Mr Campion's Farewell

Mike Ripley

Description

'England's funniest crime writer' The Times'Charming and full of surprises' BooklistStrange things happen in the picture-postcard English village of Lindsay Carfax. When a young man falls into a quarry, it takes nine days to find the body. When rowdy hippies descend on the village, they're given nine days to leave. When an outspoken schoolmaster is kidnapped for nine days, he stays eerily quiet after his release. Now Albert Campion has come to town - meaning to investigate all this strangeness. But whoever is behind the unusual goings-on quickly makes it very clear that his nosing around is not welcome. Undeterred by threats, Campion is determined to expose the criminal masterminds hiding in this sleepy village.

Sujets

• Suffolk

Informations

• Publié par: Canongate Books
• Date de parution: 07 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786895141
• Langue: English

Extrait

Mike Ripley is the author of the award-winning 'Angel' series of comedy thrillers which have twice won the CWA Last Laugh Award. Described as 'England's funniest crime writer' ( The Times ), he is also a respected critic of crime fiction, writing for the Guardian , Daily Telegraph and The Times . He writes a hugely respected monthly review column for Shots Magazine. Ripley first learned of the final unfinished Campion novel when he was a guest speaker at the Margery Allingham Society’s annual convention. He offered – and received the Margery Allingham Society’s blessing – to complete the manuscript on the adventures of Albert Campion, who Ripley describes as ‘one of the brightest stars in the rich firmament of British crime writing’.
Also by Mike Ripley
The Fitzroy Maclean Angel series
Angel Underground Angel on the Inside Angel in the House Angel's Share Angels Unaware

First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2019 by Black Thorn, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2019 by Black Thorn
First published in 2014 by Severn House Publishers Ltd, Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
blackthornbooks.com
Copyright © Mike Ripley, 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidentsare either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 496 0 eISBN 978 1 78689 514 1
Author’s Note
Philip (‘Pip’) Youngman Carter married his childhood sweetheart Margery Allingham in 1927 and collaborated with her on her famous ‘Albert Campion’ novels which appeared to great acclaim during and beyond the ‘Golden Age’ of English crime fiction, where her contemporaries were Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. On Margery’s death in 1966, Youngman Carter completed her novel Cargo of Eagles (published 1968) and two further Campion books: Mr Campion’s Farthing and Mr Campion’s Falcon. He was at work on a third, which would have been the twenty-second Campion novel, when he died following an operation for lung cancer in November 1969.
Pip’s fragment of manuscript, which contained revisions and minor corrections but no plot outline, character synopsis or plan, was bequeathed to Margery Allingham’s sister Joyce. When Joyce Allingham died in 2001, the manuscript was left to officials of the Margery Allingham Society (MAS) and published in the Society’s journal The Bottle Street Gazette under the title ‘Mr Campion’s Swansong’ in 2008-9.
As a guest speaker at the Margery Allingham Society’s annual convention, I learned of Youngman Carter’s unfinished novel for the first time, despite being an avid Allingham fan for more than forty years and having lived within ten miles of Pip and Margery’s home in Tolleshunt d’Arcy in Essex for more than twenty. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
In 2012 Barry Pike, Chairman of the Margery Allingham Society, took up my rash offer to complete Pip’s manuscript as an affectionate conclusion to the adventures of Albert Campion, one of the brightest stars in the rich firmament of British crime writing. To this end, I suggested Mr Campion’s Farewell rather than ‘Swansong’ and have attempted to follow Pip Youngman Carter’s style and approach rather than try a pastiche of Margery Allingham at her sharpest and funniest, which would have been difficult if not impossible. Dedicated devotees of Pip’s solo writings will recognise the influence of his 1963 travel book On To Andorra and his rather obscure 1960 short story Humble’s Box , for which I have to acknowledge Barry Pike’s detective skill in unearthing a copy. I must also thank Julia Jones, Margery Allingham’s biographer, and novelist Andrew Taylor for their encouragement after reading early drafts.
I am immensely indebted to Roger Johnson, a Sherlockian scholar and Allingham devotee, not only for his astute editing skills but also for his map of ‘Lindsay Carfax’ which was Youngman Carter’s fictional creation, but reminded me instantly of the beautiful wool town of Lavenham in Suffolk. It was Lavenham’s history and architecture which were always in my mind as I wrote the book but nothing I (or Pip) wrote reflect the real people of Suffolk, or for that matter Cambridge, though the more astute reader will notice that St Ignatius College is inexplicably located on the site occupied today by Heffer’s Bookshop.
I have set the novel in September 1969, as that would have been when Youngman Carter was drafting those early chapters. For the insatiably curious, or the collector of trivia, the full moon that month was on the 29th, which just happened to be my 17th birthday.
Mike Ripley,
Eight Ash Green, Essex.
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Map
Chapter 1: Sequel to a Nine Days’ Wonder
Chapter 2: Who Knocks?
Chapter 3: The Nine Carders
Chapter 4: Nightcap
Chapter 5: Crime Scene
Chapter 6: Tourist Trade
Chapter 7: School Dinners
Chapter 8: A Call on an Inspector
Chapter 9: Rough Shoot
Chapter 10: Visiting Hours
Chapter 11: The Professor of Nines
Chapter 12: Digging Dirt
Chapter 13: The Student of Owling
Chapter 14: That Riviera Touch
Chapter 15: The Man Who Hardly Troubled the Bank at Monte Carlo
Chapter 16: As a Thieves in the Night
Chapter 17: Detectives No Longer Required
Chapter 18: Centre of the Web
Chapter 19: Humble Pie
Chapter 20: Mole Run
Chapter 21: Board Meeting
Chapter 22: Moonglow

One Sequel to a Nine Days’ Wonder
‘I find it shocking,’ said Clarissa Webster. ‘Shocking, and, if you must know, rather frightening.’
She pushed back the papers on her roll-top desk, put down an empty glass and lit a cigarette. The back room of the shop called appropriately The Medley, once the kitchen of a Tudor cottage, was part office, part store. Canvases, framed and unframed, lined one wall; cardboard cartons of artists’ materials, convex mirrors, bookends and tourist souvenirs were stacked in that curious disarray which suggests that it is part of a system understood only by its creator.
She was past fifty but still handsome and well aware of her sex, with an easy charm that beckoned and comforted. Her customers, particularly if they were male, found her as irresistible and as memorable as the setting which had attracted them into her net. Sweet, sly, pretty Mrs Webster, a natural saleswoman who could convince any buyer that he had acquired a bargain – a future family heirloom – rather than an overpriced painting of a scene better left to coloured postcards.
‘Shocking?’
The girl who had been engulfed in an armchair too low to the floor pulled herself out of it and straddled one of the squat square arms. Despite jeans and the painter’s smock worn for practical reasons, the results of which were smeared all over it, she merited more than a casual glance. Everything about her, from the short, almost cropped dark hair about a face which was just too rounded for classic beauty, to the tips of her small spatulate fingers suggested an expert in her choice of work whatever it might be.
‘Shocking?’ she repeated. ‘Frightening? Putting it a bit high, aren’t you? You might say it’s crackingly silly publicity hunting. I’d call it a load of old codswallop myself.’
Mrs Webster picked a thin paperback book from one of the heaps on her desk. The cover, a pale puce, swore violently with strident orange and green lettering. She held it at arm’s length.
‘ Get with the Psalms ,’ she read aloud, ‘by the Rev. Leslie Trump, vicar of Lindsay Carfax.’ She opened a page at random. ‘Get a load of this. “I was chuffed when they said let’s make the God-bothering shop.” That’s the kick-off of Psalm 122, in case you don’t know – according to Trump, the silly little ape.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought,’ said her companion, ‘that you were the religious type. You certainly never go to church. What makes you so hot and bothered?’
The proprietress of The Medley poured herself two fingers of gin, adding water from a lustre jug.
‘How long have you been here, Eliza Jane?’ she asked. ‘Just over a year since you first appeared, I think. You’re the wrong generation – miles too young. History doesn’t mean a thing to you unless it repeats itself and bobs up to fetch you one across the chops. I couldn’t care less about Trump – I don’t even know him well enough to dislike him. What I don’t want just now is trouble. We can all do without another Nine Days’ Wonder which is what he’s asking for. Have a drink.’
‘Gobbledy-gook,’ said Eliza Jane. ‘Who gives a damn about what Trump says or does? He could blow till he burst without anyone paying attention. What Nine Days’ Wonder?’
Mrs Webster moistened her lips from her glass and considered the slim figure perched on the chair through her convincing artificial eyelashes. She appeared to change the subject.
‘Ben Judd,’ she said after a pause. ‘I suppose you sleep with him from time to time – I would if I were your age – but are you thinking of shacking up with him? I mean do you intend to stay here for keeps?’
The girl was clearly not embarrassed by the question.
‘I might. Ben is rather too fierce for me just now. He’s a real painter and my stuff drives him up the wall. Why do you ask?’
‘Not out of bitchy curiosity.’ Mrs Webster was thoughtful as she sipped her gin. ‘I’m going to tell you something and you can believe it or not as you choose. It’s always been unlucky to stick your neck out if you live here. That may sound completely mad to you, but it’s true. People who do anything which might tend to destroy our image h