Patricia Cornwell in Drumfeld

I'm occasionally given cause to regret the repercussions of what I commit to the public domain. In alluding to Patricia Cornwell's demented vendetta against the late Walter Sickert, I gave Spencer the opportunity to peel the scab from a wound I'd considered healed. Passing his room this morning as he talked on the telephone, I overheard a snatch of his conversation: "Remember Hamilton thought Patricia Cornwell was coming to Drumfeld?" he crowed, his face locked in a rictus of malevolent glee. Overwhelmed by the memory, he then doubled over and emitted a series of guttural 'whoops': anyone unfamiliar with Spencer's response to a situation he considers humorous might have assumed that his room had been leased for the purpose of a seal cull. By the time I made my way back to my own room, he was helpless with laughter, pounding the floor with one palm in the manner of a wrestler imploring his opponent to yield.

The source of such intemperate mirth was a practical joke which the most backward ten year old might have considered unsophisticated and pointless. Collaborating with our cousin Pamela (who impersonated Ms Cornwell over a series of telephone conversations) he successfully duped me into anticipating a weekend visit from the author. There was nothing remarkable about this scenario. I'm frequently consulted by novelists and students of criminology. I was aware at the time that Ms Cornwell was researching her book about the Whitechapel Murders: my indifference to the topic is a matter of record, but I hope I'll never be so churlish as to deny someone an audience. Naturally, I set about making preparations to make Ms Cornwell feel welcome. Spencer, who has never been honoured with a civic reception, makes much of the "Drumfeld Welcomes Patricia Cornwell" banner I extended between lamp-posts on the immediate approach to the house. This was, in fact, no more than a common courtesy: I've received similar welcomes throughout the United States and it would have been remiss not to reciprocate. Similarly, commissioning the Drumfeld High School band and Mange Tout Catering for the occasion represented nothing more than an extension of traditional Highland hospitality. Have we become so mean-spirited and boorish that simple gestures of goodwill are attributed to opportunistic toadying ?

As the hour of Ms Cornwell's arrival drew closer, I confess to uncharacteristically frayed nerves. Spencer, who had unexpectedly returned for the week-end, vetoed my intention of clearing his bedroom (preserved like the tomb of a sulky teenage pharoah) for our guest. "Why can't she sleep in Hamilton's room?" he suggested. As my room also serves as an office, this was clearly unpractical: our mother, still alive at the time, suggested we convert the attic into a makeshift guest room and I wasted an hour negotiating a sofa bed up the Stanley ladder (with no assistance, I might add, from Spencer.) While I was distracted, Mange Tout's representative, Suzanne arrived with the buffet. The company brochure included a 'small family funeral and christening' option which I anticipated would be adequate to the occasion. As it turned out, this comprised of vast quantities of sliced pizza, chicken nuggets and pakora. By the time I finally emerged from the attic, overbrimming platters had been stacked on every conceivable surface. "But this is children's food!" I remonstrated. "And it's stale ! I can't give this to Patricia Cornwell!" The ensuing argument was exacerbated by the fact that we had to shout over the band rehearsing outside. Their inexplicable choice of music, a rendition of the theme from 'Starsky and Hutch' had already prompted complaints from several of our neighbours and, had it not been for Muriel's participation on second recorder, I'd probably have sent them home.

As Suzanne concluded the argument with a crudely predictable suggestion as to  exactly what I might do with my buffet, I followed her outside to be confronted by a dozen or so members of Spencer's clique, liberally daubed with tomato sauce, who had prostrated themselves around the garden in the attitude of murder victims. "It's a tribute," explained a smirking Spencer. At this moment, Drumfeld's notoriously hopeless community police officer, Paul Jackson, appeared, summoned by an anonymous complaint about the noise. I was beseeching him to take the bogus murderees into custody when I was interrupted by the voice with which I'd been negotiating details of the visit for the previous week: "Hamilton, what on earth is going on?" Turning, I was confronted by a woman in sunglasses sporting a mass of perm that resembled nothing so much as the nest of some vast, prehistoric bird. Discombobulated by a compound of embarrassment and alarm, I stepped backward, inadvertently stepping on one of the 'corpses' and lurching into the hedge. Struggling to retain my balance, I identified a shrill skirl of laughter rising above the general uproar: Pamela! The realisation of being tricked was instantaneous. "Well done, Pamela," I said coldly, attempting to deliver a round of sarcastic applause. Unfortunately, I still needed my hands to steady myself and the gesture caused me to fall over again. "It's just a joke, Hamilton," said Pamela, removing her grotesque wig and advancing to help me up. "No, it's not!" I replied, using my elbows and heels to manoeuvre myself out of range of her assistance. "It's an act of attrition!" As the band embarked on a final rendition of the 'Starsky and Hutch' theme, I finally regained my feet, fixed all present with a withering glance, raised my chin and returned to the house. For the rest of the day, I busied myself with my files, playing Mahler's sixth symphony at a sufficient volume to drown out the sound of my tormentors working their way through the buffet downstairs.

* Practical jokes, requiring, by necessity, a victim, have always been the realm of the sadist. The offence is compounded by the expectation that the victim accept his humiliation in good part. While I've learned to expect no better of Spencer, I was bitterly disappointed by our cousin's enthusiastic co-operation. In our younger years Pamela was an enthusiastic investigator. A more natural and courageous detective than Billy, who feared and resented her, she played an integral role in several of my most challenging early investigations. Without Pamela's cool head, I might never have emerged unscathed from the Thompson farmhouse. She was also on hand to rescue me from the incoming tide after the sham Christians of the Summer Crusaders buried me up to my neck on Kiloran Bay. Nearer to home, her intervention was critical on various occasions when I was threatened by louts and delinquents hell-bent on countering the powers of intuition and logic with violence. Anyone eager to pummel Hamilton during the months of summer or Christmas, invariably had Pamela to contend with. At any other time, I'm afraid, Billy Ure was the only deterrent and his instinctive response to encroaching menace was to chew his lips into a jelly or crawl under the nearest hedge.

In 1984, however, Pamela's dedication to investigations diminished as she became enthralled by the malign influence of Valerie Cuthbert. That summer, Pamela arrived in Drumfeld with her new friend en tow. Valerie immediately made herself objectionable, making provocative observations and turning my shed into a smoking haven. When I reported this latter offence to my parents, she and Pamela responded by refusing to speak to me and, incredibly, smoking openly. As both were under sixteen, this behaviour wasn't only offensively precocious, but against the law. With hindsight, the official complaint I lodged at the Drumfeld Police Station (still in operation in these days) might have been an over-reaction. Certainly, the ticking off the girls received from P.C. Quigley did little to improve relations between us. For the remainder of the holiday I was left to conduct investigations with only Billy to assist me, while Pamela and Valerie consorted with Spencer and Pamela's brother Richard. To add insult to injury, the four connived in sending me on a wild goose chase with a series of cryptic messages and archaic diagrams chalked on walls around Drumfeld. After weeks of false clues that led me into nettle patches and fields inhabited by vicious geese, the mystery was resolved by the discovery of a parchment on which was written 'Hamilton Coe is a speccy, fat snitch' hidden inside a hollow tree.

Is it possible to overstate the importance of the quality of forgiveness? A soft heart can be wounded, but it recovers. When we harden our hearts against others, however, we abandon ourselves to a darkness from which there's no prospect of dawn. However gross an insult or profound a betrayal, we must endeavour to forgive it. Likewise when our best efforts are ignored or rejected, it remains incumbent upon us to force a smile and persevere.

 

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