Strangeways to Oldham Read online

  The first had smelled the same as the second, and she knew she recognised it, but could not put a name to it, off the top of her head. Her long experience of imbibing cocktails meant that she had an encyclopaedic knowledge of just about every cocktail that existed, and she knew she had come across this one before. Without even thinking about it, she placed one of the glasses in her capacious handbag, noticing, at the same time, that some liquid had recently been spilt on the carpet, in front of the cabinet.

  Without a trace of embarrassment, she got down on all fours, and leant her nose towards the still-damp stain. Another gargantuan sniff confirmed what she had suspected she would find. This, too, was a recognisable cocktail, but there was something else there in the background, which she had detected in the glasses too.

  Her thought were interrupted, however, as, at that moment, the door sprang open, and a whippet of a woman with an angry face confronted her. ‘Who are you? And what the devil are you doing in here?’ she barked, furiously.

  Still on all fours, her forearms flattened before her as she bent forward, her nose almost touching the carpet, she thought furiously. ‘I’m praying to Mecca, for the soul of the departed,’ Lady Amanda improvised, in double-quick time. ‘And, if it comes to that, who the devil are you?’

  ‘I think you’ll find that east is in the opposite direction, madam. I am Matron of this home, and you had no right to enter this room. The patients’ privacy is secondary only to their welfare,’ Matron yapped, looking at Mr Pagnell’s strange visitor.

  ‘In that case, why is poor old Reggie dead?’ she asked, piercing the woman with a gimlet eye.

  ‘He passed away not half an hour ago, and the doctor hasn’t arrived yet to issue the certificate, although what business it is of yours, I haven’t a clue. Who the devil are you, madam?’

  ‘I,’ began Lady Amanda, rising ponderously from the floor, and pulling herself up to her full height of five feet four, with the aid of the bed frame, ‘am Lady Amanda Golightly of GolightlyTowers.’ That usually did it. The woman would be quelled now.

  But she wasn’t. ‘I don’t care if you’re the Duchess of Cornwall. You can’t just come waltzing into the private room of one of my residents without a by-your-leave. Now, I insist that you vacate this room this instant. You had no right to be here in the first place.’

  ‘I didn’t realise this was a prison,’ Lady Amanda threw back at her. ‘I thought this was a home, and one can have visitors at one’s home, can’t one?’

  ‘Not without my say so,’ spat Matron, sure that she had made her point this time.

  As if to indicate the end of round one, a male voice called plaintively from a few doors down the corridor, ‘Nurse! Nurse! I haven’t had my tablets yet!’

  The timbre of the voice registered in Lady Amanda’s subconscious first, speeding through the twists and turns of

  Memory Lane

  at the speed of light, back on down it to her youth, and before she even realised what had just transferred itself to her conscious mind, yelled, ‘Chummy!’ and did an abrupt about-turn, to leave the room, and march purposefully towards the place whence the voice had sounded. Through the doorway of a room on the other side of the corridor, the owner of the voice looked her up and down, and enquired, ‘Manda?’ unbelievingly.

  ‘Chummy!’ she hooted again, approaching the figure in a wing chair beside the window. ‘Well, bless my soul, if it isn’t old triple-barrelled Hugo! What the blue blazes are you doing in a place like this?’

  ‘So it is you after all! I heard you bellowing at that old witch of a matron, and I thought, “good for you”. It certainly sounded like you, but I couldn’t believe it could possibly be you, not after all this time.’

  ‘But what are you doing here?’ asked Lady Amanda, hardly able to believe her eyes, that the elderly man she was looking at was the friend she hadn’t seen for decades.

  ‘It’s the arthritis that got me, Manda. I had to have someone in to look after me a few times a week, and then it got even worse, until I just couldn’t cope on my own any more, so I put myself in here. God’s waiting room, we all call it. And that matron! What a gorgon! The old besom calls me Mr Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump! I’ve tried explaining to her that it’s pronounced Chummley-Crighton, but she won’t listen to me – thinks I’m in my dotage, just because I have difficulty in moving around.’

  ‘Oh, how ghastly for you, you poor old thing! What an ignorant woman, and such bad manners to keep on doing it, after she’s been corrected. I have the same trouble with my Beauchamp – you must remember him from the old days. He insists that his name is Beecham, and won’t listen to a word I say on the subject. Well, I’m not standing for you being subject to that sort of thing! I’m getting you out of here. You simply can’t stay. And whatever’s happened to the house? Lovely old place!’

  ‘I’ve got it on the market. Can’t afford to stay here for long, at the prices they charge. I’m not made of savings, you know.’

  ‘Just precisely what is the fee, per month, Hugo?’ asked his visitor, with genuine interest.

  At this question, he gestured her towards him, so that he could whisper in her ear.

  ‘Combien, Hugo? How much?’ she shouted, scandalised at the figure he had named. ‘That does it, Chummy! You’re moving into The Towers today. I can’t think of you incarcerated in here for another day.’

  ‘But how are you going to get me out,’ asked Hugo, rather pathetically.

  ‘I’m going to see that dried-up old hag, and get her to prepare your paperwork for you to leave, then I’m going back to The Towers to fetch the Rolls, before driving back here and moving you out, bag and baggage.’

  ‘But how am I going to manage?’ queried Hugo. ‘You know, the nursing and helping side of it?’

  ‘You’ll have me and you’ll have Beauchamp. If you’re not paying out a fortune every month to stay in this urine-drenched prison, you can afford to have someone in, like you used to, for whenever it’s necessary. I know The Towers isn’t the most luxurious of homes, but it’s got to be better than this.’

  ‘A bed of nails in a pig sty would be better than this, Manda. Do you really think you could swing it with old Mato?’

  ‘Course I can. I’m still the gal I used to be, and I was a match for anyone in my youth.’

  Lady Amanda Golightly treated everyone in life equally, no matter what their station, and had not yet met her Waterloo. That woman – that Matron person – had three strikes, then she was out. Those were the rules. She had had her first one, when she had been so rude to Lady Amanda, on finding her in Reggie Pagnell’s room. Strike one! She had, even after repeated requests, refused to acknowledge the proper pronunciation of Hugo’s rather protracted surname. Strike two! This would be her last chance.

  With the light of battle in her eyes, that Hugo remembered of old, she marched out of his room, calling, ‘Matron! Matron! I need to speak to you. Now, you wretched woman!’

  For the next ten minutes, Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump was aware of raised voices, coming down the corridor to his room from the reception desk, and sat, quivering, wondering what was going on; what was being said about him, and where he’d be sleeping tonight. If it was to be here again, he knew he was probably in for a very rough time. Matron didn’t like her word being questioned, let alone completely trampled over, and he knew his Manda of old.

  When the disagreement, argument, fight – whatever it had been – had ended, Hugo heard brisk footsteps approaching his door from the corridor, and cowered down in his chair. Ooh-er, he was probably for it, now!

  Lady Amanda erupted into his room, her appearance as sudden as that of a pantomime demon that had just shot up through a trapdoor in the floor. ‘Did you know Reggie Pagnell was in here?’ she asked, quite inconsequentially in Hugo’s opinion, and when he answered in the affirmative, she nodded her head in approval, then told him, ‘Right, that’s all settled then.’

  ‘What’s all settled, Manda? I can’t keep up with you.’<
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  ‘You never could, Chummy, and I’m afraid you never will. That’s it! I’ve sprung you! You’re free to go! I’ve phoned Beauchamp on my mobile, and he says he’ll fix the old trailer on to the Rolls, and come down to fetch us. You’re coming to live with me, in BelchesterTowers, and I won’t hear a word to the contrary. Now, let’s get your stuff packed.’

  ‘Thank God!’ said Hugo, on a loud sighing exhalation of breath.

  ‘Thank me, if you please,’ replied Lady Amanda, already pulling a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe. ‘I shall also be telephoning round the local estate agents with reference to your house. I don’t see why you should have to sell it, when it can bring you a perfectly good income. We’ll get them to assess it for rent, and you can let it out – let it work for you, with a little something to make you more comfortable. Of course, if, when the property market rises again, you want to go for the lump sum, that’s completely your affair. But nobody but a fool sells at the moment, Hugo, dear. Prices are so low. And now you won’t have to line the pockets of the shysters who run this place any more.’

  ‘I simply don’t know how you do it. You’re like a whirlwind, still. I would’ve considered that, after all these years, you might have slowed down a bit, but you’ve still got all the get up and go you had when you were a gal.’

  ‘I have Hugo; it just takes me longer to recover from one of my tornados, now.’

  Chapter Two

  After settling Hugo into a suitable room on the ground floor, Lady Amanda and he took afternoon tea in the drawing room, as she explained Beauchamp’s current job description to him.

  ‘Bertie Wooster had Jeeves, Lord Peter Wimsey had Bunter; I have Beauchamp, who does his level best to live up to the impeccable record of his fictional counterparts. He’s a sort of old family retainer-of-all-work. He seems to be good at absolutely everything, except the appreciation and pronunciation of his own name. I believe you met him first when he was Daddy’s butler?’

  At that moment, Beauchamp appeared in the doorway, silently as usual, to enquire about supper. ‘What have you planned for us this evening? I know it’s short notice, to feed another mouth, but we’ll have to manage,’ she enquired. ‘You remember old Hugo, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, my lady. Good evening, Mr Hugo. Nice to see you at BelchesterTowers again, after all these years.’ He turned to Lady Amanda. ‘I had planned Dover sole, new potatoes, and a green salad,’ Beauchamp intoned. He did a lot of intoning, when they had guests, she’d noticed.

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ she replied. ‘Deal with the fish the best you can to feed three. Chuck it in some batter, chip the potatoes, and we can have it all fried, with some baked beans. My secret supply is in the camphor-wood coffer in my bedroom, Beauchamp.’

  ‘I know, my lady. Thank you, my lady. Will there be anything else with that?’

  ‘Yes. A pot of really strong Assam, a plate of white sliced bread, suitably buttered, and lashings of tomato ketchup, thank you, Beauchamp. And we’ll have a nice kipper for breakfast. Fried, mind – none of that grilled nonsense! You may go.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady.’ Beauchamp melted back through the doorway, and it closed without a sound.

  ‘He’s a bit unnerving, isn’t he, Manda?’ commented Hugo, having noticed the noiseless arrival and departure. ‘I’d forgotten all about that trick of his, moving around without a sound.’

  ‘Oh, Beauchamp’s all right. Started here as a boot boy, donkey’s years ago, and worked his way up, until he was the only one left. Serves him right! Haha! Good old stick, though, Beauchamp. Would trust him with my life,’ she finished, full of the man’s praises, even though the two of them often fell out.

  ‘Loyalty! That’s what it all comes down to in the end: loyalty, Hugo. And talking of loyalty, tell me about Reggie Pagnell. Did you see much of him in Stalag Birdlings – the place even has a sickening name!’

  ‘Not really, Manda. He was in quite a bad way. Marbles gone, you know. I tried popping into his room, when I realised he was in there too, but he didn’t have a clue who I was, so I stopped going. Too depressing, making me think that I was headed there too.’

  ‘Tommyrot, Chummy! You’ll still be compos mentis when we’re all gaga! Now, back to Reggie – did he have any visitors?’

  ‘Only the one, that I’m aware of. Came once a month, for the last three months. In fact, yesterday was his third visit. Sorry if I sound a bit like an old biddy peeking round the net curtains, but there’s bally little else to do in a place like that, but keep an ear and an eye out for what’s going on around one.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. If I’d been stuck in there, I’d probably have committed murder by now, and be locked up in Broadmoor, if it still exists. So who was this infrequent but regular visitor of his?’

  ‘One of the nurses said it was his nephew,’ replied Hugo, unsuspectingly.

  ‘His nephew?’ boomed Lady Amanda. ‘But he was an only child and he never married. How the hell can a nephew visit him, when he hasn’t – sorry, hadn’t – any brothers or sisters, or in-laws?’

  ‘I don’t know, Manda. I’m only repeating what I was told. Don’t shoot the messenger. It was your father who was in partnership with him, back in those antediluvian days. I was still a bit of a stripling, back then.’

  ‘Sorry, Hugo. I just don’t understand it. Any other information?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently, this ‘nephew’ always brought along a hip flask filled with Reggie’s favourite cocktail, and they shared it during his visit.’

  ‘Yes!’ Lady Amanda was back in booming mode.

  ‘Careful, Manda. You nearly made me spill my tea.’

  ‘Again, sorry, but you’ve just jogged my memory. So much has happened this afternoon that I just forgot all about it. Look here,’ she commanded, scuffling in her capacious handbag and pulling out a cocktail glass, a fine old linen handkerchief a barrier against her leaving any fingerprints on its surface.

  ‘I say, old girl! You haven’t taken to drinking during the day have you?’ enquired Hugo, aware of her love for cocktails when he had last known her.

  ‘Of course not. I actually went into Reggie’s room. That’s why I was at that ghastly place. Enid Tweedie told me he was in there, when I went to see her in hospital … But that’s a completely different story.

  ‘I went there with the specific goal of visiting him, just for old time’s sake, you know. But when I got there, that person on reception told me she’d have to ask Matron first. Well, you know me! I wasn’t going to wait to be given permission to visit an old family friend, so I checked his room number with the list pinned on the wall, and toddled down to see him, sans permit.’

  ‘But he was dead, Manda.’

  ‘I know that now!’ she exclaimed in exasperation. ‘But I didn’t know it then – just shot into his room before anyone saw me, and there he was, covered from top to toe in a white sheet. It gave me quite a turn, I can tell you.’

  ‘So the cocktail glass is from his room?’

  ‘Bingo, Chummy! There were two glasses on the bedside table, and they looked rather out of place in a joint like that, so I sniffed ʼem.’

  ‘Ah, the old Golightly nose! Can identify a cocktail at a hundred paces.’

  ‘That’s right! And I got it straight away. The cocktail was a ‘Strangeways to Oldham’: one measure of dark rum, one measure of gin, half a measure of Rose’s Lime Cordial, two measures of mandarin juice, one measure of passion fruit juice and two measures of lemonade,’ she informed him crisply.

  ‘But there had been something else in those glasses, too – something nasty. And some of the liquid had been spilled on the carpet, so I got down on all fours like a dog, and sniffed that too.’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t, Manda. You’re quite shameless, you know.’

  ‘And that’s how Matron caught me – on all fours, sniffing the carpet.’

  ‘Whatever did you tell her?’ asked Hugo, amused at the turn of this tale.

  ‘I told her I
was praying for Reggie’s immortal soul, nicked an empty glass, and swiftly made my retreat, because I’d heard your voice. Your room seemed as good a place as any to hide, and I didn’t fancy being chased by that old harridan, down the drive, with my proof in my handbag. If I’d hesitated, she might have asked why I had my nose to the carpet, and I’d have had to be very rude to her, and told her I was trying to trace the smell of wee that pervades the home.’

  ‘Proof of what?’ asked Hugo, referring back to something Amanda had said, almost in passing.

  ‘Why, proof that Reggie Pagnell was murdered, of course. Don’t be so dense, Hugo! She even asked me, when I was arranging your escape, if I’d noticed how many glasses there were on his bedside cabinet, so I told her, of course, that I’d only seen one. Let her look amongst her own staff for the phantom cocktail glass snaffler!’

  ‘That’s taking two and two and making five, isn’t it?’

  ‘Rot! Reggie’s gaga. He gets three visits from a nephew who can’t exist. The “nephew” always brings a cocktail for them to share. Reggie dies suddenly, after the third of these visits. I turn up, and smell something suspicious in the glasses. Ergo, he was murdered, but by whom, and why?’

  ‘But both the glasses had something nasty in them, you said.’

  ‘Hence the stain on the floor. He had to pour out two drinks, just like he’d done before, and then, when Reggie had drunk his, he must have poured the other back into this hip flask. Have you ever tried pouring anything into a hip flask without a small funnel? It’s impossible not to spill something. Hence the spill on the floor. Hence, murder. QED, Hugo.’

  Lady Amanda sat with her arms folded, eyeing her old friend with a mutinous glare. ‘Well, Hugo?’