Chapter 16: Nutkin

I was in a strange state. Not exactly the doldrums – I was accustomed to that position. This was different; a kind of other-worldliness. The mood had been induced by certain items in a batch of magazines I’d received gratis. First, a group of scientists had suggested that our universe is flat – in the mathematical sense. I didn’t grasp all the details, but thought I understood the basic idea. If you draw a triangle on a table top, the sum of the angles add up, as Euclid told us, to a hundred and eighty degrees. If you do the same on a ball, the angles will amount to more than one-eighty, and if you do it on a saddle, the total will be less than that. Simple enough, I reckoned.

The spherical interpretation, meaning that the vastness around us was, in physics-speak, closed and finite had been popular, but it seemed the boffins were veering towards the hundred and eighty degree notion. This would leave us with an open, expanding cosmos, where the galaxies are to cool into a scattering of frigid cinders. The fact that this process will take trillions of years failed to console me, as it still wouldn’t be worthwhile to start reading ‘War and Peace’.

I’d hardly begun meditating on this news when the second part of what was to be a quadruple-whammy clouded my horizon. Another source asserted that the Sun is burning out and its death throes will engulf us in five billion years at the latest. Compared to the open universe timescale, this problem is urgent. The Earth is going to be fried before it is frozen. Then – part three – I learned that the Moon is drifting away from us at the alarming rate of about two centimetres a year. In due course, this is going to cause the planet to pitch, roll and yaw like a storm-tossed yacht. So we shall get nauseous before we are cooked before we are frozen.

Just when I thought I had enough on my plate, part four turned up. I read that the great forests have, despite human depredations, long been absorbing carbon dioxide as fast as it has been produced, because new tree growth outstrips decay. The same article argued that something analogous applies to the oceans, with respect to their retention of methane – but let’s not go into that – the woodlands will do. What upset me was the suggestion that the greenery gets bouts of indigestion and spews up all that CO2 it’s been hoarding, so we might asphyxiate before we get nauseous, before we are roasted, before we are iced. And this breathing thing is probably due within a century. For goodness sake, that’s now! And until all this was dumped on me, I’d thought that tectonic shifts and gigantic ocean waves were troublesome enough.

My train of thought was interrupted by a visitor, who opened the outer door, peered around the anteroom for a moment, then entered the office. As to appearance, she was quite a study. About five-eight and slim, with a ramrod posture that suggested iron discipline, a classy upbringing or both. The short straight hair had the hue – the texture too, I fancied – of iron filings, and the outfit comprised a charcoal jacket, matching skirt, white blouse and low-heeled black shoes. She wore neither watch nor obvious jewellery and didn’t carry a handbag. Seemingly a woman who stuck to basics.

Outside, the temperature – this being late July – was way up, but she seemed frosty. What really caught my attention was the face, which was all angles, lines and wrinkles, with a severe, screwed-up look, the overall sourness intensified by small-lensed glasses with a barely noticeable gold frame. The straight, thin-lipped mouth was bracketed by deep parenthetic furrows. A prune in vinegar was my impression. The general physique seemed supple. It was as though the head had worn out it’s original body and been grafted onto a younger one. Abraham Lincoln once said that every man over forty is responsible for his face. I wondered whether he’d intended the remark to apply to women as well, then I thought that everything pithy ever said seemed to have emanated from Lincoln, Twain, Wilde or Churchill. Why did the rest of us bother to turn up?

Emboldened by my readings about the work of S. Holmes, I formed a tentative view. The lady was probably seventyish, lonely, with a penchant for complaining and a personality that discouraged social intercourse. Good work, Potts. You have the makings of a sleuth.

She glanced around my pit, managing to avoid holding her nose. I asked her to take a seat.

“Mr Potts,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “You are a detective, I believe.” The voice was sharp, edgy and a little querulous, making me think of a knife-blade being dragged across a plate.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Well, I want you to detect something.”

I nodded. “That seems reasonable, ma’am. What do you have in mind?”

I’d thought that with the ice broken, my visitor might have relaxed. I was wrong. “Please don’t ‘ma’am’ me.”

“No ma ... no. Shall I say: ‘hey, you, ‘ or am I to learn who you are?”

“My name is Margaret Tremayne. Mrs. I’m a widow.”

I wasn’t surprised. The poor guy had probably jumped from a high ledge. “Excellent, Mrs Tremayne. We progress. What’s the problem?”

“I wish you to find out what has happened to my squirrel.”

“Squirrel?”

She gave me the narrowest of smiles. “Very good. We’ve established that your hearing is sound. Yes, squirrel. I domesticated him.” That was entirely believable. “His name is Cyril.”

Was I really hearing this? “Er, yes, quite. I see. Squirrel’s a Cyr ... sorry, Cyril’s a squirrel?”

“Correct. You may plod, Mr Potts, but you get there.”

I tried to favour her with a grin as lean as the one she’d given me, but was no match for her. “Thank you, Mrs Tremayne. I’m flattered. Now, did you come to me because of my glowing reputation, or is it simply that your pet and I are namesakes?” For some reason not entirely clear to me, I thought that jab might have punctured her. Fat chance!

“The latter. It seemed appropriate.”

“Set a Cyril to catch a Cyril, eh? Fair enough. However, you raise two points here.”

“Which are?”

“First, I don’t do animal work. Well, I’ll qualify that. I once found a cat, but it wasn’t a real one.”

“You recovered an imaginary cat?”

“No, not imaginary. It was a statuette.”

“Ah, I see. But you were successful.”

“Eminently.”

“And the second point?”

“That’s more awkward. I don’t think I want to work for you, Mrs Tremayne.”

“Oh,” – a very frosty ‘oh’. “May I ask why not?”

“Because I think you’re an unpleasant, domineering old harridan.” I was still trying to yank her off that high horse.

Another smile, this time fractionally wider. “Dear me, Mr Potts, tautology – and I was beginning to form such a good impression of your English. If I’m a harridan, the ‘unpleasant, domineering old’ part is redundant, surely? A harridan is all that by implication, is she not?”

Damn, she was right. “Well said, Mrs. T. Maybe we can get on, despite all that’s passed between us.”

She positively beamed, which is to say that I got a further millimetre of her sense of humour. “I think you will do,” she said, “and I believe you’ll take the case.” My attitude was clearly insignificant.

I had to give it to her, she was intriguing. “Mrs Tremayne,” I said, “I don’t like you, but I think there’s a human being under that permafrost. Tell me all.”

She folded her arms. “Cyril is not the real problem here. I am attached to him, but he is a side-issue. The difficulty arises from my relationship with my stepdaughter. She is the only child of my husband, who died three months ago. Since then, Louise has been annoying me.”

Having recently dealt with a bogus stepdaughter, I began to hope of dealing with a real one. “Annoying you? How and why?”

“I’m sure it’s not an original story. My husband was wealthy and had been a widower for some time. When I married him, four years ago, I believe Louise concluded that her expectations evaporated. She detested me from the outset and sees me as a manipulator and an obstacle.”

“And you are neither?”

“True. Now, you have assessed me as unpleasant, and perhaps that is so, but I am neither devious nor obstructive.”

“I’ll accept that provisionally, but I’m puzzled. You say you been widowed for three months. I imagine the inheritance formalities have been settled?”

“They have, and Louise was handsomely provided for, but she is an avaricious person. She knows that before his death, my husband had disposed of many of his assets, in some cases by transferring them to me and in others by liquidating them and donating the proceeds to various charities. Now, considering that Louise has reached the age of forty-three without ever having done anything that might be considered work, paid or unpaid, I would say that her material gains have been more than adequate. Sadly, she appears to seek wealth for its own sake, without regard to what she might do with it. I’m afraid the phrase ‘enough is as good as a feast’ has no resonance with her.”

I nodded. Despite my initial reaction to this woman, I was beginning to think she was not quite the cantankerous crone her carapace suggested. Maybe she’d created the facade and was acting the part she thought was expected of her. “I understand,” I said. “You’ve covered why Louise has been annoying you. How is she doing it?”

“Within two weeks of my husband’s death, I got up one morning to find a message chalked on my patio. The wording was extremely offensive, including a wish for my early demise. That afternoon, Louise visited me. I left her alone for a few minutes and discovered later that two porcelain figurines were missing from a very valuable set of six. It was a limited edition. I believe the pieces are practically irreplaceable. Then there have been the telephone calls.”

“From Louise?”

“I can’t prove that. The ringing comes late at night and causes me, or perhaps I should say induces me, to answer. When I do, the only response is the comment, ‘I’ll get you, ‘ then muted laughter. I feel sure the voice is female, though it’s disguised by a certain gruffness, no doubt assumed for the purpose. Also, the calls come from public phones and are on my private line, which is known to only a handful of people, including Louise. I’m sure no-one else who has the number would wish me harm.”

“You seem confident about your social contacts.”

“Mr Potts, my husband and I lived a secluded life. We rarely gave or accepted invitations. I have few friends worthy of the name and not many casual acquaintances. Louise knows this. She is also aware of my interest in wildlife and that Cyril is – I begin to fear I may as well say was – dear to me. Frankly, I don’t pretend to have plumbed the depths of Louise’s mentality, but my feeling is that she is trying to destroy my mind, in the expectation that she will benefit, should her campaign succeed.”