Herring in the Smoke Read online

  ‘You think so?’ I asked. ‘I thought Ogilvie was just being helpful.’

  ‘As if.’

  ‘Davies was certainly very keen to meet me,’ I said.

  ‘Bet he was,’ said Elsie. ‘Who wouldn’t be if they were shitting their pants?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘Biscuit?’

  I nodded and took another. I wondered from which obscure but expensive artisanal supplier they came – small, unevenly shaped, not too sweet but richly buttery and melting in the mouth. Elsie would have appreciated them more than I did.

  Davies’ office was large and shiny. The wood was pale and highly polished. The chrome was slightly too immaculate to be the genuine 1930s article. Its spectacular sweeps and curves glistened. The few books and artworks on display were carefully chosen, carefully placed by people who charged for both services. The largest single object in the room was undoubtedly a Henry Moore. The whole succeeded in conveying multiple messages – it was fashionable, expensive and no aspect of it was unintended or left to chance. You knew that you had entered Lord Davies’ world, in which everything was exactly as he intended it to be. For a few minutes, you too had your place here. As part of his world.

  ‘So, is it him or not?’ he asked.

  ‘Opinions are divided,’ I said.

  Davies snorted. He didn’t have time for divided opinions.

  ‘And your own?’ he demanded. ‘What might those be, Mr Tressider?’

  I paused in mid-bite. It was as if, on a clear summer’s day, I’d heard the distant but unmistakeable rumble of thunder. I’d been warned to expect this: the sudden switch from affable host to implacable inquisitor. They said it was deliberate. He never wanted the person on the far side of the desk, and it was a very large desk, to feel entirely at ease.

  What surprised me, though, was how old Davies looked. His grey hair was thinning and there were deeply etched lines across his forehead. The pictures supplied to newspapers by his PR people always showed a smiling, smooth-faced man with a square jaw and wavy hair – there was something vaguely nautical about the image that he wished to project. Easy-going, liked by his crew but efficient and nobody’s fool. The captain of an aircraft carrier perhaps, though a submarine might have suited him better: Davies liked to operate beneath the surface, unobserved and creating as few ripples as possible. The kinder articles on him, and he had the influence to ensure there were just the right number, said that he valued his privacy. Others called him secretive – they might have gone further but even ‘very secretive’ might have ended up in court. Anything approaching the truth would have been instantly stopped in its tracks by an injunction.

  ‘To the extent that I can judge,’ I said carefully, ‘I can see no reason why it should not be Mr Vane. He resembles him physically. The voice is very much his voice.’

  ‘I can tell that myself,’ he observed. ‘I thought you were supposed to be his biographer? That you actually knew something about him?’

  We looked at each other across the windswept acres of mahogany.

  ‘You’ve known him for much longer than I have,’ I said. ‘You were at school with him.’

  ‘Is that what he says?’

  ‘Isn’t it in the public domain?’

  ‘It depends what you define as the public domain. Vane was always free with opinions on anything, but he has tended to be rather vague about that part of his education. I think he’d have liked to have gone to a comprehensive – the Cordwainers School wasn’t quite “street” enough – I believe that’s what they say now – my children say it, anyway. Interesting term, though it ignores the fact that Park Lane is a street too, and a perfectly functional one. I was always very happy to be at Cordwainers – proud to be there. I rather hoped he’d disowned us.’

  ‘Hoped?’

  ‘Sorry, slip of the tongue – I meant I thought he’d disowned us. I have no hopes for him one way or the other. The school has plenty of famous old boys – Old Cordwainers as we say – it won’t worry about whether Roger Norton Vane still wishes to associate himself with the rest of us.’

  ‘You don’t seem to have liked him?’

  ‘I felt he was a bit of a clown, to be honest. Not just always in trouble but always in trouble so unnecessarily. He pretty much had a reserved place outside the Head Man’s study. Always standing there awaiting whatever punishment he was due next – lines, detention, cane. Not somebody you wanted to associate with if you wished to stay out of trouble yourself. I’m assuming he doesn’t claim me as a friend?’

  ‘He’s said very little so far. I’m hoping to get more out of him about his early life when he’s finally willing to talk to me. My first interview with him was not as helpful as I’d hoped. There was an incident at school – he stole somebody’s car?’

  ‘More coffee, Ethelred?’ asked Davies, indicating the pot.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘Well, just say when you do.’

  ‘Thank you. So, did he steal a car?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ve already asked me that.’ Davies’ tone was very much that of a parent to an overdemanding child.

  ‘But you didn’t reply.’

  ‘Possibly not. Why would you want to know?’

  ‘I was merely curious,’ I said.

  ‘Really? Just curious? You aren’t planning to include it in your book, for example?’

  ‘William Ogilvie advised against it.’

  ‘Sounds good lawyerly advice to me. You could end up in all sorts of trouble publishing unsubstantiated gossip. If you check your contract you’ll probably find you indemnify your publisher for all legal costs if it is found that anything you have written is libellous. That could be expensive – lawyers’ bills and so on. For you and your publisher. Another biscuit, Ethelred? There are three sorts there, I believe – plain, vanilla and ginger – though the difference is fairly subtle. Subtlety’s expensive too. If you want to know what you’re actually eating you need to pay a lot less. But I can afford to indulge myself in any way I wish. Any way at all.’

  ‘I thought I could taste ginger in the last one,’ I said. ‘It was rather good.’

  ‘A man of discernment,’ he said approvingly. ‘A man who knows what’s what. A man who doesn’t blunder into things. At least, I hope you don’t.’ He took a biscuit himself and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Ginger,’ he said. ‘My favourite too. We clearly have similar tastes, Ethelred. That’s good.’

  I looked at my notebook. The page was headed ‘Lord Davies’ but was still otherwise empty. I took my pen and added ‘Vane had reserved place outside the Head Man’s study’. I doubted I’d actually quote that, but the blank page was an accusation of idleness.

  ‘You knew him fairly well?’ I asked. ‘He would have been in your year?’

  ‘It was a big school. You knew the boys in your own house of course. Friendships in other houses were not encouraged. Not discouraged exactly, but not encouraged either. I don’t know why. That’s how it was then.’

  He glanced at the half-eaten biscuit in his hand and placed it on his saucer. Maybe he wasn’t that keen on ginger, after all.

  ‘And Vane wasn’t in your house?’ I asked.

  Davies considered this carefully. ‘Let me see: there was Philips and Mac and Dusty and Viscount Fitzstephen and whatisname … oh, dear, what was he called? … he became Sultan of somewhere in later life. Every year he had to present his subjects with his weight in cloves. Or was it nutmeg? I could probably find out which, if you were really interested to know. He grew rather fat in later life and had to be declared bankrupt. I’m sure I’d have a photograph of us all somewhere … Did Vane tell you any other little anecdotes from his schooldays?’

  ‘No, not so far. Just the car one.’ I said. ‘Do you have anything I could use?’

  Davies proceeded to tell me a long and convoluted tale about a bucket of water placed on top of a door, which emptied on the French master as he entered the room. The master was saved only by a particularly firm mortarbo
ard. He had uttered some French words that the boys had not previously encountered. The story was, at best, no more than mildly amusing and could have been taken directly from a 1950s school novel.

  ‘And that was Vane?’

  ‘It was never proven.’

  ‘But you witnessed it yourself?’

  ‘I may have simply been told about it. You should definitely include it. After all, you probably won’t have a lot to say about his schooldays, will you?’

  I opened my notebook and wrote: ‘Bucket story – unusually firm mortarboard – not proven. Jolly jape. Frank Richards???’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘I’m keen to assist you as much as I can. I’ll see if I can find out a bit more about that sultan chap, who so interested you.’

  Davies looked at his watch. It was not large or showy, but, like everything else, it was clearly expensive. He opened a leather-bound diary, the only object other than his coffee cup and a half-eaten biscuit on his desk, slid his finger quickly down the page and then looked at me. My time was apparently up.

  ‘If Vane does tell you any other little stories – about his time at Cordwainers – you might like to run them past me for accuracy,’ said Davies, shaking my hand. ‘I’d be happy to help. I could get my lawyer’s opinion too. He could tell you what was safe to print. Safe for your publisher. Safe for you. No charge for that, of course. It would be my pleasure.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ I said. ‘If I need advice of that sort, I’ll certainly do as you suggest.’

  ‘You are very wise,’ he said. ‘My secretary will show you to the lift.’

  ‘How did things go with Davies?’

  ‘No better than average,’ I told Elsie. ‘He was friendly enough and fed me expensive biscuits. But I didn’t get much out of him on Vane’s schooldays. Told me some story about putting a bucket of water on top of a door to drench the French teacher.’

  ‘Sounds like Greyfriars.’

  I shifted my phone to the other ear to allow me to consult my notebook.

  ‘Precisely. Even the words he used made it sound like Frank Richards. Everyone involved was described as “a fellow” or “a chap” – and he actually used the word “jape”. And “jolly”. Except nobody owned up and took their punishment like a man, as they would have done at Greyfriars. Otherwise straight cliché from beginning to end.’

  ‘Maybe it really was like that at Cordwainers: daily floggings from prefects and secretly roasting a whole ox on Big Side by moonlight. I mean, I didn’t go to that sort of school. Wrong sex, wrong accent, wrong bank balance. How would I know what they all did to each other?’

  I didn’t go to that sort of school either, and my father taught at the one I did go to. I wouldn’t have risked trying anything with a bucket of water, then or now. I wouldn’t have had the money even for half an ox.

  ‘I won’t be including it,’ I said. ‘He also kindly suggested I ran any other stories I heard past him.’

  ‘Him or his lawyers?’

  ‘Both. I think the real purpose of the interview was to warn me how easily it would be to sue the shit out of me. But it was the same with Ogilvie. Nobody wants to tell me anything about Vane’s early years. Nobody wants me to write anything, either. I may as well give up on it if Lucinda wants the book as quickly as you say. Unless I can find somebody who will spill the beans.’

  ‘Slide,’ said Elsie.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Slide. You’re not telling me the name means nothing to you?’

  ‘Titus Slide …’ I said. ‘Where have I come across that name?’

  ‘In the same place you found Eustace Slide and Hieronymus Slide.’

  ‘Hieronymus Slide was Inspector Gascoyne’s low-life informant in Vane’s first book – really slimy character. He gets shot in the last chapter. In the groin at close range.’

  ‘Spot on. And Eustace Slide? I’ll give you a clue – his mother’s portrait is tattooed on his arse.’

  ‘Oh yes, the drug dealer in Vane’s second book – another minor character – he turns out to be a paedophile and is found hanged in a warehouse. They never catch the killer.’

  ‘Hanged upside down. Like Mussolini. Dies very slowly. Titus Slide is the rapist in The Follower. You only discover who the narrator is at the very end. It’s him. You think he’s got away with it but he falls down a ladder into the cellar and breaks both legs. He can’t get out again. The rats eat his eyes. A week later he dies of thirst.’

  ‘Yes … don’t remind me. I wonder why he used the same surname in all three cases?’

  ‘There’s a Slide in every book, though I couldn’t name them all offhand. Often only one of the supporting cast, but always obnoxious – usually killed in a painful way. You can miss them if you aren’t looking out for them, but spotting them is fun if you are in on the joke. The production company didn’t risk following suit with the TV series.’

  ‘So, why did he choose that name?’

  ‘Dr Jonathan Slide was his housemaster at school.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘He once sent me a novel about a school. Nothing you could publish legally. Once it had circulated round the office for us all to read, it got a standard rejection slip. But the story of Vane’s Revenge is well known in publishing circles.’

  ‘So that’s why he chose the name? It feels a bit like a Roald-Dahl-style punishment of a tyrannical teacher.’

  ‘I suppose it might have been a gracious compliment – a sort of thank you for fifteen terms of top-class education. What do you think?’

  ‘However bad a housemaster he was, I think that it was a bit unkind.’

  ‘That’s Vane for you. Once the school caught on – round about book two – it disowned him. The head wrote and informed Vane it wasn’t the sort of thing a chap was supposed to do. Not to a chap’s housemaster.’

  I thought of Davies’ ‘hope’ that Vane had forgotten them. Not a slip of the tongue, then.

  ‘I wonder how Dr Slide felt about that? Did anyone ever ask him?’ I said.

  ‘No, but you can,’ said Elsie.

  ‘He’s still alive?’

  ‘Just about. Alive enough to dish the dirt on Vane if he wishes to.’

  ‘He’d probably be hard to find.’

  ‘He lives in Putney. Tuesday has his contact details. It took her a while to get them – hours of trawling through our records of rejected manuscripts, poor thing – but I find it helps to keep her fully occupied and at her desk. I’ll email them to you, if you like. I’m sure he’d welcome a visit. He doesn’t get out much. Not any more.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Biscuit?’

  ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ve just had lunch.’

  ‘Late lunch, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  The four digestives on the plate seemed to have been at the back of the cupboard for some time. They had an odd grey tinge to them and a slightly furry surface. Jonathan Slide wisely made no effort to select one for himself. Perhaps he’d had a late lunch too.

  He was wearing an old tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, a checked shirt and a crumpled, brown woollen tie, almost as if trying to caricature a retired schoolteacher. He had not noticed, or did not care about, the numerous stains of various colours on his khaki trousers. From the window of his small flat we had a fine view over the river and Putney Bridge.

  ‘Always something going on down there,’ he said, hobbling a couple of steps towards the window. ‘You can never be bored with a view like that. Never bored or dwelling on the past. Doesn’t pay to dwell on the past, however wronged you’ve been. That’s the London Rowing Club first eight – the one with blue and white stripes on their blades. Thames have red, white and black. Westminster School have pink. The Cordwainers’ boathouse is up in Hammersmith – but they row past sometimes – blue blades with a gold rose. Can’t miss them. For a year or two they had blue blades with two gold stripes, but
we made the boat club go back to the rose. They’d had the gold rose for a hundred years – you can’t change a tradition just because it’s cheaper to paint a stripe than a flower or somebody thinks it looks “better”. Most change is for the worse, I find. In Victorian times the young men often used to row naked from the waist up. Did you know that? In 1869, when Harvard raced Oxford on this stretch of the water, the Harvard crew were all bare-chested, though they did wear crimson handkerchiefs on their heads.’

  ‘Including the cox?’ I asked. I took a sip of tea. It was very weak and milky. I’d noticed Side had carefully retained the used tea bag after he’d extracted it from my cup. It was now drying by the sink.

  ‘No idea about the cox,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so, would you? Now they all wear these lycra suits. I suppose it must be warmer. But still …’

  We watched London Rowing Club make a practice start. For about twenty seconds water flew everywhere. The coach was unhappy and it was repeated with slightly less spray. They halted again and the coach berated them for a while via a crackly loudhailer. Both eight and coaching launch drifted slowly upstream with the incoming tide until they were lost to view.

  ‘You’re from Chichester, then?’ asked Slide, breaking the silence.

  ‘West Wittering,’ I said. ‘Do you know it?’

  ‘A bit. I’ve always taken holidays in Selsey, just down the coast from you. Not as smart as the Witterings – more scope to do as you wish. Not as much scope as Brighton, but more than enough for my purposes. I’d go there every summer when I was teaching. I’m off down there again next week. Same B&B I always use. We should meet up.’

  ‘I don’t get to Selsey much,’ I said.

  ‘I’m often in Chichester,’ said Slide. ‘That’s no distance from you. And free with your pensioner’s bus pass.’

  ‘I’m not quite old enough to qualify …’ I said.