Herring in the Smoke

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘Thanks,’ said Tim.

  ‘The truth – however embarrassing or illegal – need never go beyond the three of us,’ I added reassuringly. ‘And beyond Ethelred. And the man claiming to be Vane, or there would be no point in any of it. And maybe Roger Vane’s lawyer. But what the hell … even if you did kill him, there must be some sort of statute of limitations after twenty years. Just trust us and we’ll work out how to get you off the murder charge as and when.’

  ‘You won’t need to get me off any charge, because I didn’t kill him. As I say, I’m not proud of what I did, but it wasn’t murder.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ve had the prologue. Very nice. Now cut to the chase. I’d like to hear the story while I’m still young enough to enjoy it.’

  Tim sighed. ‘All right. It begins much as you’ve already been told. We argued from the moment we got on board the plane. That afternoon the cause of the argument was a member of the hotel staff that Roger had been blatantly chatting up. If it sounds silly and trivial now it’s because it was silly and trivial then. But that didn’t stop us. Eventually, I said to Roger I’d had enough of it and I was going back to the hotel. Roger laughed. That was when I took a swing at him with my walking stick. I didn’t mean to hit him, let alone hurt him.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But the stick had a pointed metal tip. It … it sort of cut him a bit … right by his shoulder blade. Not life-threatening, exactly, though a bit of antiseptic would not have gone amiss. I suppose it was painful. For a moment we both looked at the blood seeping onto his T-shirt, then he took a couple of steps back and slipped – he fell and started rolling down the slope, away from the path. I thought it was very theatrical. After a bit of rolling, he hit a tree and just lay there. I could tell he wasn’t hurt – not really – I actually saw him open an eye and look at me and then close it again. It was just a stupid game to make me feel guilty – or maybe he wanted me to run down the slope after him and then he’d try to attack me or something. So, I stayed put. I’m not saying he didn’t have the right to attack me; but I wasn’t going all the way down there just so he could do it. I called to him to get up, but he didn’t, so I thought the best thing was just to leave him there to come to his senses and make his way back to the hotel when he felt inclined to. But before I did, I hid close by and watched him. I peered through some thorn bushes – that was how I managed to cut my own face. After a bit I saw him get up, examine the minor scratch I’d given him and then sit down again with his back to the tree as if wondering what to do. He was fine, though the T-shirt possibly needed soaking to get the blood out. It’s always much better to work on stains straight away. Cold water is often fine if you’re quick enough.’

  ‘That is so true,’ I said. ‘Soak overnight, then wash with biological powder.’

  ‘Best to soak in biological powder too,’ said Cynthia. ‘If it’s blood.’

  ‘True,’ I said. ‘Comes up like new.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Tim continued, ‘having confirmed I hadn’t killed him, I walked back slowly, expecting him to overtake me. When he didn’t, I went and had a shower and then checked the bar around five-thirty. The rest you know.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell the police any of that?’ I asked.

  ‘I told them as much as I needed to. I hadn’t killed Roger, but I had no wish to give them evidence that suggested I might have done. Had I told them the whole story they would have realised that I would have been absolutely justified in killing him.’

  ‘So that was all you did?’

  ‘I also took the stick to my room and washed it clean.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just seemed the right thing to do. A stick covered in blood would also have been … misleading.’

  ‘Was it in fact covered in blood?’

  ‘Just the very tip.’

  ‘Have you told anyone else since?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then only you and the real Roger Vane know all this,’ I said.

  ‘Unless Uncle Roger – the real Uncle Roger – told anyone subsequently,’ said Cynthia. ‘He could have run into somebody in Laos or wherever he went and told them in a bar … or something.’

  ‘True. That’s why we need several tests,’ I said. ‘There must be things that he simply wouldn’t have gossiped about to casual acquaintances. What have you got for us, Cynthia?’

  ‘Well, he won’t have forgotten Christmas when I was about three. He told me on Christmas morning that there was no such thing as Father Christmas. Mum and Dad were furious. Uncle Roger critiqued their parenting skills in some detail, then stormed off into the snow and missed Christmas lunch. We smoothed things over, of course, and I don’t think any of us decided to go public with the full details. I’d have sold the story to the News of the World if I’d known how to work a phone, but I was three and didn’t. So it’s only me and Mum and Uncle Roger left who would know about it. You could also try him on what I used to call myself at that age.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Pobble.’

  ‘And you’ve told nobody about that lately?’

  ‘Pobble? What do you think?’

  ‘Good. Unless your mother has been leaking information to the false Roger Vane, we’re in the clear. How about you, Tim? Did you have a nickname? Perhaps dog-related in view of Roger Vane’s liking for terriers?’

  ‘It was,’ he said, ‘in no way dog-related, nor is it something you need to know. But I can offer you something useful. We first met at a party given by a friend of Roger’s – Jeremy something or other. The real Roger would remember that.’

  ‘Noted,’ I said. ‘Jeremy something or other. Very memorable.’

  ‘There’s no need to sound so sarcastic.’

  ‘That’s your opinion,’ I said.

  ‘When I was little,’ said Cynthia, frowning, ‘Uncle Roger drove an MG Midget for a while – chrome bumpers. But he had problems with the roof and traded it in for something more conventional.’

  ‘MG? That’s good,’ I said. I scribbled a note on a pad.

  ‘What about the television programmes?’ said Tim. ‘There was that actor in the first series, who they replaced. He got dropped and didn’t appear in very much after that. I can’t remember his name, because nobody does any more, but the real Roger Vane would. They were quite good buddies. Actually a bit more than that. Roy Johnston? Do any of you remember him?’

  Cynthia shook her head quickly. ‘Before my time,’ she said.

  I also shook my head. ‘Can’t really picture him.’

  ‘Then that would be a very good question,’ said Tim. ‘Roger would hardly have forgotten him, even if everyone else has.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Cynthia with a sigh. ‘It would be much too easy for the false Roger Vane to find out. He’ll have researched everything that’s publicly available.’

  ‘Cynthia’s right,’ I said. ‘All of that stuff will be in Wikipedia or somewhere. There’s an official website for the programme. You can get an episode-by-episode guide – even the most minor parts are listed. There are blogs too – and some Twitter accounts – more or less devoted to it. Anyone could look them up and discover all sorts of odd facts about the series. We need to stick to the stuff that’s not out there on the Internet and that only Roger Vane could know.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Tim said reluctantly.

  Eventually we put together a dozen questions that Ethelred could test Vane with, ranging over his working and personal life. I was quite impressed. We were, frankly, on fire. Now we just needed to get Ethelred to ask them.

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Because it will prove me right?’

  ‘Because I’m writing his biography. He tells me things in the sincere belief I will behave responsibly. And that is what I shall do. I do have some duty of care towards him.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ I said. ‘You are the biographer of the real Roger Vane – not this fake one. The real
one – the one you’ve always admired – would be pleased you’ve exposed him. He’d say: “Well done, Ethelred. You have exposed the man who was impersonating me. I’m very, very grateful.” Anyway, you’ll look a total dick if you claim he’s the real Vane and he turns out to be a fake. Your reputation depends on this. You owe it to the literally several fans of your work.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the phone as Ethelred’s professional vanity wrestled with his conscience. The result seemed to be a points victory for his vanity. ‘It will have to be on Saturday,’ he said. ‘I’m visiting Cordwainers School tomorrow.’

  ‘Your horoscope said that Saturday will be an excellent day for betraying those close to you,’ I said.

  There was another silence. I saw the mistake I’d just made by mentioning ‘betrayal’ – it was as if I’d taken Ethelred’s conscience into its corner, slapped its face a bit and told it to get back out there and fight like a man. It struggled to its feet.

  ‘It’s not going to work,’ said Ethelred’s conscience. ‘Most of the questions aren’t relevant to the biography, anyway. He’ll smell a rat. I think—’

  ‘No you don’t,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to think at all. You simply have to say the words on the paper. They are good questions, they are. No rubbish that you can pick up on the Internet like who was the first actor to play Inspector Gascoyne in the TV series.’

  ‘You mean Roy Johnston?’

  ‘You know that? I was forgetting you were a fan.’

  ‘I agree there’d be no point in asking him that question to test his bona fides. Actually, loads of people would know it was Johnston. Now, there’s somebody else who would cheerfully murder Roger Vane.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Don’t you listen to any of the gossip?’

  ‘Stop sounding smug, Tressider. It doesn’t suit you. I listen to relevant gossip, which up to this moment that was not. What did Roger Vane do to him?’

  ‘Johnston was once Vane’s boyfriend as well as being the lead actor in the series – but they fell out. When Roy was dumped from one role he was dumped from the other too. Word on the street is that it was no coincidence. They say Johnston was lucky to get the part in the first place. He had a track record of playing endearing and slightly eccentric characters but wasn’t exactly a matinee idol. He never worked much afterwards – not as an actor, at least.’

  ‘So, what does he do now?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I think he went off to Australia. His last film or TV credit listed on the Internet is some Australian soap about ten years ago. He had a bit of a drink problem too. Probably happily working in a bar or something now.’

  ‘So, he’s not likely in practice to come back and murder Roger Vane?’

  ‘No need,’ said Ethelred. ‘At the rate Roger is making enemies, somebody else will do it for him. His ex-partner. His agent. His former publisher. His niece. His housemaster. One of his contemporaries at school.’

  ‘You’d better get a move on with your questions, then. I’d hate to have him die again before I know the answers.’

  ‘I’ll do it on Saturday. After I’ve been to Cordwainers. I’m talking to the headmaster.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Just don’t mess up.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Cocaine?’

  The headmaster shook his head at my suggestion. ‘Cannabis mainly,’ he said. ‘Things have changed a lot since Roger Vane’s time here, of course. We have a zero-tolerance policy these days. Any boy caught with drugs of any sort can expect to be expelled immediately. But even when Vane was here, there wasn’t a problem with cocaine or heroin, whatever he claims.’

  ‘He hasn’t claimed that,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said the headmaster, clearly relieved. ‘You see, once something like that gets into the public domain – however wrongly – it’s difficult to persuade people that it’s untrue. The Chinese parents here take a very dim view of that sort of thing. It wasn’t an easy market to break into. Did I say we were planning a campus in Hong Kong?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You did.’

  I looked beyond the headmaster at the pennant on the wall. It was made of a shiny blue fabric with a gold fringe. Printed on it were the words: ‘Presented to Mr Roger Thwaites BA MBA MEd by the Cordwainers Alumni of Hong Kong’. A colourful dragon hovered above the words, as if about to seize and devour them.

  ‘It’s so important to protect the brand,’ he said. ‘Since I became headmaster, enrolment of overseas students has increased by three hundred per cent.’

  Like a lot of heads of organisations, he preferred to date all improvements to his own arrival. I nodded politely and took a sip of tea. Earl Grey. Perfectly made. There were no biscuits.

  ‘You’ve introduced a lot of changes,’ I said.

  ‘Of course, Cordwainers is one of the very oldest schools in the country. King’s Canterbury may claim to be older, but it’s all a bit patchy – so-and-so was recorded as being a schoolmaster near the abbey in Edward the Confessor’s time, then a cathedral charter refers in passing to a school in much the same place a couple of hundred years later. That sort of thing. I know the names of all of my predecessors going back to 1378. I have the original charter granting us this site in Holborn by King Henry in 1402. Eton wasn’t even founded until 1440. We’d had three generations through the school by then – Henry V’s assistant chaplain was one of our boys. By 1500, we’d had seven bishops who’d been taught here and two Lord Mayors of London. And we were always recognised as one of the major public schools.’ He frowned and ticked them off on his fingers. ‘It was us, Eton, Harrow, St Paul’s, Charterhouse, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster – Shrewsbury just about in the same class. Of course, things slipped a bit under my immediate predecessors. When I arrived we weren’t even in the Sunday Times league tables. Didn’t care to submit the figures. Can you credit it? Frankly, we had a bit of a reputation for producing well-heeled thickos. There’s a story about three public school boys at a party. They notice that an old lady is finding it difficult to stand. “Fetch a chair for the lady, one of you chaps,” says the Etonian. The well-mannered Wykehamist goes off to fetch one and the Cordwainer promptly sits in it. That was us – rich and rude, and we didn’t much care if that’s what people thought. Now we’re comfortably in the top twenty for A-level results – I wouldn’t have settled for less. We’ll be in the top ten by the year after next. The Chinese intake helps, of course. Bright kids. Keen to learn. Grade A at maths guaranteed in every case. I spend a lot of time out in the Far East, promoting the brand. You have to. We have a new marketing unit – we’ve put them in Lessergate where the Classics Department used to be. We’re phasing out Latin. And Greek. The Chinese parents don’t really see the point of it.’

  We both looked at the pennant. The headmaster’s name had, I noticed, been misspelt, but the dragon was well done. Its wings shone in purple, red and green silk threads.

  ‘I visited Dr Slide,’ I said.

  Mr Thwaite raised an eyebrow. ‘How is the old boy these days?’

  ‘In good health,’ I said.

  ‘My predecessor used to make a point of going out to see him occasionally and inviting him back to events here – speech days and so on. I have to say we haven’t issued an invitation lately. He doesn’t quite fit the image we want to project.’

  I recalled the leather patches and stained trousers and, now I thought of it, the slightly odd smell in his sitting room.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I suppose he doesn’t. You know he was Roger Vane’s housemaster?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Poor man.’

  ‘You mean the character-naming business?’

  ‘That and other things. I think he was rather fond of Vane to begin with – I’m not suggesting anything improper. We have a zero-tolerance attitude to that sort of thing – staff and students – abuse of a position of trust – our children protection policies make that very clear, as I explain in the prospectus. But
earlier generations would not have frowned on romantic friendships between older boys and younger boys, or even between boys and masters …’ For a moment there was an almost wistful look in his eye. Then his expression hardened again. ‘Anyway, Vane later took against him. I’m not sure why. Finally there was the car business. At first they didn’t know whose car it was …’

  ‘Whose it was? I thought that it was the deputy head’s car?’

  ‘Of course. But the question was: in whose car had Vane learnt to drive? After he was reported, Vane’s parents demanded to know how on earth he’d been able to do it. They’d never let him anywhere near the steering wheel of the family Daimler. The answer, of course, was that Slide had been giving Vane lessons in his own Ford Prefect – no driving licence, no insurance – certainly no risk assessment form. That’s why it had to be hushed up. We couldn’t really expel him under the circumstances. Slide was pretty upset by it all – felt Vane had let the side down – refused to give him a reference for university, but Vane got in anyway – he was pretty bright. None of us were too surprised when Vane’s first book came out and there was a character called Slide in it.’

  I nodded. ‘Being a writer gives you a vast capacity for revenge – you use somebody’s name or something very much like it – sometimes it’s only the victim who knows what you’ve done. Or the victim and their friends.’

  ‘In this case it was rather more than that,’ said Mr Thwaite. ‘The whole school knew. Everyone Slide really cared about. He held out for four books, then he had a nervous breakdown. He was off work for a year. The school took him back, of course, but the boys never really respected him afterwards. The insults in the books had made him a sort of celebrity, but his breakdown was just seen as weakness. They still liked him but they never forgave him. Made his life hell on earth. Wrote English essays with obnoxious characters called Mr Slither or Professor Slid in them. Got them published in the school magazine – even the one featuring Dr Jonathan Shite got past the censor. Quite amusing some of them. But completely heartless. That’s boys for you. I’ve never yet met a headmaster who didn’t believe in Original Sin.’