Murdering Ministers (10 page)

“I beg your pardon?”

“Is perfect. None of us
is
perfect. You said ‘None of us are perfect.' But ‘none' is singular.”

“I shall have to be more careful,” said the ferret apologetically. “I'll try to make less mistakes in future.”

“Fewer.”

“I'm sorry?”

“
Fewer
mistakes, not less. ‘Mistakes' is a number, not a quantity, so it takes ‘fewer.'”

“I see. Thank you. But irregardless of these niceties—”

“Oh for heaven's sake, there's no such word as ‘irregardless,'” Geoffrey interrupted crossly. “Good Lord, Finsbury, you of all people—sorry, polecats—should know better than to indulge in such solecisms. They set my teeth on edge. Honestly, if there's one thing on earth that drives me to utter distraction, it's—”

He stopped abruptly, watching the slow grin spread across the vile creature's jaws.

“Now you get the idea,” Finsbury purred, making himself more comfortable on the crate. “Oh yes, Mr. Angelwine, it's going to be long, long afternoon for you and for I.”

“You, you archfiend,” shouted a struggling Geoffrey, through pain-gritted teeth…

The ringing telephone caused Oliver to break off his free-flowing fantasy and peevishly save the document. He had longed to use the word “archfiend” in a Railway Mice story, and it sounded just right bleated in his imagination by Geoffrey's voice. And for once, he wasn't procrastinating, even though it was Saturday morning and he didn't have to work. Geoffrey's name would eventually be replaced with some poor woodland creature, but Oliver was pleased to have come up with a new perversion for Finsbury that had real educational possibilities for his young readers and didn't involve the use of questionable household implements. (The hapless victim would be saved by the explosion of Finsbury's cigar, which turned out to be a trick one sneaked into his pocket by the irritatingly resourceful Billy Field Mouse.)

“Yes,” he snapped, impatient to return to work.

“Oliver? This is your Uncle Tim.”

Oliver brightened. “Uncle Tim! Hey, you certainly answered that question.”

“What question?”

“The one in
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. ‘Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?'”

“Very funny,” Mallard grunted at his chuckling nephew. “I had quite enough of your jokes last night.”

When Oliver and Effie had gone backstage the previous evening, they had found a embarrassed Mallard sitting disconsolately in the tiny dressing room he shared with Puck and Oberon, while the play's producer, Humfry Fingerhood, was marching in circles in the small space, clearly agitated. Mallard had hastily completed his “Pyramus and Thisbe” scene wrapped in a Nazi flag, which he had grabbed from the back wall of the set, and by the time he returned for a shamefaced curtain call, he had changed back into his regular Bottom costume—patched corduroy jacket, jeans, Reeboks, paisley ascot, and gray silk shirt.

“I just don't understand it,” Fingerhood was moaning. “They
laughed.
The audience actually
laughed
at your performance.”

“I know, I know,” Mallard muttered, dropping his head into his hands.

“It wasn't supposed to
be
funny,” Fingerhood complained, nervously examining his fingernails. “It was my conception of what Bottom would be like if he were an ordinary amateur drama enthusiast, not some kind of clown.”

“I'm sorry, Humfry,” said Mallard. Fingerhood stopped and looked down with concern at his star actor.

“Oh, good heavens, Tim, darling,” he said quickly. “If I implied that your performance was more than the width of gnat's eyebrow from perfection, you can beat me black and blue with a begonia. No, you played it exactly the way I wanted you to. Exactly the way I would have done it myself, in fact. It must be my conception of the part that's at fault. Ah well, I'll leave you to your guests. But I simply can't fathom what made it all so risible…”

Fingerhood hugged Mallard and flounced pompously from the room, a short figure in a patched corduroy jacket, jeans, Reeboks, paisley ascot, and gray silk shirt. As Mallard lifted his head to watch his producer leave, Oliver was sure he saw a slight twinkle in his uncle's eye. But it was rapidly replaced by a look of abject shame.

“Effie,” Mallard began, “I'm so sorry you had to witness that, er…”

“Base display?” Oliver asked brightly.

“Unfortunate accident,” Mallard concluded, with a momentary scowl at his nephew.

“I've seen worse,” she replied with a smile. “You should take a look at what's left in the photocopier room after the squad's Christmas party. But just out of curiosity, why weren't you wearing any underpants?”

“It made it easier to get those tight leather trousers on,” mumbled Mallard, his voice sinking lower. “Sorry.”

“Never mind Effie, how about apologizing to me?” Oliver piped up. “You're my uncle, so that makes it almost a Freudian experience.”

Mallard stared at him. “I'm your uncle by marriage,” he stated, “and if
you
want an apology, you can whistle for it. You didn't see anything of mine this evening that I haven't seen of yours dozens of times.”

“True,” said Oliver, “but if I recall—and actually I don't—those occasions all happened before I was a year old, when I could often be observed posing naked for the adoring masses on a bearskin rug.”

“He'll still do it if you slip him fifty pee,” said Effie cheerfully.

“You have just told me more than I wanted to know,” groaned Mallard, standing up and gathering his possessions. “Phoebe will be waiting for us. And for God's sake, don't say anything about what happened tonight. I'll break it to her later that—”

“Her husband couldn't keep his assets hidden?” Oliver suggested, as they drifted toward the door. Mallard grabbed his arm. Effie had already passed into the corridor.

“The only reason I haven't throttled you is because I need to talk to you,” he whispered urgently. “Privately. I'll call you tomorrow.”

The concern was still evident in Mallard's voice the next morning. “I'm in trouble,” he was saying on the telephone.

“I'm sure Aunt Phoebe will forgive you,” Oliver replied. “It can't be the first time in your marriage that you've made a bit of an ass of yourself.”

“Your aunt was very understanding and sympathetic about last night's fiasco.”

“When she stopped laughing, I bet. I suppose the tricky part will be to get the trousers to split at exactly the same time tonight.”

“Will you shut up about those bloody trousers!”

“So what's the trouble?” Oliver asked soothingly.

“It's professional.”

“Ah. Is this something to do with this sudden Christmas vacation you seem to be taking out of the blue, thus obliging my girlfriend to work on weekends?”

“Exactly. It was forced on me by Assistant Commissioner Weed.”

“Getting a little behind with your work?”

There was a noise on the line that suggested Mallard was either choking or practicing Japanese. After a pause, he spoke.

“Weed has turned up my personnel file. So they know about that mistake over my birthdate. He wants me to retire, starting more or less now.”

“Bummer.”

“If you make one more buttock joke, you little prat, I'm sending your Christmas present back!”

Christmas present! Oliver scribbled a reminder to think of something for Effie.

“I'm not ready to retire,” Mallard was saying. “This is too soon, too sudden.”

“But—”

“I warned you!”

“No, this is a real but,” said Oliver sympathetically. “What can we do?”

“I was hoping you might have some bright ideas. Can you think about it over the next couple of days, anyway?”

“Certainly. It will take my mind off what I want to do to Geoffrey.”

“What's young Angelwine been up to this time?” Mallard asked, and Oliver told him about the book proposal and the sequence of practical jokes, which had culminated that morning in the removal of every nut and bolt from his ancient bicycle.

“I was left just holding the handlebars,” he complained. “I had to walk to Harrods to stalk and capture the
pains au chocolats
.”

“It's odd to think of Geoff as a practical joker, though, when he's practically a joke himself,” Mallard said pensively. “Where is he now?”

“At work. Weekends have no meaning for the ambitious flack.”

“Tell you what, give me his work number, I'll have a word with him.”

“You'll threaten him with the long arm of the law if he doesn't desist forthwith?”

“Er, yeah, something like that. Although I can't threaten him with anything official if I'm on holiday. Now, what about this missing persons case Effie was telling us about last night? Think she needs a hand? Unofficially, of course.”

“Busting in unannounced on her first assignment without you, Uncle Tim? Isn't that showing rather a lot of cheek? Even for you…”

Oliver listened placidly to the beginning of Mallard's stream of invective and then quietly hung up the phone. “Christmas present,” he read off a sheet of notepaper. What did that mean?

The telephone rang again, putting the thought out of his mind.

***

Commentators who lament the triumph of conformity over individuality in English society should consider the semi-detached house. These paired dwellings, joined at the seams, were designed by their architects to be perpetual mirror-images, facing leafy residential streets in a perfect symmetry of form and decor. But like Siamese twins who rebel against being dressed identically, English homeowners have other ideas about their metaphorical castles. As Effie pulled into the Quarterboys' cul-de-sac, about a mile from the church, she was struck by the mismatches: Fake Tudor half-timbers, strapping half a frontage like a bondage outfit, jostled relentlessly modern picture windows; faux Jacobean cladding and diamond-pane windows stood cheek by jowl beside pebbledash and frosted-glass porches; and the Quarterboys' blue paintwork and off-white stucco competed blatantly with the brown and beige color scheme chosen by their neighbors.

The street was eerily silent for a Saturday morning, the cold weather keeping its children indoors. Joan Quarterboy answered the door and fussed Effie into the front room, which was clearly kept for the entertainment of visitors. It was warm, but there was a faint dampness in the air that implied the radiators had been turned on only recently. Effie knew that the rear sitting room contained the working fireplace and the family's modest Christmas tree.

Joan, too, seemed dressed to entertain strangers. Her skirt, blouse, cardigan, and outdoor shoes seemed unnecessarily formal for a Saturday morning. “My husband isn't here, I'm afraid,” she announced nervously. “He couldn't sit still. So he's taken the car and he's driving the streets, just to see if he can spot our Tina.”

Effie nodded and took in the room. It was sparsely furnished, with the bare minimum of good quality items to make entertaining tolerable—gold three-piece suite with fussy fringes, coffee table, unmatched end tables, small bookcase, and an odd étagère made of chrome and yellow glass, crowded with ornaments. The bookcase contained mainly religious books, including several different translations of the Bible. Nothing to indicate the presence of a thirteen-year-old in the household, except for a partially wrapped Christmas gift that Joan swept from the sofa to make room for Effie.

She had noticed this yesterday. Apart from some brightly colored outerwear in the hall, Tina's possessions were restricted to her bedroom, and even in this sanctum, there were clear indications of her parents' taste. She doubted that the girl would have chosen the old-fashioned dressing table complete with pink-draped pouffe or the faded eiderdown with its pattern of climbing roses. The walls were glaringly devoid of pictures of kittens, horses, or—if Tina was on schedule—pop singers and teenage television stars. There was only an Advent calendar, now two days behind schedule. The room's neatness meant Joan had easily spotted the space on top of the wardrobe from which Tina had removed her small suitcase.

“You must excuse me, Sergeant,” Joan continued. “This business has left me very flustered. You're not the policewoman who telephoned earlier? I know I should be paying attention.”

“That's all right, Mrs. Quarterboy,” Effie said gently. “No, that's my assistant, Detective Constable Belfry.”
My assistant.
She couldn't recall having used the phrase before. It had a nice ring when it wasn't applied to her.

“She wanted the name of Tina's doctor,” Joan said. “I can't think why. Tina hasn't been to the doctor for months.”

“Perhaps she went without your knowing?”

“She wouldn't do that sort of thing behind our backs. She knows better.”

“Perhaps she just didn't want to worry you,” Effie offered. “Although I should say that we have no reason to think she'd been to the doctor. It's just the sort of routine inquiry we have to make, in the circumstances.”

“You do this a lot, do you?” asked Joan hopefully. “Find missing children, I mean.”

Never having sought a missing child, Effie had no idea how to answer the question. She had helped to find the murderers of several missing children, but she didn't think Joan would appreciate hearing that. Fortunately for her, the woman had a limited capacity for listening to anything that lifted her out of her own narrow world. She prowled the surface of words, pouncing on opportunities to interrupt with her own beliefs and experiences.

“I suppose it's something a policewoman would be good at,” she continued, filling the silence. “They leave the rough stuff to the men. I've noticed that on television.”