Quite Honestly

by John Mortimer

  So I had to switch Terry off. Screwtop was right, of course, I couldn’t speak to Terry then. It would all have to wait until we were together, more together than ever, when I was safely back in Notting Hill Gate.

  We’d sped, and I mean sped, round the M25 and turned off along the M3 and then I could see in the headlights the tall familiar trees round Folly Hill, where Terry and I had our picnic and made love for the first time. I leaned forward by the coiled-up Ozzy to give Screwtop careful directions.

  Now I have to go into a bit of geography. Like all the smart houses in our neighbourhood, God’s Acre had big gates between pillars topped by heraldic devices, in Robin’s case a pair of curly tailed dragons. You had to press a number on one of the pillars for the gates to swing politely open and invite you in. The driveway could take you right round to the back of the house, to a sort of tradesman’s entrance where it joined a narrow lane which led to a wider road, a roundabout and then the main road to Aldershot.

  When we stopped in front of the main gates I dug my Filofax out of my bag and found the magic number. I got out of the car, pressed the numbers and the gates swung open in obedient silence. From that moment, it all seemed like a dream. An exciting dream of course, just as Terry had told me. I was where I shouldn’t have been, doing something I shouldn’t do, and, as the car crunched the gravel, I was listening for every sound, staring into the darkness for every danger, feeling more alone than I think I’d ever felt.

  The gates swung to behind us and there came what seemed to me an ear-splitting chorus loud enough to wake the dead. The dogs were barking in the stables at the side of the house. Screwtop wound down the car window, calling at them and shouting, ‘Fucking dogs, we should give them a whiff of something! ’ With my new self-confidence and general feeling of being team leader, I promised to deal with it. Screwtop was going to take the car to the back of the house and find the kitchen window and I’d join them there after I’d dealt with the dogs.

  The stable door wasn’t locked and I saw the bright eyes of four dogs glowing in the shadows. I suppose they could smell someone they knew and so the loud barks turned to low grumbling whimpers. I found sleek heads to pat and called them softly by their names, ‘Judy’ and ‘Marlene’, ‘Greta’ and ‘Virginia’. They obviously liked to hear their famous names as they licked my hands and then composed themselves for another long sleep. I felt I’d been a huge success with the dogs and after that nothing else was going to be a problem.

  The dogs would wake up Max and he’d be a match for any burglar, Robin had told me. Even when he said it, I rather doubted it. Max’s intake of whisky was such that I felt sure the short chorus of barks wouldn’t have disturbed his sleep in his rooms over the garage. When I got to the back of the house where the car was parked that seemed to be right. My mates (that’s what I called them to myself ) had cut a pane of glass out of the kitchen window, Screwtop had put his hand through and, as I came round the corner to join them, Ozzy Desmond had inserted himself into the open window and was oozing, like some long and dark-suited snake, over the window sill and across the kitchen sink.

  Screwtop, who had become decidedly friendly since I silenced the dogs, helped me in through the window and he squirmed across the sink after me. And then we were in the house with our torches switched on, unheard, unknown and unwelcome visitors, and I felt the extraordinary excitement Terry had described. We were taking the great risk for the great prize and I felt almost like laughing at the danger. Now I knew exactly what Terry felt. We were companions in crime, I suppose you might call us that, and from now on Terry would have no secrets from me.

  As we moved, how quietly we moved, from room to room our torches picked out familiar objects, a cherub on a marble column, photographs on the piano of Robin as a boy, an empty champagne bottle on an inlaid table. In the dining room there were the remains of a solitary meal, not yet cleared away by Max. As Ozzy Desmond finished removing the silver from the sideboard I whispered to Screwtop, ‘Shall I go and get it now?’

  ‘You want a bit of help?’ the whisper came back.

  ‘No, thanks. I can manage it perfectly well on my own.’ Once again you can see how confident I was. No one knew I was there. I felt invisible. I could manage anything.

  I remember going up the staircase in the old days, probably a bit drunk, laughing at one of Robin’s ridiculous bits of gossip. Not now. Not any more. But all that was long ago. In the days before I met Terry and my life seemed to change. I felt elated but not guilty. We really weren’t taking anything Robin couldn’t afford to lose.

  As I reached the bedroom door I switched off my torch and put it in my pocket. I stood in the pitch dark, gripping the cold china door handle.

  Of course I knew how Robin slept. It was a deep sleep and it was hard to wake him, but during it he would make odd murmuring noises with an occasional meaningless word thrown in, as though he was still gossiping in his dreams.

  It was so dark that I had to feel along the wall until I got to the picture frame and, as I touched it, some dark cloud must have moved in a gusting wind and faint moonlight crept across the room. I could see the tall posts of Robin’s bed with their leaves on the top and even made out the naked woman engrossed in drying herself after her bath. She came off the wall with no trouble at all. As Robin muttered something incomprehensible I was out of his room, having closed the door as carefully as I could. I was halfway down the dark passage with £400,000 worth of Pierre Bonnard swinging at my side.

  As I carried the picture down the dark passage, I heard a car driving away fast. Then I started down the stairs and suddenly found myself walking into the brilliant light of Robin’s great candelabra. I realized there were people in the hall. I heard voices but for some reason I didn’t turn back. And at the bottom of the stairs, much to my amazement, I saw Ishmael step forward as if to greet me.

  ‘Ishmael,’ I greeted him, but he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Ishmael Macdonald.’

  He was a rap artist. I felt sure he must be joking until he said, ‘Are you Lucy Agnes Purefoy?’

  ‘You know I am,’ I told him. ‘But I can’t think where you heard about the Agnes.’ (As a matter of fact it was my grandmother’s name, but no one ever used it, certainly not me.)

  ‘I’m arresting you for suspected burglary.’

  As he said this one of the policemen took the Bonnard and I looked up the stairs to see Robin in a silk dressing gown staring down at me. Ishmael was reciting some rigmarole about anything I said being used as evidence against me at my trial, but I wasn’t listening. It all seemed part of the dream and I still hoped that I would wake up in bed with Terry. But then I felt something like a cold clutch on my wrist and I looked down and saw that Ishmael and I were joined by a single handcuff. This had to be a dream I decided. ‘But you’re a rap singer,’ I told him.

  ‘Only as a hobby.’ He was actually smiling. ‘At work I’m DS Ishmael Macdonald, one of the Met’s few Caribbean detective sergeants. Shall we go out to the car?’

  ‘Deirdre never told me.’ I don’t know why I said that.

  ‘No, I think she finds it rather embarrassing.’

  As I went out of the front door I passed Max wearing pyjama trousers and a none too clean vest. At last, when we got out into the driveway, the dogs started howling. I think it was then I woke up. The dream was over.

  26

  As I said, I hadn’t slept after I tried to ring Lucy and she cut me off. After that I lay awake for what seemed a long time, thinking the worst things about her and really surprised at how much I minded. I thought about leaving her perhaps, but then decided that life wouldn’t be much good without her. Only I was going to be quite firm with her and insist that she didn’t go on with some ridiculous story about an all-girls party. I wanted to know the truth, and at about 3.30 in the morning the telephone rang by the bed and I found it out.

  ‘Hello.’ It was Lucy’s voice. ‘Sorry to wake you up.’

  ‘I wasn’t
asleep. Where the hell are you?’

  ‘Hell’s rather a good word for it. I’m in Aldershot Police Station.’

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘Just about to be taken down to my cell. This is the one telephone call I’m allowed.’

  ‘What is it? Were you drunk driving?’ It was my first thought because she had had quite a bit to drink when she drove back from Robin Thirkell’s place that time previously. I didn’t approve, and I told her so.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Something I thought you’d understand.’

  ‘What would I understand?’

  ‘Burglary. Isn’t it your special subject?’ She stopped talking then and I heard some male voices in the background. Then she said, ‘I shouldn’t say any more about it now. They’re going to interview me later. After my sleep in the cell.’

  ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘Why not? You know what it’s like, don’t you?’

  ‘But what do they say you took?’

  ‘I can’t explain it all now. I did it all for you, Terry. Oh, by the way, the Polo’s still in the Charing Cross underground car park. I’ll give the key to these policemen here. I’ve got to go now.’

  ‘All right, but . . .’

  ‘I’m going to miss you, Terry. That’s all I know. I’m going to miss you.’

  And then the line went dead. I got up, made tea and smoked until it was morning and I could do something about getting a brief for Lucy. I didn’t want to ask Chippy, as all the briefs he’d recommended to me during our long association had seemed to work hard to get me guilty verdicts. In the end, I rang my probation officer, Mr Markby. I told him that my friend who I’d tried to stop thieving was now in serious trouble, in fact she’d been arrested for burglary.

  ‘Then you’d better tell me who she is.’

  ‘Lucy Purefoy.’ I couldn’t hide her any longer. Anyway, she’d soon be in all the papers. ‘I met her through SCRAP.’

  ‘Lucy Purefoy, yes! That’s the trouble with these girls from SCRAP. They start off falling in love with the criminal and end up falling in love with crime.’

  In the end, he recommended a guy called Peter Bethell, who was on some committee with SCRAP. He managed to persuade Mr Bethell to get himself down to Aldershot by the time Lucy got interviewed. I’ve kept the official note of that interview, like I kept everything to do with Lucy, to have something to remember her by. I don’t suppose her answers did her a whole lot of good at the time.

  INTERVIEW CONDUCTED WITH LUCY AGNES

  PUREFOY AT 10.30 A.M. ON 22 JULY 2005 BY

  DS ISHMAEL MACDONALD IN THE PRESENCE OF

  DC GUTTERIDGE. PUREFOY HAVING CHOSEN TO

  BE LEGALLY REPRESENTED, THERE WAS ALSO

  PRESENT MR PETER BETHELL OF THE FIRM

  BETHELL, SHERMAN AND PENSOTTI.

  DS MACDONALD: I am Detective Sergeant Ishmael Macdonald and this is Detective Constable Gutteridge, who is taking a full note of this interview. You are Lucinda Agnes Purefoy?

  PUREFOY: You know perfectly well who I am.

  DS MACDONALD: This is for the record.

  PUREFOY: All right. And for the record you’re Ishmael, described as a rap artist, friend of my friend Deirdre, who you met through SCRAP.

  DS MACDONALD: You shouldn’t be asking me questions.

  PUREFOY: If you want me to answer your questions, you must answer mine.

  DS MACDONALD: Very well. I met Deirdre through SCRAP when I came to speak there as a sergeant, representing the police.

  PUREFOY: They made you a detective sergeant?

  DS MACDONALD: Certainly.

  PUREFOY: How many detective sergeants from the Caribbean are there?

  DS MACDONALD: The Metropolitan Police is no longer a racist institution. I am one of the many detective sergeants of different ethnic origins.

  PUREFOY: Many?

  DS MACDONALD: Some. DC Gutteridge, will you leave this part of the interview out of the record?

  DC GUTTERIDGE: Not possible. It’s my duty to record the whole interview verbatim.

  DS MACDONALD: Oh, very well. (To Purefoy) Would you like a cup of tea?

  PUREFOY: No thanks. Your tea’s disgusting. You could stand a spoon up in it. If you had an Earl Grey tea bag you could just wave it over the water.

  DS MACDONALD: Well, we haven’t. Now, you were found leaving God’s Acre Manor at 3.00 a.m. in possession of a valuable painting.

  PUREFOY: What I want to know is how you got there.

  DS MACDONALD: I have to suggest it was because of what you told me.

  PUREFOY: What I told you when?

  DS MACDONALD: I have warned you. It’s not for you to ask the questions.

  MR BETHELL (SOLICITOR): I think my client is entitled to know what you suggest she said and on what occasion.

  DS MACDONALD: Oh, very well then. It was in the Close-Up Club and you said you had a great idea that would bring you closer to Terry Keegan, a man with a lengthy criminal record. It seemed possible that you were planning to participate in some crime to please your lover. So you were kept under observation.

  PUREFOY: Is that why you kept bobbing up wherever I went? And were my telephone calls getting interfered with?

  DS MACDONALD: Once again, I must warn you not to ask me questions.

  PUREFOY: I thought you were a rap artist. I’ve heard you rap.

  DS MACDONALD: Rap is my spare-time hobby. Serving with the Metropolitan Police is my full-time calling. Will you please answer my question now? How did you get to God’s Acre Manor last night?

  PUREFOY: I’ll leave you to find that out.

  DS MACDONALD: As we approached the house, a car drove rapidly away from the back entrance. Did you come in that car?

  PUREFOY: If you heard that why didn’t you drive after it and find out?

  DS MACDONALD: At that stage we couldn’t drive through the main gates.

  PUREFOY: You mean because you hadn’t got the secret number?

  AT 10.45 A.M. MR BETHELL ASKED TO BE ALLOWED TO GIVE SOME ADVICE TO HIS CLIENT. THERE WAS A SHORT DISCUSSION BETWEEN THEM AT THE OTHER END OF THE ROOM. INTERVIEW RESUMED AT 11.00 A.M.

  PUREFOY: I’m sorry. I’m told I shouldn’t have said that. I mean about you being a good rap artist.

  DS MACDONALD: As I have clearly said, it would be better if you confined yourself to answering my questions. Did you enter the house through the kitchen window?

  PUREFOY: That’s for you to find out.

  DS MACDONALD: We found no fingerprints. Did you and your companions wear gloves?

  PUREFOY: I didn’t say I had any companions.

  DS MACDONALD: We found foot marks. There must have been at least three of you.

  PUREFOY: Must there?

  DS MACDONALD: You were seen lately in the company of a man called Parkinson, sometimes known as Screwtop.

  PUREFOY: You mean you saw him in the Brummell Club.

  DS MACDONALD: How did you know that man?

  PUREFOY: I think he once knew Terry.

  DS MACDONALD: What were you talking about when you were with him in the Brummell Club?

  PUREFOY: I think we discussed the weather. Oh, and American foreign policy.

  DS MACDONALD: Was he with you when you stole the picture?

  PUREFOY: I’ve told you, I was alone. There was no one else with me. No one.

  DS MACDONALD: Then who was driving away in the car? Was it perhaps your lover, Terry Keegan?

  PUREFOY: No, it certainly wasn’t.

  DS MACDONALD: You see? You are capable of answering a question. Who was it then?

  PUREFOY: I don’t know. I have no idea. Please don’t go on asking me to do your detective work for you.

  DS MACDONALD: Would you like a cup of tea?

  PUREFOY: I’ve told you. I’d hate a cup of your tea and I don’t want to answer any more questions. I want to go to sleep.

  DS MACDONALD: We’ll see how you feel about it later.


  PUREFOY: I still won’t want to answer any questions. Oh, by the way, give my love to Deirdre. But tell her she might have warned me you were a sneaky member of the Metropolitan Police.

  THE INTERVIEW ENDED AT 11.25 A.M.

  27

  After the interview I stretched out on the bed in my police cell and went back to sleep. Sleep seemed to be the only way of getting through the next days, weeks, maybe years of my life. I’d done all I wanted to do in the interview. I realized it wasn’t exactly what I ought to have done and that I was a bit rude to the alleged rap artist cop in disguise, but I couldn’t help that. I was more sorry that I had to disappoint Mr Bethell.

  Peter Bethell, he explained when he turned up rather to my surprise at the police station, was a ‘close personal friend’ of Orlando Wathen, the previous chair of SCRAP who was so puzzled by the causes of crime. I quickly discovered that the two shared a house together, so the relationship was altogether close and permanent.

  Mr Bethell looked like a middle-aged schoolboy. He had a lock of brown hair, hardly tinged with grey, which fell untidily over his forehead. He had a ready grin which varied between the ingratiating and the cheeky. He spoke rather fast, sometimes as though the general excitement of entering prison and talking to criminals was almost too much for him. He was, as I was to discover, a sort of criminal’s groupie. He spoke of the well-known felons he had defended, figures like Oscar Snell, the murderer who buried two extra bodies in a grave-yard, and Rory Baxter, the Bond Street bank robber, as though they were great stars of the stage and screen and he was their producer, or at least their agent. He was obviously delighted to meet me and thought he might also be able to turn me into a star. I’m afraid he was impressed by the fact that my dad is a bishop.