Crooked Herring

by L. C. Tyler

  There was however one further stage of that New Year’s Eve that I had not investigated for Henry. Back at the house I spent an hour or so poring over a map of West Sussex. There were plenty of churches and plenty of woods, but very few churches near woods. Most seemed to be in the centre of villages or situated to provide fine, uninterrupted views of the Downs. And yet Henry’s description had been vivid enough. A church spire caught in the moonlight, the ship on the weathervane riding the scudding clouds and, behind it, a dark, spiky mass of branches. Or was I starting to invent details? I needed to talk to Henry again.

  At ten-thirty I finally phoned Henry to report back on what I had discovered so far.

  ‘What on earth did you go to the pub for?’ he said. ‘I told you, I remembered that part of the evening perfectly. Your questioning of the barman was a complete waste of time.’

  Well, it was my own time that I had wasted.

  ‘I thought I might as well cover everything,’ I said.

  ‘You clearly found out nothing that was remotely useful.’

  ‘You may be right. I was probably being over-optimistic expecting Denzil to tell me anything of value. He actually tried to convince me that I’d been in the pub with you and Crispin Vynall. He said he remembered me, sitting there sadly clutching my half-pint while you and Crispin made merry.’

  ‘Did he?’ said Henry.

  ‘Yes, but I clearly wasn’t there.’

  ‘Perhaps that was you on another occasion?’ asked Henry.

  ‘On no occasion at all,’ I said, ‘was I the saddo in the corner sipping a small glass of beer. It’s not something I do. Anyway, for what it was worth, he remembered Crispin being in the pub. Denzil seems to be a bit of a fan of his.’

  ‘So, Denzil was convinced you were there – that there were three of us?’

  ‘Yes, but he was wrong … Or are you saying there was a third person there?’

  ‘The pub was full. But, at our table, it was just me and Crispin. No mysterious third man lurking in the shadows. Or nobody that I saw, anyway.’

  ‘Fine. The point is, Denzil confirmed you left for Chichester much as you said.’

  ‘That’s all you discovered at the pub, then? That I left at much the time I said?’

  ‘Put like that, I agree it wasn’t especially helpful, but the pub is very close to where I live. It didn’t delay me that much. I did a bit better at the club.’

  ‘You found it?’

  ‘It wasn’t difficult to track down. To be perfectly honest all you needed to do was to Google “School Disco, Chichester”. That would have identified it for you.’

  ‘I’m not that great with computers – not like Crispin. Or you.’

  ‘I’ll give you a tutorial sometime,’ I said, feeling smug that I was at least ahead of some people in my knowledge of information technology, whatever Elsie might wish to believe. So much for Henry’s comments, too, about my iPhone. ‘Anyway,’ I continued. ‘I located it and went and paid them a visit. There’s no doubt you and Crispin were there.’

  ‘Thank you, but again, Ethelred, that is not exactly news. Did you come up with anything more than that?’

  ‘Mainly your arrival and departure times – you were caught on the car park CCTV. What was really interesting, though, was this: you said you thought Crispin left before you. In fact the CCTV shows you leaving together. He looked a bit drunk – well, more than a bit. Could you have given him a lift to the other club?’

  ‘I said – I don’t remember much about that stage of the evening. I was a bit drunk too. It hadn’t occurred to me there might be CCTV … Well, let’s hope I dropped him off somewhere, because he certainly wasn’t at the second pub with me. I’m sure of that. Maybe I left him in Chichester at the station or something.’

  ‘You think he got a train back to Brighton?’

  ‘I don’t think they run that late. A taxi, maybe.’

  ‘A taxi wouldn’t have been cheap – especially on New Year’s Eve – but I guess Crispin could have afforded it. Anyway, at 11.13, you both vanish off into the night. I’ve noted the time carefully because they said they were about to wipe the recording. It’s a good thing I went there today.’

  There was a long pause before Henry said: ‘And they did wipe it? I mean there’s no chance of my being able to go back and check for myself whether it was Crispin with me?’

  ‘None at all, I would think. I suppose I could have asked them to keep it, but I doubt if they would. That’s the problem with not being the police. The powers of the amateur detective with regard to the retention of evidence are sadly limited.’

  ‘Did you at least ask for a copy?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry. But there isn’t any doubt about it – it was Crispin with you.’

  ‘And I suppose it’s too late to get a copy now?’ His voice was distinctly tetchy.

  ‘I would think so,’ I said.

  I suppose he was right. I had been remiss in not asking. I just hadn’t thought of it at the time.

  For a moment neither of us said anything, then I added: ‘Well, we at least know what happened up to that point in the evening. I don’t know whether Crispin got home safely. Emma just said he wasn’t around at the moment.’

  ‘You phoned his wife?’

  ‘Any reason why I shouldn’t?’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to. I just asked that you should find out where Crispin and I went.’

  Again he was far from pleased. I wondered whether to point out that he was not paying me to carry out this work for him – well, not payment in cash anyway – and that I’d already notched up quite a few miles to Chichester and back, plus fifty pounds in bribery and corruption. Fortunately I’m not used to gratitude.

  ‘She didn’t seem worried about him,’ I said. ‘If he’d really vanished, she ought to be a lot more concerned than she was.’

  ‘Did you mention that I was trying to find him?’

  ‘No, of course not. I didn’t mention you at all.’

  ‘But you still have no idea where he is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I hope you did a better job of locating the pub,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, yes, that,’ I said. ‘The problem is that this part of the world is full of quaint old pubs. For the moment I’m having difficulty in finding one that fits your description.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t made any progress on that at all?’

  Even before I made the call I had been wondering whether all of this journeying to and fro on Henry’s behalf was worthwhile. Now, with his ingratitude laid bare, I knew the answer to that question.

  ‘Look, Henry, I really haven’t done that badly for one day’s work,’ I said. ‘I’ve confirmed which club you went to and that you and Crispin left together. I’ve established that Crispin’s wife hasn’t missed him, which is at least suggestive of his being alive. I’m sorry if that is a disappointment to you. I hope you make better progress yourself from now on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Henry.

  ‘I’ve found out as much as I can. Maybe a private detective – I mean a real one – might be able to help. But I don’t have time to go from pub to pub asking, with decreasing probability of anyone knowing the answer, whether you were in there on New Year’s Eve. Especially since I’ll only be told what an appalling job I’ve done.’

  There was a long pause, then a more reasonable Henry spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to imply you’d done a bad job. Quite the reverse, in fact.’

  ‘Thanks. But it makes no difference.’

  ‘I couldn’t persuade you …’

  ‘That’s right. You couldn’t persuade me. I quit.’

  ‘I’d rather hoped … you see, I’m going to be so busy with all of those book reviews. For prominent quality papers. It’s quite difficult for mid-list authors to get noticed by reviewers these days … especially those whose work has inexplicably failed to catch the public’s attention. So I feel I need to make a special effort to
look out those who were really deserving. I sort of hoped, under the circumstances …’

  I wondered if he thought he was being subtle. But he probably wouldn’t have wasted the effort. Not on me. Something told me he probably wouldn’t waste review space on me either.

  ‘I’ve done all I can,’ I said. ‘I hope you manage to find out what happened.’

  ‘So, you won’t help me, then? Ethelred, there may be somebody dead out there and I may have killed them. I may have killed Crispin.’

  ‘Do you remember burying his body in a deep hole?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Weighting it with bricks and throwing it in the sea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Dissolving it in acid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Incorporating it into a motorway flyover?’

  ‘I think you’re beginning to labour your point …’

  ‘As long as you understand clearly what I’m saying, that’s fine. If you had the presence of mind to hide your victim, then it means you were probably sober enough to be able to remember some of the surrounding detail. If, conversely, you had murdered somebody in a drunken haze and left them lying around, the police would have already found the body. It would have featured on South Today even if it didn’t make the national news. I won’t say that nobody was murdered over the holiday period – it’s one of the things we traditionally do around then – but I honestly don’t think you killed anyone, or not this year, at least. If we could track down Crispin, it would help us a lot – he might at least know where you went. But I don’t think he’s dead. When famous writers vanish, people notice. They might not notice my disappearance, or even yours, but somebody would have missed Crispin by now – and Emma is likely to be the first to do so.’

  I put the phone down thinking that might have been my last chance for a review in a quality daily.

  I wondered again whether I should phone Elsie. I thought that I might share with her what seemed to be an amusing delusion on the part of one of my fellow authors. But it was almost eleven and she was almost certainly in bed. And I was not especially concerned about Henry’s safety or my own. The case was closed.

  Of course, twenty-four hours would change all that.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The note had been put through my letter box during the night. It had certainly not been there when I locked the door at around eleven-thirty. But by seven it was on the doormat. A plain white envelope with my name inscribed in block capitals.

  I picked it up, thinking that it might be from the estate management committee, with a bill for my share of the maintenance of the road or a reminder to take in our rubbish bins after they had been emptied. But it wasn’t. The letter was also written entirely in capitals, as if by a backward but extremely vindictive seven-year-old. It read:

  JUST A POLITE WARNING, ETHELLRED, TO LET YOU KNO TO STOP STICKING YOUR NOSE INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S BIZNIS. YOU’LL STAY OUT OF IT IF YOU KNOW WOT’S GOOD FOR YOU. YOU’RE NOLONGER WRITING CHEAP AMATEUR DETECTIVE FICTION. IT’S VERY DIFFERENT WHEN IT’S REAL LIFE AND YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ITS INNS AND OUTS. YOU AREN’T LORD PETER WHIMSY, WHATEVER YOU MAY THINK. AND YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO BE THE SECOND BODY THAT SHOWS UP, WOULD YOU? BE WARNED; WE KNOW ICKSACTLY WOT YOU’RE DOING. A FREND.

  Not from the estate management committee, then.

  It was rather as though fate, having built up the tension for a while, had decided to throw a couple of clowns onto the stage. Of course, Shakespeare did it all the time in his plays. It was just that it didn’t happen much in West Wittering. I needed some down-to-earth advice. I decided it was time I phoned my agent.

  ‘This had better be good, Tressider,’ Elsie said before I had a chance to speak.

  ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘Because my phone told me. Jesus, Ethelred, don’t you know that ninety-nine point nine nine nine per cent of phones tell you who is calling before you pick up? Probably not. I expect you still have one of those phones attached to the wall with a little handle that you turn to alert the operator that you wish to speak to somebody. And not in an ironic postmodern way.’

  ‘Oh yes, sorry, of course. I think my iPhone does that too.’

  ‘It does. Trust me. Anyway, it’s seven-fifteen. Couldn’t you practise using your iPhone when people are awake?’

  ‘Sorry, I imagined you’d be up and about by now. I just wanted to talk something through with you. A death threat actually.’

  ‘Against you or me?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Office hours are ten to five-thirty, Monday to Thursday, except in cases of emergency.’

  ‘It’s a death threat, Elsie.’

  ‘When you say “death”… how specific is it?’

  ‘Well, you could say that it was somewhat provisional – it applies only under certain circumstances – if I do certain things.’

  ‘Can you hold off doing any of them until, say, nine thirty-one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll call you back once I’ve had a shower and breakfast.’

  ‘My mobile number is …’

  ‘It’s staring me in the face, Ethelred. Shall I explain again about this thing where you can see from the screen who is calling you?’

  ‘No. I think I’ve got the hang of it.’

  ‘I’ll phone you right back. Right-ish back, anyway.’

  It was ten-thirty by the time Elsie had cleared her desk of matters more important than my impending death.

  ‘Sorry – it just sort of slipped my mind,’ she said. ‘You’re still alive, anyway, so no real harm done. Now, tell me all about it.’

  I told her all about most of it.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It would be worth trying to get a review in the Telegraph. Not easy for a writer like you.’

  ‘I may end up dead as a result.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll have a review in the Telegraph.’

  ‘I’ll have an obituary in the Telegraph,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Elsie, ‘I doubt they’d do that. You have to be well known.’

  Elsie had frequently explained to me that it was important to have an agent who was your strongest supporter and advocate. Sadly, she probably was.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ I asked.

  ‘Look, why don’t I drop in later today? I’ll take a look at that note.’

  ‘Aren’t you needed in London?’

  ‘There’s another writer I represent in Selsey. I was going to see her. I could call in on you.’

  ‘You don’t have any writers in Selsey. It’s only a few miles away. I’d know them.’

  ‘Is it? I still might have taken on somebody there without your knowing.’

  ‘But you haven’t.’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Not in real life, Elsie.’

  There was a pause as Elsie decided whether she could be bothered to continue lying. She was anxious to interfere in my life and nothing I could say would stop her. Even if I could prove that there were no writers of any sort in Selsey and that there never had been, it would be an empty victory. She was coming to West Wittering. Eventually she just said: ‘Thanks, by the way, for your Christmas present. You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘My pleasure. I’m glad you found it useful.’

  ‘I didn’t say I found it useful. I said: “you shouldn’t have”. I might have added that I had no idea they still made them. Quaint. Anyway, I have started using it in an entirely ironic manner. Now, are there any decent restaurants in West Wittering? I shall need feeding.’

  ‘There’s the Beach House,’ I said, ‘that’s good. And the Old House at Home does excellent pub food. You can get a nice sandwich or a croissant at the Landing.’

  ‘I’ll see you for a late lunch, then. Your choice of venue.’

  ‘Elsie,’ I said, ‘are you coming to West Wittering because you are concerned about my safety or to meddle in my business?’

  ‘Entirely for your safety. As for meddling in your business, su
rely you phoned me? I wouldn’t describe answering the phone as meddling with anything.’

  ‘I merely phoned you for advice.’

  ‘Which I can give much more easily if I have a chance to discuss it with you properly over a low-calorie meal. There is a danger that without my advice you may get involved in something that would place you completely out of your depth.’

  ‘And with your advice? What might happen then?’

  ‘One step at a time, Ethelred. You decide where you’re going to buy me lunch. I’ll let you know what happens after that.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  From the journal of Elsie Thirkettle

  Friday 4 January Joy! Ethelred has given me a large leather-bound book with ruled pages for Christmas. Suitable, it says on the box, as a diary or perhaps for writing a first novel. With regard to the diary aspect, Ethelred presumably hasn’t noticed that, for the past ten years, whenever I’ve had to record an appointment, I’ve done so in some neat electronic device. He hasn’t investigated his own iPhone sufficiently to discover that it has a Calendar function amongst other things. So, he’s given me half a kilo of heavy-duty paper bound in another half-kilo of leather from a cow that most certainly died in vain as far as I am concerned. Or perhaps Ethelred thinks that, like Samuel Pepys, I plan to sit down at the end of every day and write up my deeds, with passing reference to any major fires or plagues that happen to be going on. Bless.

  Of course, it’s a well-meaning gift in the sense that he has given me the sort of thing he would love himself – something totally useless but happily reminiscent of the days of his youth, when cricket was much better and the sun shone all summer long. Possibly I should have kept it and given it back to him next year as his Christmas present, but sadly I have now written in it, so that may not be as good an option as it was ten minutes ago.

  Anyway, since no plagues happened this morning and the Dutch are not burning the English fleet in the Medway, let me record the one item of news that I have: Ethelred has coincidentally just phoned me to say that he has an interesting new case that he would love to involve me in. It’s touching the way he feels I can contribute, adding my experience, intelligence and intuition to whatever it is he thinks he brings to the party.