Buried for Pleasure (10 page)

‘Poor thing, he's worn out,' she said with compassion.

Fen put some beer in an enamel basin for the pig, and after it had drunk some of this it turned and staggered out of the door again, and they could hear it making its way round to the inn-yard.

‘He'll have to be taken back tomorrow, though,' said Myra firmly.

Fen finished his own beer and decided to go to bed. In parting from Myra he asked about the lunatic.

‘They haven't caught him,' Myra said, ‘though they think he's still in the neighbourhood, because there's been food stolen from one of the cottages. They say he's got “a madman's cunning”. which is their excuse for being too dim-witted to catch him. . . . Good night, my dear. Sleep well.'

By the following morning it was apparent that Mr Beaver and his renovations were no longer confined to the room in which Fen had first encountered them. A loss of their original concentration and vehemence was compensated for by a great increase in scope, with the result that – although as yet half the inn remained untouched – the clouds of plaster dust which emanated from the operation began to seem omnipresent. It was not easy, Fen found, to distinguish one member of the family from another. Basically, it was a family affair: Mr Beaver, his wife, and along withe them two sons and two daughters, all of whom looked about the same age – say, seventeen. But its composition was spasmodically varied by the addition of employees from Mr Beaver's drapery business and of acquaintances whom Mr Beaver had cajoled by some means into volunteering for temporary service; and this, added to the family resemblances, the dirt which masked all their faces, and the general haggardness which resulted, no doubt, from repeated early rising, and the continual ingestion of powdered whitewash, did nothing to lessen Fen's confusion.

And if the identities of these people were ineluctable, their aims were even more so. In the intervals of spurring on his band, Mr Beaver was, it is true, to be seen peering intently at some kind of architectural plan. But Fen, who chanced to find this lying about and examined it at length, was unable to equate it at any point with what Mr Beaver was actually doing, and was forced to the conclusion that he intended to make a clean sweep of the whole interior of the inn before attempting anything in the way of reconstruction. Partitions between rooms were pulled down, flooring was demolished, ceilings crumbled, doors were removed from their hinges and left lying about where the unwary might most readily fall over them. Fen's room, and indeed all of the upper storey, remained for the present inviolate, but Fen doubted if this immunity was likely to last very much longer, and in the meantime meals had to be transferred to a sort of boxroom upstairs, where the eating of them was a comfortless business. The noise increased hourly. Since the weather remained fine and warm, customers at the bar preferred to do their drinking outside, in the pleasant grounds of the inn.

During the morning and the earlier part of the afternoon Fen was busy canvassing in Sanford Morvel, his efforts, though variously received, increasing rather than diminishing Captain Watkyn's hopes of a victorious outcome to the election. In the matter of personality, Fen was more generously endowed than either of his opponents; he could talk easily and amusingly to anyone, of whatever class or occupation, and this gift was not shared either by Strode, who got on well enough with the lower orders but was tongue-tied in the presence of anyone having an income of more than five hundred a year, or by Wither, who was effusive with the monied classes but offensively bluff with everyone else. A certain unease regarding Fen's candidature was already being felt at Labour and Conservative headquarters. Neither had put an outstanding candidate into the field, partly because the election was not likely to be a political portent, occurring as it did in one of the brief hiatuses between the succession of domestic crises of that year, and partly because both parties – with some justification in view of the General Election result – regarded the outcome as a certain Conservative victory. Fen's late appearance on the scene had consequently taken them unawares, and now they were beginning to wish they had put up representatives more formidable than either Strode or Wither. However, it was, as Captain Watkyn observed, too late for them to do anything about it now that Nomination Day was over.

‘And mark my words, old boy,' he added, ‘the personal touch is going to be devilishly important. Where there's political apathy it always is – in fact, it's the only thing that'll induce some people to vote at all.'

Further support for Fen came from an unexpected quarter, namely the editor of the
Sanford Advertiser and Peek Gazette
, whose offices Fen and Captain Watkyn visited in Sanford Morvel High Street. It transpired that this ancient but vigorous person, whose name was Gamage, had early in his journalistic career been successfully defended on an indictment for seditious libel by Fen's father, that learned if unaccountable barrister whose eccentricities are still remembered in the Inns of Court; and that in view of this notable service he was prepared to give Fen every assistance in his power.

‘That's a stroke of luck, old boy,' said Captain Watkyn as they left the office. ‘Mind you, we mustn't expect too much from it – no good counting our chickens before they're hatched – but it'll help to keep you in the public eye, and that's half the battle.' He rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘I tell you what, we'll have a drink on that.'

Surveying it at large, Fen concluded that Captain Watkyn's organization was on the whole very commendable, considering the unnaturally short notice he had had. Its principal defect lay in the continued unworkability of the loudspeaker van, which according to the reports of those who were labouring at it, and whom they visited about tea-time, was lacking in numerous essential parts.

‘It's a ruddy scandal, that's what it is,' said Captain Watkyn indignantly. ‘I'm not sure we couldn't bring an action for false pretences. What's the matter with this funny-looking terminal here? Damn the thing, it's given me an electric shock.'

They left the electrician's, and Captain Watkyn, who clearly regarded a quasi-maternal solicitude as part of the duties for which he was being paid, advised Fen to return to ‘The Fish Inn' and rest there for the remainder of the day. ‘Mustn't overdo it,' he said. ‘We want you fresh and lively for the final round.' Fen accepted the advice readily enough; the buttonholing of recalcitrant voters, he had found, made heavy demands on one's reserves of nervous energy. He drove staidly back into Sanford Angelorum.

CHAPTER 10

T
HE
inn, however, had not yet recovered from its initial postmeridian inertia, and promised little in the way of entertainment. For a short time Fen prowled unquietly about it, avid of diversion or company to expunge from his mind the cloying after-taste of the day's routine affability. But he found nothing and no one, and presently a vestige of physical energy prompted him out of doors again. The sun was already westering, its fires refracted now and kinder to the eye; along the horizon the distant woods lay like a narrow roll of brown smoke; across a sky of Antwerp blue streamed shrilling hordes of unidentifiable birds. Fen paused in the back garden of the inn and contemplated the operations of Nature a shade grimly. Then he set off on a walk.

It was an hour before he returned. Breasting the far side of the rise behind the inn, his eye was caught by the lean apparition of Bussy – striding, from another angle of the compass, towards the same objective as himself. A moment more and Bussy had seen him, had swerved, and was moving with purposeful rapidity in his direction. They met by the three slim birch trees.

‘I hadn't hoped to find you so easily.' Breathing heavily, Bussy nodded his approval of the workings of chance. ‘Fen, I need help. You must help me. There's a small element of risk, I'm afraid, but you won't mind that.'

Fen studied him, diagnosed a wholly conscienceless zeal, and sighed resignedly. Self-respect obliged him to concur in Bussy's facile assumption of his indifference to risk, but he did so without enthusiasm. ‘No,' he said. ‘No, I shan't mind that.'

‘Good.' Bussy dismissed the issue from his mind without exhibiting a sign of gratitude. ‘It's to do with this Lambert affair, of course. Something I can't manage single-handed. I can't give you the details now, I'm afraid, because I've got to catch a train.'

Fen was surprised. ‘You're leaving?'

‘To all appearance, yes. I want it to be thought that I've returned to London. But after dark I shall sneak back again, and you must meet me. I can explain the position then.'

‘And where,' Fen asked, ‘do you propose spending the night?'

‘In the open.'

‘That will be cold and disagreeable,' said Fen practically. ‘You ought to find a shelter of some kind – if you're proposing to sleep, that is.'

‘All right.' Bussy gestured impatiently. ‘No doubt a haystack or a barn – –'

‘Or you might try one of the huts on the golf-course.'

‘Whatever you say.' Clearly the topic held no interest for Bussy. ‘That would certainly have the advantage of providing a
locus in quo
for our meeting.'

‘And the time?'

‘Let's say midnight. I shall almost certainly be back by then, but if I'm not, wait for me.'

‘Yes. I suggest the hut at the fourth green.' Fen's walk had familiarized him with the topography of the course. ‘It's reasonably commodious.'

‘That will do,' said Bussy. Then a new thought occurred to him. ‘Of course, Fen, you realize,' he added considerately, ‘that you're in no way obliged to undertake this.'

Fen opened his mouth to make some reassuring reply, but Bussy, who patently regarded his declaration as the merest formality, gave him no opportunity to do so. ‘That's settled, then,' he said. ‘I shall look forward to having your co-operation.' He could no more conceive of a refusal, Fen reflected, than a fanatical gardener can conceive of an affirmative answer to the question ‘Are you bored?' when conducting a guest on a tour of the flower-beds. It was inevitable, no doubt, that men with missions should display a certain
brusquerie. . . .

The church clock struck six, and Bussy's determination gave place with some abruptness to anxiety. ‘My God, I must be off,' he said. ‘I haven't had a chance to pack yet. I'll see you, then, at midnight.'

‘One moment. Are you telling anyone else about this – this manoeuvre? The local police, for instance?'

‘No. Certainly not. And I rely on your keeping it strictly to yourself.'

‘Yes, I'll do that all right.'

Bussy nodded, and with this much farewell turned and made off down the slope towards the inn, absorbed, it was to be presumed, in the details of his scheming. For perhaps half a minute Fen stood watching him; then – but more slowly – followed. Single-mindedness, he reflected, is always obscurely ludicrous – and he smiled. But the smile faded on his recollecting that he was now committed to an indistinct and probably tiresome nocturnal labour; one, moreover, which had been characterized as involving ‘an element of risk'. Risk is no doubt tolerable at the time of undergoing it, when the blood is impregnated with adrenalin; in prospect, however, and with its nature wholly undefined, it is conspicuously lacking in charm. Fen reached the inn in a rather dreary state of mind.

Bussy had long since disappeared from sight; by now he was probably in the act of packing or of paying his bill. Skirting the back of the inn, Fen was vaguely aware of a car being driven away in the direction of Sanford Morvel, of quick, light footsteps receding along the village street, of the rumbling approach of some heavy vehicle and the blaring vehemence of its horn. But the impact of these things was on the remote periphery of his mind, and the shout of warning, the short, choked scream, the sudden skidding swerve, were held tranced for long seconds at that periphery before, with a sinking heart, he returned to full consciousness of his surroundings and knew them for what they were. Then he ran – ran across the inn-yard and out into the road.

A hundred yards along it curved sharply. On the right, as you stood with your back to Sanford Morvel, was a high, blank wall of umber brick, screening the inn from approaching traffic. And there was no pavement – only a fringe of grass and nettles less than a foot's breadth wide. . . . Given these conditions, an accident was likely enough, and this accident had apparently been a bad one. The lorry, stationary now but with its engine still pulsing, stood diagonally across the road; the sprawled, motionless figure of Jane Persimmons lay almost beneath its wheels; and around her, as Fen ran up, there hovered the driver of the lorry, a middle-aged village woman, and an old man, their faces a painter's allegory of mingled indecision and shock.

Fen knelt beside the girl, felt for her heart; it was beating still, though faintly and irregularly. He glanced swiftly, appraisingly, at the dark blood ebbing out through her tangled hair, at the gashed lower lip, at the dirt-smeared pallor of her face, at the bag which lay near her outstretched hand, its contents – a lace-edged handkerchief, a latchkey, a powder compact and lipstick, a cheap cigarette case, a box of matches – half spilled into the dust. Then he straightened up, made a split-second assessment of the relative intelligence of the three people confronting him, and said to the lorry driver:

‘Go in at the door on this side of the pub. In a little office, just inside on the left, there's a telephone. Get an ambulance. Say it's either concussion or a basal fracture of the skull. And if they're going to be of any use, they'll have to be quick about it.'