20

The idea that was running through Swingler’s mind was that both Mr Jaraby and Mr Nox interested him. Mr Nox had telephoned and been rude. He had said he did not wish Swingler to continue his surveillance of Mr Jaraby; he said it was no longer important, that he did not wish to give Swingler another Italian lesson even if Swingler paid; that in fact, to speak bluntly, he disliked the kind of man that Swingler was. In reply Swingler was polite and curious. Mr Nox had told him very little; most of the time he had spoken in riddles. Swingler did not know why, precisely, he had been asked to keep an eye on Mr Jaraby; he did not know why Mr Nox wished to place him in disrepute. Swingler, who was never above suspecting the worst, suspected it now: Nox wished to ‘have something’ on Jaraby in order to extract money from him. Swingler, who had often himself ‘had something’ on people for that very reason, saw that the situation was bristling with possibilities. From what Nox had told him about Jaraby he was persuaded that if Jaraby had guilt it was worth something. If Nox could extract money, why not Swingler? Nox had all the signs of an amateur; Swingler was an expert. From what he had seen of Jaraby, the man was in something of a state. He had seen him emerge from a doctor’s house and strike the brass plate with his stick. Now there was an odd thing to do. He had seen him fidget and lose composure when he sat in the Cadena with Angie. Yet Nox had said he was well used to such women. Jaraby was nervous and jumpy, and he looked as though he didn’t like being like that. Maybe Nox had already made the discovery he was after, on his own. If that was so, Swingler didn’t like it. ‘Share and share alike’ was Swingler’s motto, though occasionally he deviated from it.

Then there was Nox himself. Nox was behaving very oddly. Nox, as Swingler saw it, was up to little good, however you looked at it. Could it be that Jaraby had something on Nox and that Nox wanted something on Jaraby to balance it? In that case, there was something to be had on Nox as well.

It was pleasant weather for watching people, and Swingler had nothing else to do. It was difficult for him to keep an eye on Nox because Nox knew who he was, but there was nothing to be lost by continuing his observation of Nox’s enemy. He stepped out from behind a parked car in Crimea Road and followed Mr Jaraby to Mr Turtle’s funeral. He trailed far behind him, dawdling and humming to himself. He always relied on his intuition: drama, Swingler felt, would sooner or later break through.

Drama of a kind had, in fact, broken through that same morning at the Rimini; and when later they attended their friend’s funeral Mr Cridley and Mr Sole were the victims of shock, and still suffered considerable surprise.

‘Fruit jelly,’ Mr Cridley said at breakfast. ‘It was marked fruit jelly on the menu. Fruit, I ask you. Did you have it, Sole? It was turnip in that jelly. I was up all night.’

‘I made for the rice. Fruit jelly and fresh cream, it always says. And along it comes with custard. Rice is rice. A square chunk, cut from the dish.’

But it was not all this that worried them: they were well used to the shock of being served with custard when expecting cream, and of coming across orange-coloured lumps, beyond identification, in the jelly.

‘Sole, look at what has just entered.’

Miss Burdock stood at the door, differently dressed. It was, apparently, that one day of the year: she wore already, at half-past eight in the morning, the flowered dress.

‘Almighty God, attired like that for Turtle’s funeral!’

Miss Burdock took her place at her own small table, requesting of the maid, as she always did, fruit juice and cornflakes, tea and brown toast. The two men gossiped, glancing at her.

‘Lily.’ Mr Sole called the maid. ‘Lily, did Major Torrill leave a black tie behind?’

‘I cannot believe,’ exclaimed Mr Cridley, ‘that she intends to attend the funeral in that get-up. One day in the year the woman goes gay, and it’s for a funeral.’

‘I didn’t sleep a wink. Miss Edge in the corridor, someone flushing the lavatory, Turtle on my mind. I was in the sanatorium with him for a fortnight. He knew the name of every flower in the British Isles. In those days he had a phenomenal memory.’

‘Who inherits?’

‘Indeed. Not Burdock, please God. He spoke of his godson, Topham’s boy. And a niece in Wales.’

‘Is this it?’ Lily asked, handing Mr Sole a black tie. ‘There are hundreds there, striped and coloured. This was all there was in black.’

‘A dressy fellow, Torrill. Lovely. Thank you, Lily dear.’

‘Are we all set then?’ Mr Cridley queried. ‘Is there a collection at these affairs? Was there at your wife’s? I was too upset to remember.’

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ cried Miss Burdock, pausing at their table. ‘Where are you off to, so smart you look?’

‘We are attending,’ answered Mr Sole stiffly, ‘our friend Turtle’s burial. No doubt we shall have the pleasure of your company in the church?’

‘My company? Dear me, I am not dressed for so solemn an occasion. I don’t feel a call to go; funerals are for families and old friends.’

‘Are you saying you are not going to his funeral?’

‘I could hardly intrude myself. After all, I scarcely knew Mr Turtle.’

‘Scarcely knew him? Do you call being about to marry the man scarcely knowing him?’

‘Who was about to marry him? Surely Mr Turtle was not arranging to marry again?’

‘But Miss Burdock, you and Turtle were to marry. We all know about it. Turtle did not keep it a secret.’

‘Did Mr Turtle say that? That he and I … ? Oh, Mr Sole! How sweet of Mr Turtle to wish for that. How very sweet!’

‘He proposed, you accepted. That was what he said.’

‘You dear old people, what fantasies you weave! Mr Turtle and I only went to the pictures and had tea. I hoped he would come to the Rimini as a resident; his big house was far beyond him. Oh, it has made my day to think that kind Mr Turtle had longed to marry me. How good of you to tell me!’

‘I don’t know about longed,’ murmured Mr Cridley. ‘Perhaps he thought you were the good housekeeping kind.’ But Miss Burdock, her head turned, had gone on to her cubby-hole, where she would think about the news and might even have a weep.

‘She led him on. She wanted to get him here. I call it diabolical.’

Mr Sole nodded.

‘Motives, motives,’ cried Mr Cridley, banging the breakfast table. ‘You find them everywhere. Think of the awful Harp. How I hate these smart middle-aged people.’

A week ago, when Mr Turtle was alive, they would have rejoiced to hear that in his confusion he had mistaken the situation. Now they felt a little peeved that Miss Burdock had got off so lightly and was so pleased at the discovery of what had lurked in Mr Turtle’s imagination before his death. Had they not spoken, she would never have known. Grumpily they set off for the sun-lounge and the morning mail.

All those people standing around in the heat by an open grave, they gave Swingler the willies. He was nervous because Mr Nox was there; he kept his hat pulled down over his forehead and his hand over his mouth.

The coffin lowered into a pit, earth falling on it: it seemed archaic and, to Swingler, something of a savage rite. Cremation, he considered, was the tidier end. Brass on the coffin gleamed, the clergyman’s surplice was bright in the sunlight, the dry clay was caked and hardened into lumps.

Swingler saw Mr Nox standing alone, and Mr Jaraby with his big stick staring at him, as though about to set upon him. There was distrust and suspicion in the way Mr Jaraby was looking, and Swingler could see that Mr Nox was aware of it.

‘Vouchsafe, we beseech Thee,’ said the clergyman, ‘to bless and hallow this grave, that it may be a peaceful resting-place for the body of Thy servant …’

Swingler saw two similar men who stood together, murmuring. ‘I think she should have come anyway,’ said Mr Cridley, ‘and shown some respect.’

His friend agreed in hushed, though violent, tones. ‘Burdock has no respect for a creature on earth, let alone one just removed from it.’

Mrs Strap was not at the funeral either. She was in Oxford Street buying lilac-coloured underclothes and twelve-denier stockings.

Basil was writing to A. J. Hohenberg … psittacosis seems to be spreading. I have tried the tetracycline treatment you suggest but so far without avail. I would be glad of any further advice you can offer … Basil and Mr Hohenberg had never met, but their correspondence, maintained now for close on five years, was a source of considerable comfort to him.

Swingler, chewing a match, followed Mr Jaraby back to Crimea Road.