How Lord Beesley had ever got to be a leader of men was a question that had been preoccupying Amiss. Even though Deptford had told him a few stories of Beesley’s courage and dash on the hunting field, they seemed incompatible with a voice like a neurotic nanny goat and an obsession with trivia. But then, recollecting some senior civil servants for whom he had worked and ministers he had known, Amiss reminded himself that you got Tommy Beesleys in positions of authority in every walk of life. That thought just about carried him through their first conversation.
‘Are you quite sure you’ve got that, young man?’
‘Yes, thank you. All absolutely clear.’
‘Just repeat the directions once more.’
‘It’s OK, Tommy. I’ve written it all down.’
‘No, no, you must set my mind at rest. It would never do if you got lost. We can’t have that happening.’
‘Well, it would hardly be the end of western civilization as we know it,’ said Amiss irritably.
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, nothing. Very well. I’ll meet you at the entrance to the platform from which the four-forty-five to Market Harborough departs.’
‘Which station, which station?’
‘St Pancras.’ He didn’t say ‘you old idiot’, but it was a close-run thing. ‘I’ll have a first-class ticket.’
‘And if I’m not there?’
‘If you haven’t arrived three minutes before the train leaves, I’ll board it without you.’
‘And I’ll do the same. You didn’t mention that.’
‘That was implicit.’
‘No, no. In any operation, one can leave nothing to chance. Detail is all.’
Amiss kept his patience. There was no point in getting on the wrong side of this old fool before the weekend had even started. He continued. ‘We will leave the train at Market Harborough and catch the six-twenty-seven to The Bottoms, where we will be met by pony and trap and taken to Shapely Bottom Hall.’
‘And the clothes, the clothes. You haven’t forgotten about the clothes?’
‘Dinner jacket, hacking jacket, Wellingtons, Barbour, and all the accoutrements.’
‘Make sure you don’t forget anything. Reggie is very particular.’
‘Only a cad comes improperly clad,’ chimed in Amiss cooperatively, having heard the phrase perhaps ten times in the preceding twenty-five minutes of telephonic fuss.
‘All right.’ Beesley sounded reluctant to let go, but even he had run out of minutiae. ‘Perhaps we should talk about arrangements for returning.’
‘We’ll have ample time to do that during our journey.’
‘If we both catch the same train.’
‘Even if we don’t catch the same train, Tommy, we’ll still have plenty of time to discuss it during the weekend. Forgive me, I have to rush. If I don’t put my dinner jacket into the cleaners now it won’t be back in time for Friday.’
That horrifying possibility did the trick. ‘Go immediately. You must go immediately.’
‘Thanks, Tommy. Goodbye, I look forward to Friday.’
‘Goodbye. Oh, just…’
Amiss put the phone down firmly and dialled his friend Detective Sergeant Ellis Pooley.
***
‘It’s like old times, raiding your wardrobe. So that’s a hacking jacket, is it? Hmm, I hadn’t realized you still rode.’
Pooley was rummaging in a chest of drawers. ‘Ah, here we are. A proper stock. Do you know how to wear it?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Pooley fussed at Amiss’ neck for a couple of minutes and then pushed him towards the mirror.
‘My goodness, I look almost like a gentleman. Fine feathers really do make fine birds.’
‘Now boots.’ Pooley reached into the back of his wardrobe and produced a pair of magnificent, highly polished brown riding boots. Amiss looked at them longingly. ‘’Fraid not,’ he said. ‘It’s wellies I need.’
‘You can’t ride in wellies.’
‘I’m not riding. I’ve only ridden once in my life and that was on a donkey in Yarmouth. I’m following the hunt by car and on foot.’
‘Well then, you don’t need all this stuff. Duffel coat and jeans would be fine.’
‘You don’t know the Marquess of Poulteney.’
A happy grin spread over Pooley’s rather serious features. ‘Poulteney? Oh, but I do.’
‘Don’t tell me. He’s a mate of your old man’s.’
‘Well, let’s say that on the rare occasions that the pater drops by the House of Lords, Poulteney would be one of the first he would seek out to fulminate with.’
‘Your father hunts?’
‘A bit. He’s not an obsessive like Poulteney, but he does his bit of hunting and his bit of shooting and his bit of fishing with reasonable regularity. Keeps him out of mischief.’
‘And you?’
Pooley looked sheepish. ‘Used to hunt a bit on school holidays. Gave it up on principle when I was at university. But I have to admit that a couple of times recently when I was at home I couldn’t resist having a go again.’
‘Ah, Ellis, this is another way in which you’re becoming encouragingly less priggish as the years go by.’
‘You, on the other hand, become ever more patronizing. Now, have we finished? I want to hear about whatever nonsense you’re up to over a drink.’
‘That’s it, I think.’ Amiss checked his list. ‘Barbour, hacking jacket, stock, riding crop.’
‘What do you want a riding crop for if you’re not going riding?’
‘Hunt saboteurs.’
‘Ah, you’re in for an exciting weekend.’
‘Oh yes. Wellies, please, Ellis.’
‘Green OK?’
‘Natch.’
Amiss surveyed himself. ‘What a dash I would have cut with your riding boots. These are not the same at all.’ He shrugged and began to change back into his own clothes. ‘Thanks, Ellis. I’ll look after these to the best of my ability.’
‘If you’re going to be tangling with sabs, it’s going to be more important to look after yourself to the best of your ability. There are some nasty ones about. Here ‘– Pooley reached into another drawer and produced a silver hip flask—‘you’d better take this as well. If the weather is cold and rainy and the sabs are making their presence felt, Dutch courage may be required.’
‘Crikey, things must be serious if Ellis Pooley is recommending me to drink whisky on a Saturday morning.’
Amiss pulled on his sweater. Pooley by now had put the pristine wellies in a large carrier bag and was placing it with his other possessions in an expensive, if slightly battered, soft leather suitcase.
‘You’d better have the case too. I expect you’ve got something modern. Modern is suspect.’ He closed the catches and handed the case to Amiss.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now, how about some gin?’
***
The journey did not begin auspiciously. Although Amiss was at the appointed place ten minutes early, Beesley had already been waiting for twenty-five and was in a state of high anxiety.
‘I feared you had gone to the wrong platform for, most confusingly, there is, at the same time, a slow train which also goes to Market Harborough and who knows, you might have forgotten my precise instructions. You’ve cut it very fine indeed, I must say. Will we get a seat, I asked myself?’ He plunged through to the platform, and Amiss had to accelerate to catch up with him, surprised at how fit the old fool appeared to be. They rushed down the platform and, rather to Beesley’s disappointment, found an empty first-class carriage, where he managed through dither to spin out to five minutes much carry-on about where the luggage would be most safely and conveniently stowed and whether they should sit beside each other or opposite. When they settled, some of the worry disappeared from Beesley’s face, only to return as Amiss got up and said firmly, ‘I’m going to get us a drink.’
‘But they won’t serve you yet. The train has not yet started to move.’
‘I want to be at the front of the queue. Now what would you like?’
It took no more than four minutes for Beesley to decide that Scotch and ginger was the wisest choice of those most likely to be available. The queue was already long when Amiss joined it. He didn’t care. Standing in a packed corridor reading Whyte-Melville’s Market Harborough was pure joy compared to consorting with the Lord Beesley.
By the time they reached The Bottoms, between the fuss over changing trains and his near-hopeless attempt to elicit useful information, Amiss was almost exhausted. For Beesley was expansive only on such subjects as the likely disaster should there be a hold-up, as there often was on Fridays, and they missed the connecting train. More strategic worries like what would become of the whole hunting fraternity if the battle was lost were interspersed with reminiscences of happy boyhood hunts accompanied by incredible detail about which horse, which hounds, which huntsmen, which hunt, and the rest of it.
‘How many will there be at Shapely Bottom?’ cut in Amiss, when Beesley drew breath.
‘Oh, just a small family party, I suspect. Reggie doesn’t entertain much since his wife died.’
‘I didn’t realize he was a widower.’
‘Oh yes, very tragic. Splendid woman. Broke her neck taking a hedge. Turned out to have wire in it.’
‘Wire? How disgraceful.’ Amiss had read enough hunting literature by now to know there was no more ghastly deed imaginable, short of shooting a fox, than lacing your hedge with wire.
‘Dreadful, dreadful. I was there, and I saw it and shouted, “Ware wire!” But it was too late. Elsie had already taken off.’ Then he brightened up. ‘Still, it was the way she would have wanted to go.’
‘Didn’t it put you or Reggie off hunting?’
Tommy looked at Amiss as if he were crazed. ‘No more than it put me off breathing. If hunting is in your marrow, nothing puts you off. That’s why though I’m not allowed to hunt deer any more. I go to Reggie’s as often as I can to hunt foxes.’
A reluctant admiration for the old fellow overtook Amiss. Fusspot he might be, but he was a brave fusspot.
‘When was Lady Poulteney killed?’
‘Five years ago.’
‘So Reggie lives alone?’
‘Jamesie Bovington-Petty visits, of course, with his family. Perhaps they’ll be there. Maybe even Jennifer.’
‘Jennifer?’
But he had lost his companion. ‘Oh my goodness, look at the time. Only five minutes until we get into the station, and we might even be early. Quick, quick, we must get ready. Where are our coats? We must get the suitcases. Which door should we leave by? I hope you’ve given that some thought.’
Amiss took on the expression of a man bent on a task of deep significance. He whiled away the ensuing minutes by counting the hours until he would be home again.