The Mortdecai Trilogy (5 page)

I rinsed the cares from my mind with a few pages of Firbank and swam gently and tenderly down into sleep. Sleep is not, with me, a mere switching off: it is a very positive pleasure to be supped and savoured with expertise. It was a good night; sleep pampered me like a familiar, salty mistress who yet always has a new delight with which to surprise her jaded lover.

My blisters, too, were much better.

Morning’s at seven,
The hill-side’s dew-pearled,

 

Pippa Passes

 

I carolled at Jock as he aroused me, but my heart wasn’t really in the statement. Morning was in fact at ten, as usual, and Upper Brook Street was merely wet. It was a gritty, drizzling, clammy day and the sky was the colour of mouse dirt. Pippa would have stayed in bed and no snail in his senses would have climbed a thorn. My cup of tea, which usually droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, tasted like a vulture’s crutch. The canary looked constipated and gave me a surly glance instead of the customary stave or two of song.

‘Mr Martland’s downstairs, Mr Charlie. Bin waiting half an hour.’

I snarled and drew a fold of silk sheet over my head, burrowing down back into the womby warmth where no one can hurt you.

‘You ought to see his moosh, where I hit him, it’s a treat, honest.
All
colours.’

That fetched me. The day had at least one treat to offer. Against my better judgment I got up.

A mouth wash, half a dexedrine, a morsel of anchovy toast and a Charvet dressing-gown – all in the order named – and I was ready to deal with any number of Martlands.

‘Lead me to this Martland,’ I ordered.

I must say he did look lovely; it wasn’t just the rich autumnal tints on his swollen moosh, it was the play of expressions over it which enchanted me. You may compile your own list of these; I have no heart for it just now. The one which matters for this narrative was the last: a kind of sheepish false bonhomie with a careful dash of wryness, like two drops of Worcester sauce in a plate of gravy soup.

He bounced up and strode toward me, face first, hand outstretched for a manly grip.

‘Friends again, Charlie?’ he mumbled.

It was my turn to drop the lower jaw – I broke out in a sweat of embarrassment and shame for the man. Well, I
mean
. I made a sort of gruff, gargling noise which seemed to satisfy him for he dropped my hand and settled back cosily on to the sofa. To hide my nonplussedness I ordered Jock to make coffee for us.

We waited for the coffee in silence, more or less. Martland tried a weather gambit – he’s one of those people who always know when the latest V-shaped depression is likely to emerge from its roost over Iceland. I explained kindly that until I had drunk coffee of a morning I was a poor judge of meteorology.

(What is the origin of this strange British preoccupation with the weather? How can adult male Empire-builders gravely discuss whether or no it is raining, has rained or is likely to rain? Can you imagine the most barren-minded Parisian, Viennese or Berliner demeaning himself by talking such piffle? ‘
Ils sont fous ces Bretons
,’ says Obelix, rightly. I suppose it is really just another manifestation of the Englishman’s fantasy about the soil. The most urbane cit is, in his inner heart, a yeoman farmer and yearns for leather gaiters and a shotgun.)

The coffee having arrived (how hard it is to write without the ablative absolute!) we guzzled genteelly for a while, passing each other sugar and cream and things and beaming falsely from time to time. Then I lowered the boom.

‘You were going to tell me how you knew I was at Spinoza’s,’ I said.

‘Charlie, why ever are you so fascinated by that particular detail?’

It was a very good question indeed, but one which I had no intention of answering. I stared at him blankly.

‘Oh, well, it’s quite simple really. We happen to know that old Spinoza has – had, rather – about a quarter of a million grubby
pound notes from the Great Train job. He paid for them in clean fivers and got a hundred and seventy-five pounds per cent. Bloody old crook. Well, we knew he would be having to unload soon so we hired a little yob who works for one of the galleries in Mason’s Yard to watch the place for us. Anyone, well, interesting, goes to see Spinoza, we get the word on our yob’s little walkie-talkie.’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘Now I do call that riveting. What about callers before gallery hours?’

‘Ah, yes, well, there we have to take a chance, of course. I mean, there just aren’t funds to run shifts on all these jobs. Cost a fortune.’

I made a mental ‘whew’ of relief, believing him. A thought struck me.

‘Martland, is your nark a little tit called Perce, works for the O’Flaherty Gallery?’

‘Well, yes, I think that is his name, as a matter of fact.’

‘Just so,’ I said.

I cocked an ear; Jock was outside the door, breathing through his nose, making mental notes, if you can properly call them that. There’s no doubt that I was much relieved to learn that only Perce was suborned; had Mr Spinoza been playing the strumpet with me all would have been lost. In spades. I must have allowed my expression to relax for I realized that Martland was looking at me curiously. This would not do. Change the subject.

‘Well now,’ I cried heartily, ‘what’s the deal? Where are these riches of the Orient you were pressing upon me last night? “Nay, even unto half your kingdom” was the sum mentioned, I believe?’

‘Oh, really, come now Charlie, last night was last night, wasn’t it? I mean, we were both a bit overwrought, weren’t we? You’re surely not holding me to that …?’

‘The window is still there,’ I said simply, ‘and so is Jock. And I may say that I am still overwrought; no one has ever tried to murder me in cold blood before.’

‘But obviously I’ve taken precautions this time, haven’t I?’ he said, and he patted a hip pocket. This told me that his pistol, if anywhere, was under his armpit, of course.

‘Let us play a game, Martland. If you can get that thing out before Jock hits you on the head, you win the coconut.’

‘Oh come on, Charlie, let’s stop sodding about. I’m quite prepared to offer you substantial ah benefits and ah concessions
if you’ll play along with our side over this business. You know damn well I’m in the shit and if I can’t recruit you that awful old man in the Home Office will be baying for your blood again. What will you settle for? I’m sure you aren’t interested in the sort of money my department can offer.’

‘I think I’d like a Bonzo dog.’

‘Oh God, Charlie, can’t you be serious?’

‘No, really, a greyhound; you know, a silver one.’

‘You can’t mean you want to be a Queen’s Messenger? What in God’s name for? And what makes you think I could swing that?’

I said, ‘First, yes, I do; second, mind your own business; third, you can swing it if you have to. I also want the diplomatic passport that goes with it and the privilege of taking a diplomatic bag to the Embassy in Washington.’

He leaned back in his chair, all knowing and relaxed now. ‘And what is likely to be in the bag, or is that not my business either?’

‘A Rolls Royce, as a matter of fact. Well, it won’t actually be in a bag, of course, but it will be smothered in diplomatic seals. Same thing.’

He looked grave, worried; his under-engined brain revving furiously as its
deux chevaux
tried to cope with this gradient.

‘Charlie, if it’s going to be full of drugs the answer is no repeat no. If it’s grubby pound notes in a reasonable quantity I might see my way, but I don’t think I could protect you afterwards.’

‘It is neither,’ I said firmly. ‘On my word of honour.’ I looked him squarely and frankly in the eye as I said it, so that he would be sure that I was lying. (Those notes from the Train will have to be changed soon, won’t they?) He eyed me back like a trusting comrade, then carefully placed all ten fingertips together, eyeing them with modest pride as though he’d done something clever. He was thinking hard and didn’t care who knew it.

‘Well, I suppose something on those lines could be worked out,’ he said at last. ‘You realize, of course, that the degree of co-operation expected from you would have to be proportionate to the difficulty of getting you what you ask?’

‘Oh yes,’ I replied brightly, ‘you will want me to kill Mr Krampf, won’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s right. How did you guess?’

‘Well, clearly, now that Hockbottle has been, er, terminated, you can’t possibly leave Krampf alive, knowing what he does, can you? And I may say it’s a bit rough on me because he happens to be a rather good customer of mine.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Yes, I thought you would know by now. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, ha ha.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘Anyway, it’s clear that you can’t put any pressure on a chap as rich as Krampf except by killing him. It’s also clear that I can get close to him and that getting me to do it will save your estimates a fortune. Moreover, no one could possibly be as expendable as me from your point of view – and I can scarcely be traced to any official agency. Lastly, if I do it clumsily and get myself into an electric chair you’ve killed both Krampf and me with one gallstone.’

‘Well, some of that’s more or less true,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

Then I sat at my silly little French desk – the one the witty dealer called a
malheur-du-jour
because he paid too much for it – and wrote a list of all the things I wanted Martland to do. It was quite long. His face darkened as he read but he bore it like a little man and tucked the paper carefully in his wallet. I noticed that he was not wearing a shoulder holster after all, but that had not been my first mistake that day by any means.

The coffee was by now cold and horrid, so I courteously gave him what was left of it. I daresay he didn’t notice. Then he left after a chummy commonplace or two; for a moment I feared he was going to shake my hand again.

‘Jock,’ I said, ‘I am going back to bed. Be so kind as to bring me all the London telephone books, a shakerful of cocktails – any sort, let it be a surprise – and several watercress sandwiches made of soft white bread.’

Bed is the only place for protracted telephoning. It is also excellently suited to reading, sleeping and listening to canaries. It is not at all a good place for sex: sex should take place in armchairs, or in bathrooms, or on lawns which have been brushed but not too recently mown, or on sandy beaches if you happen to have been circumcised. If you are too tired to have intercourse except in bed you are probably too tired anyway and should be husbanding your
strength. Women are the great advocates of sex in bed because they have bad figures to hide (usually) and cold feet to warm (always). Boys are different, of course. But you probably knew that. I must try not to be didactic.

After an hour I arose, draped the person in whipcord and hopsack and descended to the kitchen to give the canary one more chance to be civil to me. It was more than civil, almost busting its tiny gut with song, vowing that all would yet be well. I accepted its assurances guardedly.

Calling for coat and hat I tripped downstairs – I never use the lift on Saturdays, it’s my day for exercise. (Well, I use it going
up
, naturally.)

The concierge emerged from her lair and gibbered at me: I silenced her with a finger to my lips and significantly raised eyebrows. Never fails. She slunk back, mopping and mowing.

I walked all the way to Sotheby’s, holding my tummy in nearly the whole time, terribly good for one. There was a picture belonging to me in the sale, a tiny canvas of a Venetian nobleman’s barge with liveried gondoliers and a wonderfully blue sky. I had bought it months before, hoping to persuade myself that it was by Longhi, but my efforts had been in vain so I had put it into Sotheby’s, who had austerely called it ‘Venetian School, XVIII Century.’ I ran it up to the figure I had paid for it, then left it to its own devices. To my delight it ran for another three hundred and fifty before being knocked down to a man I detest. It is probably in a Duke Street window this moment, labelled Marieschi or some such nonsense. I stayed another ten minutes and spent my profit on a doubtful but splendidly naughty Bartolomaeus Spränger showing Mars diddling Venus with his helmet on – such
manners
! On my way out of the Rooms I telephoned a rich turkey farmer in Suffolk and sold him the Spränger, sight unseen, for what is known as an undisclosed sum, and toddled righteously away towards Piccadilly. There’s nothing like a little dealing to buck one up.

Across Piccadilly without so much as a bad fright, through Fortnum’s for the sake of the lovely smells, a step along Jermyn Street and I was snug in Jules’s Bar, ordering luncheon and blotting up my fifth White Lady. (I forgot to tell you what Jock’s surprise had been; sorry.) As a serious gastronome I deplore cocktails of
course, but then I also deplore dishonesty, promiscuity, inebriety and many another goody.

If anyone had been following me hitherto they were welcome, I’m sure. For the afternoon, however, I needed privacy from the SPG boys so I scanned the room carefully from time to time as I ate. By closing time the whole population of the bar had changed except for one or two permanent fixtures whom I knew by sight: if there had been a tail he must be outside and by now probably very cross.

He was both outside and cross.

He was also Martland’s man Maurice. (I suppose I hadn’t really expected Martland to play it straight: the school we were at together wasn’t a particularly good one. Long on sodomy and things but a bit short on the straight bat, honour and other expensive extras, although they talked a lot about them in Chapel. Cold baths a-plenty, of course, but you, who have never taken one, may be surprised to learn that your actual cold bath is your great begetter of your animal passions. Rotten bad for the heart, too, they tell me.)

Maurice had a newspaper in front of his face and was peering at me through a hole in it, just like they do in the storybooks. I took a couple of rapid paces to the left: the paper swung around after me. Then three to the right and again the paper swung, like the fire shield of a field gun. He did look silly. I walked over to him and poked my finger through the hole in his paper.

‘Booh!’ I said and waited for his devastating retort.

‘Please take your finger out of my newspaper,’ he retorted devastatingly.