Twelve Red Herrings (14 page)

His progress was
slow, but his easy rhythm revealed that he had rowed many times before. When
the two men calculated that they had reached the centre of the Cam, at its
deepest point, Forester stopped rowing and joined his companion in the bow.

They picked up
the bronze arm and, without ceremony, cast it over the side and into the river.
Bob heard the splash and saw the boat rock dangerously from side to side. Fisk
then took his turn at the oars; his progress back to the riverbank was even
slower than Forester’s. They eventually reached land, and both men stumbled out
and shoved the boat up towards its mooring, the boatman finally securing the
rope to a large ring.

Soaked and
exhausted, their breath rising visibly in the clear night air, the two old men
stood and faced each other. They shook hands like two business tycoons who had
closed an important deal, before disappearing into the night.

Tom Adams, the
Club’s Honorary Secretary, rang Bob the following morning to tell him something
he already knew. In fact he had lain awake all night thinking of little else.

Bob listened to
Adams’s account of the break-in. “What’s surprising is that they only took one
thing.” He paused.
“Your arm or rather, Dougie’s arm.
It’s very strange, especially as someone had left an expensive camera on the
top table.”

“Is there
anything I can do to help?” asked Bob.

“No, I don’t
think so, old boy,” said Adams. “The local police are making enquiries, but my
bet is that whoever stole the arm will probably be halfway across the county by
now.”

“I expect you’re
right,’ said Bob. “While you’re on the line, Mr. Adams, I wonder if I could ask
you a question about the history of the club.”

“I’ll do my
best,” said Adams. “But you must remember that it’s only a hobby for me, old
chap.”

“Do you by any
chance know who is the oldest living Oxford rowing blue?” There was a long
silence the other end of the line.

“Are you still
there?” Bob asked eventually.

“Yes. I was just
trying to think if old Harold Deering is still alive. I can’t remember seeing
his obituary in The Times.”

“Deering?’ said
Bob.

“Yes. Radley and
Keble
, :
t9o9-to-t. He became a bishop, if I remember
correctly, but I’m damned if I can recall where.”

“Thank you,’ said
Bob, ‘that’s most helpful.”

“I could be
wrong,” Adams pointed out.

“After all, I
don’t read the obituary columns every day. And I’m a bit rusty when it comes to
Oxford.’

Bob thanked him
once again before ringing off.

After a college
lunch he didn’t eat, Bob returned to his digs and rang the porter’s lodge at
Keble. He was answered by a curmudgeonly voice.

“Do you have any
record of a Harold Deering, a former member of the college?” Bob asked.

“Deering...
Deering...” said the voice. “That’s a new one on me. Let me see if he’s in the
college handbook.” Another long pause, during which Bob really did begin to
think he’d been cut off, until the voice said, “Good heavens, no wonder. It was
just a bit before my time.
Deering, Harold, x9o9-, BA 9x, MA
x9x6 (Theology).

Became
Bishop of Truro.
Is that the one?”

“Yes, that’s the
man,” said Bob. “Do you by any chance have an address for him?”

“I do,” said the
voice. “The Rt Revd Harold Deering,
The
Stone House,
Mill Road, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.”

“Thank you,”
said Bob. “You’ve been very helpful.” Bob spent the rest of the afternoon
composing a letter to the former bishop, in the hope that the old blue might
agree to see him.

He was surprised
to receive a call at his digs three days later from a Mrs. Elliot, who turned
out to be Mr. Deering’s daughter, with whom he was now living.

“The poor old
chap can’t see much beyond his nose these days,” she explained, ‘so I had to
read your letter out to him. But he’d be delighted to meet you, and wonders if
you could call on him this Sunday at x.3o, after Matins – assuming that’s not
inconvenient for you.’

“That’s fine,”
said Bob. “Please tell your father to expect me around xx.3o.”

“It has to be in
the morning,” Mrs. Elliot went on to explain, ^”because, you see, he has a
tendency to fall asleep after lunch.

I’m sure you
understand. By the way, I’ll send directions to your college.’

On the Sunday
morning, Bob was up long before the sun rose.
and
started out on his journey to Tewkesbury in a car he had hired the previous
day. He would have gone by train, but British Rail didn’t seem willing to rise
quite early enough for him to reach his destination on time. As he journeyed
across the Cotswolds, he tried to remember to keep the car on the left, and
couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before the British started to
build some highways with more than one lane.

He drove into
Tewkesbury a few minutes after eleven, and thanks to Mrs. Elliot’s clear
directions, quickly found The Stone House. He parked the car outside a little
wicket gate.

A woman had
opened the door of the house even before Bob was halfway up the scrub-covered
path. “It must be Mr. Kefford,” she declared. “I’m Susan Elliot.” Bob smiled
and shook her hand.

“I should warn
you,” Mrs. Elliot explained as she led him towards the front door, ‘that you’ll
have to speak up. Father’s become rather deaf lately, and I’m afraid his memory
isn’t what it used to be. He can recall everything that happened to him at your
age, but not even the
most simple
things that I told
him yesterday.

I’ve had to
remind him what time you would be coming this morning,” she said as they walked
through the open door.
“Three times.”

“I’m sorry to
have put you to so much trouble, Mrs. Elliot,’ said Bob.

“No trouble at all,”
said Mrs. Elliot as she led him down the corridor. “The truth is, my father’s
been rather excited by the thought of an American blue from Cambridge coming to
visit him after all these years. He hasn’t stopped talking about it for the
past two days. He’s also curious about why you wanted to see him in the first
place,” she added conspiratorially.

She led Bob into
the drawing room, where he immediately came face to face with an old man seated
in a winged leather chair, wrapped in a warm plaid dressing gown and propped up
on several cushions, his legs covered by a tartan blanket. Bob found it hard to
believe that this frail figure had once been an Olympic oarsman.

“Is it him?” the
old man asked in a loud voice.

“Yes, Father,”
Mrs. Elliot replied, equally loudly. “It’s Mr. Kefford. He’s driven over from
Cambridge especially to see you.”
Bob
walked forward
and shook the old man’s bony outstretched hand.

“Good of you to
come all this way, Kefford,” said the former bishop, pulling his blanket up a
little higher.

“I appreciate
your seeing me, sir,” said Bob, as Mrs. Elliot directed him to a comfortable
chair opposite her father.

“Would you care
for a cup of tea, Kefford?”

“No, thank you,
sir,’ said Bob. “I really don’t want anything.”

“As you wish,”
said the old man. “Now, I must warn you, Kefford, that my
concentration
span
isn’t quite what it used to be, so you’d better tell me straight
away why you’ve come to see me.” Bob attempted to marshal his thoughts. “I’m
doing a little research on a Cambridge blue who must have rowed around the same
time as you, sir.”

“What’s his
name?” asked Deering. “I can’t remember them all, you know.” Bob looked at him,
fearing that this was going to turn out to be a wasted journey.

“Mortimer.
Dougie Mortimer,” he said.

“D.J.T. Mortimer,”
the old man responded without hesitation.

“Now, there’s
someone you couldn’t easily forget. One of the finest strokes Cambridge ever
produced – as Oxford found out, to their cost.” The old man paused. “You’re not
a journalist, by any chance?’

“No,
sir.
It’s just a personal whim. I wanted to find out one or two things about him
before I return to America.’

“Then I will
certainly try to help if I can,” said the old man in a piping voice.

“Thank you,”
said Bob. “I’d actually like to begin at the end, if I may, by asking if you
knew the circumstances of his death.” There was no response for several
moments. The old cleric’s eyelids closed, and Bob began to wonder if he had
fallen asleep.

“Not the sort of
thing chaps talked about in my day,” he eventually replied. “Especially with
its being against the law at the time, don’t you
know.
”

“Against the
law?” said Bob, puzzled.

“Suicide.
A bit silly,
when you think about it,” the old priest continued, ‘even if it is a mortal
sin. Because you can’t put someone in jail
who’s
already dead, now can you? Not that it was ever confirmed, you understand.”

“Do you think it
might have been connected with Cambridge losing the Boat Race
in :t9o9
, when they were such clear favourites ?”

“It’s possible,
I suppose,” said Deering, hesitating once again.

“I must admit,
the thought had crossed my mind. I took part in that race, as you may know.” He
paused again, breathing heavily.

“Cambridge
were
the clear favourites, and we didn’t give ourselves a
chance. The result was never properly explained, I must admit.

There were a lot
of rumours doing the rounds at the time, but no proof – no proof, you
understand.”

“What wasn’t
proved?” asked Bob.

There was
another long silence, during which Bob began to fear that the old man might have
thought he’d gone too far.

“My turn to ask
you a few questions, Kefford,” he said eventually.

“Of
course, sir.”

“My daughter
tells me that you’ve stroked the winning boat for Cambridge three years in a
row.’

“That’s correct,
sir.”

“Congratulations,
my boy. But tell me: if you had wanted to lose one of those races, could you
have done so, without the rest of the crew being aware of it?” It was Bob’s
turn to ponder. He realised for the first time since he had entered the room
that he shouldn’t assume that a frail body necessarily indicates a frail mind.

“Yes, I guess
so,” he eventually said. “You could always change the stroke rate without
warning, or even catch a crab as you took the Surrey bend. Heaven knows,
there’s always enough flotsam on the river to make it appear unavoidable.” Bob
looked the old man straight in the eye. “But it would never have crossed my
mind that anyone might do so deliberately.”

“Nor mine,” said
the priest, ‘had their cox not taken holy orders.”
“
I’m
not sure I understand, sir,” said Bob.

“No reason you
should, young man. I find nowadays that I think in non sequiturs. I’ll try to
be less obscure. The cox of the 9o9

Cambridge boat
was a chap called Bertie Partridge. He went on to become a parish priest in
some outpost called Chersfield in Rutland.

Probably the
only place that would have him,” he chuckled. “But when I became Bishop of
Truro, he wrote and invited me to address his flock.

It was such an
arduous journey from Cornwall to Rutland in those
days, that
I could easily have made my excuses, but like you, I wanted the mystery of the
x9o9 race solved, and I thought this might be my only chance.”
Bob
made no attempt to interrupt, fearing he might stop the
old man’s flow.

“Partridge was a
bachelor, and bachelors get very lonely, don’t you know. If you give them half
a chance, they love to gossip.

I stayed
overnight, which gave him every chance. He told me, over a long dinner
accompanied by a bottle of non-vintage wine, that it was well known that
Mortimer had run up debts all over Cambridge.
Not many
undergraduates don’t,
you might say, but in Mortimer’s case they far
exceeded even his potential income. I think he rather hoped that his fame and
popularity would stop his creditors from pressing their claims. Not unlike
Disraeli when he was Prime Minister,” he added with another chuckle.

“But in
Mortimer’s case one particular shopkeeper, who had absolutely no interest in
rowing, and even less in undergraduates, threatened to bankrupt him the week
before the x9o9 Boat Race.

A few days after
the race had been
lost,
Mortimer seemed, without
explanation, to have cleared all his obligations, and nothing more was heard of
the matter.” Once again the old man paused as if in deep thought. Bob remained
silent, still not wishing to distract him.

“The only other
thing I can recall is that the bookies made a killing,” Deering said without
warning. “I know that to my personal cost, because my tutor lost a five-pound
wager, and never let me forget that I had told him we didn’t have a snowbali’s
chance in hell. Mind you, I was always able to offer that as my excuse for not
getting a First.” He looked up and smiled at his visitor.