The Throwback

Chapter twenty

But there were forces already at work to nullify the hope expressed in Mr Bullstrode's prayer. Mr Wyman was quite prepared to listen to reason next morning when the solicitor returned to Hexham with his warning but Her Majesty's Collector of Taxes for the Middle Marches was no longer in control of the situation. In London a far more formidable figure in the person of Mr Mirkin, Senior Collector Supertax Division (sub-department, Evasion of) at the Inland Revenue offices had been alerted to the possibility that Mr and Mrs Flawse, previously of Number 12 Sandicott Crescent and now of no known address, had withdrawn £659,000 in used one-pound notes with the intention of not paying Capital Gains Tax. This had been brought to his notice by the bank manager of the East Pursley branch of Jessica's bank who happened to be a close friend of Mr Mirkin and who had been piqued by her refusal to accept his advice. He had been more than piqued by Lockhart's attitude. In his opinion something very fishy was going on. In the opinion of Mr Mirkin it was more than fishy; it stank.

'Tax evasion,' he said, 'is a crime against society of the very gravest sort. The man who fails to contribute to the economic good deserves the most severe punishment.' Which, since Mr Mirkin's income derived entirely from the contributions of socially productive persons, was an opinion both understandable and self-serving. The very magnitude of the sum involved merely increased his sense of outrage. 'I shall pursue this matter to the ends of the earth if need be.'

But such lengths were not needed. The late Mrs Flawse had written to the bank manager informing him of her change of address. That she had changed it yet again made no difference to Mr Mirkin. He consulted the tax register for Northumberland and confirmed that a Mr Flawse, who had in fact paid no tax for fifty years, nevertheless lived at Flawse Hall on Flawse Fell and where the mother was, her daughter was likely to be. Leaving all other duties aside Mr Mirkin travelled first class at the country's expense to Newcastle and then, to emphasize his status in the hierarchy of Tax Collectors, by hired car to Hexham. Within two days of Mr Bullstrode's visit and warning, Mr Wyman found himself trying to explain to a very superior superior how it was that a Mr Flawse who owned an estate of five thousand acres and seven tenant farms had failed to make his contribution to the national Exchequer by paying any income tax for fifty years.

'Well, the estate had always run at a loss,' he said.

Mr Mirkin's scepticism was positively surgical. 'You seriously expect me to believe that?' he asked. Mr Wyman answered that there was no proof to the contrary.

'We shall see about that,' said Mr Mirkin. 'I intend to make the most thorough investigation of the Flawse accounts. Personally.'

Mr Wyman hesitated. He was caught between the devil of his past and the deep blue sea of the Senior Collector Supertax Division (sub-department, Evasion of). On the whole he decided that it might be as well for his future if Mr Mirkin learnt from personal experience how difficult it was to extract taxes from the Flawse family. He therefore said nothing and Mr Mirkin drove off unwarned.

He arrived at Wark and was directed via Black Pockrington to Flawse Hall. There he met his first obstacle in the shape of the locked gate on the bridge over The Cut. Using the intercom which Lockhart had installed he spoke to Mr Dodd. Mr Dodd was polite and said he would see if his master was at home.

'There's a man from the Inland Revenue down at the bridge,' he told Lockhart who was sitting in the study. 'He says he is the Senior Collector of Taxes, You'll not be wanting to speak to him.'

But Lockhart did speak. He went to the intercom and asked Mr Mirkin by what right he was trespassing on private property.

'By my right as Senior Collector of Taxes,' said Mr Mirkin, 'and the question of private property does not arise. I am entitled to visit you to inquire into your financial affairs and…'

As he spoke Mr Dodd left the house by way of the kitchen garden and crossed the fell to the dam. Mr Mirkin, by this time too irate to observe the landscape, continued his argument with Lockhart.

'Will you or will you not come down and unlock this gate?' he demanded. 'If you don't I shall apply for a warrant. What is your answer?'

'I shall be down in just a moment,' said Lockhart, 'I have an idea it's going to rain and I'll need an umbrella.' Mr Mirkin looked up into a cloudless sky. 'What the hell do you mean you'll need an umbrella?' he shouted into the intercom. 'There's not a sign of rain.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Lockhart, 'we get very sudden changes of weather in these parts. I have known it to pour down without warning.'

At that moment Mr Dodd undid the main sluice gates at the base of the dam and a white wall of water issued from the great pipes. Ten feet high it hurtled down The Cut just as Mr Mirkin was about to protest that he had never heard such nonsense in his life.

'Downpour indeed…' he began and stopped. A horrid surging noise sounded round the corner of the hillside. It was part hiss and part thunder. Mr Mirkin stood and looked aghast. The next moment he was running hell for leather past his car and up the metalled track towards Black Pockrington. He was too late. The wall of water was less than ten feet deep now but of sufficient depth to sweep the car and the Senior Collector of Taxes (Supertax Division, etc.) off their tyres and feet and carry them a quarter of a mile down the valley and into the tunnel. To be precise, the water carried Mr Mirkin into the tunnel while the car lodged itself across the entrance. Only then did Mr Dodd close the sluice gates and, taking the precaution of adding three inches to the rainwater gauge on the wall beside the dam, he made his way back to the Hall.

'I doubt he'll be coming back the same way,' he told Lockhart who had observed the Collector's submergence with relish.

'I wouldn't be too sure,' said Lockhart while Jessica, out of the kindness of her heart, hoped the poor man could swim.

There was no kindness in Mr Mirkin's heart by the time he had issued from the tunnel a mile farther on and having been bounced, bashed, trundled and sucked through several large pipes and two deep tanks, finally came to rest in the comparative calm of the subsidiary reservoir beyond Tombstone Law. Half drowned and badly grazed and with murder in his heart, not to mention water everywhere, he clambered up the granite bank and staggered towards a farmhouse. The rest of the way to Hexham he travelled by ambulance and was lodged in the hospital there suffering from shock, multiple abrasions and dementia taxitis. When he could speak again, he sent for Mr Wyman.

'I demand that a warrant be issued,' he told him.

'But we can't apply for a warrant unless we've sufficient evidence of tax evasion to convince a magistrate,' said Mr Wyman, 'and quite frankly…'

'Who's talking about tax evasion, you fool?' squawked Mr Mirkin. 'I'm talking about assault with intent to kill, attempted murder…'

'Just because it rained rather hard,'- said Mr Wyman, ' and you got caught…'

Mr Mirkin's reaction was so violent that he had to be sedated and Mr Wyman had to lie on a couch in Accident Emergencies holding his nose tightly above the bridge to stop it bleeding.

But Mr Mirkin was not the only person to suffer a sense of loss. The discovery of the late Mrs Flawse in a shell crater surrounded by gold sovereigns came as a shock to Jessica.

'Poor mummy,' she said when an officer from the Royal Artillery brought her the sad news, 'she never had much bump of direction and it's nice to know she didn't suffer. You did say death was instantaneous?'

'Absolutely,' said the officer, 'we bracketed her first and then all six guns fired a salvo and we were bang on target.'

'And you say she was surrounded by Sovereigns?' asked Jessica. 'That would have made her very proud. She always was a great admirer of the Royal Family and to know that they were with her in her hour of need is a wonderful comfort.'

She left the officer in a state of some perplexity and went about the more urgent business of nest-making. She was two weeks' pregnant. It was left to Lockhart to offer his apologies to the Major for the inconvenience caused by Mrs Flawse's failure to look where she was going.

'I feel very strongly about trespass myself,' he said as he saw the officer to the door, 'disturbs the game no end to have people hiking all over the countryside and with absolutely no right. If you ask me, and out of the hearing of my wife of course, the woman got what was coming to her. Damned fine shooting, what!' The Major handed over the jam jar containing Mrs Flawse and left hurriedly.

'Talk about sang-bloody-froid,' he muttered as he drove down the hill.

Behind him Mr Dodd was about to empty the jam jar into the cucumber frame when Lockhart stopped him.

'Grandfather loathed her,' he said, 'and besides, there'll have to be an official funeral.'

Mr Dodd said it seemed a waste of a good coffin but Mrs Flawse was laid to rest beside Mr Taglioni two days later. This time Lockhart's inscription on the headstone was only slightly equivocal and read:

'Beneath this stone lies Mrs Flawse Who foolishly went out of doors. She met her end by dint of shell, Let those that missed her wish her well.'

Jessica was particularly touched by the last line.

'Mummy was such a wonderful woman,' she told Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew who put in a somewhat unwilling appearance at the funeral, 'she would love to know she had been immortalized in poetry.'

Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode didn't share her certainty.

'I'd have preferred the relative pronoun to be a bit more personal than that,' said the doctor, looking at the wreaths and the jam jar contributed by Mr Dodd. It contained a vixen's brush. Mr Bullstrode was rather more concerned with the Army's role in the affair.

' "From the officers and mess…"' he read underneath a large wreath, 'from what I have heard they should have left the mess out. It would have been more tactful all things considered.' As they left the churchyard they noticed Lockhart deep in conversation with the Major.

'It does not augur well,' said the solicitor. 'You heard what happened to the Tax Collector?'

Dr Magrew had in fact treated the man. 'I doubt it will be a few days before he's up and about,' he said. 'I put both his legs in plaster.'

'I had no idea he had broken them,' said Mr Bullstrode. Dr Magrew smiled.

'He hadn't,' he said, 'but I thought it best to be on the safe side.'

'My feelings exactly,' said Mr Bullstrode, *I wouldn't want to pit myself against the bastard with him in so close communion with the Army.'

But Lockhart's interest in military matters was by and large pacific and concerned with preventing any further accident of the sort that had happened to Mrs Flawse.

'I'd be happy to have you put your notices up a bit closer to the house and on my ground,' he told the Major. 'It would keep people from interfering with my game.'

What his game was he kept to himself but the Major was touched by his generosity.

'I'll have to get permission from the Ministry,' he said, 'but isn't there anything else we can do to help?'

'Well, as a matter of fact there is,' said Lockhart.

Next day he drove to Newcastle with a trailer behind the car and when he returned both car and trailer were loaded to the brim with fresh electronic equipment. He made two subsequent trips and each time came back with more bits and pieces.

'Oh, Lockhart,' said Jessica, 'it's so nice to know you've got a hobby. There you are in your workshop and here am I making everything ready for baby. What was that huge machine that came up yesterday?'

'An electric generator,' said Lockhart, 'I've decided to electrify the house.'

But to watch him and Mr Dodd at work on Flawse Fell suggested that it was less the house than the surrounding countryside that Lockhart had decided to electrify. As each day passed they dug fresh holes and deposited loudspeakers in them and wired them together.

'It will be a minefield of the things,' said Mr Dodd as they ran a large cable back to the house.

'And that's another thing we'll need,' said Lockhart, 'dynamite.'

Two days later Mr Dodd paid a visit to the quarry at Tombstone Law while Lockhart, finally accepting the Major's offer of help, spent several hours on the artillery range with a tape recorder listening to the guns being fired.

'There's just one thing more I'd like,' he said when he had got what he wanted, 'some tapes of authentic rifle and machine-gun fire.'

Once again the Major was obliging and detailed off some men to fire rifles and machine-guns across the fell.

'I must say I think it's an ingenious idea,' said the Major as Lockhart packed his equipment into the car and prepared to leave. 'Sort of bird scarer, what?'

'You could put it like that,' said Lockhart and thanking him once again drove away. He returned to the Hall to find Mr Dodd waiting for him with the news that he had what was needed to make the scene realistic.

'We'll just have to be sure the sheep don't tread on them,' he said but Lockhart was of a different opinion.

'A dead sheep or two won't come amiss. They'll add a touch of death to the scene. A few bullocks would, too.'

All the while Mr Mirkin hobbled about Hexham on crutches and spent hours poring over the tax returns of old Mr Flawse in the determination to find proof of tax evasion and something that would justify the issue of a warrant. But it was a hopeless task. Old Mr Flawse had made a loss. On the other hand, one of his tax-loss enterprises had been a woollen mill and tweed-making factory and tweed-making was subject to Value Added Tax. Mr Mirkin's thoughts turned to VAT. It wasn't within his jurisdiction but came under that of Customs and Excise. VAT evasion and Customs and Excise? Mr Mirkin had found what he wanted. The Excise men needed no warrant to enter and search an Englishman's house, be it castle or cot, at any time of the day or night and their powers, unlike his own, were not subject to the limitations of magistrates, courts of law or any of the legal institutions which preserved an Englishman's supposed liberties. The Excise men were a law unto themselves and as such entirely to Mr Mirkin's envy and purpose. He went to the offices of the head VAT man for the Middle Marches and enlisted his curiosity and help.

'The best time would be to go at night,' he said, 'and take them by surprise.'

The head VAT man had raised objections. 'The Excise are not too well liked in these parts,' he said. 'I would prefer to proceed in a more open and orthodox way.'

Mr Mirkin indicated his plastered legs.

'That's what happened to me when I acted in an orthodox and open manner,' he said. 'If you take my advice you'll act swiftly at night. There's no one out there to contradict your statement that you went by day.'

'Only Mr Flawse and his wife and everyone else in the neighbourhood,' said the VAT man obstinately. Mr Mirkin sniggered.

'You didn't hear what I said,' he told the VAT man. 'The house stands six miles from the nearest neighbour and there's only Mr and Mrs Flawse there. Now if you take six men…'

The VAT man succumbed to his persuasion and was impressed by Mr Mirkin's willingness to join the expedition in a wheelchair. His advice about avoiding the valley and approaching by way of the dam seemed sound too.

'I shall first notify them of the need to inspect their books," he said, 'and only if they refuse will I act according to the authority invested in me by the Government.'

And so several weeks passed and as many letters from Customs and Excise were sent and received no reply. Faced with this flagrant contempt for his office and the VAT regulations, the head VAT man decided to act. And during those weeks Lockhart and Mr Dodd continued with their preparations. They moved more equipment into the valley and on to the fells surrounding the Hall. They installed numbers of tape recorders and enormously powerful amplifiers in the whisky wall and waited for the next move.

It came with the arrival of Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew, the solicitor to inform Lockhart that he had learnt through Mr Wyman that the Excise men intended to raid the house that night, and Dr Magrew to confirm that Jessica was expecting a baby. Neither of them expected what happened that night, when after an excellent dinner they went to bed in their old rooms. Outside a full moon shone down on to the Hall, the fell, the Rigg, several hundred sheep, one hundred bullocks, the reservoir, the dam and Cut and half a dozen Excise men together with Mr Mirkin on crutches and Mr Wyman to help him.