King and Joker

by Peter Dickinson

  No there was something wrong. The clock, too.

  Miss Durdon gave her mind an angry shake to clear away the nonsense pictures, the baby in the cot, the old King in Kitten’s arms. It’s never gained before, she thought. It only loses. Five minutes a day in summer, three minutes in winter. His Majesty knows that, perfectly well. There’s something wrong. I must stay here and put it right. I must do what I can for the Family, as long as they need me. I mustn’t go over the edge yet—not yet.

  Chapter 12

  Saturday. Another blank day. Princess Louise’s engagements (a visit to the North Bucks Dairy Show, of all stupid boring things) cancelled. Prince Albert’s ditto. But Mother and Father breaking out of Sir Sam’s security net to do a swirl through East Anglia—open one research lab, one stretch of Motorway; present new Colours to Royal Norfolks; attend christening of Mother’s forty-third godchild (Sandringham farmer’s daughter); sleep at Sandringham, attend church there Sunday; review Lowestoft fishing fleet Sunday pm; back to Palace Sunday evening. Miss Anona Fellowes one of those in attendance.

  “Rather them than me,” said Albert. “Did you hear the weather forecast? I missed it, but I’ll bet it blows up a hurricane as soon as they’re afloat. One thing we can safely predict about my reign—nobody’s ever going to call me a Sailor King.”

  The only good thing about the parents being away was that you could take two hours over breakfast. Pilfer approved of this, too. It was as if the strict routine of Palace life prevented him from showing how good he was at his job—a real butler, he seemed to think, should be able to sound the ritual gong at the proper time, but then—supposing nobody turned up for three quarters of an hour—still being able to produce an absolutely fresh breakfast. Albert was wearing forbidden pyjamas and dressing-gown and playing at Sherlock Holmes. The Sunday papers were still full of the murder. Albert wanted to talk about it—Louise didn’t.

  “I’m going off terrorists,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “I was never very gone on them—I mean, it might have turned out that I was really on their side. Some of the thugs Father entertains!”

  “It was a cultural reception.”

  “You can be a cultural thug. Did you hear about the group who claimed responsibility?”

  “No.”

  “d’Arcy told me. They turned out to be a brother and sister, both over sixty, living in Worcester. Their mother was Venezuelan, OK, but their father was Greek. He didn’t tell me what they were doing, living in Worcester. That’s not the sort of question d’Arcy asks himself.”

  “I don’t think they ought to be allowed to bring dogs in to sniff for explosives when there aren’t any explosives to be sniffed for.”

  “Quite right. They’ll think it’s their fault they haven’t found anything. Hell, Lulu, what are we going to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ve got a new theory.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think McGivan was the joker.”

  “Oh!”

  “I thought that’d make you sit up. Listen, what hasn’t happened since the murder?”

  “There haven’t been any jokes.”

  “Right. So two possibilities suggest themselves. One: McGivan’s death was a joke that went off the rails, which was what I first thought, and since then the joker’s been too scared to try again. There’s a lot of things wrong with that, though—not just there being no red cross, but I can’t see how it was all supposed to work, even if it hadn’t gone wrong. But the main thing is that it sort of smells different from the other jokes. Not so funny, more dangerous. I go much more for possibility two: McGivan was the joker and somebody killed him for that very reason. Right?”

  “I expect so.”

  “Now why should anybody kill a practical joker? I mean, say Sir Sam had spotted him for the bloke who scissored his trousers, he’d have blown his top all right, got Father to sack him and so on, but he wouldn’t have blotted him right out. OK? Second possibility, to prevent him playing his next joke. I can just about imagine a set-up in which that makes sense, so we can’t rule it out, but it’s all pretty intangible. Third possibility, which is the one I go for myself: we know the joker had a good line in gathering information about us—I mean, he knew about Father’s obsession with the loo, and about how to get a pile of pianos up to Granny’s, no questions asked. I don’t know how old McGivan got this stuff, but after all he was paid to poke about, wasn’t he? Now, suppose in the course of gathering material for practical-joke purposes he’d come across something really hot, something that simply had to be kept quiet—that’d be a motive for rubbing him out, wouldn’t it? Wait a bit, Lulu. It might also explain why you found him where you did, kitted up to look like Father. Suppose you were going to murder a practical joker for a reason like that, you might try to disguise his death as another practical joke, thus concealing your motive for doing him in. Only you make a bit of a mess of it—don’t bring your red felt pen along—so there’s no red cross. Right? I must say, I think it makes a good deal better sense than anything anyone else has yet come up with.”

  As if to emphasise his confidence in his own logic Albert tossed a slice of carrot in the air, caught it in his mouth and began his ritual of chewing. Louise stared at him. At first she was only startled by how close he had come to guessing what she and Father already thought to be the truth—and if he could arrive there by logic, so could anyone. Then they’d start asking themselves what it was that McGivan had found out. Then …

  Suddenly, before the next rush of ideas had even begun to cross her mind, she felt a hideous change take place in her body, as though all her blood had been drained away and replaced by clammy, cold, unmoving slime. Father! He would do anything to prevent the secret getting out—he’d said so himself. When he’d come up to her room with d’Arcy his first questions had been about time—when had she seen McGivan? Had she checked with any other clocks? And then he’d rushed off to see Durdy, given her an injection, and come back saying that the clock was fast. And all those secrets—secrets from d’Arcy, secrets from the Family, secrets that weren’t truly important … And Durdy! She must have guessed—that or something—because at first she’d said that the clock never gained, then she’d gone all funny and refused to talk about anything to do with the murder, and then she’d said that the clock did gain, and then she’d practically driven Louise away. Durdy was trying to protect Father, because she realised.

  “You might at least respond with applause to my chain of reasoning,” grumbled Albert. “I don’t put on these cerebral fireworks to be greeted by blank stares.”

  “Bert! Can we go somewhere?”

  “What do you mean?” “Anywhere. Away from here. Just for the day. You could drive us in one of the black-windowed cars. Couldn’t you ring up the Kents?”

  “Aunt Eloise would eat you alive, Lulu, and then tell all her friends what you’d told her, and half of them get retainers from some bloody little tick on a gossip column. Shall I try the Yorks?”

  “But don’t you want to see … ?”

  “Oh, I’m taking Soppy out on the tiles next Thursday, poor kid. It’s the Round House—the Gabon Mime Group against Imperialist Exploitation of Natural Resources. Not at all her cup of tea.”

  “Oh, Bert!”

  “Actually she’ll love it. They just call themselves that to get idiots like me to come along. It’ll be a lot of noise and prancing. Stunning drums. And afterwards I’ll take her to a proper carnivorous restaurant so she can have my steak as well as hers, and she’ll be as happy as a sandboy. D’you like her, Lulu?”

  “Yes. And she’s a lot cleverer than she looks.”

  “Right. We live funny lives, don’t we? I mean, if we hadn’t been landed with all this Soppy and I would be hitch-hiking round Turkey together, finding out how we got along … Are you all right, Lulu?”

  “Yes, it’s only �
��”

  “You needn’t say it. I’m sorry I went beavering on about the murder like that. I should have realised, only it’s so difficult to know what you’re thinking—Soppy finds you a bit alarming, you know?”

  “Me!”

  “Uh huh. I’ll go and ring up the Yorks. It’s my bath morning, but I’ll skip that. If you’ll help me feed my animals we ought to be able to get down there by lunch. Meet you at the zoo in ten minutes. Right?”

  “OK. Thank you, Bert.”

  Louise walked sombrely back to her room, thinking about Albert in order to avoid thinking about Father. She had blood back in her veins now, but somewhere between her stomach and her spine lurked the cold slime, contracted into a globule but ready to spread through her body again, like panic through a crowd. Albert was a really kind person. He was obviously very much in love with Soppy, and he’d often said that the Yorks were a wasted asset and that Britain should use them as a diplomatic deterrent, to bore the pants off anybody who tried stonewalling against us. But for Louise’s sake he’d suggested enduring that ordeal. And to change the subject, he’d talked about Soppy, which he’d never normally have done. He was clever, too, about getting his eccentric way in a fashion which didn’t inconvenience other people. Like taking Soppy to this awful-sounding show which she’d really enjoy. The best example of that was the way he’d persuaded the regiments of which he was Colonel-in-Chief to let him inspect them without their weapons—he’d persuaded them that it was just another of those rum privileges which the British army so enjoys, such as drinking the Loyal Toast direct from the bottle on Salamanca Day, or wearing radishes in their caps when marching through Portsmouth. Father had once said …

  Father. The globule of slime stirred as Louise reached her room. She brushed ferociously at her teeth, as if to clean a chill and cloying film from them; but when she moved to her mirror to put on her anti-Nonny eye-shadow the ghost was there,, the family face, untroubled. It was horrible to see it looking so calm and pretty when behind it slithered these waves of fear and betrayal. The story princess. Father.

  Suppose you’d just killed somebody. Suppose your mind was full of the shock of it, and fear of being found out, and complicated plans about covering your tracks by changing the times of clocks, and awareness of the need to act innocence and ignorance of some things but not others—would you find the time to warn your daughter that she was playing with fire by acting out a little fantasy that had struck her? He might, thought Louise. He has funny ideas about what matters. Even so this other image of Father—an actual man who had said actual words—became steady in her mind. Perhaps I’m only acting out another fantasy, she thought. Murderer’s daughter—stupid little girl. He was the one who’d liked McGivan. Even if some of what he’d done didn’t make sense.

  She began to feel better, and actually ran along the corridor and down the stairs, catching up Albert at the far side of the main court-yard.

  “I dunno about the Yorks,” he said. “It’s Cousin Ted’s annual jamboree for the Berkshire Bee-keepers Association. What do you feel about coping with three hundred old buffers with veils down to their knees?”

  “I could put on a veil too.”

  “It won’t come to that, I think. The bee-boys don’t turn up till three. Aunt Tim’ll give us lunch and then we can go for a ride and not bother anyone. Right?”

  While he had been talking he’d fished his key-ring out and unlocked the zoo door. He paused with his hand on the’ handle and looked at her. She nodded. As he opened the door a voice said “Go get ’em, you two.” The mynah swooped chuckling across the room.

  “Hey! How did you get out?” said Albert.

  His body went rigid. As he swung slowly round Louise saw that the patches of cheek between his eyes and his beard were a strange blue-white.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “Somebody’s been, in and opened the cages. Christ!”

  He darted across the room and dropped to a crouch by one of the trestle tables which supported the cages. Out of the cave-like darkness flashed a greyish thing with something yellow at the front, a cat with a bird in its mouth, darting for the door. Without thought Louise flipped the door shut. The cat came on, still thinking it could make the closing gap, but realising too late that it couldn’t. In its instant of hesitation Albert was on it, gripping with efficient firmness as it wriggled and spat. The yellow blob—no, it wasn’t a bird—dropped to the floor.

  “Open the door,” said Albert. As she did so he tossed the cat through, even in his shock and anger taking care not to hurt it. At the same moment another cat

  streaked out of somewhere and into the passage. Louise couldn’t see anything in its mouth. She shut the door and turned to see Albert kneeling by the scarlet and gold blob on the floor. It was the lion-maned tamarin, gazing with blank blue eyes at the ceiling, its face drawn into a shrieking grimace.

  “Go get ’em, you two,” said the mynah again. This time r as it swooped down the room it added a wavering cry of pain.

  “Is he dead?” said Louise.

  “Think so. Hope so, in fact. It’d be a sick job putting him down.”

  “How on earth did the cats get in?”

  “They were put, Lulu. Didn’t you hear the mynah? Oh, damn!”

  He picked up the tamarin’s body and laid it carefully on his bench. Only now did Louise realise how silent the zoo was. Usually when Albert first came in it was a bedlam of welcoming calls, cackles for food and attention, hoppings and scufflings and mews. Now only the mynah called, answering its own voice with a ghastly cry. Nothing else seemed to breathe.

  “Let’s see what the damage is,” said Albert quietly. “You don’t have to stay, Lulu.”

  “I’m all right. I’d like to help. Oh, Bert, I’m sorry!”

  He shrugged. His face was still very white.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll check down the cages. You start on the tanks, working from that end … Well, that’s a start—this chap’s had the sense to hide in his own nest. All right, mate, you’re OK now. Nightmare’s over. Any sign of Fatty, Lulu? He quite often buries himself under his leaves.”

  “I can’t see him … Yes, I can … there’s … Bert!”

  The great Blomberg toad lived in its own dry glass tank, where it spent much of its time either asleep or arranging and rearranging its collection of plane-leaves and fig leaves. They were all piled into one corner this morning, so Louise began to unbuild the mound, leaf by leaf. Soon she came to a patch of mottled skin, glistening in one corner, glistening red. Carefully she picked away another two leaves and saw the gash, just as though a ripe fruit, ready to seed, had split itself open.

  “OK, Lulu,” said Albert, still in the same controlled voice. “I’ll take over. The next tank’s supposed to have three green whip-snakes and a terrapin in it. The snakes aren’t poisonous. If you find anything else nasty, leave it for me. Hello! He’s alive! The bastard! Look—no, don’t look, but he’s just taken one of my scalpels—that must be it on the floor—and slashed two cuts on its back. Christ! D’you know what? He’s made a red cross. He’s mad. I wonder whether that’ll mend, in spite of everything. What’s up, Lulu?”

  “There’s a couple of animals in this tank with the snakes. I think they’re kangaroo rats.”

  “That’s right. They’ll be OK. They live in that third cage. You don’t have to grab them. Put a bit of corn’ on your palm, let ’em see it, then hold your hand flat above their heads and they’ll jump up to eat it. See how you get on—I’m going to do what I can for Fatty. Stupid idiot if he thought the whip-snakes would go anywhere near kangaroo-rats. Now, Fatty, how’m I going to get you on to my bench without you falling apart?”

  The kangaroo rats did their trick as if they were practising for a circus. Louise stroked them as she carried them to their cage, more to calm her own horrors than theirs. On her way back to the tank
s her eye was caught by a brown blob crouched in a corner where a row of the old King’s parallel bars still ran up the wall. It looked like a bit of wrong-coloured fluff until a black eye blinked at her. She took a tumbler and a filing-card from the bench and moved carefully towards it.

  “Lulu …”

  “Shh.”

  The animal crouched till she was almost on it, and then didn’t bolt fast enough. She trapped it under the tumbler, slid the card beneath it and carried her catch to Albert.

  “Mus musculus, he said. “The common house mouse.”

  “Common palace mouse, really.”

  “Not one of mine. Wait a sec—I haven’t had mice in here before. It might be evidence. I wish to God Father had persuaded d’Arcy to take the joker more seriously. We ought to have the police in here before I muck around much more—on the other hand I daren’t wait for them in case there’s more like Fatty, or ones the cats half got.”