Invitation to Die Read online

  “Inside were two bars of Fry’s chocolate remaining. Two! He’d been deceiving us about his single-mindedness and good intentions regarding his mother. He was acutely embarrassed at being caught out in front of his friends!”

  “Um . . .” Redfyre started hesitantly. “Hard to put yourself in such a tricky situation from this distance, but, er, had I been there, I’d have jolly well given the two remaining bars a thorough going-over. Height of the summer season. By day at least those bars must have been in what my chemistry master would have called a ‘malleable and ductile state.’ Eh?”

  “You’re right! It occurred to me that they might have picked up a crunchy filling, moulded in during their melted state. I took a knife and cut one in two. Lengthways. It was certainly squidgy, but it was entirely made of chocolate. No filling. The second one also. You can imagine the self-righteous fuss Syd made! I’d ruined his mother’s present. No, he didn’t want to eat it now that I’d gone and spoiled it. The others could have it. He owed them, anyway. He flounced and pouted; his tears dripped. He showed every sign of hating me and encouraged the others to do the same in his snide way. And it worked. They did begin to mistrust me from that moment. Quite simply, Syd, in the face of the worst his officer could do, had proven himself innocent of a dire crime. Their further thought was that perhaps that officer had something to hide under a trumped-up accusation. After all, I had previous form for doing down Syd! Who had declared that his biscuit-scrounging proclivities should be discouraged? I often caught him looking at me sideways with the dying trace of a knowing sneer on his face.”

  “How did you resolve the problem of accounting for the, er, treasure trove when you made it back to the regiment?”

  “It was Ratty who made the sound suggestion! He always went straight to the point. We all sat down and began to plan how best to avoid any charge of looting. Ratty got fed up with all the ratiocination! He said, ‘For Gawd’s sake! Just declare the gold! They’ll be thrilled to get their hands on it! Ten secret pockets, ten bars to fill them. Nobody’s going to turn round and say, And what else do you have to declare? Come out with some half-baked story about what may—or may not—have been a handful of uncut diamonds that we carelessly allowed to go missing, and the odds are they’re going to get suspicious. We’d all be questioned and tormented until we cracked and spilled the beans, and then we’d be shot at dawn for treachery.’

  “He was right, of course, and that’s exactly what we did. We wrote off the diamonds and declared the gold.”

  “When did you last clap eyes on Sydney Fox?”

  “At the trial in Pretoria. Where we suffered the faked accusation of looting and the hiding of stolen goods in my locker and those of all the other five who’d been in that reconnaissance unit. A scurrilous affair from start to finish. I know who finished it—their sententious, pious judging faces, mostly dead by now, are always with me. But who started it? Which ill-wisher, which Judas, planted the stolen goods on the six of us and the information with the top brass? We all had our own theory. And the time to think about it. The whole lot of us went down for four years. But you know this. You’ve checked my records?”

  Redfyre nodded. “Your old regiment were very helpful. And concerned. Like family, you may try to escape them, feel embarrassed for them, but they don’t forget you. You may remember a General Whitcliffe? He remembers you, Dunne. With, I’d say, respect and affection.”

  Dunne fell silent for a moment and decided not to comment. The Book of Commendation was closed to him, apparently forever. “We were sent to different prison squads—quite deliberately, I’d guess, to prevent recrimination and revenge killings breaking out, and we didn’t see one another again during our time in South Africa. It was rumoured that Syd had gotten himself let off in some sort of deal by threatening to go to the press with his story. I can’t say I blame him. The newshounds would have leapt on it. There were packs of them still on the spot, digging up any filth they could: Youngster risking his life on Her Majesty’s service, led astray at worst, innocently involved at best by his older comrades . . . it certainly had Daily Herald appeal. I suppose someone saw sense in the end, because Syd hopped off back to Blighty to help out his father in the shop. His two older brothers who should have inherited had died, and the now-experienced soldier and man of the world was recalled to be the sole stay and support of his old pa. So, word is that Syd slipped on his apron and spent the rest of his days slicing bacon and being polite to housewives. It’s still there, the corner shop. I went to visit one day and got slung out by a smart young lass for scrounging. I just hope Syd managed to keep his sticky little fingers off the chocolate. History hasn’t recorded what his old ma thought of her empty tin.

  “The trial and the scandal could have ruined us, but the timing and the distance killed off opprobrium. I told you, no one was interested in that distant war. We’d relieved Mafeking, hadn’t we? The mineral wealth was flowing again, and we were at peace. Celebrate. Move on. Meantime, I acquired a veneer of sophistication with some wonderful officers in India. Abel Hardy came home and thrived. He has quite a business empire in London. Make what you like of that! Herbert Sexton left his village and bought a house for his mother in London. He has a job that he loves because it enables him to wear a uniform. Security, I’d guess, is all he was ever seeking. Astute, undervalued old Ratty Merriman owns a betting business up in the north, and Corporal Ernest Jessup, before his untimely death here in Cambridge, was doing what he loved—he’d become an accountant and was doing well for himself with a big London firm. So a year’s stone-breaking doesn’t seem to have held anybody back in the long run. They put it behind them.”

  “And you?”

  “I never could. There were other matters more important than a few gems that broke my heart and my spirit, but—God!—it’s the thought that they may still be there out in the veldt that rankles. That and the need to know which one of us it was who could do that to his fellows drives me crazy.”

  Redfyre sighed. “Tell me how you got the gold bars back safely to base.”

  “We used the original pouches sewn into the saddle of the black horse. We didn’t want any marauding Boers to intercept them, and we weren’t handing them over to anyone of lower rank than a major accompanied by at least four witnesses! In fact, two days after we were relieved by the engineers unit, we set off back east and found the Ninth again. Under new management. Aiming high, I rather peremptorily demanded an audience with Lord Roberts himself, and to our surprise, he granted it.”

  A look of pure affection passed briefly over the strained features.

  “This was ‘Bobs of Kandahar’?”

  “Right! Field Marshal Earl Roberts, VC. Hero of the wars in Afghanistan. At that time, in retirement in his home in Ireland. While we were away in the wilderness, the army had suffered some terrible defeats. The high command couldn’t cope. Someone had the bright idea of shaking the mothballs out of the uniform of our greatest living hero, and he was ordered south to sort it all out. He arrived in the Transvaal just before Christmas. He was sixty-eight at the time, but still a fire-eater and a good tactician. The troops adored him.”

  “I remember Kipling’s verse!” Redfyre announced, and the captain smiled to see the sudden transformation from world-wise copper to eager schoolboy as he prepared himself for recitation.

  There’s a little red-faced man,

  Which is Bobs,

  Rides the tallest ’orse ’e can—

  Our Bobs!

  If it bucks or kicks or rears,

  ’e can sit for twenty years

  With a smile round both ’is ears—

  Can’t yer, Bobs?

  “That’s a very unconvincing attempt at a demotic accent!” Dunne commented, and in a supple switch of tone, added a couple of lines in the true voice of a soldier of the line:

  Oh, ’e’s little but ’e’s wise

  ’e’s a terror fo
r ’is size

  An ’e does not advertise—

  Do yer, Bobs?

  “Fan of the music hall, Kipling! And none like him for giving a voice—however rough—to the common soldier. And he didn’t exaggerate the military acumen of Lord Roberts. He is—was—‘Our Bobs,’ who led us into Kimberley in double-quick time, riding the very tallest horse the army could provide. Very soon after that, he’d gotten Piet Cronjé in the bag—and his missis!”

  “And you met him? You spoke to the great man?” Redfyre was aware that he sounded awestruck, but didn’t much care.

  “He listened to what we had to say and bustled out himself to the horse lines to take a look at the black. Kipling gets it right, you know—he was a true horseman! And Kipling was in South Africa at the time, reporting the news. I like to think that the very horse he saw him prancing around on was our horse! I think Bobs was more taken with the animal than the contents of the saddlebags! I saw him riding it often after that introduction. He was intrigued by the pouches and had the saddle taken away to the army saddlery in Cape Town—for copying, I expect. Well, it was a good effective design that deserved to be reused.”

  The prisoner looked questioningly at Redfyre, who had suddenly frozen, still and focused. “What?”

  “Say that again, will you?” Redfyre told him.

  But the captain didn’t need to. The chain rattled noisily, underlining his anger and despair as he raised both fists to pound the sides of his head in frustration.

  Redfyre moved the tea tray aside and pulled the map back into position between them. “Now, you had mentioned that anything to be secreted for later retrieval in this landscape should be buried deep and the spot clearly marked? Take a pencil and add the burial site, would you? The place where you laid Louis Duvallon to rest in a wooden coffin. In a deep hole dug by corporals Merriman and Jessup.”

  Captain Dunne responded at once with a large black cross in indelible pencil. They looked at each other.

  “X marks the spot, I think,” Redfyre suggested.

  “Or did,” said Dunne thoughtfully.

  “You remarked that on the day you rode away, you didn’t see it? The wooden marker?”

  “It had been removed, hadn’t it? Deliberately. Someone standing around the grave at the funeral ceremony had had plenty of time to learn the coordinates by eye. Had lined it up, triangulated it, I’d guess, with the Kop and the cabin and the river. Oh, there were plenty of points you could use for reference later.”

  “But meantime, the thief would much rather no one else was aware of Louis’s last resting place, if that rich earth ‘a richer dust concealed.’ Someone might think of digging up the body and taking it back to Kimberley. Couldn’t risk that, so, as one of the last things he did—in the night perhaps—who was on duty for that last patrol?—he knocked down the marker of a cross and pulled it away from the site of the grave. Dismantled, it was reduced to two meaningless bits of firewood. In one season of dust storms, bush fires, animal interference, without that cross, all trace would have vanished. There’d be only one man who could and would ever think of finding it again.”

  “A man who had patience. Was prepared to wait. Had the wit to work out that nobody was going to get out of there carrying a bag of diamonds in his pack or up his jacksy.” Dunne spoke almost in admiration. “All that searching and we were never going to find them on him! He had them in his hand for less than five minutes!”

  The memories of events never considered as relevant came flooding back and began to pour from him. “It was the day of the funeral. The grave was dug, I was preparing the body in the outhouse and he was helping me . . . I thought he’d volunteered to do that unpleasant job to avoid the manual labour of the grave-digging . . . I nipped out for a few minutes to check the depth of the hole and order Ratty to go down another foot . . . When my back was turned, he must have nipped back into the cabin, scooped the bigger lumps out of the bowl, replacing them with river gravel, artistically scattered a few flakes of diamond over the top and slid them straight back into the silk bag they came in. The bag! We didn’t realise it was missing. I would have assumed, even if I’d bothered to wonder, that it had been chucked out with all the other Boer detritus when we cleaned up the cabin. Perhaps he’d always had the idea of reusing it! And had hidden it away in preparation for this moment? Then, as you caught me saying, Redfyre, a good, effective design deserves to be reused! He went back to the body, unscrewed the heel of the Frenchman’s boot, reinserted the package, reassembled it and hauled it neatly back onto the corpse. Then stood back and admired his handiwork.” With a wry smile, he added: “I even complimented him on his dedication. The state the body was in . . . Well, it was not a pleasant task, you can imagine. Although, by that time, for us, one rotting corpse among thousands was hardly remarkable.” And, slowly, “We were all experts in dealing out and dealing with death.”

  “Are you thinking it was this same shit who brought about the false charges in Pretoria? So that, with you lot out of the way and himself having cut a deal and being on the loose, he could, once demobbed and out of uniform, make his way back to Lemon Tree Lodge and retrieve his plunder at his leisure? Either then or even years later. It was perfectly safe where it was.”

  “Yes. All that. I have to believe no one else was involved. Suspicion has always curdled our dealings with each other. I almost cut Oily’s throat the other day . . . and all the time it was ghastly little baby-faced Syd.”

  Memory stirring, he added, “But, Redfyre, Sydney Fox—he’s at death’s door! At a hospital in London. Tuberculosis, and he’s been out of action for some time, according to Oily, who always finds out these things. He can’t have been rampaging around Cambridge, frightening the shit out of all of us this last bit. And why start with innocent old Ernest Jessup, twenty years later? What did he do to attract murderous attention all of a sudden? That list of corpses around Cambridge you say you have—old Syd can’t be responsible. Can he?”

  “Possibly not. Though his partner in crime may have interesting things to tell us!” Redfyre said grimly.

  Chapter 20

  Yorkshire, Wednesday, the 21st of May, 1924

  Up in the wilds of Yorkshire: “Drop me here, Constable,” MacFarlane said. He’d decided to get out and walk the length of the gravelled drive so that old Mrs. Fox, Syd’s mam, could get a good view of him. He’d noticed the net curtains at the front bay window had twitched as the police car approached.

  He saluted the driver, screwed his bowler more tightly onto his head—always a good breeze blowing in Yorkshire—buttoned up his khaki cashmere overcoat, squared his meaty shoulders and began to crunch his way rhythmically down the drive. He knew from hand-to-hand experience the devastating effect a cohort of KOYLIs could have. Even a solitary figure of MacFarlane’s size and bearing gave pause for thought.

  Had he overworked his preparation to interview the aged, reclusive mother of a man himself at death’s door, a man who featured on his interview list concerning crimes committed in distant Cambridge? Crimes originating in a murky scene acted out a quarter of a century ago in a far-off continent? The link was tenuous. He would be required—all too literally—to account for this trip. In cash terms to his superiors, and much more trickily, in terms of motive, to the watcher within.

  Yes, he had probably oversteered, he admitted. Turning up on her doorstep, dressed like a posh thug from the intelligence service, slim briefcase tucked under the arm in unconscious replacement for a swagger stick. Still, some ladies actually liked the look, he’d heard. And you should never underestimate the opposition. Tough breed, Yorkshire widows! You had to prepare for the worst and hope to emerge from any encounter without acquiring a crack on the jaw or a conjugal knot around the neck. How old had Redfyre reckoned this one was? Seventy-four? He should be all right.

  He crunched on, his step unfaltering. But he recollected the advice given him just now by his young poli
ce driver on the long drive up from the railway station. When invited to mark MacFarlane’s card, he’d replied eagerly enough and with Yorkshire brevity and pungency.

  Yes, he knew the old girl. Old Ma Fox. By reputation, of course, like everyone up here, but he’d actually met her. Twice. Burglaries reported. He’d attended the scene and taken her statement.

  “Was she lucid?” MacFarlane thought he’d do well to establish this.

  “Was she lucid!” the constable spluttered. “Sir! She grabbed the pencil from my hand and the notebook and corrected my notes! Frothing on about apostrophes and punctuation. Said she was going to insist on having from the governor a written explanation for the low standard of literacy in the West Riding Police Force. And it’d better be in good English!”

  “Ouch!” MacFarlane’s sympathy was not feigned.

  “Oh, she’s got all her marbles, if that’s what you’re asking. Cunning old crow! We knew the amateur jokers who’d done both jobs—course we did—but we were so riled by the time she’d done with us, we were ready to shake their hands and let them off with a caution. Just kids, they were! But they got five years hard in the reformatory.” He added bitterly: “She made sure of that. Up here, it’s who you know . . .”

  Anyway, it wasn’t wise to argue with money in these parts, he’d advised. And that old girl seemed to have it by the bucketload. Her husband, old Freddy Fox—‘Purveyor Of Fine Foods to Fine People,’ he’d sneered—had landed some juicy contracts for supplying all the army depots in the north during the war years. “You can imagine what the average mud-and-bloodstained trench rat made of that slogan when he prised the lid off his tin of stringy horse meat stew.” The business had gone from strength to strength. Rumour was, they were planning to move into the richer grazing grounds in the south of England next. “Under new management,” he’d added in portentous tone.