“Jim” had been friendly enough and even given Julie his Skype number “so’s we can have a proper chat,” but, when she made the connection, she’d concluded he was either an out-of-work Sir Ken Dodd impersonator or, more likely, off his trolley. Same straggly hair as Sir Ken, same protruding teeth although they looked false, same tickling stick being wafted about, but not funny. Far from it. Gloomy and self-pitying, more like. Before Julie could get a word in edgewise, he was telling her about how life had kicked him in the teeth even though he was an obvious genius. How he could have been in The Beatles if he’d wanted, but he hadn’t reckoned them good enough to play his songs. How he could have been one of the Liverpool Poets along with Roger McGough, Adrian Henri, and Brian Patten, only his poems were better than theirs. Deeper and more complex. How his plays compared with Shakespeare’s. How at least two of his kitchen sink novels were far better than “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,” only…
That’s when Julie had interrupted and asked about the sighting of Jeremy Crawford, to which “Jim” had replied: “Who?” before embarking on a rant against Margaret Thatcher and all subsequent Tory governments, especially the latest one led by a woman called Maggie May, before launching into his version of the song about the whore who wouldn’t walk down Lime Street any more.
Leaving “Jim” to his world, Julie had thanked him for his time and disconnected.
The correspondence with “Betty,” by comparison, had been more interesting. No Skype this time, just a phone number and a cryptic one-liner, saying: “You can find me in Fanbury.” Impressed indeed had “Betty” Dawkins been at having been contacted by the very Jackie Lamur who’d posted the original bonkers banker tweet. Best to stay in her good books, he reckoned. Might even help with his investigation.
That was why Julie Mackintosh was to be “out of the office for a few days.”
Barry deferred any further enquiries into the purpose of PC Dawkins’s visit by plying him with several glasses of nettle brandy and then launching into a lengthy off-the-wall disquisition on the manner in which simple and innocent stories could be hyped out of all recognition by the regular and social media.
“Take this bonkers banker tale, for example,” he said. “Local chappie, as I understand it. It would take an idiot to believe there is any truth in the wild accusations about him, wouldn’t it? Especially not the million pound reward for his capture. Pure fabrication and pernicious tittle tattle in my view. ”
“Um,” said Dennis.
“I assume an officer of the law would share such a view,” said Barry.
“Erm,” said Dennis.
“Don’t tell me you don’t.”
Dennis hummed and hawed some more, swallowed hard and semi-nodded. “I just thought…”
“Well, I suggest you think again, PC Dawkins. I wouldn’t like to think your unexpected visit to my humble home was in any way related to that nonsense.”
“But it was you who brought this pig to your house at the dead of night?” said Dennis, unwilling to concede the game just yet. “The one over there,” he added, nodding at Pete, who said, “Oink.”
Barry rubbed at his stubbly chin. “Yes, that was I,” he said after a pause.
“The pig who’d lived with the Crawford geezer in his barn,” said Dennis, encouraged by the admission.
“So the story goes. Probably apocryphal but…”
“Although it is true that you are the Crawfords’ gardener and might know him if you saw him.”
“I can’t deny it, Constable.”
“And why would you have been stealing the pig at the dead of night?” said Dennis/“Betty” hoisting both eyebrows. “Especially as from what I heard, anywhere the pig went Crawford would follow. Don’t s’pose you had anybody hidden in the wheelbarrow you was pushing that night, did you?”
Forced onto the back foot by a copper who wasn’t as daft as he looked, Barry was left with no option but to tell the truth.
“Ha-hah,” said Dennis/“Betty.” Triumphantly.
But Barry wasn’t giving up on the falsehood of media narratives.
“Crawford’s story is not what you think it is, PC Dawkins,” he stressed. “It is of the simple and innocent kind I mentioned at the beginning of our discussion, now blown out of all proportion. All I was doing was helping a fellow human being in some distress,” he added before explaining why it was that Jeremy had left his millionaire lifestyle and wife for a leap into the unknown.
“Nothing to do with politics or international plots. He was just sick and tired of the life he was leading, that was all.”
Dennis nodded. He could understand that part of the story. Sympathize even. “No-boots-on-carpets” Missus Crawford seemed to him a perfectly understandable reason to do a runner. What took him a little longer to get his head around was the choose/chosen argument Barry then explained, especially if it led to penury. Who would want to live without all that money, chosen or not bloody chosen, he wanted to know.
“Me,” said Jeremy, emerging from behind the kitchen door. “Thanks for doing your best to protect me, Barry, but I reckon it’s time I took up the tale.”
Dennis’s jaw dropped at the sight of one million pounds on legs. Not that he looked worth the money, mind you. Bonkers, yes, all messy and dishevelled and everything. But valuable…? Dennis/“Betty” didn’t think so. Almost felt sorry for the bloke.
“It’s all quite simple really,” Jeremy continued. “Barry was right. I just ran away from my old life, that’s all. Never been to Russia. Never had anything to do with spying or politics or anything like that. Believe the press, clap me in irons, and claim your reward if you want to, but you’ll never get your money because, like everything else about me out there, it’s a fiction.”
Dennis/“Betty” squinted back and forth between Barry and Jeremy like a spectator at Wimbledon.
“And just while we’re on the subject of money, perhaps I might further explain my current attitude to it? That be all right with you?”
Dennis/“Betty” nodded.
“What was that Dickens’ quote you came up with the other day, Barry? The one with Mister Micawber in it,” said Jeremy.
“‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, result happiness.’”
“That’s it. Thanks. So you see, Mister policeman, it’s just a matter of cutting one’s clothes according to one’s cloth. Money is not the be all and end all of everything. A little more than you need is ample. But, in my experience at least, too much of it can be a burden. What was it your friend Karl Marx said, Bazza?”
“‘If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds’? And that’s the last of my quotes if you don’t mind, Jezza. I’m not just a quote machine, you know. Also it gets boring.”
But it seemed Dennis/“Betty” had got the point.
“Mmm,” he said.
“Before long,” said Jeremy, “you’re doing what it tells you to do. Dancing to its rhythms. Needing this and needing that, fancy cars and suchlike, even though, if you think about it, you don’t really need them at all. You just want them. To show the world how successful you are. That’s how you get chosen by them, rather than making your own choice. That’s why…”