Crooked Herring (3 page)

I thanked the assistant manager again and splashed my way back through the car park to my car.

Once back home, I tried Crispin’s mobile again, redialling the number Henry had called the day before. There was
still no reply. I found my CWA Membership Directory and looked up his landline. The phone was picked up almost immediately.

‘Hello?’ said a woman.

‘It’s Ethelred Tressider. Is Crispin there?’

For a moment there was no reply. Just as I was beginning to fear we had been cut off, the woman said: ‘No. He’s out.’

‘Is that Emma?’ I asked.

‘Who else would it be, Ethelred?’

‘Sorry. Yes, of course. I suppose you don’t know when he will be back?’

‘Do you want me to take a message?’

‘Could you ask him to call me?’ I gave her my number. She did not repeat it back to me.

‘Do you want me to say what it’s about?’ she said.

My mind went blank.

‘Just say it’s about a book,’ I heard myself saying.

‘A book?’

I was beginning to wish I’d sorted out my story in advance.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘A book of short stories I’m editing.’

‘I didn’t know Crispin ever wrote short stories.’

‘I was hoping to persuade him.’

Fortunately her interest went no further than that. ‘OK. Cool,’ she said. Then she added: ‘It’s a while since I’ve heard from you, Ethelred.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Drop by sometime,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Bye,’ she said.

‘Bye.’

I pressed the red button to end the call.

Crispin had, according to Henry’s theory, been dead for about three days, ever since Henry had murdered him. Crispin’s wife, however, did not seem to have registered this fact. Throughout our admittedly brief conversation, Emma Vynall had not mentioned the words ‘missing’ or ‘terribly worried’ or ‘police’. She had not seemed overly concerned – just slightly hacked off at having to take my message. Yet, at the same time, she had not volunteered any information about when Crispin might be back or able to return my call.

Like my discovery that Crispin and Henry had left the club together, the fact that Emma was reluctant to tell me much about Crispin’s whereabouts almost certainly meant nothing. But I was left with the feeling that you have when viewing an Escher print – that although everything looked more or less normal, there was a strange anomaly in the picture that I couldn’t quite account for. Perhaps the artist had played a trick with perspective. Or maybe a line that appeared straight was in fact crooked. There was some sleight of hand that was making the impossible look normal. But, in this case, I couldn’t see how the trick was done, because I still had no idea what the trick was.

The map of Sussex, south of Chichester, is scarcely crossed by a single contour line. The wind whips in from the pebbly coast across a flat plain, crossed by meandering, reed-choked streams known locally as Rifes. Large areas are too liable to flooding to be fit for any habitation except isolated farms and sewerage works. Along the exposed southern edge of this peninsular you can buy striped windbreaks and plastic buckets and spades and ice creams and fish and chips in paper. You can place your deckchair on the shingle and watch the grey sea wash in under a broad sweep of sky. The sheltered, marsh-fringed northern coast, conversely, boasts flocks of wading birds, samphire-covered mudflats and yacht moorings. Set back amongst the trees, beyond gleaming, emerald-green lawns, are the white walls and red roofs of what local estate agents describe as yachtsmen’s residences – substantial
homes in spacious grounds that are usually occupied only at weekends, except in the summer months, when the yachtsman’s wife and children are banished there while the yachtsman continues to toil in London as a broker or a venture capitalist.

West Wittering lies at the far corner of this rectangle of land – at a sharp angle of the coast where sand dunes replace the pebbles and the large detached houses meet and rub shoulders with the beach huts and ice cream vans.

From my own house on the edge of the village I took the path along the sea wall, with the dunes ahead of me and salt marsh on either side. Above me were trailing lines of Brent geese, flying home to haven in the boggy fields behind the beach cafeteria and the empty car park. The sky was clearing and the sun was starting to set behind wispy banks of pink and pale-grey cloud. I often walked this way when I wanted to think out a particularly complex strand of a book that I was working on. This evening I walked until the light had faded so much that the hawthorns on either side of the path formed two amorphous black walls and the path itself was dark and featureless. And I could make just as little of the case I had been given to resolve. Henry and Crispin had left the club together. But what difference did that make? Henry had just misremembered. Two people can leave a club and get into a car without one murdering the other. And Emma might have all sorts of reasons for not wishing to tell me, or anyone, where Crispin was. The most likely explanation was that I could find nothing because there was nothing to find.

I returned the way I had come, overtaking one of my neighbours out walking her dogs.

‘You look preoccupied,’ she said. ‘I hope it’s a good plot you’re working on.’

‘On the contrary,’ I said. ‘I have no idea where this one is going. I’m beginning to think the time may have come to drop it and try something else.’

There was however one further stage of that New Year’s Eve that I had not investigated for Henry. Back at the house I spent an hour or so poring over a map of West Sussex. There were plenty of churches and plenty of woods, but very few churches
near
woods. Most seemed to be in the centre of villages or situated to provide fine, uninterrupted views of the Downs. And yet Henry’s description had been vivid enough. A church spire caught in the moonlight, the ship on the weathervane riding the scudding clouds and, behind it, a dark, spiky mass of branches. Or was I starting to invent details? I needed to talk to Henry again.

At ten-thirty I finally phoned Henry to report back on what I had discovered so far.

‘What on earth did you go to the pub for?’ he said. ‘I told you, I remembered that part of the evening perfectly. Your questioning of the barman was a complete waste of time.’

Well, it was my own time that I had wasted.

‘I thought I might as well cover everything,’ I said.

‘You clearly found out nothing that was remotely useful.’

‘You may be right. I was probably being over-optimistic expecting Denzil to tell me anything of value. He actually tried to convince me that I’d been in the pub with you and Crispin Vynall. He said he remembered me, sitting there
sadly clutching my half-pint while you and Crispin made merry.’

‘Did he?’ said Henry.

‘Yes, but I clearly wasn’t there.’

‘Perhaps that was you on another occasion?’ asked Henry.

‘On no occasion at all,’ I said, ‘was I the saddo in the corner sipping a small glass of beer. It’s not something I do. Anyway, for what it was worth, he remembered Crispin being in the pub. Denzil seems to be a bit of a fan of his.’

‘So, Denzil was convinced you were there – that there were three of us?’

‘Yes, but he was wrong … Or are you saying there
was
a third person there?’

‘The pub was full. But, at our table, it was just me and Crispin. No mysterious third man lurking in the shadows. Or nobody that I saw, anyway.’

‘Fine. The point is, Denzil confirmed you left for Chichester much as you said.’

‘That’s all you discovered at the pub, then? That I left at much the time I said?’

‘Put like that, I agree it wasn’t especially helpful, but the pub is very close to where I live. It didn’t delay me that much. I did a bit better at the club.’

‘You found it?’

‘It wasn’t difficult to track down. To be perfectly honest all you needed to do was to Google “School Disco, Chichester”. That would have identified it for you.’

‘I’m not that great with computers – not like Crispin. Or you.’

‘I’ll give you a tutorial sometime,’ I said, feeling smug
that I was at least ahead of some people in my knowledge of information technology, whatever Elsie might wish to believe. So much for Henry’s comments, too, about my iPhone. ‘Anyway,’ I continued. ‘I located it and went and paid them a visit. There’s no doubt you and Crispin were there.’

‘Thank you, but again, Ethelred, that is not exactly news. Did you come up with anything more than that?’

‘Mainly your arrival and departure times – you were caught on the car park CCTV. What was really interesting, though, was this: you said you thought Crispin left before you. In fact the CCTV shows you leaving together. He looked a bit drunk – well, more than a bit. Could you have given him a lift to the other club?’

‘I said – I don’t remember much about that stage of the evening. I was a bit drunk too. It hadn’t occurred to me there might be CCTV … Well, let’s hope I dropped him off somewhere, because he certainly wasn’t at the second pub with me. I’m sure of that. Maybe I left him in Chichester at the station or something.’

‘You think he got a train back to Brighton?’

‘I don’t think they run that late. A taxi, maybe.’

‘A taxi wouldn’t have been cheap – especially on New Year’s Eve – but I guess Crispin could have afforded it. Anyway, at 11.13, you both vanish off into the night. I’ve noted the time carefully because they said they were about to wipe the recording. It’s a good thing I went there today.’

There was a long pause before Henry said: ‘And they
did
wipe it? I mean there’s no chance of my being able to go back and check for myself whether it was Crispin with me?’

‘None at all, I would think. I suppose I could have asked them to keep it, but I doubt if they would. That’s the problem with not being the police. The powers of the amateur detective with regard to the retention of evidence are sadly limited.’

‘Did you at least
ask
for a copy?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry. But there isn’t any doubt about it – it was Crispin with you.’

‘And I suppose it’s too late to get a copy now?’ His voice was distinctly tetchy.

‘I would think so,’ I said.

I suppose he was right. I had been remiss in not asking. I just hadn’t thought of it at the time.

For a moment neither of us said anything, then I added: ‘Well, we at least know what happened up to that point in the evening. I don’t know whether Crispin got home safely. Emma just said he wasn’t around at the moment.’

‘You phoned his wife?’

‘Any reason why I shouldn’t?’

‘I didn’t ask you to. I just asked that you should find out where Crispin and I went.’

Again he was far from pleased. I wondered whether to point out that he was not paying me to carry out this work for him – well, not payment in cash anyway – and that I’d already notched up quite a few miles to Chichester and back, plus fifty pounds in bribery and corruption. Fortunately I’m not used to gratitude.

‘She didn’t seem worried about him,’ I said. ‘If he’d really vanished, she ought to be a lot more concerned than she was.’

‘Did you mention that I was trying to find him?’

‘No, of course not. I didn’t mention you at all.’

‘But you still have no idea where he is?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I hope you did a better job of locating the pub,’ he said.

‘Ah, yes, that,’ I said. ‘The problem is that this part of the world is full of quaint old pubs. For the moment I’m having difficulty in finding one that fits your description.’

‘You mean you haven’t made any progress on that at all?’

Even before I made the call I had been wondering whether all of this journeying to and fro on Henry’s behalf was worthwhile. Now, with his ingratitude laid bare, I knew the answer to that question.

‘Look, Henry, I really haven’t done that badly for one day’s work,’ I said. ‘I’ve confirmed which club you went to and that you and Crispin left together. I’ve established that Crispin’s wife hasn’t missed him, which is at least suggestive of his being alive. I’m sorry if that is a disappointment to you. I hope you make better progress yourself from now on.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Henry.

‘I’ve found out as much as I can. Maybe a private detective – I mean a real one – might be able to help. But I don’t have time to go from pub to pub asking, with decreasing probability of anyone knowing the answer, whether you were in there on New Year’s Eve. Especially since I’ll only be told what an appalling job I’ve done.’

There was a long pause, then a more reasonable Henry spoke.

‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to imply you’d done a bad job. Quite the reverse, in fact.’

‘Thanks. But it makes no difference.’

‘I couldn’t persuade you …’

‘That’s right. You couldn’t persuade me. I quit.’

‘I’d rather hoped … you see, I’m going to be so busy with all of those book reviews. For prominent quality papers. It’s quite difficult for mid-list authors to get noticed by reviewers these days … especially those whose work has inexplicably failed to catch the public’s attention. So I feel I need to make a special effort to look out those who were really deserving. I sort of hoped, under the circumstances …’

I wondered if he thought he was being subtle. But he probably wouldn’t have wasted the effort. Not on me. Something told me he probably wouldn’t waste review space on me either.

‘I’ve done all I can,’ I said. ‘I hope you manage to find out what happened.’

‘So, you won’t help me, then? Ethelred, there may be somebody dead out there and I may have killed them. I may have killed Crispin.’

‘Do you remember burying his body in a deep hole?’

‘No.’

‘Weighting it with bricks and throwing it in the sea?’

‘No.’

‘Dissolving it in acid?’

‘No.’

‘Incorporating it into a motorway flyover?’

‘I think you’re beginning to labour your point …’

‘As long as you understand clearly what I’m saying, that’s fine. If you had the presence of mind to hide your victim, then it means you were probably sober enough
to be able to remember some of the surrounding detail. If, conversely, you had murdered somebody in a drunken haze and left them lying around, the police would have already found the body. It would have featured on
South Today
even if it didn’t make the national news. I won’t say that nobody was murdered over the holiday period – it’s one of the things we traditionally do around then – but I honestly don’t think you killed anyone, or not this year, at least. If we could track down Crispin, it would help us a lot – he might at least know where you went. But I don’t think he’s dead. When famous writers vanish, people notice. They might not notice my disappearance, or even yours, but somebody would have missed Crispin by now – and Emma is likely to be the first to do so.’

I put the phone down thinking that might have been my last chance for a review in a quality daily.

I wondered again whether I should phone Elsie. I thought that I might share with her what seemed to be an amusing delusion on the part of one of my fellow authors. But it was almost eleven and she was almost certainly in bed. And I was not especially concerned about Henry’s safety or my own. The case was closed.

Of course, twenty-four hours would change all that.