A Hovering of Vultures (3 page)

Whereas the Sneddon-related matter he was now sent on and which he had just been to London to discuss at Scotland Yard was so vague and nebulous as to approach the invisible, and the instructions were hardly more than that he maintain a watching brief. What he would do when he arrived at Batley Bridge, what he would hope to find in Micklewike and what he should do if he found it—about all these things he was uncertain.

Still, one thing he did know: the girl from two rows down would be there. He studied the pair. The man was gangling, carefree, perhaps a little pleased with himself. The girl on the other hand had in her eyes something—what was it?— something predatory, something at any rate very determined, very insistent on getting her own way. He didn't feel they made a couple. Much more, they made a contrast.

One other thing was certain: he would have to be able to talk knowledgeably, if not intelligently, about the works of Susannah Sneddon. (The works of her brother, he gathered, were in the nature of optional extras, and from the accounts he had read of them he was profoundly glad they were.) So, reverie over, he settled down once again to
The Black Byre.
The heroine had just heard heavy breathing from the hay loft.

• • •

Mrs Letitia Farraday, widow of the late Howard C. Farraday III, sat firmly ensconced in an almost empty first class compartment, her luggage around and above her. The porter had been friendly and respectful, scenting American money. He had not been disappointed.

The first class of British Rail was its usual somnolent, antechamber-to-death self, though at the far end a besuited young man was holding forth in chain-saw tones to a look-alike about financial matters. From the fragments of conversation that penetrated down to her Mrs Farraday gathered that he had been a teenage millionaire, and had lost much of it in the Wall Street slump of 'eighty-seven. She shook her head. Young people had not been thus when she had been a girl in this country.

For though the porter had been right in scenting American money, he had been wrong in assuming that Mrs Farraday herself was American, except by adoption, accent and passport. She had grown up in the North of England. Though she would never have used the phrase herself, she was now coming home.

She had been coming back to Britain every three or four years since her second husband died, but the truth was she had no particular feeling for the country—felt happier twinges of anticipation those years when she was going to Venice, Paris or Scandinavia. She had enjoyed times in Edinburgh, North Wales and York, liked London less and less as it became progressively shabbier and more traffic-logged, and tried to avoid it. But in general she felt she could cope with anywhere on earth, could make her way without panic or disaster in all five continents.

“I am a citizen of the world,” she would tell herself complacently. And she would add: “Not bad at seventy-five.”

And now she was going home. She had never wanted to before, had felt no urge to retrace her steps. She had quarrelled with her parents and had quit the atmosphere of Bible and biliousness which had been the dominant notes of her childhood. She had sent them a postcard from New York in 1939, with her address on it, but they had never replied. New York had seemed heaven to her, but it would have been Sodom and Gomorrah to them. No doubt at some stage they had died, and been buried, but Letitia Farraday had no idea when, or by whom. Presumably a cousin had done the decent thing, for she had no living brothers or sisters.

Why then had that article in
Time
magazine been so evocative, why had it tugged her so strongly back to the bleak little village for which she felt no affection? There was the Sneddon connection, of course, though she had not been fond of Susannah, and had found Joshua distant and rather odd. The idea of a Weekend, or Conference, or some kind of jamboree in the old farmhouse had certainly appealed to her.
Time
magazine, ever alive to trends, had perhaps played it up a bit: her travel agent reported that it would be a distinctly modest affair. But in spite of the sub-standard accommodation which was all the area afforded, and in spite of being conscious that there were few if any of her village contemporaries she particularly wanted to meet again, she was distinctly looking forward to this weekend.

Perhaps it was the fact that she had something to contribute. Perhaps it was because, though she had told no one in advance, she was one person who really knew the Sneddons, and remembered in some detail the life they had led.

Letitia Farraday, in some corner of her amiable mind, anticipated with pleasure being a woman of importance.

• • •

When the InterCity 125 drew into platform five of Leeds Station most of the passengers streamed towards the ticket barrier, while a few clustered under the flickering indicators, trying to work out which platform to go to. Charlie Peace cast an eye over them, wondering which would turn out to be conferees: a cherubic young man who might be a clergyman in mufti—maybe; a tweedy woman with a West Highland terrier—hardly; a large American lady with a willing porter in tow—quite probably, because as he strode past them he heard the name of Micklewike, though as he looked back he saw them heading for the exit.

As he headed down the steps for platform nine Charlie saw something that intrigued him. The man whom he had seen reading
Starveacre
on his way to the buffet had met up with the woman he had seen reading
Starveacre
on his way back from the buffet. No, not met up—been reunited with. And together they were kissing in parental fashion a sulky, nondescript young woman in a college scarf who was leading them in the direction he was going himself. No, not nondescript really: actually quite pretty. But decidedly morose, and not more than dutifully pleased to see her parents. Well, actually not even that.

On the little sprinter train to Batley Bridge near Micklewike, which limped rather than sprinted, Charlie positioned himself not too far from them, and kept his ears open. At one point he heard the girl say:

“You're just
using
her. Capitalising on her popularity.”

And he heard the father reply:

“Not at all, my dear. You know nothing whatsoever about it. Susannah Sneddon was a literary forebear, an honoured predecessor. I am merely paying my tribute.”

It was said with the utmost complacency. Charlie was staggered: he would never have believed that there were people in the world who could talk in that way. Whatever else this inaugural conference of the Sneddon Fellowship threw up, it certainly seemed likely to display character types quite new to his experience. They could well turn out to be grisly beyond his imagining.

I
n the dignified but bland stone house on the Haworth Road which led eastwards out of Batley Bridge Charlie Peace set out his belongings. He had decided on a bed and breakfast place, as being the most likely accommodation for someone in his age group. The man who had let him in had done the usual double-take on realizing that the cockney voice he had talked to on the phone when the room was booked turned out to come from a black face. Charlie occasionally used the line “Sorry about being black—I should have warned you,” accompanied by his most ferocious smile, but on this occasion the man had seemed welcoming enough, and Charlie on his present mission had every reason not to make waves.

Now, in the attractive, chintzy bedroom, he unpacked his things: hung up his most conservative suit, put in the drawers his white and striped shirts (God! how fed up he was with striped shirts, but what else could you get these days?) and set out on top of the chest his light portable typewriter.
He was aiming to use any spare time this weekend to improve his typing, which he was the first to admit was ludicrously ham-fisted. He was also intending to make a written record of every impression, oddity or ambiguity that came through to him over the weekend. He felt it was going to be that sort of a case—if, indeed, it turned out to be a case at all. Now he slipped a piece of paper into the machine and typed: “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” Then he put the wooden shield over the keys, set out the key guide, and typed it again: “The wuick brown foz jumped over the laxy dog.” Three mistakes. Not bad. Not good either.

He knotted the sleeves of a pullover round his neck, for by now he knew Yorkshire weather and had a healthy mistrust of its sun. Then he patted his trouser pocket for money and the front door key and left his room, bounding down the stairs. On an impulse, and hearing noises from the kitchen, he went down the hallway and poked his head round the door.

“Hello—sorry to bother you: I'm your b. and b. man,” he said to the plump woman at the sink. “I was wondering if it will be all right if I should decide to stay until Monday. If the weather's good I might decide to do a bit of walking.”

“Oh yes, that should be all right. I'm Mrs Ludlum, by the way. We don't have many bookings this time of year. We have our regulars, but they're mostly in the school holidays. In April and May it's mostly casuals sent from the Tourist Office. If you could tell me Sunday breakfast time, so I don't give the room to anyone else during the day.”

“I will . . . Where do you think most of the Sneddon Weekend people will be staying?”

“Oh, all over. You're lucky we had this room these two nights—we had a cancellation. Most bed and breakfast places
are full for tonight and tomorrow, and so is the Duke of Cumberland. That's where you'll find the best part of them, at the Cumberland. It's got fifteen or twenty rooms. Turn left when you go out the front door, and when you come to the town centre it's the big, sprawling pub painted white.”

Charlie smiled his thanks, and made tracks back to the town centre. The Duke of Cumberland was indeed sprawling, but its very ramshackle structure made it attractive. Several drinkers were sitting outside in the watery, early-evening sun, many in plaid shirts and heavy boots. Charlie scented conference-goers and decided to join them, but as he was getting his pint of Bodington's from the bar he felt a hand on his arm.

“Young man, do you think you could be so kind as to take my glass over to a table? It's difficult hobbling with a stick and a glass as well.”

The voice was American. He turned and saw the large woman he had seen on Leeds station. Her hand was firmly grasping the head of her stick, and a determined but friendly expression was on her face. A woman who knew her own mind and would speak it, he decided: someone who would despise meanness and double-dealing. A fair woman.

“Sure,” he said. “Need my arm as well?”

“No, no. I manage, I manage. It's worse than usual tonight. I got a bit stiff on the long train journey from London, and then in the taxi from Leeds.”

Taxi from Leeds! Charlie thought. Well, no ride in a scruffy little Sprinter train for this lady. Almost certainly one of the conference-goers, he thought: a rich American enthusiast.

“Will this do?” he asked as she hobbled behind him to a corner table with a good view down the length of the bar.
“Do you want to be alone, or would you mind if I joined you?”

“I'd be delighted if you would join me, and I never want to be alone. I've been alone all too much since my second husband died. You'll know how strange and unpleasant that can be, young man, if you ever are widowed.”

“Haven't even managed to get a wife yet,” grinned Charlie, as they settled down on the sofa seats that gave them the best view. “Not that I'm at the Weekend to find one. I don't think Susannah Sneddon's novels are an encouragement to matrimony.”

“Ah, so you're at the Conference, are you? Or jamboree, or Weekend, or Celebration, or whatever we are to call it.” There was a light scepticism in her tone that made Charlie revise his estimate of her as an enthusiast. Perhaps she recognised in him a kindred spirit, a fellow-ironist, for she continued: “Now offhand I wouldn't have picked you as a literary enthusiast or a culture vulture.”

Charlie blinked, recognising the idea he had had of the conferees as birds of prey.

“There have got to be a few surprises in the pack,” he replied in neutral tones. “Still, looking around this bar I feel I could pick the Sneddon people.”

“So do I: there, there, there and there.” She had launched a sweeping gaze over the drinkers and then pointed unobtrusively to four of them—just the ones that Charlie would himself have picked.

“Right,” he said. “And just possibly there. But we're probably entirely wrong. And even if we're right, it's not all that clever, because the locals mark themselves out by the way they behave, and there aren't that many left.”

“Thank you for that douche of cold water on my self-esteem, young man.”

“Anyway, what do people who attend literary do's like this look like?”

The woman set down her glass after a hefty swig.

“You're asking me? I've never been to one in my life. It's not my sort of scene at all. I've got a friend who goes, though—Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, that kind of thing. She says that you get all ages and types, but that what is common to most of them is a sort of mild mania.”

“Sounds nasty.”

“It can make them very quarrelsome, she says. They've got themselves fixated on this one author, often for some odd, personal reason. Some of them hardly read any other author, just madly re-read the one.”

“Slightly unbalanced, she means? I don't think of myself as slightly unbalanced.”

“Give it time, young man. Think of those people who go through the Sherlock Holmes stories as if they were literal fact, finding mad reasons for all the contradictions, whereas really it was just Conan Doyle forgetting what he'd written years earlier. And by the way, it's not just literary obsessions that grow into something a little mad. My friend says there's a Richard III Society full of people who never read any history except the life and times of Richard, and only that to show that he was a saint on earth.”