The Norfolk Mystery (The County Guides)

by Ian Sansom

  Nonetheless, as we passed the houses and churches and slums of east London I felt the familiar ecstasy of departure. I took two Seconal, a handful of aspirin, and felt myself released again from the vast jaws of my ambitions, and fell into a troubled sleep – dreams of Spain confused with visions of a ruined London, flying demons dropping explosives overhead, fires raging in the streets, men slithering like beasts, every town and every city throbbing with fear and violence.

  I woke thick-headed some time before we arrived in Melton Constable, where I changed quickly onto the branch railway, a little three-carriage local train done out proudly in its golden ochre livery, and which heaved its way slowly through the meadows of East Anglia. I took a window seat in the second-class non-smoker, the only seat remaining, and, gasping for air and desperate to smoke, ignoring the protests of my fellow passengers, pulled down a leather strap on the window – and was immediately assaulted by a dusky country smell of muck and manure. I quickly abandoned all thoughts of a cigarette. I hadn’t eaten all day, and the country smells, and the pathetic chugging of the train resulted in my feeling distinctly hag-ridden by the time we made Holt Station at precisely five thirty. I was the only passenger to disembark at Holt – porters hauled a couple of milk crates and packages out of the luggage van, a guard walked down the platform, closing each door, and then the bold little vermilion engine went on its way – and it was too late when I realised that I had left my cardboard suitcase on the train, with my spare suit, my poetry, my tobacco and my pills.

  I looked around for any signs of help, welcome or assistance.

  There was none. The porters had vanished. The guard gone.

  And there was absolutely no sign of Morley.

  Nor was there anyone in the station office – though a set of dominoes set out upon a table suggested recent occupation and activity. Outside, in the gravelled forecourt, was a car with a woman leaning up against it, languidly smoking, chatting to the young man who, I assumed from his uniform, should have been manning the station. I could see that the young lady might prove more of a distraction than a solitary game of dominoes. She wore her dark hair in a sharp, asymmetric bob – which gave her what one might call an early Picasso kind of a profile – and she was wearing clothes that might have been more appropriate for a cocktail party down in London rather than out here in the wilds of Norfolk: a pale blue-grey close-fitting dress, which she wore with striking red high-heeled shoes, and buttoned red leather gloves. It was a daring ensemble, deliberately hinting, I thought, at desires barely restrained; and her crocodile handbag, the size of a small portmanteau, suggested some imminent, illicit assignation. She struck one immediately as the kind of woman who attended fork luncheons and fancy dress parties with the Guinnesses, and who had ‘ideas’ about Art and who was passionate in various causes; the sort of woman who cultivated an air of mystery and romance. I had encountered her type on my return from Spain at fashionable gatherings in the homes of wealthy fellow travellers. Such women wearied me.

  ‘Well!’ she said, turning first towards and then quickly away from me, narrowing her eyes in a glimmering fashion. ‘You’ll do.’ There was a tone of studied boredom in her words that attempted to belie her more than apparent perk.

  ‘I’m sorry, miss, I do beg your pardon.’

  She threw away her cigarette, ground it out theatrically under her foot, and climbed into the car. ‘Bye, Tommy!’ she called to the station guard, who began sauntering back to his office.

  ‘Goodbye, miss,’ he called, waving, red-faced, placing his cap back upon his head.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, addressing him. ‘I need to ask about my luggage. It’s gone missing. I wonder if—’

  ‘Well, come on, then, if you’re coming,’ the young woman interrupted, impatiently, patting the smooth white leather seat beside her in the car.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, miss,’ I said, ‘I’m waiting for someone and—’

  ‘Yes! Me, silly!’ she said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken, miss. I’m waiting for a Mr Swanton Morley.’

  She cocked her head slightly as she looked at me, in a way that was familiar. ‘Sefton, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’m here to collect you, you silly prawn, come on.’

  ‘Ah!’ I said. ‘I do apologise. It’s just, I was expecting … Mr Morley himself.’

  ‘I’m Miriam,’ she said. ‘Miriam Morley. And wouldn’t you rather I was collecting you than Father?’

  It was an impossible question to answer.

  ‘Well,’ I said, extending my hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Morley.’

  She raised her fingers lightly to my own.

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting a moment I need to see if I can arrange for my luggage, which I’m afraid I’ve left on the—’

  ‘Tommy’ll sort all that out, won’t you, Tommy?’ she said.

  ‘Certainly, ma’am,’ said Tommy obediently.

  ‘There,’ she said, her eyes flashing at me. ‘Now that’s sorted, hop in and hold on to your hat!’ she cried. I did as instructed, having no alternative, and as soon as I’d shut the door she jerked off the brake, thrust the gearstick forward, and we went sailing at high speed through the deserted streets of Holt.

  ‘Lovely little town,’ I said politely, above the roaring noise of the engine.

  ‘Dull!’ she cried back. ‘Dull as ditchwater!’

  We soon came to a junction, at which we barely paused, swung to the right, and headed down through woods, signs pointing to Letheringsett, the Norfolk sky broad above us.

  I felt a knotted yearning in my stomach – a yearning for cigarettes and pills.

  ‘Since we’re to be travelling together, miss, I wonder if you might be able to spare me a cigarette?’

  ‘In the glove compartment,’ she said. ‘Go ahead. Take the packet.’

  I took a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled hungrily.

  ‘Manners?’ said my companion.

  ‘Sorry, miss? You’d rather I didn’t smoke?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Do I look like a maiden aunt?’ She did not. ‘But I would expect a gentleman to offer me one of my own cigarettes. Unless of course you are not a gentleman …?’

  I lit another cigarette from my own, and passed it across.

  ‘So,’ she yelled at me, as we screeched around a sharp corner at the bottom of the hill, barely controlling the animal-like ferocity of the car. ‘You’re not one of Father’s dreadful acolytes?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I—’

  ‘Good. He usually attracts terrible types. Teetotallers. Non-smokers. Buddhists, even! Have you ever met a Buddhist, Sefton?’

  ‘No, miss, I don’t think—’

  ‘Dreadful people. Breathe through their noses. Disgusting. Being in the public eye, as we are, one does attract the most peculiar people. Hundreds of letters every week – some of them from actual lunatics in actual lunatic asylums! Can you imagine! Even the so-called normal ones are rather creepy. And we have people turning up at the house sometimes with cameras, wishing to take his photograph. Quite ridiculous! Isn’t it, Sefton?’ She looked across at me, searching my face for agreement.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, wishing that she’d pay more attention to the road. We passed, in quick succession: a large water mill to the left, offering for sale its own flour and oats; signs for a place called, improbably, Glandford, to the right; a large, rambling coaching inn, charabancs parked outside; a brand-new manor house sporting out-of-proportion Greek columns; and then a gypsy caravan by the side of the road, filthy gypsy children riding an Irish wolfhound before it, a pipe-smoking woman tending a fire alongside it, stirringa black pot of what may well have been goulash, but which was probably rabbit stew and, propped up against a nearby tree, a hand-painted sign advertising ‘Gypsy Pegs, Knife-Sharpening, Card Readings, Puppies’. I was suddenly struck by the rich and exotic beauty of the En
glish countryside, as strange in its way as, say, India, or Port Said. Norfolk: North Africa. ‘It really is rather splendid here, miss, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh come on, Sefton! It’s dull! Dull! Dull! Dull! I can’t stand being stuck up here with Father. But then where’s one supposed to go these days? Even London’s getting to be so boring. It’s becoming like a suburb of New York, don’t you think?’ She spoke as if having rehearsed her lines.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve not had the pleasure of visiting New York, Miss Morley.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you take me one day, Sefton, and I’ll show you round.’

  ‘Well. I’ll certainly … think about that, Miss Morley.’

  ‘Call me Miriam.’

  ‘I’ll stick with Miss Morley, thank you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud, Sefton. What’s the point of such formalities? I believe in being brutally frank.’

  ‘Very good, miss,’ I said.

  ‘Really. Brutally, Sefton. I’ll be brutally open and frank with you, and you can be brutally open and frank with me. How does that sound? The best way between grown men and women, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure, miss,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so solemn! It’s terribly boring. I’d hoped you might be more fun.’

  ‘I do my best, miss.’

  ‘To be fun?’ she said, taking both hands from the wheel and tossing away her half-smoked cigarette. ‘Do you now? I’ll be the judge of that, shall I? Anyway, I should warn you, seeing as you’re going to be staying with us, that despite what everyone thinks, Father is an absolute tyrant, and a complete dinosaur.’

  ‘I think, miss, it might be more appropriate if—’

  ‘Appropriate! Are you always so proper and correct, Sefton?’

  ‘Not always, miss. No.’

  ‘Good. I’m only telling you the truth. I’m having terrible trouble persuading him to introduce American plumbing at the moment. He believes in early morning starts and cold baths. He’s up studying at five, for goodness sake. I mean, reading before breakfast! Ugh! Rather grisly, don’t you think? Imagine what it must do to the digestion.’

  ‘Your father, I believe, is a very … diligent and profound student of—’

  ‘Oh, do give over, Sefton! He’s a madman. Forever writing. Forever reading. Continually being overcome with wonder at the world. It all makes for terribly boring company. Do you believe in early morning starts?’

  ‘It rather depends what one has been engaged in the night before,’ I said.

  ‘Quite so, Sefton! Quite so! You know, you might prove to be an ally about the place after all. What about hot baths?’

  ‘I have no strong opinion about hot baths,’ I said.

  We had long passed Letheringsett, and were heading for Saxlingham.

  ‘“Hot baths are the root of our present languor,”’ she said, in a more than passable imitation of her father. ‘“The hot bath is a medical emergency rather than a diurnal tonic. It destroys the oil of the skin.” Ridiculous! Anyway, Sefton, you’re prepared?’

  ‘For what?’ I said.

  ‘What do you imagine I’d be asking you to be prepared for, Sefton?’ She raised a bold eyebrow beneath her bold asymmetric bob. ‘For this ludicrous new enterprise of his, silly.’

  ‘The County Guides?’

  ‘Yes. Absurd, isn’t it? As if anyone’s interested in history these days. Ye Olde Merrie Englande? Ye Cheshire Cheese? Ye Local Customs?’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s what he has in mind. I think it’s more a geographical—’

  ‘What? Plunges into Unknown Herts? Surrey: off the Beaten? Behold, Ye Ancient Monuments? For pity’s sake, Sefton. Who cares? All those dreadful places. Wessex and Devon! Never mind the north! Hardly bears thinking about. I’m afraid I just couldn’t be bothered.’

  She glanced at me, her Picasso-like profile all the more striking in motion.

  ‘Do you drive, Sefton?’

  ‘I do.’

  She then seemed to be waiting for me to ask something back; she was that kind of woman. The kind who asked questions in order to have them asked back, using men essentially as pocket-mirrors.

  ‘This is a lovely car,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, this? Yes. Father’s mad on cars. He’s got half a dozen, you know. Loads and loads. The bull-nosed Morris Cowley, with a dickey seat – dodgy fuel pump. And the ancient Austin, Of Accursed Memory. The Morris Oxford, with beige curtains at the windows; sometimes he’ll take a nap in it in the afternoons. It’s terribly sweet really.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He can’t drive, though, of course. And he has all these sorts of crazy ideas. He thinks cars run better at night-time – something to do with the evening air. Claims it’s scientific. Absolute clap-trap, of course. But this is my favourite,’ she continued, stroking the steering wheel. ‘It’s a Lagonda,’ she said, stressing the second syllable, in the Italian fashion. ‘Isn’t it a lovely word?’

  ‘Quite lovely,’ I said.

  ‘Lagonda,’ she repeated. She clearly liked the idea of Italian. Or Italians. ‘Only twenty-five of them made. Designed by Mr Bentley himself, I believe. Herr Himmler has one in Germany. Harmsworth. King Leopold of the Belgians. I think you’ll find that ours is one of the only white Lagonda LG45 Rapides in England.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. She seemed to be awaiting congratulations on this fact. I declined to compliment, and instead silently admired the car’s upholstery and its fine walnut dashboard.

  Saxlingham outdistanced, we were now beyond signposts, in deep English country.

  ‘She handles very well,’ she continued. ‘The car, I mean, Sefton.’ That ridiculous eyebrow again. ‘One of Father’s concessions to modernity. He won’t buy us proper plumbing, but anything that gets him from here to there more quickly he’s happy to fork out for! Honestly! It’s the production version of the Lagonda race car, you know. She’s really the last word.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘Cars, silly! Top speed of a hundred and five miles per hour. Would you like me to show you?’

  ‘No, thank you, miss,’ I said, suspecting that we were already not far from such a speed. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘Oh come on, Sefton,’ she said, fiercely revving the car’s engine. ‘Don’t you enjoy a little adventure?’

  ‘I used to,’ I said.

  ‘What? Lost your taste for it?’

  ‘Possibly, miss, yes.’

  ‘Oh dear. Well, perhaps I’ll be able to revive your flagging interest then, eh?’ And with this she leaned forward eagerly in her seat, stamped on the accelerator, and we began tearing up the roads.

  ‘You’re not scared are you?’ she called, as our speed increased.

  But I now found her absurd flirtatious antics too wearisome to respond to at all, and simply gazed at the hedgerows speeding past inches from the car, which was spitting up stones and dirt – we were now driving along a single-track road that had clearly been made for horses’ hoofs rather than high-speed Lagondas.

  We breasted a small hill and began careering down the other side, approaching a bend at both unsuitable angle and speed.

  ‘Slow down, miss,’ I said sharply.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Slow down.’

  As we sped unwisely towards the bend she turned and looked at me and there was a look in her eye that I recognised – the same look I had seen in men’s eyes in Spain; and the look they must have seen in mine. Desperation. Fear. Joy. A shameless, stiff, direct gaze, challenging life itself. Terrifying.

  She was understeering – out of ignorance, I suspected, rather than daring – as we approached the bend, and I found myself reaching across her, grabbing the wheel and tugging it towards me, attempting to correct the angle and bring the car in more tightly.

  ‘Look out!’ she screamed, as we swept down upon the bend, the rear of the Lagonda swinging out from behind us, her foot slamming down instinctively on the brakes.

  ‘Don’t brake!�
� I screamed – I knew it would throw the car – and grabbed down at her ankle and pulled it up, reaching down with my other hand to apply a little pressure in order to transfer weight to the front.

  It worked. Just.

  We skidded to a halt, engine and tyres smoking, my head first in her lap and then juddering into the Lagonda’s pretty dashboard. The engine cut out.

  ‘Oh!’ she yelled. ‘You maddening man! What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I yelled back.

  At which challenge she threw her head back and laughed, a great throaty, hollow laugh, as though the whole thing were a mere prank she’d rehearsed many times. Which she may have.

  ‘What am I doing? I’m living, Sefton! How do you like it, eh?’

  I sat up, straightened myself, opened the car door and climbed out.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she called.

  ‘I’m getting out here, miss, thank you,’ I said.

  ‘But you can’t!’

  ‘Yes I can.’ I began walking on ahead. ‘I’ll find my own way now, thank you, miss.’