The Once and Future Con (Nick Madrid)

by Peter Guttridge

  "Nick. A word."

  "This is not the time-"

  "Please."

  I went into the bathroom. Bridget started to close the door but I held it open so that I could keep an eye on Rex.

  "Why are you doing this?' she hissed. "This is my big chance. Why are you trying to destroy what could be good for me?" She looked at me. "I know-because you never had a proper family."

  "No," I said wearily, tired of the bullshit. "I never had a proper family so I don't know what it's like and that fucking upsets me. But all I can say is, if the people we've been mixing with are what family life is like then I don't think my out-of-it dad did too badly. I'm after the truth, Bridget. I think Rex is a bad man and I don't think you-when you're thinking straight-would want to be involved with him."

  She glared at me fiercely for a long moment then scowled.

  "Shit. I've a horrible feeling it's back to the bloody dinner party circuit."

  We came out of the bathroom and sat together on the sofa. Rex looked calmly at Bridget. Genevra stared at me.

  "We were talking about the death of your stepmother," I said to Rex.

  "Why would you understand?" Rex said. "I've told you before that I have a duty to the country. I'm a member of the patrician elite. The management of a landed estate brings responsibilities."

  "Yeah, yeah," I said. "So why'd you kill her?"

  "I'm not saying I did. But would you stand by while some totty from Tunbridge Wells lived off the fat of your inheritance? She'd already persuaded father to sell things off."

  "But you tried to buy her off?" Genevra said. She looked miserable and out of her depth.

  "With what?" Rex said. "Babe, like most of the aristocracy we're land rich, cash poor."

  "What about the sixteen mill?" Bridget said.

  Rex laughed softly.

  "I'm skint. If this development doesn't work, I've lost everything."

  "We've lost everything," Genevra said.

  "Sure, babe, but I'm the head of the household."

  "Look," I said, "I don't really care about your stepmother. I'm not even concerned about your father-"

  "My father?" Genevra flashed a look at me. "What's he got to do with this?"

  Rex looked at me sullenly. I should have kept it to myself but what was it I'd been told? Family secrets-better to get them out in the open.

  "I'm dancing in the dark here," I said. "But didn't you tell me your father had got serious about some other woman just before he died? Some actress? And your dad died in a car accident, in a car driven by Rex? If Rex offed your stepmother because she was squandering his inheritance, I would think he'd be seriously pissed off if he saw his dad about to let someone else exactly the same into the happy home-to do exactly the same."

  "You sick bastard," Genevra said, half rising. I stood, too. Just in case. She was a strong woman.

  "There's no way to prove it," I said. "But I wonder who chose that particular route home that day and how fast Rex was going? You said Rex hadn't been drinking with the rest of you-almost as if he knew he was going to be breathalyzed after an accident."

  Genevra looked over at Rex and then back at me.

  "Damn you," she said. "Are you determined to destroy everybody's life?"

  "It's not me that's doing the destroying," I said. "And aside from the hurt it causes you, I'm not concerned about your father. He seems to have lived off the fat of the land for the years he had."

  Genevra started to speak but I put up my hand.

  "I'm concerned about the one innocent person in all this. Who didn't deserve to die but was killed by Rex to keep her quiet. I'm talking about Lucy Newton."

  "Lucy?" Genevra said. "I thought Williamson killed her."

  "An easy assumption. I was tempted to make it, too."

  Genevra looked at Rex.

  "Why would Rex kill her?"

  Rex shrugged, then reached down and pulled the blankets up around him. I looked round. I had the floor. I felt like Poirot. Except I was groping blindly in the dark. I would have killed for a waxed moustache.

  "Rex had a problem-didn't you, Rex?" I said. "When you killed your stepmother, where better to put the body than in the crypt? Nobody had been down there for years. And in a couple of years, she'd just be a pile of bones like all the other piles of bones. But you knew a bit about archaeology."

  I looked at Bridget and Genevra. Both were staring at Rex with very similar expressions. Love tinged with great sadness.

  "Rex knew that if, by chance, there was some suspicion later on-and if, by chance, someone found his stepmother's remains-it would be possible to reconstruct her skull, to put her face back together. He didn't want to take the risk. So he severed the head and chucked it away."

  I looked at Rex. "What I don't understand, given his knowledge, is why he disposed of it in a peat bog, peat being such an amazing preservative."

  Rex met my look but said nothing.

  "He'd chosen the easiest sarcophagus in the crypt to dump the bones in. The one with the broken marble lid."

  I turned to Rex again.

  "I imagine you checked from time to time over the years that nobody had been fiddling about down there and that the body had decomposed. When it came time to make your theme park the crypt seemed an obvious place for the Grail Chapel. By then you weren't worried about moving the coffins out. This may have been a sarcophagus with only two skulls in, but how many people know how many bones there are in the human body? What's a few more?"

  I was aware of movement in the doorway. Nanny was standing there in a long dressing gown.

  "I heard a commotion," she said.

  "Come in, Nanny," Rex said. "We're hearing a nightmare from Nick here."

  "I've always been here to soothe your nightmares, my lord," she said, stepping into the room. "You know that."

  I watched her speculatively as she went to sit on the edge of Rex's bed. I sat back down on the sofa. Bridget put a hand out and squeezed my leg. I addressed Rex again.

  "I imagine you were a bit more concerned when Lucy, enthusiastic Lucy, told you that a black marble tomb-one you were very familiar with-was the tomb from Glastonbury purporting to be that of Arthur and Guinevere. What bad luck that you'd dumped your stepmother's body in there.

  "What a weird dilemma. A discovery that could be worth millions but at the risk of the discovery of the crime you'd committed. You knew enough about archaeology to know the bones needed to be carbon-dated-and if that happened to your stepmother's, you'd be in deep doo-doo.

  "You probably thought about getting the bones out-but how could you figure out which they were? Maybe swap all the bones for those in another coffin-but they'd be tested, too, wouldn't they? Must have been a difficult decision-earning power from the coffin versus the risk of the bones being dated. As it turned out-"

  I stopped mid-sentence because Nanny was staring fixedly at me. And another possibility had been occurring as I spoke. Rex saw me looking at Nanny. He reached over and squeezed her hand. They both looked at me. I recalled Nanny saying she'd do anything for Rex and Genevra. Anything.

  As if reading my mind Rex said:

  "She'd spill blood for me."

  I nodded.

  "I think she already has."

  Nanny was sitting very erect on the bed. She'd relinquished Rex's hand.

  "I killed them both," she said. "I wasn't sorry at all about that dreadful woman. But I quite liked Lucy." She looked pointedly at Bridget. "As far as his totties go." She looked away to one side, method-actor style.

  "She came down into the crypt when I was guarding the bones. I used to go down there a lot. I think I startled her. She started to say that she needed to take all the bones away for testing-but I knew why she was there, she didn't need to say. I offered to help her. When she was reaching in to pick up some bones I took her by the throat.

  Nanny paused for breath.

  "It wasn't was only a little thing. I'd already moored the boat there because I was going to move the
bones that way. Thought I'd do the same with her."

  I asked her the question that had been tormenting me almost since the beginning of all this.

  "Why did you lay her out in the boat like that, like Elaine of Astolet, then leave her out there."

  Nanny looked at me and laughed scornfully.

  "I just laid her out the way that seemed decent. And I didn't leave her there deliberately, you idiot. I'd gone back into the chapel and the boat drifted away. Then you turned up so I was stuck."

  I was actually relieved rather than disappointed that there wasn't some weird symbolism going on. That only really happens in books. I was pleased I hadn't missed anything.

  "Okay," I said. "But tell us about killing Genevra and Rex's stepmother. What about the head?"

  "I'm not educated dearie. I wouldn't know nothing about bones. When I put her in the tomb I thought: well, bones is bones. It's only recently I've heard Rex talking and realized you can guess the age of anything these days. There wasn't much I could do about the head."

  "But why did you cut it off if in the first place? If you're not educated, you wouldn't know it could be recreated."

  Nanny looked stumped. She looked at Rex for help.

  "Enough!" Genevra screeched, erupting from her seat. She rounded on me. "Can't you hear yourself? You've been implying all the way along the line that we're somehow dysfunctional, and we probably are. But what about you? You ask so calmly about severed heads? You're so ruthless about working out who did what to whom. What is it with you?"

  The vehemence of her attack startled me. I looked at her for a long moment. Emotions raced through me. I took a deep breath.

  "I'm going to call the police," I said. I looked over at Rex. "I don't know which of you did what, so I'll let them work it out. Although I think Lucy went to the crypt to meet you. Your phone rang while you were having lunch. I think it was your answering service telling you that you had a message. And that message was from Faye saying that Lucy was pressing to see you. I guess the phone records will show whether you phoned her that day."

  Rex sat, huddled in blankets, his hand in the Nanny's. I was half expecting a tussle but he looked at me and said nothing. I looked at Genevra.

  "I'm sorry."

  She glanced my way, worked her mouth, then spat on the Persian rug at my feet. It was an act I found more shocking than if she'd spat in my face. I was aware that, suddenly, Bridget was by my side.

  As we walked down the corridor together she reached for my hand. Squeezed it.

  "I'm sorry about this," I said.

  "Forget it," Bridget said. "I get discontented if I'm too content." She slowed us down. "I know a part of you is wondering whether I'm walking away with you now because Rex said he's not worth the sixteen million he told me about," she said.

  She squeezed my hand again.

  "And to tell you the truth, I don't know. But something happened between you and me in Venice ..." She leaned against me. "Nick, you know I'll always be there for you."

  "What if the guy's worth twenty million?" I said.

  She reached up to peck me on the cheek.

  "Hey," she said. "Let's not spoil a soppy moment with hypotheticals."

  Bridget and I left the next morning. Genevra kept out of sight. The police had taken Rex and Nanny away in the night. Bridget wanted to get straight back to London so I took her to the nearest station then drove into Glastonbury. I parked the car and walked down the high street in the rain. It was jammed with people, umbrellas jogging, heads down. I was threading a way through them when I glanced into a cafe window, streaked with runnels of rain. A face that had been pressed against it quickly withdrew. I walked on, then, stopping at the corner, retraced my steps.

  When I entered the cafe the heat hit me like a wave. I closed the door carefully behind me, wiped my face free of raindrops, shook water from my coat, rubbed my cold wet hands on a handkerchief, then together. Finally I looked up, scanned the room.

  I couldn't see him at first. Then I saw a distinctive pair of arthritic hands loosely clasped round a cup of coffee. I walked down the aisle. He had tried to shrink into the corner. He was looking down at the table, continued to look at the table, even though he knew I was standing over him.

  He didn't look as magnificent now. Seemed shrunken. Aged.

  "John Crow," I said.

  "I'm an old man," he said when I sat down. "I abhor violence."

  "Me, too," I said, touching his mottled hand. I looked at the long scab on his head. The wound inflicted when he'd fallen at the hands of the thugs was slowly healing. "I don't blame you for going into hiding. I was just worried. I came into town today to try to find you."

  "Visited my brother in Hergest Ridge."

  "I guessed. Tell me, do you know Faye and Ralph? From the gatehouse?"

  He looked at me for the first time.

  "Did you used to see them in Hergest Ridge?"

  "Once or twice, when I visited my brother. Years ago

  I'd guessed that when Faye went off to visit a "boyfriend" in Hergest Ridge in the old days she was actually going for assignations with Ralph, far away from anyone that might see them. But Crow had seen them. That's why she'd been so twitchy whenever she saw him. She knew he knew her secret.

  I remembered the evening Crow had appeared on the other side of the flooded river below Wynn House and we'd been talking. He'd seen somebody behind me and suddenly hurried away. I was guessing that he'd seen Faye and that in the past she had warned him to keep quiet.

  A warning I felt sure she'd had the two thugs who attacked us repeat at Wookey Hole. I didn't know who they were. I suppose I should have cared, but I didn't. I felt so utterly betrayed by her-used by her-all the way along the line. But I knew it all came out of the tragedy of her obsessive love for her brother. She'd suffered enough.

  Crow tilted his head to one side, winked at me.

  "I'll share a secret with you if you like."

  "Feel free," I said.

  "I'm looking after King Arthur."

  He was off again.

  "Good for you."

  "Want to meet him?"

  "Er, absolutely."

  He got to his feet and reached for his stick. He looked down at me. "Well, come on then!"

  I got to my feet wearily.

  "Sure, John."

  He led the way down the high street at a brisk pace, oblivious to the rain that still teemed down, clearing a way through the other pedestrians with his stick. He turned into the abbey gates, waved his stick at the woman at the ticket office.

  "Just want to show my young friend something. Only be five minutes."

  He took me through to the ruins and walked toward the sign indicating where Arthur and Guinevere's bones had been found. It was the place where I had first seen him a couple of weeks before. It felt like an age ago.

  He walked past the sign and on down to the abbot's kitchen. Instead of entering, however, he went round the side and down a couple of steps. He looked up.

  "Come on, come on!"

  I followed him down.

  He was crouching over a cardboard box. I looked over his shoulder. I could see a lot of straw and leaves.

  "You can hold him if you like."

  "King Arthur?"

  "Who else?"

  "Yeah, who else. Silly me."

  He picked up something round and brown in his arthritic hands. He twisted and handed it to me.

  "My liege, this is a young friend of mine. Nick, this is King Arthur."

  I took the brown object gingerly. It had a little snout, black sleepy eyes, sharp little feet, and a lot of quills. It probably also had fleas. King Arthur was a hedgehog.

  "I found him sitting on the site of his own grave," Crow said, standing up.

  "So that's why you called him King Arthur?"

  Crow frowned.

  "I called him King Arthur because he is King Arthur."

  I sighed.

  "John, this is a hedgehog."

  "Do you n
ot know the Mabinogion, in which it is recorded that when Arthur returns it will be in animal form. It might be a bear, a wolf, a swan-"

  "Or a hedgehog?"

  Actually, I'm rather fond of hedgehogs. They used to come into our garden when I was a kid in Ramsbottom. We'd leave out milk for them all year. I learned then that their winter hibernation was not total. Quite often they would wake up and walk around a bit or eat some more food.

  The hedgehog wriggled a little in my hands.

  "Unfortunately, Arthur's got a bit of a tummy upset," Crow said.

  "Really," I said, immediately straightening my arms and leaning over the box to put the hedgehog back in it.

  The other thing I know about hedgehogs is that they have salmonella bacteria in their intestines and are prone to food poisoning. A hedgehog suffering the consequent diarrhea is quite something-able to project a substantial spray of bright green shit a distance of some twenty feet.

  Twenty feet. Hence my eagerness to get King Arthur back in his box.

  I was too slow.

  And only three feet away.

  There was a moment in Venice, during our stay in the hospital, when Bridget and I straddled the border between best friends and lovers.

  Bridget was in the chair by my bed. She was wearing a hospital shift and very little underneath. I was sitting up, pillows plumped behind me. I looked at her and had that strange feeling again.

  "Why have we never made love?" I said, as casually as I could.

  "Because you're lousy at it, I suppose-why would I waste my time?"

  "Genevra thinks I'm adequate-she told you."

  Bridget showed her teeth. "Adequate doesn't cut it with me, honey." She examined my face. "Are you asking me for a shag?"

  "No, of course not!" I flushed. "Well, not right now. I thought maybe we could go out on a date."

  "Why?"

  "To see what happens."

  Bridget tilted her head as if to get a better look at me. "I'm confused. First because Genevra is down the corridor panting for you, second because I thought this was a no-go area for us."

  "So did I," I said glumly.

  "Hmm. Is this a mercy shag because something's happened between you and Genevra?"

  "No! And I'm talking about making love, not that."