Pratt a Manger

by David Nobbs

  ‘But not Bradley.’

  ‘No, not Bradley.’

  ‘Oh God. I want it to be Bradley.’

  ‘This probably isn’t the time to mention it,’ said Hilary, ‘but I do hate that painting. I mean, who else would have a picture of a portion of coq au vin in his hall?’

  ‘Exactly. That’s why I like it,’ said Henry.

  They sat in silence for a few moments.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ said Hilary. ‘You’ve got to stop it or it’ll get worse. You’ve got to get off your arse and do a bit of detection.’

  ‘I will. As soon as we get home. I’ll start with the two farms. They have to be at the heart of it.’

  On Tuesday, 22 April, 2003, thousands of commuters returning to London after the Easter break found chaos because ‘a fresh breeze’ had delayed signal repairs, and Paddington Station had remained closed; Cherie Blair defended the invasion of Iraq as acceptable under international law during a speech in Perth, Western Australia; and Henry went into the Sussex countryside with his beloved daughter, Kate.

  As they drove to Martin Wildblood Farms, Organic is Their Middle Name, the conversation inevitably got round to Kate’s love life, or the lack of it.

  ‘So?’ asked Henry, after they had at last left the shabby, congested streets of South London behind and were travelling through the rich, rolling countryside of East Sussex, studded with magnolias and camellias and the pink and white blossoms of cherry and apple trees at this most beautiful time of the year.

  ‘No,’ replied Kate.

  That was the beauty of their relationship. They understood each other so well.

  ‘But not because I’ve ruled it out,’ she added. ‘I did think about what you’d said.’

  ‘So?’ he asked again, but with a completely different meaning. Again Kate understood.

  ‘I just haven’t met the right person. I haven’t met anyone good enough for me.’

  Henry winced and smiled at the same time.

  ‘I’ve shocked you.’

  ‘A bit. I’d be more comfortable with me saying it, as befits a proud parent with a marvellous daughter. It did perhaps sound a trifle arrogant coming from you.’

  He turned off the main road on to the side road that would lead to the farm. His spirits usually soared when he left main roads. Today, though, he felt only a sharp increase in tension.

  ‘I didn’t mean it in an arrogant way,’ said Kate. ‘I just meant that there isn’t a vast gap in my life, I’m not lonely or pathetic, I don’t feel unfulfilled, so I wouldn’t want to share my life with anybody who wasn’t pretty special.’

  ‘What about actors? You must meet plenty of them.’

  ‘Actors tend to be specially pretty rather than pretty special.’

  They wound through a long, unpretentious village, pretty houses among plainer ones, council houses at both ends.

  ‘But, yes, Dad,’ said Kate, ‘I would like to give and receive love. I remember sex with a nostalgic glow. Only … don’t hold your breath. Your daughter is fussy.’

  Henry turned into the drive leading to the farm.

  ‘Is this the place?’ said Kate. ‘It’s lovely.’

  When they got out of the car, Henry went up to Kate and kissed her on both cheeks.

  ‘Very continental,’ he said, ‘and talking about continental, I see the point of what you say, but I just wouldn’t want you to be left on the shelf.’

  Kate gave him a dry, exasperated look, and he felt obliged to explain like a second-rate comic.

  ‘Continental shelf? Get it?’

  ‘Oh, I got it,’ she said. ‘Good old Dad with his jokes – but I just have a fear that it was a warning dressed up as a joke. It’s a disastrously chauvinist expression – “on the shelf”. Missed the great experience of a man’s love. I certainly don’t feel like that.’

  Henry didn’t reply. He didn’t feel the need to. They had reached the front door of the mellow old farmhouse. There was nothing more to be said. He had made his point, Kate had seen through him, and he had been reassured – to a certain extent, at least. At times he almost wished that he didn’t love Kate so much. Caring deeply was hard work.

  At the last moment he remembered that Marie and Martin didn’t use the front door. They went round the side.

  Marie broke into a smile when she saw who it was. So she did find him cuddly!

  ‘This is my daughter, Kate,’ he said, trying to hide his pride, knowing that it would irritate Kate if he showed her off as if she was a prized possession.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Marie.

  Henry explained that he wanted to make further enquiries. Marie made them mugs of steaming coffee, and fetched their man, Colin, who had returned from Madeira. His face was tanned. His manner was apologetic.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘All it was was, a man rang, and said he wanted to play a practical joke on a chum, and would I just make myself scarce for a couple of hours on Saturday morning. Two hundred quid. A hundred an hour for doing sod all. I didn’t think there was any harm in it.’

  ‘Of course not. Did you ever see this person?’

  ‘No. Just heard his voice. He left the money as arranged, and I thought no more about it.’

  ‘Was there anything you can usefully say about his voice? Can you describe it?’

  ‘I have thought of one thing,’ said Colin, ‘because I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot. I’ve sort of tried to play the voice back, in my mind, and one thing struck me, though in a way it tells you nothing. The person who phoned me – I don’t think they were using their own voice. I can hear it now. It was careful, it wasn’t natural, and it was rather odd: high-pitched.’

  ‘So he must have thought you’d recognise his real voice,’ said Kate. ‘That narrows it down.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Colin. ‘That’s clever of you. It never crossed my mind.’

  Nor mine, admitted Henry to himself wryly. Black mark, Sherlock Pratt. Well done, Kate Watson.

  ‘I’m in the theatre,’ said Kate. ‘We do improvisations a lot. When you start you think you’ll never be able to think of anything, but in the end you find yourself thinking of far more things than you ever thought you could think of.’

  The two men laughed.

  ‘I know,’ said Kate. ‘I thought it sounded ridiculous as I was saying it.’

  ‘It’s great, though,’ said Henry. ‘A great thought. You said the voice was high-pitched, Colin. Could it have been a woman?’

  ‘I wondered about that,’ said Colin. ‘I think I was a bit stupid not to suspect the voice at the time, but you don’t, do you? You don’t answer the phone thinking, “I wonder if this person is using their real voice”, do you? I think now …’

  He paused.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think now … I could be wrong … but I think it could have been somebody pretending to be the opposite sex to what they were.’

  ‘Mrs Scatchard and …’ Kate saw Henry’s urgent warning look and stopped without mentioning Bradley’s name. She blushed slightly as she realised her carelessness.

  ‘Possibly,’ said Henry. ‘Or possibly not. Do you think, Colin, that it sounded more like a man trying to sound like a woman or a woman trying to sound like a man? Can you say?’

  Colin thought long and hard, and it looked as if the process was hurting his brain.

  ‘Could have been either,’ he said.

  ‘I know this is going to sound ridiculous, Colin,’ said Henry, ‘but could you make a list of everyone you know?’

  ‘Everyone I know?’

  ‘Yes. I mean within reason. Everyone who might know you well enough to feel that they needed to use a false voice.’

  ‘Well I suppose I could. I could rack my brains. Is it important?’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘I’ll have a go tonight.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Also …’ Henry paused, narrowed his eyes, looked at Colin severely, lowered his voice and
spoke slowly and intensely, in the vain hope that, just for a few moments, he might sound like a great detective. ‘… could you particularly try to remember people who’d have known that Marie and Martin were going to be away?’

  ‘A lot would. They had a big silver wedding party not long before they went. They told everybody. It was no secret. They were that excited about going. They don’t get away much.’

  Henry thanked Colin warmly, and called out to Marie that they had finished. She came back into the kitchen, and said, ‘Was he helpful?’

  ‘Possibly very. Marie, this isn’t going to sound very nice, but I have to ask it.’

  ‘Of course. These things are important.’

  He explained Colin’s feelings about the voice of the person who telephoned.

  She nodded gravely. She realised the implications.

  ‘Could you possibly give me a list of everyone who might have known you were going to Majorca at that time?’

  ‘Good Lord. Well, I could try.’

  ‘I’d be grateful, if you would. That … er … that would include, I suppose, everyone who came to your silver wedding party.’

  ‘But, Mr Pratt, those are our family and our very best friends.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Obviously nice people, and innocent, but just one of them … you never know … it might mean something. I’ll use the information very discreetly, I promise. Please.’

  ‘Well, all right. I’ll do it tonight.’

  Henry was very quiet on the way home.

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ said Kate.

  ‘I’m depressed.’

  ‘Waste of time?’

  ‘I fear not.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A couple of remarks, nothing brilliant, things I knew before, have fallen into place. All too easily. No real detective work needed. Kate, there are people I expect to see on that list, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I’m not telling. I might be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Except …’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘It has to be somebody.’

  They were silent for several miles.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What are you doing the weekend after next?’

  ‘I don’t think anything. Why?’

  ‘How would you like to come to Grayling?’

  ‘Has that anything to do with all this?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well … yes … I’m intrigued.’

  ‘Good. You made models of people for one of your plays, didn’t you, if I remember? Dummies. Puppets. People brought them on to the stage and worked the arms and legs, making extra characters out of them.’

  ‘Yes. Created less out of artistic inspiration than economic necessity.’

  ‘I seem to remember that they were quite realistic.’

  ‘Fairly.’

  ‘Would they pass for real people travelling in a car at thirty miles an hour, if somebody just caught a casual glimpse?’

  ‘I would think so.’

  ‘Will you make some models for me, and bring them with you to Grayling? Realistic, life-size models of real people.’

  ‘What real people?’

  ‘Well … you.’

  ‘Me??’

  ‘You. And me?’

  ‘You??’

  ‘Me. Possibly one or two others. Jack, if he’s free. He’d be useful.’

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘No, probably not your mum.’

  ‘What is all this?’

  ‘I’m going to lay a trap.’

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

  ‘Not very, I wouldn’t have thought.’

  ‘Is it wise to take the law into your own hands?’

  ‘I don’t think I was ever wise – and do you have any faith in the police?’

  ‘Of course not, but it all seems a bit melodramatic.’

  ‘Like one of your plays.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad, no. It’s not at all like one of our plays. It’s much sillier.’

  On Wednesday, 23 April, 2003, the World Health Organisation warned that the Sars epidemic had made Toronto unsafe to visit; the Headmistress of Harrogate Ladies’ College locked herself in a boarding house with forty-three pupils (or, as The Times put it, ‘with forty-three other pupils’, as if the headmistress was a pupil) because they had been in infected parts of the Far East; bird watchers were questioned after a 31-year-old woman was murdered, burnt and dumped at her favourite woodland spot – the Pulborough Brook RSPB nature reserve in West Sussex (which led to Greg being asked, in the Café in Frith Street, what he thought of the RSPB, to which he replied, ‘Well, I think it’s a good idea. You need to know how many people are coming if you give a party’); and Henry Pratt drove not to West Sussex but to West Kent, accompanied by his very good friend, Lampo Davey.

  When he’d asked Lampo if he fancied a day in the Kentish countryside, Lampo had surprised him by saying that he’d love it.

  ‘I thought you hated the country,’ Henry had said.

  ‘I hate staying in it. If I can be safely tucked up in Chelsea at bedtime, I’m happy to enjoy its beauties.’

  ‘Of course, don’t come if the Café can’t spare you,’ Henry had said.

  ‘It can,’ Lampo had answered drily. ‘I’ve got it running so efficiently that I’ve rendered myself unnecessary. First big mistake of an inexperienced manager.’

  It was a lovely spring morning. The air was fresh, the visibility was sharp, the countryside was bathed in sunshine with the passing shadows of fluffy clouds. The sun shone on mellow oast-houses and lazy rivers, on deep woods and tidy orchards, in a corner miraculously untouched by the motorways and railway lines that marched across East Kent like invading armies.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Lampo, ‘what’s left of it. The best landscape in the world.’

  ‘No better than Tuscany, surely, Lampo?’ He imitated the youthful voice of Lampo, laying on the sophistication to discomfort Henry at school a thousand years before: ‘ “The English countryside in summer is a featureless confusion of weeds. Compare it with Tuscany, Pratt.”’

  ‘I was full of shit. But how do you remember that? I must have made quite an impression on you.’

  ‘Oh, you did. We didn’t have people like you in Thurmarsh.’

  They crossed a hump-backed bridge. They passed a duck pond, the ducks arranged on it like blobs of sauce on a plate.

  ‘How are you really, Lampo?’ Henry asked. ‘Are you … well, I suppose you must be … missing Denzil as much as ever?’

  ‘More than ever.’

  ‘You’re not … you haven’t …?’

  ‘Oh no. My libido has finally bitten the dust, Henry. That’s the only good thing about growing old. These days there are youngsters with T-shirts boasting that they’re asexual. I wouldn’t want to go that far. I get some pleasure from my memories. Oh, but Henry, what a relief it is not to fancy boys any more.’

  A rabbit ran across the road in front of them. Lampo didn’t spurn the conversational opportunity.

  ‘If only asexuality could become fashionable for rabbits,’ he said. ‘It’d be so much more painless than myxomatosis.’

  They passed a deserted cricket ground, dipped into a village of slate-hung houses, rose through a wood, and dropped slowly towards the only ugly thing they had seen since they left London – Happy Fields Farm.

  ‘Good God,’ said Lampo, as he surveyed the bleak bungalow, the low grey sheds, the huge pylons. ‘Is this it?’

  ‘There’s no need for you to come in with me,’ said Henry. ‘It would offend your sensibilities.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Henry knocked on the door. There was no bell.

  The door opened one and a half inches.

  ‘Yes?’ said the farmer’s wife, whose name Henry suddenly remembered – Cynthia Brown. She should never have been a Cynthia.

&
nbsp; ‘I called to see you after that advert about Happy Fields on the TV,’ said Henry.

  ‘Oh yes. Come in.’

  She took ages to unfasten the chain.

  ‘You can’t be too careful these days,’ said Cynthia Brown. ‘There are some funny people about.’

  She looked across to Lampo as she said this.

  ‘My friend Lampo Davey,’ said Henry.

  ‘You don’t have to leave him in the car.’

  How could he tell her that Lampo would hate every second he spent in her home?

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘and thank you, but he’s allergic to bungalows. Gets terrible claustrophobia if there aren’t any stairs.’

  The bungalow smelt of disuse.

  ‘I was just making a cup of tea,’ said Cynthia Brown. ‘Would you like one?’

  ‘That would be very nice,’ said Henry overoptimistically.

  ‘Howard’s out, I’m afraid. He’s in Tunbridge Wells, changing his will. He’s cutting out a cousin who sent him a saucy birthday card. He was disgusted.’

  ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  The tea was weak and milky. Henry found that he was closing his eyes every time he took a sip, as if that might help.

  He really had only one question to ask, but he dreaded the answer, so he kept putting it off. He explained that he was searching for information on anybody who might have known of the name Happy Fields and used it. Had they had any suspicious callers?

  ‘We don’t have callers,’ said Cynthia Brown proudly. ‘We’ve made the house what you might call caller-unfriendly. We have each other, you see, and we’re happy with that. Well, we get plenty of company from the telly. Corrie, EastEnders. Neighbours. Who needs real neighbours? You probably think we’re saddos.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Henry. Having begun to lie, he thought he might as well go the whole hog. ‘Nice cup of tea.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He felt an overwhelming urge to escape from the bungalow. He felt a surge of the claustrophobia that he had invented for Lampo. It was the spur that gave him the courage to ask the question. He mentioned a couple of names and asked Cynthia Brown if they meant anything to her.

  Her face hardened.

  ‘They’re relatives,’ she said, as Henry had feared she would.

  Then her face softened, as if she’d remembered something nice about them – and indeed she had.