Ancestral Vices

by Tom Sharpe

  ‘I don’t wear a helmet,’ said the Inspector huffily, and glanced with something approaching sympathy at the gnawed dildo. ‘Well, why did you?’

  ‘Because I answered an ad in the Gazette for a lady and this afternoon I had a phone call.’

  ‘For a lady? What sort of lady?’

  ‘My sort, of course,’ said Consuelo, rummaging in her handbag and extracting the cutting.

  The Inspector read it. ‘A lonely middle-aged Gentleman of Restricted Growth seeks . . . Do you usually answer advertisements of this kind?’

  ‘Oh, practically every day,’ said Consuelo. ‘I mean you see them all the time, don’t you? You can hardly pick up a paper these days without coming across appeals from lonely dwarves appealing for company. Use your loaf.’

  ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ said the Inspector, ‘we’re here to help you.’

  ‘Yes, well when I need your help I’ll call the Fire Brigade,’ said Consuelo gathering her things together and rising slightly, ‘I may be a Person of Restricted Growth, though I prefer to be called a straightforward dwarf, but at least I don’t have the disability of a restricted mentality. I leave that to you lot.’

  There was a sigh of relief when she had gone. ‘Anyway, she gave us some useful information,’ said the Inspector. ‘I want a check made on the previous victims to see if they answered that advert in the agony column too.’

  ‘Agony column just about sums it up,’ said the Sergeant, nudging the dildo tip into a plastic bag.

  ‘And if we can find a few more desperate female dwarves we can stake out their homes and hopefully catch whatever’s doing this redhanded.’

  *

  But the hope was short-lived. Consuelo Smith was already on the phone selling the exclusive rights to her story so successfully to several national newspapers that the headlines ‘BUSHAMPTON DWARFIST STRIKES AGAIN’ appeared on the front pages of four national dailies next morning.

  By noon Briskerton was awash with reporters imbued with a sense of righteous investigation, and Inspector Garnet had been provoked into denying that Professor Yapp had been wrongly arrested and tried for the murder of Willy Coppett.

  ‘In that case would you mind telling us what measures the police are taking to protect other dwarves in your patch?’ asked one reporter who had bribed the police telephonist into revealing that Consuelo Smith was the third dwarf to be attacked in recent days.

  ‘No comment,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘Then you don’t agree that there’s any connection between these three latest attacks by the dwarfist and the previous murder of Mr Coppett?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said the Inspector, and went on to an exceedingly unpleasant interview with the Chief Constable who shared the reporter’s opinion.

  ‘But these new attacks have been made by a woman,’ the Inspector said inconsequentially. ‘The forensic experts have come up with corroborating evidence in the work on that blanket. They’ve found traces of face-powder and lipstick on it. And some dyed hair.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose it’s crossed your so-called mind that the case against Professor Yapp was largely based on the evidence of Mrs Coppett. If you know what’s good for your career you’ll take her in for questioning before we have another confounded murder on our hands.’

  Inspector Garnet left in a murderous mood himself. ‘It’s all your fucking fault,’ he shouted at the Sergeant at the Buscott police station, ‘all that gaff about the bitch being half-witted and kind-hearted and devoted to her precious Willy.’

  ‘She was. I’d swear to that.’

  ‘Well, for your information she’s so bloody fond of dwarves she butchered the sod and landed us in the crap by setting Yapp up for us. That’s how half-witted she is.’

  ‘But what about the body in the boot and the blood all over his shirt?’

  ‘Which she conveniently left on the clothes line for us to find. And as for putting bodies in the boot of that car, has it occurred to you that if Yapp had murdered her husband he wouldn’t have used his own car as a coffin for a week. He’d never have put the corpse there in the first place. But she would – to set the poor bugger up. So where is she now?’

  ‘Up at the Petrefact New House,’ said the Sergeant. ‘But how come you’ve changed your mind?’

  ‘I’ll do the questioning, Sergeant. Number One is . . . No, I’ll give you the answer. Cats. Siamese, Burmese, one Persian and a lot of moggies. All snoozing their heads off on expensive blankets. Am I right?’

  The Sergeant gaped at him and nodded. ‘I wouldn’t know the exact number but Miss Petrefact practically runs a cats’ hostel.’

  ‘Thank you. Second, dildos and custom-built handcuffs. There’s a sex shop in Buscott that sells these things.’

  ‘They make them at the Mill,’ admitted the Sergeant.

  The Inspector rubbed his hands. ‘There you are. I knew it. She’d have no difficulty laying her hands on them.’

  ‘Yes, but what’s her motive?’

  ‘Frustration,’ said the Inspector, reverting to his original theory. ‘Sexual frustration. Marries a bloody midget and she’s a damned big woman with a sex drive to match. He can’t give her more than an inch or two at most. Any more and she’d be giving birth backwards. So what does she do?’

  ‘I’d prefer not to think.’

  ‘Gets a complex about all-in wrestlers and bulging musclemen. You saw the pictures she had in the kitchen. What more do you want? Goes off her rocker, knocks her husband off and stuffs him in the Professor’s car and when he’s been done for the murder she starts taking her frustrations out on dwarfesses. You see if I’m not right.’

  ‘Sounds barmy to me,’ said the Sergeant.

  ‘Which is exactly what she is. So now you go up to Miss Petrefact’s house and pull her in nice and quietly so that nobody notices and we’ll take her over to Briskerton just as nice and quietly and Mrs Rosie Fucking Coppett is going to make a confession even if we have to work on her round the clock for a week.’

  ‘I don’t know about the nice and quietly,’ said the Sergeant, ‘Miss Petrefact is bound to find out and if I know her she’ll raise the roof. The Petrefacts just about own this town and her cousin’s a judge. You’ll have solicitors breathing down your neck with writs for habeas corpus before you can say—’

  ‘Nice and quietly,’ said the Inspector, ‘and nice and quietly is what I meant.’

  In the event there was no need to go to the New House. Rosie Coppett was spotted outside Mandrake’s Pet Shop and was delighted to be asked to go for a ride in the police car. By six o’clock that evening she was supposedly helping the police with their enquiries.

  27

  In any case, Emmelia was in no condition to raise the roof, Consuelo Smith’s karate chop to her Adam’s apple had left her speechless. When Annie brought her her tea next morning Emmelia had written, ‘I have acute laryngitis and am on no account to be disturbed.’ As usual Annie had obeyed her instructions to the letter and for five days Emmelia was not disturbed. She lay in bed, had clear soup for lunch, vegetable soup plus semolina pudding for dinner, and wondered if she would ever get her voice back. But at least the papers seemed to indicate that the police had reopened the case of Willy Coppett. The Chief Constable had made a statement that there had been new developments and that charges would soon be brought. Which was all very gratifying, but when on the sixth day Emmelia got up and learnt that Rosie had disappeared she was distinctly alarmed.

  ‘You should have told me at once,’ she said in a hoarse whisper to Annie.

  ‘But you was too ill and did say you weren’t to be disturbed,’ said Annie. ‘Anyway she was flighty, that’s what she was. Always wanting romance and all that.’

  ‘And she’d gone down to collect the bread and never came back? On the day after . . . on the day I was taken ill?’

  ‘Yes, mum. I sent her down with the list and she never came back. I had to go down myself. Flighty’s what I say.’

  But Emmelia
put another construction on Rosie’s disappearance. Perhaps the stupid girl had seen her come back from her encounter with that confoundedly powerful dwarf and for once in her silly life had put two and two together and had come up with more than three. In which case . . .

  ‘Then you had better go down and tell the police that she is missing,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve done that, mum. I saw the Sergeant and told him but he just mumbled something.’

  ‘Then go down again and inform them officially,’ said Emmelia, and spent the hour while Annie was away wiping thoroughly with a duster everything in the car Consuelo might have touched and then using the vacuum cleaner. She had finished and had consigned the mutilated dildo to the fire in the drawing-room when she was further alarmed to see Annie return in a police car with Inspector Garnet. With a racing pulse Emmelia went into the downstairs lavatory for several minutes to compose herself. When she emerged she had adopted her most arrogant manner.

  ‘And about time too,’ she told the Inspector, ‘Rosie has been gone for almost a week and my housekeeper informed you while I was ill in bed. Now, what do you want to know?’

  Inspector Garnet cringed under the crack of her voice. His standing with the Chief Constable was hardly high and he had no intention of lowering it still further by rubbing this influential old lady up the wrong way.

  ‘We’re interested in knowing if she ever borrowed your car, ma’am.’

  ‘Borrowed my car? Most certainly not. I do not make a habit of lending my car to my servants, and in any case I very much doubt if Rosie Coppett can drive.’

  ‘All the same, might it not have been possible for her to have used it without your knowing?’

  Emmelia pondered the question and found it puzzling. ‘I suppose so,’ she said finally, ‘though I consider your line of enquiry most peculiar. If she was going to use it to go away I can’t for the life of me imagine why she should have brought it back again. To the best of my knowledge it is still in the stables.’

  ‘There’s no knowing the way some people’s minds work,’ said the Inspector. ‘Irrational, you know. Would you object if we checked the vehicle out for fingerprints?’

  Emmelia hesitated. She objected very much but on the other hand she had just cleaned it and to refuse would be to arouse suspicion.

  ‘You know your duty, officer. If you require anything else please say so.’

  ‘We would like to examine her room too.’

  Emmelia nodded and went into the conservatory where she overwatered the geraniums and half a dozen cacti in her agitation.

  In the garage the fingerprint men were drawing conclusions from the state of the Ford.

  ‘Not a bloody dab anywhere,’ said the Detective Sergeant. ‘And if that doesn’t prove anything, and in my experience it’s suggestive, take a look at this.’

  The Inspector examined the front bumper. It was bent and some dried mud had stuck to it. ‘A hundred to one we’ll find it matches the clay in the lane where the glans dildo was discovered. So much for her claim she doesn’t drive.’

  The Inspector sighed wearily. It was just another of those points on which his theory foundered but the Chief Constable was urging him on and the Press had already raised the issue of his competence.

  ‘I’m going up to her room,’ he said and went through to the kitchen where Annie was peeling potatoes. Half an hour later he was back in the stables.

  ‘That just about wraps it up,’ he said cheerfully, tapping his notebook. ‘The housekeeper’s given us all we need. There’s no point in aggravating the old bird until we’ve put our Rosie through a few more hoops.’

  *

  But as the police car drove down the drive Emmelia was already profoundly aggravated.

  ‘You did what?’ she demanded of a white-faced but defiant Annie.

  ‘Told them she went out in the car last Wednesday night and the Friday before.’

  Emmelia stared at her lividly. ‘But she didn’t. I did. You must have known that.’

  ‘Couldn’t say, mum,’ said Annie.

  ‘You most certainly could have,’ said Emmelia knocking over a hippeastrum in her agitation, ‘she was sitting with you watching television. You’ve got her into terrible trouble.’

  ‘She’s in that already,’ said Annie. ‘The police think she murdered Willy. Leastways the Inspector says she did and he ought to know and now they’ll think she’s the dwarfist.’

  ‘Oh no, Annie! Do you realize what you’ve done?’

  ‘Yes, mum, I do,’ said Annie firmly. ‘It’s been bad enough having her round the house all these months, she’s that stupid and clumsy. I wasn’t going to have them know you’d been driving out of a night doing what you have to all them dwarves. I’m a respectable woman, I am, and I’ve got my reputation to think of. It’s all very well for the likes of you to behave queer but I won’t have it said I worked for the dwarfist. I’d never get another job at my age. You didn’t think of that, did you?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t,’ said Emmelia contritely, ‘but you surely don’t really believe that Rosie Coppett murdered her husband?’

  ‘No business of mine if she did. Anyway, she could have dropped him like she did the mixing bowl last Michaelmas. Ever such a mess she made. If you ask me she’ll be far better off in prison from what I’ve heard tell. She’ll have her own little cell and it won’t matter if she does break things. Besides, they’ll probably put her in a home, her being the way she is.’

  Emmelia shook her head sorrowfully. First Yapp and now Rosie, both foolish innocents, were being sacrificed for the sake of respectability and to prevent a scandal. ‘Well, I think it’s outrageous,’ she said, ‘and I refuse to have Rosie wrongfully accused. I’d rather go to the police myself.’

  But Annie was still defiant. ‘Wouldn’t do you any good if you did. I’ll swear you didn’t go out and they’ll think you’re dotty. And you being a Petrefact they wouldn’t believe you.’

  It was true. No one would believe her.

  ‘Oh well, perhaps they won’t find Rosie,’ Emmelia said rather hopelessly. Rosie Coppett was hardly equipped to escape a police search.

  ‘Found her on Thursday,’ said Annie. ‘Sergeant Moster sent a message up asking where she was so I told him she was going down for the bread and would likely be passing Mandrake’s and was bound to stop and look at the rabbits. That’s where they got her.’

  Emmelia looked at the housekeeper with revulsion. ‘Then you’re a very wicked woman,’ she said.

  ‘If you say so, mum,’ said Annie. ‘Will there be anything else?’

  Emmelia shook her head. There would never be anything else. The world was set in its ways. As Annie left the room Emmelia sat on, wondering how she could have known so little of a woman who had shared the same house with her for thirty-two years. It was the old Petrefact fault of taking people for granted. And if she had misjudged Annie wasn’t it possible she was wrong about Rosie and Yapp? Perhaps they had murdered Willy Coppett after all.

  Deep in this slough of uncertainty she found herself staring across the lawn at the garden gnomes. They stood now not as monuments to Willy, or even to Rosie’s childish innocence, but rather as a grotesque tableau grinning at her naively. She was the fountain nymph they mocked, a relict of that ordered, self-deceiving world in which the poor were never with you and murder was a distant drama done by unimaginably wicked people who ended inevitably upon the scaffold. But life wasn’t like that and never had been. It was something else again.

  *

  Inspector Garnet would undoubtedly have agreed. For six days Rosie had stuck to her mum’s instructions always to ask a policeman when she was lost or in trouble and then do what he said. Since the policeman – in this case a number of policemen – kept telling her to confess, Rosie disconcertingly obliged. But never with the same story twice. It was here that her addiction to Confessions magazines came to her aid. She had described in lurid detail how she might have murdered Willy in so many contradictory
ways without once admitting that she had that several detectives had asked to be taken off the case and the Inspector’s confidence in his own judgement had taken a hammering. But now he had hard evidence. The mud on Miss Petrefact’s car certainly matched that in the bank where the glans dildo had been found. It only remained to discover if Rosie could drive.

  ‘Depends,’ she said when the question was put to her.

  ‘Depends on what?’ demanded the Inspector.

  ‘Well, I like going in cars,’ said Rosie, ‘the Welfare lady took me once and—’

  ‘But have you ever been in Miss Petrefact’s car?’

  ‘Depends,’ said Rosie.

  Inspector Garnet gritted his teeth. Rosie’s infernal use of the word to find out what he wanted to hear from her was becoming unbearable. ‘Then you have been in it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the garage.’

  ‘In what garage?’

  ‘Miss Petrefact’s.’

  ‘And where did you go after that?’

  ‘After what?’ asked Rosie, whose span of attention, minimal at the best of times, had been considerably shortened by lack of sleep and too many cups of black coffee. Inspector Garnet no longer gritted his teeth, he ground them.

  ‘After you’d been in the car in the garage?’

  ‘Depends,’ said Rosie, falling back on equivocation.

  It was too much for the Inspector. Something snapped inside his head. ‘Fucking hell,’ he spluttered, stumbling from the room and spitting out the remains of his upper dentures, ‘now look what the’th done with that fucking “dependth” of herth.’

  ‘You could always try superglue,’ said the Sergeant incautiously, ‘they claim it mends anything.’