The Lady of the Lake

by Peter Guttridge

  ‘Very Swallows and Amazons,’ Heap said.

  ‘Why a canard?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘I didn’t know you liked the Marx Brothers, ma’am.’

  Gilchrist frowned.

  ‘You have totally lost me, Bellamy.’

  ‘You’re not the first person to tell me that, ma’am. I thought you were referencing the Marx Brothers film where one of them mishears the word “viaduct” as “why a duck?”.’

  Gilchrist thought for a moment. ‘Do you think you needed to be there, Bellamy?’

  He laughed. After the giggle, she was now surprised at how high pitched his unfettered laugh was. Almost girlish. ‘I think so, ma’am,’ he finally said.

  ‘So why is it called a “canard”?’

  ‘You mean a fabrication?’ Heap said. ‘A lie?’

  ‘Yes. Or to put it the way of your Marxist friends: why a duck?’

  Heap laughed again. At a lower octave. ‘I believe it comes from a French journalist – I don’t remember his name – who published a story about a breed of cannibalistic ducks who ate each other until only one remained. A little like “I am the captain of the ship”. When the journalist admitted he had made the story up – for its time it was what is now lazily called “fake news” – voila, a “canard” was born.’

  ‘Bellamy, that was admirably clear but, as usual, you lost me at one bit. What captain of what ship?’

  ‘The Nancy Bell, ma’am. A poem/song by Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame,’ Heap said. Then, to Gilchrist’s stupefaction and delight, he began quietly to sing: ‘Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy brig, and a bo’sun tight and a midshipmite and the crew of the captain’s gig.’

  She laughed. ‘You actually sing in tune! Are you an am-dram type, Bellamy? Pirates of Penzance and all that?’

  ‘I had my moments at university,’ Heap said.

  ‘I’m sure you did, Bellamy. But I don’t want too much information. And I still don’t see the connection between “canard” and Nancy Whatsit.’

  ‘Shipwrecked boat, ma’am, everybody ate each other until there was only one left who had eaten all the other ranks and positions on the boat.’

  ‘The clouds part,’ Gilchrist said as they arrived opposite Frank Bilson, who was in waders in the shallow water by the island. Actually, island was putting it a bit strong. It was a strip of land only some twenty yards by ten. There was a tree house on it that looked a bit the worse for wear.

  Bilson followed her gaze then waved cheerily.

  ‘Swallows and Amazons, eh, Sarah?’

  Gilchrist shook her head. ‘So I gather. I wasn’t much of a reader when I was a kid. What exactly are you doing?’

  ‘Who was that contaminating the crime scene with his singing?’

  ‘Bellamy – and he sang very well.’

  ‘The young man did indeed. I was tempted to join in – I’m a light operetta cognoscenti myself – but even I didn’t feel it appropriate in the circumstances.’ He gestured to his surroundings and the body still lying on the bank, but now covered with plastic.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Gilchrist repeated.

  ‘DI Gilchrist! It’s not like you to pry. But if you really want to know I’m looking for a set of dentures.’

  Gilchrist glanced back at the body.

  ‘He wore dentures?’

  ‘His top set. Back in the 1930s my parents both had all their teeth out at the age of eighteen. It was the custom then, if you were poor, to avoid disease. Not sure how French kissing worked when you encountered two sets of false teeth.’

  ‘I don’t think we need go there, Mr Bilson,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘I hear you, Sarah. Sadly. I’ve already found the wig floating on the surface. But this lake is very muddy – the carp I think.’ He tilted his head. ‘I wonder what connection someone who carps has with these carp here.’

  Gilchrist burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it, even though she was at a murder scene.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Bilson said, frowning.

  ‘It’s already been that kind of morning,’ she said. ‘Ask Bellamy. He’ll know. He knows everything.’

  ‘Yes. That young man probably does.’

  Gilchrist walked over to another part of the bank and looked across the lake. It had been a dry summer and the water was low. Gilchrist could see the roots of all the trees on the opposite bank. There was a sagging wooden edifice of some sort between the trees. Gilchrist peered more closely. There was something white beneath it.

  ‘Bellamy,’ she called. She pointed across the lake then down the path. Bellamy joined her and they walked in single file along the track, through trees and across dry stream beds. The lake petered out at a kind of dam with a dry stream bed threading through the trees beyond it to Beard’s Lane and through a funnel beneath the lane. They crossed a couple of railway sleepers laid down as a bridge.

  The track on the other side was more overgrown but clearly seen. Gilchrist avoided some droppings.

  ‘You probably know what animal that’s from, Bellamy,’ she called behind her.

  ‘Deer, ma’am.’

  ‘You’re bionic aren’t you, Bellamy? Half human, half computer search engine.’

  ‘I do have an implant in my brain, ma’am,’ Bellamy called back.

  ‘You admit it! It all begins to make sense now.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. It’s called a good education.’

  She stopped and turned to see his smile. ‘Well, and being a swot, obviously.’

  Heap bowed his head. ‘Obviously.’

  They reached the broken-down wooden structure. Gilchrist grabbed on to a tree and leaned out to look down at the white containers. Each was about the size of a three gallon can. They were all attached to a huge knot of thick rope. Heap got down into the water. The water was shallow but he hadn’t taken into account the mud. The water eddied around the top of his wellingtons. He pulled at one of the containers.

  ‘What are they?’ Gilchrist called down.

  ‘No idea, ma’am. Very thick plastic. Soldered closed at the top as best I can see. We need a cutter before we can tell more.’ He bent down to peer at the knot of rope. ‘Three frayed ends here, ma’am. I’m no expert but looks recent.’

  ‘So some containers have been removed. Do you think it’s anything?’

  Heap shrugged.

  ‘No idea. Judging by the exposed roots here, the lake is low and these containers are usually totally submerged. Maybe they slow release chemicals into the lake or something.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they float?’

  ‘Depends what’s in them, I suppose.’ He tried to lift one of the containers. ‘Too heavy or just too tightly bound, I’m not sure which.’

  She reached down her hand to Heap and hauled him up. She nodded towards the trail by the lake. ‘Let’s finish the circuit.’

  Within a hundred yards they reached a high brick wall tangled with creepers and climbers. There was an arched doorway in the middle of it. The door had been removed at some point. Gilchrist ducked to get through. Heap didn’t need to.

  They were back at the police tape at the cattle grid at the entrance to the lake. Heap chatted for a moment to the new policewoman on guard there and then they walked back along the driveway to their car.

  ‘Let’s go up to Plumpton Down House to execute our warrant then go and introduce ourselves to Nimue Grace.’

  Tallulah Granger wasn’t at the big house and nor was Rabbitt’s secretary, Rhoda Knowles. Nevertheless, they were directed to Rabbitt’s wing of the house. Cluttered and tidy at the same time. Gilchrist had never seen anything like it. Pile upon pile of folders, charts, maps and plans.

  ‘OK, well I wouldn’t know where to start here, Bellamy. Would you?’ Heap shook his head. ‘Call Sylvia Wade and get her to get a team up here. Make sure we sequester any phones and the computer.’ She looked around. ‘Where is the computer?’

  Heap was at a large, not-quite-so-cluttered desk. He indicated a
dust-free rectangular outline in the centre of the desk.

  ‘Tallulah made good use of the few hours she insisted on,’ Heap said.

  ‘Indeed. We need to track her down.’

  They drove back down the drive, past the lake and onto Beard’s Lane. They threaded their slow way along the narrow, tree-canopied lane they were becoming familiar with.

  ‘Parts of this lane – the straight parts – are an old Roman road underneath the Downs,’ Heap said. ‘It wiggles a little now but was essentially as straight as a die until it hit a big bend below Plumpton Hill.’

  ‘What’s a die?’ Gilchrist said.

  Heap didn’t answer for a moment. Then: ‘If I may say, we have been having particularly testing conversations this past couple of days.’

  Gilchrist laughed.

  ‘I’m in a curious mood, Bellamy. Be grateful I’m not my usual miserable self.’

  ‘Ma’am. I understand it to be the plural of dice – or vice versa, now that I think of it – so I have no idea how that links to something straight. There is a die used in a printing process, I believe but, again—’

  ‘All right, enough now, Bellamy. I’m sorry I encouraged you. Will you look at that?’

  They came round the big bend in the lane. To the left towered the Iron Age fort, Plumpton Hill, and directly below it a conglomeration of Victorian buildings with a long-walled garden running down a slope to an orchard and then a wood.

  ‘Plumpton Hill Cottage, ma’am.’

  ‘If that’s a cottage, I can’t imagine what a mansion looks like round here,’ Gilchrist said.

  The entrance into the private drive was a hundred yards further along the road, opposite a cluster of Victorian brick-and-flint cottages.

  There was a combination lock on the gate at the entrance to the drive. Heap got out of the car and pressed a buzzer beside the gate. A light voice answered. Heap said who they were and the person – Heap wasn’t sure of the sex – gave him the combination of the lock. Heap fed it in and the gate slowly opened. There were speed bumps on the drive so they had ample time to enjoy the view of the orchard on the left with the steep hill in the near distance behind it and a fenced off wood on the right.

  ‘It’s a deer!’ Gilchrist said excitedly. ‘Over by that far wall.’

  ‘Lots of wild deer around here, ma’am. They can be a bit of a pest because they like to eat saplings.’

  ‘Small price to pay for beauty,’ Gilchrist said as she craned her neck to examine the deer as it stood perfectly still, watching them.

  ‘Ma’am, do you mind my asking: don’t you get out of Brighton much?’

  She laughed. ‘I do not but I will once I’ve bought my bicycle – and my Lycra.’

  They parked by some outbuildings and walked through a small, paved garden to a rustic front door. Heap tugged down on a bell pull and there was a loud clanging inside.

  The door opened after a minute. An etiolated young person stood before them. Gilchrist wasn’t sure if it was a woman or a man.

  ‘I’m Francis. You spoke to me. Ms Grace does have company but she will receive you.’

  Francis ushered them in. She or he indicated a corridor. ‘If you go down there to the drawing room, Ms Grace will join you in a moment.’

  The corridor went through two airy rooms and opened out, down a couple of steps, into a book-lined drawing room with a high ceiling and floor to ceiling windows. There was a fireplace big enough to walk into and a boudoir grand piano with the lid up and music on the stand.

  ‘Wow,’ Gilchrist said again, walking over to the long bay window that looked out onto the extensive walled garden.

  Heap wandered over to an ample sofa in front of the fireplace. On a table beside it was a pamphlet called The Hassocks Blockade: A True Account. Most of the cover was obscured by a card attached to it by a paperclip.

  There was a copy of a leather-bound edition of Tennyson’s poems open on the sofa with a bookmark laid across the open pages. They were two pages of Idylls of The King, Tennyson’s celebrated poem about King Arthur and Camelot.

  Gilchrist could hear voices from the terrace. She looked to the left as Nimue Grace rose and left her guest and hurried past the window. ‘Well, I never,’ Gilchrist murmured to herself.

  ‘Sweet were the days when I was all unknown,’ Heap read from the open book. Then a voice, from the French windows. Heap looked up. Nimue Grace was framed in the doorway, the light a halo around her head, looking every inch the movie star, even in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt.

  She repeated: ‘Sweet were the days when I was all unknown. But when my name was lifted up, the storm brake on the mountain and I cared not for it.’

  Heap nodded. ‘Nimue is quite a character for Tennyson, ma’am. But you don’t like fame either?’

  ‘It’s nice to meet a cultivated copper,’ Grace said, smiling a devastating smile. ‘But “ma’am”? I’ve only ever been called “ma’am” once. In a dreadful Western I did for the money with Robert Duvall in Canada. And what an ornery individual he turned out to be.’

  ‘Good actor,’ Heap said.

  ‘You think?’ she said, an eyebrow raised.

  ‘I’m getting my critical judgements questioned a lot today,’ Heap said, flushing a little. ‘You’d know better than me … Ms Grace.’

  ‘You’d imagine so, wouldn’t you?’ she said, coming into the room and holding out her hand. He noted how long her fingers were. ‘But, as William Goldman famously said: “Nobody knows anything in Hollywood.” Call me Nimue, please.’

  Heap took her hand but before he could reply Sarah Gilchrist came over from the window.

  ‘DS Heap isn’t very good at informality, Ms Grace,’ she said.

  Still holding Heap’s hand, Grace turned to look at Gilchrist.

  ‘You neither, it seems. Please – Nimue.’

  She let go of Heap’s hand and held her hand out to Gilchrist. Gilchrist took it. Grace had a firm handshake.

  ‘We need to maintain a little formality at least at first, Ms Grace. I’m Detective Inspector Sarah Gilchrist.’

  Grace gestured to the various sofas and chairs in the large drawing room. ‘Please, sit wherever you like. Coffee will be here in a moment.’ Gilchrist and Heap followed her instructions. Grace moved the book from the sofa to a side table and perched on the arm of the chair to the left of the huge fireplace.

  ‘I must say your arrival is inconvenient. I have a guest for coffee. Will this take long?’

  ‘It might,’ Gilchrist said. ‘I didn’t realize you knew Bob Watts.’ She pointed out of the window. ‘Your guest.’

  Nimue Grace frowned. ‘You know him too?’

  ‘An old friend,’ Gilchrist said, flushing a little and cursing herself for it. It had only been the one night, for goodness sake. ‘And our police commissioner.’

  Grace took that in.

  ‘Ah. I obviously didn’t know the former but nor did I know the latter. We’ve only just met.’ Grace had clearly noticed Gilchrist’s blush. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

  ‘None of my business,’ Gilchrist said, overlapping with Grace saying:

  ‘I won him in a raffle, actually. Or rather he won me.’

  ‘None of my business,’ Gilchrist said again.

  ‘I didn’t say it was,’ Grace flared. ‘Perhaps you should go and say hello or he should join us before you tell me why you’re here?’

  Gilchrist pondered for a moment. ‘After.’

  Grace raised one of her trademark thick eyebrows. ‘It must be serious.’

  ‘We’re here for a sad reason, Ms Grace. A man was found dead in your lake yesterday. A man called Richard Rabbitt.’

  Grace tilted her head. ‘Where in the lake?’

  Gilchrist glanced at Heap. Odd question. ‘I believe in a shallow lagoon between one part of the shore and a small island.’

  ‘Whoever found him was trespassing then,’ Grace said. ‘The lake is private and that is a couple of hundred yards inside my wood.’

&nb
sp; ‘He was found by somebody called Donald Kermode,’ Heap said. ‘Do you know him?’

  Grace rolled her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know him but I know of him. The restraining order didn’t hold then?’

  ‘We only just caught the case,’ Gilchrist said. ‘We’re trying to catch up. Restraining order?’

  ‘A stalker. They come along from time to time. Not as often as they used to but those with long memories …’

  ‘He said he had permission from you to be in your lake.’

  ‘He doesn’t. Nobody does. I assume he drank the water?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Was he naked?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Gilchrist said.

  Grace turned her mouth down.

  ‘What did you mean about him drinking the water?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘He knows I swim there naked. He used to spy on me without my knowing. And then he began swimming there naked because, well, he knew my naked body had been in the same water. And drinking the water for the same reason. If he’d known I peed in it too he’d probably have been even more excited.’

  ‘People do that kind of thing?’ Gilchrist blurted out.

  ‘Pee in a lake? I can’t imagine I’m the first. And this one is mine.’

  ‘No – I meant the other,’ Gilchrist said.

  Grace smiled and gave a little twist of her head. ‘You have no idea. If I told you about some of the weird shit …’ She tossed her hair. ‘I’m one of many Hollywood women on a website devoted to our thick eyebrows. It’s affiliated to one about our hairy armpits – Julia Roberts and I were the poster girls for that for years but we’ve probably been superseded by younger actresses now. My feet get a look in on a foot fetish site – and are rated “beautiful” on Wikifeet – which is odd because I’ve got dancers’ feet: buckled and bunioned.’

  ‘Wikifeet?’ Gilchrist said flatly.

  ‘Yeah the site where some Alt Right person posted fake photos of some Democratic politician’s feet a while ago.’

  ‘Fake feet?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Photoshopped. The toes were the wrong length or something,’ Grace said. ‘Anyway, Peeping Toms are kind of the least of it – they’re no different from paparazzi anyway.’ She frowned. ‘From or to with different? I never know with that construction.’