The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(43)

After what seemed a great many hours we found a patch of shade afforded by some nameless starveling trees and without a word spoken we sank down in their ungenerous umbrage.

‘When a car passes going in our direction, Jock, we shall leap to our feet and hail it.’

‘All right, Mr Charlie.’

With that we both fell asleep instantly.





15





John of the Temple, whose fame so bragged,

Is burning alive in Paris square!

How can he curse, if his mouth is gagged?

Or wriggle his neck, with a collar there?

Or heave his chest, while a band goes round?

Or threat with his fist, since his arms are spliced?

Or kick with his feet, now his legs are bound?

– Thinks John, I will call upon Jesus Christ.





The Heretic’s Tragedy





A couple of hours later we were rudely awakened when a car travelling in our direction screeched to a halt beside us. It was the official looking car which had passed earlier and four huge rough men poured out of it, waving pistols and handcuffs and other symbols of Law ’n’ Order. In a trice, before we were properly awake, we were sitting manacled in the car, surrounded by deputy sheriffs. Jock, when he had sized up the situation, started to make a deep growling noise and to tense his muscles. The deputy beside him, with a deft backhanded flip, laid a leather-covered blackjack smartly against Jock’s upper lip and nostrils. It is exquisitely painful: tears sprang to Jock’s eyes and he fell silent.

‘Now look here!’ I cried angrily.

‘Shaddap.’

I too fell silent.

They hit Jock again when we arrived at the sheriff’s office in the single broad dusty street of an empty little town; he had shrugged off the deputy’s officious hands and made snarling noises, so one of them casually bent down and coshed him hard behind the knee. That is pretty painful too; we all had to wait a while before he could walk into the office – he was much too big to carry. They didn’t hit me; I was demure.

What they do to you in this particular sheriff’s office is as follows: they hang you up on a door by your handcuffs then they hit you quite gently but insistently on the kidneys, for quite a long time. It makes you cry, if you want to know. It would make anybody cry after a time. They don’t ask you any questions and they don’t leave any marks on you, except where the handcuffs bit in, and you did that yourself, struggling, didn’t you?

‘I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights …’

After a certain time the sheriff himself came into the room. He was a slight and studious man with an intelligent look and a disapproving scowl. The deputies stopped hitting our kidneys and pocketed their blackjacks.

‘Why have these men not been charged?’ he asked coldly. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that suspects are not to be questioned before they have been properly booked?’

‘We weren’t questioning them, sheriff,’ said one in an insubordinate tone. ‘If we was questioning them they’d be hanging the other way around and we’d be beating on their balls, you know that, sheriff. We was just kind of getting their minds right for being questioned by you, sheriff.’

He stroked his face all down one side, quite thoroughly, making a gentle, half-audible sound like an old lady caressing a pet toad.

‘Bring them in to me,’ he said and turned on his heel.

‘Bring’ was right – we couldn’t have made our own way to his office. He let us sit on chairs, but only because we couldn’t stand up. Now, suddenly, I was very angry indeed, a rare emotion for me and one which I have schooled myself to avoid since my disastrous childhood.

When I could speak properly through the choking and the sobs I gave him the full business, especially the diplomatic passport bit. It worked, he started to look angry himself and perhaps a little frightened. Our gyves were removed and our possessions returned to us, except for my Banker’s Special. Jock’s Luger was in the suitcase which, I was relieved to notice, had not been opened: Jock had prudently swallowed the key and, in the excitement of spoiling our personal plumbing, the deputies had not taken time out to force the lock. It was a very good lock and a very strong case.

‘Now you will have the goodness, perhaps, to explain this extraordinary treatment, Sir,’ I said, giving him my dirtiest glare, ‘and suggest reasons why I should not request my Ambassador to arrange to have you and your ruffians broken.’

He looked at me long and thoughtfully, his clever eyes flickering as his brain raced. I was a lot of trouble for him whichever way the cat jumped; a lot of paperwork at the best, a lot of grief at the worst. I could see him reach a decision and I trembled inwardly. Before he could speak I attacked again.

‘If you choose not to answer, of course, I can simply call the Embassy and give them the bald facts as they stand.’

‘Don’t push too hard, Mr Mortdecai. I am about to book you both on suspicion of murder and your diplomatic status isn’t worth a pile of rat dirt in that league.’

I spluttered in a British sort of way to hide my consternation. Surely no one could have seen Jock’s little momentary squib of ill-temper with the Buick – and anyway, at a distance it would surely have seemed that he was trying to save the poor fellow … ?