The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

by The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories (retail) (epub)

  With City friends and Parliamentary colleagues – or what few had not departed for their holidays – Jennings did no better. The City men respected Fielding’s acumen and legal knowledge. The politicians gave the impression, rather like Miss Parsons, that he was a better man than any of them – a top-class rural constituency member, sound party man, always well-briefed when he spoke, very pleasant fellow, very reliable… they were uniformly at sea over what had happened. Not one could recall any prior hint of a breakdown. The vital psychological clue remained as elusive as ever.

  Only one MP was a little more forthcoming – a Labour maverick, who had by chance co-sponsored a non-party bill with Fielding a year previously. He had struck up some kind of working friendship, at least in the precincts of the House. He disclaimed all knowledge of Fielding’s life outside, or of his reasons for ‘doing a bunk’; but then he added that ‘it figured, in a way’.

  The sergeant asked why.

  ‘Strictly off the record.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘You know. Kept himself on too tight a rein. Still waters and all that. Something had to give.’

  ‘I’m not quite with you, sir.’

  ‘Oh come on, laddie. Your job must have taught you no one’s perfect. Or not the way our friend tried to be.’ He expanded. ‘Some Tories are prigs, some are selfish bastards. He wanted to be both. A rich man on the grab and a pillar of the community. In this day and age. Of course it doesn’t wash. He wasn’t all that much of a fool.’ The MP drily quizzed the sergeant. ‘Ever wondered why he didn’t get on here?’

  ‘I didn’t realize he didn’t, sir.’

  ‘Safe seat. Well run. Never in bad odour with his whips. But that’s not what it’s all about, my son. He didn’t fool ’em where it matters. The Commons is like an animal. You either learn to handle it. Or you don’t. Our friend hadn’t a clue. He knew it. He admitted it to me once.’

  ‘Why was that, sir?’

  The Labour MP opened his hands. ‘The old common touch? He couldn’t unbend. Too like the swindler’s best friend he used to be.’ He sniffed. ‘Alias distinguished tax counsel.’

  ‘You’re suggesting he cracked in some way?’

  ‘Maybe he just cracked in the other sense. Decided to tell the first good joke of his life.’

  Jennings smiled; and played naïve.

  ‘Let me get this right, sir. You think he was disillusioned with Tory politics?’

  The Labour MP gave a little grunt of amusement.

  ‘Now you’re asking for human feeling. I don’t think he had much. I’d say just bored. With the whole bloody shoot. The House, the City, playing Lord Bountiful to the yokels. He just wanted out. Me, I wish him good luck. May his example be copied.’

  ‘With respect, sir, none of his family or close friends seem to have noticed this.’

  The MP smiled. ‘Surprise, surprise.’

  ‘They were part of it?’

  The MP put his tongue in his cheek. Then he winked.

  ‘Not a bad-looking bloke, either.’

  ‘Cherchez la femme?’

  ‘We’ve got a little book going. My money’s on Eve. Pure guess, mind.’

  And it really was a guess. He had no evidence at all. The MP concerned was a far more widely known figure than Fielding – a pugnacious showman as well as professional Tory-hater – and hardly a reliable observer. Yet he had suggested one thwarted ambition; and enemies do sometimes see further than friends.

  Jennings next saw the person he had marked down as theoretically a key witness – not least since he also sounded an enemy, though where friend was to be expected. That was the son, Peter. The sergeant had had access to a file that does not officially exist. It had very little to say about Peter; little more indeed than to mention who he was the son of. He was noted as ‘vaguely N L (New Left)’; ‘more emotional than intellectual interest, long way from hardcore’. The ‘Temporary pink?’ with which the brief note on him ended had, in the odd manner of those so dedicated to the anti-socialist cause that they are prepared to spy for it (that is, outwardly adopt the cause they hate), a distinct air of genuine Marxist contempt.

  The sergeant met Peter one day at the Knightsbridge flat. He had something of his father’s tall good looks, and the same apparent difficulty in smiling. He was rather ostentatiously contemptuous of the plush surroundings of the flat; and clearly impatient at having to waste time going over the same old story.

  Jennings himself was virtually apolitical. He shared the general (and his father’s) view that the police got a better deal under a Conservative government, and he despised Wilson. But he didn’t like Heath much better. Much more than he hated either party he hated the general charade of politics, the lying and covering-up that went on, the petty point-scoring. On the other hand he was not quite the fascist pig he very soon sensed that Peter took him for. He had a notion of due process, of justice, even if it had never been really put to the test; and he positively disliked the physical side of police work, the cases of outright brutality he had heard gossip about and once or twice witnessed. Essentially he saw life as a game, which one played principally for oneself and only incidentally out of some sense of duty. Being on the law’s side was a part of the rules, not a moral imperative. So he disliked Peter from the start less for political reasons than for all kinds of vague social and games-playing ones… as one hates an opponent paradoxically both for unfairly taken and inefficiently exploited advantage. Jennings himself would have used the simple word ‘phony’. He did not distinguish between an acquired left-wing contempt for the police and a hereditary class one. He just saw a contempt; and knew much better than the young man opposite him how to hide such a feeling.

  The Thursday evening ‘supper’ had arisen quite casually. Peter had telephoned his father about six to say that he wouldn’t be coming home that weekend after all. His father had suggested they had a meal together that evening, to bring Isobel along. Fielding wanted an early night, it was only for a couple of hours. They had taken him to a new kebab-house in Charlotte Street. He liked ‘slumming’ with them occasionally, eating out like that was nothing new. He had seemed perfectly normal – his ‘usual urbane man-of-the-world act’. They had given up arguing the toss about politics ‘years ago’. They had talked family things. About Watergate. His father had taken The Times line on Nixon (that he was being unfairly impeached by proxy), but didn’t try seriously to defend the White House administration. Isobel had talked about her sister, who had married a would-be and meanwhile impoverished French film director and was shortly expecting a baby. The horrors of a cross-Channel confinement had amused Fielding. They hadn’t talked about anything seriously, there had been absolutely no hint of what was to happen the next day. They had all left together about ten. His father had found a taxi (and had returned straight home, as the night porter had earlier borne witness) and they had gone on to a late film in Oxford Street. There had been no suggestion of a final farewell when they said goodnight to him.

  ‘Do you think you ever convinced your father at all? In the days when you did argue with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He never seemed shaken in his beliefs? Fed up in any way with the political life?’

  ‘Extraordinary though it may seem, also no.’

  ‘But he knew you despised it?’

  ‘I’m just his son.’

  ‘His only son.’

  ‘I gave up. No point. One just makes one more taboo.’

  ‘What other taboos did he have?’

  ‘The usual fifty thousand.’ Peter flicked his eyes round the room. ‘Anything to keep reality at bay.’

  ‘Won’t it all be yours one day?’

  ‘That remains to be seen.’ He added, ‘Whether I want it.’

  ‘Was there a taboo about sex?’

  ‘Which aspect of it?’

  ‘Did he know the nature of your relationship with Miss Dodgson?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake.’

  ‘I’m so
rry, sir. What I’m trying to get at is whether you think he might have envied it.’

  ‘We never discussed it.’

  ‘And you formed no impression?’

  ‘He liked her. Even though she’s not quite out of the right drawer, and all that. And I didn’t mean by taboos expecting his son –’

  The sergeant raised his hand. ‘Sorry. You’re not with me. Whether he could have fancied girls her age.’

  Peter stared at him, then down at his sprawled feet.

  ‘He hadn’t that kind of courage. Or imagination.’

  ‘Or need? Your parents’ marriage was very happy, I believe.’

  ‘Meaning you don’t?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m just asking you.’

  Peter stared at him again a long moment, then stood up and went to the window.

  ‘Look. All right. Maybe you don’t know the kind of world I was brought up in. But its leading principle is never, never, never show what you really feel. I think my mother and father were happy together. But I don’t really know. It’s quite possible they’ve been screaming at each other for years behind the scenes. It’s possible he’s been having it off with any number of women. I don’t think so, but I honestly don’t know. Because that’s the world they live in and I have to live in when I’m with them. You pretend, right? You don’t actually show the truth till the world splits in half under your feet.’ He turned from the window. ‘It’s no good asking me about my father. You could tell me anything about him and I couldn’t say categorically, that’s not true. I think he was everything he outwardly pretended to be. But because of what he is and… I just do not know.’

  The sergeant left a silence.

  ‘In retrospect – do you think he was deceiving you all through that previous evening?’

  ‘It wasn’t a police interrogation, for Christ’s sake. One wasn’t looking for it.’

  ‘Your mother has asked in very high places that we pursue our inquiries. We haven’t very much to go on.’

  Peter Fielding took a deep breath. ‘Okay.’

  ‘This idea of a life of pretence – did you ever see any awareness of that in your father?’

  ‘I suppose socially. Sometimes. All the dreadful bores he had to put up with. The small-talk. But even that far less often than he seemed to be enjoying it.’

  ‘He never suggested he wanted a life without that?’

  ‘Without people you can use? You’re joking.’

  ‘Did he ever seem disappointed his political career hadn’t gone higher?’

  ‘Also taboo.’

  ‘He suggested something like it to someone in the House of Commons.’

  ‘I didn’t say it wasn’t likely. He used to put out a line about the back benches being the backbone of parliament. I never really swallowed that.’ He came and sat down again opposite the sergeant. ‘You can’t understand. I’ve had this all my life. The faces you put on. For an election meeting. For influential people you want something out of. For your old cronies. For the family. It’s like asking me about an actor I’ve only seen on stage. I don’t know.’

  ‘And you’ve no theory on this last face?’

  ‘Only three cheers. If he really did walk out on it all.’

  ‘But you don’t think he did?’

  ‘The statistical probability is the sum of the British Establishment to one. I wouldn’t bet on that. If I were you.’

  ‘I take it this isn’t your mother’s view?’

  ‘My mother doesn’t have views. Merely appearances to keep up.’

  ‘May I ask if your two sisters share your politics at all?’

  ‘Just one red sheep in the family.’

  The sergeant gave him a thin smile. He questioned on; and received the same answers, half angry, half indifferent – as if it were more important that the answerer’s personal attitude was clear than the mystery be solved. Jennings was astute enough to guess that something was being hidden, and that it could very probably be some kind of distress, a buried love; that perhaps Peter was split, half of him wanting what would suit his supposedly independent self best – a spectacular breakdown of the life of pretence – and half wishing that everything had gone on as before. If he was, as seemed likely, really just a temporary pink, his father’s possible plunge into what was the social, if not the political, equivalent of permanent red must be oddly mortifying; as if the old man had said, If you’re really going to spit in your world’s face, then this is the way to do it.

  When the sergeant stood to go, he mentioned that he would like to see the girlfriend, Isobel Dodgson, when she returned to London. She had been in France, in Paris, since some ten days after the disappearance. It had seemed innocent enough. Her sister had just had the expected baby and the visit had apparently been long agreed. Even so – someone else’s vision of a brilliant coup – Miss Dodgson and the comings and goings of her somewhat motley collection of French in-laws had been watched for a few days – and proved themselves monotonously innocent. Peter Fielding seemed rather vague about when exactly she would return. He thought it might not be for another week, when she was due back at her job at a publisher’s.

  ‘And she can’t tell you anything you haven’t heard ten times already.’

  ‘I’d just like to see her briefly, sir.’

  Jennings went on his way then, with once more next to nothing, beyond the contemplation of an unresolved Oedipus complex, for his pains.

  He descended next, by appointment, on Tetbury Hall itself; though before he gave himself the pleasure of seeing its beamed and moated glory, he called on a selected handful of the neighbours. There he got a slightly different view of his subject, and an odd consensus that something thoroughly nasty (if unspecified) had happened. Again, there was praise without reservation for the victim, as if De mortuis was engraved on every county heart. Fielding was such a good master of hounds, or would have been if he hadn’t been so often unavoidably absent; so ‘good for the village’; so generally popular (unlike the previous member). The sergeant tried to explain that a political murder without any evidence for it, let alone a corpse, is neither a murder nor political, but he had the impression that to his listeners he was merely betraying a sad ignorance of contemporary urban reality. He found no one who could seriously believe for a moment that Fielding might have walked deliberately out of a world shortly about to enter the hunting and shooting season.

  Only one person provided a slightly different view of Fielding, and that was the tweed-suited young man who ran his farm for him. It was not a world Jennings knew anything about, but he took to the laconic briskness of the thirty-year-old manager. He sensed a certain reflection of his own feelings about Fielding – a mixture of irritation and respect. The irritation came very clearly, on the manager’s side, from feeling he was not sufficiently his own boss. Fielding liked to be ‘consulted over everything’; and everything had to be decided ‘on accountancy grounds’ – he sometimes wondered why they hadn’t installed a computer. But he confessed he’d learnt a lot, been kept on his toes. Pressed by Jennings, he came up with the word ‘compartmentalized’; a feeling that Fielding was two different people. One was ruthless in running the farm for maximum profit; another was ‘very pleasant socially, very understanding, nothing snobbish about him’. Only a fortnight before the ‘vanishing trick’ happened, he had had a major planning get-together with Fielding. There had not been the faintest sign then that the owner knew he would never see the things they discussed come to fruition. Jennings asked finally, and discreetly, about Mrs Fielding – the possibility that she might have made her husband jealous.

  ‘Not a chance. Not down here, anyway. Be round the village in ten minutes.’

  Mrs Fielding herself did not deny the unlikelihood. Though he had mistrusted Peter, the sergeant had to concede some justice to the jibe about keeping up appearances. It had been tactfully explained to her that Jennings, despite his present rank, was ‘one of our best men’ and had been working full time on the case since the begin
ning – a very promising detective. He put on his public-school manner, made it clear that he was not out of his social depth, that he was glad of the opportunity to meet her in person.

  After telling her something of what he had been doing on the case, he began, without giving their origins, by advancing the theories of Miss Parsons and the Labour MP. The notion that her husband might have realized what he had done and then committed suicide or, from shame, remained in hiding, Mrs Fielding found incredible. His one concern would have been for the anxiety and the trouble he was causing, and to end it as soon as possible. She conceded that the inevitable publicity might irreparably have damaged his political career – but then he had ‘so much else to live for’.

  She refused equally to accept that he was politically disappointed. He was not at all a romantic dreamer, he had long ago accepted that he lacked the singleminded drive and special talents of ministerial material. He was not good at the cut-and-thrust side of parliamentary debate; and he spent rather too much time on the other sides of his life to expect to be a candidate for any Downing Street list. She revealed that Marcus was so little ambitious, or foolishly optimistic, that he had seriously considered giving up his seat at the next election. But she insisted that that was not out of disillusionment – simply from a feeling that he had done his stint. The sergeant did not argue the matter. He asked Mrs Fielding if she had formed any favourite theory herself during that last fortnight.

  ‘One hardly seems to have talked of anything else, but…’ she made an elegant and seemingly rather well-practised gesture of hopelessness.

  ‘At least you feel he’s still alive?’ He added quickly, ‘As you should, of course.’

  ‘Sergeant, I’m in a vacuum. One hour I expect to see him walk through that door, the next…’ again she gestured.

  ‘If he is in hiding, could he look after himself? Can he cook, for instance?’

  She smiled thinly. ‘One hardly lives that sort of life, as you must realize. But the war. No doubt he could look after himself. As one does if one has to.’