Days of Your Fathers (13 page)

He wrapped Janet up in a rug and earnestly discussed with her the different traffic laws of England and the State of New York. The coroner and Noll quite unconsciously lowered the level of the bottle and at intervals patrolled the two ends of the street.

‘They must think we have left town by now,' said Jim after an hour.

‘If we keep to the side roads we should be all right,' Noll agreed. ‘So we'll just return the carpet and go.'

There was a general protest at Noll's exaggerated sense of duty.

‘Nonsense!' he said. ‘And it would be much safer than putting on a false beard and sending the thing back by rail. They forgot to lock the door in the wall here.'

It was true. The massive cylinder of carpet was cautiously carried into the yard and dropped.

‘Better put it under cover,' Noll advised. ‘It has rained every night since the end of April.'

There was no cover handy. The shed through which Oliver Cromwell, JP, had exploded was surrounded by too much debris for quiet movement. Jim tried the handle of the hotel's back door. That too had been forgotten in the excitement.

‘Why not lay it back in the lounge exactly as we found it?' he suggested. ‘That will fox the old girl. She'll think she dreamed it all.'

To Janet's horror Mike Lanchester's fancy also seemed to be tickled by the idea – but on condition that he himself went inside first to report whether the scheme was sane and practical.

He was back within a minute.

‘No snags,' he said. ‘Two steps up and we're in the passage leading to the lounge. Unroll from this end, and the job's done!'

There was a soft thud as they negotiated the steps. Janet held her breath. No sound came from the sleeping hotel. But now the carpet, compressed by an evening of idle travel, took command. The forty feet of it were impatient to unroll. As soon as it had been deposited at the back of the passage and encouraged with a gentle push it gathered speed, making a bee-line for the lounge and the front door.

The width filled the passage so that it was impossible to get in front and stop it. All right if it continued straight, disastrous if it didn't. Knick-knacks and spindly tables were all over the place. Jim Blaize hurdled the roll, tripped as it flicked him across the back of the knees, but still managed to fall with the silence of long practice in juvenile delinquency.

The last yard of carpet slapped into position opposite the front door. Mike patted down a wrinkle in the middle and stepped back to admire their joint handiwork. A heavy wrought-iron standard lamp immediately behind him tottered, avoided his grasp and crashed through the glass partition of the bar.

Upstairs someone screamed. Lights in the lounge suddenly blazed. As the four shot out of the back door and
across the yard a large piece of crockery hurled from an upstairs window burst on the stone paving. The car leaped out of the alley and then rolled more sedately through back streets to avoid suspicion.

‘This is the end,' Noll declared. ‘Can anyone think of any believable explanation when we're accused of coming back to pinch liquor from the bar?'

‘If you had only been drinking, Mike, you'd have been more careful,' said Jim reproachfully.

Janet silently agreed and realised that she had accepted English logic. She knew exactly what Jim meant.

‘Well, we're all right for the present,' Noll said as soon as they were clear of houses and heading north along by-roads.

‘Don't count on it!' Mike muttered, driving in a fury of concentration. ‘We passed a cop on the beat. He was too late for action but he recognised the car. We'll double back south here and make for home.'

Janet dozed, her eyes tired by the continual flicking past of white hawthorn blossom in the hedgerows. At intervals they stopped to consult map and sign-posts. Then Mike seemed to be in his own country and was twisting from village to village with confidence.

‘Once across the main road, and we're safe,' he said. ‘Oh, my God!'

At the junction, tucked away under trees, was a black police car. By the time he had roared two hundred yards down the main road and screeched right into a lane which looked as if it led nowhere the police were in hot pursuit.

Hidden by two corners he shot into a farmyard and round the back of a barn. The police car went straight on. Janet waited for the noise to die away. It did not. The car was turning.

‘Can't shake 'em off!' Mike cursed. ‘When they don't see my lights they know I've gone to earth. And I daren't drive without till we have a reasonable lead.'

He raced back to the main road, trying sheer speed in the hope of getting away while the police were still in the
lane, but there was no wood or valley to hide the gleam of the headlights.

A car ahead laid a false trail for them. Mike pulled into a side turning and watched the police shoot past.

‘That gives us a minute till they find out it isn't us,' he said. ‘Noll, have you fished up as far as Norton Bridge?'

‘Lots of times. I don't suppose they'll ever allow me on their water again after this.'

‘What's the bottom like?'

‘Gravel. Why?'

‘You'll see.'

He turned and tore back up the main road. But the police car was deadly fast, and its lights were already on their tail when he swung left and put on a brilliant burst of speed over tight, continual curves.

Janet saw the little river ahead and thought he had gone crazy. He switched out his lights and, instead of crossing the bridge, bumped down an old paved track to the side of it. He entered the water and turned downstream, pushing a two-foot wave in front of him. Under the bridge he stopped. The police roared over, and on out of sight and hearing.

‘I thought it might work if the bottom was hard,' he said. ‘No one would notice the track down to the old ford unless he knew it was there. I'll have that drink now, Noll, if there's any left.'

Janet's violent introduction to the eccentricities of England was succeeded by a sleepy delight as the May dawn slowly made love to her. It was heaven to sit in a boat – she couldn't always be remembering it was a station-wagon – conscious of this improbable and attractive Mike Lanchester while the clear stream rippled past and the solid green of the banks, dense and mysterious as jungle, was framed by the arch of the bridge. An otter arrowed upstream and investigated with nose and whiskers the curious obstruction in its fishing ground.

Just before sunrise the three men got out, cleaned the number plates and washed the car to a state of sturdy innocence.

‘Now then,' said Mike, ‘will she start?'

She did. The coroner went up to the bridge to signal if any traffic came in sight. The justice of the peace stood by the bonnet ready to heave. The squire reversed back to the ford and up onto the road.

‘We had better split up now in case of accidents,' Mike proposed. ‘You and Jim can easily walk home from here.'

‘It's a bit far for Miss Morland,' Noll replied, suddenly becoming formal on the edge of his own country.

‘She's coming back to the manor with me. It's obvious that she must take her bath and breakfast with the only bachelor. Both your wives are angels of understanding, but turning up for breakfast with an incoherent story and a devastatingly attractive American …'

‘He's right,' said Janet hastily. ‘I mean – about the explaining.'

‘Well, I can leave you in Mike's hands with absolute confidence,' Noll assured her.

Janet replied that of course he could, and rebuked herself for a slight sense of disappointment.

‘Now, we'll fix her up so that she doesn't answer the police description. A scarf right over the hair. Jim's duffle coat. And there you are! Anyone would assume that her hair was dark. She has the innocent little madonna face which goes with it. Bring her over to lunch, Mike, and we'll celebrate!'

The two said goodbye and strolled off up the road.

‘Is it far to the manor?' Janet asked.

‘About five miles. But I'm going round through the lanes. We still don't want to answer questions.'

She could see by the villages and their church towers, which were always off to the right or left, that he was skilfully avoiding early risers. At last they emerged from desolate little roads, where gates had to be opened and shut, on to a straight highway.

‘Now,' he said, ‘two minutes of this and we're home!'

The car was just gathering speed when a constable leapt out of the hedge ahead and stationed himself bravely and majestically in the middle of the road with upraised hand.

‘Oh, it's you, sir!' he said, disappointed. ‘Thought I'd got 'em!'

‘Who did you think it was, Tompkins?' Mike asked. ‘What's the trouble?'

‘Nasty business up in Stanborough last night, sir. Police from both counties on the job. They chased a car of the same make as yours and lost it around Norton Bridge.'

‘Any description?'

‘Not much good. Three well-dressed men and a woman –' he consulted his notes ‘– American, good-looking, slim build, 'air red …'

‘Sounds attractive,' Mike interrupted. ‘I'm just giving Miss Morland a lift back from London. Rather a late theatre party, I'm afraid.'

‘It
was
from London, if you don't mind my asking? She didn't stop you and beg a lift and you, bein' always good-'arted, gave it?'

‘Good Lord, no! Miss Morland is an old friend of the family.'

The constable in spite of his air of deference had his eyes too firmly fixed on Janet. She had to say something. She drew a deep breath and produced a magnificent English accent.

‘Oh, darling!' she exclaimed to Mike with a bored laugh. ‘How really too absurd!'

‘Well, good morning, sir,' said the constable. ‘Time we both 'ad our breakfast!'

He recovered his bicycle from the hedge and rode away.

‘Splendid!' Mike told her. ‘Splendid! But the ‘darling' was altogether too stagey. We must practise that. Now look me straight in the eyes and say it again!'

The Singular Story of Mr Hackafree

It was only Bill Hackafree who actually saw him. Bill was all alone in his cottage on a Monday night in early February and a gale storming up from the west with a touch of north in it when he heard someone clear his throat, as much as to excuse himself for demanding attention, and noticed a stranger leaning up against the dresser with one hand in his coat pocket and the other fingering his tie. In spite of the weather he was wearing dark glasses and a red silk shirt with his initials on it like one of the summer visitors.

‘Shut the door,' said Bill Hackafree, ‘and stop that bloody draught!'

‘I never opened it,' the stranger said.

‘Ah, that's why I didn't 'ear un shut. And who may you be?'

‘Well, as a matter of fact,' the gentleman told him, ‘I came to see if I could interest you in a scheme.'

That was the way he talked, Bill said, as if he had taken the penthouse with the big windows and the two private bathrooms on the roof of the mainland hotel.

‘It's no way to begin by leaving doors open,' Bill grumbled at him.

‘But I assure you, my dear sir, I did not use the door.'

‘Then 'ow did you get in?'

‘I'm not here really,' said the gentleman. ‘You're only seeing me.'

Bill thought that was reasonable enough, for he knew that there was not a stranger on the island and that the
launch from the mainland hadn't found a single passenger to face the sea which was running down the strait.

‘Then if you ain't here,' he said, ‘you can bugger off again.'

Bill was close on seventy and inclined to be short with people who came messing around his cottage, for he had got set in his ways – such as putting his gear and dirty dishes on the bed and sleeping on the floor because it saved trouble. A good fisherman he was, but what with the trawlers sweeping up the inshore grounds he never could catch enough to satisfy his simple tastes for beer and tobacco. He was brought up in the days when threepence bought a pint of one and an ounce of the other.

‘That's no way to talk, Mr Hackafree,' the visitor complained, ‘and not what I would have expected from you.'

‘No call for 'ard feelings,' said Bill, for even if the chap wasn't there himself he might have a fill of baccy on him that was.

‘Which is what I have come about,' replied the gentleman just as if he had read Bill's thoughts. ‘May I venture to hope that you meant it when you declared shortly before my arrival that you would be eternally damned if you could find a fill at the bottom of your pouch?'

‘I don't rightly know if I meant it, sir,' Bill answered, seeing that he ought to be a bit more respectful, ‘but there ain't no sense in nothing these days and that's a fact.'

‘You won't have to sign any papers as you do at the Post Office,' the visitor said. ‘You tell me here and now that I can have the rest of you which isn't in the churchyard, and you won't want for a pint or a fill as long as you live.'

Bill was English and so were all the sixty-two inhabitants of Herbrandsholm although the island was off the coast of Wales. If this had happened among Welshmen they would have started to sing hymns and foam at the mouth instead of accepting the devil sensibly and making the most of the opportunity.

‘Don't change much, do yer?' Bill asked, to give himself time to think.

The gentleman explained that his usual representatives could get all they wanted without the prospect ever noticing that he had done any business at all. But, speaking for himself, he preferred honest dealings between man and man and it had seemed to him that Herbrandsholm on a stormy night would offer a chance to keep his hand in just like old times.

Bill saw what he meant, for they were always being told that Herbrandsholm was still in the Middle Ages. The county education officer said so and the man from the Ministry of Agriculture and the sanitary inspector. You never know how far a remark like that can travel.