Death at the Bar

CAST OF CHARACTERS (#ulink_c006ac6a-da9d-526b-9db8-fa3dc5374f50)

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_66d935f6-9af1-59ed-ba42-e6cca842d2e3)

The Plume of Feathers (#ulink_66d935f6-9af1-59ed-ba42-e6cca842d2e3)

As Luke Watchman drove across Otterbrook Bridge the setting sun shone full in his eyes. A molten flood of sunlight poured towards him through the channel of the lane and broke into sequins across Otterbrook waters. He arched his hand over his eyes and peered through the spattered dazzle of the windscreen. Somewhere about here was the turning for Ottercombe. He lowered the window and leant out.

The warmth of evening touched his face. The air smelt of briar, of fern, and more astringently of the distant sea. There, fifty yards ahead, was the finger-post with its letters almost rubbed out by rain, ‘Ottercombe, 7 miles.’

Watchman experienced the fufillment of a nostalgic longing and was content. Only now, when he was within reach of his journey’s end, did he realize how greatly he had desired this return. The car moved forward and turned from the wide lane into the narrow. The curves of hills marched down behind hedgerows. There was no more sunlight. Thorns brushed the windows on each side, so narrow was the lane. The car bumped over pot-holes. The scent of spring-watered earth rose coldly from the banks.

‘Downhill all the way now,’ Watchman murmured. His thoughts travelled ahead to Ottercombe. One should always time arrivals for this hour when labourers turned homewards, when lamps were lit, when the traveller had secret glimpses into rooms whose thresholds he would never cross. At the Plume of Feathers, Abel Pomeroy would stand out in the roadway and look for incoming guests. Watchman wondered if his two companions had got there before him. Perhaps his cousin, Sebastian Parish, had set out on his evening prowl round the village. Perhaps Norman Cubitt had already found a subject and was down on the jetty dabbing nervously at a canvas. This was the second holiday they had spent together in Ottercombe. A curious trio when you came to think of it. Like the beginning of a funny story. ‘A lawyer, an actor, and a painter once went to a fishing village in Devon.’ Well, he’d rather have Cubitt and Parish than any of his own learned brethren. The law set too dead a seal on character, the very soul of a barrister took silk. And he wondered if he had failed to escape the mannerisms of his profession, if he exuded learned counsel, even at Ottercombe in South Devon.

The lane dived abruptly downhill. Watchman remembered Decima Moore. Would she still be there? Did the Coombe Left Movement still hold its meetings on Saturday nights, and would Decima allow her arguments with himself to end as they had ended that warm night nearly a year ago? He set his thoughts on the memory of the smell of seaweed and briar, and of Decima, trapped half-way between resentment and fright, walking as if by compulsion into his arms.

The hamlet of Diddlestock, a brief interlude of whitewash and thatch, marked the last stage. Already, as he slid out of the shadow of Ottercombe Woods, he fancied that he heard the thunder of the sea.

Watchman checked his car, skidded, and changed into low gear. Somewhere about here Diddlestock Lane crossed Ottercombe Lane, and the intersection was completely masked by banks and hedgerows. A dangerous turning. Yes, there it was. He sounded his horn and the next second crammed on his brakes. The car skidded, lurched sideways, and fetched up against the bank, with its right-hand front bumpers locked in the left-hand rear bumpers of a baby two-seater.

Watchman leant out of the driving window.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled.

The two-seater leapt nervously and was jerked back by the bumpers.

‘Stop that!’ roared Watchman.

He got out and stumbled along the lane to the other car.

It was so dark down there between the hedgerows that the driver’s features, shadowed both by the roof of his car and the brim of his hat, were scarcely discernible. He seemed about to open the door when Watchman, bareheaded, came up to him. Evidently he changed his mind. He leant farther back in his seat. His fingers pulled at the brim of his hat.

‘Look here,’ Watchman began, ‘you’re a hell of a fellow, aren’t you, bucketing about the countryside like a blasted tank! Why the devil can’t you sound your horn? You came out of that lane about twenty times as fast as – What?’

The man had mumbled something.

‘What?’ Watchman repeated.

‘I’m extremely sorry. Didn’t hear you until –’ The voice faded away.

‘All right. Well, we’d better do something about it. I don’t imagine much damage has been done.’ The man made no move and Watchman’s irritation revived. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’

‘Yes, certainly. Of course.’ The voice was unexpectedly courteous. ‘I’m very sorry. Really, very sorry. It was all my fault.’

This display of contrition mollified Watchman.

‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘no harm done, I dare say. Come on.’

The man got out on the far side and walked round to the back of his car. When Watchman joined him he was stooping over the locked bumpers.

‘I can heave mine up if you don’t mind backing an inch or two,’ said the man. With large calloused hands he gripped the bumpers of his own car.

‘All right,’ agreed Watchman.

They released the bumpers without much trouble. Watchman called through his driving-window: ‘All clear!’ The man lowered his car and then groped uncertainly in his pockets.

‘Cigarette?’ suggested Watchman and held out his case.

‘Very kind,’ said the man. ‘Coals of fire –’ He hesitated and then took a cigarette.

‘Light?’

‘I’ve got one, thanks.’

He turned aside and cupped his hands round the match, dipping his head with extravagant care as if a wind threatened the flame.

‘I suppose you’re going to Ottercombe?’ said Watchman.

He saw a flash of teeth.

‘Looks like it, doesn’t it? I’m sorry I can’t let you through till then.’

‘I shan’t be on your heels at the pace you travel,’ grinned Watchman.

‘No,’ agreed the man, and his voice sounded remote as he moved away. ‘I’ll keep out of your way. Good-night.’

‘Good-night.’

That ridiculous little car was as good as its driver’s word. It shot away down the lane and vanished over the brow of a steep drop. Watchman followed more cautiously and by the time he rounded the hill the other car had turned a farther corner. He caught the distant toot of a horn. It sounded derisive.

II

The lane ran out towards the coast and straight for Coombe Rock, a headland that rose sharply from the downs to thrust its nose into the channel. A patch on the hillside seemed to mark an inconsequent end to the route. It was only when he drew closer to this patch that a stranger might recognize it as an entrance to a tunnel, the only gate into Ottercombe. Watchman saw it grow magically until it filled his range of vision. He passed a roadsign ‘Ottercombe. Dangerous Corner. Change down,’ and entered the mouth of the tunnel. He slowed down and switched on his lights. Dank walls closed about him, the sound of his progress echoed loudly and he smelt wet stones and seaweed. Before him, coldly and inkily blue, framed in black, was the sea. From within, the tunnel seemed to end in a shelf; actually it turned sharply to the left. Watchman had to stop and back his car before he could get round. There, down on his left and facing the sea, was Ottercombe.

Probably the alarming entrance into this village has saved it from becoming another Clovelly or Polperro. Ladies with Ye Olde Shoppe ambitions would hesitate to drive through Coombe Tunnel and very large cars are unable to do so. Moreover the village is not too picturesque. It is merely a group of houses whose whitewash is tarnished by the sea. There are no secret stairs in any of them, no ghosts walk Ottercombe Steps, no smugglers’ cave looks out from Coombe Rock. For all that, the place has its history of grog-running and wrecking. There is a story of a fight in the tunnel between excisemen and the men of Coombe, and there are traces of the gate that once closed the tunnel every night at sunset. The whole of Ottercombe is the property of an irascible eccentric who keeps the houses in good repair, won’t let one of them to a strange shopkeeper and breathes venom on the word ‘publicity.’ If a stranger cares to stay in Ottercombe he must put up at the Plume of Feathers, where Abel Pomeroy has four guest rooms, and Mrs Ives does the house-keeping and cooking. If the Coombe men like him, they will take him out in their boats and play darts with him in the evening. He may walk round the cliffs, fish off the rocks, or drive seven miles to Illington where there is a golf-course and a three-star hotel. These are the amenities of Ottercombe.

The Plume of Feathers faces the cobbled road of entrance. It is a square building, scrupulously whitewashed. It has no great height but its position gives it an air of dominance over the cottages that surround it. On the corner of the Feathers the road of approach splits and becomes a sort of inn yard off which Ottercombe Steps lead through the village and down to the wharf. Thus the windows of the inn on two sides, watch for the arrival of strangers. By the corner entrance is a bench, occupied on warm evenings by Abel Pomeroy and his cronies. At intervals Abel walks into the middle of the road and looks up towards Coombe Tunnel as his father and grandfather did before him.

As Watchman drove down, he could see old Pomeroy standing there in his shirt sleeves. Watchman flicked his headlights and Pomeroy raised his hand. Watchman sounded his horn and a taller figure, dressed in the slacks and sweater of some superb advertisement, came through the lighted doorway. It was Watchman’s cousin, Sebastian Parish. Then the others had arrived.

He drew up and opened the door.

‘Well, Pomeroy.’

‘Well, Mr Watchman, we’m right down glad to see you again. Welcome to you.’

‘I’m glad to get here,’ said Watchman, shaking hands. ‘Hallo, Seb. When did you arrive?’

‘This morning, old boy,’ answered his cousin. ‘We stopped last night at Exeter with Norman’s sister.’