Caroline Minuscule

by Andrew Taylor

  A mission to take Christianity behind bars, a wide range of social contacts and a phenomenal memory: these three qualities were the secret of his success. At his prime – between about 1965 and 1975 – he could arrange almost anything: from a murder to a kilo of heroin; from preferential treatment by the local council to (on one occasion at least) a bishopric.

  He was successful because he was moderate, I think. He never went for large, uncertain profits, always for small safe ones. He was merely a voice on the telephone, at most, to those few of his clients who had any direct contact with him. The majority went through me or another person. On several occasions, his clients knew him in his spiritual capacity, without realizing that in his time he had supplied them with far more material comforts. You see, all he did was to put buyers, as it were, in contact with sellers (or vice versa) and charge a commission. Breathtakingly simple.

  I handled one end of the business for him, and a person called Michael Aloysius Lee saw to the other. In the main I dealt with wealthy amateurs – respectable people who suddenly found themselves needing temporary assistance in bending the law. Lee, on the other hand, mixed with the habitual criminals – those who found themselves in difficulties owing to a pushy rival or a consignment which they could not deliver. Lee and I had little contact except through the Canon, when he would supply us with names, telephone numbers, addresses, etc.

  He trusted us for the simple reason that he held particularly damaging information about both of us. But to give him his due, he was a generous employer.

  This secret career of his brought a comfortable income which he used so cautiously that even his wife never suspected he had more than his stipend (or whatever they call it) and a small private income. I believe he had several pet charities (for animals rather than human beings), some rather nice eighteenth-century prints and an excellent cellar. The considerable residue which remained he invested in jewellery – chiefly cut diamonds, I believe. He kept it, of all places, in a strongbox at Barclays Bank in Rosington.

  Very occasionally, I stayed with him at Rosington (Lee never) and was introduced as a distant cousin in stockbroking (a suitably vague profession). Vernon-Jones took pleasure in introducing me to local worthies, I used to suspect. He was like that. Which brings me to another characteristic of his which is directly relevant: he was malicious. Not in a crude way, but delicately, obliquely. I imagine that as a boy he was the sort who didn’t stamp on any unfortunate insect which crossed his path, but slowly removed its limbs, one by one, or drowned it in a spoonful of honey. And he was the same way with human beings – when there was no need for him to be affable. I firmly believe his wife died, gradually, in a little domestic hell which he had painstakingly constructed. Lee and I were not so expendable. I sometimes wonder if he would have been a nicer person if he hadn’t been a clergyman. He knew that Lee and I disliked one another intensely – this suited him – divide and rule. He enjoyed the tension but was too intelligent to let it reach an unbearable degree of strain.

  During his life, that is. But evidently he felt that no such scruples need restrain him after death. When he died, I went down to Rosington for the funeral. I spoke with his solicitor and his bank manager, both there, paying their last respects in a cemetery like a municipal park, and then later in a local hotel. They were, perhaps, more open about their late client’s affairs than they should have been, believing there to be a degree of consanguinity. Also they were sorry for me – the man’s will left everything to the RSPCA, which failed to surprise me. The bank manager, after three whiskies, believed that Vernon-Jones knew his death was near, for he had removed the contents of his strongbox just after Christmas. The solicitor chimed in and said that the Canon was a man of strange quirks, which to my mind was the understated epitaph of a lifetime. He also said he had promised to forward two letters on the day of the funeral. It wasn’t difficult to discover that one was addressed to me, the other to Lee.

  It arrived the next morning. The envelope contained nothing but the photograph which you have and one of Vernon-Jones’s cards which I enclose. It’s the back of it which is important – he scribbled Matthew vii 7 on it, which is, Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

  I know all this must seem increasingly nonsensical to you. Bear with me a little longer. You see, I am convinced that the two things he sent me are, correctly interpreted, pointers to the whereabouts of his jewellery. I also believe that he sent similar – but not the same – clues to Lee. He didn’t particularly care to whom he left the diamonds – what he wanted to leave was dissension. This is hard to explain to an outsider – what you have to understand is two things: Vernon-Jones’s malice and his penchant for the cryptic. For the first, he knew Lee and I didn’t get on, and it must have tickled him to think that he could intensify our enmity beyond his death – manipulate us from the grave. He told me, and I have no doubt that he told Lee as well, that the value of the stones was well into six figures. A good, substantial motive for competition! Secondly, he was a compulsive puzzle solver, a searcher for devious solutions. He was the sort of person who finished the crossword in the paper before looking at the headlines. He was also an ardent cryptographer and cryptoanalyst; in the last decade of his life, his greatest ambition was to decode the Voynich manuscript attributed to Roger Bacon. Add to this his interest in medieval manuscripts and the fact that he knew that neither Lee nor I had a natural aptitude for puzzles, and you will see where this was tending. He had set us a problem, with a fortune as the prize, and split the clues between us, secure in the knowledge that we would never join forces because one would inevitably try to double-cross the other.

  We can be certain that there is a prize to be won. The Canon was cruel, malignant and cunning, but, to do him justice, he did have a code of conduct of a sort – the code of a crossword compiler: if you pose a question, there must be an answer, or it isn’t fair.

  Now to the present. I was followed back to my hotel tonight – I suppose it was foolish of me to take no more radical action than move from Brown’s to the Bristol when I realized what Vernon-Jones was doing. Habit leads to carelessness. Lee has a man watching my window. No doubt there are more. Lee is always strong on manpower. Unfortunately, I have to go out tonight – a small but urgent piece of business, the omission of which would be personally and financially awkward in the extreme. Lee, either now or later, will try to detain or kill me: the latter, probably – he will feel, as I do, that it would be more productive in the final analysis. He will weigh the certain advantage of a dead competitor (who is, moreover, dangerously well informed about delicate episodes in his past life) against the potential, if rather risky value of my assistance under compulsion. Besides, he’s the sort of person who finds the finality of having someone killed, or doing it himself, reassuring. He may well fail. I’m not on my last legs yet. Sometimes I feel I’m growing too old for this kind of career.

  Well, that’s the position. If you are reading this, I will be dead. And you – if you want, just as you please – can try to get rich quickly in my place. You would have a number of advantages over Lee: you are an outsider and Lee will have no idea of your existence; you are probably better equipped, mentally, than he – your background, etc., is closer to Vernon-Jones’s. It’s up to you, of course. But for God’s sake, take no risks. Lee is not a fool and he’s not too squeamish, either. My advice would be to withdraw at once if you meet him. Don’t even give him time to start wondering about you.

  I must seal all this up and give it to the hotel people. I had no idea I would write so long a letter. I suppose it’s rather like making a will – you don’t want to leave anything out, for obvious reasons.

  One final point. I would burn this letter, if I were you. I know it sounds silly, but its contents shouldn’t be read by the wrong people.

  Yours, if you read this, regretfully,

  James Hanbury.

  Dougal threw the letter on the floor. His mouth was d
ry with the reading. He swallowed the mug of lukewarm tea and poured himself another. It was nearly dark in the quiet room. He had found it difficult to decipher the last couple of pages, but hadn’t wanted to put the light on. He could hear buses rumbling below on the Finchley Road and the occasional agonized hoot of a rush hour horn. It seemed strange that London should be emptying itself as usual.

  Amanda got up, switched on the lamp and drew the curtains. The curtains were old and faded; the cotton velvet was now a restful blue. Dougal looked at them.

  ‘He sounds a bit mad,’ said Amanda briskly. ‘How much money is there?’

  They counted half each. Dougal was glad of the activity. He noticed that his hands were behaving as if they belonged to someone else. There was nearly a thousand pounds more than the eleven hundred which Hanbury had promised.

  ‘The trouble is,’ Amanda muttered thoughtfully, ‘you can’t laugh off two thousand quid as a hoax. Nobody could afford jokes that cost that much.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not a joke,’ Dougal snapped. Amanda looked at him in surprise and he hastily apologized. The letter had disturbed him; it had been painful to read. But he didn’t want to tell Amanda that, as she would point out firmly that such feelings were stupid. Instead, Dougal remarked that the deaths of Gumper and Hanbury weren’t the usual stuff of comedy and that it seemed more likely that either Hanbury was mad (whether alive or dead) or he was not only dead but also had been telling the truth. He was starting to examine the evidence in favour of and against these alternatives when Amanda said yes, he was probably right, but she did wish he wouldn’t talk so pompously.

  ‘I think he was on the level,’ she continued slowly. ‘I mean, no one’s that irrational. Or not in that way.’

  Dougal agreed, trying, on the whole successfully, to ignore the fact that she had called him pompous. It wasn’t the first time. She often said it when he had had a few drinks and was enjoying the sound of the syllables spilling out of his mouth. Perhaps he was. His mind returned to the problem facing them. He wondered aloud whether there was any risk that he himself had been noticed by whoever had killed Hanbury – Lee or one of his employees. Amanda said no, in the voice of one thinking of something entirely different, and if he had been seen in Hanbury’s company he would probably have heard from Lee by now. No doubt she was right, thought Dougal, but he wished she could have sounded a little more concerned.

  ‘What are we going to do about it, then?’ she said. Dougal was grateful for the ‘we’. He looked at her and thought she looked bright with excitement; what made him apprehensive made her look more beautiful.

  ‘Either we spend the money and forget Hanbury or – well, go to Rosington, I suppose. That’s the only possible thing we can do. The whole business points there, doesn’t it? The manuscript, Vernon-Jones and Hanbury’s letter. We could just have a weekend there – look round, see where he lived. Maybe we’ll have a stroke of luck . . . we wouldn’t even know how to sell the bloody things if we got them.’

  ‘Don’t be so gloomy, William. We’ll go tomorrow.’ Amanda smiled at him and Dougal realized that she had got what she wanted and he was back in favour. And, thinking about it, the prospect of a day or two in a cathedral city seemed very attractive. If they were reasonably cautious there could be no actual danger. Could there?

  6

  The red Mini had a whimper in its engine and pieces of chewing gum clinging to the ledge beneath the dashboard. Amanda spent much of the journey to Rosington delivering a tirade against drivers who had previously hired the car; cruelty to defenseless machines brought out all her humanity.

  Most of their route lay along the A1, a road which Dougal disliked intensely. It was like a tendril of the suburbs crawling northwards, an overgrown offshoot from the North Circular which carried the memory of Neasden and Edmonton up to Scotland.

  Dougal wriggled uncomfortably in the passenger seat. He was wearing a new tweed suit, chosen by Amanda, and had had his hair cut. Amanda had insisted that they look respectable. Dougal found that respectability made him itch.

  He tried to distract his mind by running over the facts he had learned about Vernon-Jones. They were distressingly few. He had done his research in West Hampstead Public Library, using Crockford’s Clerical Directory and The Times for January 24, which contained Vernon-Jones’s obituary.

  Little had been added to their meager stock of information about the Canon. Born 1911, educated at St Paul’s and St John’s College, Cambridge. Ordained Deacon in 1933 and Priest in 1935. Prison chaplaincies led to appointments on various royal commissions connected with penal reform. Canon of Rosington in 1961 and a CBE in 1975.

  The obituary concentrated on his prison work . . . his views on this and on surrounding social issues aroused much debate both within and without the Church of England.

  Amanda turned the Mini on to the B road leading to Rosington. The dark, flat countryside lapped like a black tide towards the road. For three years at Cambridge, Dougal had lived on the rim of the Fens and failed to come to terms with the remorseless way they slid into the chilly waters of the North Sea.

  Amanda started singing extracts from The Sound of Music.

  The road began to rise. Rosington was perched on a rocky outcrop in a sea of fertile mud. The Mini’s headlights picked out a sign: Rosington Urban District Council, it read, WELCOME TO ROSINGTON, Twinned with Vermeuil-sur-mer. Beneath the words was a crude picture of the west front of the cathedral, the great rose window above the door framed by a deeply recessed Norman arch with seven members.

  The darkness gave way to the yellow glare of street lights. They found their hotel by the traffic lights near the cathedral. Dougal had discovered a town guide at West Hampstead library and booked a room by telephone on the strength of the Crossed Keys’ advertisement: 400-year-old hostelry mellowing in the shadow of the Minster . . . medieval charm with modern comfort.

  The hotel was on the corner, with what looked like the main shopping street separating it from the cathedral on the right. To the left of its dingy Georgian facade was an archway, through which Amanda edged the Mini, leading into a courtyard which served as the hotel car park. As she killed the engine, the rain began to drum down with sullen persistence, running down the windscreen like a miniature waterfall.

  Amanda shivered. ‘It’s spooky.’

  Dougal reached over and took her hand from the steering wheel. It was an uncharacteristic remark for her to have made – Amanda thought people imagined their nightmares (which of course they did) because she herself had never had one. ‘I know,’ he replied, feeling unusually large and protective. ‘Hammer horror. Should we wait for the phantom ostler or go and find the ghostly butler?’

  ‘Oh, shut up. My umbrella’s on the back seat, I think.’

  Normality was restored. Dougal reached round and extracted the umbrella from the clutter which, even after a few hours, littered the back of the car.

  He clambered out and struggled round to the boot. Amanda gathered up their belongings from the interior, turned up the collar of her coat and wrapped a headscarf round her hair.

  ‘We’ll have to go round to the front door,’ she said as she handed him the briefcase containing, among other things, Dr Pooterkin’s magnum opus. ‘If there’s a way in from here, it’s been blocked by those crates of empties.’

  They ran round to the main entrance and into the light and warmth of the hall. To the left was a doorway leading to a nearly empty bar. On the right was a number of chairs and sofas, chintz-covered and elderly, grouped round a fire. Only one chair was occupied – by a large but fragile-looking clergyman in a charcoal suit, reading the Church Times. In front of them was the reception desk, flanked by a flight of stairs on one side and a notice board on the other. Dougal took an immediate liking to the place: it looked comfortable and was shabbily pleasant on the eyes.

  A large woman – in breadth rather than height – looked up from behind the reception desk as they came in, pushing the Daily Mirror aside and patting her
perm.

  ‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘Can I be of any assistance?’ Then, more naturally, ‘Filthy night, innit?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Dougal, uncomfortably aware of a drip on the end of his nose and the puddle which the umbrella was making on the carpet. Just in time, he remembered the name he had given over the telephone. ‘Our name’s Massey.’ He hoped it didn’t sound as untrue as it felt. ‘We telephoned this morning to book a room for the weekend.’

  Amanda sneezed, which galvanized the receptionist into action. ‘Bless you! A hot bath and a large Scotch was what my late husband used to swear by. Not that it did him much good in the end. Heart attack. Put the umbrella in the stand over there, love. Massey, you say? Room seven. Sign here, would you?’

  Dougal scribbled his new signature in the book. He decided to retain his christian name; a change of surname was unexpectedly confusing, and more radical alteration would become unbearably complicated. He gave an address in Belsize Park, NW3.

  ‘Are you eating here this evening?’ enquired the receptionist. ‘Dinner’s between seven and nine.’

  ‘Um,’ said Dougal, looking at his watch: coming up to half-past six. ‘Yes.’ He looked at Amanda. ‘Shall we say around seven-thirty?’