The Norfolk Mystery (The County Guides) (29 page)

She grasped my hands firmly and then began stroking them.

‘I see here that you will live long and have many children. Is that what you desire?'

‘I'm not sure. I don't—'

‘Well, perhaps you might find a use for this?' She pressed the small metal object into my hands.

‘No, thank you,' I said.

‘But I insist. See how smooth it is, Mr Sefton. Can't you imagine finding a use for it?'

‘No, really, I couldn't.'

‘Ha!' She threw her head back and laughed. Not in a good way. ‘It's a gift, Mr Sefton,' she said, holding my hands tightly. ‘From me to you. You can hardly refuse a gift, can you? A gift for a hero.' She looked at me in a most challenging fashion.

‘Well … if you insist.'

‘I do.' She released her hands from mine suddenly, leaned forward, kissed me, and then stepped away. ‘Though one might expect a gift in return, of course.'

‘How lovely,' said Morley, clearly uncomfortable.

‘Now, gentlemen,' she said, with a vast wave of her hand, ‘coffee?'

Over thick, black Turkish-style coffee, Juan and Constance explained in ponderous detail to Morley their vision of creating a William Morris-style community in Norfolk, and how they rented outbuildings to local craftsmen and -women. I took notes and – with their permission – a number of photographs of some of the paintings and objects. Talking about the local community, Morley naturally asked about the death of the reverend.

‘A tragedy,' said Juan. ‘And the poor beautiful housekeeper.'

‘Do you think they died for love?' asked Morley.

‘For love?' said Juan. ‘How do you mean, Mr Morley?'

‘Well, it's rather strange that both of them should die in such unusual circumstances. I wondered if there might have been a suicide pact?'

‘Love is pure, Mr Morley.'

‘Love is patient. Love is kind,' added Morley. ‘But alas, under certain circumstances, it can clearly drive people towards committing the most dreadful acts.'

‘We know nothing about these people, Mr Morley,' said Constance, hurrying to tidy our plates and dishes away and to place them on a teetering pile of other dirty dishes. ‘Our lives are here, at College Farm, pursuing our art.'

‘Of course. I wonder if we might visit one of your artists in one of the studios?'

‘I don't think so,' said Constance.

‘For the book?' said Morley. ‘It might be interesting.'

‘I'm afraid not, Mr Morley, no,' said Constance. ‘Most of the craftsmen and -women have their jobs in the villages, and they only use the studios at weekends or in the evenings.'

‘Well, perhaps we could just visit one of the studios?'

‘Impossible, I'm afraid, without their permission.'

‘That's a pity. Your own studio, perhaps we could visit, Mr Chancellor?'

‘I hope we've given you enough to write about here,' said Juan.

‘Yes. Yes. Of course you have,' said Morley. ‘And we are really most grateful.'

After some strained farewells, we set off in the Lagonda.

‘Well, they seemed like a … happy sort of bunch, I suppose,' I said, as we drove away.

Morley sat up front in the car with me.

‘Excessive happiness is not good for people, Sefton.'

‘Really?'

‘No. I have always thought the ideal ratio of happiness to sadness is about 3:1.'

‘Happy to sad, or sad to happy?'

‘Happy to sad,' said Morley. ‘Obviously. Any more than that, frankly, and you're a crank. I like these Arts and Crafts people, Sefton, don't get me wrong. The William Morris-style idealists, who believe we've been on the wrong track since the Middle Ages. Their ideals would all be very well, if everyone were of Morris's calibre, but alas we are not, are we? The work of a man's hands are not always superior to the work of a machine. All very well that they should make their paintings and trinkets and fabrics and such like, but … Adult toys? What is an adult toy, Sefton?'

‘I'm … I don't—'

‘Who is going to make us what we need as a modern nation, Sefton? Eh? The good folk of College Farm?'

We drove on. Something was troubling Morley.

‘There was something odd about them, Sefton. Do you know the phrase
bene qui latuit bene vixit
?'

‘I'm not sure I do, Mr Morley, no.'

‘Pity. “He who has lived in obscurity has lived well.” The line is from
Tristia
, Ovid's lament about his enforced exile from Rome. You didn't study it at school at all?'

‘We may have done, sir, but I think I've forgotten it if so.'

‘Never mind. Its meaning is often taken to be a panegyric, if you like, for the simple life.'

‘Yes, I can see that that might be so.'

‘Trouble is, it's wrong, Sefton. Rather, Ovid is expressing bitterness over the way things have turned out for him.
Bene qui latuit bene vixit
. Keep your head down, might be another way of describing it. Make your hideaway in the country.'

‘I see.'

‘Pull over, Sefton. We're going to take a look at one of the studios.'

We clambered across woodlands, Morley striding ahead of me, regardless, and found ourselves eventually back down by the mudflats. Crouching down, we made our way towards the outbuildings. One of them – the furthest towards the mudflats – seemed recently to have been set alight. The roof had collapsed. I was reminded horribly of buildings I had seen in Spain; vast canyons of despair seemed to open up instantly to me. I suddenly felt quite liverish. Sick, almost.

‘“Everlasting flint,”' said Morley, patting the walls, as we came close.

‘Sorry?'

‘
Romeo and Juliet
. The roof has collapsed, but the stone remains.'

‘Ah.'

‘
Mizpah
.'

I was shivering in the cold.

‘OK, Sefton?'

‘Yes, fine, Mr Morley. Absolutely fine.'

Inside the building, among the blackened beams and the broken pantiles, there were dozens of paintings, some of them scorched, some of them entirely destroyed, some of them with the canvas burned, only the thin lines of frames and supports remaining.

‘Look familiar?' said Morley, holding up the charred remains of a sketch, of a woman with heavily lidded eyes, and blonde hair and brooding intensity.

It was a painting of Hannah.

And she was naked.

It was an ugly painting. A painting conceived in a spirit of lust rather than a spirit of awe.

‘Great blessed Berninis,' said Morley. ‘What do we have here, Sefton?' It was a rhetorical question. ‘The female as
objet de culte
, if I am not much mistaken.'

‘The desecration of the Virgin?' I said.

‘Maybe, Sefton. Maybe.'

P
ODGER'S
P
ROVISIONERS
– ‘Local Produce Procured From Local Providers' – stood in the middle of Blakeney, a veritable sentinel. One village shop, of course, is much like any other, or at least it often appears so from the outside. Outside Podger's were the usual posters claiming that everybody drinks Typhoo, and enjoys Bovril, and smokes Woodbines, and can't resist trying Nescafé Instant Coffee (‘Filthy stuff,' said Morley. ‘What's wrong with Camp?'). One particularly fetching poster – upon which Morley expatiated at great length, making comparisons with the work of William Blake, Michelangelo and pan-Athenaic amphorae, ‘The rhythm and the vigour, Sefton, quite extraordinary!' – showed a grinning, vivid pink pig dragging a cartload of sausages behind him, with, above, the legend, ‘Drawing His Own Conclusions'. The window display consisted entirely of half a dozen pyramids of tinned meat accompanied and adorned with packets of Batchelors Peas, ‘for steeping'.

‘They're ziggurats, actually,' said Morley, correcting my pyramid observation, as we stepped inside, to the ting-a-ling of the doorbell.

It was one of those village shops that stocked everything – more general store than grocer's. As well as the usual bacon flitches and shelves of tinned foods and pickled things, and eggs, and sad-looking sacks of onions and carrots, and greasy bins containing flour, and raisins and sugar, there were also displays of bicycle parts, ladies' cosmetics (dozens of eyebrow pencils, I noted), stockings, zip fasteners, collar studs, Brylcreem, alarm clocks, and – half hidden next to a row of either very early or very late Empire Christmas Puddings – a range of contraceptives. And there was of course that characteristic small shop smell: a rich stew of mustiness, mould, tobacco, fish, cats and polish.

A woman stood hunched amid this fragrant
tableau vivant
, behind the long wooden counter, slapping violently at a pat of butter with large patterned paddles. She paused as we entered, quickly wrapped the butter in brown paper on an old cracked bilious yellow oilcloth, tied it with string – which she took from a massive tangle of strings, dangling from a hook, all of which appeared to have been used many times before, washed and hung up to dry – wiped her hands on her apron, glanced at a mirror placed strategically behind the arching wooden display shelves that framed the counter, smoothed her hair, repositioned her glasses, and eventually ready, turned her wide eyes towards us. Or, at least, one of her eyes turned towards us. The other wandered rather.

‘Yes?' Her pitiful, pleading expression made me wish we were there only to buy Bisto, some neck of mutton and some socks. Morley, of course, had no such weaknesses or qualms, and got straight to the point.

‘Mrs Podger?'

‘Yes.'

‘We're looking for Ed Dunne.'

‘Why? Is he in trouble?'

‘No, not at all,' said Morley.

‘I told him he needed to be careful. You have to get lights on the bike, I told him. It's the law. He was fined ten shillings the last time, and we can't afford to help out again. It's our deliveries. But it's his bicycle. I told him last time. It's nothing to do with me.'