The Vacant Casualty (3 page)

No one paid any attention, and the second the old man realized this, he seemed to calm down completely and began munching away quite happily on the Custard Creams that were being handed round.
The new biscuits met with a widely favourable reception. A vote was briefly counted and agreed upon before they moved on.

‘Next,’ said the chairman, a handsome, expensively dressed middle-aged fellow with an easy manner, ‘the problem of how we should treat the tourists who visit and are seeking
the, er . . .’ Here the man, who showed every sign of being a confident public speaker, suddenly stumbled on his words. ‘I notice we have visitors . . .’ he mumbled.

‘I don’t get it,’ barked the old duffer at his elbow. ‘What’s the problem with tourists, Selvington?’

‘Ah, this must be Lord Selvington. Owns half the country hereabouts,’ whispered Bradley into Sam’s ear.

‘Please, Major, some decorum,’ begged Lord Selvington. But the major looked like someone who possessed the magic trinity of bad hearing, an enjoyment of making a nuisance of himself
and a dislike of decorum.

‘Don’t see the problem with tourists, Selvington,’ he said. ‘We
rely
on tourists. That’s why all our bloody shops are called Ye Olde Shoppe, even Ye Olde DVD
Shoppe. I mean, it’s bloody ridiculous.’

The other members of the council were now noticeably agitated at the major’s interruption, and were trying to shush him, while several others looked over their shoulders at Sam and
Bradley, who remained mystified.

‘Ye Olde Hatte Shoppe,’ the major went on. ‘Ye Olde Booke Shoppe. Ye Olde Cakee Shoppe, that’s a bloody joke . . .’ At last the old man caught on that people were
trying to quiet him. ‘Oh, I see!’ he said. ‘When you say tourists, you’re talking about people who’re looking for that famous woman who moved onto the
h—’

Here he was broken off by a shushing that suddenly jumped in volume until several people in the room were actually shouting – one artistic-looking man jumped from his chair and sang
‘LALALALALA’ at the top of his voice, then when everything was under control threw himself back into his seat and hummed tunefully as though it had all been part of the song that was
playing in his head. The major was quietened, and a very uneasy silence descended on the room.

Sam looked left and right, awkwardly, and scanned for an exit closer than the door he had come in through. He wondered if they had wicker men in this part of the world. He looked at Bradley, who
was sitting back in his chair, with one leg over the other, his foot swinging happily as though nothing had happened.

‘I don’t know what the major refers to,’ said Lord Selvington stiffly. ‘But to put it baldly, yes, there are lots of misguided tourists in the town who are looking for
the private home of a very famous author. Of course, we know this is nonsense . . .’

As he said this, he could not help but cast a quick and meaningful glance towards the tall window to his left. Neither could the rest of the council – their eyes travelled as one to the
view of the crest of the hill, topped by a tasteful detached house in pale stone, surrounded on each side by stands of trees, silhouetted by the bright afternoon sky and framed perfectly by the bay
window. Their eyes all lingered on this charming scene for a moment too long, before drifting distractedly back to the business at hand.

‘. . . Er . . . Nonsense . . .’ said Lord Selvington. ‘As I said. There is absolutely no world-famous author of a series of fantasy novels that have been turned into major
motion pictures, trying to live her private life (to which she is perfectly entitled) anywhere near here. And I’d say that to anyone. Er, please,’ he said, mopping his brow nervously,
‘what’s next on the agenda?’

A lady on the other side of the table, the only member of the council unmoved by the distraction owing to her furious concentration on the minutes, peered down through her glasses and said:

‘Point three. Application by author Stephenie Meyer to build a huge mansion on the top of the hill.’

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ said Selvington. ‘Not another one. No, no!’

The others seemed to join in with this sentiment, and the matter was quickly voted down.

‘Next,’ said the severe-looking lady with glasses. Then she blinked, and refused to read the minute out loud, passing it instead along the line to Lord Selvington.

‘Ah,’ said the peer awkwardly. ‘Bad news from the golf club.’

‘Oh God,’ said a round little man a few places along. ‘Not the Oldest Member again?’

(‘I think this guy’s the mayor, the little chap,’ whispered Sam to Bradley.)

‘Is it the same trouble as last time?’ asked the mayor.

‘I dunno, what the fuck happened last time?’ chimed in the major, looking towards Selvington.

‘Oh,
please
!’ expostulated two of the ladies (who sat beside one another, dressed identically, and appeared to be twins), speaking at once.

‘It’s funny, isn’t it,’ whispered Sam into Bradley’s ear, ‘that the words “mayor” and “major” are so linguistically linked?’

‘Hmm,’ said Bradley.

‘I suppose etymologically they probably mean the same thing,’ Sam pressed, feeling he deserved a little more than this. ‘Interesting, don’t you think?’

‘Hmm,’ said Bradley.

‘I don’t suppose you mind if I stick my hand up my bum-hole and then smear it over your face?’

‘Hmm,’ said Bradley. ‘
What
?’

‘What
has
he been up to at the golf club?’ demanded the major, adjusting his eyepatch.

‘Well, he’s been getting his, er . . . well, his
member
out again. In the bar, apparently.’

‘Oh Lord! There wasn’t a party of Japanese schoolgirls being shown around like last time, I hope?’

‘Apparently no. It seems this time he was genuinely worried that he had something wrong with him and was trying to get attention.’

‘Well, of course he was trying to get attention, it’s the oldest trick in the book.’

‘Yes, but ironically it didn’t work. Everyone just pretended not to notice for two weeks . . .’

‘
Two weeks
?’ interjected the detective.

‘Well, yes,’ said the mayor, addressing the visitor directly. ‘They are rather used to this sort of thing, I’m afraid. And of course he was rendered speechless by pipe
smoke and whisky, back in the nineties . . .’

‘Which was when he was only in his eighties . . .’ muttered the major.

‘So in a way he was the old boy who didn’t cry wolf. Apparently he was horribly infected – they got him into the operating room and lopped the thing off, and luckily there were
still signs of life after the operation.’

‘In what, him or the penis?’

‘Moving on . . .’ said Lord Selvington. ‘If I could take us beyond scurrilous gossip, we have genuine issues to get to on these minutes, as we are all aware. Can we get through
the frivolous stuff so that we finish before
The Archers
comes on this evening?’

Sam smiled to himself at this remark, but was startled out of it by Bradley whispering urgently into his ear: ‘Oh God, we’re not likely to actually miss
The Archers
, are
we?’

‘I think it’s unlikely,’ he whispered back. ‘I think he was being hyperbolic.’

The detective was clearly panicked by this mysterious word, and, wanting to indicate that he knew what it meant, he grasped hold of the most vulgar misapprehension, jumped up in his seat and
uttered, ‘How rude!’ loud enough to attract disapproving tuts from half a dozen councillors.

‘I just meant he was being a bit over the top,’ whispered Sam, trying hard to keep his temper, and therefore the volume of his voice, under control. ‘If you miss it, you can
listen to the repeat tomorrow at two o’clock, for heaven’s sake. Or on Sunday. Or on bloody iPlayer. I won’t spoil the plot for you, I promise.’ Oh Christ, he thought. What
the crapping hell am I doing here?

‘Minute seven: the employment of split infinitives in the council minutes,’ said the chairman. ‘Now this really is a problem . . .’

At this moment Sam, who had been alternately swearing and blaspheming under his breath for several minutes, began to wonder quite seriously what his life was coming to. As a freelance writer he
was not only unaccustomed to being stuck in a school-assembly situation like this where he was not allowed to move, or speak, or light a cigarette, but he was also comparatively unused to being up
at two in the afternoon. And so – contemplating that if he got into a filthy mood at the beginning of a meeting which might very well last longer than
Lawrence of Arabia
then he would
be in a terrible state by the end of it – he attempted to calm himself down with a cool appraisal of the members of the council.

This was aided by a sheet of paper being thrust into his hand by a friendly lady councillor, who had taken pity on the newcomers and passed them a set of minutes each.

Now, he thought, looking down the list. Who is who?

‘I’m
hungry
,’ whispered Bradley into his ear, with the spontaneous impatience of a child. ‘Do you think we’re allowed biscuits?’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Sam said aloud, discovering after the fact (as happened to him too often) that he had involuntarily lost the temper he had been struggling to control. He
strode across the room and stole a plate of biscuits from in front of one of the men before returning and plonking it on Bradley’s knee. This produced the sudden and unexpected reaction of
someone beetling across to serve them both with a cup of tea – this person being the stark and expressionless old crone who had earlier let them in.

The basic English cup of tea, Sam reflected as he took a grateful sip, was the one hot drink which was not drastically impaired by being made on a massive scale.

Bradley picked up one of the biscuits and said, ‘Oh, Custard Creams. Wizard!’

At once everyone in the room swivelled their heads to look at him.

‘She DOESN’T LIVE HERE!’ bellowed Lord Selvington. ‘Get it? Now, no more talk of wizards!’

This startling outburst compelled Sam and the detective into silent obedience as the cups of tea were handed to them, and the meeting slowly resumed.

S
ETTING HIS TEA
down again, he muttered into Bradley’s ear: ‘This town had better have a fried chicken joint and a kebab shop or I’m
going to have a conniption.’ Let him deal with that, he thought, as he picked up his copy of the minutes. Now, who were all these dusty old freaks?

First name: ‘Major Simon Ernald Stuyvesant Eldred, MC’. Okay, that one’s easy.

Second: ‘Eric Barnes (Mayor)’. Also easy: the short, fat bloke who didn’t believe anyone was looking at him, and was picking his nose. Then there was name three: ‘Lord
Selvington of Butterhall (Jimmy)’. Yes, despite Sam’s inherent dislike of people who owned more than a dozen (or quite possibly, several thousand) times more money than he would ever
earn in his life, this guy looked the sort of posho who was sane enough to have the nickname Jimmy. As opposed to, say, Boffles, or Twiddlesticks, or something.

Next, four and five: ‘Miss E. Quimple and Miss M. Quimple’. Easy again – the two identical ancient old bags on the right of the table, both staring into space.

Six: this one startled him. ‘Saracene Galaxista, High Church of the Milky Way’. I didn’t notice anyone who looked like Ming the Merciless’s sister when I came in. But
wait – this one was not hard to spot. There she was, clear as day: a dyed-in-the-wool hippy with wild grey hair and a severe expression, wearing a waistcoat decorated with the animals of the
zodiac in gilt.

The next few were just as straightforward.

Seven: ‘Rt Revd. Archibald Smallcreak, Rector’. Almost certainly the bored-looking sixty-year-old thin bloke with an androgynous expression.

‘It was him,’ thought Sam. ‘It was him, with the lead pipe, in the milking parlour. I bet he’s an old perv.’

Eight: ‘Miss G. Elvesdon, parish librarian’. The thin, slightly younger (i.e. under fifty) lady in the corner.

Nine: ‘Mrs Bloodpudding’. Surely the sweet-smiling, permed octogenarian by the major’s side.

Name number ten: ‘Walerian Exosius’. What the
hell
? Who would be called – oh, but wait. There he was, too. A lanky fellow, almost collapsed over his own chair in a
pretence of exhaustion. Violet neckerchief wrapped thrice around his throat. High cheekbones. Hint of vulnerable disdain, as though he had just smelt a disgusting scent he was unsure was not his
own. Sniffing like he has a cold, and looking around to see if anyone notices. He must be an artist.

Although there were still a few of the full roster to identify, Sam was distracted out of his reverie as he realized the split infinitive debate was still going on. While he was paying attention
to the grammatical argument, D.I. Bradley got up and handed a short note to Lord Selvington, who read it, then looked up and nodded importantly at the policeman.

‘Uhum,’ Sam coughed politely as he interjected. ‘There’s, er . . . nothing wrong . . .’

One by one the councillors ceased their yelling, or earnest talking, and turned to him. He cleared his throat once more before saying, ‘I apologize for speaking uninvited, but
there’s actually nothing wrong with using a split infinitive. Linguistically. Grammatically. There never was. Avoiding it is like using “serviette” as a posh replacement for
“napkin”, when the Queen herself would use a napkin. A false nicety.
Fowler’s Modern English Usage
has said so for over eighty years; Kingsley Amis agrees. And many others.
In case you were interested.’

‘And you are . . .’ asked one.

‘A writer,’ he said, and choosing not to meet their eyes, he sank back into the darkness, but secretly hoped they noticed his hoody. After consulting his iPhone in the shaded
security of his lap for a few moments he looked up to find Bradley leaning over him with a leer.

‘You
are
a ponce,’ he whispered.

‘At least now we can proceed with the important matter at hand (thank Christ),’ said Lord Selvington, ‘which, as we all know, is that our good friend and fellow councillor
Terry Fairbreath went missing last week. Here I ought to introduce Detective Inspector Bradley, who will be leading the investigation.’