Ancestral Vices (26 page)

But while she supervised these arrangements and recruited several respectable women from the Mill to help, Emmelia’s thoughts turned again and again to the despicable Ronald. In a last desperate and restrained letter to him she had invited him to the family gathering and had even gone so far as to state that its purpose was to consider the future of the Mill, which was true, and the possibility of the family agreeing to sell their shares in it, which was not. Lord Petrefact had not replied, but she had hardly expected him to. If he came at all he would come unannounced to enjoy the spectacle of his relatives’ dismay and outrage at the prospect of having the name Petrefact dragged still further from its obscurity and thrust into the limelight as the family which owned a fetish factory. It was just the sort of situation he would most enjoy.

Emmelia was right. Lord Petrefact had decided to attend. Her letter had whetted his appetite for family rows. There was nothing he enjoyed more, and her intimation that his relatives might be prepared to sell their shares in the Mill suggested nothing of the sort to Lord Petrefact. It suggested that they wanted him down there to bring the full weight of their pressure on him to call a halt to Yapp’s evidently highly disturbing activities in Buscott. Lord Petrefact looked forward to that pressure. He would have to do nothing more than sit still
while they raged at him and his silence would be more devastating than words. And if by some extraordinary chance they were prepared to sell the Mill in exchange for an end to Yapp’s research he would make the sanctimonious bunch sweat while he went through the motions of considering their offer, but in the end he would still refuse. Feeling quite tipsy with power he rang for Croxley.

‘We’re going down to Buscott immediately. Make arrangements for the journey and accommodation in the neighbourhood.’

‘There’s the New House,’ said Croxley. ‘Surely Miss Emmelia will have room?’

Lord Petrefact fixed him with the less favoured side of his face. ‘I said accommodation, not a rats’ nest of relatives,’ he said with a malevolence that was persuasive. Croxley left the room puzzled. First Yapp in Buscott and now the old devil himself. And what did he mean by a rats’ nest of relatives? To engender some more information from Lord Petrefact Croxley phoned every hotel in the district and demanded two groundfloor suites and a guarantee of absolute silence between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m., provision for room service all night and an undertaking that the chef be on twenty-four-hour duty. Armed with seven indignant refusals he returned to Lord Petrefact’s office.

‘No room at the inn,’ he said with mock despondency, ‘unless you’re prepared to stay in a boarding-house.’

Lord Petrefact made several incomprehensible noises.

‘No, well I didn’t think you would but there’s nothing else.’

‘But the place is a dead-and-alive dump. Where did you try?’

Croxley laid the list of hotels on the desk. Lord Petrefact glanced at it. ‘Don’t we own any of them?’ he asked.

‘The family does but . . .’

‘I didn’t mean them. I meant me.’

Croxley shook his head. ‘Now if you’d said Bournemouth . . .’

‘I didn’t say fucking Bournemouth. I said Buscott. They’re miles apart. Well, where the hell can we stay?’

‘The rats’ nest?’ suggested Croxley and brought on another bout of high blood pressure. ‘Of course as a last resort there’s Mr Osbert at the Old Hall.’

Lord Petrefact felt his pulse. ‘And die of pneumonia,’ he yelled when it was down to 130. ‘That oaf’s so bloody medieval he hasn’t heard of central heating and his idea of a warm bed is one with a fucking whippet in it. If you think I want to share a bed with a fucking whippet you’re insane.’

Croxley agreed. ‘In that case I can only suggest the New House. It may have its disadvantages but Miss Emmelia would make you comfortable.’

Lord Petrefact kept his doubts on the matter to himself. ‘I suppose so. In any case we may be able to get the business over in a day.’

‘May we enquire the nature of the business?’

Another paroxysm ended the discussion and Croxley hurried out to order the hearse. There were times when he wished the old swine would put it to its proper use.

And so that Saturday the illustriously obscure Petrefacts gathered at the New House in Buscott to deal with a family crisis that was already over. They were not to know. Yapp had the weekend to consider the weight of circumstantial evidence against him and Inspector Garnet was in no hurry.

‘Take all the time you need,’ he told Mr Rubicond, who had finally discovered where his client was being held. ‘If he tells you the same story he told me you’ll have a hard time with your conscience if he insists on pleading not guilty. His only out is “guilty but insane”.’

Two hours later Mr Rubicond shared his opinion. Yapp was still adamant in his claim that he had been framed – and by the Petrefacts, of all unlikely people.

‘You can’t be serious,’ said Mr Rubicond. ‘No sane judge is going to believe that you were hired by Lord Petrefact to write a family history and were then framed with the murder of a dwarf simply to prevent you from writing it. If they had, and I can’t for one moment believe it, if they had been prepared to take such extreme measures, why on earth murder Mr Coppett when they could as easily have murdered you?’

‘They wanted to discredit me,’ said Yapp. ‘The capitalist class is extremely devious.’

‘Yes, well it must be, though while we’re on the subject of anyone discrediting you I can only say that you’ve done an exceedingly good job yourself. I told you not to say anything.’

‘I have said nothing that is not true. The facts are as I’ve described them.’

‘Perhaps, but did you have to describe them? I mean take this business of ejaculating in the car because Mrs Coppett kissed you. Of all the incredible indiscretions I’ve ever come across . . . Words fail me. You’ve handed the prosecution your motive on a plate.’

‘But I had to explain why I went into that wood. I mean I had to have some good reason.’

‘Changing out of a pair of soiled Y-fronts doesn’t strike me as a good reason at all. It’s a bloody bad one. Why didn’t you change in the car?’

‘I told you. Because there was a lot of traffic on the road at the time – and besides I have rather long legs and I couldn’t have got them off in the confined space.’

‘So you climbed a gate with barbed wire on it, cut your hands, crossed a field, and spent the next two hours sitting under a fir tree clutching your underpants and waiting for the rain to stop?’

‘Yes,’ said Yapp.

‘And since, when you arrived back at the Coppetts’ house, you were wearing a shirt stained, according to the Inspector, with Mr Coppett’s blood, we must assume that during the time you say you were in that wood his body was deposited in the boot?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And you don’t remember where this wood is.’

‘I daresay I could recognize it if I were allowed out to drive round.’

Mr Rubicond looked at his client doubtfully and wondered about his sanity. On one thing he was resolved: when it came to the trial he would advise counsel not to allow his client to go into the witness box. The blasted man seemed determined to condemn himself with every word he said.

‘I somehow don’t think the police would grant you that degree of freedom in the circumstances,’ he said. ‘However, if you want me to I’ll ask the Inspector.’

Much to his surprise the Inspector agreed.

‘If he’s half as daft as he’s been so far he’ll probably lead us to the exact spot and hand us the murder weapon,’ he told the Sergeant.

For two hours Yapp sat in the police car between the Inspector and Mr Rubicond while they drove round the lanes above Buscott, every so often stopping at a gate in a hedge.

‘It was on a hill,’ said Yapp, ‘the headlights shone in my eyes.’

‘They’d do that on the flat,’ said the Inspector. ‘Were you going up hill or down?’

‘Down. The gate was on the left.’

‘But you can’t say how far you had gone before you stopped?’

‘I was far too distraught at the time and my mind was
on other things,’ said Yapp, staring hopelessly out of the window at a landscape that seemed wholly unfamiliar, a consequence in part of their driving up the hill he had come down. In any case his illness and days in bed, not to mention the horrors of the past thirty-six hours, made the fateful night seem long ago and had changed his view of the district. Experience had robbed the countryside of its romantically tragic and historic associations. It was now murderous and predatory.

‘Well, a fat lot of good that was,’ said the Inspector when they were back at the station and Yapp had been locked in his cell. ‘Still, you can’t accuse us of refusing cooperation.’

Mr Rubicond couldn’t. It was part of his stock-in-trade to accuse the police of brutality and of denying his clients their rights, but on this occasion they were behaving with a disconcerting rectitude which tended to confirm his own impression that Professor Yapp was indeed a murderer. They were even prepared to let him attend the post-mortem, a privilege he would happily have forgone.

‘Hit over the head with the proverbial blunt instrument and then stabbed in the stomach for good measure,’ said the Police Surgeon.

‘Anything to suggest what sort of instrument?’

The Police Surgeon shook his head. Willy’s passage down the river had removed what evidence there might have been that he had been hit by a tractor. Even his little boots had been washed clean.

‘Well, there you have it, Mr Rubicond. Now if your
client is prepared to make a full confession I daresay he might get off with a lighter sentence.’

But Mr Rubicond was not to be drawn. He had his own interests to consider. Professors who murdered dwarves were not an everyday phenomenon; the trial would draw an immense amount of publicity; and Walden Yapp was an eminent man and highly regarded in those progressive circles which hadn’t actually met him; he must also be a man of considerable means, and a long trial followed by an appeal would be a very profitable affair.

‘I am convinced of his innocence,’ he said more cheerfully and left the station. Inspector Garnet shared his enthusiasm.

‘Now I don’t want this fouled up by any mistakes,’ he told his team. ‘Professor Yapp is to be treated with the utmost consideration. He’s not your ordinary villain and I don’t want anyone complaining to the Press that the swine’s been ill-treated. It’s kid gloves all the way.’

In the bar of the Horse and Barge feelings were rather different.

‘They should never have done away with hanging,’ said Mr Groce, who felt particularly aggrieved at the loss of Willy. He had no one to help him wash and dry the glasses. Mr Parmiter shared his views but took a broader perspective.

‘I never did agree with the way Mr Frederick went on
about Willy’s right to use that fucking awful knife on the bloke just because he was shafting Rosie Coppett. I reckon Willy tackled him and the fellow did for Willy.’

‘I suppose they’ll be calling you as a witness because of the car and hiring it from you.’

‘They’ll be calling you too. You must have been the last person to see Willy alive, excepting the murderer of course.’

Mr Groce considered the prospect while Mr Parmiter concentrated on the possibility that the police might require his dubious accounts as evidence.

‘Buggered if I’m going to mention Willy’s threats,’ said Mr Groce finally. ‘Might give the bastard a chance to plead self-defence.’

‘True enough. On the other hand, Willy did say he’d seen Rosie having it off with the bloke. You can’t get away from that.’

‘Least said soonest mended. I’m still not saying anything to let that Yapp off the hook. If ever a man deserved to swing, he does.’

‘And I wouldn’t want to involve Mr Frederick either,’ said Mr Parmiter. In the end they agreed to say nothing and to let justice take its own uncomplicated course.

Lord Petrefact was driven down to Buscott in a thoroughly good mood. Before leaving London he had completed an arrangement between one of his many subsidiaries, Petreclog Footwear of Leicester, and Brazilian State Beef whereby he hoped to bring home to the workers in Leicester the disadvantages of demanding a thirty per cent pay rise while at the same time increasing his profits enormously by transferring the plant to Brazil where he would have government backing for paying the local workers a quarter of what their British counterparts had previously earned.

‘A splendid move, simply splendid,’ he told Croxley as the converted hearse with its attendant ambulance, in which the resuscitation team were playing Monopoly, hurtled along the motorway.

‘If you say so,’ said Croxley, who always found riding so prematurely in a hearse an unnerving experience, ‘though why you want to go to Buscott beats me. You’ve always said you loathed the place.’

‘Buscott? What the hell are you talking about? I was talking about the Brazil deal.’

‘Yes, well I daresay it will raise your popularity rating in Leicester.’

‘Teach the swine not to meddle with basic economics,’ said Lord Petrefact with relish. ‘In any case I’m helping an underdeveloped country to stand on its own two feet.’

‘In Petreclog Footwear no doubt.’

But Lord Petrefact was in too ebullient a mood to argue. ‘And as far as Buscott is concerned, one owes a duty to one’s family. Blood is thicker than water, you know.’

Croxley considered the cliché and had his doubts. Lord Petrefact’s familial record suggested that in his case water had a decidedly more glutinous quality than blood, while his evident pleasure seemed to lend weight to the theory that he was looking forward to a first-rate row.

But when they arrived at the New House it was to find the drive cluttered with cars and no one in.

‘Miss Emmelia’s taken them on a tour of the Mill,’ Annie explained to Croxley who had rung the front doorbell.

‘A tour of the Mill?’ said Lord Petrefact when the message was relayed to him. ‘What the hell for?’

‘Possibly to show them her ethnic clothing,’ said Croxley.

Lord Petrefact snorted. He had come down to discuss the question of Yapp’s researches into the family background, not to be taken on a guided tour of an ethnic clothing factory. ‘I’m damned if I’m budging until they get back,’ he said adamantly, ‘I’ve seen all of that fucking Mill I want to.’