by Lynne Truss
Perhaps if the inspector hadn’t been so tired, he might have applied more caution, considering that his interlocutor was a journalist famous for his idealism, his distrust of the police, and his stalwart limpet-like qualities. But the more Steine dwelled on what had happened to him this week, the angrier and more justified he felt. Had the commissioner been complicit in this Chambers revenge plot? When he so generously dispatched Miss Lennon to Brighton, did he know that she was Terence Chambers’s sister, thirsty for revenge? Twitten had been so right about police corruption: as a subject you keep happily forgetting all about it, and then, crikey! It does just pop up again.
He felt slightly underdressed for the momentous decision he was about to make, but so be it. The dressing-gown and slippers would have to do.
‘Look, Mr Hoskisson,’ he began. ‘If you want a story, how about this? Forget about what I did. Have you ever heard of a place called Torremolinos? It’s where the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and his wife sometimes go on holiday … ’
Back in Twitten’s bedroom, it was time for the usual debriefing. He regretted the absence of a cup of tea and a slice of fruit cake, which normally helped such sessions along, but on the plus side, the darkness helped him concentrate.
‘So I’m guessing it was Barrow-Boy Cecil who was your hidden enemy all along, Mrs G?’ said Twitten sympathetically. ‘You must have been jolly disappointed when you found out.’
‘Disappointed? Bleeding furious, more like. If he wasn’t dead already, I’d wring his neck and drown him backwards.’
‘He cut off his own little finger to send to you, then?’
‘No, dear.’
‘Oh? Then whose was it?’
‘I reckon he just put his ring on one he happened to come across.’
‘Oh, I see, gosh.’ Twitten didn’t want to think about how anyone ‘came across’ a spare little finger. ‘I always got the impression you trusted him completely.’
‘Exactly, dear. I did trust Cecil. I hadn’t forgotten that aspect of it, as it happens, but ta very much for rubbing it in.’
He resisted the impulse to switch on the light, but he wanted to look at her. Was Mrs Groynes truly as well as she sounded? Hadn’t she been through a serious emotional ordeal, involving high levels of anxiety followed by her own near murder?
‘Well, I’m glad you’re all right, Mrs G. And I honestly don’t mind a bit that when you confide in me like this about your criminal activities it just reinforces my helpless position vis-à-vis bringing you to justice.’
Unsurprisingly, it took her a little while to absorb this statement – and she didn’t, not fully. ‘You couldn’t run that past me again, dear?’
‘It was just something Miss Vine said to me.’
‘Oh, her. You don’t want to listen to her.’
‘But perhaps I do, Mrs G. She was urging me to see my true position, you see, as an ambitious young policeman with a stellar career in prospect. It was a bally revelation, actually. She explained, for example, that deep down I had no respect whatever for Inspector Steine, although—’ He stopped to consider. ‘Although, after what the inspector did today, well, I was genuinely impressed by him, so I don’t know if that’s entirely true any more.’
‘You’ve lost me, dear. Go back to all that about you and me and vis-à-vis.’
‘Ooh, well, what she said about us was that since I hadn’t yet revealed the existence of the incriminating photograph, I was clearly invested in maintaining the cosy status quo of you being a wicked villain and me doing nothing about it.’
‘Well, that does sound attractive, dear.’
‘But then she said I should resist the pull of this status quo, however cosy, because deep down I have great ambitions, and these ambitions are not served by allowing myself to be manipulated by you, even if you tend to manipulate me by means of kindness and fellowship, which are otherwise in short supply. She also said every decent criminal already knew all the stuff in my book, The Hidden Persuaders. Apparently it isn’t revelatory at all; it’s basic. If you want to persuade someone to do something, you just appeal to their deepest ideas of themselves, or supply their deepest needs. And if you want to upset them, you undermine that deep idea or deprive them of what they want most.’
‘It sounds less like a word to the wise, more like an episode of The Brains Trust.’
‘Well, I suppose so, but it was bally effective, Mrs G, because now I’m confused!’
‘Confused by what?’
‘By whether to expose you. You see, for once I have the means.’
‘I see.’ She paused. ‘Look,’ she said kindly. ‘You’re obviously on the horns of a dilemma, dear, and it’s making you unhappy, so I’ll make it easier for you.’
‘Really? How? You aren’t going to give yourself up?’
She laughed. ‘Good gawd, no. I’m just going to say that I know what you’re thinking about: it’s that photograph your girlfriend brought all the way back from Norfolk and that you hid, in a bit of a panic, in Mrs Thorpe’s jelly-mould cupboard in the kitchen downstairs.’
Twitten gasped. ‘You know where the photograph is?’
She didn’t reply. The stupidity of this question answered itself.
‘Ah,’ he said, with resignation. ‘You found the photograph.’
‘Yes, dear. Of course I did.’
‘And destroyed it?’
‘Bingo. I wouldn’t have found it in Norfolk, I grant you. But in a bleeding jelly-mould cupboard … ’
‘I understand, Mrs G. Oh, well.’
They sat together in the dark. Mrs Groynes lit a cigarette, and took a drag. Twitten hugged himself. She thought she had won! But what Mrs Groynes didn’t know was that a further sheaf of incriminating pictures evidently from the same stolen set of duplicate prints had been delivered to him just this afternoon!
‘Oh, and I took care of that other batch in your desk drawer, dear,’ she added, blowing smoke at him. ‘So that’s all sorted, too.’
Brunswick and Mrs Thorpe finished their meal at English’s quite quickly, and mostly in silence. Mrs Thorpe felt more wretched than she could ever remember feeling. Her friends would have been furious with her. They had no sympathy for this infatuation of hers. ‘This common police sergeant really isn’t good enough for you, Eliza,’ they all said, over afternoon teas at Hannington’s. ‘Stop mooning over him. Your grandmother knew Kipling. You are related by marriage to Louis Mountbatten. John Gielgud has stayed at your house!’
But such arguments were futile. Whenever she looked at Brunswick, or even heard his name, the arousal was automatic, entirely beyond her control. It was as if an ignition was fired in her very loins. His attractive eyes, his manly neck, his strong arms! He had once sat down in the front sitting-room at her house, and when he had gone, her heart stopped every time she caught sight of the barely visible dip that his backside had made in the upholstery. ‘Oh, Eliza, that’s so adolescent!’ her friends said, recoiling in disgust, when she confided in them. ‘You’re forty-one!’
But she was in the grip of Brunswick fever, and there was nothing she could do. She hated the pain of rejection, and struggled with the need to accept it. And here was the crux of the matter, obviously. Because Brunswick, by contrast, was clearly struggling with the idea of an attractive female person who wasn’t rejecting him.
So, things might have gone either way on this momentous evening as Brunswick and Mrs Thorpe left the restaurant. He helped her with her umbrella and took her arm. They began to walk to the corner of North Street, with car headlights bouncing in the shop windows, and the sodium street lights leaching the colour from their clothes and faces.
‘You didn’t enjoy that celebratory meal much, did you, James?’
‘I’m still very tired, Mrs Thorpe,’ he said apologetically. ‘Perhaps we should have done it tomorrow night instead.’
She stopped walking, and he jerked to a standstill, thinking in dismay, Here we go again; more flaming lovey-dovey.
&nbs
p; But he was wrong. Today had been a big day for Mrs Thorpe, and it was time to make a desperate play. If it worked, wonderful. If it didn’t, it was time to say goodbye, accept reality, and move on.
‘I’ll tell you what I enjoyed today so much, James,’ she said pleasantly. ‘It was when we were arguing over whether you needed to apologise to me. The thing is, I’m aware of it, too – this flogging a dead horse, as you so unpleasantly phrased it. Whenever I’m nice to you, and flatter you, and tell you how passionately I feel about you, instead of it filling you with pleasure, you go completely limp—’
‘Limp?’ This was rather an offensive word in Brunswick’s opinion.
‘Yes, limp. You go limp and lifeless and hopeless! But when I challenge you, or am critical of you, it’s as if your eyes suddenly open to me, and for a moment you actually bloody desire me.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t say any of that when we were still inside,’ he said. ‘That waiter hated me enough already.’
She laughed, but then took a breath and became serious again. ‘So I’m going to tell you something you might not like, James.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Despite everything I might have said to the contrary over the past few weeks, I think we must both accept it. You are simply not good enough for me.’
‘What?’
She felt his grip tighten on her arm.
‘You are a common policeman and an ungrateful man, and I wish I hadn’t saved your life because you plainly don’t deserve it.’
His eyes blazed indignantly. ‘How can you say that?’
She looked up at his face. Oh, my goodness, she thought. It’s working. If he doesn’t kill me, this could be it!
‘You grew up a poor orphan while I’ve played host several times to some of the greatest Shakespeare speakers of our time!’
‘Stop it.’
Still working.
‘I grew up in Simla and you don’t even know where that is! I could tell you didn’t!’
‘That’s not fair.’
Keep going.
‘I won’t have you touch me again, James, never! Your touch is disgusting to me!’
‘Eliza!’ he moaned, taking her by the shoulders. ‘Oh, flaming hell, you’re so beautiful!’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t help you much, in the end,’ says Twitten, after a while. The news that Mrs G has scuppered all his hopes of exposing her is taking a bit of getting used to.
‘Oh, you played your part, dear.’
Time is ticking by calmly in Mrs Thorpe’s house. Both Twitten and Mrs Groynes are sweetly unaware that about three minutes from now two sexually enflamed people will burst through the front door and start noisily undressing each other while one of them hurls snobbish insults to maintain the erotic momentum.
‘What I don’t understand, Mrs G,’ says Twitten, ‘is why you destroyed all those files on Mr Chaucer at Inspector Steine’s house. Luckily the key document relating to Doris Fuller escaped the flames, otherwise I would never have known about the ein, zwei, drei. And then I wouldn’t have driven at top speed in first gear to the inspector’s rescue.’
‘You think that file just happened to escape the flames, do you?’
‘Well, yes. Of course. You had burned most of the others.’
‘Oh, give me strength,’ she remarks, with feeling. ‘Look, dear, when I went through everything in that box, I found a lot that might have sent you in the wrong direction, didn’t I? That’s what I destroyed. The important thing was that the plotters believed in the ein, zwei, drei, and were acting on it, with the black-and-white patterns, and the clock chime and everything. So that was what you needed to know, too.’
‘So that’s why the Doris Fuller file was left … for me to find?’
‘Yes, dear. Give that boy a mandarin.’
‘There’s no need for sarcasm, Mrs G.’
‘If you’d had all the other documents, you’d have seen what I saw: that actually what triggered the poor blighter was much simpler. Just a woman in distress, dear.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. All the other stuff – well, it was pure coincidence that it was there at the other scenes. There was no ein, zwei, drei. All this Chaucer bloke needed to set him off was a woman calling for help, like his poor dear mummy had done.’
‘So those Frenchmen at the scene were surplus to requirements? Their deaths were even more pointless than it first appeared?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Look, this is just between you and me, but those blokes were some of Terry’s hoods in cunning disguise. So talk about hitting the jackpot.’
‘No!’
‘They were armed and everything. That Miss Lennon of yours didn’t want to leave anything to chance, you see.’ She takes another drag on her cigarette. ‘Ironic, really.’
Twitten shakes his head thoughtfully. ‘So you knew what Chaucer would do if you got Cecil to hit you? You knew he would attack a man who showed violence to a woman?’
‘Precisely.’
It is always nice to clear up some loose ends, but Twitten can’t help feeling, vaguely, that they are filling time until something bigger occurs.
‘I suppose Professor Milhouse was killed just to draw police attention to the shop.’
‘Probably.’
‘Also, I think Miss Vine didn’t like being lectured on a subject she understood better than he did.’
‘Probably,’ agrees Mrs Groynes again, yawning. She has never been interested in poor Professor Milhouse.
He changes the subject. There is something that’s been nagging at him. ‘I’m a bit hurt that your so-called weak spots didn’t include me, Mrs Groynes. Your enemy had designs on both the sergeant and the inspector, but not me.’
In the dark, she smiles. ‘So you never realised your brakes weren’t working?’
‘What?’
‘Oh, yes. Constable Jenkins had fiddled with your bleeding brakes, dear.’
‘Oh, flipping flip!’
‘Yes, but luckily they didn’t know you’re such a terrible driver you never have cause to use them.’
Just a minute to go now before the front door crashes open. Still they are blithely unaware.
‘The inspector says you’re coming back to work.’
‘It’ll be like I never went away, dear. I took advantage of your absence this afternoon to move all my stash back into the cupboard and everything; Vince and Shorty helped me. That’s when I found those extra photos of yours, so I killed two birds with one stone.’
‘Of course.’ Despite everything he has said about his duty to resist the cosy status quo, it pleases Twitten to think that next Monday the office will be back to normal, with the new kettle switching itself off (with a ‘tock’) while they all stand around admiring it. The brave new world of 1950s consumerism isn’t all bad.
‘How did you avoid Sergeant Baines seeing you bring your stash through the front door?’
‘By using the bleeding back door, dear. Use your loaf. Blimey, what’s that?’
It is, of course, the bigger thing starting to occur downstairs.
‘Shhh,’ says Twitten. ‘I think I can hear Mrs Thorpe coming home.’
They both listen, in the dark. From outside on the top step comes the sound of raised voices, as if in argument, one of them a man’s.
‘That’s Sergeant Brunswick,’ whispers Twitten. ‘Don’t worry, he won’t come in. He never does. He knows she wants to manoeuvre him into bed, you see. In a minute she’ll come in on her own and then burst into tears and have a very big drink with the record player blaring.’
‘This is a bit awkward,’ says Mrs Groynes redundantly.
‘Yes, it is. But if I may say so, it’s not my bally fault that you’re here.’
Downstairs the front door bangs open, and there are stumbling, scuffling noises, accompanied by loud kissy sounds.
Twitten gasps in horror.
‘What?’ whispers Mrs G.
‘This is different!’ he squea
ks. ‘I think he came in!’
‘He definitely did,’ she agrees.
‘Eliza!’ Brunswick moans distantly.
‘Gosh,’ whispers Twitten. ‘I wonder how she—?’
‘Oh, James! James, unhand me, you uncouth brute!’ says the far-off Mrs Thorpe, in a passionate voice. ‘But wait till I get my coat off.’
‘Eliza!’ moans Brunswick again. ‘I am so confused!’
‘You’re a mere waif and a foundling, and you deserve to be shot in the leg over and over, and over and over.’
‘Don’t say that!’
‘They’re coming upstairs!’ squeaks Twitten. ‘Can we talk about kettles, Mrs G?’
‘What? Kettles? Why?’
‘Please! Talk about anything! Anything other than what’s happening out there!’
Then the door to Mrs Thorpe’s bedroom slams shut and Twitten says aloud, ‘Oh, for flip’s sake,’ and switches on his bedside lamp.
In the unaccustomed yellow light, he looks at Mrs Groynes and she looks at him.
From downstairs can be heard thumps and moans and laughs. From Twitten’s point of view, this certainly makes a change from the usual tempest of sobbing and Frank Sinatra belting out ‘One for My Baby’ at maximum volume, but on the other hand, it is not an improvement.
‘You’ve got a bruise on your face, Mrs G!’ he exclaims, belatedly noticing. ‘Barrow-Boy Cecil hurt you!’
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she says, reaching out to pat his arm. ‘You know what? I’d rather go through that whole bleeding malarkey again than listen to those two down there. But as you so rightly point out, it’s nobody’s fault but my own. I wasn’t exactly invited.’
They look at each other steadily, and then she reaches out to switch off the lamp again. They strain to listen. There seems to be no other choice.
‘Does this mean you won’t be letting yourself in here any more at night, Mrs G?’ Twitten says tentatively in the dark, his voice low.
She huffs. ‘Are you kidding?’ she says, extracting a key from her pocket and placing it on his bedside table. ‘You win, dear. It’s all yours. Accept it with my bleeding compliments.’
Afterword
