The Midden (21 page)

Sir Arnold added the Dungeon to his list of future viewings. He also came up with an important
question. 'Got any bondage freaks use the Dungeon?' he asked.

Again Maxie Schryburg smirked. 'Mr Cope, have we got bondage...Man, we got every kind of kook
you can name and some you never heard of. Had a publisher in the other day wants to shrink-wrap
Pauline. "Shrink-wrap her?" I says to him. "What you mean 'shrink-wrap'? You gonna suffocate
her." You know what he says? Says he wants her shrink-wrapped because he wants to use her as a
dump bin. There's some things in this business I don't understand and I been in it so many years
and dump bin is something too much. Right? And I say so to Pauline. I say, "You got a guy in
there wants to have you shrink-wrapped in plastic for a dump bin." Jesus, that Pauline took off.
She's a sassy girl too. Water sports, wind surfing, husband and wife, the two-way stretch with
muffins, she's not fussy. So when she says dump bins is out, boy, they're definitely off the
menu. You think that guy takes it easy? He gets real rude and mean. So, he's in the door, he's a
member since he's here and I don't want no trouble because he's a big-time publisher from London.
So I tell him he can't have Pauline, he'll have to take pot luck like out of house and I calls
Mrs Ferrow and she says sure she'll do it just so the guy doesn't see her face. She don't want to
be known, though everybody I know knows her. Fine with me. Who wants to look at Mrs Ferrow's
face? Only one thing is I tell her, "This customer wants you down under." Fine with Mrs Ferrow.
Wants to know what sort of fucking animal, like a koala bear or a kangafuckingroo. Must be pissed
or something. So I go back to this big guy and say which way he wants the dump? He looks at me he
doesn't understand what I'm asking. Miles of fucking cling-film he's undone already all over the
fucking floor and he doesn't want the dump. You know what he says? He's never heard of it like
that and I believe him. Practically throws up when I tell him. Dump bins in his world are things
you stack books in not Mrs Ferrow assfacing him and '

'Maxie, I don't want to hear,' said the Chief Constable, who knew Mrs Ferrow by sight and
didn't like to think what was coming. 'All I want is all the names of your bondage freaks and men
who drug young men. All, you understand, all the names.'

Maxie pulled a long face. 'Come on, Mr Cope, you know I don't '

'I know you don't, Maxie,' Sir Arnold said in a conciliatory fashion, 'that's one of the
things I like about you. And you know I never make any use of any information anyone can trace
back to you. That's good insurance for us both. So you got any information about guys who like
boys out of their skulls on LSD, I want it.'

Maxie Schryburg relaxed. 'You want that sort of thing I can supply it easy,' he said. 'You
want it private is fine with me. You want to be the boy, eh? Nothing easier...' He stopped. The
Chief Constable was turning a very nasty colour.

'You just want the names, sure,' Maxie said hurriedly, trying to make good his mistake. 'Sure,
I'll get it now.' And before the Chief Constable could tell him what he thought of him, he was
off.

For the rest of the evening Sir Arnold sat back and watched the mixed grill on the water-bed.
But every now and then he would switch the button marked D and study the apparatus in the Dungeon
with interest. He'd get Maxie to show him round it in person. Only trouble was he had never gone
further than the video room he was in and he didn't intend to now. No one was ever going to catch
him on tape.

At 11.30 he left cautiously by the covered way and drove back to Tween. He had a list of names
in his pocket that might lead to the boy in his bed and he was feeling rather satisfied with
himself. In fact he was thinking of having some relaxation and Glenda never went to bed before
midnight. Unless he was there, of course. On the whole, he thought not. He'd had an exhausting
weekend and he had to get to work in the morning.

Far away to the south Auntie Bea was doing her best to persuade Lady Vy that she must take her
case to her father. 'Darling, you must see that it is the only way you can save yourself.
Arnold's trying to blackmail you with unfavourable publicity and getting your name in the
tabloids. If you get your father to act now...'

'Oh but Bea, don't you see Daddy would be so shocked,' said Lady Vy, looking vaguely round the
restaurant as if for support. Le Clit, decorated in a specious art deco and newly opened in a
renovated garage in the Fulham Road, didn't seem the right atmosphere in which to talk about
Daddy. Sir Edward Gilmott-Gwyre held strong views about women like that. 'And anyway,' she went
on, 'even if I do tell him, what can poor Daddy do? He's almost eighty and he hasn't been at all
well '

'Tosh,' said Auntie Bea masterfully. 'Your father is a very fit old man and he loves nothing
better than demonstrating his power of influence. If you tell him what Arnold has been doing
'

'Oh, but I couldn't,' said Vy. Auntie Bea's gloved hand closed firmly on her wrist and the
fingers tightened on her painfully. She looked through half tears into Bea's eyes. 'You're asking
too much of me.'

'Suppose I said I was going to be asking so much more of you later on,' Auntie Bea hissed
softly. She moistened her lips with her tongue and Vy felt hopelessly weak. 'And I am. You will
go to your father in the morning and tell him everything. Everything, do you hear?'

Lady Vy nodded. Her soft blue eyes had misted over. 'Everything? About us too?' she asked in a
girlish whisper.

The gloved fingers bit deeper into her wrist. 'No, not about us,' snapped Bea fiercely. 'Of
course not about us. About Arnold and the young man in your bed.'

'Oh no, Bea, I couldn't. Don't you see Daddy would believe I'd asked him to come to bed with
me. He wouldn't believe I hadn't. He's never believed anything I've said. He thinks I'm '

'Yes, dear,' said Auntie Bea hurriedly, and considered this new problem. Sir Edward
Gilmott-Gwyre's stated views on the place of women in the kitchen, and silent women at that, were
well known. It was even rumoured that he had stopped his eldest daughter from having an abortion
on the grounds that if she must behave like an elephant in musth she had better learn to live
with the consequences. The fact that only male elephants got in musth was of no influence on Sir
Edward's opinion that all women were by nature driven by obscure and sinister sexual urges which
had to be tamed or, better still, ignored. Lady Vy had particular reasons as well for fearing his
anger.

'Now, listen, darling,' Bea went on, using her eyes to will Vy's obedience and still grasping
her wrist, 'you must tell him straight away that Arnold put the boy there himself with the
deliberate intention of involving you in his own crimes.'

'But Bea, I don't see how.'

'Doesn't it tell you anything about Arnold's proclivities that the boy was naked and tied up
in bed linen and that Arnold kept drugging him with Valium?'

'Well, I suppose he could be a bit that way,' Vy admitted. 'He can get very violent and I'm
sure he has a bit of fluff in Tween somewhere.'

'But is it just a bit of fluff? What about a pretty boy?'

'Oh I don't know. It's all so confusing,' said Lady Vy, pining for a change in the
conversation. 'I was so looking forward to going shopping for that coat at Tamara's. Do you
really think it will suit me?'

But Auntie Bea was not to be diverted by the siren calls of very expensive dressmakers in
Davies Street. She was about to come up with the trump card. 'What you don't seem to realize is
that the media are already onto Arnold,' she said. 'They've got the scent of a major scandal,
much more serious than the last one, and you have to act before it breaks and you are dragged in
along with Arnold and the others.'

'What new scandal? What's it about? You've got to tell me.'

'Only if you promise to go and see your father in the morning. Promise?'

For a moment Lady Vy hesitated, but the gin and the need to know were too much for her.
'Promise,' she said but Auntie Bea still refused to tell her.

'You must go and tell him everything you know about Arnold. You've got to do it to save
yourself. Your father will know what to do.' Auntie Bea signalled for the bill.

They went back to Bea's flat by taxi. 'Now you're going to have to sleep on your own tonight,'
Auntie Bea said. 'I want you to think carefully what you're going to say tomorrow and you're
going to tell me in the morning.'

And with a light kiss she was gone. Lady Vy went to bed with a sigh. She didn't like to have
to think about nasty things. And going to see Daddy was a very nasty thing indeed.

Things were hotting up all over the place. At twelve-thirty that night the telephone rang at
Voleney House until Ernestine Bright got up and answered it in her dressing-gown. 'Do you know
what time it is?' she demanded in her haughtiest tone of voice and was horrified when Fergus
phoning from Drumstruthie said that as a matter of fact he did.

'Yes, I do know it's damned well after midnight,' he said, 'and I wouldn't be phoning now if
it weren't important. Where is that boy of yours, Timothy?'

'I suppose he's in London. That's where he usually is.'

'I realize that, and I wouldn't be phoning you if I could find him there. I need to know very
urgently where he is now.'

'You don't sound your usual self, Fergus,' Ernestine told him. 'A man of your age shouldn't
drink spirits. It's bad for your blood pressure. Now, if you like to call in the morning '

'We can refrain from the admonitory if you don't mind,' said Uncle Fergus. 'I want you to know
that I have not been drinking. I also want you to know that I have Boskie here and '

'Boskie there?' said Ernestine, genuinely shocked now. 'Aunt Boskie? But you told us she was
at death's door last month. She can't be with you.'

'I assure you she is and she certainly isn't dying, are you Boskie?' From the sounds there was
little doubt that Boskie, for all her ninety-one years, wasn't yet dead. 'Now then, Ernestine,
she wants to talk to that son of yours.'

'But why? What does she want with Timothy?'

'My impression, if you really want to know, is that she wants to kill him,' said Fergus.' If I
were in her position, which thank God I am not, I would wish a really painful death, like boiling
alive, for the little shit. Anyway here's Boskie and she can tell you for herself.'

There were various noises on the phone. Ernestine tried to get in first. 'Hullo Boskie,' she
said, clutching her dressing-gown to her and wishing she'd put slippers on. It was really rather
chilly.

But the coldness was nothing to the ice in Boskie's tone when they had finally accommodated
her hearing-aid to the requirements of the telephone. 'Is that you, Ernestine?' she demanded. 'I
said "Is that you?" She's not saying anything. I said she's not saying anything, Fergus.'

'I am saying something,' Ernestine bawled down the phone and was rewarded by a squawk from
Boskie who told Fergus there was no need to shout, she could hear quite well for her age. To
Ernestine, holding the reverberating telephone away from her ear, the portents of this midnight
call were not at all obvious. Evidently Timothy had done something to annoy old Boskie 

She was interrupted by old Boskie yelling that if her Guillermo were still alive he'd know
what to do to that dirty little...Ernestine held the phone even further away, then tried to
intervene on her son's behalf. 'This is Ernestine, Boskie dear,' she screamed. In the kitchen the
dogs had begun to bark. 'Boskie dear,' she repeated, 'this is ' Again the phone reverberated
quite alarmingly as Boskie screamed at the other end.

'There's some vile creature on the line calling me "Boskie dear." Impertinent slut. Tell her
to go away, Fergus, I want to talk to that fool Ernestine. If there is one thing I detest in a
woman, it is foolishness. That Ernestine...' After what sounded like a scuffle in the hall at
Drumstruthie the phone was dragged away from the old lady and Fergus came on the line.

'That was Boskie,' he said rather unnecessarily.

'I know that,' said Ernestine angrily, 'and you can tell the old woman from me that '

'I don't think I'll tell her that at all,' Fergus interrupted. 'In fact, in your shoes I
should bend over backwards to be nice to dear Boskie. You want to know why?'

'Why?' said Ernestine unwisely.

'Because your darling little Timothy has just sold all her shares, all one hundred and
fifty-eight thousand poundsworth of her shares, and has disappeared '

'But he can't have,' said Ernestine desperately. 'He's not allowed to sell someone else's
shares.'

'No, Ernestine, that's quite right. I'm so glad you have taken that on board,' said Fergus.
'And now the dear boy has scarpered, vanished, done a runner, disappeared, you can call it what
you like. I know what Boskie's calling it.'

Ernestine had a pretty shrewd idea too. A wailing noise in the background seemed to suggest
that Boskie was having some sort of seizure. Ernestine tried to get a grip on the situation. 'She
must be making a mistake. Timothy wouldn't do a thing like that, and besides how could he, even
if he wanted to? The shares must have been in Boskie's name.'

'Oh, quite simply. He forged her signature on a power of attorney,' Fergus told her.

'I don't believe it,' said Ernestine. 'Tim would never do a thing like that. What did you say?
Oh you do. Well, you'll just have to prove it. Boskie is obviously demented.'

'That's the first sensible thing you have said,' Fergus agreed. 'Unfortunately her dementia is
not of the senile variety. She happens to be looking better than I've seen her for some time. I
wouldn't say she's a picture of health but for a woman of ninety...well, let's just say she's not
suffering from low blood pressure. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to speak to Bletchley.'

'You can't. He's not here.'