The Body Politic (15 page)

“Are we quite sure it was Ottershaw?” asked Greene, although both men had listened to the recorded message time and time again. “Oh, I know the voice said it was, but he's not exactly a familiar face at Head Office and the line wasn't all that clear, was it?”

“And it came from a public payphone, not a private line,” pointed out Morenci. He smiled thinly. “Well, we'll soon know for certain if it was Ottershaw's voice, won't we, seeing that the police have got a recording too. They can check that with his wife.”

“Widow,” said Greene.

“Well, Ottershaw did say on the recording that he was willing to go back to Lasserta first thing on the Monday morning and that we could tell Malcolm Forfar so. And Sheikh Ben Hajal Kisra.”

“Who's going to believe that?”

“No one,” said Morenci. “Especially those two policemen—well, the senior one, anyway. I'm not so sure the younger one was listening.”

“I certainly hadn't expected Ottershaw to ring up like that and say all of a sudden that he was willing to go back to Lasserta and face the music. Had you?”

Morenci's head sank even lower between his hands. “It was the last thing I expected. After all, he knows the Lassertans even better than we do.” The Chairman's voice dropped to something only just above a whisper. “But I didn't kill him, Darren.”

“No,” said Greene dispassionately. “I don't suppose you did, but you must agree that it looks bad, doesn't it?”

Major Derrick Puiver, unhappy while taking the chair at the Summer Garden Meeting of the Mellamby Branch of the Conservative Association, was unhappier still when talking to the police.

He had, however, it presently emerged, thoroughly enjoyed being the Commander at the re-enactment of the Battle of Lewes by the Camulos Society.

“The Sunday was much better than the Saturday, Inspector. Much. There was a heckler on the Saturday being very difficult at the meeting, to say nothing of having a false alarm for an ambulance and to cap everything else Mr. Rauly found a bone on the grass behind his chair. Most unpleasant.”

“What sort of bone?” enquired Sloan steadily.

“He thought it was from a chicken's leg and I certainly hadn't noticed it before we all sat down. I must say I didn't like it myself. I've served overseas, you know, so I know a bit about bone-pointing. Never expected anyone to go in for it in Calleshire.”

“I can see that the Sunday might have been an improvement,” said Sloan, making a note.

The Major puffed out his cheeks. “I think I can truthfully say, Inspector, on behalf of the Camulos Society that the day went well. Very well. Except, of course,” he added hastily, “for poor Ottershaw.”

He had met Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby by arrangement at Mellamby Motte in the grounds of Mellamby Place. They were all standing together at the foot of the sole remaining tower of the old motte-and-bailey castle and were presently looking northwards. The Major pointed across the little dip in the land that contained the freshet that was the infant River Pletch and over towards the rise beyond and said, “If that had been Offham Hill at Lewes over there, Inspector, where the woodland begins—that's the old Mellamby Chase, by the way—then Prince Edward, the Lord Edward they called him, would have had his first view of the Baronial Army from this point here where we are standing.”

“Quite so, sir,” said Sloan, resisting the temptation to say anything about another possible theoretical and historical supposition: that if the wood were Birnam, then where they were standing was Dunsinane. “As it so happens, sir, we are—er—making enquiries about the re-enactment here at Mellamby rather than about the—er—original battle at Lewes.”

“So I had heard,” said Major Puiver. “Bad luck about poor Ottershaw,” he added gruffly. “He was being William de Wilton, you know, and had to die early on. None of the King's party ended the day very well, of course.”

Only Alan Ottershaw had actually died, Sloan reminded himself, but that had not been what the Major had meant.

“Except that the King fought like a Trojan,” went on Puiver in his clipped military tones. “Lost his liberty but not his reputation, if you know what I mean. Difficult fellow to understand, King Henry III. Must have driven everyone to distraction.” The old soldier's eyes took on a distant look. “Now, if it had been Henry V everything would have been different. He was a brilliant general and a real leader of men.”

Detective Inspector Sloan put Agincourt out of his mind and looked across in the direction the Major had pointed. “So the enemy …” No, that couldn't be right: surely this had been civil war? He started again. “So the opposition attacked from over there by the wood?”

“That is correct, Inspector. For our purposes you may ignore the wood.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Sloan with deceptive mildness.

“Can't see it for the trees anyway,” murmured Crosby under his breath.

“It was very important, though, to the original builders of Mellamby—the de Caquevilles—Inspector, because they held their land by right of cornage.”

“Sir?”

“The de Caquevilles held their estate here by cornage,” repeated the Major.

“That's what I thought you said, sir.”

“That is, by the service of blowing the horn when required by the King,” said the Major, “either to marshal his troops or to give warning of the approach of an enemy.”

“I see, sir.” Detective Inspector Sloan had had an uncle who had been a member of the Royal Observer Corps on the east coast during the last war. He supposed that was a lineal descendant of cornage in a way. It came to much the same thing, anyway. So did radar.

“It was also a means of measuring the ownership of land in times gone by,” said the Major. “Instead of it being all yours as far as the eye could see, you owned all that where the horn could be heard.”

“About the battle, sir.” Sloan corrected himself as quickly as he could: “I mean the re-enactment.”

The Major pointed towards Mellamby Chase again. “The Baronial Army took up its station over there on the rise and the King's party used this motte as their rallying ground. We didn't stick to the actual timing, of course, Inspector. Real battles tend to start very early in the morning, which doesn't suit amateurs. No, I didn't wave the starter's flag until half-past ten on the Sunday morning.”

Sloan had read somewhere once about a tribe in Borneo—or had it been New Guinea?—whose warriors went to war in elaborate painted head-dresses of feathers and who were nevertheless afraid of the dark. In consequence all their wars had to be fought from nine o'clock to five o'clock, so to speak—in daylight, anyway—and on fine days because any rain spoiled their martial hair-dos.

“Moreover,” continued the Major, oblivious of Sloan's train of thought, “since we usually fight on Sundays we always make a feature of luncheon.”

Things, then, weren't so very different after all from New Guinea—or had it been Borneo?

“And then we normally have some sort of staged tournament or set competitive display in the afternoon for the children and the spectators and so forth.”

“Fun and games,” said Detective Constable Crosby.

“The real Simon de Montfort probably attacked just after half-past five in the morning, and that wouldn't have done for the Camulos Society members at all.”

Detective Inspector Sloan solemnly agreed that verisimilitude could go only so far and no further. He said, “Perhaps, sir, you would just tell me exactly what happened to William de Wilton.” He coughed. “Or should I say Alan Ottershaw?”

Major Puiver was impervious to irony. “As you know, Inspector, it was a role that Bertram Rauly had been going to play.”

“Perhaps you could tell me who knew about the switch,” suggested Sloan, trying hard to get down to brass tacks. “Apart from Ottershaw himself, that is.”

“Me, of course,” said the Major, “because I arranged it with him. The Wardrobe Mistress—that's Miss Mildred Finch—and probably the armourer. I don't think the Dapifer did because he wanted to know where Bertram Rauly was going to sit at the feast. Said someone had asked him.”

“Dapifer?” asked Sloan tonelessly.

“A sort of steward. He was in charge of the eating and drinking. All the fare was medieval.”

“Anyone else?”

“Ah, there you have me,” admitted Puiver. “A lot of people knew about Bertram Rauly's injured ankle, and of course Hazel Ottershaw knew about Alan taking his role. She could have told any number of people.” He cleared his throat in a hortatory way. “We call them roles rather than parts, Inspector, because we have a muster roll of the Camulos Society rather than a register of members. Or a cast list.”

“And Mrs. Ottershaw, I suppose,” said Sloan, silently gritting his teeth, “had brought her husband along that morning because he was there?”

“Like Everest,” put in Detective Constable Crosby, suddenly waking up and taking an interest in the proceedings like the Dormouse at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

“Just so,” said the Major. “Providential, you might say, I suppose.”

If Alan Ottershaw had been inflicted with a fatal pellet that Sunday morning, thought Sloan, then it had indeed been Providential for him. In one sense, anyway. It had taken him straight to Kingdom Come.

Aloud, Sloan said again, “Who else knew about the change in par—roles?”

“I don't know myself how many people Hazel and Alan told,” said Major Puiver. “I made a note on my muster roll naturally, and that might have been seen by other people. Must keep the paperwork straight otherwise you lose control.”

Sloan hoped that Crosby was listening.

“I must say,” carried on the Major, “the outfit fitted Ottershaw like a glove. Old Bertram's kept his figure very well. He's an old soldier, of course.”

The little Major was still remarkably trim, too, noted Sloan to himself. He cleared his throat. “So, sir,” he said, “as far as you are concerned unless the other—er—participants had been told by someone else or seen your muster roll they might well have thought that Alan Ottershaw was Bertram Rauly?”

“Indeed, yes,” responded Puiver.

It was an unwonted complication as far as Detective Inspector Sloan was concerned. He changed his conversational tack, waving his arm towards Mellamby Chase. “This is all Mr. Rauly's land, I take it, sir?”

“It is indeed,” responded the Major warmly. “And held by something a little more tangible than cornage, too, I'm happy to say. The Raulys did well under the Tudors but better still under the Stuarts. That's when they built Mellamby Place. When James I was on the throne.”

“The wisest fool in Christendom,” said Sloan. Some historical quotations stuck in the mind longer than others.

“Not much of a campaigner, of course,” said Puiver professionally, “but the Raulys themselves have always been soldiers. Right up to Bertram, that is.”

“Don't tell me that his sons have gone in for pacifism,” said Sloan. He'd had to restrain some very aggressive pacifists in his day and had scars to prove it.

“No, Inspector.” Major Puiver shook his head sadly. “I'm afraid that's the whole trouble. The pity of it, I suppose I should say.”

“Trouble?” queried Sloan, his professional instincts aroused by the word.

“He doesn't have any sons.”

“Oh, I see …”

The Major said, “It's worse than that.”

“No daughters?” offered Crosby brightly.

“No wife,” said Major Puiver, adding sombrely, “And no heir, either.”

“He might still marry.” Sloan was bracing. “A man is only as old as he feels.”

“Bertram had rather a bad time in tanks in the war,” said the Major obliquely.

“What's that got to do with——”

“And sustained some—er—lasting wounds.” He coughed. “It was most unfortunate.”

“Stapped in his vitals, was he?” asked Crosby cheerfully.

“So,” asked Sloan bluntly, “what happens to Mellamby Place when he goes?” In the First World War it had been the barbed wire that had taken on a legendary significance as far as future fatherhood was concerned.

“Ah,” said the Major, “that's a very sore point.”

“The National Trust?”

“He doesn't like institutions and anyway he can't afford to endow the estate.”

“A really wealthy man could buy it,” said Sloan.

“He can't abide the thought of strangers living here,” said the Major, adding significantly, “and won't.”

“Cats' home?” put in Crosby. He didn't like cats.

“So?” said Sloan, ignoring this.

“Bertram's told everyone that he's going to set the house on fire before he dies,” said the Major.

TWELVE

And the Widow and Child Forsake the Dead

It was a full hour after that before Major Derrick Puiver finished his conducted tour of the mock battlefield and what he called—several times—putting Sloan and Crosby in the picture. He came to a halt at last in the garden of Mellamby Place.

“We finished our day here, Inspector,” he said, waving an arm, “in the old tiltyard with a little staged tournament and some troubadours. As it happens the real battle was over quite early in the day too. Simon de Montfort was a good strategist and the King's son—the Lord Edward, that is—although he was on the losing side at Lewes had learned a great deal about military tactics by the end of the conflict. Later on, of course, he did very well against the Scots and the Welsh.”

Once again Sloan had a curious sensation that the little Major wasn't really sure which century he was in. He brought him firmly back to the twentieth with a question. “How easy, sir, would it have been for any participant to have fired a real pellet at William de Wilton. I mean”—hurriedly—“at Alan Ottershaw?”