The Vacant Casualty Read online

  ‘Terence,’ she said sharply, ‘we have a code red. That’s right – the eagle must raid the nest. I REPEAT,’ she repeated, ‘THE EAGLE MUST RAID THE NEST! We have go!’

  Sam had by now discreetly coughed up his latest piece of cake in anticipation of its getting stuck in his throat, and despite the ravages of his hangover, was starting to have a bit of fun as he watched the detective try to get out of the old lady what the purpose of her telephone call was. Bradley, for his part, asked with more than a touch of misgiving.

  Emily showed no stress or anxiety at the depredations of the filth spread over her front yard. She did have, after all, as Sam saw through a window on the other side of the room, a back garden of about twenty acres. But there was something in Emily’s eyes as she stared dreamily out over the rooftops that made him think she had either just ingested a mood-controlling drug, or, more surprisingly, that she was capable of focusing on an object in the middle distance. Sam became sensible of a strange thudding noise just as her phone rang. Without moving her eyes from the heavens, she answered it.

  ‘That’s it, Terence, my lad. You’ve got it. You are a good boy! Yes, that’s the one. Try not to hit the next-door house – the one with the garden covered in sewage – that’s my place and I’d hate to miss the show by being collateral damage.’

  ‘My godson,’ she said, ringing off, and looking blithely at the men. ‘He’s stationed at the military airbase a few miles south of the town. He assured me that if it was needed, he could loose off a few rounds and blame it on a malfunction.’

  Emily’s face had taken on an almost beatific aspect by this point, staring out of the window as the thudding noise grew to a pitch that defied speech and a gigantic helicopter lowered into view through the window, its wings under-clustered with tree-trunk missiles and fridge-wide rocket launchers.

  ‘I think we should leave,’ said Sam, much too late, as bright shimmering blasts were followed by clods of earth being flung up in the air, accompanied by the noise of the garden next door having a sequence of three-feet-deep holes plunged into it and its vegetable contents distributed all over the surrounding streets in fine ash.

  Sam, witnessing these events and unsure for a moment which of his many reactions he should act upon, at last rugby-tackled Emily to the ground, and in one diving movement first swallowed, then choked on, and at last ejected a final chunk of cake.

  Emily responded gratefully, by kneeing him at once hard in the bollocks and jumping back up to watch the carnage, shouting encouragements at the window, and shielding her face from the shattering glass with the lace curtain.

  Looking around, Sam saw that the detective was well ahead of him in escaping this mad scenario – he had crawled to the back door, and was gesturing for him to follow.

  Chapter Six

  ‘SO,’ BRADLEY SAID once they had crawled to safety, waited for the gun smoke to lift and at last regained their car. ‘Village life is boring, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sam, whose adrenalin, now he was comfortably sitting down, had most definitely ebbed, to be replaced by his hangover. And a good deal of irritation. ‘Yes, it is boring. With the occasional exception of sudden episodes of psychopathic lunacy. Don’t try and teach me a lesson – I feel like shit. Give me that bottle . . .’ He swigged three painkillers with some water and then stared out of the window, putting on a more than slightly childish expression.

  Bradley was in contrast temporarily bucked-up by his near-death experience, and his realization that there were plenty of motives in the town that might have contributed to Mr Fairbreath’s disappearance, from the Quimples’ insane drop-of-a-hat murderousness, to the potentially life-changing issues at stake in the Parish Council vote, in which he was the lynchpin. He was starting to feel as though he could be on the scent.

  ‘There’s an emergency council meeting at three p.m. today,’ he said. ‘They’re going to discuss Terry’s replacement. It might give us an insight into other people’s feelings about him.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sam grumpily. ‘Why do they have to act so fast?’

  ‘There was a big meeting that came up the week he went missing – they were to vote on a series of very important issues. Apparently Terry had the “swing” vote, so to speak. The future of the town may be at stake.’ Bradley consulted his watch. ‘But we’ve got lots of time before then. We should speak to a few more of the council members.’

  ‘So who next, then? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker?’

  ‘Apparently the candlestick maker is in the South of France at this time of year, so he’s out. Lord Selvington mentioned we should visit Major Eldred,’ said Bradley, suddenly becoming much quieter. ‘He’s a bit potty, but I suppose we should strike him off the list. And you never know what mad people are ready to tell you, that ordinary people wouldn’t.’

  ‘Yes, good point,’ said Sam, at first not listening, but then realizing the detective’s voice had fallen to a whisper.

  ‘I don’t remember feeling this vile since my wedding day,’ said Bradley, holding his leather-gloved hands up so they shook violently.

  ‘Your mates gave you a pretty heavy stag do, did they?’ asked Sam, smiling.

  ‘Stag what? No, certainly not,’ said Bradley, irritated, and gunning the engine, he took them in a sickeningly swerving route to the major’s house.

  Even if the two men weren’t already feeling somewhat weary from last night’s consumption of alcohol, after the major’s performance at the council meeting the previous day they would still have had heavy hearts when they found themselves pulling the bell of his diminutive cottage. This sensation grew even worse when the sound greeting them was the blast of a foghorn that scattered all the birds from the copse of ash trees at the summit of the hill half a mile away.

  ‘What?’ said the major, leaning out of an upper window.

  ‘We’ve come to see you,’ said Bradley.

  ‘Oh,’ said the major. ‘Right.’ He looked out over the countryside from his vantage point and squinted. ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Sam.

  ‘Hmm, hmm. The cricket’s on later, you know?’

  ‘Is it really?’ said Bradley, clearly at a loss for anything else to say.

  ‘Can we come in, please?’ said Sam.

  ‘Oh!’ said the major, the idea clearly striking him as rather novel. ‘Er . . . yes.’ And he disappeared from the window, only to appear again a moment later, shouting, ‘LOOK OUT!’ as a bowlful of brown lumpy liquid fell directly at them.

  They jumped apart and examined their trousers (although Bradley’s were already so daubed with brown slop, it would have been hard to tell if anything had been added to the overall design). Then they looked up, in disbelief, to find the major’s face staring out at them.

  ‘Goulash,’ he pronounced shortly, before he disappeared again and descended the stairs, coughing violently. Then the door popped open and he said, ‘Come in, come in!’ ushering them cheerfully through the living room, which was full of dust, furniture piled up with old boxes, huge nineteenth-century firearms propped against the wall and (as far as Sam could make out) a painting of a bison’s arse above the fireplace.

  The kitchen offered few surprises – which is to say, it would have been a surprise had it been a clean, orderly and well-appointed place whose fittings dated from more recently than the Falklands War. All around there were rusty pans hanging from nails – evidently unused, since there was a bird’s nest in one of them – and on the hob was a gargantuan stock pot filled with a very large sheep’s head, marinating in what smelled like cider.

  Sam sat at a solid old-fashioned cook’s table, whose top was marked with wild scratches and carvings, some of which included unpleasant words and simplistic imagery.

  ‘I’ll get you some refreshment,’ the major said, disappearing into his pantry for ten minutes, from whence emerged strange noises which they felt they couldn’t investigate. At last the madman reappeared and plonked three bowls
of custard on the table.

  ‘For my guests,’ said the major, and before they could respond he poured a bottle of crème de menthe into three pint-pots and handed them out.

  ‘We’re here—’ began Bradley, but not quick enough, for the major now stood, raised a bugle to his lips and played a shrieking rendition of the last post. Finally he sat down again, wiping a sad tear from his one good eye.

  ‘Come on, sunshine,’ said Sam. ‘You can give it a rest with us.’

  ‘Eh?’ asked the major, twisting his face somewhere between a scowl and a look of utter incomprehension.

  ‘You’re not actually mad. Anyone can see.’

  The major seemed determined to be affronted for a second, but then relented and relaxed, and said in a quite ordinary voice, ‘Oh, all right. But so long as you don’t tell anyone. What gave me away?’

  ‘Well, you’re wearing your eyepatch on the other eye today, for starters.’

  ‘Hah! I knew I’d got something wrong. That’s the trouble with being startled by the doorbell – which is why I give it such a repugnant noise.’

  ‘And you’re three quarters of the way through this Guardian cryptic crossword here.’

  ‘I’m impressed. You’ve looked closely enough to see that the answers are correct?’

  ‘Well, no . . .’ admitted Sam, looking down.

  ‘Hah – now you’re wondering if the answer to sixteen across really could be “pissbucket”. But then, it is the Guardian. They’d probably run that as a title to a children’s cartoon, just to confront old-fashioned attitudes to swearing.’

  ‘But I guessed that if you were going to fill the crossword with nonsense, why stop halfway through? And also, what self-respecting, warmongering retired major would be reading the Guardian in the first place . . .’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said the major.

  ‘And what about the sheep’s head?’ asked Sam.

  ‘It’s plastic.’

  Sam started to look closer, but it was so convincing that in his hungover state he couldn’t bear to do so. ‘And the painting of the buffalo’s arse?’ he asked.

  ‘The what? You terrible bastard, that’s my wife!’

  Sam didn’t have any idea what to say back and instead looked around the room, avoiding the major’s goggle-eyed stare.

  ‘So why the act?’ asked Bradley, intervening.

  ‘Oh well, you know. People around here are so boring. You were at the meeting. What did you see?’

  The guests were unsure if they were really being asked to reply.

  Instead the major quickly answered for himself: ‘Prudes, freaks, prats, bores, virgins, thickos, creeps and fucking Tories! No wonder I pretend to be mad. Last thing I want is them charging in here and disturbing my peace. Talking of which, let’s not stay in this freak show of a room – this is just to put off someone who gets as far as the kitchen. Come on, let’s go through here.’

  He reached forward to a bookshelf at the far end of the room and pressed on the spine of The Essays of Montaigne, releasing a secret door. Within was a library-cum-sitting room, sparsely furnished with a Mac on a table, an architect’s desk, a low sofa with a few chairs and several thousand books on dark-wood shelves.

  ‘You’re an architect?’ asked Sam.

  ‘It’s a hobby. Mostly small buildings for exclusive clients. I also write a blog about riverside wildlife and I’m a main player in the longest-running online game of Dungeons and Dragons in the world. Life’s pretty sweet sometimes, you know, when you’re retired . . .’

  ‘So why be on the Parish Council?’ asked Bradley, sitting down. ‘Surely that’s putting yourself into the lion’s den, so to speak? Or the lion’s mouth, do I mean?’

  ‘Neither. The last thing I want is to hand the management of the community entirely over to these cretins. Well, you saw for yourself yesterday the kind of crap that they come out with. I wanted to make sure I always vote for the most sensible course, and goad others into following me.’

  ‘Even if your reasoning seems insane?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘So you must be worried about Terry Fairbreath going missing. If you’re a Tory-hater he must have been an ally.’

  ‘Certainly he was. A nice normal fellow, always around except when he went to visit his mother once a month. He was an excellent chess partner too. And with this vote coming up . . .’

  ‘So tell us what the vote’s about.’

  ‘They want to build a wind farm near here.’

  ‘And no doubt Lord Selvington’s saying, “Not in my back yard”?’

  ‘Yes, but literally, because it is in his back yard. They would look directly down onto his property and apparently take about three million pounds off its worth. Which, when all’s said and done, is quite a lot. Don’t let the mannered pleasantness of the meetings fool you, there are matters of life and death at stake. Then there are the Miss Quimples . . .’

  ‘Ah yes, we just visited them. They keep accidentally causing violence on each other’s gardens.’

  ‘That’s them. They’re opposed to anything new.’

  ‘What exactly do they class as new?’ asked Bradley. ‘Video games? Colour television?’

  ‘Bumming?’ put in Sam.

  ‘Bumming’s definitely out. But the Internet, especially the Internet.’

  ‘Ha!’ Bradley laughed. ‘Well, I don’t suppose they’ve had much luck in banning that.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. China could learn a thing or two. There’s still no WiFi in the village.’

  Sam toggled with his phone and realized it was true; he barely had any reception.

  ‘I don’t suppose that’s a problem for you . . .’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ the major frothed. ‘It completely fucks with livestreaming the fucking podcast. And with my online fucking poker. (It doesn’t exactly help my online fucking, either).’

  Sam blinked and pretended he hadn’t heard the last remark. ‘You, uh, you play online poker?’

  ‘’Course I do, how else is a pensioner supposed to make up his winter fuel allowance in Blair’s Britain?’

  ‘It’s not actually Blair’s Britain any more.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Oh well, whomever. Obviously things were better under Major. Just’cause of the name, you know?’ He winked at Sam, whom he clearly took to be a kindred spirit, perhaps on account of the fact that he had brought both the crème de menthe and the bowl of custard with him, and was cradling the latter in his lap.

  ‘What’s their problem with WiFi?’ Sam asked, now taking a taste from the tip of a spoon of custard.

  ‘They said they thought it caused tumours.’

  ‘Who would know what causes tumours in these folks? They’re all a hundred and three anyway . . .’ said Sam.

  ‘We’re getting off the point,’ said Bradley, looking at his watch. ‘We’ve got other council members to get to. I just wanted to ask, Major—’

  ‘I’m not a major, actually.’

  ‘Mister Eldred, then . . .’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’m a Doctor of Oriental Languages.’

  ‘Doctor, then. Do you know of any reason why anyone would want Terry Fairbreath to disappear?’

  ‘Six of them,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘Would you please elucidate?’

  ‘One: there was a rumour he had an affair with – what’s his name? The artist. I can never remember it. Aloysius something.’

  ‘Walerian Exosius. He shagged that guy?’

  ‘No – his sister, so the rumour went. When she came to stay last spring.’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘No, no, no! Terry’s camper than the Brighton male all-nude self-raising tent Olympics. Unless it’s all just an act, of course, and he’s shagging prostitutes behind our backs. Hah! But the artist doesn’t realize that he’s gay, so he swore revenge on Terry, based on rumour alone. Second reason . . .’ he counted them off on his fingers, ‘he unknowingly picked Miss Quimple’s aubergines over those of h
er sister when he was a judge at last year’s flower show. He said they were remarkable – plump and firm and sensual, and he wanted to put his hands all over them. But he said it to the wrong sister, you see. She nearly fainted. It was the highlight of my summer. Then he picked that sister’s melons over the other and made the same mistake all over again. So they both hate him.’

  ‘As well as having access to explosives and firearms,’ pointed out Bradley. ‘What did he say about the melons?’

  ‘Oh, let me see, I did write it down . . .’ Both men smiled at his presumed joke, but then he produced a small black notebook and, flicking the pages back, said, ‘Ah yes, here we are: “Squeezy, sumptuous – I want to have their juices running down my chin.” Yuck! He really was an unassuageable pervert. But then, who isn’t in this day and age? How’s the custard?’

  Sam nodded happily, a spoonful still to his lips.

  ‘Fourth on the list: the mayor. Another pervert. A man who is a pathetic, short-statured, poorly organized, self-aggrandizing, bad excuse for a public official, but who is really just a twat . . .’

  ‘What do you mean by that, exactly?’ asked Bradley, paused with his pen over his notebook.

  ‘Sorry if I wasn’t being clear,’ said the major, clearing his throat, and flicking up his eyepatch. ‘What I meant was that he is . . . a twat.’

  ‘In this usage,’ said Sam from his seat behind the detective, ‘I think the word means a useless or risibly pointless person.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bradley. ‘What are the final two reasons?’

  ‘Reason five: he was in charge of the local movement to oppose military installations nearby.’

  ‘What military installations?’

  ‘They had a couple of thousand intercontinental ballistic missiles stationed about ten miles away until a few years ago and the locals revolted, got them out. The idea was to stockpile about a thousand weapons beneath the great Hill at the top of town. Along with Saracene Galaxista, Terry opposed this and got backing from lots of people.’

  Sam was halfway through sipping his bowl of crème de menthe-flavoured custard, which was filling his stomach with warmish velvety goodness (‘Like a crap hot version of Baileys,’ he thought to himself), but he still made a mental note that he must try and persuade Bradley that their next interview should take place in the pub. For entertainment value, at the very least. It then occurred to him that he was taking the matter of a man who was missing and possibly murdered very lightly. Then it occurred to him that he was drinking alcoholic mint-flavoured custard from a bowl, and spilling some of it down his top, and he should try to deal with one thing at a time.