A Talent For Destruction (9 page)

But Quantrill hadn't the heart to take him back to the Rectory immediately. He remembered the old man's frustration over being cooped up in the house during the months of snow, his contempt for the carpeted lounge bar that his son-in-law occasionally took him to, and for the carbonated beer that was served there. What Henry Bowers obviously longed for was a drink in one of the spit-and-sawdust pubs of his young manhood. The spit and sawdust was no longer tolerated, mercifully, but there were still one or two pubs in Breckham Market that hadn't been completely sanitized.

‘We met a couple of days ago, when I called at the Rectory,' the Chief Inspector told the old man. ‘My name's Quantrill. I was just going for a drink at the Boot. How about joining me?'

He eased Henry Bowers into the car, and out again a couple of hundred yards later. The Boot was one of six pubs in or near the market place. An inn since the eighteenth century, it displayed its sign in the form of a gilt-painted wooden riding-boot that hung from an iron bracket high above the doorway of the narrow flint-faced building. It was smaller than most of the other Breckham pubs, and less easy to convert to modern standards of comfort, and so it had remained essentially a male preserve, a stand-up drinking house.

Quantrill rarely visited the Boot. For one thing, he was unpopular with the landlord; his status was well known to many of the regulars who were inclined to remember, when they saw him, that they had urgent business elsewhere. Besides, he was a staunch Adnams man, and the Boot was a Whitbread house. But it wouldn't hurt to keep old Henry Bowers company for twenty minutes before delivering him back to the Rectory. There was always the chance, Quantrill thought, that he might learn something useful about the Aingers.

‘A drop of whisky, to keep the cold out?' he suggested, parking the old man on a bench between the juke-box and a fruit-machine. It was just after eleven o'clock, and there were no other customers in the bar.

The landlord was civil, but not welcoming. Quantrill bought a half of bitter for himself, and a single Haig. ‘Water with it?' he enquired over his shoulder. ‘Or ginger?'

Henry Bowers shook his head. Saliva was beginning to dribble from one corner of his mouth, and his eyes were glittering in anticipation. ‘Don't spoil it,' he croaked, reaching out a great gnarled hand to envelop the glass. Quantrill, suddenly conscientious, hoped that there was no good medical reason for what seemed to have been a lengthy abstention from spirits.

‘Bes'respects,' muttered the old man, raising his glass. He took a gulp, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and let out a long quavering sigh. ‘What did you say your name was?' he asked presently.

‘Doug Quantrill. I came to the Rectory the other day to see your daughter.'

Henry Bowers nodded, and sat brooding for a moment. ‘She's a good girl to me, our Gilly. Don't think I don't know that. I should be in a mess without her, now that her dear mother's gone.' The facile tears of age gathered in his eyes. He raised his glass and drained it. ‘That was my second wife, y'know. Nearly twenty year younger than me – you'd ha'thought she ha'lasted better, wouldn't you? I reckoned I'd picked a good strong'un, second time round. Thought to meself, Well, she'll see you out, Henry me boy. You'll be all right now, she'll take care o'you in your old age. And now look what I've come to …' He stared down at his damp slippers that were steaming in the heat from the gas fire. A dewdrop began to accumulate at the bulbous tip of his nose.

‘But you've got Gillian,' Quantrill reminded him when he had fetched another whisky. ‘You're lucky there.'

‘Ar, I am lucky. She's the only one I ever had, out of two marriages, and she's a good'un. But she never should ha'married
him
.' He spoke the pronoun so viciously that the dewdrop wobbled off and plopped on to the lapel of his jacket.

‘A suitable marriage, I should have thought,' said Quantrill.

‘
Suitable
!' Henry Bowers hawked so contemptuously that Quantrill instinctively moved his feet in case a spit followed, but the old man swallowed whisky instead. ‘No …' he brooded. ‘For all his father was a parson and his grandad was a rural dean, and I never had more'n twenty acres and a few dairy cows, I don't mind telling you that our Gillian married beneath her. She's got more brains in her little finger than he's got in his big head.

‘I'd say nothing if she'd had children, mind. A young woman ought to raise a family. Well, it don't always happen, I know that, and not for want of trying. But if she can't have a family, she ought to be putting her brains to use. A doctor, that's what she set her heart on being when she was at school, and I'd have supported her all the way. I've worked hard all me life, and saved every penny I could, and I shouldn't ha' cared what it cost me. I think the world of our Gilly, I'd do anything for her. But no, she had to go and marry this Robin when she was only nineteen, and she's played second fiddle to him ever since. It's Robin this and Robin that, everything has to revolve round bloody Robin.'

‘Perhaps she's happy like that.'

‘Hah! And p'r'aps
I'm
happy like
this
. He's got a lot to answer for, that Robin Ainger. How he's got the nerve to stand up in the pulpit telling folks to be Christians, I don't know. There's things I could tell you – what did you say your name was?'

‘Just call me Doug.'

But the old man evidently thought that he had already said too much about his daughter and her husband. ‘Nice drop o'whisky,' he said, raising his glass. ‘Bes'respects, Doug.'

‘Another?'

Henry Bowers cackled with sly amusement. ‘Hadn't better – might get into trouble.'

Quantrill pushed it as hard as he dared: ‘You'd be welcome.'

‘No – it wouldn't do, would it? Mustn't let the Rector down, must I? That's why they try not to let me out on me own, y'know… mustn't talk about Robin. Got a position in the town to keep up.'

‘That's true,' agreed the Chief Inspector, sorry that he was to hear no more but relieved that his offer had been refused; he didn't want to be accused of getting the Rector's father-in-law drunk. ‘Tell me something, though, Henry: do you remember a young Australian who came to Breckham last summer? He used to camp in Parson's Close.'

‘Oh ar,' said Henry Bowers, uninterested. He picked at a crevice in his discoloured teeth with a horny fingernail and concentrated his attention on the men who were beginning to drift into the pub, each with a newspaper folded open at the racing page and a pencil at the ready. The weather had disrupted the racing calendar, and Breckham's middle-aged punters were anxious for action now that the snow had cleared from some of the courses. The Boot was next door to the betting-shop, and as usual they had called in to study the odds over a quiet pint while they waited for the shop to open.

‘Did you happen to see the Australian?' Quantrill persisted.

‘Might've done.' The old man cackled again. ‘Bloody Aussies,' he said, but this time he used the adjective without malice. ‘I fought along o' them in the first world war, at Gallipoli, y'know. Talk about swearing, I never heard such language afore or since. Good fighters, though, the Aussies. Not that there was any hope of winning, what with the heat and hardly any drinking water, and the ground littered with stinking corpses, and the flies and dysentery – but we did our bit.'

There was nothing to be gained from listening to the old man's reminiscences, so Quantrill finished his beer and stood up. ‘Come on, Henry. Better get you back home before your daughter sends out a search party.'

The old man squinted up at him. ‘I ha'killed a few men, in me time, y'know,' he said.

‘I daresay you have. My old Dad used to tell me the same – he was in your war, and he reckoned he put paid to a few Jerries.'

‘Not Jerries,' said Henry Bowers impatiently, ‘Turcos!' His faded eyes focused on the distant past. ‘They were up in the hills above Suvla Plain, pinning us down. We were ordered to advance across the plain on August the 12th, in broad daylight. There was only rocks and scrub for cover, and our bayonets shone in the sun and gave us away. The Turcos picked us off like rabbits. But then the scrub caught fire, and the smoke covered our advance. We took 'em by surprise, and I got two or three on'em before we had to withdraw. There were only a few of us left by then, o'course. That's when I were wounded –'

‘You must tell me about it sometime.' Quantrill levered the old man up from the bench, led him outside, fitted him into the car, and drove to the Rectory. ‘Drop you at the gate, shall I?'

‘That'll do well. Our Gilly's gone to Yarchester and
he
‘s messing about in the church. They'll never know I've been out.'

‘They will if they smell your breath,' said Quantrill, extricating him from the car and steering him through the gate.

Henry Bowers gave him a slow, grotesque, conspiratorial wink. ‘I ha'got some peppermints in me room. Thank y'kindly for the drink – what did you say your name was, again?'

The Aingers were bound to get to know that he had talked to the old man; better come clean. ‘If your family ask, tell them you were with Chief Inspector Quantrill. You can say that it was my idea to go to the pub – you were in police custody.'

As he drove off he glanced back and saw Henry Bowers standing where he had left him, slack knee'd, open-mouthed, looking as though having a drink on a policeman was astonishing enough to bring the world to an end.

Quantrill had originally intended to take another look at Parson's Close, but now he changed his mind and went in search of Robin Ainger. He found him in the church porch, pinning up on the noticeboard a list of services for the coming week.

He greeted him. ‘I've just been talking to your father-in-law,' he added.

The Rector bent to retrieve a fallen drawing-pin. ‘Oh yes – you've been to the Rectory?'

‘No. I happened to see him pottering along St Botolph's Street, going towards the town in his slippers. He told me the other day that he was longing to go out, so I'm afraid I took it upon myself to suggest that he came with me for a drink at the Boot.'

Robin Ainger's handsome jaw tightened. For a moment he said nothing, but then he gave Quantrill a tepid smile. ‘That was very kind of you. I try to give him an occasional change of scenery, but I think what he appreciates most is a new audience for his stories. His conversation is inevitably limited – as you discovered, no doubt?'

‘Gallipoli, mostly,' said Quantrill.

‘Ah yes – Suvla Plain: heat, flies, dysentery, and what he calls Turcos. August 1915's a lot clearer to him than the week before last. He's old enough to be Gillian's grandfather, of course. His first wife died young, and he married again in his fifties – but I expect he told you more than you wanted to know about the family?'

‘He did say that he knows how lucky he is to have a good daughter, and to be looked after in his old age. What he really wanted to talk about was Gallipoli, but his slippers were damp so I returned him to the Rectory as soon as I decently could. None of my business, Mr Ainger, but now that the snow's gone it'd be as well if he wore his shoes. He's obviously a stubborn old boy, and determined to go out whether he's suitably dressed or not.'

The Rector's jaw tightened again, and he busied himself with the noticeboard. ‘I'm sure you're right,' he murmured, courteous but stiff with resentment.

‘As I said,' Quantrill apologized quickly, ‘it's none of my business. It's all very well for outsiders to be patient and sympathetic with old people for ten minutes at a time, isn't it? I do realize that it's much tougher for those who have to live with them and look after them.'

‘Yes,' said Robin Ainger. He jammed in a final drawing-pin, screwing it down hard with his thumb, and then excused himself to talk to the verger.

Edgar Blore, the dignity of his cassock marred by the collar of his fawn cardigan which protruded unevenly from the neck-band, was fidgeting urgently in the doorway of the church. The Rector joined him for a conference about a delivery of heating-oil that had failed to arrive, and Quantrill studied the noticeboard while he waited.

The congregation of St Botolph's was evidently kept busy, with fund-raising activities for the restoration of the angel roof and rehearsals for an Easter performance of Handel's
Messiah
. Rotas detailed the female members for cleaning the church silver, providing and arranging flowers, and serving coffee in the church hall after the 10.30 family service on Sunday mornings.

Visitors were not neglected either. Various notices exhorted them not to leave the church without a prayer, to contribute to the restoration fund, to Shut the Door Please, and to Mind the Steps. They were also advised, in thick black fibrepoint on a large sheet of paper pinned in the most prominent position that
Rubbings may be taken of the monumental brasses
ONLY BY APPOINTMENT. WRITTEN PERMISSION MUST
be obtained from the
RECTOR
to whom the appropriate
FEE
towards church expenses
MUST
be paid
.

‘Have you any more information,' said Robin Ainger, turning back to the Chief Inspector, ‘about the body in the Close?'

‘Not yet,' Quantrill repeated to him what he had told his son about the disappearance of the camping gear. ‘Have you any notion what might have happened to the tent, Mr Ainger?'

‘I'm afraid not. But I'd go along with your reasoning, certainly. If the body is Athol's, and if his tent was left erected, then it's likely that someone would have taken it. After all, although it couldn't be seen from St Botolph Street, it must have been in full view of the by-pass. Whoever took it probably had no connection at all with Breckham Market.'