Death in Devon (The County Guides)

by Ian Sansom

  ‘Quite,’ I said.

  ‘Good enough to eat!’ pronounced Woland, eating his spoonful of creamy flan.

  Miriam called across the table; she had been taking a quiet interest in our conversation.

  ‘You do know Mr Sefton was a schoolmaster himself for a long time. Isn’t that right, Sefton?’

  ‘No?’ said the German, his mouth half full. ‘But you should have said! You know exactly what I am talking about.’

  ‘Well, perhaps not quite—’ I began.

  ‘And then he went to fight in Spain,’ said Miriam. Unfortunately, this announcement coincided with a sudden lull in the table’s conversation.

  ‘Spain?’ said Alex.

  ‘See any action?’ asked Jon Jones the Welshman.

  ‘A little,’ I said, which was the answer I gave to anyone who asked such a stupid and offensive question.

  ‘Perhaps you’d be prepared to instruct the boys in a little rifle shooting?’ said Jon Jones. ‘We have an excellent little cadet corps here.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Signalling, perhaps?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Ah, that’s such a shame. We took some of them to a camp at Aldershot last year. Do you remember, Bernhard?’

  ‘I do, Jon, yes.’

  ‘Yes, a great success,’ said Alex. ‘Great success.’

  Our conversation, unfortunately, was now the conversation of the table.

  ‘Perhaps we could persuade you to assist the boys with some PT?’ said Dr Standish, from the top of the table. ‘Alex is on a mission to get our boys fit, aren’t you, Alex?’

  ‘I am indeed, Headmaster.’

  ‘We were all rather shamed, I think, by our dismal showing at the Olympic Games. Can’t let the Germans take over, can we – with apologies, Mr Bernhard.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mr Bernhard jovially. ‘Not at all!’

  ‘We have a gymnasium in one of the outbuildings, if you’re interested.’

  ‘And God’s gymnasium all around you,’ said Morley.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Dr Standish.

  ‘Actually, I was thinking of taking the boys surfing while I was here, if they might be interested?’ said Morley.

  ‘Surfing?’ said Dr Standish.

  ‘Riding the waves on a wooden board?’ said Alex. ‘Is that correct, Mr Morley?’

  ‘It is indeed,’ said Morley.

  ‘Well, that certainly sounds like a jolly enterprise,’ said the headmaster. ‘Why not? Perhaps the day after Founder’s Day, if you’re able to stay on?’

  ‘Sounds splendid. I’ll get something arranged,’ said Morley.

  Conversations then devolved once again and Mr Bernhard turned to me.

  ‘Now, we must discuss your educational theories and pedagogical practices, Mr Sefton.’

  I was delighted when we retired to the staff common room for coffee and cigars.

  Pre-prandial sherry, wine, port and flagons of local cider had been drunk with the meal, which had had the inevitable effect, and I prepared to leave the common room when a number of the teachers began serenading one another with renditions of songs by Layton and Johnstone – ‘It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More’ and other hideosities – and the drama teacher was warming up for her apparently hilarious imitation of Queen Victoria. Also, someone had produced from somewhere a ukulele – dread instrument – and Morley had begun tuning it up, with ‘My-Dog-Has-Fleas’, which everyone seemed to find hilarious. This did not bode well. The common room also sported a rickety old yellow-toothed piano in one corner: I foresaw honky-tonk and possibly Gay Gordons on the horizon.

  I went to make my excuses to Dr Standish.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, taking me by the elbow and leading me away from the crowd. He lowered his voice. ‘I’m afraid some of the rooms are not yet completed. I wonder if it would be an awful inconvenience if we were to ask you to lodge down at the farmhouse? It’s just a very short walk, past some of the teachers’ houses. I’ve asked them to leave some lamps on so you can find your way to it in the dark.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said, wishing I could simply curl up and go to sleep right there.

  ‘Mr Morley and his charming daughter will of course be staying here in Peek House with us.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can have your case sent down for you, if you’d like?’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary, I can take it myself.’

  ‘Very good. The couple down at the farmhouse are expecting you: you’ll find them very welcoming.’

  I went to say goodnight to Morley.

  ‘Ah, Sefton. Retiring for the night?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Morley.’

  ‘All work and no play?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Glad to be back among your own, though?’

  ‘My own?’

  ‘Teachers,’ he said. ‘You were a teacher, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was, Mr Morley.’

  ‘You know, Sefton, I had quite forgotten,’ he continued, ‘how much fun are teachers!’

  ‘Aren’t they just,’ I said.

  He leaned in close and spoke in a whisper. ‘And how repellent are their table manners. Goodnight, Sefton.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Morley.’

  It was a beautiful clear moonlit night, the violet-black sky full of stars. I remembered nights like it in Spain – shells bursting in the darkness. I walked in the bright darkness down to the farmhouse, past fields and labourers’ cottages, half expecting to see Abednego again, out walking the grounds. But everywhere was quiet and deserted.

  The night air was cool. Autumn was beginning to make itself felt. Nature was on the turn.

  CHAPTER 7

  TO RECORD EVERY DETAIL

  I WAS MET AT THE FARMHOUSE by an elderly couple who had reached that inevitable stage in married life where they had begun to resemble one another: both silver-haired, both dark-skinned, both poorly dressed in clothes little better than rags, and both with deep brown melting eyes. It was like being greeted by a pair of very old and mournful mongrels.

  The lady of the house introduced herself as Mrs Gooding and kindly offered me a cup of tea and a tongue sandwich, which she had already prepared, and which sat lolling expectantly on the kitchen table, attended by lazy flies. I declined the tongue sandwich.

  ‘But you’ll have a cup of tea, of course?’

  ‘I will, thank you, madam, yes.’

  The man of the house, Mr Gooding, sat in a low chair by the kitchen range. He grimaced upon my entry, baring his teeth at me, which were rather few, and those few a troubling black and yellow. He looked like a man with a mouthful of wasps.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m Stephen Sefton. You’re kindly putting me up, I understand?’

  Mr Gooding stared at me in his rotten, waspish, gaptoothed fashion, while Mrs Gooding poured the tea from the big black tinker’s kettle set on the range.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ said Mrs Gooding, ladling milk and sugar into my tea. ‘The headmaster told us you were coming.’

  ‘Good.’

  Mr Gooding growled a little at the mention of the headmaster.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ said Mrs Gooding. ‘Have you come far?’

  ‘Norfolk,’ I said.

  ‘Norfolk!’ she said, as if it were the moon. ‘My my. That is a long way.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, sipping at the scalding sweet tea. ‘It is. Do you know I think I might turn in if that’s—’

  ‘Where is Norfolk?’ said Mrs Gooding. ‘I just can’t picture it.’

  ‘It’s over in East Anglia,’ I said.

  ‘East Anglia,’ she said. ‘Is that somewhere in London?’

  ‘Yes. Well, it’s … near, I suppose. Nearish.’

  ‘Is it a town?’

  ‘It’s a county.’

  ‘Ah, of course. Nor-folk,’ she said, emphasising the folk.

  ‘Anyway. It’s been a long day, so—’

  ‘Would you
like some pie and custard?’

  ‘Well, that’s very generous of you, but—’

  ‘We’re coming to the end of our supply of blackberry and apple, I’m afraid. But they’ll be a new crop soon. And we’ve a nice beest custard to go with it.’

  ‘Erm …’ I wasn’t entirely sure what a beest custard was – assuming it might be a ‘beast’ custard, containing—

  ‘He loves a nice beest custard.’ She nodded towards her husband.

  ‘A beest custard?’

  ‘You don’t have those in Nor-folk?’

  ‘It’s possible we do. I’m actually from London myself, but Mr Morley is—’

  ‘From the beest milk?’

  ‘The beast milk?’

  ‘Third milking, lovely for making custards. Nice rich custard. Sort of …’

  ‘Meaty,’ piped up Mr Gooding. ‘A good beest custard.’

  ‘I don’t think I will, if that’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’ve just had a rather substantial meal down at the—’

  ‘Good,’ said Mr Gooding. ‘All the more for us.’

  ‘Now, don’t mind him,’ said Mrs Gooding. ‘He’s only joking.’ And then she added, lowering her voice, ‘It’s just he’s lost more chickens.’

  ‘Losht more chickens,’ repeated Mr Gooding.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Well, I’m terribly sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Foxes,’ said Mrs Gooding.

  ‘Foxes!’ repeated Mr Gooding, spitting on the range.

  ‘Don’t that do that, Solomon,’ said Mrs Gooding. ‘We’ve company.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘Foxes. Terrible menace, but—’

  ‘I’ve never met a fox that opens the door and shuts it behind him,’ said Mr Gooding, in a sudden outburst.

  ‘Solomon!’ said Mrs Gooding.

  ‘It’s them boys,’ he said. ‘Bloody boys.’

  ‘Surely not,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of him now,’ said Mrs Gooding. ‘It’s just the shock.’

  ‘Jhust the schock!’ repeated Mr Gooding, who spat again on the range. ‘We never had any trouble before the school came.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mrs Gooding, ‘you’re wanting your bed.’ At which she hurriedly ushered me up a narrow staircase to a little room above the kitchen: drab, damp, undecorated and grubby, with distemper peeling from its walls, a dark dank wooden ceiling, a bed, a half-broken chair, and a small steaming iron stove. This was to be my billet.

  ‘There we are. This is you,’ said Mrs Gooding.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You let me know if you need anything.’ And she bustled away.

  I heard raised voices from downstairs.

  It was the sort of room where one might imagine Keats – or more likely Chatterton – writing lonely verses. I did not that night write any verses, lonely or otherwise. Despite the poverty of the room and its decoration it was, like Mrs Gooding, entirely sincere. The sheets on the bed were crisp and dry and the pillows downy, and it had indeed been a long day, and so I lay down gratefully and immediately fell asleep, with the sensation almost of drowning in the embrace of some vast welcoming creature.

  When I awoke the next morning I was shocked to find myself still dressed in my clothes. Resisting the temptation to practise my pranic breathing I instead smoked a cigarette lying on the bed, then straightened myself up and went downstairs, where I found no sign of the Goodings, though in the kitchen the big black tinker’s kettle sat rattling on the range, and a plate of farm bread and butter with apple jelly was set out invitingly on the table. I poured myself a cup of tea, took a slice of the bread, and sat down on an old wooden chair by the range to smoke, to compose myself and make my plans for the day.

  Morley’s speech was scheduled for three o’clock that afternoon, my farming hosts seemed to be at work already, Miriam would not be up for hours and would then doubtless be preoccupied with Alexander, so I thought I might make the most of a quiet morning to explore the school grounds, the Devon coast, and to take a few photographs.

  I was looking forward to an easy day.

  Relaxed and resolved, armed with my camera, and slowly but surely beginning to uplift myself with quantities of tea and tobacco, I wandered back towards the main school building in the early morning sunlight and wondered about the difference the day made: in contrast to its forbidding features the night before, All Souls now appeared a place benign and wondrous. The turrets and gables sang and soared rather than grappled towards the sky, and the meadow down towards the clifftops and the sea glistened in the morning light. It was also as quiet as a monastery, which I knew could mean only one thing: breakfast. From reading the position of the sun in the sky – a trick taught me by Morley – and from my years of experience, I guessed that the traditional hour of porridge was upon us, and so I followed my nose into the school, which might have been every school: the murky seagreen paint, the clanging of cutlery, the stench of unwashed boys, and disinfectant and sewage. I could almost hear the porridge pots bubbling on the stove.

  And sure enough, the dining hall, where only the evening before two dozen of us had feasted upon fine food and wine, was now packed with boys, perhaps three hundred of them, of assorted shapes and sizes, some of them seated and silently tucking in to their thin, gruel-like provisions, others queuing for theirs from a couple of cooks who stood guard over a cauldron of porridge and a jam pan full of steaming tea.

  The sight of three hundred expectant faces turning towards me made me feel instantly queasy, and took me back to my own wretched schooldays, which had been characterised by all the usual privations and difficulties: the usual slaps and kicks and punches, the usual punishments and raggings, all the usual sadism and torture, the pointless endless public school jolly japes and roundabout of violence. It has of course become fashionable now to denigrate our great public schools, but in my experience they are – or certainly were – places more than worthy of such denigration. I remember there was one particular boy at our school, an Italian Jew, Levi, who we had tormented ceaselessly and mercilessly from dawn till dusk and from his first day to his last, excluding him from games and activities, staff and students alike, taunting him, beating him with even more than the usual ferocity. ‘Jew, Jew, a smoggy smoggy Jew’ was the rhyme. And then one day in assembly we were singing a hymn and Levi laughed at something we were singing – something to do with Jesus, meek and mild. He actually laughed out loud: I suppose it must have been all the pressure and tension building up inside him, a kind of release of tension. And the headmaster, who was also our divinity teacher, rushed down and pulled him from the line by his hair and started beating him there and then, in front of the whole school, and we were all laughing, it was so shocking. We didn’t know what to do. And then the headmaster dragged him out of the school hall and I don’t know what happened next but Levi simply never returned. He disappeared from our lives. And we never asked why. Nor did we care. It was the natural order of things.

  Several of the teachers – including my German friend, Mr Bernhard – beckoned me from my reverie and over towards the high table, where they suggested I join them for breakfast, but there was no sign there of Morley, or indeed of the headmaster, or of Miriam, or Alexander, and with the hungry eyes of both teachers and pupils upon me I excused myself, explaining that I needed to go and take some early morning photographs of the school estate.

  Relieved, I made my way out of the front of the building, gasping in the fresh air, and strode swiftly on past a gatehouse, and then down a long, steep, wooded, winding dirt road – which must have been the road we had taken in the car the previous night with Miriam. At the bottom of this road was what appeared to be a water-pumping station – not something I had noticed the night before, an odd, incongruous redbrick lump of a building in a patch of trees – and then the road abruptly stopped, and there were the cliffs, over which and upon which we had almost sacrificed ourselves the night before.

  The sun was now blazing, burning off any early mist, an
d in the autumn morning light I saw that there was a perilous pathway cut down and through the cliffs, with ropes attached as handrails to the rocks, and below that – somewhere, five hundred feet or more below – the beach. I finished my cigarette, slung the camera across my back, and clambered slowly down.

  And there on the beach, astonishingly, was Morley, standing by a mound of twisted black metal, which appeared to have recently been a car.

  And neatly laid out next to this wreckage was a body – the body of a boy, a boy horribly mangled, carefully arranged.

  Morley had his back to me and was busy making notes. He did not look up.

  ‘Ah, Sefton. Good of you to join us.’

  The scene was distressing: Morley, as usual, was calm.

  ‘What … ?’

  ‘Indeed, that is the question, as our friend Hamlet might say. I was walking down here early this morning and discovered this poor blighter, who seems to have made the same miscalculation as us last night. Did what I could, but nothing to be done.’

  The boy’s limbs were horribly twisted, his face contorted in a grimace, as though he had stared at Death itself.

  ‘Horrible,’ I said.

  ‘Quite. Now, could you hold this?’ Morley held out a tape measure. ‘The police will be here with their cameras and dusting powders in short order, I have no doubt, but in the meantime …’ He paced over towards the cliff, measuring the distance, then strode back and began poring over the wreck of the car, as if it were an ancient manuscript, or a book contract.

  ‘Come on then, photographs. Straight documentary, if you please. None of your artistic touches.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Morley.’ I had no intention of aestheticising the scene. And I had no intention of taking any photographs: it would have been a desecration.