The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(168)
What I am trying to suggest, in my clumsy way, is that we had hot tongue for dinner, along with deliciously bitter turnip-tops and a Pomme Duchesse or two for the look of the thing. Eric and Johanna acquitted themselves nobly but I fancy I was well up amongst the leaders.
Later, sinking back amongst the cushions and the apricot brandy, I detected a jarring note. Jock, clearing away the broken meats, was now wearing a black Jersey or Guernsey, a pair of black slacks, black running-shoes and all the signs of a man who might well be carrying a deadly weapon.
‘What’s this?’ I cried. ‘What’s this? Have you been watching the television again? I’ve told you and told you …’
‘We’re going out tonight, Mr Charlie, aren’t we? Going to chapel, remember?’
In truth I had quite forgotten. I shall not pretend that the oxtongue turned to ashes in my belly but it certainly started to give signs of discontent with its lot.
‘We’ll have to put it off, Jock; I forgot to get the cockerel.’
‘Me and Farver Eric collected it ’s’afternoon. Lovely bird it is, too, black as your hat.’
I drank all the coffee that was left and bolted the pill which Jock slipped me. Then, as is my wont when attending Satanic Masses in draughty medieval chapels, I packed a few iron rations such as liqueur Scotch, a paper of pheasant sandwiches and a small jar of Paté de Lièvre into a briefcase; adding, after reflection, a pair of coarse warm pyjamas – who knew where I might spend the night? – and, mindful of Johanna’s admonition, a toothbrush and tooth-powder.
We drove to George’s house and collected Sam and him, both of them grumbling and sulking, then off we all sped on a total of eight wheels: Jock and Eric in my Mini, which was to be their get-away vehicle, and the rest of us in George’s large, capable, boring Rover. Just before we left I was kind enough to ask George whether his Rover was licensed, taxed, oiled and possessed of a Roadworthiness Certificate. He looked at me pityingly, of course, but I’m used to that. People are always looking at me pityingly; it’s because they think I’m potty, you see. Off, as I say, we sped through the night towards La Hougue Bie and were soon elaborately lost, which is a surprisingly easy thing to do in Jersey because all the country roads, thanks to something called La Visite du Branquage, look exactly the same. Indeed, getting lost in Jersey is one of the few outdoor sports one can enjoy in the colder evenings: it’s tough on petrol but it saves you a fortune in other ways. None of us got very cross except, of course, George. When we finally pitched up at the site we parked the Rover at a discreet distance; Jock, it seemed, had already secreted the Mini in some furtive backwater which he had previously reconnoitred. We foregathered at the main gate. It really wasn’t worth diddling the padlock: George did a splendid Army-style gate-vault and I, full of stinking pride, followed suit and bruised my belly badly. Sam and Eric, long purged of any competitive spirit, simply crept between the bars. I didn’t see what Jock did, he’s a professional – he simply materialized beside us in the dark.
We huddled together glumly, just inside the gate, while Jock loped off soundlessly into the night, feather-footed as any questing vole, to ascertain that the honest proprietaries of the ossuaries were abed. It seemed a very long time before he reappeared.
‘Sorry, Mr Charlie, but there was this courting couple, see, and I had to put the fear into them, didn’t I? See them off, see?’
‘And are they quite gone now?’
He looked at me miffedly. When Jock sees people off, they stay seen off.
‘Yes, Mr Charlie. Off like bleeding rabbits, him still holding his trousers up, her leaving certain garments behind in a wasteful fashion which I happen to have in my pocket this moment if you wish to check.’
I shuddered delicately, told him I would take his word for it.
Urged by a now surly George and Sam, we made our way over to the great mound itself, that horrid pile of the guts of ages long-gone and never to be one-half comprehended. Jock busied himself briefly with the padlock and chain which guarded the entrance to the underground passage leading to the grave-chamber and disappeared with Eric, my tape-recorder and a plastic bag full of the best toads available. When they emerged we all made our way up the winding path which leads to the chapels crowning the mound. Jock was as good as his word: the lock of the Jerusalem Chapel fell to his bow and spear with no more protest than a subdued clunk.
Eric bustled into the chapel in a business-like way, as one to the manner born. George, Sam and I followed him with different degrees of reticence. The rooster had been fed with raisins soaked in rum by Jock: I wish to make it clear that it was not I who carried it. Eric wasted no time; he dabbed little bits of this and that on the remains of the ancient altar and then spread over it his splendid corporal. The rest of us huddled, a little sheepishly perhaps, at the back of the tiny chancel – no larger than a bathroom in the better kind of country house. When I say ‘the rest of us’ I exclude Jock, of course, who was lurking somewhere in the shadows of the porch – his favourite place in times of turpitude and quite right too.
Strong though we were of purpose, I suspect that a show of hands, had it been taken at that moment, would have indicated a pretty nem. con. desire to return home and forget the whole thing. Except for Eric. He was growing almost visibly, taking on the stature of the craftsman who knows that what he is doing is not a thing that anyone else could do better; the dignity, if you like, of a scientist devising a hydrogen bomb, torn by the knowledge of evil but driven by the compulsion of research and the jackboot of human history.