“What is adultery?” said Tinkler. He was making a pretty good job of scooping up his potato salad with a piece of bread as his only implement.
“It’s shagging someone you’re not married to,” said Nevada succinctly. “And if you tell me it should be ‘someone to whom you’re not married’, Tinkler, I shall break a plate over your head.”
“Fair enough,” said Tinkler. “So it’s having an affair with someone else when you’re married.”
Nevada frowned thoughtfully. “No. It’s also sex out of wedlock. Pre-marital.”
“So, basically, it’s having sex in any form,” said Tinkler.
“No,” said Gerry. “Not if two people are married. To each other, like. Then they can have sex and it’s not adultery.”
“Though still morally wrong, I trust,” said Tinkler. He stared down at his depleted plate and then looked hopefully towards the pantry.
Gerry chuckled. “So that’s adultery. Between us we’ve just about sussed it out! If anybody asks me for a definition again I’m ready for them.” His smile faded. “Anyway. That’s what they hanged old Johnny Thomas for. And Charlie Gresford-Jones never quite got over it.” He shook his head despairingly. “Thousands of people dying every night of the war, and he got hung up on that one.”
“I have a theory,” said Nevada. Here we go, I thought. She said, “I think that Mr Gresford-Jones might have been in love with him.”
“Old Charlie-boy gay, you mean?” said Gerry. He considered it. “Maybe. But if you ask me he always seemed sexless. Like someone’s old-maid aunt. And I think it’s what happened to Johnny Thomas what did it to him. I mean, I reckon it was the sex side of it, the scandalous nature of the whole thing. The salacious nature of it.” He looked at us. “I think it scared old Charlie off it for life. Blew his mind, you might say. Gorgeous sexy girl, strangled with her own stockings. Silk stockings, they were. That caused as much scandal as anything else at the time. Where had she got those in wartime? They tried to make out that she was some kind of high-class prostitute or something. But she wasn’t. Nothing like that. She was a lovely girl. Sweet girl. Smart as a whip, she was.”
Gerry shook his head gloomily. He peered at Nevada. “You’re right, love. Whoever did it to her deserved to have a noose round his own neck.”
“Whoever did it?” I said. “It really doesn’t sound like you think it was Johnny.”
“Well, we’ll never know now, will we?”
No one said anything. I sipped my coffee. It was lukewarm and bitter. I speculated on the possibility of asking him to let me make some fresh, and then I wondered if I was turning into Tinkler. Instead I said, “I understand Colonel Honeyland spent a lot of time with Johnny, just before…”
“Oh yeah, he did. He did everything he could for the kid. Lucky was a decent sort of bloke, for a stuck-up aristocratic prat. Charlie told you that too, did he?”
“Yes.”
“So your visit wasn’t a complete waste of time.”
“Not at all,” said Nevada.
“Although he only had one record,” I said.
“Really? Which one?”
“‘Blues in the Night’ and ‘Elmer’s Tune’. But we already had it.”
“Pity,” said Gerry.
I looked at him. “Speaking of records…”
He wouldn’t meet my eye. “Yeah, look, I’m sorry about that, mate.”
“What do you mean, sorry?”
“They’re gone. The records I had. All of them. I went up to have a look in the attic, like, so we wouldn’t waste too much of your time when you got back here. And they was all gone. So imagine how baffled I was. I went down and asked Sheryll, asked the wife about it, and she said she’d got rid of them.”
“Got rid of them?”
“Yeah. Just chucked them out. Months ago. Behind my back. Can you credit it?” He sighed philosophically. “Still, she’s a good girl in lots of other ways. And they were just things.”
“Just things?” I said. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.
He took an envelope out of his pocket and set it on the table. “I know it must be a real disappointment and shock. It was to me. So let me try and make it up to you. Take these as a gift from me and the wife.” I glanced at Nevada, then picked up the envelope.
Inside it were two tickets, to the Royal Festival Hall, for a concert by Daniel Overland and Orchestra. I showed them to Nevada. It was a nice gesture on his part. They were expensive seats.
“This is very good of you, Gerry.”
“No, it’s all right, mate. I’m sorry about the other business, the records.”
Nevada had just twigged how much the tickets had cost. “Oh no,” she said. “We couldn’t possibly accept these, Gerry.”
“No, go on, darling. Danny always sends me a couple of tickets whenever he’s over here. Always very nice seats. For old times’ sake, you know. And I used to make a point of always going up and seeing him. But now, me and Sheryll, we don’t get up to London so often. The big city, traffic; it’s all a bit much. So the tickets just end up going to waste.”
He showed us out, arm on my shoulder, warm whisky breath in my ear. “And don’t forget: those records we couldn’t find—they’re just things.” He shoved the tickets into my hand. I took them gratefully. They might well prove useful. His philosophising I wasn’t so sure about.
“It’s people that count, son,” he concluded.
I couldn’t argue with that. I still wanted to put his wife in front of a firing squad, though.
“Firing squad, why a firing squad?” said Nevada a few minutes later, when I told her as much.
“I envisage a proper military tribunal.”
“That’s very fair-minded of you.”
“But the outcome will never be in question,” I said.
* * *
The next day, spring seemed to decisively arrive. The sunshine poured in the windows of my little house, providing numerous places for cats to sprawl.
I’d decided to make pizzas for supper or, to put it differently, I’d managed to obtain a large number of ripe tomatoes gratis from a shady acquaintance in Wales. So now the only thing for it was to casserole them in the oven, tossed in olive oil, sliced garlic, fresh basil and thyme, and make a pizza sauce.
Judging by the mouth-watering aroma, the sauce was just about done by the time I’d rolled out the dough for the last of the pizza bases. I took the sauce out of the oven and put the bases in. I was smugly congratulating myself about the perfection of my timing when the doorbell rang. I flinched at the sound, then walked to the door like a condemned man.
I fully expected it to be Tinkler, having telepathically sensed that I was making pizza. He’d done it more than once before.
But it was Leo Noel. He was dressed in full cricket regalia, and additionally carrying some kind of large cricket bag with him. He’d evidently torn himself away from his beloved sheds full of 78s. I fleetingly wondered why—then noticed how smartly turned out he was, and concluded, with a sinking feeling, that Nevada had acquired another love-struck admirer.
“Good morning,” he said, smiling brightly. My relief that it wasn’t Tinkler began to fade and be replaced by a new apprehension. “May I come in?”
“Of course. Good to see you,” I lied. I led him inside and down the hallway. Water was splashing in the next room as Nevada took one of her epic baths.
Leo peered eagerly around. “Where’s your, ah… lady friend?” The way he said it confirmed my worst fears.
“Taking a bath.” He nodded happily at this information, rather too happily I thought, as we walked into the sunlit sitting room. Sonny Rollins was playing on the turntable. The cats lay on the floor, stretched motionless in the sunlight like abandoned artefacts from a very successful cat simulation experiment.
“Oh, pussycats,” said Leo, coming to a halt. “I didn’t know you had pussycats.”
“Yes. For years. Are you allergic?”
“No, not at all. I
quite like pussycats.”
We sat down at the table. He set the bag on the floor beside him, as if he didn’t want it to get away. He nodded at the turntable. “Is that Coltrane?”
“Sonny Rollins. Good guess, though. And full marks for having heard of anybody after Louis Armstrong.”
“Ha ha, yes, that is more my period, isn’t it?” He smiled and sat back in his chair. He seemed quite at home, relaxing like a lizard in the morning sunshine.
I nodded at the bag on the floor. “Off to play a match?”
He leaned forward and looked at me seriously. “I don’t actually play cricket. I just wear the clothes.”
I said, “How long have I known you Leo? Ten years?”
“Oh sorry, of course. You were being ironic. No, not off to a match. Just thought I’d drop by for a visit. I hope it’s not a bad time?”
“Not particularly,” I said.
The bathroom door opened and Nevada stepped out in a wave of warm, damp, perfumed air. “Oh, hello,” she said, staring at us. “I was wondering who you were talking to.” She had just emerged from the bath with a bright red towel wrapped around her, and a matching bright red band in her hair. Bare shoulders emerging from the towel, hair wet and gleaming, she looked ravishing.
Leo certainly thought so. “Hello, Nevada. I was just saying I thought I’d drop by for a visit. I hope it’s not a bad time?”
“No, of course not.”
“And I brought something for you.” He opened the bag and took out a bottle of Perrier. He handed it to Nevada, who accepted it, looking at me.
“How lovely. Thank you.”
“I’ll put it in the fridge,” I did so. Meanwhile, the human palindrome’s open delight at seeing a naked girl wrapped in a towel was enough to send Nevada scampering into the bedroom to get dressed. As potentially creepy as Leo was at home, he was potentially much more creepy elsewhere, out of his familiar environment and context. Fanny came wandering over and nosed around in his open bag. Leo studied her fondly.
“We used to have pussycats. I mean, Mum and Dad did. Here, pussy pussy pussy, lovely pussycat,” he cooed. Fanny studied Leo cautiously for a moment, and then went back to delving in the bag. Leo said, “Lovely place you’ve got here. Lovely pussycats. Lovely girlfriend. She really is a cracker.” Fanny now decided to actually climb into the bag.
I said, “Okay, Leo. What brings you here?” I might have sounded just a little sharp, but Leo didn’t notice. He smiled at me and then abruptly reached down in the bag, causing Fanny to hop out and scoot.
“Do you remember when you visited me I got a phone call about an auction? Some records I’d purchased?”
“Scotland,” I said. I felt the slow pulse of excitement start deep inside me.
“Yes, Glasgow, actually. And anyway I was looking through them when they arrived—it was a mixed lot; I had no idea what was in it and neither did the chap who was selling it—and I discovered this.” From the depths of his bag he took a 78 in a paper wrapper. “By the Flare Path Orchestra.” He squinted at the label. “A little number entitled ‘Catfish’.”
I was looking at him in astonishment. He seemed pleased with my reaction. He modestly refused to meet my gaze, looking instead at Fanny, who had returned to her place in the sun.
“How appropriate,” he cooed. “Would this lovely pussycat like some nice catfish?”
9. THE EMBANKMENT
I still had the Stanton cartridge that we had bought from Lenny, which allowed me to play 78s.
So I stuck the record on the turntable, first flipping it over to read both labels. It was cold and heavy in my hands. Leo was grinning at me. One side did indeed feature a tune called ‘Catfish’. The other had something called ‘Whitebait’. The composer of both tunes was listed as D. Overland. I took this as a good omen, since it was undoubtedly the same guy we had tickets to see at the Royal Festival Hall.
From its title I had expected ‘Catfish’ to be an exercise in faux Dixieland or Deep South mannerisms. In fact it turned out an oddly cool, almost impressionistic piece. It was reminiscent of the Claude Thornhill band at its finest, but more intensely rhythmic. It was a compelling piece and created a sustained mood of combined elation and tension, only disrupted by a spurt of what I had come to think of as the Flare Path Orchestra’s trademark wacky instrumentation, which almost tipped it over into the realm of a novelty number.
In this case, it was a jaunty intrusion by what sounded like a banjo and a triangle.
Towards the end of the piece the horns began to make an eerie keening that seemed oddly familiar—and disturbing. Then I realised that they were imitating aircraft sirens.
There followed violent, almost abstract blasts of percussion, scattered seemingly at random, like bursts of anti-aircraft fire exploding in the sky. It was a tour de force conclusion.
‘Whitebait’ was more playful and toe-tapping, though it showed the same moody complexity. There were no novelty intrusions here, though. No harmonicas, cowbells or xylophones. And it was all the better for it.
Nevada emerged from the bedroom, now fully dressed, and came over to sit beside me on the sofa in front of the speakers. We listened to the music together. Meanwhile Leo remained happily at the table, playing with Fanny, who was back in his cricket bag, her little head sticking out. She allowed Leo to stroke her between the ears. He seemed entirely besotted with the cat, and she was suffering his attentions good-naturedly.
When the record was over—all too soon—Nevada got up and went to the turntable and looked at it. “D. Overland?” she said. She looked at me. “Danny Overland?”
“So it would seem,” I said. Mr Overland was evidently a very interesting musical mind.
I was looking forward to meeting him.
* * *
First, though, I needed to pay a visit to our client and update her about our progress. I filled Joan Honeyland in on our discoveries, and she was particularly pleased with the record Leo had turned up. But she was almost as happy about the duplicate 78 I’d got from Gresford-Jones. And she listened with keen attention to my summary of our conversation with him in Dover. I’d given her a sound file of the recording Nevada had made of our talk with him.
“All that will be very helpful for the standard biography,” she said.
I didn’t tell her about Gerry Wuggins in Sevenoaks. Not only had we not got any records out of him, we’d completely forgotten about recording any of his reminiscences. Nevada and I planned to visit him again and put this right.
What I did do was arrange for the agreed sums to be paid to Charles Gresford-Jones and Leo Noel for the records they’d sold us. Despite the large amounts I’d agreed on her behalf, Miss Honeyland did this without a qualm, typing expertly at her computer and transferring the money to their respective bank accounts.
The computer was set up on the dining table in the front room of her flat. The flat was tiny but nevertheless was no doubt worth a fortune. It was located above its own garage, another incredibly valuable asset, in a little mews in the middle of Soho. A location like this in central London was gold dust. All of Miss Honeyland’s neighbours appeared to be media premises, film production houses and the like. Hers was the only domestic dwelling in the mews, and I had the strong impression that she owned it. Indeed, that it had been in the family for years.
This was the first evidence I’d had—apart from her car and clothes—that her dad’s books for children really commanded the kind of wealth that she’d been talking about. The room in which we sat looked out over the narrow cobbled mews where the Mercedes gleamed. When I’d walked past it on the way in, it had seemed like some kind of a magic trick. The car was polished, immaculate, without a scratch.
I’d walked around it, looking carefully, but I could find no trace of the massive damage I’d seen last time. Some very expensive repairs had been effected, and damned smartly too.
Miss Honeyland smiled at the computer. “There, that’s done,” she said. She looked up at me. “Now I im
agine you’ll be wanting some cash yourself.”
“Cash?”
“For out-of-pocket expenses. Walking-around money, as the Americans say. I’ll go next door and get you some.” She stood up, switching off the computer. As she crossed the small room she paused at the window and looked out with a fond, proprietary gaze at the Mercedes down below. Then she went out through a doorway hung with a clattering curtain of green and white beads. I was alone in the tiny place.
I was sitting in one of two armchairs. The room was too small for any kind of a sofa. A square wooden table in the corner beside the window had the computer on it and apparently also served for dining. Wooden chairs were tucked tightly away under it, their slatted backs close to the table edge. Another table took up most of the remaining space. This one was low and rectangular and stacked with piles of books.
Books for children. Mostly by ‘Lucky’, including of course Farmer Henry Versus the Locusts, but there were also quite a few classics by other kids’ authors. Among these, and seemingly out of place, were a couple of yellowing Air Ministry pamphlets about the importance of the bombing effort in Europe, and a plastic folder of equally yellowing newspaper clippings. All I could see of the clippings were their edges protruding out of the folder.
But I suspected all of them were connected with Colonel Honeyland.
I turned to the bookshelves that lined the walls. Between these hung framed photographs of the famous man himself in his RAF days and, incongruously, a dartboard with bits of coloured paper stuck on it.
Listening to Joan Honeyland make mysterious noises in some remote corner of the flat, I felt a nice little glow of satisfaction. She seemed well pleased with our progress. And I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her offer to give us some cash.
I took a closer look at the dartboard. The pieces of paper had been torn or clipped from magazines, newspapers, and apparently books. Each one bore the likeness of a famous children’s character. There was Peter Rabbit, Thomas the Tank Engine, Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear and Mr Toad.
Victory Disc Page 9
