The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(167)

‘It’s all right, Mr Mortdecai,’ he said, ‘sit down. You needn’t worry. I won’t pretend I don’t know who you are but I have no quarrel with you. That I know of.’ He let that sink in a little.

‘What I wanted was to ask you a couple of questions that I couldn’t very well ask your friends, since their wives were victims, you understand.’

I didn’t understand.

‘Well, I’m not too happy about saying positively that all these offences are by the same artist. There’s been another one, by the way, here in St Helier, but we’ve kept it out of the papers and the victim passed out: no description at all. But you know, these things catch on, they sort of become a fashion. It’s like little boys setting old ladies on fire in dark alleys – one of them does it and they all think they’ve got to.’

I shuddered. Some of my best friends have been old ladies – not to mention little boys.

‘Now,’ he went on, ‘we got a semen smear from the doctor’s wife and your Centenier contrived to get one from Mrs Davenant’s sheets – oh aye, your Centenier isn’t half as thick as he likes to pretend – and they’re both from the same class of secretor. But that’s like saying that they’re both blood-group “O”. And, as you know, Mr Breakspear was adamant about that sort of thing with regard to Mrs Breakspear, and we couldn’t get one from the new victim for reasons I needn’t go into. So we haven’t even got a third vector.’

I knew what he was going to ask, of course, but I wasn’t going to help him, was I?

‘I don’t understand how I can help you,’ I said.

‘Well, put it like this. Your lady-wife knows both of the ladies violated in your neighbourhood, right? Well, do you think they might have mentioned anything to her about the assailant’s er, personal details, which they might not have cared to tell their husbands?’

‘I quite fail to follow you,’ I lied.

‘Oh yes you bloody do,’ he snarled. ‘I mean size of male member, whether circumcized, any little peculiarities; things like that.’

‘Oh, I see. Oh dear. Use your phone? Hullo, Johanna? Look …’

‘All right,’ she said after a while, ‘but “yech”.’

‘We don’t say “yech” in the United Kingdom,’ I said, ‘we say “faugh”.’

‘We only say that on the golf-course, but O.K. And I’ll try to do the other thing. It may take some time; I’ll have to have a Cosy Chat with the cow Sonia.’

‘Girl talk,’ I said whimsically.

‘Faugh!’ she said, pronouncing it perfectly.

‘This may take a few minutes,’ I said to the Commander, looking at him meaningfully. He knew what I meant, he hoisted a great 40-oz bottle of some nameless Scotch on to his desk and raised his eyebrows. I inclined a gracious head. He found two tooth-glasses; they looked a little insanitary but Scotch whisky kills all known germs, as every housewife knows.

Johanna rang back about eight fluid ounces later and rattled off her news in a distant and faintly amused voice.

‘That all?’ I asked.

‘What do you want – blue movies?’

‘Good-bye,’ I said.

‘Good-bye,’ she said, ‘and Charlie, remember to brush your teeth tonight, huh?’

I hung up and collected my thoughts.

‘My wife has recollected things that Mrs Davenant said to her shortly after the assault,’ I told the Commander. ‘She has also spoken to Mrs Breakspear and to the doctor’s wife. The evidence appears, on the face of it, to be conflicting. Violet Davenant said “he was huge, like a horse, he hurt me terribly”. Sonia Breakspear describes her assailant as “nothing to write to mother about” and the doctor’s wife says, “I don’t know – do you mean they come in different sizes?” She’s lying, of course; she was a nurse, you see, and all nurses who marry doctors instantly become virgins ex officio, it’s an understood thing.’

‘I have heard that,’ he said.

‘But Johanna thinks that if he had been something out of the ordinary in any way she would have said something.’

‘Yes.’

‘As to circumcision, Violet wouldn’t have known what one was talking about, Sonia says it wasn’t relevant, whatever that means, and the doctor’s wife says she thinks “yes”. Doesn’t help us much, does it?’

‘No, not really. Tells us more about the ladies than the rapist, if you follow me, sir.’

We gazed at each other.

‘Just so,’ is what I said in the end. When I left, shortly afterwards, he behaved as though he felt he had made a friend. For my part, I had reservations.

I didn’t have to take a taxi home after all, they lent me a police-car complete with driver. On arrival I offered him a pound note, which he sturdily refused. He wouldn’t take a drink, either; he must have thought that I was a spy from the Promotions Board, bless him. What he would accept, to give to the Police Sports Fund, was a bottle of Cyprus sherry which one of us had inadvertently won in a ‘raffle’ if you know what that is. I felt a pang for whichever athlete won the noxious pottle, but after all, they know the risks when they join the Force, don’t they?

How you deal with the tongue of an ox is as follows: you bid the butcher keep it in his pickle-tub for a fortnight, brushing aside his tearful pleas that it should be taken out after eight days. Then you rinse it lovingly and thrust it into the very smallest casserole that will contain it, packing the interstices with many an onion, carrot and other pot-herb. Cover it with heel-taps of wine, beer, cider and, if your cook will let you, the ripe, rich jelly from the bottom of the dripping-pot. Let it ruminate in the back of your oven until you can bear it no longer; whip it out, transfix it to a chopping-board with a brace of forks and – offer up grateful prayers to Whomever gave tongues to the speechless ox. (You can, of course, let it grow cold, when it will slice more delicately, but you will find that you can eat less of it.)