The Primrose Pursuit (20 page)

I trudged along more than a little dismayed by such reflections. And then I suddenly stopped, transfixed by an even greater fear … Oh my God, if Charles were somehow involved in, or aware of, the drugs operation, could he also have been party to the fate of Carstairs? My heart pounded at the thought of such an appalling possibility.
And was Agnes in it too, raking in ill-gotten gains to fund her sojourn in Tobago? After all, she had been there long enough, swanning about in all that Caribbean sun. Supposing I had been wrong all along and that it had been
she
and not Topping who had been the engineer of Carstairs’ misfortune …

Ablaze with such visions and now indifferent to my bruises I thrust forward grimly. If my conjectures were correct it was utterly scandalous. And how on earth should I treat Charles when we next met – with a casual nonchalance or steely disdain? A problem indeed!

Fortunately it was Maurice who brought me down to earth. Seeing the cat’s disapproving face peering out from the bars of my garden gate had the effect of a douse of iced water, and I felt suitably ashamed and sobered. How ignoble to be maligning poor Charles and Agnes, a more decent and upright pair it would be hard to imagine. A wave of guilt flooded over me. How could I possibly have entertained such thoughts? Doubtless a nervous reaction after the night’s alarming events. Of
course
it was none of their doing … a certainty which took me back to my odious quarry. If Hubert Topping could make a daily fetish of wearing a pink rosebud then he could also sport a slouch hat gone out of fashion at least a decade ago. Oh yes, the smaller man had been him all right!

That settled and firmly clutching my handbag with its vital contents, I rounded up Maurice and – as far as knees would allow – marched to the house and the sanctuary of bed.

‘Do you think she is round the bend?’ I asked Maurice.

‘Who?’

‘The mistress, of course.’

‘They are all like that,’ the cat replied, licking his foot, ‘take F.O., for example.’

‘Ah, but he wasn’t right round, only half.’

‘As good as.’

‘But Maurice,’ I told him, ‘you have always said that there are degrees of human bonkers and that we shouldn’t confuse one degree of bonkers with another.’

‘Hmm,’ he agreed sleepily, ‘I daresay I did. But frankly, after tonight’s charade I may have to revise my view somewhat. There may be fewer gradations than I had imagined.’

I frowned, trying to work that out. Then I gave a puzzled snort. ‘Isn’t that just what I said?
THE PRIM IS BARKING
!’

‘In-dub-i-tab-ly,’ the cat murmured and closed his eyes.

I stared at the shape under the table – Duster who was snoring his head off with some stupid harness clamped in his paws. I wondered if all cairns were like that, secretly off their chumps like humans. I mean why did he want to have that? Any normal dog would have settled for a ball or a toy rabbit or some old sock. But oh no, the cairn has to have its harness. And what’s more the Prim had gone to fetch it for him … all the way to Podkennel she went. Can’t see her doing that for me! Mind you, it’s just as well she did, because as we started to think about bedtime and closing the hatches for the night the ruddy cairn didn’t half set up a rumpus – chasing his tail, growling at shadows, tossing the cushions about. It was driving Maurice berserk. In fact he went outside and started yowling at the moon, and I could see him through a chink in the curtains stalking round and round and swishing his tail fit to bust (always a bad sign), which is probably why he is still sleepy today – worn out with wailing!

Still, the point is that at last the Prim came back and things calmed down a bit, or at least
we
did; but she seemed in a right old lather – effing and blinding about her knees (don’t know what she’d done to them but they looked sort of blue and murky) and at the same time grinning like a daft Cheshire cat. Her hair was a bit odd too – all fuzzy with a couple of leaves stuck in it. Perhaps she had gone through one of those hedges Duster seems so keen on.

As a matter of fact, I am getting to quite like that fellow, though as said he can’t half be a funny beggar. Take last night. You see the first thing P.O. did when she came in was to put her bag down and fish out that harness. That did it! He let out a godawful yelp, leapt up and nearly snatched it out of her hands. ‘
WAIT
!’ she roared. Well, of course, he
didn’t wait and kept snapping the air and dancing round her feet like Maurice when he’s practising his cat-tango. So she slung the thing under the table and said ‘Fetch.’ He shot after it, grabbed it, and after a quick scrabble flopped down like a stone – for the rest of the night. (In fact he is still out for the count now – and it’s morning with the sun shining through the window!)

Anyway, after the palaver with the cairn the mistress took something else out of her bag and put it under the cushion on the kitchen chair. I was a bit puzzled by that, because if I’ve got a bone that I want to keep hidden I wouldn’t put it there … I mean there’s bound to be some great arse who would come along and sit on it. Still, like the cat says, humans are not known for their brightness. And talking of Maurice, I could see him watching her like a lynx. So when she had gone up to bed I said to him, ‘What’s that about, then?’

‘I don’t know, Bouncer,’ he purred, ‘but we shall have to find out, won’t we?’ And in a tick he had darted to the chair, lifted up his left paw – the strongest and the one with the white patch – and tipped the cushion onto the floor.

Underneath was something white in slippery paper. I stood on my hind legs and was about to clamp it in my teeth, when the cat cried,
‘Desist!’

Now you might think I don’t know the meaning of ‘dee-sist’, but I jolly well do. You don’t live with Maurice without learning a word or two. And I know that ‘dee-sist’ is cat-speak for ‘Stop it, you bad boy’ or ‘Don’t do that, you little bugger.’

‘Keep your fur on,’ I said, ‘just testing.’

He ignored that and started to prod it with his paw and gave a couple of licks.

‘Well?’ I said eagerly, ‘what is it?’

‘Hard to say,’ he replied, ‘there is no taste and no smell.’

This time I pushed him out of the way and put my own muzzle on to it. ‘Huh!’ I said, ‘you bet there’s a smell, anyone can smell it!’

The cat didn’t like that, because he said all hoity-toity: ‘Fortunately not all of us have bloodhound in our genes.’ (Of course what he really meant was that I am the best sniffer in the business.) And then after a bit he added, ‘So if you don’t mind my asking, what does it smell like?’

‘It smells,’ I said, ‘like the white stuff you had all over your whiskers that time you went doolally in the garden.’

There was a hiss and his ears flattened. ‘I did
not
go doolally! I merely had a mild turn – doubtless brought on by the challenge of living with you.’

I grinned and wagged my tail. ‘But you like it really, don’t you, Maurice? Helps to exercise that old steely brainbox; keeps it sharp and top-notch.’

That did the trick. He smirked and examined his claws, something he does when he is pleased – which isn’t often – and even gave a sort of purr.

‘Well now, Bouncer,’ he said, all matey, ‘we must put our heads together and pursue this further, but meanwhile I propose to retire. What with the cairn’s antics and P.O.’s nonsense I am really quite shattered.’

‘Right-o,’ I said, and jumped into my basket.

After the Podmore activities, I came down rather blearily to breakfast and was so intent on brewing much needed coffee that I did not at first notice the cushion on the floor. It certainly hadn’t been there when I went to bed as I remembered placing it over the packet as a temporary concealment. Thus to see the thing now exposed and the cushion flung to the ground was startling. Surely not the work of some wayward poltergeist!

There was a sudden miaow, and I saw Maurice peering out from behind the stove. ‘Oh really,’ I exclaimed, ‘what’s this now? Cushion capers for a cat’s insomnia, I suppose.’ He gazed inquisitively as I retrieved the cushion and put the packet on the table.

Sipping my coffee and wondering what should be done with it, I noticed a mark missed earlier: a green dot stamped on the left corner. Significant? Who could tell? The essential question was my next move. Charles would not be back for three days and he had left no London telephone number.
Besides, if he was enmeshed in business affairs would he welcome a call blithely telling him his stable was being used as storage for a local drug ring? Unlikely. As to the police: that meant MacManus, and after his rather cryptic remarks about wretched Sidney Samson and the Molehill case I had no immediate desire to renew conversation with him – in or out of his bear suit. In any case were I to report what I had found then that would immediately involve Charles and thus make him central to the investigation. So acting on the principle that discretion was the better part of friendship I concluded it would be only courteous to keep quiet until we had discussed matters.

Following my escapade it seemed sensible to ‘keep a low profile’, as the saying goes, and to remain quietly indoors at my easel. However, as it turned out there was no choice in the matter: for unaccountably I was felled by a dose of flu – or some such beastly ague – and for three days stayed at home turgid and disconsolate. Being of a robust nature I am unused to such feebleness … but perhaps it was my pursuit of the toad Topping that was taking its toll. Anyway, whatever the cause, there I remained. But on the fourth day I mustered my energies, and throwing off the invalid’s rug prepared to greet the world again.

And a very interesting world it proved to be: Emily rang with startling news; indeed so startling that any vestiges of malaise vanished instantly. There had been, she reported, another fatality on the downs: a murderous attack which in her opinion was ‘simply disgraceful and shouldn’t have been allowed’, a view one could hardly dispute.

I wondered if it had been in the same place as Carstairs’
misfortune – after all one does hear of such things as ‘copycat killings’ which is a favourite phrase of the press these days. However, it transpired that the crime spot was some distance from the area, at the foot of Mount Caburn, that ancient hill marking Lewes’s approach from the south.

This too held happy childhood memories, for occasionally our parents would visit an ailing relative in the town while leaving the pair of us to lark about in its foothills or climb to the ancient earthworks. To now learn that a man had been stabbed there – neatly in the back apparently – was shocking. It was also perplexing because Emily kept rattling on about a rabbit hole. I mean what on earth would a rabbit hole have to do with murder? When I told her to be more succinct she explained that either before or during the attack the victim’s foot had got rammed down the hole and it was rumoured that it had taken the forensics people at least ten minutes to pull it out. For some reason it was this aspect of the crime that seemed to occupy her most, for when I asked her the identity of the man she said vaguely that she thought his name was Respighi, so he must have been foreign, and that he had been wearing size eleven brogues – a fact which had obviously accounted for the difficulty in disengaging the foot.

Other than the declaration that foreigners rarely wore brogues and that she had always assumed they had small feet anyway, I could get nothing further from Emily. Thus I telephoned Melinda in the hope of a more rational account.

It was Freddie who answered. ‘Oh yes,’ he said cheerfully, ‘poor chap was found late last Tuesday night by a courting couple. It was so dark that they tripped over him. The girl had hysterics on the spot. Bad luck really – not what you would call an auspicious start to
a bit of rumpy-pumpy. I gather she was taken home in a police car and her beau has been grumbling ever since.’

I have to say that the news was most disquieting. After all, one had not moved to this part of the county to be plagued by corpses. One was quite enough. However, the more I considered, the more I began to wonder if there wasn’t a link between the two killings. It did seem ironic that the last known murder in Lewes had been nearly a century ago whereas now, like London buses, we had two in quick succession. Who was this foreigner, I asked myself, and what had he been doing here anyway?

As it happens, the answer, or part of it, came quickly. That morning I had to go to the chemist to collect my neuralgia rub and en route bumped into Sergeant Wilding. He was strolling up the High Street looking blithe and friendly (something MacManus has never achieved) so as I drew level I wished him good day and tut-tutted about the recent event.

‘Respighi, what a curious name,’ I twittered, ‘sounds almost operatic.’

‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘you could say that. Luigi Respighi: used to be a small-time Italian actor before he took to crime. Years ago the Met had trouble with him up in Hackney; he was involved in a spate of gangland fights. But after a stretch in jug he disappeared and fell off the map. And then all of a sudden here he is resurrected – well partially that is, because now he’s found knifed and with his foot stuck in a rabbit hole. Running away, I suppose. Funny old world, isn’t it?’

I agreed that it most certainly was, adding that I was sure the chief superintendent had it all in hand.

‘Nice to have faith,’ he observed wryly, and bidding me good morning, continued on his way.

I continued on mine puzzled and intrigued. An erstwhile Italian actor turned denizen of London’s gangland? Why on earth should such a one be down here in docile Lewes getting murdered? My mind was blank. And then suddenly a voice came back to me, a voice I had heard only recently.
Quick, quick,
it had said,
I need a drink. Don’t mess around, just close the boot. It’s bloody cold!

The words rang in my ear. But it wasn’t so much the words that I heard as the accent. It had not been English, definitely continental. I concentrated hard, trying to place the exact provenance and recalled the voices of some POWs once billeted near us at home; a charming bunch of Eyeties who had remained for some months after the war and whom mother had befriended. She had given them Francis’s sweet points after he had gone off to the seminary – a charitable act exciting his rueful ire.

Yes, the more I brooded, the more I was convinced that the taller of the two men had been Italian … Oh my God, had Topping killed him as well as Carstairs? And if so, it must have happened shortly after I had seen them drive off from Podmore! I froze in mid-stride.

‘Hello, hello!’ said Freddie Balfour jovially, patting me on the shoulder, ‘nice to see you vertical and not flat on your back. You made a jolly good corpse the other night. Most convincing. To the coffin born one might say. Ho! Ho!’ He lumbered off in the direction of the White Hart. Idiot.

Mind gripped with thoughts of Respighi, I continued on down the hill in pursuit of fish heads for Maurice’s supper.
And it was then that I made the most monstrous gaffe – a gaffe that precipitated a train of dire events and from which even now, sitting in the south of France, I have barely recovered. It was all to do with that wretched packet of cocaine (or whatever the beastly substance was). Unsure as to what should be done and anxious to get to the chemist before it closed for lunch, I had gathered my things hurriedly from the kitchen table, and not trusting the cat had thrust the packet into my shopping bag.

It was an unfortunate move, for as I emerged from the fishmonger I was startled to see
Fräulein
Hochheimer and Hubert Topping coming towards me. The former looked elated, the latter did not. In fact he was looking distinctly dazed … a state not uncommon with those spending any time with that good lady.

‘Ach, Madame Hooterayde,’ the
Fräulein
cried. ‘Ve too hev been shopping! Cufflinks for Hoobat and hankies for me. Zo, vell-met by moonlight, to coin an English phrase!’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Shakespeare, I think,’ she gushed; ‘but, of course, also that goot film with your
naice
Dirk Bogarde. He is most
charmink
… isn’t he, Hoobat? Ve saw ze film yesterday at the Odeon. Wunderbar!’ She clapped her hands.

‘Oh,’ I said vaguely, ‘glad you liked it. Shouldn’t have thought it was quite up your street – I mean what with Crete and all that …’

‘Do not vorry, Madame Hooterayde, all that ist
long
time ago. Ze war ist over and Jarmenee ist rising steadily again. Ve shall all be such friends und united against ze common enemy. Mark mein vords!’

‘How nice,’ I replied, failing to enquire the name of the common enemy; and instead turned hastily to ‘Hoobat’
who wore an expression of benevolent boredom.

Frankly, for one who had probably just put paid to one of his accomplices he struck me as remarkably composed. He smiled politely and it was then that I made my dreadful blunder: I dropped my shopping bag, and the whole contents spilt on to the pavement – purse, fish heads, compact, lipstick, crumpled handkerchiefs, a packet of Craven A, a bag of peanuts … and, of course, the damned cocaine.

There was a general flurry as the three of us stooped to scoop the things up; but, needless to say, it was Topping who retrieved the precious package. He looked at it thoughtfully, turning it over a couple of times, and then said quietly, ‘And where did you get this from, Miss Oughterard?’

‘From the grocer, of course,’ trilled
Fräulein
Hockheimer, ‘I expect it is that zo goot icing sugar Mr Boris sells. It is very special and he packs his own, is that not zo, Madame Hooterayde?’

‘Oh indeed it is,’ I replied, wresting it from Topping’s grasp. But both he and I knew it was not.

They continued on their way, Hockheimer prattling volubly, Topping fumbling for a cigarette. I rather felt like joining Freddie Balfour for a brandy in the White Hart but thought better of it. They say desperation drives; but not to that extent. Instead I returned home to the oddly reassuring company of my cat and dog.