The Mortdecai Trilogy (52 page)

‘FILTH! Filthy sot! Filthy sot? Filthyfilthy filthyfilthy
filthyfilthy
,’ on a rising scale which ended with a bat-like shrill which hurt the ears. Eric pressed the ‘pause’ key and looked at me, his eyes brimming with happy tears.

‘That’s my mummy,’ he said. ‘She worries about me a lot.’

There was a time when a remark like that would have given me no trouble: I would have tossed off a rejoinder both witty and respectful, but I am no longer the man I once was. All I could find to say was, ‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘she usually comes on before the others start and says something playful.’

‘Others?’

‘Oh, lots of others. Let’s try.’

He fiddled with the knobs and things again and, in a little while, isolated a hoarse, gin-soaked voice, choking with passion, which said ‘
De profundis clamavt ad te, Domine
’ again and again in tones of bitter reproach.

‘Not anyone from antiquity,’ said Eric. ‘That’s the sort of Latin that Irish priests still learn in their seminaries today. The speed’s not quite right; he sounds lighter than that if one can hit the exact speed.’

‘Oscar Wilde on his death-bed?’ I couldn’t help asking.

‘Do you know, you might be right, I really think you might.’

We did not have much more luck, if that’s a suitable word, from then on. Someone did some peculiarly unpleasant laughing, Eric’s mother came through again in a flurry of animal noises and seemed to accuse him of having practised something which would have brought a blush to the hairy cheeks of old Krafft-Ebing himself (‘She will have her little joke,’ Eric murmured uneasily) and, near the end, a still, small voice delivered a message plainly intended for me, concerning a matter which Eric could not possibly have known about, and with which I do not propose to trouble the reader at this point. Or ever.

Oh, yes, and whenever we hit one particular speed/volume combination an urbane and friendly voice repeatedly said, ‘No, don’t. Don’t. Not tomorrow. No, I really wouldn’t. Not tomorrow. Don’t, please.’

‘All quite fascinating,’ I said heavily when Eric had at last switched everything off. ‘Fascinating. It seems to me, though, that it might not be a good idea to let every Tom, Dick and Harry share this sort of, ah, recondite harmony, perhaps?’

‘Goodness, no. I only do it when I’m alone or with people of quite exceptional emotional stability – like yourself, if I may say so.’

I didn’t – couldn’t – comment on this astonishing assessment of me: I keep my emotional stability and things like that at the bottom of my handkerchief drawer, along with the vibrator and the naughty photographs, as W.H. Auden has probably already said. It was the other part of what he said that drew my fire.

‘Do you mean to say that you sometimes do this sort of thing
alone
?’ I asked, wonderingly. ‘At
night?
’

‘Goodness, yes. Often. What have I to be afraid of?’

I didn’t answer that. If he, with his qualifications, didn’t know, it wasn’t my place to tell him. I mean, I wasn’t his bloody
Bishop
, was I?

He was smart enough, however, to notice that I was becoming moody and he set himself to the task of amusing me, with some success. I yield to few when it comes to telling dirty jokes but it takes a seminary priest to tell a true Catholic story with the right admixture of shyness and authority. He had this art to such a state of perfection that I recall falling about a good deal.

Later, he taught me how to make and drink a ‘nose-dive’ – an art little known outside the campus of the University of Southern California, where Eric had once spent a happy semester teaching the well-nourished undergraduate girls there the full inwardness of Verlaine’s
Chansons Pour Elle
.

How you drink a ‘nose-dive’ is as follows – you ought to know because it is the only way of gagging down the nastier forms of alcohol, like tequila, pulque, Polish vodka at 149° of proof, paraldehyde and aircraft de-icing fluid. You fill the shot-glass with the desired but normally undrinkable fluid and place the shot-glass inside a high-ball glass, which you then fill, to the level of the shot-glass, with iced orange-juice or some other sharply nourishing
fluid. Then you drink it all down as one. The juice, unpolluted with whatever lunatic-soup happens to be in the shot-glass, nevertheless marks its horrors during the progress over your palate. As a bonus, at the end, the adhesion of the inner glass fails and it slides down and bumps you gently on the nose – hence the name of the game. The nose-bumping, I may say, in my experience compels you irresistibly to repeat the process. I have no knowledge of other mixtures but I don’t mind telling you that, practised with Pastis and pineapple-juice, you soon find yourself sitting on the carpet, singing songs you didn’t think you knew the words of.

It seems to me, but I cannot be sure, that Jock entered the room in the small hours and, with many a kindly word, showed Eric where his room was; returning later to take me out to the shrubbery and hold my head, then to the shower-bath. And so, I dare say, to bed.

Anyone will tell you that there’s nothing like Pastis to take one’s mind off the things tape-recorders say to you.

Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over,
Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet,
Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet
Of some pale Titan-woman like a lover,
Such as thy vision here solicited,
Under the shadow of her fair vast head,
The deep division of prodigious breasts,
The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep,
The weight of awful tresses that still keep
The savour and shade of old-world pine-forests
Where the wet hill-winds weep?

 

Ave Atque Vale

 

For years I had believed that these lines:

‘Shot? So quick, so clean an ending?
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave;
Yours was not an ill for mending,
’Twas best to take it to the grave’

 

were about a horrified young Edwardian who had discovered that he was a homosexual. I am in a position to correct literary history in this matter. The lines are about a horrified chap in early middle age who has discovered, one morning, that he has no head for Pastis. This, you see, was not the common hangover of commerce, it was
a Plague of Egypt with a top-dressing of the Black Death. Quite clearly incurable. I touched the bell.

‘Jock,’ I said hollowly, ‘pray bring me a pot of tea – the Lapsang Souchong Tips I think – and a loaded revolver. Mine is not an ill for mending: I propose to take it to the grave but I wish to blow the top of my head off first. I have no intention of spending eternity with the top of my head in its present condition.’

He started to steal away.

‘Oh, and Jock,’ I added, ‘when you bring the tea-tray I implore you not to let the spoon or other cutlery rattle against the revolver.’

‘Yes, Mr Charlie.’ Was there a tinge of contempt in his voice?

I lay there listening to the surly, ragged beating of my heart, the tidal noises my liver was emitting and the figured-bass in the back of my skull. A silvery laugh floated up to me from the kitchen: how could Johanna be
laughing
at a time like this – she should have been on her knees beside my bed, promising to hold my memory sacred forever.

A few feet from where I lay there was a window: a small, diligent spider was spinning a web in one of its corners. He was spinning it
inside
the double-glazing, I have never seen anything more piteous in my life, it made me think of me. I dare say I shed a tear or two. Had a capable Jesuit entered at that moment he could have bagged my soul without firing a shot.

What in fact entered was my tea, borne by Jock with a minimum of clamour. I had some difficulty getting into a position where I could sip it; my bottom kept on sliding down the silk sheets. (How I have longed to have been born of common stock so that I could sleep on kindly Irish linen, but, alas, rank has its obligations as well as its privileges.)

I shall not say that the first sips revived me, for I have ever loved the truth, but it is a fact that they allowed me to contemplate the bare possibility of continuing awhile in this vale of tears.

‘Jock,’ I said sternly, ‘I can distinctly hear Mrs Mortdecai laughing. Explain this as best you can.’

‘Couldn’t say, Mr Charlie. She’s having breakfast with Farver Tichborne and they seem to be relishing it no end.’

‘Breakfast!’ I squeaked. ‘Breakfast? Tichborne is eating
breakfast?
’

‘Too right he is. He’s had a plate of porridge with cream and sugar, then another plate Scotch-style with salt and dripping and pepper, then two eggs boiled very soft and runny, with richly-buttered toast, and now they’re starting on a pound of devilled kidneys with smoked salty bacon. I better run down and see if they’d fancy a bloater or two, I got some lovely ripe ones in the market yesterday.’

‘Get out,’ I said.

‘You fancy anythink?’ he asked.

‘
Out!
’ I cried.

‘You ought to try and get something down you, Mr Charlie, you look a bit rotten. Eyes like piss-holes in snow, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

I turned my face to the wall, feeling like a collection of passages deleted from the Book of Job.

Even the Job’s comforters were not wanting, for, half an hour later, some traitor downstairs allowed my kindly extrovert landlord to invade my death-chamber.

‘Hullo hullo hullo!’ he boomed. ‘What, still slugging abed? You’re missing the best part of the day!’

‘I’m poorly,’ I muttered.

‘Rubbish!’ he bellowed. ‘Nothing a breath of fresh air wouldn’t drive away in a trice. It’s a
splendid
morning!’

Now, the first thing to remember about landlords is that you cannot tell them to fuck off.

‘It’s raining,’ I said sullenly.

‘Certainly not. Not a bit. A fine, brisk morning; clear and cold. Not a spot of rain.’

‘It is raining in my heart,’ I said coldly. ‘
Il pleut dans mon coeur comme il pleut sur la ville
.’

‘Ah, well, yes, I daresay, but mark my words …’

‘When you go down,’ I said, ‘would you be kind enough to ask someone to bring me up a basin to be sick in?’

‘Right, well, that’s me, I’m off; lots to do. Look after yourself, won’t you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

There was nothing for it but to get up, so up was what I got. My symptoms started to sagashuate again but Jock blocked my every move to slink back into bed and, as a reward for shaving myself, he
allowed me one of his Salvation Specials, which have been known to twitch a man back from the very brink of the grave. No Jeevesian Worcester sauce and raw eggs for Jock: his potion is simply a dexedrin dissolved in gin and tonic to which he adds a spoonful of Mr Andrew’s noted Liver Salts, two effervescing Vitamin C tablets and two ditto Alka-Seltzer. I have little time for foreigners but I must say that Drs Alka and Seltzer should have won the Nobel Prize years ago; my only quarrel with their brain-child is its
noise
.

I was just in time for luncheon, where Eric’s shining morning face was much to the fore and Johanna … well, smiled at me politely. In the ordinary way I can do great damage to a plate of Jersey
Pais de Mai
, which is a sort of bubble-and-squeak made of potatoes, French beans and onions, fried into a cake and served with little pork sausages, but today the gastric juices simply would not flow and I could only wincingly watch the others eating great store of it while I worked out problems in topology with a hot roll.

Eric took me aside afterwards.

‘If you should be feeling a little
effete
,’ he said carefully, ‘after our sing-song last night … ?’

‘You have a gift for words, Eric. I have never felt effeter. Say on.’

‘I have heard it said that a little Pastis is sovereign in these cases. Drives away the evil humours.’

My better judgement rebelled but, as ever, my better judgement received what Jock calls a ‘root up the sump’ and soon the Pastis was smoothing out the wrinkles in my spleen in cavalry style. When the door-bell rang, two drinks later, I hardly jumped at all. George and Sam entered, snuffing the air curiously.

‘Takin’ up chemistry?’ asked George.

‘I have been gargling,’ I said stiffly. ‘I have a sore throat.’

‘To name but a few, I’d say,’ said Sam.

‘Shall we go?’ I said. ‘Eric, you’ll be able to amuse yourself, won’t you? Jock will show you where everything is. Ask for a map if you want to go for a stroll; a man can get lost for months in these Jersey lanes.’

We drove towards St Helier. Where we were going was to the Headquarters of the Paid Police, situated in a street called, bafflingly,
Rouge Bouillon
. Our purpose was to do a delicate deal with a senior officer recommended for his discretion by our sturdy Centenier.

My conscience had been clear for nearly eighteen months, but still I felt a certain unease at entering this Cop-shop; an unease, I must say, soon dispelled by the friendly courtesy extended to us on every hand, with scarcely a chink from a hip-pocketed handcuff. Courteously refusing many an offer of cups of tea, we found ourselves presently in the office of the senior officer in question. I knew him at once for an honest man: my trained eye priced his suit at £40 and dated it as five years old. Bent policemen the world over may hide their guilty gains in the very vaults of Zurich itself, but they cannot resist the mohair suitings, the hand-made shoes.
Experto crede
.

His nostrils twitched delicately.

‘My friend has been gargling,’ said Sam. ‘He has a sore throat.’

‘Bad luck,’ he said to George.

‘Not me; him,’ said George, pointing rudely.

‘Oh. Well. Now, what can I do to help? It’s about these rapes, I understand.’

With a glance at the others, I took it upon myself to be spokesman. He quite liked our reasoning about the rapist’s motivation and selectiveness and made a few notes. He explained how his activities were curtailed by the protocol between the Paid and Honorary police – whom he seemed rather to approve of.

‘Obviously,’ he said, ‘there’s a bit of friction and frustration; it’s natural between professionals and amateurs, but we could never police the country areas in the way that they do – they’ve got what amounts to a complete Secret Service out there in the
cotils
– and their, ah, summary way of sorting out minor felonies saves us an enormous amount of time and trouble. Every time one of my officers has to testify in court I have to change the whole bloody duty-roster, do you realize that? But I can’t interfere in Parish affairs without being asked, any more than Scotland Yard can send men down to a country murder until the local flatfoots admit they’re baffled. Having trodden all over the evidence first,’ he added bitterly.

Then I told him about our proposed vigilante scheme, carefully omitting to mention our first, abortive try. His brow darkened a bit but he admitted that, there again, it wasn’t his business.

‘Unless, of course,’ he said distinctly, ‘anyone was foolish enough to carry weapons on such an expedition.’

We raised hands in horror at the very thought.

Then I broached the real subject of our visit: what we were going to do that night – and what we wanted him to do about it. He laughed at first, then he scowled, then he went a bit purple and raised his voice. I cannot truthfully say that he raved, but he certainly threw himself about a goodish bit. I just went on remorselessly reiterating the logic of the plan, the trifling harm it could do, the possible prophylactic effect, the willingness of the Honorary Police to cooperate if he would join in, the credit which would redound to his Force. He began to see reason; he was not really an unimaginative man. He stuck at one thing, however; he had to have a better indemnity for himself. It was, after all, his career, you understand.

That was when George surprised me – not for the first time.

‘Use your phone?’ he asked. ‘Thanks. Hullo? No, not his secretary, thanks. No, nor his aide-de-camp. Just say it’s George Breakspear and that it’s urgent. What? Ah, hello, Porky, sorry to wake you up, ha ha; look, you remember that nonsense I told you we were thinking of trying on? Well, Mortdecai’s got a man over who understands all about such rubbish and we’re all set but the Commander of Detectives here quite naturally feels he needs a bit of higher clearance. Would you have a word with him?’

He had a word with him. The Commander did not actually stand to attention but one felt that, had he been alone, he might have done so. His end of the conversation consisted of seventeen ‘yessirs’, eight ‘of course, sirs’ and three ‘thank you, sirs’. Then he hung up the telephone and looked at us sternly.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘your friend seems to agree with me that perhaps something might be arranged on the lines you suggest.’ We kept our faces solemn. Then we got down to battle-orders, liaised with Connétables and people on the telephone, arranged time-schedules.

‘Above all,’ I said as we were leaving, ‘see that your men do not attempt to arrest the large, ugly man called Jock. First, he would hurt them badly and second, he is not in on the deal.’

‘Did I agree to that?’

‘Surely it was understood. He’s only my servant, you see.’

‘Has he any record on the Island?’

‘None whatever, I promise you. Just hates having his fingerprints taken.’

‘Hmph. All right.’

As we were leaving the main entrance a uniformed sergeant neatly cut me out of the mob and asked whether I could give the Commander a few minutes more of my time – alone. Quaking with guilt and terror I told the others that I would take a taxi home, then I followed the broad-based sergeant back to the C of D’s office.

‘It’s all right, Mr Mortdecai,’ he said, ‘sit down. You needn’t worry. I won’t pretend I don’t know who you are but I have no quarrel with you. That I know of.’ He let that sink in a little.

‘What I wanted was to ask you a couple of questions that I couldn’t very well ask your friends, since their wives were victims, you understand.’

I didn’t understand.

‘Well, I’m not too happy about saying positively that all these offences are by the same artist. There’s been another one, by the way, here in St Helier, but we’ve kept it out of the papers and the victim passed out: no description at all. But you know, these things catch on, they sort of become a fashion. It’s like little boys setting old ladies on fire in dark alleys – one of them does it and they all think they’ve got to.’

I shuddered. Some of my best friends have been old ladies – not to mention little boys.

‘Now,’ he went on, ‘we got a semen smear from the doctor’s wife and your Centenier contrived to get one from Mrs Davenant’s sheets – oh aye, your Centenier isn’t half as thick as he likes to pretend – and they’re both from the same class of secretor. But that’s like saying that they’re both blood-group “O”. And, as you know, Mr Breakspear was adamant about that sort of thing with regard to Mrs Breakspear, and we couldn’t get one from the new victim for reasons I needn’t go into. So we haven’t even got a third vector.’