All the Tea in China
Page 31
‘How do you mean, “Come on”?’ I asked.
‘I mean, let’s stop playing silly buggers.’
I considered three clever retorts to that one but found that I couldn’t really be bothered. There are times when I am prepared to bandy words with Martland, but this was one of the other times.
‘Just what,’ I asked reasonably, ‘do you think I might give you that you think you might want?’
‘Any sort of a lead on the Goya job,’ he said in his defeated Eeyore voice. I raised an icy eyebrow or two. He squirmed a bit.
‘There are diplomatic considerations, you know,’ he moaned faintly.
‘Yes,’ I said with some satisfaction, ‘I see how there might be.’
‘Just a name or an address, Charlie. Or anything, really. You must have heard something.’
‘And where would the old cui bono enter in?’ I asked. ‘Where is the well-known carrot? Or are you leaning on the old school spirit again?’
‘It could buy you a lot of peace and quiet, Charlie. Unless, of course, you happened to be in the Goya trade yourself, as a principal.’
I pondered ostentatiously awhile, careful not to seem too eager, thoughtfully guzzling the real Taylor ’31 which was inhabiting my glass.
‘All right,’ I said at last. ‘Middle-aged, rough-spoken chap in the National Gallery, name of Jim Turner.’
The Martland ballpoint skittered happily over the regulation notebook.
‘Full name?’ he asked briskly.
‘James Mallord William.’
He started to write it down, then froze, glaring at me evilly.
‘1775 to 1851,’ I quipped. ‘Stole from Goya all the time. But then old Goya was a bit of a tea leaf himself, wasn’t he?’
I have never been so near to getting a knuckle-sandwich in my life. Luckily for what’s left of my patrician profile, Jock aptly entered, bearing the television set before him like an unabashed unmarried mum. Martland let prudence rule.
‘Har har,’ he said politely, putting the notebook away.
‘Tonight is Wednesday, you see,’ I explained.
‘?’
‘Professional wrestling. On the telly. Jock and I never miss it; so many of his friends play. Won’t you stay and watch?’
‘Good night,’ said Martland.
For nearly an hour Jock and I regaled ourselves – and the SPG tape recorders – with the grunts and brays of the catchweight kings and the astonishingly lucid commentary of Mr Kent Walton, the only man I can think of who is wholly good at his job.
‘That man is astonishingly lucid, etc.,’ I said to Jock.
‘Yeah. For a minute back there I thought he’d have had the other bugger’s ear off.’
‘No, Jock, not Pallo. Kent Walton.’
‘Well, it looks like Pallo to me.’
‘Never mind, Jock.’
‘O.K., Mr Charlie.’
It was a splendid programme: all the baddies cheated shamefully, the referee never quite caught them at it, but the good guys always won by a folding press at the last minute. Except in the Pallo bout, naturally. So satisfactory. It was satisfactory, too, to think of all the clever young career bobbies who would, even then, be checking every Turner in the National Gallery. There are a great many Turners in the National Gallery. Martland was smart enough to know that I wouldn’t have made a feeble joke just to tease him: every Turner would be checked. Tucked behind one of them, no doubt, his men would find an envelope. Inside – again, no doubt – would be one of those photographs.
When the last bout had ended – with a dramatic Boston Crab this time – Jock and I drank some whisky together, as is our custom on wrestling nights. Red Hackle de Luxe for me and Johnny Walker for Jock. He prefers it; also, he knows his station in life. We had by then, of course, unstuck the little microphone that Martland had carelessly left behind under the seat of the fauteuil. (Jock had been sitting there, so the recorder had doubtless picked up rude noises as well as the wrestling.) Jock, with rare imagination, dropped the little bug into a tumbler, adding water and an Alka-Seltzer tablet. Then he got the giggles, a horrid sight and sound.
‘Calm yourself, Jock,’ I said, ‘for there is work to be done. Que hodie non est, eras erit, which means that tomorrow, at about noon, I expect to be arrested. This must take place in the Park if possible, so that I can make a scene if I think fit. Immediately afterwards this flat will be searched. You must not be here, nor must you-know-what. Put it in the headcloth of the hardtop as before, put the hardtop on the MGB and take it to Spinoza’s for service. Make sure that you see Mr Spinoza himself. Be there at eight sharp. Got that?’
‘Yes, Mr Charlie.’
With that he toddled off to his bedroom down the hall, where I could hear him still giggling and farting happily. His bedroom is neat, simply furnished, full of fresh air: just what you would wish your Rover Scout son’s room to be. On the wall hangs a chart of the Badges and Ranks of the British Army; on the bedside table is a framed photograph of Shirley Temple; on the chest of drawers stands a model galleon, not quite finished, and a tidy pile of Motor Cycle magazines. I think he used to use pine disinfectant as an after-shave lotion.
My own bedroom is a pretty faithful reconstruction of the business premises of an expensive whore of the Directoire period. For me it is full of charming memories but it would probably make you – manly British reader – vomit. But there.
I sank into a happy, dream-free sleep, for there is nothing like your catchweight wrestling for purging the mind with pity and terror; it is the only mental catharsis worth the name. Nor is there any sleep so sweet as that of the unjust.
That was Wednesday night and nobody woke me up.
KYRIL BONFIGLIOLI
THE FIVE MORTDECAI NOVELS
‘I am Charlie Mortdecai. I like art and money and dirty jokes and drink. I am very successful’
Don’t Point That Thing at Me
The Hon. Charlie Mortdecai is up to his earlobes in trouble. A Goya painting has gone missing and the authorities seem to think he knows something about it. He does. If he and his thuggish manservant Jock are not very careful, some very nasty men with guns are liable to make them very dead.
After You with the Pistol
It’s been made clear to Charlie that he has to marry the beautiful, sex-crazed and very rich Johanna Krampf. The only fly in the ointment is that she seems determined to involve him in her crazy schemes of monarch-assassination and heroin smuggling. Perhaps it’s all in a good cause – if only he can live long enough to find out.
Something Nasty in the Woodshed
Charlie has decamped to Jersey after a spot of bother in London, and is hoping to lie low with his manservant and his new bride. But then a friend’s wife is attacked, and for once he takes on the role of pursuer rather than pursued.
The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery
Charlie’s main excitement in Jersey is cultivating an exuberant moustache, even though it endangers conjugal relations. Things perk up when he’s invited to Oxford by his old tutor to investigate the cruel and unusual death of a lady don. He uncovers the culprit – but not before coming across enough villains to shoehorn into a stretch limo.
All the Tea in China
After an act of lechery that anyone but a close relative might forgive, Karli Mortdecai Van Cleef, a distant relative of the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai, throws in his lot with an opium clipper bound for China. So begins a staggering adventure. It runs in the family . . .
www.penguin.co.uk
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin...
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinukbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk
PENGUIN BOOKS
Publishe
d by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.co.uk
First published by Secker & Warburg Ltd 1978
Published in Penguin Books 2002
Reissued in this edition 2014
Copyright © The Estate of Kyril Bonfiglioli, 1978
Cover artwork by Luke Pearson.
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-241-97177-2