Strangeways to Oldham

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘Actually, I think you might be right, after all you’ve told me. But what are you going to do about it, eh?’

  ‘You mean, “what are we going to do about it”, Hugo. Well, firstly, I’m going to ring for Beauchamp, and tell him to put this glass somewhere very safe … I suppose, actually in my safe would be the best bet.’

  ‘I wondered why you’d been holding it in your hankie like that. And secondly?’

  ‘That’s the bit I don’t know yet. I think we’ll have to sleep on it, but it’ll probably involve going to the police station and seeing if I can get anyone to believe my story.

  ‘And now I believe it is a couple of minutes past the Cocktail Hour, so what can I get you?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know much about cocktails. You choose!’

  ‘Then we’ll have what I consider to be the cocktail of the day. Beauchamp! A couple of Strangeways to Oldhams, if you please.’

  And thus, Lady Amanda Golightly stumbled into her first ever experience of murder: innocent, guileless, but with the inherited cunning that had kept her family in Belchester Towers for a great many generations.

  And she had used the ‘m’ word: murder. Lady Amanda didn’t believe in beating about the bush, as has been mentioned before, and she wasn’t going to tolerate murder amongst her friends and acquaintances. That was absolutely beyond the pale!

  Although she had been aware of its presence in the trailer at the rear of the Rolls the day before, Lady Amanda was shocked and dismayed, the next morning, to see Hugo shuffling along the corridor propelling a Zimmer frame in front of him, on the way to breakfast.

  ‘I say, old crock. I didn’t know you were as bad as that!’ she declared, as he finally reached the breakfast room door.

  ‘’Fraid so, old stick. Doctor says there’s nothing to be done about it, though,’ he replied ruefully.

  ‘Who’s your doctor?’ she asked, abruptly.

  ‘Old Anstruther,’ he replied, concentrating on getting his frame over a crack in the flagstones.

  ‘Anstruther? Why, he must have been Methuselah’s doctor! Have you had a second opinion? Been to the hospital for X-rays? Had blood tests?’

  ‘He says there’s no point, Manda.’

  ‘No point? The silly old coot. He was practically in his dotage when I was a gal. I’ll give my own doctor a ring – sharp young chap, he is – and get you signed on to his books. If there’s anything that can be done, he’ll not only know about it, but put it into practice. We can’t have you trailing round the house like a tortoise, with that thing as your foregoing shell.’

  ‘If you say so, but I can’t see him coming up with anything new.’

  ‘Anaesthetics are probably new to that old windbag you’ve been going to. I’ll phone after breakfast and make an appointment for you. In the meantime, we’ve got to get you mobile, and out in the fresh air for some exercise, to strengthen up those old muscles of yours.

  ‘I know what we’ll do,’ decided his hostess, as they entered the breakfast room and took their places at the table. ‘Did you see my old black trike yesterday?’

  ‘Of course I did. It went in the trailer with my walking frame, when you collected me from the home,’ replied Hugo, with some dignity. He was neither blind, nor unobservant.

  ‘Well, that was Mummy’s everyday conveyance. For high days and holidays, she had a red one – not quite so heavy, or difficult to steer, and it’s in the stables. Also, Daddy used to have a bicycle with a little motor-thingy. If I can get Beauchamp to transfer the motor-thingy from the bicycle to Mummy’s red trike – he’ll work something out to take into account the extra wheel – we can go out for picnics, even if we never get out of the grounds.’

  ‘That sounds jolly pleasant, Manda,’ he replied, his good humour restored, at the thought of outings and outside – two things he’d been severely deprived of, of late.

  Beauchamp laid out a dish of fried kippers on the table, and as Hugo was starting to enquire about what they would do with regard to their suspicions of murder, Lady Amanda upbraided him with, ‘You know one never discusses business at table, Hugo. We’ll talk about it after we’ve eaten. While we’re at breakfast, tell me about your extraordinarily long surname, and how it grew that big. I never have known the full story.’

  ‘Oh, that’s an easy one,’ he began, interspersing the tale with breaks, while he forked mouthfuls of kipper from his plate, and chewed them appreciatively. ‘Two strong women were all it took. Grandpa Cholmondley married a Miss Crichton and, anxious that her name should not be discarded so lightly, she insisted on adding it to his, making it double-barrelled.

  ‘My father, in his choice of bride, married an equally strong woman, but with the unfortunate surname of Crump. Well, she prevailed, probably egged on by, and in the same fashion as, her mother-in-law, and the name became triple-barrelled, as you now know it.’

  ‘But you never married, Hugo?’

  ‘Didn’t dare to, in case I chose a similarly strong-minded bride. Might have ended up with a moniker so long, I’d never be able to fill in a form for the rest of my life. It’s bad enough as it is, without making it even longer. Pen keeps running out of ink, don’t yer know.’

  ‘Don’t be flippant, Chummy. Is that the real reason you never married?’

  ‘Of course it’s not. Just never met the right gal, I suppose.’

  ‘Never mind. We can keep each other company now, can’t we?’

  ‘I was going to ask you about that,’ Hugo replied. ‘Didn’t know if it was quite decent, the two of us living under the same roof, and all that. It’s all been a bit sudden. I’ll understand completely, if you think you acted rather rashly, yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd!’ she spluttered, her mouth full of tea. ‘I’m glad of the company, to be quite honest, and we have known each other for a very long time.’

  ‘But with an exceedingly long gap in between.’

  ‘Certainly! But we’re still the same people, aren’t we? I know I haven’t changed my nature very much, and from what I’ve seen, neither have you. Now look here, Hugo: we can be lonely separately, or we can choose to be in company together. Which is the most attractive option to you? I know which I’d choose, and I have. When one is older, sometimes the luxury of one’s pride and independence is something one shouldn’t even attempt to pay for. Do you want to go back to that dreadful home?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Hugo, and addressed himself to a clean plate, for toast and marmalade. ‘Do you remember how I used to carry you around on my shoulders, when you were still quite a tot?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ she replied. ‘I sometimes wonder if it was that lofty view that made me a bit haughty at times. One never knows, does one?’

  A little later, as Beauchamp cleared away the breakfast things, Lady Amanda decided to make some telephone calls, and, spotting Hugo over by the window, she called over to him, ‘Do you think you could get me my little address book? It’s on the whatnot.’

  Looking round quizzically, Hugo enquired mildly, ‘What whatnot?’

  ‘The window whatnot,’

  ‘What’s on the window whatnot?’

  ‘I’ll get it myself. If we go on like this, we’re going to slide into the “Who’s on next?” sketch that Abbot and Costello did.’

  ‘What?’ asked Hugo.

  ‘Never mind! I just want to make a few calls, then ring for an appointment for you with my doctor, and check out a couple of estate agents about getting tenants for your house. And you can ring up the one who’s trying to sell it, and tell him to take it off the market. Then, we’ve got to work out what to do about the “you-know-what”.’

  ‘What “you-know-what”? Is the “you-know-what” on the window whatnot, or what?’ Hugo replied, nearly restarting the surreal conversation that Lady Amanda had just forcibly ended, before it got out of control, and drove her mad.

  Chapter Three

  After a very intense hour on the phone, Lady Amanda was as good a
s her word earlier, and instructed Beauchamp on the alterations she required, with the motor from the bicycle being suitably adapted and transferred to Mummy’s best red trike, then mounted her own machine, having decided that she owed it to the police, to give them a crack at solving this case of murder she and Hugo had uncovered.

  She arrived in South Street in Belchester, where the police station was situated, just beyond The Goat and Compasses public house. Leaving her tricycle firmly chained up, she went through the police station doors and presented herself at the desk, where a fresh-faced uniformed officer sat, reading the sports pages of a daily paper that she would never allow to darken the letter box of her own home.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’ he asked, pushing the newspaper aside and looking up, his facial expression freezing a little, as he noticed that she was neither young, nor pretty.

  ‘I sincerely hope so, young man,’ she replied, thinking that he looked no older than a schoolboy. Wherever were the police recruiting from nowadays? It’d be from the nursery next. ‘I wish to report a murder,’ she stated baldly, and watched his face change from slight disappointment, to ‘we’ve got a right one, here’.

  ‘How can I help you with this “murder”, madam?’ he asked politely, the word murder obviously carrying inverted commas, and with a sarcastic gleam in his eye.

  ‘I’d like to speak to the officer in charge, if you don’t mind. Murder is a serious matter, and should be treated as such, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course, madam. I’ll ring upstairs for the inspector, if you’ll be so good as to wait here.’

  Lady Amanda took a seat on a hard wooden bench on the wall opposite the desk, but her hearing was still acute, and she heard the young man’s end of the conversation without any difficulty. ‘Got a right one down here. Some batty old biddy wanting to report a murder. Wants to see someone in charge. Do you think you could have a word with her?’

  The answer must have been in the affirmative, for he proceeded to conduct her up a flight of stairs and into a small, unaired office that smelled of sweat and ‘fags smoked out of the window’.

  In five minutes, she found herself back outside once more, feeling both silly, and furious at the same time; silly, because the inspector – too young for his rank, in her opinion – had treated her as if she were senile, and furious, because she had let him get away with it, which wasn’t like her at all. She hadn’t had much to do with the police, in her time, however, and it could have been that which threw her so far out of her normal commanding and forthright character.

  More likely, however, it was the insolent and superior attitude of the inspector, who had asked her if she thought she was some sort of ‘Miss Marple’ character, and enquiring if she watched a lot of detective programmes on what he had referred to as ‘the telly’. She had retorted with as much dignity as she could muster, by informing him that: A) Miss Marple was a fictional character, B) Miss Marple was portrayed as a very elderly lady, and C), Miss Marple managed to traverse the decades without ageing a day, and that, as she was none of these three things, she certainly did not see herself in such a role; and she marched out of the police station in high dudgeon.

  So, that was that! The police were going to take no notice of her whatsoever. Granted, she hadn’t brought the cocktail glass with her, but they’d probably just have taken it, washed it up, and put it away behind the police social club bar.

  So, she’d hang on to it. And she and Hugo would find out who killed poor old Reggie Pagnell themselves.

  She rode back to BelchesterTowers via the back routes, taking her time, to allow her temper to subside, and to try to come to terms with the fact that the police thought her a silly old fool. As she entered the grounds, she looked across to the building where she had spent her entire life (when not at boarding school).

  There it stood, its red brick dulled by age now, though it was less than two hundred years old, with its silly moat empty, overgrown by weeds. There it stood, with its daft towers, and all its unrealistic fairy-tale architecture, and she loved it. Tears came to her eyes as she thought of all the happy times she had spent there throughout her life, accompanied by tears of self-pity, at how she had been treated at the police station.

  Well, she had Hugo for company now, and they’d show that snotty inspector how to track down a murderer, and then who would be laughing? Eh?

  When she had parked her trike, she went into the morning room and encountered Hugo taking a leisurely look at the newspaper. Looking up, he was immediately aware that Manda was not herself – something had happened that had ‘got to her’. ‘What’s up, old thing?’ he asked, in a gentle voice.

  ‘Oh, nothing, Chummy. I’ve just discovered that when one is old, nobody notices one, or listens to one any more. The elderly become invisible, and I feel that, today, I have joined their silent and unnoticed ranks.’

  ‘Rot, Manda! You? Old? Utter and complete tommyrot!’

  ‘Very gallant of you, Hugo, but I have to face the fact that I’m just a meddling old woman in most people’s eyes.’

  ‘What’s happened to make you feel like that?’ asked Hugo, with concern. This wasn’t the Manda that he remembered and … was – well – very fond of, at least.

  ‘I went to the police station to report Reggie Pagnell’s murder, and was treated as a silly old trout with an over-active imagination,’ she informed him, looking thoroughly crestfallen.

  ‘How dare they! We must speak to the Chief Constable, now. That really takes the biscuit!’ Hugo retorted, now full of indignation.

  ‘Times have moved on, since we were in our prime, Hugo. The Chief Constable’s a young man in his mid-forties, I believe, and although Daddy knew his father, I predict that if we put our little problem before him, he’d just think it was dementia setting in, as so many people now presume, about anything esoteric, said by someone over pensionable age.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to investigate it ourselves. Can’t have a murderer wandering about out there, scot free and undetected.’

  ‘I hoped you’d say that, Hugo. That’s what I’d more or less decided myself, on the way home. I just didn’t know if you’d go along with it or not. I’ll start with the nursing home: see what details I can get about this “nephew”, and about when and where the funeral’s to be held.’

  ‘That’s more like my Manda of old. Up and at ʼem! Don’t let ʼem grind you down! When are you thinking of going?’

  ‘After luncheon,’ she replied, tugging on a chintz bell-pull to summon Beauchamp, and announce that they were ready for their meal.

  Unnervingly, Beauchamp slipped through the door the moment she grabbed the bell-pull, and she gave a little shriek, at this immediate attendance upon her wishes. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that, Beauchamp. At least give a little cough, to warn me you’re just about to appear, like a pantomime villain, as usual.’

  ‘Sorry, my lady. And it’s Beecham,’ the man declared, his dignity not ruffled one jot.

  ‘Tell me, did you study French at school, Beauchamp?’ she asked, emphasising the pronunciation of his surname.

  ‘No, my lady. I studied woodwork. But it’s still Beecham.’ And with that, he disappeared out of the room, to bring the food to table in the breakfast room, where it was cosier to eat, at this time of day, than in the vast panelled dining room.

  Over their meal, the proposed investigation banned until after they had finished eating, the conversation was of a nostalgic nature – not unexpectedly, given the circumstances that had suddenly thrown them together again, after such a long time.

  ‘Nice name that – Amanda,’ Hugo mumbled through a mouthful of food. ‘Lady Amanda, now that’s just the same as the woman in those Campion books by whatshername – Margery Allingham. That’s the chap. Lady Amanda Fitton, wasn’t it? Did you ever read those books, Manda?’ he asked.

  ‘Actually, Mummy named me after her. The writer only had the copyright on the books, you know, not the characters’ names as well. But Mummy loved
all those old murder mysteries, and I read them when I was growing up. Used to imagine it was me, marrying silly young Albert. And here I am, never managed to find Mr Right, or even Mr Wright – that’s with a ‘W’, Hugo, as one can’t hear spelling. Joke!’

  ‘Jolly good! Play on words. I seem to remember you were rather good at those, when we were younger, but that one definitely needs to be written down to appreciate it.’

  After a few seconds of silence, Hugo declared, ‘Damn shame, you being orphaned like that!’

  ‘Damned lucky escape, if you ask me!’

  ‘Whatever do you mean, Manda? That sounds rather cruel, and that’s unlike you.’

  ‘It’s just sheer logic, old bean. The only people who never have to face up to the loss of their parents, are those who die young, and I never had any intentions of doing that.’

  ‘Ah, see what you mean. True enough! You always were a sensible old thing.’

  ‘And not so much of the “old”. I’ve had a bellyful of that today already, and you’re a good few years my senior, if my memory really isn’t failing.’

  ‘Touché!’

  ‘Oh, by the way, Beauchamp has transferred that motor thingy from Daddy’s bicycle to mother’s best tricycle, so we can get out and about.’

  ‘Bravo, Beauchamp!’ Hugo replied, waving his fork about, in his excitement. ‘We could be like those Hell’s Angels chappies, what?’

  ‘More like Hell’s Wrinklies! And mind your fork! You nearly chucked your food on the floor, waving it about like that.’

  ‘Sorry, Manda.’

  After coffee and a suitable period for digestion, Lady Amanda mounted her three-wheeled steed and set off to see what she could learn from the rest home where she had discovered Hugo incarcerated, the day before.

  She had a legitimate family reason for knowing when, and where, Reggie’s funeral would take place, and the same thing applied to getting in touch with his so-called nephew, to pass on her condolences. She’d present a humbler version of herself today, and explain away her behaviour of the day before as shock, pure and simple.