The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(171)

In the event it was Jock who aroused me from a hoggish slumber, which had been intermingled with fearful dreams.

‘Chops, Mr Charlie,’ he said, ‘and chips and them little French beans.’

‘You interest me strangely. By the way, Jock, did you make good your escape last night without any, ah, friction?’

‘Escape?’ he sneered. ‘That lot couldn’t catch VD in Port Said.’

‘Please, Jock. I wish to enjoy my luncheon.’

‘Yeah. Well, cook’s just turned the chops over so you got about four minutes to get downstairs, I reckon.’

I made it. I remember the chops vividly, they were delicious; so were them little French beans.

The afternoon hummed with telephone calls; I felt like W. B. Yeats in his bee-loud glade. First George, who upbraided me sternly, saying that Sonia had been quite frantic at being left alone all night. (‘Pooh’ is what I mentally said to that.) He was full of plans to import the flower of the English Bar to cow the Royal Court of Jersey.

‘Don’t be so damn silly,’ I said; ‘for one thing, they’d probably have no standing here; for another it would take them years to learn the quirks and quiddities of Jersey law. Leave it alone. Trust your Uncle Charlie.’

‘Now, look here, Mortdecai,’ he began. I explained courteously that I never listened to sentences beginning with those words. He started again, and again I had to interrupt him to explain that, although no great churchgoer, I found blasphemy distasteful. He breathed heavily into the instrument for perhaps half a minute. I felt that I should help him.

‘The weather, I believe, is fine for the time of the year, is it not?’

He hung up. I started the Times crossword.

Sam was the next to telephone.

‘Charlie, are you quite insane or do you really know what you’re about? George says you’re talking like a lunatic.’

‘Have I ever let you down?’ I asked simply.

‘Have I ever given you the chance before?’

‘How is Violet?’

‘In complete withdrawal. Diagnosis: not sure. Prognosis: can’t say. Being fed intravenously. Change the subject.’

‘All right. We had chops for luncheon. Come to dinner: Jock is making Aloo Ghosht Bangalore with his own hands.’

‘Charlie, I suppose you realize that if you haven’t got this thing right I may have to disembowel you with my own hands?’

‘Of course. But if I haven’t got it right you may not need to, you see. Come to dinner?’

‘Oh, all right. Eight o’clock?’

‘Come earlier. Let’s get sloshed.’

‘All right.’

Johanna, who had wandered in, said, ‘How nice to have one’s friends in so often.’

‘Tell Jock to put some more potatoes in the curry,’ I said. ‘Dear.’

The next call was the one I was dreading: it was from Jolly Solly my Wonder Solicitor.

‘Ho ho ho!’ he cried happily, rubbing his hands. (He has one of those loudspeaker telephones which leave both hands free – indispensable for confirmed hand-rubbers.) ‘Ho ho! Such an interesting mess as you’re in I never hoped to live to see. Legal history we shall make!’

‘Less chortling and more news,’ I demanded sourly.

‘Ah, yes, well, you’re naturally anxious. By the way, you’ve no aged parents whose grey hairs you might bring down in sorrow to the grave? No? Well, that’s good news, I suppose. The rest is mostly bad. They’re not yet sure how many charges they’ll bring against you, half the clerks in the Attorney-General’s office are working day and night on it, smacking their lips over the dripping roast. The preliminary list of choices is as follows:

‘Breaking and Entering.

‘Acting in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace.

‘Foul and disgusting language.

‘Obstructing a Police Officer in the execution of his duty.

‘Sacrilege under Section 24 of the Larceny Act of 1914: that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, bet you didn’t know that, ha ha.

‘Sedition, well, yes, arguable.

‘Art. I de la Loi pour Empêcher le Mauvais Traitement des Animaux – that only carries three months. Oh yes, and a ￡200 fine.

‘Art. I de la Loi Modifiant le Droit Criminel (Sodomie & Bestialité) confirmée par Ordre de Sa Majesté en Conseil, I really do hope they don’t fix you up for that one: the maximum is life but the minimum is three years. Last chap was only deported, but he was potty.

‘Theft of one rooster or cockerel – no, the farmer swears Jock didn’t pay him for it. You might get that reduced to “Taking and Driving Away without Owner’s Permission”, ha ha.

‘Vagrancy. You didn’t have any cash on you, you see.

‘Failure to sign a driving licence.

‘Breach of the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) (Jersey) Law of 1964 – that depends on what the stuff Fr Tichborne was burning turns out to be.

‘Breach – possibly – of La Loi sur L’Exercise de la Médecine et Chirurgerie Vétérinaire.’

I had no time to seek out a looking-glass, nor did I need to: I can say without hesitation that my face was white as any sheet – probably whiter than most.