Invitation to Die Page 20

  “I say! You offered to let me take a gander at the corpse again? That would be okay? Fine! I wonder, could you also help me with a little experiment?”

  Chapter 15

  Cambridge, Monday, the 19th of May, 1924

  He heard them from afar. Trilling laughter and shouted commands. Even the swiftly stifled shriek of someone falling out of a tree perhaps.

  “So sorry I’m late, vicar!” Redfyre excused himself as he stood for a moment shoulder to shoulder with the clergyman at the gate, watching in dismay as half a dozen ladies crashed about the place, making it their own. “I say, have I missed the party?”

  “I’ll introduce you to their commander,” whispered Reverend Turnbull. “This is just the forward reconnaissance unit. You are going to stay, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll show my face. Perhaps steady the ladder while they climb. I’d be better prepared if you told me what they’re trying to achieve.”

  “The Lord knows,” Turnbull said, casting a reproving eye up to heaven. “It’s to do with bats. They’re concerned for them. For their survival as a species, I mean. I honestly don’t think they have much regard for your individual little furry pip-squeaker. The ladies are conducting a location study to establish existing and evaluate future habitation requirements of the order Chiroptera,” he recited. “We—that is to say, mankind—are destroying their habitat, apparently. We’re building over their territory, displacing God’s creatures to house people: farm workers and the like, who, it’s found, have been living in squalor unrelieved since the Middle Ages. Men who risked their lives in battle against the Hun to ensure our safety are now thought worthy by a guilt-stricken government of a decent roof over their heads and running water in their houses. Old barns and suchlike agricultural buildings where the bats nest . . . I say, do they nest?”

  “I believe they roost, vicar.”

  “Thank you . . . are being torn down and swept from the face of the earth. We are witnessing, indeed are responsible for, the disappearance from our countryside of the cosy, unhygienic, flea-infested, dung-filled niches these wretched creatures have heretofore, by the grace of God, inhabited.”

  “Amen,” said Redfyre incautiously. He suspected that the vicar had not sufficiently worked on his thesis and hoped it would be a little more polished and more carefully slanted when it was presented as his thought for the day on Sunday. “I’m no fan of mankind, either, Reverend. Or the bats,” he added hurriedly, hoping he’d covered all bases and catered for all shades of opinion. “But I can’t say I’ve seen many signs of them flying about the graveyard. Perhaps, like police inspectors, they keep unsociable hours? Now, the magpies! I wouldn’t mind at all losing a few of those infernal birds! The graveyard’s infested with them. Noisy blighters! At least the bats are silent. Tell me, vicar—do you have bats in your, er, roof space?”

  “Bat droppings have been found on the rear pews on the southern side of the church. It’s thought they are nesting in the rafters, finding access through a hole in the roof, which the ladies are, as we speak, attempting to locate.”

  “Sounds expensive,” Redfyre said, believing he’d guessed the true reason for the vicar’s long face. “Roofs, holes in . . . that costs money these days. If you can even find the blokes to do it, that is.”

  “No. You misunderstand. They are hoping to find the hole so that they may enlarge it and facilitate ingress for the pipistrelles. The congregation, Lady Laetitia tells me (and she is a member, so feels free to speak for them), will expect it. As Christians, we must all shuffle over a bit and concede some space to Brother Bat.”

  “Umph! Well, the congregation had better expect to parade on Sundays with umbrellas raised,” Redfyre grunted. “And wait till they get a whiff of the droppings. It’s not a good preparation for the Sunday roast. Mark my words—there’ll be a backlash. But in any case, I shouldn’t worry too much. Looking at this scene of activity—Great Heavens! Can that be a punt pole they’re poking out the trefoils with?—what they are actually doing is not encouraging, but discouraging the bats. The creatures are not tolerant of disturbance. Wherever they are poked at and annoyed by these fur, fin and feather enthusiasts, they will pick up sticks and move. In my book, the FFFs present a much bigger challenge to the pipistrelles than the new agriculture. Devastation and depopulation follow in the ladies’ wake. But they don’t know it. They bang the drum and redouble their efforts.”

  Redfyre cut short his sentiments. Surely that had been MacFarlane speaking?

  “You may express your views to Lady Laetitia, then, for here she comes. You’ve been spotted, Redfyre . . . Ah, my dear lady, may I present to you our friend, neighbour and guardian angel, Detective Inspector John Redfyre.”

  She ignored the vicar and seized Redfyre’s right hand in both of hers in an overfriendly manner. “Hardly any need for an introduction, I think. I know you from Sunday services, Redfyre. You have a lovely baritone. I’m Laetitia Lowestoft. Your aunt Henrietta is a great friend of mine. She often speaks of you. At last our paths cross!”

  Laetitia was known to him by sight. “Once seen, never forgotten. Sadly,” the super had sighed. She was slender and tall, standing eye to eye with Redfyre, and though well into her thirties, a strikingly good-looking woman. Unfashionably long, glossy dark hair had been persuaded to coil and twine around her head, endowing her with the authority of a Greek goddess whose sphere of influence was of the mind rather than of the flesh. Her white linen blouse was immaculate, her jewellery restricted to no more than one military sweetheart pin, carefully positioned just above her actual heart. He allowed his eye to skip fleetingly over the pin, having polite regard to its placing on a charmingly uncorseted bosom, just long enough for him to identify its regimental source. He recognised the silver eight-pointed star with its central red cross as the emblem of the Coldstream Guards. A “lady” by rank, in her own right by birth, she was unmarried. The badge, worn with pride almost ten years after the war, told her tragic story to the world.

  The classical beauty above the waist was at odds with the tweed knickerbocker trousers, socks and mountaineering boots below. She had dressed for the north side of the Eiger rather than a gentle English churchyard, Redfyre thought. She caught his eye on her feet and responded archly, “Climbing is a skill one has to acquire in pursuit of winged creatures, Inspector, be they bats or golden eagles.”

  Redfyre was certain she was quite up to pursuing both.

  He was politely offering his services wherever she thought it best to deploy them when the shout went up. A small girl in tennis skirt and plimsolls was teetering on a stepladder placed on uneven ground under a large tree whose spreading branches gave evidence of some nesting creature or other. The shout turned into a squeal of joy.

  “Madeleine! What have you found?” someone called up to her.

  “Magpie’s nest! You never know what you’re going to find in the hope chest of one of those thieving birds! Naughty, naughty bird! They’ll go for anything shiny! And this is freshly polished. It’s not been up here for long, I’d say. Someone will be missing this! Laetitia will be able to identify it. Laetitia! Come and catch.”

  Laetitia obliged, hurrying over with Redfyre. She caught the tiny object with ease and turned it this way and that. Her manners obliged her to pretend to consult with Redfyre, ex-soldier that she knew him to be, although he was quite certain that she had known at once what it was.

  “Someone is, indeed, missing this!” He held out a hand quivering with eagerness to take it from her.

  “A lapel badge, silver, belongs to an officer, would you say?” She handed him a cue along with the badge.

  “It’s a rose. The white rose of York, surmounted by a crown and cradled by a French hunting horn—un cor. It’s the insignia of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. The KOYLIs to the rescue. Cede nullis! That’s their motto, ladies. Yield to no one! Good advice.” He raised his head, laughed up at th
e finder and, in his excitement, blew her a kiss. “Madeleine!” he shouted, “the Cambridge CID loves you! You’ve shortened our workload by a fortnight!”

  He slid the badge into his pocket, then, turning from the astonished girl, “Lady Laetitia,” he said, “something’s come up—or down. I must make some telephone calls. Good luck with the bats! Will you excuse me if I shoot off?” He reached for her hand, aware that he was behaving rather badly and, having no time to explain, was expressing his feelings through an unexpected and probably unwanted handshake.

  Mystified, she returned his hearty squeeze. “Well, I’m not sure I will excuse you! I was just beginning to enjoy your company.” And surprisingly: “Dieu! Que le son du cor est triste au fond des bois! Though not so triste for some, perhaps, I see from the gleam in your eye. More—enlivening? I shall want to hear the end of this partie de chasse, Redfyre.”

  They met, as arranged, towards the end of the day, gathering with notebooks around the table in MacFarlane’s office.

  The superintendent, perspiring and red in face, was slurping his way through a pint of India pale ale when they entered.

  “Just back from lending a hand—more like a well-directed boot—up in Norfolk,” he informed them. “Anybody complaining about his lot as a city copper gets sent straight up there to measure and note the span—that’s the distance between the tines, for those of you of a nonbucolic persuasion—of fifty pitchforks, widely dispersed over a hundred-square-mile area, and match one of the buggers to the puncture marks in the back of a sixty-year-old farmer who’s gotten up the noses of a whole village for donkeys’ years.”

  “What fun you have, sir, when you take a day off,” Redfyre said, smiling. “Sergeant Thoday and I have had that rare thing, an excellent day here. He’s interviewed two pretty ladies, and I have investigated two of the more disgusting creatures in God’s bestiary. What was Noah thinking when he let them aboard? Bats and eels! We have come up with the answers to many questions in the case of the graveyard tramp. We’ve had a minute or two to compare and consolidate notes but have much more to say.”

  Redfyre and Thoday produced their notebooks, pencils at the ready, eager to share their information.

  “May I just say, before the sergeant gives his account,” Redfyre said, “that I have asked for a phone call to be directed up here to your desk outlet, sir? It will be from the records office of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. We communicated with them about an hour ago. They were most helpful and told me they would have information for me before the end of the day. Hoping for six p.m. We have two links, sir. Thoday has tracked down the greatcoat owner, and then there’s this, retrieved from the graveyard . . .” He placed the lapel badge on the desk in front of MacFarlane. “Swept off the greatcoat in question in the course of the dubious nocturnal activities. Rescued from a magpie’s horde, courtesy of Lady Laetitia and the Bat Brigade. I told you they’d solve it!

  “He would appear to be a Major Richard Dunne—in 1916, at any rate, on the evidence of his Jermyn Street tailor, as Thoday will tell you—and we’re awaiting confirmation and information from his regiment. And the sergeant has gone yet further. He has a possible identity for the man Dunne met in Aunty’s tea shop, the man Dunne was trying to establish contact with. The man’s wife, who was also present at the altercation, declares him to be Lieutenant—or perhaps Captain—Abel Hardy. It seems likely that the two were in the same regiment.”

  “Right then, lads, off you go. Tell me all!”

  MacFarlane listened with attention to all they had to say, shooting the occasional pointed question to one or the other, filling in, seeing connections, planning ahead. A day in the fresh air of Norfolk seemed to have sharpened his wits, Redfyre thought.

  “Rank of major, are we thinking? Humph! Demobbed, we assume. Bit old for the army. Shall we say ‘retired’? And taken to the roads. Wouldn’t be the first time. And the higher they are, the harder they fall. Probably done something he doesn’t want his family to know about. Some awfulness he wants to atone for? A mental breakdown is probably what we’ll find is behind all this. They’ve got a word for it nowadays, which we can quote in evidence in the reports. No one’s going to argue with ‘battle-induced neurasthenia,’ because no one knows what the hell it is. These days it can’t be shell shock, nervous breakdown, or even memory loss that afflicts a man. It has to be something with a Greek root: dementia praecox, psychosis, amnesia. Something along those lines, and the higher your rank, the more difficult it is to pronounce your condition.”

  The superintendent showed particular interest in the ex-army man Dunne had been trailing. “This mysterious overdressed bird? Straw boater and a college tie, claiming to be a detective? Don’t much like the sound of him! Though his wife sounds quite a strider. And he’s disappeared, according to his missis? Ho, ho! Have you tried ringing up that business address you got off the back of the cheque, Thoday? ‘Enquiries At’! The Strand! . . . The Director is unavailable, eh? Not surprised to hear it. He’s gone to earth. With or without his wife’s knowledge and collusion. I think your suspicions concerning the lady are probably merited, Thoday. Next time Edith’s up for interview, I’ll take her on. See how she fancies a trip to Brighton with me! Give it another go tomorrow morning. We may have to send in the local London coppers to make enquiries on our behalf. That’ll be the city police. Sharp lads—they’ll stand no nonsense. My money’s on this Abel Hardy. Takes a day trip up to Cambridge, tops his old army mate, buggers off. And are you saying you passed him in front of KOYLI?”

  “Yes, sir. And I asked for any other close associates they had on record to be presented for our consideration.”

  “Good lad!”

  “I spelled out that it has to do with a case of multiple murders in civvy street by a man or men with a military background. That got their interest! You could hear the closing of ranks down two hundred miles of telephone wire. Form testudo! Defences—hup! Clash! Clatter!” Redfyre’s lively version of a Roman centurion’s barked command had Thoday unconsciously straightening his back, but MacFarlane was not impressed.

  “Not funny, Redfyre!” he objected.

  The inspector had forgotten for the moment that the superintendent’s intense patriotism and his thus-far-undisclosed military experience, though comfortably in the background as a rule, occasionally surfaced, and when they did, they trumped every other consideration. Rough and unemotional as millstone grit he might well appear on the surface, but Redfyre never had any doubt that, if worse came to worst and the enemy was inside the palace, they’d find that the last door’s last defence would be MacFarlane’s own arm slotted through the bolt ring.

  “Sorry, sir! I meant no respect to a venerable regiment. But every section of the British army has had trouble over the last few years with renegade elements. No one’s surprised—battle-hardened trained killers, experts in arms, some of them insane, suddenly released back into a society that’s moved on and has changed its values . . . well, it’s to be expected. Will we ever forget that scandal in the Guards? They’ll want no publicity of that nature! If they have any potential assassins on their books, they’ll chuck them at us like a hot potato and let the civilian forces of law and order deal with it.”

  “All the same, Redfyre, when Yorkshire calls, I think it’s only courteous if a Yorkshireman answers them. I’ll take the phone call.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Redfyre found that he meant it.

  At 6 p.m., with military precision, the phone rang.

  “General Whitcliffe?” The super appeared startled, but recovered quickly. “How do you do, sir? Yes, you are through to the Cambridge CID. Superintendent MacFarlane here. Ex-KOYLI, sir, rank of major on demob . . . You are? You did? Very kind of you to say so, General.”

  MacFarlane’s eyebrows danced a jig, signalling surprise and delight, across the desk. “You have the information? Excellent! I will take notes as we go and look fo
rward to receiving the written copy in tomorrow’s post . . . Good of you, sir! Now, before we proceed, may I say I am not alone in the office. I have before me two of my best chaps, who are on the case and looking forward to hearing what you have to say. With your leave, I will include them in the conversation.”

  The exchange lasted ten minutes. It seemed interminable to one trying to interpret the shifting creases that passed for expression on MacFarlane’s weathered features, and Redfyre was glad of the occasional repetition for their benefit of a vital word. “. . . tactical unit . . . distinguished conduct . . . medals all round . . . looting . . . hard labour . . . war psychosis . . .” The pencil flashed as he wrote down salient points. Redfyre noted that he covered three pages of his notebook. And finally, “Cede nullis! Yes, indeed, sir! Bad apple! We’ll ’ave ’im, sir!”

  MacFarlane put down the telephone and his pencil and stared silently at the wall, his furrowed brow giving the lie to the cheery confidence of his leave-taking.

  “Well, that was a bit of luck! Your query, Redfyre, got through to regimental HQ at a moment when the top brass were gathering for their end-of-year meeting. In the omnium gatherum hour before anyone had thought to pour out the sherry. Someone called out a name and good old General Whitcliffe took an interest. ‘Leave it to me, I know the characters concerned,’ he told them, and buzzed off with a couple of clerks to raise the dust of decades in the file room. And he did know. He was always a hands-on, leave-it-to-me type. And he was there, in South Africa, at the same time as our blokes. He was ordered south with Lord Roberts to clear up the mess after Magersfontein and rode into Kimberley knee to knee with him. Well, well!” he said again, annoyingly.

  Unable to stay silent another moment, Redfyre asked quietly, “Are we looking for heroes or villains, sir? The words we caught were rather contradictory. And puzzling.”