The Man From the Diogenes Club Read online

  ‘This is a visually sterile environment,’ Jeperson explained. ‘I need it sometimes. There is too much information out there to process comfortably. I have an open mind. That’s my gift and curse.’

  Jeperson sat, arms laid along the back of the settee, shrugging out of his coat, long legs crossed. He motioned her to make herself comfortable. She put her parcel on the low table, a violent intrusion of brown, and sat on a stool.

  ‘Is that a present? For me?’

  ‘CI Regent asked me to bring it to you.’

  ‘Ah-ha. It’s evidence, isn’t it? This is a case. You know I’m retired? I don’t consult or sleuth or intuit or adventure. Not my decision. Things changed. Certain elements among our rulers made judgements. The Diogenes Club closed its doors. I am given to understand that some quango took over our duties. You can probably reach them in a unit on an industrial estate in Wolverhampton. Whatever threatens the fabric of our reality will prove a nice change from playing solitaire with Rhine cards or theorising undetectable assassinations or whatever Adam Onions’s little helpers do to justify their expenses claims.’

  She waved him to a halt.

  ‘This is too much for me, Mr Jeperson—’

  ‘Richard, please.’

  ‘This is too much for me, Richard. Until this morning, I’d never heard of you or the Diogenes Club and I’m really not up to speed. DCI Regent—’

  ‘Fred.’

  ‘CI Regent has requested that I work with you.’

  ‘Very clever. Chuck the old dog a dolly-mixture and creep up with the muzzle.’

  Hot-cheeked, she stood up.

  ‘You resent that,’ he said.

  ‘They told me you were perceptive.’

  He was standing too, close to her, hands around hers, radiating sincerity.

  ‘I apologise. I forget myself. As I mentioned.’

  She damped her momentary anger. But she wasn’t ready to trust this dinosaur.

  ‘Fred Regent wouldn’t have sent you round if you were only blond. You collared Misery Maudsley, did you not? Fred must have fought hard to keep that little brouhaha out of Onions’s remit. Tell me, it wasn’t in any of the papers, but… when you slapped the cuffs on him, was Maudsley doing something with his eyes, something more than looking at you?’

  She remembered. A squirming. Like REM dream-twitches, but with the eyes wide open.

  ‘I thought so,’ said Richard, wheeling across the room. ‘Maggots. Little tiny maggots, hatched and hungry. An inconvenience, at the least. Always the problem with reanimation by force of will. Any qualified houngan cures the corpse before raising the zombie. Still, Maudsley got his job done. What happened to his books? Mislaid in the evidence room as usual?’

  ‘Everything from the house went. There was no court case pending, so the coroner brought in an open verdict. Maudsley’s stuff got tossed into a skip.’

  Jeperson shook his head.

  ‘So anyone could breeze along and filch the tomes? That’s like tossing a sackful of loaded revolvers into a playgroup. Never have happened in my day.’

  He was enthused for a moment. Then he stopped.

  ‘But I’m out of it. As you’ll have gathered.’

  She said nothing. Jeperson wandered around his white room, touching things, looking away from her.

  ‘It’s all parapsychology now,’ he said. ‘Target figures and year-end reports and jolly-promising-results-minister. We had mysteries, Stacy. Riddles of the sphinx, conundrums of the incalculable. Not parapsychology, but parapsychedelia. Not phenomena, not anomalies, not quantum metaphysics, but magic… enchantment… deviltry!’

  He stood by the table, fingers drumming on brown paper.

  He looked at her, eyes piercing, looked at the package, bit the end of his moustache, looked at her again.

  ‘What’s in the parcel?’

  ‘I thought you said you were out of it.’

  ‘Minx! What’s in the parcel?’

  ‘You of all people should know what they say about cats and curiosity.’

  Jeperson picked up the parcel, like a six-year-old with a present on Christmas Eve. He shook it, and held it to his ear.

  ‘Very light for its size. Not a case of wine or an occasional table, then.’

  He squeezed and crackled.

  ‘Feels fabricky. Like a blanket. Or a party frock.’

  He tweaked something through the paper.

  ‘Brass buttons. It’s a coat. I’ve guessed. I’m right, aren’t I? A coat, found in evidence. Bullet-holes and bloodstains.’

  His mood switched, from playful to serious. She felt a chill.

  ‘I’m right about that, too,’ he said, sober.

  ‘Open it,’ she urged.

  ‘Very well,’ he decided. ‘For you. Because you told me about Maudsley’s eyes. But no commitment. This is not going to be Richard Jeperson Rides Again.’

  He slipped a tiny blade out of his sleeve and snipped the string. The paper fell away and he held a stiff, greyish green coat. There were bullet-holes in the left sleeve and the hip pocket. And old blood.

  The sound system was playing ‘Rocky Raccoon’.

  Jeperson looked at the maker’s label. He held the coat against himself, mouth open in astonishment.

  ‘This is…’

  ‘Yours. We traced it through your tailor. They had the record on a hand-written card in a box in the basement. You bought it in 1968, about the time this album came out.’

  Jeperson shook his head. He was trembling, garment shaking in his grip. She thought he might have the beginnings of a seizure.

  ‘It’s the same cut as that one there,’ she added, nodding at the settee.

  The kitten had escaped from its pocket and was trying claws out on the silk lining.

  ‘I don’t own two of anything. This is that coat over there. Where was this found?’

  ‘You’d better come with me to the Yard.’

  Jeperson laid the coat down next to its identical twin.

  ‘To help you with your enquiries,’ he said, frowning hard. ‘I think I better had. This, Stacy, is serious. This makes Misery Maudsley look like a purse-snatching in Safeway’s car park. There isn’t room in the world for two of this.’

  ‘I have a car waiting,’ she said.

  He picked up his coat, the one she hadn’t brought, dislodging the kitten. It nosed the doppelgarment, thought better of it, and dashed from the room. Jeperson slipped an arm into one sleeve, but needed her help with the other. His shoulder shook, almost spasming.

  For a moment, he did look his age.

  ‘You’d better bring that,’ he said, finger aimed at the surplus coat. ‘Wrap it up again. It should be sealed in lead, but sturdy brown paper will have to do.’

  She knew she was not suggestible. But she no more wanted to touch the coat than the kitten had, or Jeperson did.

  Still, she picked up the paper, using it like an oven-glove, and took hold of the coat, wrapping it tight against the possibility that its arms might come to life and throttle her.

  At the doorstep, Jeperson hesitated.

  ‘It’s been a very long time,’ he said, weakly. ‘I don’t know if I can…’

  He seemed to flinch from daylight, from the outside world. Then he looked at her parcel.

  ‘No choice,’ he said, striding through the doorway.

  They left the house. Jeperson did not lock up behind them.

  V.

  ‘It’s your island, Miss Gill,’ Jeperson said to Persephone. ‘You be Neil Armstrong.’

  Stacy noted Onions sulking whenever Jeperson acted as if he were in charge. The man from I-Psi-T needed to feel he was tour operator for this jaunt.

  At Jeperson’s nod, Kydd hauled the handle and swung open the door. The temperature in the back of the Sea King plunged.

  ‘Best not,’ said Onions.

  Persephone had unstrapped herself. Ignoring Onions, she slid across the floor and out of the helicopter.

  ‘Mind the goats,’ Stacy advised.r />
  Through the door, Stacy watched the Droning of Skerra stamp around, doing the hunting set version of t’ai chi – thumping the heels of her green wellies against grassy sod, flexing her back and thighs as if she were on horseback, and struggling against the wind to tie a Hermès scarf around her hair. She lost the scarf, which was sucked upwards by an invisible Kjempestrupe.

  Nothing killed Persephone, so Stacy assumed it was all right to get out of the transport. She took off her ear-baffles and undid all the straps.

  Jeperson made a ‘ladies first’ bow. Stacy dangled her legs out of the helicopter, then took the jump. She realised how stiff she’d become and uncrooked her back.

  Wind slashed her face.

  Onions thumped onto the turf beside her, and strode off purposefully. Kydd helped the others leave the Sea King. De Maltby clambered down, snug in his flight-suit and helmet.

  Yoland was on his knees, grateful for solid ground under him, grasping handfuls of Skerra.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that again in a hurry,’ he said, smiling.

  Stacy didn’t point out that unless he wanted to become Persephone’s sole subject he’d have to take the return trip.

  ‘Should I get some grub up?’ Kydd asked Jeperson.

  ‘A very civilised notion.’

  ‘No time for that,’ said Onions, coming back. ‘We need to find Captain Vernon. I don’t mind saying I’m worried about the A-Boat.’

  ‘Lost with all hands,’ said Jeperson.

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘Quite right, Onions. I can’t. But I do.’

  ‘Vernon had a six-man team.’

  ‘They’re gone. Forget them.’

  Onions frowned. Jeperson lost interest and drifted away, towards Sewell Head. The little man hadn’t brought a hat, and was trying to protect his bald dome with his hands. Jeperson gave him a knit-cap he had spare. Head smiled weak thanks.

  Stacy noticed Jeperson was the only one who could talk with Sewell Head. She worried that they shared more with each other than anyone else here.

  ‘We should get to the village,’ said Onions.

  ‘The Blowhole, surely,’ ventured Jeperson.

  Onions ignored him and strode downslope, expecting to be followed. Jeperson gave Stacy a look, then shrugged and plodded carefully after the man from I-Psi-T. Stacy let the others get moving before taking up the rear.

  De Maltby stayed with the Sea King, but Kydd came along.

  A mean-eyed goat peered through a hole in the wall, cynically examining the newcomers. If war came, it’d be a toss-up who’d get eaten and who’d get to eat.

  After only a few steps into merciless wind, down a field that inclined enough for a ski-slope, Stacy couldn’t feel her face but was hobbled by pain in her ankles. She wished she had a city around her.

  Onions paused to look at his flip-book.

  A large blue bat attacked him, all spiny frame and enveloping membranes. He was wrapped in an instant, and spun off balance.

  Sewell Head threw himself face-down in the dirt. Maltesers bled from his pockets.

  Onions yelled from inside his blue cocoon.

  ‘Shoot it! shoot it!’

  Stacy jogged down, miraculously avoiding a twisted ankle. She joined Jeperson in hauling the ‘bat’ off Onions. It was a tent, trailing guy-ropes and skewers, poles snapped.

  Kydd had drawn his revolver and assumed the stance. Now, with Onions free of the tent and sat on the ground, Kydd’s gun was aimed at his head. He waved it aside, red-faced, hair stuck up in an undignified crown.

  ‘You have been attacked by an item of rogue camping equipment,’ said Jeperson.

  He helped Onions stand up.

  The wind caught the tent again. It hurtled off like a crooked kite, chasing after Persephone’s scarf.

  Onions patted his hair and twisted inside his anorak, realigning the hip-pockets with his hips.

  ‘Vernon was supposed to set up camp,’ he said.

  Jeperson laid a hand on Onions’s shoulder.

  ‘Vernon is gone, Adam.’

  ‘We have to look.’

  Jeperson nodded and let Onions continue.

  ‘Don’t know what they’re talking about half the time,’ Persephone said to her.

  Stacy thought that was a fair average.

  Onions had been right about one thing. It was getting dark.

  VI.

  The briefing was not at the Yard, but in Whitehall. From the yellowed ceiling, Stacy guessed the panelled, windowless committee chamber had been one of the legendary ‘smoke-filled rooms’. New Labour had taken out the ashtrays and put up ‘thank you for not smoking’ signs.

  Notional chairperson was Morag Duff, Deputy Minister for Heritage and Sport, who didn’t actually appear. A sound-activated minidisc recorder lay on her blotter at the head of the table. A tartan tam-o’-shanter perched on the back of a chair, suggesting that the Deputy Minister had been here but just popped out.

  Stacy looked at the Walter Sickert on the wall – saved from Patricia Cornwell by public subscription – and wondered if Duff were behind it, peeking through hidden eyeholes. This was the apparatus of the secret state, and spooks loved these games.

  Jeperson was a study in suppressed excitement, alert to the point of hypertension, given to chewing on a knuckle. He had been in deep thought during the drive over.

  Now, he took in the room. Three men sat like wise monkeys.

  ‘Adam,’ Jeperson acknowledged the alpha ape, hear-no-evil.

  ‘Richard Jeperson,’ grunted the bearish man. ‘We are calling out the reserves.’

  Stacy pulled out a chair for Jeperson, who insisted she take it. She ended up sitting across from the big man. He looked like a rugby player five years into beery middle age, a slackening mountain in a baggy suit.

  ‘This is Adam Onions,’ said Jeperson.

  ‘O-nye-ons,’ he corrected. ‘Nothing to do with the vegetable. A whole different etymology.’

  ‘He is from the Institute of Something Trickology.’

  ‘I-Psi-T. Pronounced “Eyesight”. The Institute of Psi Tech. Director of same.’

  Onions’s eyes took in her chest. She didn’t need to be psychic to know what he thought of her.

  ‘I’m Stacy Cotterill. Detective Sergeant.’

  Onions did a not-a-secretary-then take. She’d seen that before.

  ‘I don’t know these other fellows, I’m afraid,’ said Jeperson.

  ‘Call me Rory,’ said see-no-evil, a chunky cardigan chap who reminded her of an eager young vicar she’d arrested for molesting elderly parishioners. ‘I’m a civil servant, but don’t hold it against me. I’m really a good bloke.’

  Rory smiled, delivering what Stacy recognised from her modelling days as Benign Variant Two. She wondered if he was working from the book they’d had at her agency, 101 Expressions for All Occasions.

  ‘And this is Franklin Yoland…’

  Say-no-evil put up his hand. He had a tan and lush lips.

  ‘He’s one of those weapons inspectors you hear so much about. Nothing he doesn’t know about whizz-bangs, nerve gases and anthrax spores. Up on all the latest euphemisms. Made us laugh earlier – what was it, Frank? Yes, he was describing missiles as “delivery systems for” – how did you put it? – “geography parcels and history parcels”?’

  Yoland shook his head. ‘Physics packages, chemistry packages or biology packages.’

  ‘In the long run, you’re more right than you know,’ Jeperson told Rory. ‘It comes down to geography and history.’

  ‘Very true. Take a pew.’

  Jeperson walked round the room. He picked up the tam-o’-shanter and put it down again.

  Yoland looked at the man from the Diogenes Club as if he might detonate.

  At the opposite end of the table, a secretary sat with an open laptop, fingers poised over the keyboard. Jeperson smiled at her, acknowledging her presence with a little wave. She did not respond.

  Jeperson found an odd little o
ld man sat in the corner, away from the table, reading a book. A strange look arced between them.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ said Rory. ‘That’s Sewell Head.’

  ‘Swellhead,’ mumbled the little man.

  Jeperson shook his hand, warmly.

  Head was bald, with an odd, dome-shaped skull, no chin to speak of and flattish wet eyes. The sleeves of his shabby overcoat were too long for his childish hands. A knit scarf was wrapped several times around his neck, so his head nestled like an Easter egg in its presentation bow.

  ‘He was Brain of Britain a while back,’ said Rory.

  Head gave a puzzling smile, one Stacy had never seen demonstrated in a photograph. Almost lipless, he had a lot of extra teeth. He had eaten chocolate recently.

  ‘Mr Head is Adam’s discovery,’ said the civil servant.

  ‘What’s your IQ, Jeperson?’ asked Onions. ‘Off the scale? Next to Sewell Head, you’re a cretin. So am I. Technically, he’s the cleverest man in England. Top Five in the world.’

  ‘Barred from pub trivia contests throughout the Home Counties,’ put in Rory. ‘You used to hustle, didn’t you, old son? Guys, he would go in alone on quiz night, nurse a gin and it, then bungle a couple of easy ones. “Who won the World Cup in 1966?” “Was that perhaps Italy?” Big laughs. Then he’d get a bit tipsy. Apparently, tipsy. Come over all shirty, insist on a big money bet with Local Hero. You know the type, Captain Know-It-All, memorised his Guinness Book of Uninteresting Facts. Fifty, a hundred quid on the table. Side-bets with everyone in the bar to bump up the total stake. Quiz gets serious, one-on-one, make-your-mind-up time. Our Mr Head suddenly switches on like a toaster, goes from wondering if “I Should Be So Lucky” was a hit for Bananarama…’

  Head’s lips twitched, a downturn at one side, peculiar pain in his glassy eye.

  ‘…to rattling off the fifth paragraph of Article Ten of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713—’