Crooked Herring

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘But he’s OK?’ I asked. ‘I mean, he really didn’t do it. Henry Holiday did.’

  ‘That’s what he tells me, but the evidence is very much against him. I wonder if you can do two things for him?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, selecting the Taste the Difference shortbread rounds, which have a nice dusting of sugar – not too much but enough to give them a bit of an edge over the competition.

  ‘First, he needs a death threat he says you have.’

  ‘Safe at home,’ I said. ‘And Henry Holiday was the author.’ I explained how I knew.

  ‘Ethelred had come to much the same conclusion,’ said the lawyer. ‘But we’ll need at least one of the letters to prove it.’

  ‘I can post it to you,’ I added.

  ‘Maybe bring it round yourself, if you can. We don’t want to lose it. It could be critical.’

  ‘Check,’ I said. ‘And the other thing?’

  ‘It’s slightly more complicated. The police seem to have got it into their heads that he might have been having … well, let’s call it a one-night stand … with a young lady on the evening in question. They feel that he is being evasive in his answers to their questions. In your opinion … I mean, is it possible that he was with somebody and for chivalrous or other reasons doesn’t want to admit it?’

  ‘Ethelred might do almost any moronic thing for chivalrous reasons. That’s the sort of person he is. He really belongs in the fifteenth century, though he’d settle for 1958, with Peter May’s elegant batting securing a victory for England on a sunny July morning at the Oval.’

  ‘So, you’re saying it’s possible he did have somebody with him but is not admitting it?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I’m sure he was watching television, just like he says. He doesn’t get out a lot, and I’d know if he’d got a girlfriend.’ I paused recalling a certain jauntiness in his manner when he had been talking about Emma Vynall – but no, we could rule that out. ‘Large or small?’ I added.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Packets of Kit Kat. Large, I think. It’s always a mistake to get the small ones and run out just as you need a couple of fingers at one o’clock in the morning. But plain or milk, that’s the real question? Where were we?’

  ‘We’d more or less finished. Well, maybe one other thing … we seem to have lost one key piece of evidence – a CCTV recording of Henry Holiday and Crispin Vynall at a club near Chichester.’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘And there’s not much else by the way of hard evidence. So, if there’s anything that you can think of that would prove where Ethelred was or Henry Holiday was on the night in question, that could be very important.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I said.

  The thought crossed my mind that Ethelred’s lawyer had not gained any additional brain cells over the years since the divorce. Still, British justice would not condemn an innocent man, however stupid he was and however badly he chose his lawyer.

  ‘Look, I’ll get that letter to you. Then you need to get Amazon to track down the owner of the two sockpuppet accounts,’ I said. ‘It will prove to be Henry Holiday.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said.

  I hung up.

  What next? I realised that in the hurly-burly of saving Ethelred I had mislaid my shopping list. Biscuits and chocolate biscuits … what else? Ah yes! Chocolate! So, disaster avoided, then.

  I proceeded in a westerly direction to where the chocolate bars lived happily together in massed ranks of blue and red and gold. I would adopt some and take them home.

  It was as I was eating my second Kit Kat, so no more than five minutes after I had got home, that it occurred to me that it was amateur detective time again. Since the police didn’t buy Ethelred’s theory that Henry was the killer, they would not be looking in the right places for clues. And since Ethelred’s lawyer was a dipstick, he wouldn’t be either. But there might be somebody at the club who did remember seeing Henry there. And it was just possible that there was more to the Ethelred and Emma thing than met the eye. The Amazon thing should be enough, but you can never have too much evidence in your favour when it’s a murder charge. I made a quick phone call to Brighton and laid out suitable clothing for a little trip to the coast.

  ‘There’s a strange sense in which death pays all debts,’ said Emma. ‘A couple of days ago I seriously wanted to kill Crispin. Now that somebody else has done it … I’d reconciled myself to being a divorcee; I just hadn’t quite got my head round becoming the Widow Vynall. Now it’s his killer, I’d like to kill.’

  ‘But you don’t believe that Ethelred killed Crispin?’

  ‘Ethelred? God, no. If he’d wanted me I was there and available in Harrogate. There was no need to kill Crispin to get into bed with me or anything else. And Henry really admitted it all to Ethelred?’

  ‘That’s what Ethelred says. You’d have to be monumentally arrogant to do it, but Henry actually thinks he’s been clever enough that he can let Ethelred know who’s done this to him.’

  ‘So, what do we do?’

  ‘I’m working on it. In the meantime, can I check – there really is no chance that Thrillseeker’s reviews were written by Crispin?’

  ‘Absolutely none. I’m sure Crispin had never read one of Ethelred’s books. He tends to leave things lying around, so I know what he’s reading. He doesn’t read crime much at all, actually, but certainly not the sort of thing that Ethelred writes. And I’m certain he’s never written an Amazon review in his life. He buys … sorry bought … all his books from an independent just down the road. And he was never that good with computers. He wouldn’t know how to set up a fake account. Anyway, there was no animosity at all between Ethelred and Crispin. Well, not much.’

  ‘And you’ll say that in court if necessary?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘One other thing. Where were you on New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘Since Crispin didn’t come home, I went out with some friends – just to a restaurant down the road.’

  ‘OK. My other idea won’t work, then.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you afterwards.’

  ‘I won’t ask then.’

  ‘It’s Plan C. I’m only going to try it if all else fails, anyway.’

  ‘I’m sorry – I’m sure I’ve made it worse for Ethelred,’ said Emma. ‘With the police, I mean. But he was acting strangely. All those books. Thinking about it, I can see that it was just Ethelred being Ethelred and in a way sort of endearing. But it was still weird. Maybe if I’d slept with him in Harrogate …’

  ‘He’d still have been weird. Trust me. He has towards his women a dog-like devotion of a sort that is endearing only in actual dogs.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that might be the case. I’ve got some turkey stew I can defrost, if you’d like an early supper.’

  ‘Yes, I would like that. The place I’m going to next doesn’t open properly until about midnight. You don’t have any biscuits, I suppose, while we’re waiting for supper?’

  In fact, I arrived at about seven-thirty and had to hunt around for a way in. It was strangely quiet, even allowing for the fact that most of its clientele were not exactly early risers. I’d been snooping in a general sort of way for about ten minutes when a voice said: ‘Can I help you? You shouldn’t really be in here, you know. We’re not open to customers. It’s Sunday.’

  Ah, yes, of course. Sunday. Only essential services such as the police, ambulance and literary agents would be operating.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said, ‘because I’m not here as a customer.’

  The young man was, if not young enough to be my son, at least young enough to be my naughty little nephew. He knew at once roughly how much shit I would take and how difficult I’d be to remove if I didn’t get whatever it was I was after.

  ‘But you can help me,’ I continued. ‘Were you on duty on New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘You from the police? Or are you a reporter? If you’re a
reporter, I can’t talk to you.’

  ‘Then it’s your lucky day. I’m not a reporter.’

  ‘But it’s about the murder?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘So you are from the police?’

  My past record of impersonating police officers was mixed. Occasionally it worked splendidly. But not often. It depended on the intelligence of the person I was trying to dupe.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m from the police.’

  ‘Could I see your warrant card?’

  ‘We don’t carry them anymore. It’s all computerised now. I’ll give you a reference number and you can verify it on the Internet afterwards.’

  ‘OK …’ He seemed doubtful for some reason. I couldn’t for the life of me see why.

  ‘Do you want to speak to the manager?’

  ‘Not at the moment. You are …?’

  ‘Kevin. Kevin Smith. Assistant manager.’

  ‘OK, Kevin. Do you remember speaking to Mr Tressider – the man now accused of the murder?’

  ‘Yes. He came in here asking some very odd questions. Even at the time I thought it was peculiar.’

  Well, that was Ethelred all right.

  ‘But you don’t remember seeing him here on the night in question?’

  ‘New Year’s Eve? No. Like I told him, there were a few old guys in, but I wouldn’t have been able to pick them out later.’

  ‘You’ve seen pictures of Crispin Vynall?’

  ‘Yeah – you can scarcely miss them on the telly, can you?’

  ‘I don’t watch it much. I try to catch the book programmes, though mainly out of a sense of duty.’

  ‘Not Crimewatch?’

  Crimewatch? Ah yes, of course, I was a member of the police. It would probably be a good idea not to forget that.

  ‘Can we get back to New Year’s Eve, please, Kevin? Ethelred … Mr Tressider … says that there was CCTV footage but it got wiped.’

  The young man looked slightly sheepish.

  ‘Well, was it?’ I repeated.

  ‘Don’t tell the manager, will you?’ he said. ‘I was supposed to wipe it but I forgot. I swore to him that I’d done it too. I even swore on my gran’s life, him not knowing she died when I was two.’

  ‘So it’s still there? But the manager will notice it, anyway?’

  ‘No. A couple of days ago we got a new system in. That’s the one he plays with now. He loves that new system. All the New Year’s stuff is on the old one that’s sitting in the storeroom waiting to be scrapped. He’s getting somebody to take it for recycling. Nobody’s going to look at that again.’

  ‘You’ll have to show it to the police.’

  ‘Will I? I’ll get sacked when he sees I didn’t do what he told me to do.’

  ‘But the police and I will be very grateful.’

  ‘I thought you said you were the police?’

  ‘I’m only some of the police. I mean the rest of the police and I will be most grateful. So will Ethelred. Mr Tressider, I mean.’

  ‘What do you want me to do …? Look, there he is!’

  I followed Kevin’s gaze and encountered Crispin Vynall’s grinning, party-ravaged face staring down at us from a television screen on the wall. It was an old photo taken at a book launch. He had his arms round two girls, who had, as far as possible, been excised from the shot. But you couldn’t excise the leer from Crispin’s face.

  ‘Can you turn the sound up?’ I asked.

  He fiddled quickly with the remote and we just caught the following: ‘In a statement issued today West Sussex police have confirmed that a man is helping them with their enquiries. This is widely reported as being Mr Ethelred Tressider, who writes crime novels as (the announcer paused briefly to check his notes) Peter Fielding and (another quick pause) J. R. Elliott. Peter Fielding is noted for his widely praised police procedural novels set in the fictional town of Buckford. It is understood, however, that no charges have yet been made. And now I’ll hand you back to the studio.’

  ‘See,’ said the young man. ‘It’s on all the time.’

  ‘And do they say “widely praised” every time?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. I might go and buy one. I like crime. I just hadn’t heard of Peter Fielding before.’

  ‘And it’s on all of the channels?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours a day?’

  ‘That’s how it is now. So, what do you want me to do with the CCTV?’

  ‘Nothing at all for the moment,’ I said. Because I’d had an idea. ‘I’ll be in touch again when we need it.’

  ‘OK. What’s that warrant card number by the way – so I can check you on the Internet?’

  ‘B305CHB,’ I said without even blushing. It had, after all, been my first car and a nice little runner. ‘But I think the system’s down at the moment. You may not be able to find it this evening. Don’t worry, Kevin. I’ll be in touch again soon.’

  ‘And you’ll try not to get me into trouble?’

  ‘I’m sure we can just sneak the equipment away without anyone noticing, when the time comes.’ It wasn’t entirely untrue. I was sure the police could sneak it away quietly; it was just unlikely that they would.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. He seemed genuinely grateful, though not as grateful as Ethelred was going to be. We’d have him sprung from the county gaol (if that was where he was) in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

  Or maybe, thinking about it, six or seven shakes. After all, he was getting a plug on one channel or another every half-hour or so. His books were being mentioned without the faintest hint of criticism. You couldn’t buy publicity like that. And prison was, when you thought about it, not such a bad place to write. Look at John Bunyon. Look at Oscar Wilde. Look at Cervantes. Look at Boethius. Look at Jeffrey Archer. In a day or two I’d tip the police off that the recording was still there. They’d drive down and pick it up. Kevin would get a mild ticking off, but into every life a little rain must fall.

  No rush, then. No rush at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  From the journal of Elsie Thirkettle

  My final visit, on the way home, was to the pub in Didling Green. I bought myself a lemonade and had a quick chat with the landlord.

  Yes, he said, he thought that one of the photos of New Year’s Eve might have been taken from the board by a customer. It happened. You could never tell what customers would do. He looked at me the way I look at people when discussing the many foibles of writers. Well then, could he check his camera and see if he still had it? He shook his head in response to my question. It had not been one of his own pictures. Customers sometimes nicked photos from the board but more often they stuck up pictures of their own. He had no idea who had taken that one. There were dozens of people in. I asked him if he could find out who it was. I’d like a copy myself, I said.

  He looked at me very oddly. ‘You’ve never seen the picture?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘And the only person you know in it is, you believe, a bit blurred and in the background, with his mouth hanging open?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘And you actually want a copy for yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If possible.’

  ‘I’ll let you know if I track it down, in that case,’ he said.

  I left my business card with him, but somehow I wasn’t expecting to hear from him any time soon.

  I spent the following day phoning up journalists that I knew and feeding them information on Ethelred’s books. There were a couple of good reviews I wanted re-quoted (including Henry’s – why not?) and I shamelessly made up details of his work in progress, saying that it would draw on his experience of being arrested for murder. It was true that, inevitably, one or two people came out of the woodwork and expressed the view on camera that Ethelred was a bit creepy and slightly wet, but on balance opinion was still very much in his favour. The overall impression was of a talented but slightly neglected author, who was well like
d by his fellow crime writers. And Internet data suggested that sales were soaring. Obviously Ethelred was in a dungeon eating gruel with a wooden spoon or something, but he’d be dead chuffed once I let his lawyer know that the CCTV footage was safe and that I’d saved the day and so on and so forth. So, there was scarcely a cloud in the sky, you might say, until the second day after my visit to Sussex. My phone rang and it was Ethelred’s lawyer, slightly troubled.

  ‘When are you going to bring it round?’

  ‘Bring what?’

  ‘The death threat letter. It’s the only concrete evidence we have.’

  ‘Oh that old thing. Don’t worry. It’s there on the table. Perfectly safe. No, it isn’t, it’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Well, it was there in front of me the other night. It can’t have wandered very far. What did I do next? I needed food. I made a shopping list on a scrap of old paper …’

  ‘Elsie? Hello? Are you still there?’

  So, the question was this. If Sainsbury’s found a shopping list on the floor of the biscuit aisle would they:

  a) check whether it had a death threat on the other side of it and then take it to lost property to await reclaim by its proper owner

  or

  b) sweep it up and throw it away?

  Then I noticed that Ethelred’s lawyer was just saying: ‘Hello? Hello?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was thinking …’

  ‘But the death threat letter?’

  ‘I may have left it by the Jammy Dodgers in Sainsbury’s. Sorry about that. Easily done, as you will agree. I did copy it out in this notebook I have …’

  ‘We need the original for it to be any use at all. If we just give them a copy you made … you could have just made it up this morning.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I could. Like I say … I’m sorry about that. Still, the good news is that I do have a much better piece of evidence.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘The CCTV footage from the club in Chichester.’

  ‘It wasn’t wiped?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you have that safe with you?’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking it’s in Chichester. I’m going to let the police know … er … very shortly. But it’s absolutely safe in the meantime. I mean really, really safe – not like the letter.’