Strange Music (12 page)

Willard looked as if he were going to hit him. ‘Oh! Typical of you to turn it into a joke, Eric. Your county police are just about the most useless bunch you could think of. While Anna was being attacked, they were probably hiding in the ditch on the
B
1000, catching drivers doing five miles per hour over the limit!'

‘Which is what happened to Willard last week,' Marianne added helpfully.

The laughter defused the situation somewhat, but Willard remained unpersuaded. ‘You guys do what you like – protect your kids in your own way. But I'm going to make it clear to this guy that he's sitting in the Last Chance Saloon.'

Adam returned. ‘Doc Wilson says they're keeping him in overnight. He has a couple of broken ribs and some extensive bruising but they think he'll be OK to discharge tomorrow morning.'

‘I don't wish to speak to the police,' Anna said suddenly. ‘I think Mister Johnson has right. Make him fear.'

‘Well, there's nothing we can do until tomorrow night, anyway—' Willard began.

‘Oh, but there is!' Eric interrupted.

All eyes turned to him.

‘Six concerned friends who turn up at the hospital, wanting to wish him well . . . bring him a box of chocolates . . . Of course, they won't let all six crowd around the bed, but two could go forward and give him a message of good cheer while the rest smile and wave in the doorway to the ward. Cheers mate! Thumbs up! Meanwhile, we all know exactly what message those two are murmuring in his ear. And there'd be a host of impeccable witnesses to the fact that nobody shouted, no one shook a fist in his face, no one carried a pick handle or a meat cleaver. You could do that, Willard. You must be quite used to smiling at people you'd much rather strangle.'

They all laughed, of course, but they also saw it was quite feasible . . . and extremely cunning. And when Eric added: ‘A very
small
box of chocolates, of course,' the suggestion hardened into an actual operations order.

But, as frequently happened with Eric's plans, it didn't quite work out like that.

No one had reckoned that a detective from the despised Hertfordshire Constabulary –
DC
Warren, by name – might just be leaving the ‘victim's' bedside, having taken a statement about the ‘unfortunate hit-and-run accident.' Nor that he would form the rather obvious suspicion that one of these ‘concerned friends and neighbours' had, in fact, been the hit-and-run driver.

Fortunately, his mind was still full of the cock-and-bull story he had just compiled into a statement and he was wondering which of the many holes it contained would offer the most leverage for a demolition job, so he did not arrive at this fresh suspicion until he was back in the hospital car park. And by the time he returned to the ward, Willard and Adam had given Con Christie both the chocolates and the message, and were leaving him adequately terrified and ready to protect even the Dower House pet animals with his life if need be.

Detective Constable Warren began with the obvious question: ‘May I ask how many of you gentlemen are owners of cars or other vehicular transport – and I don't mean bicycles, by the way?'

Willard started to say something about calling his attorney but Eric stepped in: ‘We all own cars, officer, and fortunately—'

‘I'm not an officer,' Warren said.

‘. . . and fortunately for you, we all live in the same house – the Dower House – so may I suggest that you allow me to drive you there? We came in two cars, so my friends can all go back in Willard's. And then you can satisfy yourself that none of them – the cars, I mean – is contaminated with Mister Christie's blood, or whatever sort of slime takes the place of blood in that man's veins. Shall we go?'

The man looked from face to face, chewed his lip, and at last accepted the suggestion, though with little show of eagerness. ‘So you're not exactly friends of his?' he asked as they drew near Eric's car, the Bentley-engined Lagonda, which he could see was undamaged by any recent collision.

‘All will be revealed,' Eric promised as he held open the door.

When they arrived at the Dower House, Eric shouted a jocular, ‘Stand by your cars!' and then, parodying a company sergeant-major conducting an
OC
's kit inspection, took Warren round from car to car. It was pretty clear to everyone that Warren's suspicions had been laid to rest during the brief journey with Eric and this inspection was quite perfunctory. They finished up in front of the house, where the Wilsons' Jowett van was parked. In fact, with no snow beneath it and one axle up on a stand, there was no need to inspect it at all. Warren looked up at the house and said, ‘So how do you lot all live here, then?'

Eric invited him in to see for himself; the others followed, turning the affair into an impromptu party. They were still there a couple of hours later when a sober Eric returned from having driven a slightly less sober
DC
Warren back to the hospital to collect his bicycle and wobble home. The only sticky moment had been when Willard had tackled him on the futility of speed traps on a perfectly safe, perfectly straight portion of road late at night. ‘The moral of that,' Warren had told him, ‘is
don't go speeding in the last fortnight of a quarter
! We've got our quotas, see, and the way to fill them without wasting too much police time is to “shoot fish in a barrel,” as you call it.'

‘What did you do? What did you say to him?' they all asked when Eric came back indoors.

‘I learned he has a fourteen-year-old daughter,' Eric explained. ‘So I put a completely hypothetical situation to him and he agreed – stressing that his answer was also completely hypothetical – that certain ways of resolving the situation without damage to his daughter's reputation or psyche would at least be contemplated, especially if the totally hypothetical perpetrator of the outrage was well known for his slipperiness, vindictiveness, and general flouting of all legal constraints. And we agreed that the great strength of Britain's constabulary was the enormous flexibility of its operational procedures at the day-to-day level. And then, just now, on the way back into Hertford, he commented that we – all of us here – were a real community. And I have to confess that I agreed with him. I said, “It's the way we can all rally round and act with unity of purpose when the need arises that makes life here worth so much more than it would be if we just lived on some housing estate.” And actually, I think there's possibly a grain of truth in that – no?'

Tuesday, 18 April 1950

When Faith went to Paris with Fogel they always stayed either at the Ritz or the Bristol, but when she went on her own – even though still on business for Manutius – she preferred a small hotel on the west side of the Place du Tertre in Montmartre, just a few streets away from the Cathedral of Sacré Coeur. The views over Paris were spectacular, summer or winter, and the nightlife was bohemian and joyful.

Her errand, on this occasion, was delicate. Fogel, flying back from a deal with Sansoni in Florence, had been forced down in Paris by severe turbulence. The following day he had taken the chance to conclude another deal. this time for a French co-edition of the ‘Junior Knowledge' series, with the Paris house of Hachette, signed and sealed over lunch. At dinner that evening, however, who should walk into the Grillon but Pierre Lavayssière of Larousse. The temptation was too great for Fogel. He took the dummies from his briefcase, showed them to Lavayssière, boasted about the wonders of the entire series, and ended up concluding a verbal deal in direct conflict with the one he had signed just eight hours earlier.

True, this new deal was merely verbal – to be cemented in writing after Lavayssière had visited Manutius and seen the operation for himself – but it was worth significantly more than that morning's deal with Hachette. Moreover, there was a good chance that Lavayssière would then sign a further deal for a series of adult illustrated books on philosophy, mathematics, contemporary history, and psychology that Fogel was planning. So there was no chance that Manutius would honour the original deal with Hachette. All Faith had to do was talk them out of it.

But how? Fogel left such trivial details to her discretion.

Perhaps one of the authors had turned
in
some wonderful text – which,
hélas!
turned
out
to be plagiarized from a Dutch book on the same subject? All deadlines were scrapped while checks were made on the remaining texts from the same author; so Manutius would quite understand if Hachette now wished to withdraw?

No.

Or maybe Fogel had had some kind of brainstorm because he had sold the series to Larousse on his way
to
Florence – and completely forgotten it when forced down in Paris – and then woke up convinced that his intention, all along, had been to sell the series to Hachette?

No.

Or two of the authors already had contractual obligations to Larousse . . . no.

At last she had it: the deal in Florence had been for a picture archive owned by Sansoni; Fogel had bought up the rights to exploit the archive in the world book markets. But, on looking at the contract more closely, Manutius's legal advisors were worried by one particular clause, which could be construed to provide for a rising royalty for each publisher who joined in any co-edition; so Fogel had sent her round the partners to ask if they were willing to pay their share of that rising royalty; if not (and she was pretty sure Hachette would not) he would allow them to drop out of the project.

It worked. Albert Faure of Hachette declined to pay the ‘surcharge,' especially when Faith added a sweetener: ‘You may remember our outstandingly successful “Modern Art” series? Well, we are planning to rearrange that material in small-format, board-covered books on single subjects –
Les Fauves, Der Blaue Reiter, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism
. . . and so forth . . .'

Faure interrupted eagerly to say he would be far more interested in such a series; there was a greater hunger in France for books on art than for those on more general knowledge (a conclusion Faith had already reached at the Louvre bookstall that same morning).

On her last evening in Paris she spent a delicious hour between the crème brûlée and the last Armagnac, sketching an outline for the ‘cannibalization' of the ‘Modern Art
'
series in twelve slim, small-format hardbacks; it would be her parting gift to Fogel – though she still had no clear plan for her move to a position of power and authority in
BBC
television. Another minor detail that could be left to the last minute?

All while she juggled with titles, themes, and contents she became aware of another hotel guest who seemed to be paying unusual attention to her. Only twice did she catch him looking directly at her, but on several other occasions when she glanced his way, she felt sure he had only just taken his eyes off her a split-second earlier. At last he gave a rueful sort of ‘caught-me' smile, raised his hands a defensive inch or two, and rose to his feet. He managed it with athletic ease, suggesting a greater strength than he had actually exerted. He walked across the floor to her, skirting the intervening tables with equal finesse.

‘I must seem awfully rude,' he said as he drew near. ‘Do forgive me but I feel sure we've met before.'

Her spirit sagged and she was about to tell him that he was not the first person ever to try that old chestnut when he added, ‘Tell me – d'you ever hunt with the Beaufort?'

‘Aha!' With her foot she pushed out the chair facing her and wafted her free hand toward it. ‘Now you're talking!'

‘Alexander Findlater.' He offered her his hand before sitting down.

‘Faith Bullen-ffitch.'

‘Right! Your father's the master—'

‘Joint master.'

‘Of course.'

‘D'you live in their country?' she asked.

‘Cigarette?' He offered his case.

She was about to take one when she realized they were all Gaulloises. ‘Think I'll stick to Balkan Sobranie,' she said. ‘But thanks all the same. I was asking if you lived in the Beaufort's country?'

‘I'd love to, but no – I'm friends with the Stutchberrys, near Tormarton. Go down there every chance I get, in the season. Well, I say that, but I've been in India for the past five years and my last leave was two years ago. I was down then, and that's when I'm sure I saw you. You flew a hedge and a ditch that had baffled five gentlemen riders – or alleged riders. You were on a magnificent chestnut gelding – once seen, never forgotten.'

‘Golly!' Faith laughed. ‘I'm afraid to interrupt. Pray continue, Mister Findlater!'

‘Well . . . I'm thinking of going down this weekend and I did sort of wonder whether – not to say “hoped” – you'd be riding to hounds, too?'

She considered him: well preserved . . . mid-thirties, tanned (India, no doubt – what had he been doing there?), well spoken . . . air of command . . . definitely interesting. ‘I don't really have time. I hunt more with the West Herts these days. The country isn't a patch on the Beaufort's, of course, but the foxes are well preserved.' Then this was the test question: ‘Would you like a day out with
us
this Saturday? The cap's quite modest and I could get you a good mount for free.' She was thinking of Copenhagen, Sally's horse, who hadn't been out hunting for a month.

He compressed his lips into a sardonic smile and gave a little nod. ‘It would be churlish to refuse such an amiable invitation. I'd be delighted. Have you finished your work for tonight? I usually take a little toddle around the square before turning in. Perhaps you might care to join me?'

‘I'm not sure I know
how
to toddle,' she said, packing up her papers. ‘But you can teach me. I'll just slip upstairs and put these away . . . fetch my coat.'