A Going Concern

by Catherine Aird

  ‘On principle?’

  ‘Exactly. You know the sort of thing I mean, I’m sure. Martial music from old wars guaranteed to get people emotionally stirred up and a congregation who never sets foot in the church on any other Sunday in the year …’

  There, divined Sloan silently, was the rub.

  ‘Old men wearing old medals and carrying tattered flags … and children admiring them. That was what I didn’t like. Glorifying war, that’s all it was.’

  Shakespeare – Sergeant Shakespeare, perhaps? – hadn’t thought so, Sloan reminded himself, and old men certainly didn’t forget.

  The rector was still speaking. ‘And I won, Inspector, even though Mrs Garamond went over my head to the Bishop of Calleford.’ Ironically he squared his shoulders as he said: ‘I may as well tell you that I’m an active pacifist and proud of it.’

  ‘And the late Mrs Garamond wasn’t?’ ventured Sloan mildly.

  ‘Certainly not. Do you know what she had the gall to quote to me once?’

  ‘No,’ said Sloan with genuine interest. He was beginning to feel even more curious about the late Octavia Garamond himself. In his experience middle-aged and overweight clergy seldom got excited about anything at all, but never about wilful old women.

  ‘“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”’ The rector pushed the lawnmower out of the way and stood facing the two policemen and said: ‘Which, being translated’ – Detective Constable Crosby’s head came up at the mention of the word ‘translated’ – ‘means,’ carried on Mr Fournier, ‘that “It is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one’s country.”’

  ‘Very probably, sir,’ said Sloan, in as neutral a tone as he could manage. Plenty of policemen died, too, in much the same cause – keeping the Queen’s peace.

  ‘Did you know,’ remarked Detective Constable Crosby to no one in particular, ‘that only a bishop gains by translation?’

  ‘I must tell you,’ said Mr Fournier, ignoring Crosby and pointing in the direction of a Georgian rectory which was large enough for a cleric with a quiverful of children, ‘that I am a devoted supporter of any movement which leads to peace.’

  Even at this distance Sloan could make out a symbol borrowed from the semaphore code above the door. ‘And the late Mrs Garamond wasn’t?’ he deduced aloud, forbearing to draw any parallel with a hatchment on another dwelling-place.

  ‘She was a very militant woman.’ Edwin Fournier pressed his lips together into a thin, unamused line. ‘Do you know what she once said to me?’

  ‘No.’ Sloan waited.

  ‘That she thought a small war every now and then was a good thing for a nation. Kept the race on its toes, she said.’

  Sloan coughed. ‘I think you mentioned, rector, that your discontinuing the Remembrance Sunday service was only the first matter on which you had a disagreement with the dec – with the late Mrs Garamond?’

  Mr Fournier’s colour, already florid from the sun and unusual exertion, turned a shade still more puce. ‘She took me to the consistory court …’

  ‘Did she, indeed?’ murmured Sloan. It was a court in which he had never given evidence. So far. ‘What for?’

  ‘Removing the War Memorial from the Lady Chapel without a faculty.’ The rector said tonelessly, ‘I lost.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Sloan, a detective on duty, ‘was there a member of her family commemorated there?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, Inspector.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Had to get it put back as it was,’ Edwin Fournier said, head down over the mower.

  ‘I understand,’ said Sloan, ‘that nevertheless she asked particularly for you to take her funeral.’

  ‘Wanted the last word, I suppose,’ said the rector ungraciously. ‘Difficult to the end, if you ask me.’

  ‘If you ask me, sir,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, policeman first but gardener a close second, ‘what that machine needs is …’

  ‘Yes?’ said the man of peace eagerly.

  ‘A little less of the tickler and a bit more of the strangler.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Farewell, sweet ginger, dead in thy beauty.

  Shirley Doves looked up from the basket of washing which she was hanging out in her back garden. ‘Seen you before, haven’t I?’

  ‘You have,’ said Detective Constable Crosby.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, gripping a clothes peg with her teeth. ‘Say “once seen, never forgotten”.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Crosby, ‘that’s what I’ve come about.’

  ‘Once seen, never forgotten? Get away.’

  ‘The man in the Dog and Duck who made you a bit late at the Grange, Thursday night …’

  ‘You still on about that?’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  Shirley Doves shook her head. Since she had added yet another clothes peg to her mouth the effect was macabre. ‘Never seen ’im before. Nor since, come to that, seeing as the old lady’s gone.’

  ‘What were you drinking Thursday?’

  Shirley pegged out two towels before she answered Crosby. ‘I was on lager and lime and Ron was drinking bitter.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘Until this fellow asked us to celebrate with him. Just as we were going.’

  ‘Celebrate what?’

  Shirley Doves looked blank. ‘Dunno. He just said he’d had a bit of luck and what would we like.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Crosby.

  ‘Well,’ she said glibly, watching his face, ‘Ron was driving so he just had another bitter …’

  ‘Drinking and driving’s not my department,’ he said sturdily.

  ‘But this fellow asked what I really liked. It was a big celebration, he said, and I was to say whatever I wanted.’

  ‘And you said …?’

  ‘A whisky mac,’ said Shirley Doves promptly. ‘And blow me, that’s what he bought me. I didn’t think I should be so lucky.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Ordinary sort of bloke.’ She screwed up her eyes. ‘Dressed a bit nunty perhaps, that’s all …’

  ‘Nunty?’

  ‘You know – sort of old-fashioned, like.’

  Crosby didn’t know but conscientiously made an entry in his notebook.

  ‘You going to the funeral, then?’ he said.

  ‘Course I am,’ she said, affronted. ‘I always go to my old ladies’ funerals.’

  Michael Harris sent for his director of finance on the Tuesday morning with something less than enthusiasm. Clever and hard-working the man might be, tactful he was not.

  ‘Our broker tells me,’ Harris said to him, ‘that the price of Chernwoods’ “A” Ordinary Shares has fallen back a bit since Friday.’

  ‘Only to be expected,’ responded David Gillsans. ‘We weren’t in the market yesterday and we’re the only people who want to buy and why we do is beyond …’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Harris stayed him with his hand. ‘It does mean that buying will be cheaper for us, though.’

  ‘It means that there aren’t quite so many other investors jumping on your take-over bandwagon as you might have expected, that’s all,’ said Gillsans, adding privately that they had more sense.

  Harris scratched his chin.

  ‘And you can’t buy any more shares now, whatever the price, without either declaring your intentions or breaking the law,’ Gillsans added unequivocally. David Gillsans, as befitted an accountant, was a black and white man, not interested in a variety of shades of grey.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Harris said eagerly, ‘but when we do come to buy over the limit it’ll cost us less.’

  Gillsans said tonelessly: ‘That is one way of looking at the picture.’

  ‘They may be worth a lot less by then, too …’

  Gillsans looked up sharply but said nothing.

  ‘A lot less,’ said Harris craftily.

  ‘The argument against buying at all remains the same,’ said Gillsans.

  ‘But
you remember – the shares went down all right after they were up in court a couple of times.’

  ‘That’s only natural,’ said Gillsans and stopped, deciding that if Harris was up to some mischief then he’d rather not know about it.

  ‘Then I think,’ said Harris mysteriously, ‘that we should wait until next week before taking any further steps to buy.’

  Gillsans nodded. Any time was too soon for him but next week was better than now. For once he wished that there was still a Marsh in the firm with whom he could have reasoned but the Marsh of Harris and Marsh’s was as dead as Mr Scrooge’s long gone partner, Jacob Marley.

  ‘I shall be going to the funeral, of course,’ said Harris, revealing what it was about this week that encouraged delay. ‘I’ve arranged for a wreath to be sent …’

  ‘I know,’ said the accountant unkindly. ‘They’ve charged it to the advertising budget.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to come here, Mr Henryson …’

  ‘Dr Phoebe’s our doctor, Miss Kennerley,’ said the bookseller obliquely, handing over a book. ‘My wife won’t see anyone else at the surgery.’

  ‘But what about Undertones of War?’

  He gave her a deprecating smile. ‘My customers don’t mind having to come back, you know. They’re enthusiasts and time doesn’t matter too much to them. Besides,’ he bowed his head, ‘you said it was important.’

  ‘It is.’ Amelia said: ‘It may seem silly, Mr Henryson, but I do really need to know the names of the soldiers in the Fearnshires who were killed in the last war, probably in 1940.’

  ‘Ah, then I think this will help you.’ The bookseller opened the book. ‘Their regimental history …’

  ‘Marvellous! Do let me see …’

  ‘The Fearnshires had rather a bad time in France in 1940,’ said Mr Henryson. ‘After the fall of France,’ said Mr Henryson, ‘the 2nd Battalion were trapped between two advancing German forces. They were far too far south, you see, to make for Dunkirk …’

  ‘Where they might have got away.’ Amelia had that epic firmly in her mind.

  ‘They might,’ agreed Mr Henryson. ‘They might possibly have been trying to break through to St Valery-en-Caux – they were hoping at one time to evacuate some men from there …’

  ‘They didn’t, though, did they?’

  Mr Henryson shook his head. ‘No. The Fearnshires held out for as long as they could, of course’ – there was a wealth of military meaning in that of course – ‘but in the end …’

  ‘Yes?’

  The military bookseller said: ‘Superior forces prevailed …’

  ‘As they usually do,’ said Amelia logically.

  ‘Not always,’ said Mr Henryson, amateur historian. ‘There were David and Goliath, you know. However, I fear the 2nd Battalion of the Fearnshires were either killed or taken prisoner at a village called Hautchamps.’ Mr Henryson pointed to the volume he’d brought. ‘It’s all in that history there. A little place called Hautchamps is where they made their last stand.’

  ‘Is there a memorial there?’ Amelia opened the history and began to turn the pages.

  Mr Henryson said he was pretty sure that there would be, and there was certainly another in the form of a Scottish cairn at their battalion headquarters because he’d seen it.

  A big one.

  He was sure, he said, that she knew the origin of the cairn as a memorial and the significance of its size.

  ‘The bigger the battle, the bigger the cairn?’ hazarded Amelia with half her mind, turning the pages of the history as quickly as she could.

  ‘Not quite,’ said Mr Henryson. ‘It dates from the days before muster rolls …’

  The Fearnshires, decided Amelia, would seem to have had cannon to the right of them and cannon to the left of them in that dreadful Maytime.

  ‘When a Highlander leaving for a battle left a stone on a pile before he went,’ continued the bookseller, ‘and …’

  The Fearnshires, read Amelia, had had trouble defending their rear, too.

  ‘And,’ said the indefatigable Mr Henryson, ‘when – if – the soldier came back home he collected his stone. So the greater the pile of unclaimed stones, the greater the number of casualties …’

  Amelia interrupted his disquisition. ‘Mr Henryson, what does “enfiladed” mean?’

  ‘Fire from artillery which sweeps a line of men or buildings from end to end,’ responded Mr Henryson promptly.

  ‘I thought it might,’ said Amelia, suddenly sad. She read out: ‘“On the evening of 10th June 1940, the men were rallied and reformed at the Hautchamps crossroads by Second Lieutenant E. H. Goudy of the 2nd Battalion, the Fearnshires, after being raked by enemy fire.”’

  ‘Nec temere, nec timide,’ observed Mr Henryson. ‘That was what you were looking for, wasn’t it?’

  Amelia read on. ‘“Second Lieutenant Goudy was among those killed by mortar fire at first light the next morning.”’

  The bookseller looked at her. ‘Is that who you were looking for?’

  Amelia blinked away a sudden mist in her eyes and nodded without speaking.

  ‘Battles long ago and far away are best,’ offered Mr Henryson, although he didn’t think she was listening.

  Mr Nicholas Cochin lived in Calleford in a bungalow on the edge of the town. The two policemen found his house without difficulty. There was just the one impediment to interviewing him and that was that he and his wife were in Canada visiting a married daughter.

  Their next-door neighbour had undertaken the care of their house plants and the forwarding of mail. He told Sloan that there had indeed been other callers at the house, to whom they had given the same information but no more than this.

  No, the other callers had not given their names … but had said that they would pay another visit when the Cochins were back home again.

  No, the neighbour couldn’t describe any of them.

  The police fared rather better with their next call.

  Martin Didot lived in Luston in his retirement and was a spry old man with all his wits still about him. Though he was old he was not yet really old nor what the geriatricians fashionably now call old, old.

  ‘Chernwoods’ in the war, Inspector? Yes, I worked there all right. Man and boy, you might say. That was when the last of the Chernwood family were still there. They were great days, you know. It was never the same after the new management took over.’

  ‘No, sir, I’m sure, but …’

  ‘They were in the papers a while back when someone sued them for wrongful dismissal.’ He regarded Sloan straightly and said severely: ‘That sort of thing would never have happened in the old days, you know. It’s not good for a firm, that sort of thing.’

  ‘No, sir,’ agreed Sloan, ‘it isn’t.’

  ‘And then, not so long ago, they had a fire.’

  ‘That was bad luck,’ said Sloan.

  ‘If you ask me,’ said Didot, ‘it was arson.’

  ‘Was it now …’ Sloan made a mental note to look into that later.

  ‘I went down the next morning to have a look at the old place myself. Works were a right mess and swarming with fire scientists and insurance assessors …’

  Detective Inspector Sloan made yet another note in his book.

  ‘Seems to me, lad,’ said Didot, ‘that there’s someone wanting to do the old firm an injury …’

  ‘What I’ve come to ask you, sir,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan briskly (he hadn’t been called ‘lad’ for many a long year), ‘is something about Hut Eleven.’

  Sloan found himself being surveyed by a remarkably shrewd – if rheumy – pair of eyes. He said quizzically: ‘You, too, Inspector?’

  ‘There have been others, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he nodded, ‘there have been others. From the management and from who knows where. And …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They all want to know what we were doing in Hut Eleven then.’

  Sloan leaned forward. ‘And what do you te
ll them, Mr Didot?’

  ‘The truth, Inspector. That I was only the lab boy there. Then they usually go away.’

  ‘But you knew about OZ?’ persisted Sloan, who wasn’t going to go away.

  ‘I knew about it, Inspector, but that’s all.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That is to say, I knew about it to the extent of being able to say I knew that there was research being done under that name but not exactly what it was.’ He looked out of the window. ‘It was all a very long time ago, now, you know.’

  ‘That is one of the difficulties,’ said Sloan, undeterred. The long arm of the law had reached backwards before now. And further.

  ‘And,’ Didot said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘I wasn’t educated like the others were. They were mostly trained scientists, you know, recruited straight from the universities as soon as the war got going.’

  ‘Mrs Garamond knew all about it, though, didn’t she?’ suggested Sloan. The neat little terraced house, polished to perfection, seemed totally remote from war-time research into anything.

  ‘Oh, yes, but then it was her discovery, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What was?’ asked Sloan quietly.

  ‘OZ,’ said Martin Didot, ‘you know, Inspector, Operation Zenith …’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. Tell me, what was Operation Zenith, Mr Didot?’

  ‘Like I said, Inspector, I don’t know. I was only the lab boy helping with getting apparatus ready for the others.’ He stared into nothing, his mind going back. ‘But it was important, I can tell you that.’

  ‘More important,’ said Sloan, ‘than Operation Telltale?’

  ‘Much more important.’

  ‘Where would I find it?’

  ‘You won’t, Inspector. Not now that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’s gone. That’s what we used to call Mrs Garamond behind her back, you know. She was great.’

  ‘Who would still know?’

  ‘Like I said, no one.’ Martin Didot paused for thought. ‘No. There aren’t many of us old ’uns left now.’

  ‘What about Nicholas Cochin?’

  Martin Didot sniffed expressively. ‘He always acted as if he knew but I don’t think he did really. Bit of a show-off was our Nicholas. Clever-clogs was what we called him behind his back.’