'Not exactly. He was rolling home one summer evening with a few mates, took a shortcut over the fields that involved crossing a stream by a single plank bridge. He lost his balance and fell off. A fall of hardly a couple of feet, next to no water in the brook, but he banged his head on a stone and when his mates went to pick him up, they found he was dead.'
'How? Why?' asked Joe. It was totally irrelevant, but it was better than trying to explain he had no leads on the cheating case and not much hope of developing any.
'Turned out he had an abnormally thin skull. You and me might have had a bump, nothing worse. Poor old George cracked his head wide open and that was that. It was an unfortunate accident, no one's fault, but Sally, his wife, got embroiled with some ambulance- chasing lawyer who said it was the estate's responsibility and wanted her to launch a huge compensation claim.'
'That would be Ms. Butcher,' said Joe, relishing the ambulance-chasing bit.
'Spot on, Joe. You really are a marvel. There was no case, it was never going to get near court, but this Butcher creature kept nagging away. Then poor Sally was diagnosed with cancer. We made sure she got the best of treatment, but a year and a half later she was dead too. Young Steve was sixteen then. I'd promised Sally I would keep an eye on him. He moved in with her family, who also worked on the estate. I offered to finance him through college, or he could have had a job on the estate, but he wasn't interested. He wanted his independence and he wanted to be a bit nearer town. So rather than see him do something silly and go off the rails, last year I fixed up a job for him at the golf club. He found lodgings in Upleck-do you know it? Handy for town and on the right side for work. I bought him a little motor scooter so he could get to the Hoo nice and easy. He seemed really happy, which is why I can't understand what made him take off.'
So much for Porphyry's special interest. Guilt money, Butcher would probably call it, or at best feudal patronage, but to Joe it seemed like the decent concern of a decent guy. Whatever, it also smelt like a pongy red herring.
Still, when there's nothing else in the fridge, red herring is what you dine on.
'You got the address of his digs?' he asked.
'Yes. Hang on.' A pause then Porphyry dictated, 'Mrs. Tremayne, 15 Lock-keeper's Lane, Upleck. Anything else, Joe?'
No curiosity as to why he wanted the address, which was just as well. I'm the basket he's put all his eggs in, thought Joe. And basket just about sums me up!
Something else from his talk with Butcher popped up.
'There's some kind of agreement you've got about how things work at the Hoo, right? Like when the place was set up as a club, there must have been something legal about who got shares and so on.'
'Oh, you mean the deed of foundation.'
'Do I? Yes, I suppose I do.'
'Yes, it was my grandfather who set up the club, of course. A private arrangement between himself and a few friends initially. But he once told me when I was only a nipper, a necessary qualification for being a gent used to be that you could read and write. That was so that you could make sure you kept a clear and detailed record of all the gentlemen's agreements you entered into. I've got a copy somewhere.' He chuckled. Was that a joke then? wondered Joe. 'Don't suppose you've got a copy handy?' he said without much hope. 'As a matter of fact, I think I have,' said the YFG. 'I dug out it for the club's AGM in the spring. Something had come up, I forget what it was, but Arthur Surtees thought it as well to cast his lawyer's eye over the original foundation document. Now where did I put it? Oh yes. Tucked behind the sherry decanter so I'd be reminded to put it somewhere safe every time I had a drink.' Didn't work, did it? thought Joe. 'All right if I take a look at it?' he said. 'You think there might be a connection?' 'Can't say. Just covering all angles.' 'Joe, you're a marvel. I'd never have thought of such a thing. Shall I bring it round to your place now?' 'No!' said Joe. Fobbing the poor devil off with red herrings over the phone was one thing, but he couldn't face the prospect of looking into those trusting eyes. Besides, he needed his sleep. 'You got a fax machine?' 'Yes.' 'Good. Just fax it will you? Hang on.' He opened the address book by the phone and dictated Butcher's fax number. She was the one who wanted to see it. 'One thing more, Chris,' he said. Typically, he'd almost forgotten the one thing he'd picked up at the Hole that might give a real pointer to who could be behind the frame-up, assuming that's what it was. 'Someone had to put a formal complaint to this Rules Committee before it could consider the case. I gather it wasn't Syd Cockernhoe, the guy you beat. Any idea who it was?' To Joe's delight, Porphyry said, 'Oh yes,' instantly. Then the delight faded as the YFG continued, 'That would be me.' 'You?' 'Yes. Couldn't have all those foul rumors flying around. This needed to be brought in the open and sorted out publicly. So I had a word with Tom Latimer and asked him to put the facts before the Four Just Men. You'd have done the same, I think, Joe.' 'Maybe,' said Joe. 'Pity though. If you'd left it to someone else, we might have got a pointer to who it is that's after you.' 'Golly. Never thought of that. That's why I need someone like you, Joe. Shall we meet up some time tomorrow for another chat?' Joe took a deep breath. 'Not tomorrow. I've got to be away a couple of days. On inquiries.' 'OK, Joe. Understood. Ring me when you can.' 'Yeah, I'll do that.' Joe sat by the phone and told himself he hadn't lied. If Porphyry interpreted what he'd said as meaning inquiries on his behalf, that was his problem. But he didn't feel good. His phone rang again. 'Joe, Chris here. Listen, talking about young Steve got me thinking. I got a call from him that night…' 'Which night?' 'You know, the night all this bother started. I didn't hang around the club too long after Jimmy showed up saying he'd picked my ball out of his pool. Bit of an atmosphere and I needed to think. So I went home, and a bit later my mobile rang. It was Steve.' 'Yeah? So what did he say?' 'Nothing really. We got cut off. I tried ringing back but just got his answer service.' 'But it was definitely Waring.' 'Oh yes. I recognized his voice. He said, 'Hi, Mr. Porphyry-' then we got cut off.' 'So what time did this call come through?' 'About nine-thirty, I think. This help at all, Joe?' No, probably not the slightest bit, thought Joe. He said gently, 'We'll have to see, Chris. Good night now.' Why is it I never talk to this guy without feeling lousy? he asked himself as he switched off. Maybe it was because he'd got so used to being with people who at best regarded him as a lucky PI and at worst thought of him as a joke that it was hard to deal with someone who managed to find more evidence of his skill and insight every time they talked. He needed someone down to earth and sensible to talk to, but when he looked around the flat, there was still no sign of Whitey. He put his front door on the security chain and left it slightly ajar so that if the cat returned via the lift he could get in. The balcony door was wide open anyway to admit what little breeze there was. He recalled the scented air conditioning at ProtoVision House. Nice work if you could get it. But lower down the food chain all you could do was take off all your clothes and lie naked on top of your bed by an open window. It had been a long day full of incident and information, a day made for lying idly in the sun but which had seen him moving sweatily between the Royal Hoo and Ram Ray's garage and the Law Centre and King Rat's palace and the Hole in the Wall, a day that might have had a lesser man lying awake pondering its significances and implications.
Joe did ponder, for all of five seconds, before bundling up the day and all its events and dumping them out of sight at the back of his mind. And in another five seconds he had plunged effortlessly into his customary deep sleep which Beryl claimed was indistinguishable from catalepsy.
15
Twitch
Except with regard to Luton winning the Premiership title, the FA Cup and the European Championship all in the same season, Joe was not a dreamer.
Tonight, however, he can't have plunged to his usual depths of sleep because he found himself dreaming.
It was a really weird dream in which a pair of mighty hands seized him by the ankles, bore him through the air and hung him upside down over the railing of his balcony. The early July dawn was already painting the dreaming spires of Luton and its surrounding landscape in a beauteous light. He was facing outward, and even upside down, the view looked really good. Blasphemously he thought, Maybe I'm being tempted like Jesus. A voice was calling his name in the kind of smoky rasp you would expect from the devil's throat and it wouldn't have surprised Joe to hear his assailant proclaiming, 'All these things I will give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'
Instead the voice cried, 'Sixsmith, what you playing at? You are dead meat, man! Dead meat!' And at the
