Cat among the herrings, p.10
Cat Among the Herrings, page 10
‘The one whose nose he flattened?’
‘That’s right. Martina.’
‘And you now regret not sticking with Robin?’
‘God, no! I was well out of that one. He’s the sort of man girls reckon they can reform and turn into Mr Darcy, but you’re onto a loser every time with the Robins of this world. He never did kick his cocaine habit.’
‘Right up to the end?’
‘Obviously. He was drugged to the eyeballs on his final trip.’
‘His last sailing trip?’
‘Absolutely. I’m not counting any travelling he did after he died.’
‘Ethelred said there was no trace of alcohol …’
‘And he was right. No alcohol at all – just a whole heap of drugs.’
‘Which ones?’
‘Some cocaine, like I say. And Rohypnol.’
‘Rohypnol? The date rape one?’
‘It’s not unusual, apparently, for cocaine users to take Rohypnol too – it’s good for coming down after a cocaine binge, or so I read somewhere. But it would explain why Robin lost control of the boat and went overboard.’
‘Tom said nothing to Ethelred about any of that.’
‘Tom’s report on the Observer also charitably made no mention of it – his final act of friendship or contrition or something.’
‘A good friend, then.’
‘But a lousy reporter. The drugs were relevant to a lot of things. It doesn’t surprise me that some people think it might be murder. But with what was flowing round in his bloodstream, most people would have fallen overboard, even tied up in the marina without a wave in sight.’
‘Doesn’t the life jacket keep your head above water?’
‘Depends on the model. Robin was wearing a life preserver – less bulky but designed for somebody who can swim and is close to the shore. Not so good out at sea and in a drug-induced coma.’
‘How do you know all this if it wasn’t in the paper?’
‘I went to the inquest.’
‘Why?’
‘Curiosity.’
Then a thought occurred to me.
‘So, you’d have seen Tom there?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he’d have seen you?’
‘I imagine so.’
It didn’t seem worth asking whether they talked to each other. Sometimes you just get a feeling for the way things went.
‘In that case, when you said you were down here by coincidence …’ I said.
‘I was lying. To myself more than anybody. It’s a harmless habit, unlike cocaine. And not illegal. I went to the inquest. I knew roughly when the funeral would be. Voila! Here I am. And anyway …’ Sophie paused and looked at me.
‘Anyway?’ I asked.
‘Anyway … the sun is shining and I may as well go out and enjoy it. Unless you and Ethelred have any more questions?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I had no reason at all to feel guilty. Absolutely none. It was true that I had told neither Tom nor Elsie that I was planning to do this, but I had every right to be driving up this gravel track. Tom’s father might, in theory at least, be able to shed more light on the hanging of Lancelot Pagham. I had as much cause to be here as in Chichester Library. And I might also chat to him, in passing, about the death of Robin Pagham. It would be odd, surely, to visit him and not offer my condolences on the death of his friend?
Colonel Derek Gittings opened the door a careful couple of inches.
‘I was just passing,’ I said.
‘Were you?’
It was not a good start. A lean, weather-beaten face looked back at me. The hair was grey and sparse but the eyebrows were bushy and black – the eyes themselves pale, cold blue. He wore a cream shirt, checked with brown and green and an old moss-coloured cardigan. A foot, in a tartan carpet slipper, was poised ready to give added weight if he needed to shut the door in my face.
‘I’m Ethelred Tressider,’ I said. ‘We met at the film club … in the village … and then …’
‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘And what you write. Not quite senile yet. Tom said you were researching some family history.’
‘Yes,’ I said with relief. ‘I wondered if you had a few minutes?’
‘Now?’
‘I could come back.’
‘Yes, so you probably would bloody well come back, wouldn’t you? It may as well be now.’
The door opened a little wider and I entered. The hallway had last been papered many years ago, probably when Tom’s mother was still alive, with a complex William Morris print – stylised vines snaked their way backwards and forwards. The colours had faded, other than the browns and ochres. By the door, the paper was grubby and worn, as members of the family had brushed past over many years. One or two brighter squares of paper showed where pictures had been taken down and never put up again. On the coat stand several waterproofs had been abandoned – all in need of a clean – and a shapeless deerstalker hung precariously by its strap. There was a faint smell of cabbage. I could not recall when I had last cooked cabbage or even looked for it in the shops.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I wondered—’
‘You’d better come into the study,’ said Colonel Gittings. ‘Or do you actually like standing there?’
‘Not especially,’ I said.
‘Nor do I,’ he said. ‘So, let’s not.’
It felt like the first time we had met. I had expressed the view that Butch Cassidy had been a good choice of film for the evening. He had replied: ‘If you like that sort of thing’. Which left me classified amongst those who enjoyed that sort of film, with the many other weaknesses of mind and body that such people undoubtedly possessed. Then he had turned to speak to somebody else before I could think of a reply, clever or otherwise. The following day I was still trying to work out what I should have said.
‘The study … yes, perfect,’ I said, on this occasion.
He motioned me towards the door, as if he had been trying to get me out of the hall for hours and had only just succeeded. His study, too, was very William Morris, but brighter – here birds clutching strawberries dotted the green fronds. I wondered whether after all, the design of the hallway had been the colonel’s.
‘It was my wife’s sitting room,’ he said, noticing my interest in the decor. ‘When she was alive. Nothing to do with me.’
‘I like the wallpaper,’ I said.
‘You can have it, if you can get it off the wall.’
‘I’m not sure I could do that.’
‘I’m bloody sure you can’t. So, if you’re not here for the wallpaper, what is it that you want?’
He motioned me towards a chair that had seen better days and which was covered with an old blanket. I suspected that after sitting in it I would be picking dog hairs off my clothes for days.
‘Tom told me about the murder of John Gittings,’ I said.
‘God knows what possessed him to do that. Ancient history. Best forgotten. I only know what you can read in the local history books, anyway. They’re all in the library in Chichester. Might have one of the books on those shelves there, but I couldn’t say exactly where.’
He indicated the wooden bookshelves that dominated one wall of the study, though how he hoped to find anything in the confusion of books, newspapers and folders he had stacked on them, I had no idea. His desk, too, was a confused jumble. Three dirty mugs sat on heaps of assorted letters and circulars advertising stairlifts and funeral plans. We get a lot of those round here but most of us recycle them promptly. His surroundings were as little cared for as his clothes, as comfortable in a way as the old red slippers he wore. In the distant days when he was a young subaltern he would doubtless have had to maintain himself and his kit in immaculate order. Later he would have had a batman to press his trousers to a knife-like sharpness. Was he sending out a message that all that was in the past? On the wall there was some sort of regimental plaque and a formal group photograph of twenty or so officers and men in uniform, the glossy paper slightly wrinkled now and faded from exposure to the sun.
‘Northern Ireland,’ he said, again following my gaze. ‘That would have been our second tour of duty. Six of them didn’t live to do a third. Landmine.’
‘Northern Ireland must have been tough.’
‘Really? You think so? What would you know about it, then?’
‘Nothing. Just what I’ve read and seen on television.’
‘Or at the film club,’ he said.
‘Maybe.’ I smiled but his face remained stony. It wasn’t a joke.
‘Iraq was worse,’ he said. ‘The Falklands were fine. Stroll in the park. For my lot, anyway. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the Sheffield.’
I tried to remember what had happened to the Sheffield. Exocet missile? The conversation was drifting and I suspected it would be like Colonel Gittings to terminate our meeting abruptly and impatiently.
‘So, what can I tell you?’
‘I’ve read the newspaper reports on the 1848 murder,’ I said. ‘It was what happened later that I’m beginning to find interesting.’
‘How much later?’
‘After the murder, the fortunes of the Paghams took a turn for the better,’ I said.
‘I suppose so. They did all right for themselves.’
‘Whereas …’ I wondered whether to continue that sentence. Most things seemed to annoy him.
‘Whereas we’ve come down in the world?’ he enquired. ‘It’s all relative. We’ve still got more than most – this house and a bit of land.’
‘Including the Herring Field,’ I said.
Colonel Gittings looked at me suspiciously. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Including that.’
‘I’d heard Robin was planning to build a wind farm on it,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’
‘I might have said I’d let him have the land,’ he said.
‘Even though everyone in the village would oppose it?’
‘Not everyone. Just bloody fools like that Whitelace man. This isn’t some rural theme park. We all have to make money somehow.’
‘But why that?’
‘That’s my bloody business, don’t you think? I let you in here because you said you wanted to ask questions about the past, not to discuss my personal finances.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘But you were good friends with Robin?’
‘Yes. I still don’t see how any of this fits in with your research.’
‘Tom implied that the murder of John Gittings led to hostility between the two families.’
‘Did he?’
‘So that’s wrong?’
‘Maybe in the past. I honestly can’t remember what my grandfather may have said or felt about it. I was always on good enough terms with Robin. As you pointed out, we contemplated doing business together. I’d go so far as to say he was one of my very best friends. I was devastated when I heard he’d drowned. Stupid bloody way to go. Just like him, of course. Stupid bloody man. But …’
He paused and looked into the distance.
‘Where were you the day he drowned?’ I asked.
‘Here in the village. Where else would I be?’
Then, I don’t know why, I added: ‘And Tom?’
‘Weald and Downland Museum. All day.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Of course. When something like that happens, you don’t forget details like where you were when you heard. Or where other people were. Tom went there with that Sophie woman.’
‘Sophie Tate?’
‘That’s right.’
‘She was in Sussex the day Robin died?’
‘Yes. She was with Tom. They were both at the museum. All day.’ He glowered at me. ‘You are here under false pretences, Mr Tressider. Don’t think Tom hasn’t told me that Catarina has asked you to investigate Robin’s death. I know what you are implying.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t intended to get onto that. It was just that you started talking about Tom and Sophie …’
‘Oh – and it’s all my fault is it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated.
‘Are you? Well, if you’ve no more questions about me or my finances, Mr Tressider, I have some work to do.’
He picked up a circular on mobility scooters, which quite clearly had higher priority than I did.
‘No more questions,’ I said. ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘So,’ said Elsie. ‘You are investigating the murder, after all.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t intended the discussion to go that way at all.’
‘Not even a bit?’
‘No, not even a bit.’
‘Still,’ said Elsie, ‘that means Sophie was around on the day Robin died and she was there for the inquest and for the funeral. Coincidence? I think not.’
We were back at my house comparing notes. One of us had eaten a packet of chocolate biscuits as an aid to thought. Fortunately I had another hidden at the back of the cupboard, where Elsie would never find them unaided.
‘She’s a former fiancée,’ I pointed out.
‘So she’d definitely want to be there the day he died, then. What ex wouldn’t?’
‘That would take a bit of planning, I grant you. But, as it happened, she wasn’t around that day – not here in the village. The Weald and Downland Museum’s at Singleton. That’s just on the other side of Chichester.’
‘All very innocent. Except she and Tom had split up sometime before Robin’s death. At the inquest, after the event, they seem to have ignored each other completely. What the hell are they doing, on the day he vanished, suddenly going off to a museum together?’
‘Because it’s interesting. It’s a big open-air museum. There aren’t many like it. They’ve reconstructed lots of old buildings there from all over southern England.’
‘Interesting for you, perhaps. But a whole day …’
‘I’ve spent a whole day there.’
‘Yes, as I said, interesting for you, perhaps. But what would Sophie be doing coming down midweek to meet an ex-boyfriend for a date at a museum? In my day a date meant getting plastered and throwing up in the gutter together. At the very least. I’ve had some weird boyfriends, but none of them have ever phoned me after many months of silence and suggested we go to a museum. And why have neither of them mentioned it until now?’
‘Neither of them has mentioned it at all. It was Tom’s father. Other than that, the museum trip is their own little secret, you might say.’
‘So, how do we find out why they went off together like that?’
‘I’ll ask Sophie,’ I said.
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that. I’ll call round and just ask her.’
‘And what excuse will you use for calling?’
‘I’ll think of something.’
‘The Dr Atkins Diet Book?’
‘Yes, Elsie thought she might have left it behind after she had called on you.’
Sophie shook her head. ‘I’m sure I would have noticed straight away.’ She glanced quickly round the room as if in evidence of her observational powers.
‘She’ll be really disappointed,’ I said. ‘She loves that book. Of course, hiding the chocolate biscuits may work equally well. Anyway, I told her I’d try here on my way back from seeing Derek Gittings.’
‘You’ve been to see Tom’s father?’ asked Sophie.
‘Yes. I’m doing this research on a murder that took place back in the 1840s. One of Tom’s ancestors.’
‘I know about the Herring Field murder. I’ve spent a lot of time down here, after all. Look, do you want a coffee? I’m just making some. Sorry about the mess in here by the way – I’m packing to go back to London. I need to be gone in half an hour or they might make me pay for another day.’
Sophie went off to the kitchen. I heard the usual noises of kettles being filled and jars being unscrewed. At first I couldn’t identify the additional sound – a faint buzzing at my elbow. Then I noticed Sophie’s phone, presumably switched to ‘vibrate’, on the table by my chair. I instinctively glanced over. Mobile phones, like babies, demand attention at all times. They hate being ignored. The name of the caller had flashed up on the screen: ‘Martina Blanch’. Then the buzz stopped as the phone switched to answer.
Sophie came back with two mugs of coffee.
‘You missed a call,’ I said.
‘You didn’t happen to spot who it was, I suppose?’
There seemed little point in lying and saying that I hadn’t snooped. ‘Martina Blanch?’ I said.
‘Oh right,’ said Sophie, putting my mug down and taking up her handset. ‘She can wait.’
The name had meant nothing to me, and yet I had a vague idea that I’d heard it before somewhere – I just couldn’t think where. If it was a friend of Sophie’s, Tom would have been the only person who could have mentioned it to me.
‘So, how was the colonel?’ asked Sophie, changing the subject.
‘Grumpy,’ I said. ‘He’s one of those people who makes me feel I’m still a naughty six-year-old.’
‘He’s like that to everyone.’
‘Army training?’
‘Most soldiers I know are very affable. But he outranks most of my university friends who went into the forces. Even the most pushy one has only just been promoted to major. Once they’re all full colonels, maybe they’ll be the same as Tom’s dad.’
‘He was in Northern Ireland.’
‘I know. There was something a bit odd about his military career – I’m not sure what he did in Ireland, but it wasn’t standard soldiering. Some sort of counter-intelligence, I think. Same with Iraq. I think he must have done a lot of things he can’t talk about, even now.’
‘Probably,’ I said. I took a sip of coffee. I’d forgotten to say no milk. I’d drink it anyway. If she had to be gone in half an hour – twenty-five minutes now – she didn’t have time to make another one. I was surprised she’d offered coffee at all. Maybe she needed to know something.
