always admire her for that.
We sat in my office, and drank whisky. Normally, I wouldn’t touch whisky with a barge-pole. I hate the stuff. But in dreadful moments it’s a help. It’s as bitter as death itself; it burns your throat and masks the other pain.
I drink a lot of whisky at funerals.
When I say I was drinking whisky, that sounds a bit too elegant. I was holding a full glass with both hands and both hands were shaking, and the whisky was slopping over them. And my lips felt huge and rubbery, and full of subtle little movements out of my control. It was just like when I heard my father had been killed. Only worse.
‘It’s a trick,’ said James for the hundredth time. ‘A vile trick.’ I felt like hitting him. Why couldn’t he think of something else to say?
‘Jeff,’ said Hermione, in a very small voice, ‘it could be a trick, you know. The Victorians were always pulling tricks. Think about Piltdown Man – what a hoax he was. Human skull, ape’s jaw.’
Some detached part of my mind insisted she’d got it the wrong way round. That Victorian gent had used an ape’s skull and a human jaw . . . but that little part of myself would never connect with my mouth, would never be heard out loud. It was just a little voice inside my head . . .
‘We need experts,’ said Hermione.
‘You mean, dial 999?’ I asked, with a burst of black savagery. ‘Get Crittenden round? He’d take one look and sniff, and send the Social Services round for us – to take us to the nearest bin. Crittenden only likes life-size skeletons, and he doesn’t do an awful lot about those.’
‘I think you underestimate Crittenden,’ she said quietly.
So why did I feel like murdering her?
‘Pygmies,’ said James to himself. ‘Young pygmies. Skeletons of young pygmies.’
‘Pygmies,’ I snarled, ‘are nearly five feet tall. I’ve seen them on the telly.’
‘Them head-hunters in Borneo. They shrink human heads . . .’
‘They take the skull out before they shrink them.’
‘Bits of all sorts of animals, put together . . . a rabbit’s thighbone looks like a little human thigh-bone . . .’
‘He’s right, you know, Jeff,’ said Hermione. ‘We could be having hysterics over nothing. We’ve got to get some experts.’
‘You want a taxidermist,’ said James. ‘They know bones. Or some doctor as can keep his mouth shut.’
Somehow, that made me think of Mossy Hughes. I somehow knew he would know a doctor who would keep his mouth shut. Maybe he would know a taxidermist who would keep his mouth shut, too.
I rang the Duke of Portland and they fetched Mossy straight away. I supposed that now they served pub grub, he must never go home at all.
‘What can I do for you, squire? A taxidermist who can keep his mouth shut? You wanna get stuffed, on the quiet?’
Somehow I could not rise to the occasion.
‘An’ a doctor who can keep his mouth shut? That’ll cost ya. What you done, got wounded burgling the Natural History Museum?’ But his voice was worried now. ‘You’re in real trouble, squire, ain’t ya? Can I help? I can come round straight away . . .’
I thought that, from him, was a very generous offer. And somehow, God knew how, I thought he would be a help. There was an air about Mossy of having done everything and having seen everything. Just the man for a committee discussing the Impossible, the Unbelievable.
‘You get them and bring them along, Mossy. We’ll be waiting.’
After that, there was nothing to do but look out of the window at the steadily falling rain. We had done all we could do. With loathing, the three of us had carried the boat into a separate side-shed I seldom used. And locked the big padlock on the door. I had rung the house at Hampstead, where Sam was, and sent him on a long round of the clock repairers of the East End, looking for a second-hand part for a very rare clock. And he could go straight home afterwards.
It was a sort of dull relief, just to sit and wait.
We went back to my office, when they’d finished looking. We gave them whisky, too. Only Mossy, stony-faced, drank his with any sign of pleasure.
The taxidermist raised a pale elderly face. ‘They’re not the bones of any animal I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen the lot, I think. They’re certainly not monkey-bones.’
I put a cheque into his trembling