What a Carve Up!

by Jonathan Coe

  Impatiently he swept aside most of the dust and the cobwebs. The radio seemed to have been battery operated and, unsurprisingly, it did not respond when he tried flicking the various switches; but a quick search of the desk drawers proved more rewarding. There were maps, almanacs and railway timetables from the 1940s, along with a German–English dictionary and what appeared to be some sort of address book. Leafing through it, Michael came across not only BISCUIT, CHEESE AND CELERY but also the codenames of other double agents – CARROT, SWEETIE, PEPPERMINT, SNOW, DRAGONFLY – all with addresses and telephone numbers written alongside tliem. Personal details of many high-ranking figures from the military, the War Cabinet and the coalition government had also been noted down. A leather-bound accounting book was filled with parallel rows of figures in pounds and Deutschmarks, while a page at the back listed the names and addresses of several British and German bank accounts. And there were, in addition, some loose sheets of paper, one of which in particular caught his eye. It was headed:

  L 9265–53 Sqn.

  This, Michael knew, had been the number of Godfrey’s plane and squadron. Most of the figures which followed were incomprehensible to him, although ‘30/11’ was clearly an indication of the date, and some of the other numbers looked as though they might refer to positions of latitude and longitude. It was certain, in any case, that he had at last stumbled upon the proof of Lawrence’s treachery: his calculated betrayal of Godfrey for financial gain.

  Michael was now torn between two conflicting impulses: to return to Phoebe (if he could) and explain his discovery, or to try his luck with the other doorway and continue exploring. For once, his spirit of adventure won the day.

  The second exit led directly on to another staircase, this one steeper and more uneven than the last. By leaving the door to the little room wedged open, Michael found that he had just enough light to illuminate his progress, and before long he calculated that he had descended to the level of the ground floor, at which point the steps ended. He was now standing at the entrance to a narrow passage. Darkness began to encroach.

  In the wall of the passage, after only a few paces, he came upon a wooden door. It was bolted at the top, but the mechanism was well oiled and seemed to have been in recent use. He opened it without difficulty, and found himself looking out, as he had expected, into the billiard room. Dawn would not come for an hour or two yet, but a certain amount of moonlight was peeping through gaps in the curtains, and in the shadows he could make out Mark’s corpse, which had now been covered with a bloodstained sheet. His severed arms still rose grotesquely, like savage totems, from the pockets of the billiard table. Michael shuddered, and was about to withdraw when he noticed a metallic glint at the table’s edge. It was Mark’s cigarette lighter. This was too useful to pass up, so he stole across the room and grabbed it before beating a grateful retreat into the tunnel, the entrance to which was seamlessly concealed behind a rack of billiard cues clamped to the oak panelling.

  Michael had not gone much further along the passage before the roof and walls began to close in, making movement more difficult. For a while he had to crouch almost on his hands and knees, and he could tell that the floor was beginning to slope steeply downwards. Once or twice, twin pinpoints of light in the distance would betoken the presence of a watchful rat, which would then scurry away at his approach. The tunnel remained dry, however, and the mortar would sometimes crumble as he brushed against it, so he was surprised when he began to hear a distinct dripping noise, irregular but insistent.

  Plip. Plip. Plip.

  At this point, too, a flickering light began to appear, getting stronger all the time, and the space between the walls began to broaden out. Suddenly the passage opened into what was almost a room. The roof, composed of stone flags, was supported by beams, and the four walls formed a square some sixteen feet across.

  Plip. Plip.

  The source of the dripping was readily apparent. The first that Michael saw of it was a fantastically enlarged shadow, dancing unsteadily in the light from a burning candle set on the floor. It was the shadow of a human body, trussed up neatly and tied by the ankles to a meat hook screwed into one of the beams. A small incision had been made in the neck, from which blood flowed in a steady trickle, across the face, down through the tangle of clotted hair, and into a heavy steel bucket which was now almost full.

  Plip. Plip. Plip.

  It was the body of Dorothy Winshaw; and beside it, sitting on a little three-legged stool, was her uncle Mortimer. He looked up at Michael as he emerged from the tunnel, but it was impossible to say whose eyes were more tired and expressionless: the eyes of Mortimer, or those of the frozen, slowly rotating cadaver.

  Plip.

  ‘Is she dead?’ said Michael at last.

  ‘I think so,’ said the old man. ‘But it’s rather hard to say. It’s taken longer than I thought.’

  ‘What a horrible way to kill someone.’

  Mortimer thought about this for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  Plip. Plip.

  ‘Mr Owen,’ Mortimer continued, speaking with great effort. ‘I do hope you aren’t going to expend any pity on members of my family. They don’t deserve it. You should know that better than anybody.’

  ‘Yes, but all the same …’

  ‘It’s too late now, in any case. What’s done is done.’

  Plip. Plip. Plip.

  ‘We’re underneath the sitting room, in case you were wondering,’ said Mortimer. ‘If there was anybody up there now, we could hear them. I stood here some hours ago, and listened to all the fuss they made when Sloane read out the will, and they realized they weren’t going to get a penny out of me. A childish contrivance, I suppose.’ He grimaced. ‘Vain. Foolish. Like everything else.’

  Plip.

  Mortimer closed his eyes, as if in pain.

  ‘I’ve led an idle life, Mr Owen. Wasted, for the most part. I was born into money and like the rest of my family I was too selfish to want to do any good with it. Unlike them, at least, I never did anyone much harm. But I thought I might redeem myself, slightly, by doing mankind a small favour before I died. Ridding the world of a handful of vermin.’

  Plip. Plip.

  ‘It was you, Mr Owen, who finally persuaded me. That book of yours. It gave me the idea, and suggested one or two possible … approaches. Now that it’s done, however, I must confess to a certain sense of anti-climax.’

  As he spoke these words, Mortimer was toying in his right hand with a large syringe filled with clear liquid. He noticed that Michael was watching him apprehensively.

  ‘Oh, you needn’t worry,’ he said. ‘I don’t intend to kill you. Or Miss Barton.’ His expression seemed to soften for a moment at the mention of this name. ‘You will look after her, won’t you, Michael? She’s been good to me. And I can see that she likes you. It would make me happy, to think …’

  ‘Of course I will. And Tabitha, too.’

  ‘Tabitha?’

  ‘I’ll make sure that she’s not taken back to that place. I don’t know how, but – I won’t let it happen.’

  Plip.

  ‘But you do know, of course,’ said Mortimer, ‘that she’s mad?’

  Michael stared at him.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He smiled distractedly. ‘Quite, quite mad.’

  ‘But I’ve just been talking to her. She seemed perfectly –’

  ‘It runs in the family, you see. Mad as hatters, queer as coots, and nutty as fruitcakes, every one of us. Because there comes a point, you know, Michael’ – he leaned forward and pointed at him with the syringe – ‘there comes a point, where greed and madness become practically indistinguishable. One and the same thing, you might almost say. And there comes another point, where the willingness to tolerate greed, and to live alongside it, and even to assist it, becomes a sort of madness too. Which means that we’re all stuck with it, in other words. The madness is never going to end. At least not …’ (his voice faded to a ghostly whisper)
‘… not for the living.’

  Plip. Plip.

  ‘Take Miss Barton, for instance.’ Mortimer’s speech was starting to slur. ‘Such a kind girl. So trusting. And yet I was deceiving her all that time. My legs were in reasonable shape. A few ulcers, here and there, but nothing to stop me walking around. I simply liked to be fussed over, you see.’

  Plip. Plip. Plip.

  ‘I’m so tired, Michael. That’s the irony of it, really. There’s only ever been one thing wrong with me, and I haven’t even mentioned it to Miss Barton. She has no idea. Can you guess what it is?’

  Michael shook his head.

  ‘Insomnia. I can’t sleep. Can’t sleep at all. An hour or two, every now and again. Three, at the most. Ever since Rebecca died.’

  Plip.

  ‘And what a night it’s been! It’s all been far, far too much. The exertion. I thought I’d never make it, to be frank with you.’ He slumped forward, his head in his hands. ‘I’d so like to sleep, Michael. You will help me, won’t you?’

  Michael took the syringe from his outstretched hand, and watched as Mortimer rolled up his sleeve.

  ‘I don’t think I have the strength left in my fingers any more, that’s the pity of it. Just put me to sleep, Michael, that’s all that I ask.’

  Michael looked at him, undecided.

  ‘Out of the kindness of your heart. Please.’

  Michael took hold of Mortimer’s hand. The skin was hanging off his arms. He had the eyes of an imploring spaniel.

  Plip. Plip.

  ‘They send dogs to sleep, don’t they? When they’re old, and sick?’

  And he supposed, put like that, that it didn’t sound so bad.

  CHAPTER NINE

  With Gagarin to the Stars

  ‘No explanations,’ said Michael. ‘If you sleep, if you dream, you must accept your dreams. It’s the role of the dreamer.’

  Phoebe shielded her eyes against the sunlight. ‘Sounds plausible. What does it mean?’

  ‘I was just thinking: there are three dreams I had when I was a kid which I can still remember clearly. And now two of them have come true: more or less.’

  ‘Only two? What about the third?’

  Michael shrugged. ‘You can’t have everything.’

  They were standing on the terrace at Winshaw Towers, looking out over the lawns, the gardens, the tarn, and the magnificent sweep of the moors beyond. Bright sunshine had succeeded the storm, although there were felled trees, fallen tiles and windswept debris everywhere to testify to its effect.

  It was almost midday: the end of a long, gruelling morning, during which they seemed to have done nothing but give statements to the policemen who had been swarming all over the house ever since Phoebe had walked to the village and raised the alarm. Shordy after ten o’clock, the first journalists and press photographers had arrived. So far the police had been successful in holding them at bay, but they were even now spread out on the road like an army waiting in ambush, keeping the house covered with a whole arsenal of telephoto lenses, or sitting sulkily in their cars hoping to pounce on anybody who dared venture down the drive.

  ‘I wonder if things will ever get back to normal,’ said Michael. He turned urgently to Phoebe. ‘You will come and see me in London soon, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course: as soon as I can. Tomorrow, or the day after.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d have done, if you hadn’t been here.’ He smiled. ‘Every Kenneth needs his Sid, after all.’

  ‘What about “Every Orpheus needs his Eurydice”? Just to clear up any gender confusion.’

  But Michael seemed dejected by this analogy. ‘I’ll never forgive myself, you know, for what happened about that painting.’

  ‘Look, Michael, let me just say something. We’re never going to get anywhere, you and me, by harping on about the past. The past is a mess, in both our cases. We’ve got to put it behind us. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘All right, so repeat after me: Don’t – look – back.’

  ‘Don’t look back.’

  ‘Good.’

  She was about to reward him with a kiss when they were joined on the terrace by Hilary’s pilot, Tadeusz, who had also arrived that morning. He was, it had to be said, a far cry from Conrad, the previous holder of this desirable position: for he was barely five feet tall, well over sixty years old, and, having only recently settled in this country from his native Poland, could not speak a word of English. He nodded brusquely to Michael and Phoebe and then stood at some distance from them, leaning against the balustrade.

  ‘I think Hilary’s husband must have put his foot down,’ Phoebe whispered. ‘Her last pilot was this godlike specimen. They came up here once and romped naked on the croquet lawn for most of a weekend. Somehow I can’t see this one entering into quite the same spirit.’

  ‘Oh well, as long as he knows how to fly a plane,’ said Michael. ‘He’s supposed to be taking me home this afternoon.’

  ∗

  Little more than an hour later, Michael was packed and ready to leave. Phoebe, who was planning to take an afternoon train to Leeds in the company of Mr Sloane, walked with him down to the edge of the tarn. They had been unable to find Tadeusz anywhere in the house, but the agreed take-off time was one o’clock, and Michael was relieved to see the pilot’s diminutive figure already squeezed into the cabin. He was fully dressed for the part, in what seemed to be an authentic World War I flying ace costume, complete with goggles and leather helmet.

  ‘My God, it’s the Red Baron,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘I hope this guy knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  He put his case down and hugged her.

  ‘See you soon, then.’

  Phoebe nodded, stretched up on her toes, and kissed him on the mouth. He clung on to her tightly. It was a long kiss, which after a fierce start became more leisurely and tender. Michael enjoyed the feel of her hair blowing in his face, the coldness of her cheek.

  Reluctantly, he climbed into the cabin.

  ‘So, this is it, I suppose. I’ll phone you tonight. We’ll make plans.’ He was about to close the door, but hesitated. There seemed to be something on his mind. He looked at her for a moment, and then said, ‘You know, I had an idea about that painting. I can remember it quite clearly: so I was thinking that if we sat down and I described it to you, and you found your old sketches, you could maybe – Well, at least do something similar …’

  ‘What did I say to you up on the terrace?’ said Phoebe sternly.

  Michael nodded. ‘You’re right. Don’t look back.’

  Phoebe waved as the plane taxied round into the take-off position, and blew a kiss after it as it gathered speed and cleared the surface of the water, rising smoothly into the air. She watched until it was nothing more than a black speck against the blueness of the sky. Then she turned and walked back up to the house.

  Her heart was heavy with foreboding. She was worried about Michael: worried that he already expected too much of her, worried that his preoccupation with the past was somehow obsessive; or adolescent, even. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that he was seven or eight years her senior. She was worried that the relationship might proceed too quickly, taking directions over which she had no control. She was worried that she could actually think of no good reason – if she was honest with herself – for having started it in the first place. It had all happened too quickly, and she had been acting out of the wrong motives: because she had felt sorry for him, and because she too had been scared and in need of comfort. Besides, how could they ever hope to forget the horrific circumstances which had brought them together? How could anything good come from such a beginning?

  She went up to her bedroom, packed her suitcase, and then looked around to see if she had forgotten anything. Yes – there were some first-aid things, she now remembered, which would still be in the room where Henry’s body had been found. It would only take a minute to retrieve them, and y
et for some reason the prospect filled her with disquiet. She found that she was shivering as she walked along the corridors, and climbing up to the second floor of the house, she had the sudden, ominous sense that she had begun to relive the events of the night before: an impression reinforced as she turned the last corner and heard the sound of the television set, tuned to the one o’clock news.

  She opened the door. President Bush was addressing an empty room. It was a re-run of his broadcast to the American people, made shortly after the first bombers had been sent in to Baghdad.

  Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak.

  Phoebe noticed something: a stream of blood was running down the side of the sofa and dripping on to the floor.

  The twenty-eight countries with forces in the Gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution, and have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail.

  She peered gingerly over the back and saw that a man was lying face down on the sofa, a carving knife sticking out from between his shoulder blades.

  Some may ask: Why act now? Why not wait? The answer is clear: the world could wait no longer.

  She turned the man over and gasped. It was Tadeusz.

  This is an historic moment.

  There was a knock on the door, and one of the police officers on duty popped his head round.

  ‘Has anyone seen Miss Tabitha?’ he said. ‘We can’t seem to find her anywhere.’

  Our operations are designed to best protect the lives of all the coalition forces by targeting Saddam’s vast military arsenal. We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.

  Would the madness never come to an end?

  ∗

  Michael sits in the cabin of the seaplane, craning forward and watching the South Yorkshire landscape unroll beneath him.

  The pilot, sitting up ahead, starts humming a tune: Row, row, row the boat, gently down the stream. The pilot’s voice seems unusually high and musical.