Friends in Low Places

by Simon Raven

  “I saw them when I was there in the Spring,” Detterling said to Stern, “And they’re a complete dead loss. But they’ll make a handy excuse now.”

  “I dare say. But they’ll hardly help us find this Lewson creature.”

  Detterling, who was not only sanguine but sane, had given some thought to that. He had one undoubted advantage: he knew where to start. Max de Freville, on the night before he disappeared to join Angela Tuck, had told him that Isobel’s last letter had referred to a village near Blandford; and Blandford was an easy drive from Canteloupe’s pile in Wiltshire. Two days of enquiry, first in Blandford itself, then in villages around, then in Sherborne, Yeovil and Crewkerne, revealed a gradual progress to the north-west, not indeed of Lewson, but of someone who might well be Isobel. She had been travelling alone, apparently, in trains and buses; though someone had once seen her getting out of a grey Morris Traveller whose number plate bore the arresting letters - hence his memory of the incident - YOB. The Morris had immediately driven off, it seemed, and Detterling’s informant had not caught sight of the driver.

  Detterling wondered how much of this was known to the police, but reminded himself once more that the police did not know where to start, indeed were probably active only in the Bristol area, towards which the infamous blue and white sports car had last been seen heading. There was, in any case, nothing he could do about that. From Crewkerne his enquiries had led him and Stern, who was still sceptical but was now taking an interest in what he termed “the theory of the human spoor”, to Chard. There Isobel’s trail was lost, but in answer to a lucky question at a garage they were told by a mechanic that a dark-haired and excitable young man in a grey Morris Traveller had asked to be put on the road to Tiverton some days before.

  “Very careless,” commented Stern in scholarly fashion, “for someone who lives by his wits.”

  And now, on a cloudy evening - the same evening on which Alfie rang up London from the lonely inn among the bat willows - Detterling and Stern were driving slowly along beneath the Quantocks, whither the scent had drawn them earlier that day.

  “Tonight,” said Detterling, “we won’t go back to Wiltshire. We’ll sleep somewhere round here and get an early start.”

  “No luggage,” said Stern, who liked to do things in an orderly way.

  “We can buy a tootbrush and a razor.”

  “I need a clean shirt.”

  “We can buy that too.”

  Stern, thinking of the neat pile of clean silk shirts which awaited him in his bedroom at Canteloupe’s, gave a little mew of protest.

  “Don’t whine, Gregory,” Detterling said.

  “I don’t see why we have to be so Spartan all of a sudden.”

  They passed a notice which said:

  Two Hundred Yards Turn Left

  For the First Canteloupe

  Caravan Site and Country Culture Camp

  WESTWARD HO !

  “The next thing,” Stern went moaning on, “you’ll suggest we hire one of your cousin’s beastly caravans for the night.”

  “That,” said Captain Detterling, “would be going altogether too far.”

  “God, what a dump,” Mark Lewson said; “but it’s certainly handy for us.”

  “Home is where you find it,” murmured Isobel, tickling his palm with her finger nail.

  Every day the Caravan Site became dirtier and emptier. The morning after the opening the bulk of the “campers” had taken their fee for the television masquerade and left by special coach. The few genuine holiday-makers, puzzled and distressed by this desertion, had sniffed the air suspiciously but then, having paid in advance, had decided to give the place a fair trial. By the time Mark and Isobel arrived, however, few even of these were left. The almost total failure of the plumbing for two and half days; the indifference of Commandant Hookeby and the insolent manners of his wife; the vile language of Sergeant-Major Cruxtable; the two occasions on which the Matron had got crying drunk; the absence of the refuse man with a resurgent batch of “haemorrhoids”: all this had made for a lack of refinement which members of the British proletariat were not prepared to tolerate.

  But it suited Mark and Isobel down to the ground. Officially installed in separate trailers to maintain the impression that they had arrived independently of each other, they spent all of every night and most of every day together, and even while apart were enclosed in the same rainbow bubble of bliss. What was it to them that the Maison Bingo had closed its doors, probably for ever, that the dinette had succumbed to a plague of cockroaches, that Sergeant-Major Cruxtable had ruptured himself in his brief and sole attempt to teach three small children to play basketball? They had a bigger and more thrilling gamble on hand than any which a Bingo card could show them; for their meals they drove to a charming little hotel which they had discovered a few miles away; and for their physical activities they did not need the assistance of Sergeant-Major Cruxtable. A larger crowd, on which Mark had originally relied, might have given them more effective concealment; but as it was, their fellow-campers were too preoccupied with their own miseries to give anyone else a second thought. Nowhere is it easier to escape remark, however conspicuous one might otherwise be, than in a run-down city or a foundering ship: low morale inhibits curiosity. Furthermore, there was something in the air of desolation, they found, which was very nutritive of romance.

  So Mark and Isobel were happy amid the growing piles of filth and broken glass. To complain of these gave a zest to love; as did the sullen clouds which were now gathering in the evening sky, for the threat of storm when shelter is near always stirs a delicious thrill of mock anxiety in the stomach, and to lovers rain is one more hostile element that gives greater value to the cosy, impregnable huddle into which, at will, they may retreat.

  “It’s going to pour ,” said Isobel, with a shiver of pleasure.

  “First time in weeks. What a wonderful summer it’s been.”

  “It’s not over yet,” she said, and went on tickling his palm.

  “It’s going to rain,” said Canteloupe, looking happily down from his window at the Amusement Arcade which he had lately erected in place of the formal rose garden. “And about time,” he added, thinking of the trippers who would now be compelled to stop frigging about in the park and seek shelter in the Arcade.

  “Yes indeed,” said Carton Weir politely. “And what do you think about what I’ve just told you?”

  He had arrived in Wiltshire to see his superior that afternoon and had spent most of it telling him everything that he had recently learned from Somerset Lloyd-James. For Carton Weir had a new ambition. He was tired of being grateful to Lloyd-James for his place on the Board of Strix, tired of accepting Lloyd-James’s suggestions as to his manipulation of the Young England Group, tired of being dependent on Lloyd-James for his continued leadership. There were now, he told himself, fatter fish to fry: Lloyd-James’s information had put fame and power within his reach; all he had to do was to initiate a public and sensational scourge among high persons. He would fire the fuse to scandal and dance round the flames, the acknowledged author of the conflagration. But he felt the need of an ally; someone who carried weight with the government and the country at large. There was one such to hand: Canteloupe. True, until the preceding April Canteloupe had been regarded, by serious people, as a mere figure of fun; but the general public had not so seen him, and now even serious people had reluctantly begun to revise their estimate, not least because of the recently published encomia of the man and his policies in Strix. Careerist and patrician united, thought Carton Weir, he and Canteloupe would make a mighty team; he would put up the brains, Canteloupe would provide the credit; and tradition would march hand in hand with progress, while the sword of purity was brandished and the angry war cry - “Who shall guard the guardians?” - rang against the battlements of Westminster Palace like the trumpets outside Jericho.

  And if Somerset again tries to blackmail me, Weir thought, into playing it his way, I’ve got the perfec
t comeback: he’s guilty of suppressing information which concerns the security of the realm. And now what’s the matter with Canteloupe? Cat got his tongue?

  “What do you think, sir,” he said again, “about what I’ve been saying?”

  “I think,” said Canteloupe, “what I always thought. Lloyd-James is a shit.” He gazed at the clouds and almost heard the coins as they tinkled into his new slot-machines. Could he get permission for penny roulette?

  “Then you agree with me that the whole affair should be uncovered?”

  “First,” said Canteloupe carefully, “we must make sure of the truth and be able to prove it. Now, this man . . . Lewson . . . the one you’re meant to be looking for . . .”

  “He’s very small beer. And he may not even have the letter. My idea was to confront Sir Edwin and the rest - ”

  “ - First things first, boy.” Penny roulette? Perhaps something like Boule would be better. “We don’t want to rush round making fools of ourselves. This chap Lewson may or may not have the confounded letter, but he’ll be able to tell us the story.”

  “Lloyd-James has already done that, sir. That’s enough. With a man of your public eminence to take the lead - ”

  “ - Drink?” asked Canteloupe curtly.

  “Thank you.”

  Canteloupe poured two colossal whiskies.

  “Public eminence, you say?”

  He drank half his whisky in one swallow.

  “I do, sir.”

  “Well, boy, I shouldn’t count on it for too long. I’ve just had some very awkward reports about the new camp of ours out in the Quantocks. Unless something is done . . . quickly . . . they’ll be howling for our heads. So we’d better put our own house in order before we go banging into somebody else’s. You’ll stay the night, if you please, and tomorrow we’ll drive down to Westward Ho! and see what that infernal fellow Hookeby thinks he’s up to.”

  Some days before all this was happening in Wiltshire and Somerset, Fielding Gray had consulted with Peter Morrison. As Fielding saw it, they had been left on duty in London in a supporting role: they were to watch for possible trouble from Lloyd-James while their allies made an active sortie into the west. Since the whole campaign had been undertaken for Peter’s benefit, Fielding expected to find him helpfully disposed. Quite the contrary. Peter was vague, uninterested had no idea what either of them should do, made it plain, between bouts of irritable shrugging, that he found any notion of positive action distasteful if not indecent.

  “So you’re not going to make any effort?” Fielding said at last.

  “Not this kind of effort.”

  “You’ll just leave it all to your friends?”

  “It’s to oblige them,” said Peter complacently, “that I’ve consented to come back at all.”

  “You don’t want to come back?”

  “I want to meet their wishes ... if they think it’s the best thing for the party. But that’s not saying I’m going to take part in a running fight with cheap crooks. Anyway, I’m not sure they’re handling this right.”

  “Look,” said Fielding. “What your friends are trying to do, as I understand it, is to get you this seat without causing too big a bust-up or letting things go altogether to pot. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that you don’t care if everything does go to pot so long as you get the seat.”

  “Not quite that. But I can’t undertake to involve myself with the wilful crimes and follies of other people. These must take their course and reach their destined end.”

  “After which you come marching out through the corpses in a nice, clean uniform and volunteer to take everything over? ‘I'm sorry about the mess,’ you can say, ‘but it wasn’t my fault, and I’ll make a good job of cleaning it up’.”

  “Someone has to.”

  “And here and now? What do you mean to do about Lloyd-James?”

  “Wait for him to become one of the corpses. He’s carrying a powerful bomb about, and with any luck it’ll go off in his face.”

  To hell with him, Fielding had thought. If that’s the way he wants to play it, if he’s just going to stand clear until the shooting’s done, then I’m damned if I’ll do anything to help. I’ve enough work of my own. So let him skulk away behind the lines, and serve him right if he stops a stray bullet.

  But despite this reaction, and despite his fascination with the task of converting his youthful journal into the sumptuous novel for which Stern hoped, Fielding could not altogether lose interest in the affaire Lewson, and this interest was quickened, several days after his talk with Morrison, by a chance revelation of Maisie’s.

  One evening, as he was just about to leave her, Maisie had beckoned him to the bedroom window.

  “Have a look at this, love,” she said. “That chap hanging about in the street. Something went a bit wrong one day, and he swore he’d never come back, but he’s been sniffing round ever since. Wondering whether to sink his pride and ring the bell.”

  In the street, lurking guiltily, was Somerset.

  “I know him,” said Fielding, relaxed to the point of casual indiscretion.

  “Then you’d better wait till he goes.”

  “He might ring the bell after all.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Maisie: “he was rather badly put off.”

  “Come, come, dear. Professional secrets and all that.”

  “Nothing to do with me, love. I’d no idea what was going on. In fact, if you know him, perhaps you can tell me.”

  “I doubt it. What happened?”

  “I’ve a correspondent . . . an Italian . . . who sends me little things from time to time. One day an agent of his turned up, one I hadn’t seen before, and said he wanted to use my flat for a meeting. He was going to pay me well, and anyway there were . . . reasons . . . why I couldn’t refuse, so I said yes. Then he said, would I ring the man he wanted to meet, because this man would recognise his voice and he wanted the meeting to be a surprise. So I said yes again, and the next thing I knew I found it was Somerset Lloyd-James I’d got to ring up, one of my oldest regulars, love, so was my face red.”

  “Maisie,” said Fielding, grabbing her, “who was this agent and what did he want with Somerset?”

  “The agent was called Holbrook,” said Maisie, puzzled by Fielding’s sudden excitement but anxious to please. “Bute or Jute Holbrook, something funny like that. I said to myself, how odd, what funny names these agents always have, because the usual one’s called Burke Lawrence, which is pretty pec - ”

  “What did Holbrook want?”

  “I couldn’t hear very well. Some letter, I think.”

  “And Somerset agreed?”

  “He agreed all right, love. This Jute or Bute was fair poison, I can tell you.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “You know him too?”

  “Yes. Maisie, I’ll tell you the whole story, I promise you, when there’s time. But just now you must tell me: who is this Italian who sent Holbrook?”

  A look of fear and distress appeared on Maisie’s face. “Sorry, love,” she whispered; “I’d like to please you, but not that. Please not that.”

  “All right, not that. Then what about this other agent you mentioned? The usual one, you said. Burke something. Where can I get hold of him?”

  “You promise you won’t say I told you? He’s all right, Burke, but others might get to hear I’d sent you and then - ”

  “ -I promise.”

  “Burke Lawrence, love. If he’s in London, which he often isn’t, you’ll find him at the Infantry Club. Funny place to stay, but he says it’s cheap. Thirty-five bob a night with your own bathroom.”

  “Angel. . . . Has Somerset gone?”

  “He’s gone, love. You’ll take care?” said Maisie, who had become very fond of Fielding.

  “Only having one eye,” said Fielding, “makes a man very circumspect.”

  After Fielding left Maisie he had telephoned the Infantry Club. Yes, Mr. Lawrence was staying at the cl
ub but he was out. So Fielding had eaten a quiet dinner in a small Greek restaurant in Charlotte Street (he had a taste for Greek food which his sad experience in Cyprus had not diminished) and then gone to the Infantry Club in person. Yes, Mr. Lawrence was now in the club; the porter would let him know. After about fifteen minutes,

  “Mr. Lawrence, sir,” the porter said at last.

  A young man of his own age, Fielding noted, watching a figure come unsteadily down the stairs: vulgar good looks, oiled hair, a frightened expression, which was briefly replaced, when the eyes focused on Fielding, by one of undisguised repulsion.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Fielding said.

  “Who are you?”

  “I gave my name. Fielding Gray.”

  “Can you identify yourself?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I'm not going to answer any questions until you do”

  Clearly there was a misapprehension here; equally clearly Lawrence was very drunk. In which case it might be easier to exploit his mistake than to explain it. Fielding showed him an ordinary Army Officers’ Identity Card which, through oversight, had not been withdrawn when he was invalided out.

  “Major Gray,” muttered Lawrence. “So they’re bringing the Army in.” He gave a little cackle of laughter. “At least one’s dealing with officers and gentlemen.”

  “Shall we go upstairs? Or outside?”

  “Out.”

  Together they walked down Pall Mall, Lawrence staggering at every third or fourth step. Fielding took his arm and piloted him down the Duke of York’s steps, across the Mall and to safe anchorage on a park bench.

  “Well, Major Gray?”

  “Does the name Holbrook mean anything to you?”

  “Yes. I had a girl friend called that. Penelope.”

  “I’m enquiring after a man. Jude Holbrook.”

  “Her husband. Or was. They were divorced some time ago.”