The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(156)

I explained all, but neither he nor George was much mollified. Their earlier doubts about our project were renewed by this talk of ‘leguminous mystification’ (Sam) and ‘awful Romish fellows soaked in absinthe’ (George). I soothed them a bit but they were still restive. Moreover, they had a scheme of their own up their sleeves which they now insisted we should carry into effect concurrently with the Satanic Mass ploy.

‘You see,’ said Sam, ‘we’ve been thinking about the victims as distinct from the witchcraft aspect – in case the latter is by any chance a red herring – and, although three victims is not a very useful number to generalize from, one can draw a few tentative conclusions. First, all three families who’ve suffered are English. This could suggest a hatred for English people generally.’

‘It could also suggest,’ I put in, ‘an Englishman who doesn’t fancy Jersey women.’

‘An Englishman?’ scoffed George, ‘with all that witch nonsense? Tommyrot.’

‘I thought we were leaving out the witchcraft aspect for the moment.’

‘So we are,’ said Sam, ‘and your point is well taken, if we are to be logical. But to proceed. George and I are both tolerably well off – though not in the class of the millionaire immigrants who seem so to excite the Jersiais’ dislike – but the husband of the last victim, the doctor, is only as rich as a thriving general practice can make him and he has been in Jersey for twenty years, well liked by one and all. However, we are all three in what’s called the middle class so it could be a class-hatred or/and an anti-English thing. Notice I say anti-English not anti-British, because Jersey is probably the loyalest of the Crown’s appanages. Then there’s the age of the victims: they’re all in their thirties. This could well be because we all happen to have wives in their thirties or it could indicate that the rapist simply likes women of that age. This could suggest again’ – it was choking him to say this, for he was evidently more in the mood for murder than reason – ‘that he actually likes a good-looking woman in her prime, in what I shall have to call a fairly normal way; I mean, if he was an assaulter of little girls or old ladies we could be sure that he was really vilely mad, couldn’t we? The last point is that the three victims are all closely grouped on the map, which suggests a pedestrian, don’t you think, or someone who doesn’t dare to use a motor-car – unlike the Beast of Jersey, of course, who is supposed to have driven all over the Island to his, ah, targets.’

‘Or again, a comparative stranger,’ I put in gently, ‘like an Englishman who wasn’t familiar with all the “back doubles”?’

‘Yes,’ Sam said patiently, ‘it could, indeed, suggest that, too.’

George made that noise, usually rendered as ‘Pshaw’, which only those who have served in the Indian Army can make.

‘So George and I, while you were away, drew up a list, as best we could, of good-looking English women, in their thirties, wives of substantial English rentiers or professional men, and living within a mile of here. We believe that the total of probable targets comes to no more than seventeen and that we four (I’m including Jock) could set ambushes which would give us almost a twenty-five per cent chance, each night, of being in the right place.’

‘Yes, but how would you convince the rapist, supposing that he is watching the house, that he had a clear field?’

‘Easily,’ said George, the military man taking over from the back-room boffins, ‘so long as we have the cooperation of the, ah, householders.’ (One felt that he had almost said ‘of the civilian population’.) ‘Each of us enters a selected house at the sort of hour when most people are working: say, just before noon – lots of these Jersey workmen spend half the afternoon in pubs, better avoid afternoons. Early in the evening, the husband goes off ostentatiously in his car, loudly saying that he won’t be much later than midnight, while wife waves goodbye at door. Then whichever one of us is on guard continues to lie low in the house or, if there’s good cover outside commanding all entrances, makes his way to the cover. The wife in question potters about downstairs for a bit then goes upstairs, puts light on in bedroom, perhaps shows herself for a moment at bedroom window, then puts out main bedroom lights, leaving bedside one on, and creeps off to some other room; locks herself in. We lie in wait. Armed.’

‘That sounds perfect,’ I said cautiously. ‘Perfect. Except for a couple of things, if you’ll bear with me.’

Sam sighed boredly; George grunted guardedly.

‘As follows,’ I went on. ‘First, just supposing my half-serious theory that it is an Englishman were right, how could one tell that one was not tipping him one’s hand and, indeed, guarding his very own homestead?’

‘Well, if one must take that seriously, we simply take care not to let any householder under guard on a given evening know which other houses are being guarded.’

‘Good,’ I said, ‘but, better still, let him not know that any other houses are under surveillance.’

‘Well, all right, that makes sense, come to think of it.’

‘Second,’ I went on remorselessly, ‘what about our wives while we are out boy-scouting? Johanna is a pretty hand with a pistol but even so, without Jock’s presence, she might be a bit vulnerable, and she’s a natural next target. Sonia may or may not be off the fellow’s list now but, after her horrid experience, she probably wouldn’t much care to be left alone.’