern than you are. I just haven't tarted up my vowels and started talking in a phony accent that all my posh friends laugh at.”

“They do not laugh at me!” Kevin was dangerously near the edge of violence.

Avril bit back her rejoinder. No, calm down. She hadn't wanted the evening to end like this. She lingered in front of the dressing table, unwilling to start removing her make-up. It had used to be a signal between them. Well, more than a signal. She would start to remove her make-up and he would say, “Come on, time enough for that. We've got more important things to do”, and pull her down on to the bed. Now he rarely seemed to think they had more important things to do. Now, she felt, he wouldn't notice if she never even put on any make-up.

He was in his pyjamas and under the duvet, his back unanswerably turned to her side of the bed. (Why a duvet? She hated it. She loved the secure strapped-in feeling of sheets and blankets, the tight little cocoon their bed had been back in the flat in Willesden.)

Then she remembered their new chore. “Have you potted James?”

“No.”

“But I thought we'd agreed you'd do it.”

“You may have agreed that. I haven't agreed anything. Anyway, it's ridiculous, a child of six needing to be potted.”

“If he isn't, he wets the bed.”

“If he is, he still seems to wet it. It's ridiculous.”

“It's only since he's been at that new school.”

“I don't see what that has to do with it.”

“It has everything to do with it. He hates it there. He hates how all the other boys make fun of him, hates how they imitate his accent.”

“Perhaps that'll teach him to improve his accent.”

“What, you want another phony voice in the family?”

“A
VRIL
!
SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP
!” He was sitting up in bed, his face red with fury.