Michael Dibdin - Dirty Tricks

As soon as I joined the Parsons, I sensed something odd about Dennis. There was a manic air to the way he ate his steak and kidney pie. He stabbed his chips like a killer and poured beer down his throat as though his guts were on fire. Christ, he’s sussed, I thought. Had I left some clue behind, a stray sock not his, an unfamiliar scent on the pillow? Or had Karen fessed up? She avoided my eye. Yes, that must be it. How much had she told him? Did he know that she’d revealed his habit of farting as he came, or that I had once worn his pyjamas while she blew me? The knife in Dennis’s paw was sharp and serrated, with a sturdy wooden handle. I calculated angles and distances and located the nearest exit.

My fears were groundless. Dennis wasn’t jealous, he was desperate. Time’s winged chariot was sitting on his rear bumper, flashing its headlights. Where was the fun? Where was the glitter? What had happened to his youth? His mood was an explosive mixture of maudlin self-pity and forced gaiety, the latter predominating as he got drunker. He was out to reveal a spunky, sparky, spontaneous self which had in fact never existed. No idea was too off-the-wall, no scheme too madcap. He was going to have fun if it killed him, to coin a phrase. It was a shame to waste such a lovely day sitting indoors, he announced. Nothing would do but we must go out on the river. Our attempts to talk him out of this merely provoked his scorn. What was the matter with us? Had we forgotten what it was like to be young? Did everything need to be planned months ahead? Couldn’t we just throw away our Filofaxes for one afternoon and live a little? There were plenty of people in the pub, and some of them must have overheard Dennis’s vicious mockery of our suggested alternatives, a walk on Shotover or Otmoor, for example. But the police made no attempt to contact any of them, for the obvious reason that such evidence would have been a severe embarrassment to their preconceived ideas. After all, what sort of conspiracy is it when the victim has to browbeat his supposed aggressors into taking part?

In the end we gave in. The only thing on our minds was getting it over with. Dennis had an early-evening business appointment at a client’s house. He wouldn’t be gone long, he assured us, but the look Karen and I exchanged confirmed that it would be long enough. First, however, we had to let the birthday boy have his fling. There had been heavy rain the previous week, and the river was high and running quite swiftly. As soon as we cast off from the boathouse Dennis started poling downstream like a maniac. We nipped along past college grounds, through glades of poplars, to the point where the river divides in two. Instead of turning back or taking the upper channel, a long cul-de-sac ending at a floodgate, Dennis beached the punt on the rollers forming a portage over the weir.

‘All hands to the ropes!’ he shouted merrily. ‘Look lively, ye lubbers!’

He started to haul the punt up the rollers.

‘What are you doing?’ I called.

He glowered at me.

‘Have you seen Fitzcarraldo ?’

‘What’s this, the TV remake?’

He single-handedly dragged the punt to the top of the portage, where it balanced precariously.

‘To the Thames!’

‘Oh Denny!’ Karen unwisely interjected.

Her husband swung round on her.

‘Don’t you “Oh Denny” me! We’re going to the Thames. At least, I am.’

The punt tipped over and started to clatter down the rollers the other side. Dennis ran down the concrete slope and leapt in as the craft relaunched itself with a loud splash, taking on quite a lot of water. He started poling furiously away. Karen and I looked at each other, half-amused, half-disturbed. We both knew he couldn’t swim.

‘How much has he had?’ I asked.

‘Lots. Champagne for breakfast, and he’s been at it ever since. He says today’s the first day of the rest of his life.’

‘It could be the last, the rate he’s going.’

Pausing only for a brief tongue-twister — she did that very well, Karen, where your tongues circle each other tantalizingly, barely touching — we gave chase along the footpath which runs through the meadows bordering the river. We hadn’t gone far before we spied the punt entangled in the branches of a willow which had collapsed into the stream. By the time we worked it loose and got aboard again, Dennis’s initial fit had passed, but he was still adamant that he wanted to get as far as the Thames.

‘We’ll just poke our nose out into the river and then turn back. I just want to be able to say I’ve done it, that’s all.’

I took over the poling. We drifted down past Magdalen Fellows’ Garden, borne along on the current with just the odd stroke to correct our course. I was saving my energies for the return journey. At Magdalen Bridge, Dennis went ashore for more champagne, which passed from hand to hand as we negotiated the lower reaches of the river. This stretch is attractive at first, with Christ Church Meadow on one side and a cricket pitch on the other, but as it approaches the larger river the Cherwell divides into two channels separated by a flat overgrown island, deserted except for a row of college boat-houses. The sun was low by now, obscured behind the wattle of leafless branches, and the air had a chilly edge. We took the left-hand cut, which runs into the Thames at an angle. The water was quite deep, and I was having difficulty finding the river-bed with the pole. I twice suggested that we turn back, but Dennis wouldn’t hear of it.

When we finally emerged from the mouth of the tributary it was evident that the Thames was in flood. The surface was grooved with the tumult of adversarial currents, the turbid water lapping high at the trunks of willows and alders on the banks. I thrust the pole into the water until my arms were submerged, but in vain. The only hope was to try and paddle to the bank, then work our way back into the safe waters of the Cherwell by pulling on the branches of the shrubs and trees that overhung the river. I accordingly shipped the pole and went forward to get the paddle. Then Dennis got up.

‘Why aren’t you poling?’

‘It’s too deep.’

‘Let me have a go.’

The current had already sucked us out into the centre of the river, and we were gathering speed downstream. I elbowed Karen unceremoniously aside and grabbed the paddle. Behind me, Dennis had erected the punt-pole and was now drunkenly trying to lower it into the water. As I turned, my shoulder struck the pole, pushing it sharply to one side and knocking him off-balance. Karen instinctively got up to try and help, which made the punt wobble even more wildly. Clasping the pole to his chest, Dennis teetered back and forth, then slowly fell over backwards into the water.

At least, that’s our story. If you believe the Thames Valley CID — not the account they gave at the inquest, when the events were still fresh in everyone’s minds, but the one they came up with in the months following my return to this country — then having lured Dennis on to the river and dosed him with draughts of spiked bubbly, Karen and I went ‘One, two, three’ and heaved him overboard. We then hit him over the head with the punt-pole and paddled off out of range of his piteously outstretched hands, cackling demonically as he went down for the third time.

I have made it a point of honour to spare you moral blackmail of the ‘Do you honestly suppose for a single moment that I would be capable of stooping to such beastliness?’ variety, and I shall not waver even at this supreme moment. Nor shall I again urge the objections cited above to the ‘murderous conspiracy’ theory. I simply wish to point out that if it is supposed that Karen Parsons and I embarked that afternoon with the intention of drowning her husband, why did we wait till we had reached a point where our criminal acts were overlooked by at least fifteen witnesses? We had already negotiated long stretches of the Cherwell where we were completely hidden from view. Why didn’t we do the foul deed there, rather than risk facing a rugby team of accusing fingers at the inquest? Which in turn brings us to the most remarkable fact of all, namely that so far from corroborating the police’s recent claims, the witnesses they located and interviewed at the time signally failed to mention any suspicious behaviour whatsoever. Five of them, consisting of a family and friends out for a walk along the towpath, described only a scene of ‘noisy confusion’ which they ascribed to high-spirited students horsing about. An elderly man bird-watching in Iffley Fields recognized that we were all drunk, and that when Dennis fell overboard Karen and I panicked with tragic results. Despite being equipped with an excellent pair of binoculars, however, he made no reference to any signs of murderous intent on our part.