‘A number of people have offended me.’
‘I see. Well, we should hear about them as well. There may well be some correlation here between the offenders and the offended.’
‘There may indeed, Mr Lambert. How prescient of you to see that! I imagine prescience develops with experience in detection, as in so many other aspects of life. I find increasingly that experience is a sadly undervalued quality, nowadays. But to the point, before you begin to see me as Polonius again. I should hate to be stabbed through the arras!’ He chuckled lengthily at his cleverness.
Bert Hook hastened to prevent apoplexy in his chief. ‘If you could just give us a list of the people concerned, we need not take up any more of your day, Mr Preston.’
Peter studied DS Hook for a moment before deciding to give this representative of honest English yeomanry his approval. ‘One has artistic differences with people, which it is one’s duty to voice. Unfortunately, an honest difference of opinion is all too often interpreted as hostility, nowadays. The philistines are at our gates, Sergeant Hook.’
‘Yes. But I can quite see why a person with a different opinion would take offence, if you called him a philistine. Could we now have some names, please?’
‘Yes. Well, I am on the Oldford Literary Festival Committee. I have experienced some hostility there, in response to my sincere but trenchantly expressed views.’
‘I expect there has been hostility, yes. Names, please.’
Hook had more success than Lambert in pinning down this exotic linguistic butterfly, perhaps because Preston considered it beneath him to waste his sweetness on the desert air around a mere detective sergeant. ‘The committee is chaired by a woman. I have, of course, no quarrel with that.’ Everything about him said otherwise.
‘So you have no quarrel with Mrs Dooks?’
It disconcerted him a little that they knew the woman’s name. Then he remembered that John Lambert’s wife was herself a member of the committee in question. Probably they knew all about the committee members; lists of information were something the pedestrian police mentality could cope with. Perhaps they had even come here equipped with some thoughts of their own. ‘Marjorie Dooks is an unimaginative woman who shouldn’t be in charge of anything creative. But she has a lot of experience of running committees. I suppose that might have influenced the very predictable people who put her in charge.’
Lambert said irritably, ‘Would you say she was an enemy of yours?’
‘No I wouldn’t, Chief Superintendent. We have our differences of opinion, but we respect each other for our different strengths, I’d say. Of course, if you want to know exactly what she thinks of me, you’d have to ask her.’
Lambert allowed himself a sour smile and Peter realized with a shaft of dismay that they might have already done that. With his first hint of nervousness, he said, ‘There are people on that committee who dislike me, I’m sure. The younger ones simply don’t understand that one can reject their standards without intending any personal affront.’
Lambert suspected that this man’s rejections would be very personal indeed. He said, ‘What about the people of your own generation? Sue Charles, for instance; wouldn’t she understand your arguments?’
Preston bristled with indignation. ‘Sue Charles is hardly my generation, Mr Lambert, She is thirteen years older than me!’
They saw not only his vanity but the emotion it aroused in him; emotion of whatever kind makes people vulnerable, and thus is always of interest to CID men. Lambert said easily, ‘But a kindred spirit, would you say?’
‘No, I would not! She is a writer, but in a field which by definition rules her out as a serious novelist. She writes what I believe is usually referred to as crime fiction.’
‘And you don’t think even a much published and well-reviewed writer of detective novels should be regarded as a proper artist?’
‘Not as a woman of letters, as we used to say in my youth. You may not be familiar with the expression. An old-fashioned term, but a useful one, in my view.’
‘And you informed Mrs Charles of your views?’
‘Indeed I did. I had little choice, if I was to retain my own integrity. Sue Charles is planning to import a well-known practitioner of detective fiction into our festival. I had to tell her that I felt this would lower the tone of the whole enterprise. You may in fact be aware of this, Chief Superintendent.’
‘Indeed I am. I have been asked to occupy the platform alongside David Knight and thus further lower the tone.’
Peter decided not to comment on this. He had a feeling that this was not a man to be added to his growing list of enemies. He said, ‘I expect Sue Charles has taken offence at my sincerely held views. Women tend to be thin-skinned about these things.’
‘On the contrary, it seems that Mrs Charles regards your rather extreme views with what I’d call an amused tolerance, Mr Preston. I gather you have not won the argument within the festival committee.’
‘The ignorant and the ill-informed have prevailed, as they tend to do all too often these days.’
In a rare lapse, John Lambert allowed his irritation to get the better of him. ‘I shall regard it as an honour to occupy the same platform as Sue Charles and David Knight. Who else have you offended on that committee?’
Peter tried not to show how shaken and isolated he was beginning to feel. He thought of his locked filing cabinet upstairs, but decided it was best not to use the secrets within it when talking to these men. ‘The younger members have no standards — and no sympathy with anyone who has. I expect they dislike me; I’m almost prepared to admit it’s mutual.’
‘Details, please.’
‘Well, there’s Ros Barker. She’s a painter, of sorts. I can’t say that I’m familiar with the girl’s work.’
‘Ms Barker is thirty. You will be able to see an exhibition of her work at the Barnard Art Gallery in Cheltenham next month, if you wish to enlarge your knowledge of her art. You don’t consider her a friend of yours?’
‘We have little in common. When I chose to question the invitation the committee was offering to a young northern versifier to parade his wares at our festival, she aligned herself with the unenlightened.’
‘Bob Crompton.’
‘I think that is the young man’s name, yes. His work would benefit from discipline, like that of so many of his contemporaries.’
‘You are familiar with Crompton’s work, then?’
Surely policemen were not in a position to challenge him about poetry, of all things? Peter said uneasily, ‘I have a passing acquaintance, that’s all.’
‘Which you consider is enough to allow you to veto his appearance in Oldford. I see. This no doubt means that you have made an enemy of young Sam Hilton, who, as a friend of Bob Crompton’s, has been instrumental in securing his appearance at the festival.’
It was a statement this time, not a question. Peter was disturbed by how much they seemed to know, how much homework they seemed to have done before coming to his house. ‘Sam Hilton has little in common with me. I considered it my duty to oppose the appearance of his more celebrated contemporary in Oldford. It was because Ms Barker sprang to his defence that I consider both of them my enemies.’ He watched DS Hook making a note in his round, surprisingly rapid hand. ‘May I ask what is the purpose of your visit here this morning?’
Lambert said with some relish, ‘You may indeed, Mr Preston.’
He nodded to Bert Hook, who delved into his briefcase. He produced a single sheet with a terse message in large black letters, within a transparent plastic sleeve, and passed it across the room to Preston. There was a moment of tense silence before Lambert said calmly, ‘That is a letter delivered by hand to Sue Charles. Identical messages have been delivered to Marjorie Dooks and to Ros Barker. Can you tell us anything about them?’