The Midden (23 page)

'More off than you'd imagine,' said Sir Arnold, silently thanking Auntie Bea for putting him
in the way of this literary disinformation. She'd been encouraging Vy to brush up her French with
La Porte étroite and the Chief Constable had been stung into admitting that he didn't know who
Gide was. 'You are such a philistine,' Vy had said as they went to bed that night. Well, the old
bag had handed him a good tip now.

'You see, Inspector,' the Chief Constable continued, 'I went back and looked this bloke Gide
up and what did I find, a really horrible old faggot with a penchant for Arab boys. Wrote books
about them. One of them is called The Narrow Door and it don't take two guesses to know why.
Filthy sod. So you see the Gide Bleu is something else again.'

Inspector Rascombe was looking impressed. "This could be something really big, sir,' he said.
'I mean after all the bad publicity we've been given lately with the SCS and all that, we could
win ourselves a bit of popular support putting a lot of sex perverts behind bars.'

'My thoughts exactly,' said the Chief Constable.

'Another thing that occurs to me, sir,' the Inspector went on, encouraged by Sir Arnold's
attitude, 'is that if I am thinking about the right area up behind Stagstead, there are some
wealthy people up there with big houses and estates and so on...' He faltered and looked at the
Chief Constable with a feeling that he was walking on very thin ice. After all, the old bugger
had a place up there too. But Sir Arnold was quite relaxed, though he did look more than a bit
weary.

'I know what you're going to say, Inspector, and I appreciate your tact and fine feelings, but
you mustn't think of me,' the Chief Constable said. 'You have your duty to do and you must ignore
my position in the community. Now you understand why I have entrusted you with this particular
job. It is vital I take a wholly unbiased attitude and you're the man I can safely leave the
whole matter with. All you've got to do is check out any known sex offenders on the computer and
see if there's been anything unusual in that area.'

And with the certain knowledge that Major MacPhee's name would come up on the computer, and
that any detailed enquiry at Stagstead would bring to light the anonymous phone call about the
Midden and boys being buggered, the Chief Constable dismissed Detective Inspector Rascombe and
went back to work on a sermon he had promised to give to the Church of the Holy Monument the
following Sunday. He intended to stress the mysterious way in which God worked to achieve His
ends. As usual, the Chief Constable had no doubt whose ends those were. He didn't have any doubt
whatsoever that the ways themselves were filled with mystery.

He had got halfway through the sermon, and was stressing the need for punishment of offenders
as a foretaste of things to come in the afterlife, when he began to have a nagging feeling that
he was missing something important on the more practical side of his own life. There was
something he ought to be doing if he was not to spend the rest of his life in fear of blackmail.
He had to find out who really had been responsible for trying to fit him up with that young
bastard. He would see if he could trap Auntie Bea, but first there were genuine areas of enquiry
to look into. That wasn't all, either. Sir Arnold shook his head fitfully and got up to make
himself a cup of strong black coffee. He really must start thinking clearly.

By lunch time Timothy Bright's memory was considerably improved. And by supper he had
remembered everything with remarkable clarity. The process had been accelerated by hunger and the
smells reaching him, he supposed, from the kitchen. They were, first of all, the smell of bacon
being fried with eggs. Later came the scent of roast lamb with rosemary and finally, around six,
he could have sworn they were cooking a leg of pork.

In fact it was merely a chop but with some crackling added to give it the desired effect. And
the smell, the delicious smell, did not emanate from the kitchen. In her stockinged feet Miss
Midden had climbed the stairs to the old nursery with trays and had allowed the draught to waft
the smells under the door for ten minutes. Then she had crept downstairs again, put on her shoes
and had come clattering up to enquire if he wanted any lunch. Timothy Bright did. He was
ravenous. But he still refused to tell her exactly who he was or why he had broken into her house
and hidden himself under the Major's bed. He tried bluster.

'You've got no right to keep me locked up like this,' he'd said after the roast lamb
treatment.

Miss Midden had denied keeping him locked up. 'You are free to leave the house this very
minute. Nobody is stopping you.'

'But you won't give me my clothes. I can't just go out with nothing on.'

'I can't give you your clothes because I haven't got them. I've looked for them all over the
house. And the garden. They aren't to be found. If you choose to break into other people's houses
stark naked, that's your business. I'm not here to provide burglars with trousers and
jackets.'

'Yes, I can see that,' said Timothy Bright, 'but you are starving me.'

'I'm doing nothing of the sort,' said Miss Midden. 'I don't clothe intruders and I don't feed
people who break in and then refuse to tell me who exactly they are or what they are doing
here.'

Timothy Bright said he didn't know what he was doing in her house either.

'Then you had better think about it very carefully because until you tell me the truth and
nothing but the truth you are going to remain a very hungry young man.' She turned towards the
door and then stopped. 'Of course, if you want me to call the police, I shall be only too happy
to oblige you.'

But Timothy Bright's face was ashen. 'No, please don't do that,' he said. If she called the
police, he'd be in even deeper trouble. The man with the razor, piggy-chops and the money he had
stolen from Aunt Boskie...No, she mustn't call the police.

It was the smell of roast pork that broke him. Particularly the crackling. The skinned pig
came to mind, and the fact that it wouldn't have any crackling even if it was roasted. And the
Major had visited him twice to ask how he was doing and to say that Miss Midden was a decent
person and not at all hard-hearted. 'You can trust her,' he said. 'She's ever so nice really but
she's a Midden and one of the old sort. Do anything for people, she will, if they treat her
properly. She just won't put up with being lied to and messed about.'

'She doesn't seem very kind-hearted to me,' Timothy Bright retorted.

'That's because you won't tell her the truth,' said the Major. 'She hates people lying to her
or making excuses. You tell her the truth and you'll be all right. And another thing. She doesn't
like the police so she won't hand you over provided you tell her everything.'

Timothy Bright wanted to know why she didn't like the police. 'Because she says they're
corrupt and beat people up in the cells. She's got it in for the Chief Constable too. He's a
horrible man. You must have read about the way they've framed people round here. It was on
Panorama and in the papers. The Serious Crime Squad are as bent as a nine-pound note. Talk about
brutal.'

On this cheerful note the Major had gone back to the kitchen to report. 'One more meal and
he'll spill the beans,' he said. 'It's just that he doesn't trust you.'

'I don't trust myself,' said Miss Midden enigmatically, and busied herself with the piece of
pork.

At six that night Timothy Bright broke down and wept. He said he'd tell them everything if
only they'd promise not to tell anyone else.

Miss Midden wasn't giving any promises. 'If you've done something really horrible, anything
violent like rape or murder,' she began, but Timothy Bright swore he hadn't done anything like
that. It had to do with money and getting into debt and couldn't he have something to eat?

'That depends on what you tell me,' Miss Midden replied. 'If you so much as tell one lie, I'll
spot it. Ask him.' She indicated the Major standing in the doorway behind her.

The Major nodded. Miss Midden had an uncanny nose for a lie, he said.

'And just because I have a personal quarrel with the Chief Constable, don't think I won't hand
you over,' Miss Midden went on. 'If you lie to me, that is.'

Timothy Bright swore on his honour he wouldn't lie to her. Miss Midden had her doubts about
that but she kept them to herself. 'All right, you can come down to the kitchen and tell us the
story,' she said. 'In that towel. You're not getting any clothes until I know who and what I've
got on my hands.'

At the kitchen table, with the smell of roast pork filling the room, Timothy Bright told his
story. At the end Miss Midden was satisfied. She got out the pork and the crackling and the roast
potatoes and the broad beans and carrots and the apple sauce and watched him eat while she
considered what to do. At least he had good table manners, and what she had heard had the ring of
truth about it. He was just the sort of conceited young fool who would get himself into trouble
with drug dealers and gamblers. She had been particularly impressed by his admission that he had
stolen Aunt Boskie's shares.

'Where does this aunt of yours live?' she asked.

'She's got a house in Knightsbridge but she's usually in a nursing home. I mean she's
ninety-one or two.'

Miss Midden asked for her exact address. Timothy Bright looked alarmed. 'Why do you want to
know that?' he asked. He was into the apple pie now. 'You're not going to get in touch with her,
are you? I mean she'd kill me if she knew. She's a really fierce old woman.'

'I merely want to know if she exists, this aunt of yours,' Miss Midden said, and forced him to
give her the address as well as that of his Uncle Fergus and his parents. Timothy Bright didn't
understand, and he panicked when she went to the phone in the hall.

'Oh for goodness' sake, use what few brains you seem to possess,' she told him when he
followed her into the hall clutching the towel round his waist. 'I'm only going to call Directory
Enquiries. Go back and finish your supper.' But he stood there while she dialled and got
confirmation that there was a Miss Bright who lived at the address he had given. And a Mr Fergus
Bright at Drumstruthie.

'That seems satisfactory,' she said when she put the phone down. 'Now you can have some
coffee.'

Half an hour later Timothy Bright went to the old nursery with a book Major MacPhee had lent
him. It was by Alan Scholefied and was appropriately called Thief Taker.

Downstairs Miss Midden sat on over her own supper thinking hard. She had very little sympathy
with Master Bright but at least he had had the good sense to tell her the truth. She would have
to do something about it.

In his apartment overlooking Hyde Park Sir Edward Gilmott-Gwyre put the telephone down with a
deep, ruminative sigh. It was not often he heard from his daughter and he was grateful for this
infrequency. But now the damned woman had phoned to say she was coming round and had something
terribly urgent to tell him. 'Why can't you tell me over the phone, my dear?' he had asked almost
plaintively.

'Oh no, it's far too important for that, Daddy,' she had bleated. 'And anyway you wouldn't
like it.'

Sir Edward shifted his bulk in the small chair and didn't suppose he would. He had never liked
anything about his daughter. For one thing she reminded him too clearly of his wife and besides
she was the only girl he had ever known who had progressed (sic) from the puppy-fat of
adolescence to the several spare tyres of middle-age without a modicum of lissom grace in
between. As for her mind, if it could be called that, it too had remained as vacuous as several
expensive co-educational establishments and a Swiss finishing school could make it. To her
undoting father, Vy Carteret Purbrett Gilmott-Gwyre at twenty-three had had all the physical and
mental attractions of a lead-polluted black pudding. He had been absolutely delighted when Arnold
Gonders, then a mere Superintendent, asked for her hand in marriage. As had been said at the
time, her father had not so much given her away at the wedding as thrown her. And now, to judge
by the inane whimpering over the phone, she might well have got herself into really serious
trouble. Sir Edward had no desire to get her out of it.

To prepare himself for her visit he had two very large brandies and hid the gin bottle. He was
damned if he was going to top her up. Lack of alcohol would make her leave all the sooner. He had
Elisha Beconn coming to dinner and he intended to have his daughter out of the flat long before
that learned professor arrived. In the event he was shocked to find her completely sober and
obviously genuinely disturbed.

'Now what's the matter?' he said with the total lack of sympathy that characterized all his
emotional contacts with the women in his family.

Lady Valence, his wife, had once remarked that life with Sir Edward could only be compared
with being smoked as a ham. 'Not that I mind his smoking,' she said, 'it is the remorseless
misogyny of the brute that has turned me into the wizened creature you see before you.' It was an
unfair comparison. The unutterable boredom his wife's conversation engendered and the crassness
of his daughter had left Sir Edward a dedicated believer in the Women's Movement as a means of
securing his own privacy.

'It is the great advantage of the liberated and educated woman that she wants to have nothing
to do with me,' he had said, and had become an advocate of universal lesbianism to the point of
female conscription into the army for the same reason.

Now, faced with his distraught and sober daughter, he could only sigh and wish that the next
half hour should pass quickly.

'I don't know how to tell you, Daddy,' Vy said, sinking into the baby talk she misguidedly
thought he enjoyed.

'Need you bother yourself?' her father asked. 'If you don't feel '