The Complete Pratt (101 page)

The ghost didn’t stop.

‘Uncle Teddy!’ he called. ‘I have to speak to you. I’m here with Auntie Doris and Geoffrey Porringer.’

The ghost stopped. It turned slowly to face him. Uncle Teddy was wearing natty blue shoes, white trousers and a striped fisherman’s jersey. It was a relaxed, spritely, mediterranean Uncle Teddy, the holiday version of the man Henry had known.

‘Trust you to run me to earth,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Trust bloody you! How did you do it?’

‘You aren’t dead!’

‘Ten out of ten for observation.’

‘But … I mean …’

Uncle Teddy looked astounded. ‘Aren’t you on my trail?’ he said. ‘This isn’t just luck, is it?’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Henry.

‘Oh no,’ grumbled Uncle Teddy. ‘That’s not fair. Are you really with Doris and Geoffrey?’

‘Yes.’

‘They mustn’t see me.’

‘No.’

‘You’d better come to the villa.’

Uncle Teddy’s villa, set back behind a row of colour-washed fishermen’s cottages, was larger than theirs but still comparatively modest. The faint smell of last night’s giant prawns still hung over it, mingling with the scents of sea and pine and thyme and the morning’s fresh coffee.

It was cool and dark in the shuttered villa. A few slats of sunlight dappled the marble floor.

He followed Uncle Teddy into the marble kitchen.

‘So … you didn’t die in the Cap Ferrat?’ he said.

‘How long are you staying?’ asked Uncle Teddy.

‘I’m staying a week. They’re staying two weeks.’

‘Two weeks!’

‘You mustn’t meet Auntie Doris.’

‘No. No. How insensitive to come here, with me dead.’

‘You aren’t dead.’

‘They don’t know that.’

‘No, and they mustn’t.’ Why mustn’t they? I’m a journalist. ‘What’s happened, Uncle Teddy? You’ve got to tell me what’s happened.’

‘So either I stay in for a fortnight or I go away?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh shut up.’

Uncle Teddy took the coffee tray through into the large living-room cum dining-room. A heavy lace cloth lay on a round dining-table, and there were six high-backed ornate dining-chairs.

‘They’re married,’ said Henry.

‘Ah.’

‘I went to the wedding.’

‘Oh.’

‘Cousin Hilda came.’

‘How is the sniffer?’

‘All right. Getting older.’

‘Aren’t we all?’

‘You look younger.’

‘I feel younger. I feel rejuvenated.’

Henry stood up.

‘Oh come on, Uncle Teddy,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to give me an explanation.’

‘Why?’ said Uncle Teddy, smiling.

‘I’m a journalist.’

‘Precisely.’

‘What?’

‘I may not want my continued existence to be known.’

‘If I don’t get an explanation that satisfies me, i.e. the truth, I’ll be forced to dig. Burrow for facts. Oh come on, Uncle Teddy. You brought me up as your son. You’re supposedly burnt alive in Thurmarsh. I run into you in Cap Ferrat. You can’t refuse to tell me what’s happened.’

Uncle Teddy remained silent.

‘I know some of it already,’ said Henry. He sipped his coffee. It was good.

‘Oh? What do you know?’

‘I know that Councillors Peter Matheson and Howard Lewthwaite and council official Herbert Wilkinson are in cahoots with property developer Fred Hathersage to buy up an area now called the Fish Hill Complex in order to redevelop it to their mutual advantage. I know the Old Apothecary’s House was destroyed and the Cap Ferrat burnt down to get them out of the way.’

‘My God!’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘You know it all.’

‘Not quite. I presume somebody, probably Fred Hathersage, is paying you a good whack to a numbered Swiss bank account for the destruction of the Cap Ferrat, for which, of course, being dead, you can’t claim insurance.’

‘Right so far. As co-owner, Derek Parsonage gets the insurance. What aren’t you sure of?’

‘One. Who’s the mastermind behind it all?’

‘Who do you think?’

‘Bill Holliday?’

‘No! Bill’s nothing to do with it. He’s totally straight. Honest as the day is long. And if he wasn’t, he’s such an obvious suspect nobody’d ever dare associate with him.’

‘Fred Hathersage?’

‘Brawn, not brain. Fred constructs what others plan.’

‘Peter Matheson?’

‘Where do Peter Matheson, Fred Hathersage and Bill Holliday live?’

‘Thurmarsh.’

‘Where do I live?’

‘You! But you’re my uncle.’

‘Henry, don’t look so upset. You were never supposed to get fond of me. Oh God, let’s have some champagne.’

Uncle Teddy set off for the kitchen.

‘I don’t feel much like champagne,’ said Henry, ‘It’s meant to be for rejoicing.’

‘Don’t have any, then,’ called out Uncle Teddy.

‘On the other hand, I need a drink,’ shouted Henry. ‘If you’re having champagne, it’d be less trouble if I had it too.’

Uncle Teddy returned with a bottle of champagne and two elegant fluted glasses. He opened the bottle smoothly, and poured the champagne.

‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t look so solemn.’

‘Uncle Teddy!’ said Henry. ‘A man was murdered so you could drink champagne.’

‘Henry!’ Uncle Teddy was shocked. ‘Nobody was murdered! Thurmarsh isn’t Chicago. I’m not a killer. Property, yes. People, no.’

‘So whose was the body in the Cap Ferrat?’

‘The headmaster of Thurmarsh Grammar School.’

‘What??’

‘His name, I believe, was Crowther.’

‘You … murdered … Mr Crowther!’ Was there the faintest awe alongside Henry’s horror?

‘No! I’ve told you! Nobody was murdered. He died of natural causes.’

‘How?’

‘Of a heart attack, while strung up by a rope from a ceiling, entirely encased in chain-mail, in an exotic brothel run by Derek Parsonage in Commercial Road, Thurmarsh.’

‘Oh my God! Mr Crowther??’

‘Yes. Your respected headmaster got his sexual thrills from wearing armour and being strung up on a rope.’

‘You call that natural causes?’

‘It was natural to him. And it’s not as uncommon a type of thing as you might think.’

‘But he lectured us on moral values!’

‘Hypocrisy is also not as uncommon as you might think.’

‘How dare he work off his guilt feelings on me?’

‘Mr Crowther knew there was a risk,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘It was part of the thrill. He died. Nobody was to blame for his death. We
just
hushed it up and used it. Well, shame if it had got out. Disgrace for his school. Disgrace for his family.’

‘Closure for Derek Parsonage’s exotic brothel.’

‘Well yes, that too, I suppose. It really was incredibly convenient all round and I saw the possibilities straightaway.’

‘But the body was identified as yours.’

‘Money opens most doors.’

‘What would you have done if Mr Crowther hadn’t died?’

‘Gone missing. Changed my identity. As I have. Much more risky, though, if people were looking for me.’

Henry stood up.

‘What a story!’ he said. ‘Headmaster of grammar school dies strapped in armour in exotic brothel, which poses as international Bible exporters, is subsequently burnt in deliberate destruction of Regency nightclub and is falsely identified as owner of said club, who’s living in South of France under assumed name while Tory and Labour councillors, council official and prominent local businessman, who employ stuntman to destroy another old landmark, carry out his master plan to make fortunes out of destruction and rebuilding of large area of central Thurmarsh. I’ll get an award for this.’

Uncle Teddy poured him some more champagne.

‘Cheers,’ said Henry. He sat down, exhausted, bewildered. ‘Things like this … they don’t happen to people you know. They’re the sort of things you read about.’

‘Or don’t read about.’

‘What?’

‘You can’t print a word of this, Henry.’

Henry went white. ‘You haven’t been drinking!’ he said. ‘The champagne’s poisoned.’

‘Henry!’ Uncle Teddy shouted. ‘For God’s sake, Henry. I’m not a murderer.’ He regained control of himself. ‘The champagne is not poisoned.’ He took a swig, to add force to his words. ‘Delicious.’

‘Then why am I not going to publish it?’ said Henry.

‘Because of the hurt it’ll cause.’

‘What hurt?’

‘To Mrs Crowther and her family, who’ll be deeply, deeply shocked. To me, who brought you up as my son, and will end my
life
behind bars instead of living here. To Geoffrey Porringer, who’ll discover he’s married a bigamist. To Doris, who’ll discover she’s a bigamist and will learn that the pathetic illusion that she clings to – viz., that I’d ever have gone back to her after she’d betrayed me – is an illusion and that I have a younger and prettier woman. To Cousin Hilda, whom the family scandal will kill, in spirit if not in body. To your series, “Proud Sons of Thurmarsh”, which will be revealed as the biggest load of crap in the history of British journalism. To Howard Lewthwaite, a good man doing bad things out of love, whose career will be destroyed. To Naddy Lewthwaite, who will die in a year or two in an English winter. To Hilary Lewthwaite, your fiancée, an unstable young lady who has tried to kill herself. To Sam Lewthwaite, who will be brought up in a family ruined by tragedy. For what? A bit of skulduggery uncovered. A two-day sensation. More champagne?’

‘But …’

‘I know. You have a story that’s dynamite, could transform your tottering career, and you can’t use a word of it. Rather a shame. Better drown your sorrows.’

Henry sipped his champagne and thought with rising shame of all the lies he’d been told, from Derek Parsonage fobbing him off about Monsieur Emile to Uncle Teddy planning a champagne reunion with Auntie Doris and … oh god … saying, ‘I love you, son.’

What would he do? Would he go ahead with his story? Should he go ahead? How did you weigh the value of a general principle of truthfulness against the particular sorrows that your action would visit upon the innocent and guilty alike? He felt weakened by all these revelations.

A cool little breeze had sprung up off the sea and was forcing its way through the gaps in the shutters. Henry shivered, and took another sip of champagne.

He recognized her scent, just before she entered the room. She was wearing tight white shorts and a tight blue sweater. She carried a shopping bag in her right hand. She stood in the doorway, smiling her astonishment, as tanned as a kipper, as shameless as a cat. But he was
more
astonished.

‘Anna!’ he said, trying not to blush as he remembered that
night
, as he wondered if she’d told Uncle Teddy about that night.

‘Hello, Henry,’ said Anna Matheson. ‘And congratulations! I’m thrilled about you and old Hillers!’

She enveloped him in her scent and gave him an extrovert kiss, accompanied by a grunted smacking of the lips. Uncle Teddy explained how Henry came to be there, fetched a glass and poured her some champagne. She sat down, crossing her big, brown thighs studded with tiny goose-pimples. It was too early for shorts, even in Cap Ferrat.

‘So, you’ve changed your identity,’ said Henry, trying not to look at Anna’s thighs.

‘Oh yes,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Meet Mrs Wedderburn.’

‘Wedderburn?’

‘My naughty sense of humour. Alice Wedderburn was the first girl I ever did it with, behind the tram sheds. Anna will be the last girl I ever do it with.’

‘Alice Wedderburn!’ said Henry. ‘Alice Wedderburn! She lent me her camp-bed!’

‘She wasn’t Alice Wedderburn then,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘She was Alice Crapper. Anna drew the line at Mr and Mrs Crapper.’

There was a strangely sombre little silence. Henry was painfully readjusting his view of Cousin Hilda’s friend. Uncle Teddy and Anna were reflecting on what life as Mr and Mrs Crapper would have been like.

‘I got hake,’ said Anna Wedderburn, née Matheson. ‘You do like hake, don’t you?’

‘
Mrs
Wedderburn?’ said Henry.

‘We got married three weeks ago,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘For the will. In case I can’t keep up the pace, and have a heart attack. Yes, I like hake. Go and get it unpacked, though, love. It’ll stink the place out.’

Anna went into the kitchen, with her hake.

Uncle Teddy smiled – a little sadly, Henry felt.

‘Don’t know if she’d stay with an old man like me if it wasn’t for the money,’ he said.

He went over to the window, pushed the shutters open rather violently, and looked out towards the sea.

‘Doris liked hake,’ he said.