The Midden

'It has to be someone who knew I was away,' she told the Major, 'and the only people who knew for certain are down there.'

'Do you want me to go down and find out what I can?' he asked, but Miss Midden shook her head. 'One look at you and whoever did this would sleep easy. You're the perfect suspect with your black eye and stitches.'

'But I can prove I got them in Glasgow in that pub.'

'Which pub?'

The Major tried to remember. He had been in so many pubs and had been so very drunk. 'There you are. You don't even know,' said Miss Midden. 'And what did you call yourself at the hospital? I bet you didn't call yourself MacPhee because you are no more a Scot than I am.'

'Jones,' the Major admitted.

'And that overworked doctor didn't like you in the least. So she isn't going to be at all helpful. And that's not all. We don't know when that young man got into the house and we don't know when whatever happened to him did happen. You could have been trying to establish some sort of alibi. Only a madman would get himself beaten up in a pub. Or a frightened and guilty person. You go down to the Hall and the police will get an anonymous call from a certain person down there who knows the man is in this house and may think he's dead. And what about your record?'

'Record?' said the Major beginning to tremble.

'Don't tell me you haven't been inside. With your nasty tendencies? Oh yes, you've been had up before now. Probably for peering through a hole in a public lavatory. Or worse. You don't fool me. The police would be only too happy to lay their hands on you. Well, you needn't worry. They're not going to if I have anything to do with it.'

'What are we going to do then?' he asked.

'What we aren't going to do is show ourselves. We are not here. We are going to sit tight and see who comes up to check on that young man and find out if he is still alive. That's what we are going to do. They came through the dining-room window. The next time they come I'll be waiting for them. And now I'm going to put the car out of sight in the barn. This could be fun.'

It wasn't Major MacPhee's idea of fun.

In London the man who had called himself Mr Brian Smith was looking distinctly peaky. He wasn't enjoying himself at all. 'The little shit has done a a flyer,' he told someone on the phone. 'With the fucking piggy-bank too. Yeah, I know how many megabytes it was. But...No, I never dreamt. I wouldn't have thought he had the fucking guts. He should have been on the boat and he wasn't...Yeah, I know it's not a fun matter. I'm the first to know that, aren't I? Of course he could have had an accident or gone over by a different route. I only had one bloke at Santander to check him out and he wasn't on any ferry. If he doesn't do the rest of the job on time we'll know. Yes, yes...yes...of course.'

He put the phone down gently and cursed Timothy Bright loud and long and with a ferocity that justified all that young man's fears.

Sir Arnold Gonders was on the phone too, in a public phone box talking to the sod who ran The Holy Temple of Divine Being and The Pearly Gates of Paradise. He could see the lights on in the room above the painted-over window of the sex shop and had already walked past it twice in a raincoat and with a flat cap pulled down over his face. He was also wearing gloves. On the second occasion he had stopped briefly to stuff a brown envelope through the letterbox. Now he was using a voice distorter. The Chief Constable was taking every precaution and no chances.

'I am interested in young people,' he said in tones that he hoped were mincingly authentic. 'Know what I mean?' The proprietor said he thought he did. 'Male or female, sir?' he enquired.

'Both,' said Sir Arnold.

'And young?'

Sir Arnold hesitated. 'Yes, young,' he said finally. 'Like tied up, know what I mean?'

The proprietor knew perfectly well what was meant.

'Pictures. Mags. And I need discretion. If you go down to your shop you'll find an envelope with my money in it. I want you to send the material in a box to me at the address I have supplied. Two hundred should cover the cost, shouldn't it?'

'I'm sure it will, sir.'

'So I've added another hundred for discretion. Right?'

'Right, sir. Very kind.'

'And there'll be an additional order if I like what I see. Name's MacPhee.' Again he hesitated before going on in a far more sinister tone of voice. 'And don't think of not sending me the stuff and keeping the cash. I got some connections.'

'Connections, sir?'

'Like with Freddie Monce, like The Torch. I wouldn't want to have to call them.'

The sod wouldn't want him to call them either. Having a firebombed sex shop wouldn't do him any good at all. The Chief Constable put the phone down and hurried away. The first part of his plan had begun. He went home and changed. It was time to begin his other investigation. It was ten o'clock when he left the house again in his own Jag and drove down the coast to Urnmouth. Maxie at the Hydro knew what was going on with just about everyone. He wanted a chat with Maxie.

Chapter 18

The Urnmouth Hydro is an imposing building. Built in the age of mid-Victorian splendour along impeccably classical lines, it stands in its own elegant grounds like a Grecian temple. Its white columns are made of cast iron from the Gundron cannon foundry while its walls are of brown ironstone. But it is inside that the classical ambience is most appropriate to its present use. The original owner had insisted the interior should reflect Roman taste as authentically as the exterior was to be a mirror of something in Athens. The architect and decorator had followed these instructions as exactly as his knowledge of Roman history and custom allowed. One elderly cleric, already stunned by the Darwinian controversy of the time, had been so overwhelmed by the scenes of debauchery depicted on the walls of the atrium that he had died of apoplexy in the arms of the butler. These murals even now struck all visitors forcibly. It was even claimed that several gentlemen had been known to experience ejaculatio praecox before they had rid themselves of their overcoats. And it was due to these friezes that, after a considerable period of neglect, the house had been turned into what was called a hydro by Maxie Schryburg, an entrepreneur from Miami.

Sir Arnold Gonders had taken an interest in Maxie Schryburg's enterprise from the beginning. The Hydro would, he felt sure, attract the sort of people the Chief Constable wanted to know all about. Besides Maxie himself was of interest to Sir Arnold. Maxie had always claimed he was 'outta da Big Apple' but the Chief Constable had information that he had in fact been a minor operator in Florida and had found it wise to move away on account of some Cuban competition there. Certainly Urnmouth was the last place anyone would look for a restaurateur of his recondite type.

The cold wind blowing in off the sea made the little town an inhospitable place for strangers. The Hydro offered its only entertainment apart from a straggle of pubs in the high street but membership, while open to all who could pay, was in fact restricted to those who could pay a great deal either in cash or in kind. Sir Arnold, who always used the nom de guerre of Mr Will Cope, belonged to the latter sort, but at the same time extracted a great deal of information from Maxie in return for his patronage.

Now, having entered by the private door at the back which led along a covered way to Maxie's bungalow, he climbed the stairs to his usual private dining-room in the happy knowledge that with Vy and the foul Bea away, presumably in Harrogate, he could afford to relax and combine pleasure with investigation. He accepted the menu from the obsequious Maxie in his role of maitre.