by Bill James
Laurent said: ‘The mess at the top of the stairs – it’s only sauce, you know. Definitely. A little accident, that’s all.’ He was sitting with a glass of water in one hand on a long, loose-covered settee. He looked pale and restive, but he kept the glass upright and gave his statement perfectly, as though pre-recorded. The loose covers had a dark red Regency-type stripe on a silver background. The wallpaper continued this Regency theme.
‘He said this before,’ Mrs Parry said, ‘about the sauce. I don’t understand.’
‘Definitely only sauce,’ Matilda said. She had on a navy track suit, not the pleated skirt, and trainers, with no socks, so Iles might be fairly all right.
‘I asked him, “Which stairs?” ’ Mr Parry said. ‘Did he mean the stairs to the flats? He said, “No.” But he didn’t say which stairs. There’s something on his mind.’
‘It’s only sauce,’ Laurent said.
‘Definitely only sauce,’ Matilda said.
‘This would be an unfortunate incident at home, but all put right now,’ Mansel said.
Mr Parry said: ‘What we don’t follow is how the accident with sauce . . . we don’t follow how this accident with the sauce is connected with . . . well, why it would make Laurent come here looking for Carmel, and so urgent, so pressing.’
‘I wanted to see her,’ Laurent said. ‘But she’s not here. I know this is her address. She sent a card. Where is she? Where is she? That was only a little accident with sauce, but where is she?’ His voice suddenly became a howl, almost like Iles in one of his sensitive fits.
‘She’s gone to Italy, son,’ Mr Parry said.
‘People say that,’ Laurent answered, ‘but where is she?’
‘We decided we should all come over as a family,’ Mansel said.
‘It’s a real damn palaver, isn’t it, but isn’t it?’ Sybil said. ‘I’m his damn mother but we’re all here because he’s bawling about some woman lodger who’s at the rectory for . . . for what . . . weeks at a time, and with no real standing, none at all? So hurtful, so disgraceful. What will Mr and Mrs Parry think of our family, our household, Mansel? Did you ever consider the likely effect on the children of bringing these creatures into the property?’
‘Luckily, I have some photographs,’ Iles replied.
‘Photographs of what?’ Sybil said.
‘Oh, yes, these will settle things down, I’m sure,’ Iles said. ‘All of them automatically date-captioned and wholly convincing proof that not just Carmel but other rectory guests are in bonny shape.’ He had a briefcase near the armchair where he sat and picked this up now, opened it and spread about a dozen snaps of Carmel, Patricia and Lowri on the pink fitted carpet. In some of the Carmel shots, what must be Philip Dell also appeared.
‘Yes, this is Carmel,’ Mrs Parry said, ‘taken in the road outside. And Phil. I don’t know the others.’
‘I should bloody well hope not,’ Sybil replied.
‘Why have you got these photos, Mr Iles?’ Mansel said.
‘As I understand it, all these dates are after the incident with the sauce at the rectory,’ Iles replied. ‘So, they’re all right.’
‘Again, I don’t get this,’ Mr Parry said.
Laurent smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Matilda said. ‘Thank you, Mr Iles.’
‘Yes, thank you, Mr Iles,’ Laurent said.
‘How would you like it, Mrs Parry?’ Sybil said.
‘What?’ she said.
‘I’m their mother, but these two seem more worried about three . . . three on-call part-time helpers with no blood connection whatsoever,’ Sybil said.
‘Not blood,’ Laurent said, ‘not at all, it was definitely sauce. Dad will tell you.’
Iles pointed down at the photographs: ‘I don’t claim you can see in Carmel and Phil’s faces the certainty that they will soon be setting out on a trip to Italy, but they are clearly very close to each other in spirit as well as physically, and to me seem the kind who would love to take a camper van and go paired into Europe. This entirely explains her absence. I know Harpur feels the same.’
‘I believe the Chief Constable will wish to send a personal letter of thanks to Mr and Mrs Parry for their prompt and caring response to today’s challenging events,’ Harpur replied.
‘Why have you got these photos, Mr Iles?’ Mansel said.
‘Because they build dossiers on people like you,’ Sybil said. ‘They have to know it all, and document it all. I don’t suppose there’s a pic of me in their collection, though. I’m wife and mother but it’s these marginals who get noticed. I don’t know whether you’ve got children, Mrs Parry. If so, you’ll recognize my feelings. Not everyone appreciates the holiness and force of family bonds, the sanctity of the family home, especially a former rectory.’
‘Harpur wouldn’t be too good on those bonds,’ Iles said. His voice changed again, not to the thin, breathless squeak that came when he spoke of items such as Matilda’s socks, but now more like the beginnings of a full Iles scream. ‘Harpur is the sort who’d actually ask Mansel whether he wanted copies of these girl pix. Harpur’s not one to show delicacy towards the marriage of others. I appreciate that there are children present, so I’ll phrase this delicately. But, it’s quite well known, for instance, that, having decided he wanted my wife, Harpur simply –’
‘Camper vans have almost all the comforts of a caravan, I always think,’ Harpur said, ‘but escape the tricky driving problems that towing can often bring. A caravan will sometimes veer away from –’
Iles said: ‘At times, oh, yes, this took place in the sanctity of my own home, Idylls, while I was away on courses. Harpur would be entirely indifferent to the degree of betrayal of a very senior colleague involved in –’
‘I’ll check whether Laurent has damaged the door of 22 in case it needs patching up on security grounds,’ Harpur said.
‘He can be like that,’ Iles said.
‘Which?’ Sybil replied.
‘Which what?’ Iles said.
‘Like abusing the sanctity of your home or fretting about the security of someone else’s,’ Sybil said.
Matilda said: ‘In school, we did a pretend letter to someone in the Third World telling him what life here was like. Even if this had happened before I wrote the letter I don’t think I’d put it in because someone in the Third World would not understand why Laurent and I were so worried, but not now we’ve seen the pictures.’
‘The Third World will soon catch up on all that kind of thing,’ Iles said. He gathered the photos together and put them back in his briefcase with a finality shove, as if proclaiming the crisis over, the women utterly the past and their pictures of no concern to Manse. This was Iles in his Marriage Guidance mode.
He and Harpur went down with the Shales to the entrance of Linklater House. Manse’s Jaguar must have been waiting in some parking spot from which the driver could see the doorway and it drew in now, the chauffeur wearing a cap. ‘Ah, this is the new, skull-intact Denzil, is it?’ Iles said. ‘Eldon Dane.’
‘Do you see what I mean about a dossier on you, Manse?’ Sybil said.
When the Shales had gone, Harpur and Iles went into a nearby bar. It was a famous roughhouse. Iles wore civilian clothes today. He bought himself a port and lemonade mixed and Harpur a gin and cider mixed. They sat in a corner. ‘We can defend this, Col,’ Iles said.
‘People in this sort of place might think port and lemon a quaint drink for a man.’
‘Which people?’
‘Well, customers generally.’
Iles stood and walked to a group of big men in dark suits sitting in another corner of the bar. The ACC looked small and slender against them. He carried his drink ahead of him in his right hand. ‘Do any of you louts think I’m at all quaint because I ask for port and lemon?’ he inquired.
‘You’re Iles, yes?’ one of them said.
‘Iles,’ Iles said. ‘Does that matter?’
‘Drink whatever you like, Mr Iles,�
� another of them said. ‘That’s your right.’
‘Thank you. What are you scheming here – a bullion heist, a kidnapping?’ Iles replied.
‘You drink what you like, Mr Iles. Your taste for port and lemon is known worldwide.’
Iles came back and sat with Harpur. ‘Obviously, I’m concerned about Shale, Col. He’s part of the fabric.’
‘Which fabric is that, sir?’
‘Syb won’t stay. She wants tranquillity. Children’s spiritual agonies bore her. That episode at Linklater House – a trial to her. Wales rebeckons. And if she goes, where does that leave dear Manse? Carmel’s with Phil now, vanning. In the pix he looks as if he could be genial, though he’s not actually genial as portrayed, because of Carmel’s outrage. Phil had to harmonize, as a partner should.’
‘That relationship might not last. Two people in a camper van for a while is a lot of proximity. Not all couples could survive it.’
‘Many elderly US couples sell up their homes and follow the sun in camper vans. They regard it as liberation. I’ve thought of it for myself and Sarah when I retire.’
‘But you’re exceptionally mild and conciliatory in any domestic setting, I should think, sir.’
‘Why should you think it?’ Iles had his drink up top his mouth and began to shout across it now. ‘Would this be something you discussed with her after one of your damn shag sessions in my fucking property or in some tenth rate hotel?’
Perhaps the landlord was on a relief stint here and did not know the city. He came from behind the bar and said to Iles: ‘Kindly watch your language, mate, or I’ll have to put you out.’
‘You’ll have to fucking what?’ Iles replied.
‘He’ll be fine once the drink starts to soothe,’ Harpur said. ‘I can vouch for him more or less one hundred per cent. Or at least forty.’ The landlord looked undecided but then nodded once and went back to serving. ‘And there are Manse’s other two, anyway, sir. Patricia, Lowri,’ Harpur said.
‘Perhaps. Will they resent being dropped for Sybil, though? Girls like that, kicked out of a rectory because of someone’s wife – they’ll bear a grudge. I thought they looked as though they bore grudges in the photos, didn’t you? Carmel, obviously because she rumbled the cameraman. But Patricia and Lowri, also. In-built grudges.’
‘They’ve been chucked out before and come back,’ Harpur said.
‘Cumulatively, Col. Look at it cumulatively. And, anyway, Manse has other pressures.’
‘Laurent and his mental turmoil? But you’ve dealt with that, sir. The photographs were a brilliant answer for him and the girl. They’re lucky to run across someone of your humanity and perception.’
‘These are instinctive with me, Harpur – humanity and perception.’
‘Anyone can see those in your face, sir.’
‘I do notice people in here staring at me, perhaps reading those qualities.’
‘No, that’s because most of them recognize and hate us, sir.’
‘Equally?’
‘You more, because of rank,’ Harpur said.
Iles smiled, gratified. ‘But undercurrents, Col.’
‘Which?’
‘Manse and Chandor.’
‘In what sense?’ Harpur replied.
‘I happened to see them in concentrated discussion late the other night at the Valencia. I believe the sea was one of their themes, but beyond that, also.’
‘You were down there with Honorée on waste ground again?’
‘I’m not close enough to hear what they’re talking about, but this seemed a long, serious communing, and they’re both gazing out in heartfelt fashion towards the briny, like Spencer Tracy and Freddie Bartholomew in Captains Courageous. Yes, communing.’
‘Did they notice you?’
‘An anon hire car,’ Iles said.
‘Clothes off? No glint off your shoulders or arse skin under street lights?’
‘Is Manse being pulled towards Chandor and away from Ralphy, Col? This would be a massive shift in the commercial landscape. Yes, seismic. I don’t think I’d like that. I’d seek to prevent it. Has Manse caved in to Chandor because of threats to his paintings, and the body on the stairs?’
‘Which body would this be then, sir?’
A few days afterwards, Jack Lamb phoned to arrange another meeting and they went to the foreshore blockhouse, Number 3 on their rendevous list, and perhaps Jack’s favourite. This concrete box, never called on to do what it was built for and throw back Adolf, could just the same reach deeply into Lamb’s being. ‘Manse Shale was in touch, Col. And his chauffeur, Eldon. Why I needed to see you.’
‘Shale’s buying more pix?’
‘Well, he is, he is, but for a very particular and, in some ways, touching purpose,’ Lamb said.
‘There’s an emotional side to Manse.’
‘He’s worried about his children. They’ve been suffering, it seems – mentally. But perhaps you know.’
‘His children? This would be Matilda and Laurent, yes?’ Harpur said. It paid to act dumb with Jack. He grew demoralized if he thought he was bringing old stuff.
‘They’ve had some big shock, both of them.’
‘That right?’
‘You know this, do you?’
‘Manse came out to Darien to see some art, did he?’ Harpur replied.
‘With the new chauffeur – even more pushy than Denzil.’
‘That right?’
‘And then I gather Manse’s wife has gone again. Done one of her flits. Returned to Wales. This is the tale around. But you probably know that.’
Jack wore his 1930s Italian army officer’s gear decked with two rows of distinguished service ribbons, some possibly for the smart use of poison gas in Mussolini’s Abyssinia campaign. At his country house, Darien, outside the city, he must have a couple of wardrobes of international services uniforms. He liked impartiality. His trousers were tucked into calf-high black boots, possibly cavalry issue, and he carried a black leather-covered cane. He swiped his right boot now with this, the kind of thing he might have seen in a Gunga Din type film on the movie channel. ‘Manse is suddenly feeling the father role as a very tricky one. His kids are upset, possibly something to do with that business at the rectory, whatever it was, and now they’ve lost Sybil again.’
‘So he buys paintings. Manse is a complex object, despite how he sounds. Art must be a comfort thing for him – the way some people eat, or buy shoes, to ease their angsts.’
‘These will be works for the children, one each,’ Lamb said. ‘He has the idea that if Matilda and Laurent see a beautiful, joyous, genuine painting on the wall of their rooms it will give them a feeling of . . . of, well, rightness, stability. It’s the kind of feeling he gets from his own pix collection – the Pre-Raphaelites and so on, quite a few of which are authentic. This is what I meant when I described Manse’s scheme as touching. He’s a one-parent family – as you, yourself, are, of course, Col, so you’ll sympathize, especially as his children appear to have had bad trauma. The girl thinks there’s been an intruder haunting her bedroom and can’t rid herself of this fantasy. I told Manse to give her a different room – the rectory has enough – but, no, he wants to meet the problem squarely, sort of exorcise it finally, and will do it, so he thinks, by purifying the room with art. I’m going to make sure both these pictures are impeccably genuine, Col. That’s the least I can do for him and the kids.’
‘People do rally round for Manse. Mr Iles is the same.’
‘Manse is part of the . . . of the . . .’
‘Fabric?’ Harpur replied.
‘That’s it, the fabric. And then, Eldon Dane.’
‘The chauffeur?’
‘We spoke briefly while Manse was upstairs in the gallery selecting his pix. Look, Col, I promised myself that if he chose anything phoney I’d dissuade him, and point him to something honest.’
‘He’d appreciate that.’
Lamb paced a bit, a huge, vague outline in the darkness. His boot
s crunched magnificently on nearly seventy years of very various additions to the cement floor. ‘Eldon Dane has the idea that Hilaire Wilfrid Chandor is the one who’s brought all the pain to Manse and the children, Col. Manse knows this and tried to what Eldon called “deal with it”, but backed out.’ Lamb struck the boot again with his cane. This time it was a call for full attention. ‘And listen to this, Col – backed out because suddenly Manse concluded Chandor might have an understanding with you . . . with you. I don’t know what “deal with it” means – he wouldn’t specify – but I’d say this boy Eldon carries something. Now, you’ll see why I had to contact you again. Eldon talks as though Manse has been knocked so hard by his troubles that he – Eldon – had a holy summons to act for him. Or maybe to act jointly with Manse. It’s like a duty that comes with the chauffeur’s cap. He says, “We still have to deal with this.” It’s “we” all the time. Manse’s troubles are his and, if Manse can’t handle them, Eldon will.’ Lamb came close, vast and Italianate, the chest ribbons near Harpur’s eyes and almost gaudy, despite the shadows. ‘Perhaps you have to be “dealt with”, Colin. I told Eldon Iles might have an arrangement with Chandor, but you wouldn’t. Never your style. I don’t know if he believed me.’
‘Thanks, Jack.’
‘Obviously, you’re not going to tell me if there’s an understanding between you and Chandor.’
‘I’ve spoken to him and his people in their offices and on the street.’
‘And?’
‘I was on my own when I spoke to them in the street.’
‘And?’
‘It might have looked like friendship, like an understanding.’
‘Eldon saw you? How?’ Lamb said.
‘A Laguna passed. I wondered about it. They might have been on a hit trip, but aborted.’
‘There could be another trip, Col. Eldon seemed to think the failure is affecting Manse’s mind and should be “dealt with”. I had the impression Eldon might act solo or get Manse to help, as a kind of cure.’
‘If there’s another trip, Chandor will be the target.’
‘Only?’
‘Perhaps his pals.’
‘What about yourself?’ Lamb said.
