The Maltese Herring Read online

  The Maltese Herring

  L. C. TYLER

  To good neighbours

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BY L. C. TYLER

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ethelred

  Dr Hilary Joyner was still alive only because God did not always answer the prayers of his colleagues, however fervent and frequently uttered.

  There was, however, little about Dr Joyner to suggest he cared much for his colleagues or their prayers. Early in his academic career, he had successfully cultivated a look of amused contempt – originally ironic and occasional, but now permanent and largely discounted. His dinner jacket was a monument to the many evenings that would have been more enjoyable without him. It bore a number of very visible stains, some much fresher than others. On this particular evening, he had clearly been distracted while tying his bow tie, which was neither symmetrical nor secure. And there was also something about him – it was difficult to say precisely what – that suggested he had run out of deodorant.

  For the first half of the meal, he said nothing to me at all, and I was obliged to converse with the deaf old lady that they had placed on the other side of me. She was the wife of some Fellow of the College, long dead, out of respect for whom she was invited back to dinner whenever the Principal remembered. They always sat her, she said, at High Table but next to the least distinguished of the other guests. If the person beside her was more than usually boring, she added, she would show them pictures of her grandchildren. She paused, then glanced downwards, as if looking for her handbag.

  To be honest, I shared her view that photographs of a family that I had never met would enliven my evening. And, like her, I wasn’t sure why I had been placed in this position of eminence, seated in one of the comfortable chairs on the raised dais, a highly significant foot or so above the rest of the dining hall. My natural place at this reunion of alumni was at one of the long, improbably shiny oak tables that ran the length of the room, whose hard benches were occupied in term time by the undergraduates and tonight by the majority of the grey-haired, balding former students. But somebody had decided that I should join High Table with, amongst others, the College Principal, a junior government minister, a moderately well-known actor and the College’s only Nobel Prize winner. I did not need to be told that I was the least distinguished of the diners seated there. That would have been apparent to everyone in the room. Many would have been wondering, as they awkwardly shifted their middle-aged weight on the unpadded surface of their allotted bench, why I rather than they had been so honoured.

  I turned from the deaf lady to Dr Joyner, but he was still delivering a monologue to his other neighbour, leaving me to contemplate the hall, which I knew so well from my student days. I’d forgotten how gloomy it was.

  It is seldom that I return to dine at my old College without my thoughts turning to death. It is not the coffin-dark panelling. Nor is it the faces of former Principals, staring down, gowned, laced and bewigged, from the walls. It is not even the letters from the development office, which often accompany the invitations and which remind me of the possibility of remembering the College in my will. Rather it is the myriad ghosts of past Fellows, who, in spite of a shared and lifelong loathing of each other, were nevertheless obliged to eat a communal breakfast, luncheon and dinner here, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year, with the possible merciful exception of Christmas Day. Dr Joyner had not been placed next to or directly opposite any of the other Fellows. They happily relinquished that pleasure to others.

  Finally, Joyner pushed back his dessert plate, stretched out his legs, ran his fingers through his bristly ginger-grey hair and turned to face me.

  ‘Not your sort of thing?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You just look bored out of your mind. And these dinners are tedious – especially if you don’t get out much and aren’t used to them.’

  ‘I dine out quite often,’ I lied.

  ‘Really? Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘More than enough, I assure you.’

  As a writer, I occasionally get asked to make after-dinner speeches – as good a way to spoil a meal as any – though this evening there were, thankfully, to be none, other than a brief welcome from the new Principal. He seemed a nice man and, depressingly, much younger than I was.

  Dr Joyner smiled a smile that was both private and at my expense, then picked up his wine glass. It contained just one or two lonely beads of red liquid. His eyes searched for a waiter. There wasn’t one. The thought occurred to me, I don’t know why, that it was no accident that a limit was being placed on his consumption of alcohol. The same idea may have occurred to him, because he put the glass down, more or less where it had been before, and sighed. He looked again at me but without any visible enthusiasm. We’d clearly both had better evenings.

  ‘It’s a while since I dined at the College, of course,’ I conceded.

  ‘When were you an undergraduate here?’

  I told him.

  ‘Not before that?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Are you certain? You look quite a lot older.’

  ‘I came up just after they made you a Fellow,’ I said.

  ‘Ah …’ he said, running his fingers again through the sparse bristles that now comprised his hairstyle. ‘When I was made a Fellow. Then.’

  Then indeed.

  In my days as an undergraduate, Dr Joyner had been one of the more striking of the younger dons. His subject was history and mine geography. Our paths did not cross in a tutorial sense, but I did know him well. Everyone knew him well. It was difficult to ignore him. His three-piece suits, then, were never less than immaculate. His hair flowed in strawberry blonde waves. His silk ties, always a single dazzling hue, were the envy of every male student. They were made, the rumour said, by Jim Thompson in Bangkok, and flown to Oxford a dozen at a time – rich, heavy, textured Thai silk in midnight-blue, scarlet, emerald, golden-yellow, slate-grey, Imperial purple, moss green, pale lilac – each costing more than we spent on clothes in a term. More perhaps, the rumour went on, than we had ever spent on anything in our entire lives. That seemed unlikely but there is, after all, little point in a half-hearted rumour.

  His ties on their own would have generated nothing more than silent envy; it was the way he combined them with a rigid Marxist orthodoxy that demanded our absolute respect. The only history, he assured us, was the history of the proletariat. Nothing else was worthy of centre stage. Wars, kings, queens, literature, art and architecture were just noises off. The elegant sarabande of courtly politics would not have interested the average mediaeval serf, even if rumour of it had travelled down the muddy lanes to his remote village in Northumberland or Devon or Carmarthenshire. Joyner was, in those days, researching the lives of a family of peasants in Norfolk and intended to publish a comprehensive
history of the fifteenth century based entirely on their class perspective and likely knowledge of events. The Battle of Bosworth, for example, was to appear only as a footnote to a chapter on the birth of a two-headed calf in the next village. As for the present day, he assured us of the imminent demise of late capitalist society in general and the University of Oxford in particular. There was no point in any of us working on academic topics that did not interest us for their own sake. The chance of the university still existing when we were due to take finals was slim. The coming revolution would sweep it away, along with the House of Lords, fox hunting and the Henley Royal Regatta.

  His views on the irrelevance of Oxford University did not, however, extend to his own career. He accepted with alacrity the History Fellowship offered to him by my College. He contemptuously rebuffed the northern red-brick universities that courted him with professorships while he was still in his twenties. Later, I learnt, he had declined to go even to London or Edinburgh. Perhaps they were insufficiently proletarian. His aim was to run the history department at Oxford on rigid and uncompromising Marxist lines. Nothing else would satisfy him.

  Maybe, even now, he still hoped that would be possible. But more recent events had not been propitious. His magnum opus, 1485 – The Year of the Two-Headed Calf, had been rejected by every major publisher in the country. Times were changing, and a Thatcherite Britain had been sceptical of its basic premise. A smaller and more conventional work on Richard III (entitled Dickon, Thy Master) made it into print but was trumped by another biography of the King, inconveniently published two months beforehand. His book had not gone to a second edition. After a while he became Tutor for Admissions at the College. His colleagues sensed he had time to take these things on.

  There were of course other projects – many other projects – but publishers had looked at his sales figures and shaken their heads regretfully. He was now said to be working on a book about the English monasteries immediately before their dissolution by Henry VIII, but a work in progress was unlikely, on its own, to win him a chair. Indeed, one of his former tutees, Anthony Cox, had recently been appointed to a history professorship and to a second, newly created, history fellowship at the College. Joyner was no longer the biggest history fish, even in this small, comfortable pond.

  ‘I read geography, of course,’ I said to him. ‘Not history.’

  ‘So what do you do now?’ he said. ‘Teaching? Town planning? There’s not much else you can do with a degree like that, is there? I’m assuming you’ve managed to find work of some sort by now? Unless they’ve already retired you.’

  ‘I write crime novels,’ I said. ‘One series is set in the late fourteenth century. A bit before your period perhaps.’

  ‘I expect that’s why they put you on High Table,’ he said.

  ‘As a historical writer?’

  ‘No, because the Principal’s secretary drew up the seating plan. She reads trashy crime novels. She might well have heard of you. What’s your name again?’

  ‘Ethelred Tressider,’ I said. ‘I write as Peter Fielding and as J. R. Elliot.’

  ‘I’m afraid she buys all sorts of stuff, even romantic fiction,’ he said, as if apologising for something particularly shameful to the College.

  I’ve written that too, but for some reason it didn’t seem worth mentioning it, or that some readers knew me best as Amanda Collins.

  ‘I was told you were working on a book on monasteries in the sixteenth century,’ I said, carefully steering the conversation elsewhere.

  Some people might have been mildly flattered that a relative stranger had followed their career to that extent, but Joyner did not seem to be one of them. He took it for granted that I would, all through the long years since my graduation, have kept up to date with his work, both published and unpublished.

  ‘Yes, that’s right …’ He looked thoughtful. ‘The dissolution of the monasteries. I was advised by a publisher I approached to find a new angle. So, I’ve focused on a single incident that somehow encapsulated the whole thing: an alleged dispute between two monastic houses in Sussex. Wittering Priory and Sidlesham Abbey.’

  ‘The buried treasure story?’ I said.

  Dr Joyner looked surprised. Still not exactly impressed, but I’d managed surprised. ‘You’ve heard of it?’ he said suspiciously. Perhaps the angle was not as new as he’d hoped.

  ‘I live down there. It’s quite well known locally. On the eve of the dissolution of both houses, Sidlesham Abbey accused the Priory of having stolen some valuable items from them. But, after the buildings and their land were sold off by the King, nobody was able to locate the missing treasure in either place. Subsequent owners of both sites have dug for it over the years, but nobody has ever found any trace of it. It was probably quietly stolen by the Royal Commissioners sent to close the Abbey and Priory down. There was another dig at Sidlesham a few years ago, but I don’t think they found anything other than some broken pots and a few coins – rather like the time before and the time before that. Iris Munnings won’t allow any sort of access to the Priory, of course. That’s off limits to archaeologists. She’s never wavered on that point. I can see that, if something really valuable was found there, then that might provide the sort of publicity that publishers like.’

  Joyner looked at me with an interest that had been absent all evening. ‘You know Iris Munnings?’ he asked.

  ‘Reasonably well,’ I said, cautiously. ‘I see her from time to time.’

  To be absolutely clear, what I meant by this was that I sometimes ran into her in Horrocks Greengrocers in East Wittering or in the Co-op, or when she walked her dogs on West Wittering beach. But I’d only ever visited the Priory, her family home, as a paying customer, on days when she opened the gardens for charity. I’d never been inside the house itself, though I’d glanced enviously into the hallway once when the door was half-open. By no reasonable definition of the word could I claim we were friends. It was as I said: I saw her occasionally. She didn’t necessarily see me.

  ‘So you could introduce me to her?’ said Joyner.

  ‘Possibly,’ I said. I was regretting claiming any sort of acquaintance. Still, her views on opening her garden up to archaeologists were well known in the village. I could speak with authority there. ‘I have to warn you that she’s a bit suspicious, for obvious reasons, of anyone who might want to search for buried treasure on her land. You wouldn’t be the first to want to try. She won’t have her lawns dug up. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘But she doesn’t know that’s what I want to do.’

  ‘I think she’ll guess.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. She’s pretty sharp.’

  I didn’t add ‘for her age’, as I once might have done. I was aware how soon I would be her age and admired for being able to remember my own name.

  ‘Obviously I could come down to West Wittering in person to reassure her,’ Joyner said. ‘I’m a serious academic from a respectable university. Not some random oik from Billericay with a white van and a metal detector.’

  There seemed very little that was strictly Marxist in this last statement. He clearly spoke Iris’s language these days. There were few people that she did not feel entitled to look down on. Perhaps, after all, he would get on with her quite well. But not well enough for what he wanted.

  ‘She still won’t let you dig there,’ I said. ‘Whatever colour your van is.’

  Joyner did not smile. This was not a joking matter. ‘Oh, I think she will. When I tell her what I have to tell her. The story as previously related is wrong in a number of ways.’ His voice was suddenly lower and more urgent. ‘It is most fortuitous that we have met and that you can explain things to her. Much better than a letter from me on history department paper. She’ll listen to you when you explain what I’ve found out.’

  ‘And what would that be?’ asked a voice behind us.

  We both turned to see Professor Cox, who had elected to tour the table in a proprietorial manner
now that the serious work of eating was done. He looked, disconcertingly, like a younger, taller, more hygienic version of Joyner. His pristine black evening suit was brightened by a red silk bow tie. His face had a healthy glow. A haze of aftershave hung around him like a summer morning. He smiled at us in a convivial manner.

  ‘None of your bloody business, Anthony,’ snapped Joyner.

  ‘I never said it was, Hilary. I never said it was. Is Dr Joyner telling you about his latest project, Ethelred? The OUP are annoyingly dithering over whether to accept his new book. I have to say I’ve always found them most reasonable, but they are proving inexplicably indecisive in this case. Still, it’s good that Hilary has a little research interest to occupy the regrettably brief time that remains to him here. If the OUP do turn it down, it should at least provide material for a short article for one of the popular history journals.’

  Joyner said nothing. I think we both knew that Professor Cox had not intended ‘popular’ as a compliment.

  ‘It sounds very interesting to me,’ I said. ‘Since I live down that way myself, it’s a story I know quite well.’

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ said Professor Cox. ‘Local historians have been writing about it since the nineteenth century. I’ve pointed Hilary to one or two of the better papers. But I’m sure he will be able to find his new angle. A Marxist reinterpretation, quite possibly, though Hilary is less of a Marxist than he once was.’

  Joyner still remained silent. His face did not appear to register Cox’s remarks in any way. But this was perhaps the response that Cox had been hoping for. He smiled softly. ‘So you live in Sussex, Ethelred?’

  ‘Yes, in West Wittering. Quite close to Wittering Priory. Walking distance, in fact.’

  Cox nodded. ‘We have port in the Senior Common Room afterwards, if you would like it. We could have a little chat. I’ve no doubt Hilary will be joining us. You can’t keep Hilary away from port. Or sherry. Or brandy. Or gin. Or cheap, high-strength cider.’ Cox finally turned back to Joyner. ‘Eh, Hilary?’ he said.