Fourth, no Discovery Fifth, no Crew Finally, no Golden Fleece Jason-sham-too.
He read it through three times and was still no closer to a meaning-either the poet’s or the sender’s.
No matter. It was an extra feather of doubt fluttering down on to the scales. At the very least he wanted another set of initials on the file.
Carefully he copied out the poem on a sheet of paper. Then, carrying it in his hand like a talisman, he headed for Andy Dalziel’s room.
2 FLYING WITH THE CORMORANTS
Hat Bowler had woken up later and feeling better than he had for many weeks. And his dream memory hadn’t been of dark forests but of budding fruit trees enchanted with nesting birds. He’d also been very hungry, and when an examination of his fridge had revealed nothing to tempt a starving hyena, it had seemed not so much reasonable as inevitable that ten minutes later he should find himself in his car, driving towards Blacklow Cottage.
It was only as he got within a couple of miles of his destination that he took that further step towards normality which involves acknowledgment of the feelings, needs and rights of other people.
What the hell did he think he was doing?
OK, the Crunch Witch had invited him to drop by any time. But she wasn’t the Crunch Witch, she was Miss Lavinia Maciver, a slightly eccentric lady of a certain age and a certain class, probably conditioned in infancy to atone for the relief at seeing the back of an unwelcome visitor by pronouncing some token platitude about hoping they’d return soon. Even in her worst-case scenario, she could hardly have envisaged that her invitation would be taken up the following day!
Plus there was the fact that she was in the midst of a family tragedy. What was it that guy Waverley had said? He tried to separate the words from the powerful memory of marmalade. Something about some relative topping himself?
No way could he just turn up on the doorstep again today.
Yet the MG was whipping along the narrow country roads at undiminished speed, and instead of looking for somewhere to stop and turn, his mind was busy devising a succession of reasons for his visit, each less plausible than the last.
That small advance party of his personality which had its beachhead on the shores of normalcy was able to observe wryly that the main body still had a long way to travel, further proven by the fact that he didn’t just keep on driving when he saw that the spot by the roadside where Mr Waverley had left his car the previous morning was already occupied.
And not by Mr Waverley either (with whom he could at least claim a brief acquaintance), not unless he owned an Alfa Spider as well as a Jag. This didn’t seem likely, but then the S-type had come as a surprise, so why not?
He parked the MG behind it, got out and touched the Spider’s bonnet. Still hot, so not long arrived. Nice to find himself acting like a detective again. Time perhaps to act like a social being and not inflict his personal troubles on a near stranger and her newly arrived friend.
He heard voices from the house, one raised and shrill, the other just a murmur. Then two figures emerged from the door.
One was Miss Maciver, the other presumably her guest.
She was a woman in her mid-twenties, good-looking in a glossy magazine kind of way, blonde hair carefully natural, face as perfectly painted as a Victorian portrait, olive silk blouse over firm free-standing breasts and matching jeans hugging slim hips and long legs.
She was the one doing the shrill shouting.
“I don’t believe you. You’re all the same, you Macivers. Twistier than a hangman’s rope!”
She tottered towards the car, her high narrow heels completely unsuited to the rutted track. As she got nearer, Hat could see that beneath the cosmetic mask her face looked wrecked.
Miss Mac followed her, leaning rather more heavily on her stick than she had done the previous day and saying, “Do come back inside, my dear. Honestly, I know nothing about it. I’m sure if we talk quietly…”
“Talk? I’ll be letting my solicitor do the talking, soon as I find one to replace that cheating bastard Pal hired. Takes a one to hire a one, doesn’t it?”
“Please, dear, don’t talk like that. I’m sure there’s been some misunderstanding. Pal had his faults, I know, but basically he was a good man…”
“Good man! Jesus! Good for you, maybe. Don’t play the innocent with me, Vinnie. He came out to see you last week for the first time in God knows how many years and you’re trying to tell me it wasn’t to talk about the will? I’ll get it overthrown on mental incompetence. I’ve got someone working on it. And if the powers that be want more evidence than father and son topping themselves in exactly the same way, I’ll send them out here to take a look at you and all those fucking birds!”
She reached the Spider, dragged open the door and slid inside. She didn’t even look at Hat, but the Crunch Witch did, giving him a welcoming smile as if she’d been expecting him, and murmuring, “There you are, Mr Hat. Go through into the kitchen. Make yourself at home.”
Then she stooped to the window of the Spider, which the other woman seemed to be having difficulty starting, and said, “Believe me, my dear, I have no interest in depriving you of what is yours. As for Pal’s visit here, I assure you money wasn’t mentioned. All I can say is I detected something peculiarly valedictory about it. He was never a great one for wildlife, you’ll know that, but this time he seemed to take a real pleasure in watching the birds and I recall he said to me, ‘Maybe you got it right after all, Vinnie, opting for the birds.’ And the birds too, they seemed to feel something. They usually don’t much care for people who don’t much care for them. Like yourself. But they fluttered around him almost as if they sensed something…”
Hat, obediently heading down the track to the cottage, heard the woman in the car screech with laughter that had little amusement in it.
“You talk like that in court, Vinnie, and I can’t see me having any bother proving you’ve all got a screw loose!”
Miss Mac started saying something else but Hat was now entering the cottage and as he passed down the corridor he was out of earshot of both women.
Through the open kitchen door he could see on the table the teapot, the butter dish, the marmalade jar and half a loaf of bread covered with a tea towel that a pair of ingenious bullfinches were trying to drag off under the expectant gaze of perhaps another half-dozen birds. As he entered, a fugue of warning notes and flutter of wings signalled possible danger, but he was flattered to see that only a couple fled outside, the others merely retreating to perches on the ceiling beam or the curtain rail.
He poured himself a mug of tea, removed the tea towel and sawed himself a thick slice of bread. Miss Mac had said make yourself at home. He replaced the towel but left the crumbs of his sawing scattered on the table surface and even before he’d finished adding layers of butter and marmalade to his slice, two or three tits were competing for this largesse.
He was on his last slice (last because there was no more) when he heard the Spider’s unmistakable roar as it took off at speed which merged with the sound of another engine coming near at a more sedate pace. A Jag, his well-tuned ear judged, and a few moments later he was able to compliment himself on his audile acuity when Miss Mac came into the kitchen followed by Mr Waverley.
Hat nodded, unable to speak through his full mouth and Mr Waverley smiled as he took in the scene-the empty breadboard, the scavenging tits, Scuttle sitting on Hat’s shoulder investigating his hair.
“I have this sense of deja vu,” he said. “But I’m glad to see it’s not all gloom and doom, despite the sad circumstances.”
Hat, feeling this as reproach, swallowed hard and said, “Miss Mac, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have stopped when I saw you had a visitor…”
“Oh yes, Sue-Lynn, my poor nephew’s wife. She seems to think I’m part of some plot to deprive her of her inheritance.”
