The Squire Quartet

‘Luyben Konstantinov is Bulgarian. When he returned to Bulgaria from Sudzhensk, Kchevov went with him. This year, Kchevov materialized in Bonn a month before the Bulgarian defectors were killed in London and Paris. Kchevov was one of the forward men acting for Konstantinov, who master-minded the killings from Sofia.’

Squire rested his elbows on the table and ran his fingers down the lines of his face.

‘Let’s have that again, more slowly. What’s all this about the Bulgarians? How do they come into it?’

For a moment, Parker-Smith allowed himself to display a little impatience.

‘You must surely remember the case of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian defector who worked for the BBC and Radio Free Europe. Killed by a poison pellet in the heart of London. Konstantinov master-minded that operation from Sofia. He runs Department Two – Counter-Espionage. Of course, it’s lousy with Russians. Bulgaria’s owned, lock, stock, and barrel, by the KGB. Which is how Georgi Kchevov got in on the act.’

He spoke with the air of one stating the obvious, looking searchingly to and fro at Rotheray and Squire.

‘So Georgi Kchevov is quite important,’ Rotheray said.

‘Not really, James,’ Parker-Smith said. ‘He was only middleman in a chain of command, probably didn’t know a lot of what went on. Certainly didn’t do any of the hits. His hands are clean by KGB standards. He’s probably here on holiday, more or less. Reward for being efficient. But possibly keeping an eye on Rugorsky to justify the trip. Speaks fluent Italian, of course.’

‘Okay. He flew here straight from Bonn?’

Parker-Smith shook his head. ‘He’s been living in Milan under an alias since May. He didn’t like Bonn – the good old Krauts leaned on him. He linked up with Rugorsky only yesterday, at Rome airport. We and the Americans had tabs on him. Chaps like Kchevov know that security’s slacker in Italy than north of the Alps, so they aren’t quite so watchful here. After all, country’s half-communist anyway.’

He caught a glance from Rotheray, fell silent, and sipped his beer.

‘Why was Kchevov invited to the conference?’ Rotheray asked.

‘He wasn’t. He just turned up. Nothing unusual in that.’ Squire thought for a while and then said, ‘Violin apart, Kchevov has about as much connection with the arts as Pavlov has with Pavlova. There must be hundreds of his type crawling round England and Western Europe, worse luck. So what about Rugorsky? He’s the one who really interests me.’

‘Vasili Rugorsky. Age fifty. Prematurely grey. He met you in London in 1970, according to the records,’ Parker-Smith said.

‘Correct. Unlike Kchevov, he is a man of genuine culture. I was told he has made liberal gestures in his time. In particular, he spent several years in hard labour in the Gulag, back in Joe Stalin’s day, for writing a poem which offended the authorities.’

Parker-Smith nodded. ‘Our records aren’t precise that far back. We think that Stalin commuted the sentence. If so, that’s unusual. Seen in Moscow late 1947, then no notice of whereabouts for some years. Back on katorga in 1950. But in 1956 he is working again as a biologist. That’s his qualification. Continues at Irkutsk Institute of Biological Sciences until ’70, when he moves to Leningrad.’

‘Poem forgiven. Conformity achieved?’

‘The poem itself is interesting,’ Rotheray said, leaning forward in his chair. ‘“Winter Celebration”. They sent us a copy of it in translation with the other details. It likens the Soviet community to a sort of medieval feast with a great hog’s head steaming on a platter as main attraction. Stalin evidently didn’t care for the comparison. For a British reader, it’s difficult to tell whether Rugorsky was being slyly satirical or clumsily attempting flattery.’

As Parker-Smith began reciting more facts, Squire broke in, saying, ‘Rugorsky looks a bit like a hog’s head himself, which suggests a new line in literary criticism. Rather a fleshy face, hectic colour, protruding nose. He spoke to me at lunch about the duties of those who can still distinguish between true and false. Made what I took to be veiled anti-Soviet remarks. Keen to establish contact. I had the same impression in London in 1970. Despite his history, he moves fairly freely in the West, even if he’s stuck with Kchevov as a watchdog this time. He flew here straight from Moscow via Rome, you say?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Parker-Smith said. ‘He had twenty-four hours on the loose in Rome between flights. We don’t know what he did. Brothels is the standard thing, of course.’

‘Home life?’

Parker-Smith condescended to peep at his sheet of paper. ‘Wife and two sons, now aged between twenty-five and thirty, both pukka Party members. Four-room flat in Leningrad suburb near university. He’s probably perfectly loyal to the system, if that’s what you’re thinking about. He knows the bosses and their psychology, they know him, everyone’s happy. They accept his style, he makes good propaganda for them abroad as a cultured broad-minded chappie quite ready to criticize shortcomings of government system, just like any Westerner. Or Yevtushenko.’

‘Or like some of our buggers, who go abroad and run down the British system in every way, before returning to cushy jobs and free education for the kiddies,’ Squire said. A thought struck him. ‘Rugorsky’s not likely to be a genuine dissatisfied customer, preparing to defect, as far as you know?’

Pursing his lips, Parker-Smith shook his head very slightly.

‘Look, if Rugorsky wants to defect – surprising how many Russians at the age of the male menopause do hop it – he’d be best advised to do so in Rome, not Ermalpa. Aeroflot doesn’t fly here, so he’s booked back to Rome via Alitalia next Monday morning – same flight as you, as it happens. He changes planes at Leonardo da Vinci, where he has a four-hour wait before catching the Aeroflot plane on to Moscow. In that breathing space, he could give Kchevov the shake if he wished, and head for the US Embassy.’

‘If he did make a break for it here in Ermalpa,’ Rotheray said, ‘he’d still be best advised to run for the American Consulate. We don’t want him here. Our stock with the Russians is low enough for them to break in here and grab him – aided by fixed local police, let me add. No, as Howard says, Rome’s his best bet.’ He rubbed his hands together and laughed.

Seriousness prevailed with Parker-Smith. ‘I’d guess he’s just a hanger-on of the system, Mr Squire. Plays both sides. Likes to make a few mildly anti-Soviet remarks, knowing they go down well with his hosts in the West, and makes him think he has integrity.’

‘Good. We know where we stand. Now, did you get me anything on Herman Fittich, Professor of Literature in the University of Bad Neustadt?’

‘Nothing exciting. Was conscripted at the age of fifteen into the Wehrmacht to defend Berlin in its last days. Mother raped and killed by Soviet Army of Glorious Liberation during that time. Quiet life since then. Holidays in Britain. Not a joiner, apparently. Good English, papers published in learned American journals. What were you hoping for?’

‘Just what you’ve given me. The detail about his mother is informative. I like Fittich. I think he’s just what I think he is, a serious and honourable man who does not much care for the present state of the world. Rugorsky is more of a mystery. But I expect you’re right; he’s probably harmless.’

Tucking the still-folded sheet of paper back in his pocket, Parker-Smith stubbed out the remains of his cigarette, drained his glass, and stood up. ‘If you learn anything of interest, do let us know. It all fits into a larger picture. If I can be of any further help, give me a ring.’

They shook hands and Parker-Smith faded politely away.

‘So much for business,’ Rotheray said, looking at his watch. ‘Now for something more social – more my line, I’m afraid. Anything else we can help you with while you’re here?’

‘No, thanks, James. It’s just a fairly ordinary quasi-academic congress, crawling with Lefties, as you’d expect. There’s an interesting American woman who arrived via West Germany, very cool and elegant but underneath very mixed-up, I suspect. Perhaps a real sympathy with the oppressed but it’s been channelled into Marxist lines and has withered under a stream of orthodox phraseology. She feels herself in some way trapped and cheated.’

‘What age?’

‘Oh, she’d be about – early forties. Well-preserved. Has a very cleansed, bare, even barren, appearance. Thinks that just to see a human brain lying in its shell is enough to banish thoughts of God and the human soul. I suspect a deep puritanism as regards sex and the flesh – a feeling she projects onto me. Americans nearly always reflexively suspect the English of puritanism. A strabismus in their history education. She hid it by talking nonchalantly about brothels.’

‘There are no good brothels in Ermalpa,’ said Rotheray. ‘So I’m told. All the attractive whores go to Palermo or Naples or Rome. They return here only when they’re old and desperately in need of a re-bore. Anyhow, how’s Teresa?’

‘Hasn’t your secret service been keeping you informed? We broke up last summer, during the heat wave. Haven’t quite managed to get things together again since.’

‘I am sorry, Tommy. You and Teresa were always such a jolly pair. Why, you knew each other when we were up at King’s and she was at Newnham. She’s got a slight squint, hasn’t she?’

‘No.’

‘My mistake. Sorry. To be honest, I did hear a whisper, but I hoped it was all over. Difficult creatures, women, I’ve always found. Is this Marxist American woman nice?’

‘Oh, she’s nothing to do with me.’

‘I thought you sounded interested. Well, let’s go and see about dinner. I hope that’ll cheer you up a bit.’

Rotheray led the way to what proved to be a pleasant meal, considering that it was a semi-formal British Consulate dinner.

5
She’s Only a Sex Symbol

Pippet Hall, Norfolk, June 1977

All the girls cared for was the beautiful weather. They were off early for what they called their ‘secret beach’, hurrying away on bicycles, with Nellie running effortlessly beside them. Teresa’s mother had gone back to her flat in Grantham for the weekend. It was Saturday morning. Teresa and Tom Squire faced one another alone across the breakfast table.

For the past three nights, he had slept in the chief guest room. Teresa was moody and inaccessible.

‘I’m going to drive into Norwich to see Uncle Willie,’ Squire said, as he folded his napkin. ‘Come with me and we’ll have lunch in Cutteslow’s.’

She looked down at her plate. ‘I’d prefer to stay here.’

‘I’ve some business to discuss with him, but I won’t be long.’

Teresa had no answer. She prodded a triangular piece of toast in the rack with one finger, rattling it against the silver sides of its pen. The slight mouselike noise conveyed a powerful sense of futility.

‘All over the world, poor buggers are being shut up in dungeons or hung up by their thumbs. We’ve got peace and plenty. Cheer up and come to Norwich with me.’

He studied the silver coffee service, concentrating in particular on the cream jug with its complex reflections of white cloth and blue room which were, in their turn, reflected in the swelling side of the sugar bowl, minutely, distortedly, but with gallant precision. The arrangement reminded him of a canvas by William Nicholson, which his father had once told him was his favourite painting in the Tate, except for the Cotmans.

He sighed. ‘I really am sorry about the lady-friend, Tess. Sorry the thought of her hurts you, I mean. It will be only temporary … as all things are … Don’t let it mess up our relationship.’

Her anger burned suddenly like a gorse fire, leaping up into her cheek and eyes. She grasped her knife, as if about to strike him with it. ‘“Don’t let it mess up our relationship!” What do I have to do with that? You’ve already messed it up. That’s your role in life. You can’t be relied on. You’re always chasing other women – you don’t want me at all.’

‘That is not so. Perhaps you want it to be so, but it is not. Our relationship is a long and enduring one, I hope.’

She lowered her head, hiding her eyes; the prelude to weeping. He saw with tenderness how the dark roots of her hair were showing through the fake gold.

‘Come with me to Norwich and be sensible. We’ll stroll round the Tombland antique shops.’

‘Another demand!’ she said without heat, looking up. ‘Don’t mess things up. Come to Norwich. Be sensible. I’m sick of being sensible and not messing things up, if you want to know. I’m staying here, as I told you – I have a business associate to see. Go to Norwich on your own. And give up that actress bitch. She’s half your age, it’s filthy! Give her up at once or I won’t be responsible for what happens.’

‘I’ve told you, we’re still filming. It will be over soon. Don’t try to make me angry.’

‘Get her the sack, find someone else for the part, damn her!’

He rose from the table, standing irresolutely with his hand on the back of his chair, aware of the sun outside the windows, chilled by her anger.

‘Tess!’

‘One of these days, you’ll find you’ve cried my name too late. How much more have I got to stand? John going off as he has – that was your fault – Daddy dying while you were screwing that bitch in Singapore—’

He laughed. ‘Since I was out of the country at the time, you can hardly blame me for your father’s death.’

‘How much more have I got to stand? That girl’s only a sex symbol. You’re always chasing symbols. I hope she gets cancer like me and dies before your very eyes, blast her!’

‘I’m going, Teresa.’

‘Go, then, go! She’s waiting for you in Norwich, is she, the slut?’

‘Excuse me.’

He left the room, moving slowly, hoping she would call him back, would recant, would throw her arms round him and say how sorry she was to hurt him, thus releasing him to do the same. Instead, he heard a plate smash. As he went towards the stairs to collect his wallet and keys from his bedroom, he turned the corner of the corridor and almost bumped into a young man in a denim suit hurrying through the hall.

The young man had long but not very long hair. He wore his sideboards long and cut sharp across the cheeks, so that they appeared to be executing a pincer movement against his nose. It was a harmless-looking nose, but the teeth were large and many, seeming to multiply as he smiled, as now he did, in a rather anxious way. ‘Oh, jeez, Mr Squire, you frightened me, lovely morning, isn’t it?’

‘Who are you and who let you in here?’

‘Oh, don’t you remember me? Vern? Vernon Jarvis, how are you?’

‘What are you doing in here?’

The young man fell back a step. He put a cautionary hand out.

‘We met at your party before you flew off to Singapore. I just bumped into that Miss Rowlinson outside, and she said to come in. I heard voices, so I thought—’

He was carrying a smart mock-leather executive’s attaché case, incongruous against his green denim-styled suit and fancy shoes with wedge heels. Despite the heat wave, he wore a fawn turtle-neck sweater under the suit, and a gold-plated ingot stamped with a zodiacal sign on a chain round his neck.

‘You’re the fellow with the brother who runs.’

‘Athlete, yes. Hoping to run in Moscow in the Olympic Games. We talked about that, remember?’

‘You claimed that sport had nothing to do with politics.’

‘You see, Mr Squire, I’m a great admirer of Teresa’s – of Mrs Squire’s wall trinketry. It’s real rinky-dink gear.’

‘Wall-trinketry, what’s that?’

Jarvis lowered the attaché case, hitherto held in a defensive position, and said with a touch of condescension, ‘The wall-trinketry. Those bugs and creepy-crawlies. Those bugs and creepy-crawlies she makes. I aim to invest in them. I’m a director of an exporting firm, and by my calculations—’

‘All right, all right. My wife’s in the breakfast room. I doubt if she’ll want to see you at this hour of the morning.’

Jarvis smirked. ‘Oh, she’ll want to see me all right.’

‘In future, ring the bell before you come barging in, understand?’

‘Yes, that’s quite clear.’ Jarvis smiled at him.

Driving away a few minutes later, Squire saw Jarvis and Teresa by the window of the morning room, deep in discussion. She was leaning against her desk, and did not even look up at the sound of the car. Poor dear, he thought. As if she hadn’t trouble enough without having that young oik to deal with.

The sudden death of her father, Ernest Davies, had shaken her. Ernest had been walking home from a friend’s house in Grantham one evening, when a car bore down on him as he crossed the road, and knocked him over. He had died in hospital a few days later. The car had been driven by his doctor, heavily under the influence of drink. Astrology had closed over Teresa’s head almost immediately.

He switched on the car radio.

He recognized the music at once. The Tom Robinson Band playing ‘Long Hot Summer’. He smiled.

Saturday morning traffic into town was heavy. It took him an hour to reach Norwich, but he was in no hurry.

The conversation had come back to him. Jarvis’s brother hoped to run for Britain in the four hundred metres of the Moscow Olympics. Squire, as a member of the board of anti-Moscow campaigners, tried to explain to Jarvis that the occasion would inevitably be used for propaganda purposes, like the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

‘No, no, Mr Squire, honest, you don’t see, neither my brother nor me are at all political. This is purely and simply a sporting event.’

‘Things aren’t so simple. It’s not what you are, Mr Jarvis, but what you lend yourself to.’

‘No, you’ve got it all wrong, Mr Squire. I know you like politics, but, see, I’m just a businessman, pure and simple, out to make an honest penny, and I hate politics. So does my brother.’

After a drive round, Squire found a parking place in Mancroft Street. Locking the Jag, he walked slowly through Tombland, enjoying the sunshine, stopping occasionally to glance in a shop window. At the bookshop, he walked in and gazed at the books, but saw nothing he wished to buy.

The offices of Challenor, Squire, and Challenor, of which William Squire was senior partner, were built of mellow Georgian red bricks, very similar to the bricks of Pippet Hall. The facade of the building was covered by a venerable virginia creeper, the leaves and suckers of which lapped at William Squire’s office window. William had officially retired the previous year, but still worked every morning, looking after old clients of many years’ standing, who refused to transfer their business to the brisk young partners who occupied the lower floors.

Uncle Willie’s office was at the top of the building. The floors below had been modernized, their small rooms broken down into an open-plan scheme which let in more air and custom, rather in the same way that the fields beyond Norwich – the title deeds to which reposed, in many cases, in the archives of Challenor, Squire, and Challenor – had been stripped of their hedges to let in more air and agricultural machinery. Squire made his way past empty desks and silent computer screens to the third floor.

Uncle Willie’s office was a small room on the side of the building, with a window from which the cathedral could almost be seen. Uncle Willie was pottering round smoking his pipe, with the rather sulky-looking Nicholas Dobson in attendance. Dobson was a nephew who had high hopes in the firm. He lived nearby. His expression suggested that he would rather be elsewhere on a hot summer Saturday morning, but he greeted Squire cheerfully enough.

Coughing, Uncle Willie rested his pipe in a marble ashtray and came round the desk to shake hands formally with his nephew.

‘You’re looking fit, Tom. Gallivanting round the world has been good for you. We’re heading for a drought, could be worse than last year, and that won’t please most of my clients.’ Willie bore a strong resemblance to his dead brother John, Tom Squire’s father. He too had a high-bridged nose and a pugnacious set to his jaw. The deep-set lines of the family face had visited him too. So had the clear skin. Although his hair was white, it remained thick.

Thomas thanked his uncle for seeing him on Saturday, although he knew that the old man, a widower for many years, often visited the office on Saturday mornings in order to keep the lethargy of old age staunchly at bay.

The years had hunched his shoulders. He regarded his nephew with a vaguely aggressive air, and then transferred his gaze to the open window.

‘How’s Teresa?’

‘She’s fine, Uncle. How are the cats?’

‘I’ve had Nickie spayed. She was turning into a regular kitten-factory. Madge, is she all right? Still staying with you? Terrible about Ernest. Madge makes a pretty widow, poor lady. How’s she taking it?’ As he spoke of Mrs Davies, he walked over to the window and looked out.

‘She seems cheerful enough. It’s Teresa who’s upset.’

‘In my experience,’ said Uncle Willie, still gazing out of the window, ‘widows are not too unhappy when they are left to pursue their own lives, though they may make a polite show of grief. It’s different for widowers.’

He turned and inspected his nephew, to see how the remark had registered.

‘Teresa’s having a series of nightmares. Always the same, though details differ. Sometimes it seems to be day, sometimes night. She is sitting or lying down when she sees a dark male figure outlined against the window. Someone is trying to break in. Sometimes she tries to scare him away, sometimes she runs from him, sometimes she wakes to the sound of smashing glass.’

‘Oh, she’s afraid of burglars while you’re away.’ He went over and picked his pipe up, as if the matter was disposed of.

‘There might be another explanation. She complains of back pain. She keeps talking about – well, cancer. She goes to Dr Bell. He gives her analgesics, and she’s gone to the Norfolk and Norwich for check-ups. All reports are negative to date.’

From the other side of the room, Dobson said, ‘They say cancer’s psychosomatic.’

‘Nicholas thinks everything’s psychosomatic, including taxes,’ Uncle Willie said. ‘Do you think she’s got cancer, Tom? Eh?’

‘No, I don’t … I’m anxious, of course, but the tests, as I say, are negative. People do get these ideas, and I wonder if the dream doesn’t indicate something of the force of Tess’s obsession.’

‘Well.’ Uncle Willie shuffled with some papers on his desk, as though he had lost interest in Teresa. ‘I hope that now you’re back home you’ll both settle down, you and Teresa. She’s a good girl but she needs a bit of looking after, don’t forget that.’

Squire considered saying more on the matter, caught Dobson’s eye, and decided against it. He turned to other things.

His London firm had been understanding, and had allowed him maximum freedom during the planning and filming of ‘Frankenstein Among the Arts’; now he had to notify them that he would be away longer than anticipated. He wanted his uncle to draft a proper letter, waiving his salary. There were also some long-standing matters which needed attention, such as a protracted argument with the local authorities over a right-of-way across Pippet land. Dobson brought out his file, and they talked for thirty minutes.

‘Business over,’ Willie said at last. ‘Nicholas, leave the file out and we’ll go and have a coffee.’

Downstairs, at the side door, he made a great business of seeing that the security bolt was functional. Dobson directed a pitying look over his bent back at Squire. Then they sauntered over to a coffee shop almost opposite St Ephraim’s Gate, Dobson walking smartly ahead.

‘They’re still talking about putting a motorway through to Bury and Chelmsford,’ Uncle Willie said, as they selected a table, looking with some dislike at the holiday-makers who surrounded them. ‘Then they’ll continue it up here. It’ll mean the end of East Anglia’s isolation, and the end of Norwich and Norfolk as they have been for centuries.’

‘Don’t worry, Uncle,’ Dobson said. ‘In the present state of the country’s finances, they’ve stopped building roads. Norwich will be safe for this century.’

‘I’m not so sure.’ He picked up the menu with contempt. ‘Once a planner has planned, and lodged his plans in Whitehall, the abstraction seems to acquire an existence of its own … Well, you offer some consolation for our bad trade figures, if they help to protect tradition.’

As the waitress came up, he smiled at her and said, ‘I suppose you’re still making coffee here in the traditional way – with instant coffee?’

She was young and pleasant-faced. She leaned forward, smiling, and supported her weight by resting one hand on the table. ‘I know you’re very fond of our coffee, Mr Squire, and it hasn’t gone up this week.’

‘In that case, we’ll treat ourselves to a cup each,’ he said, looking up at her in a sprightly way. When the girl had gone, he shook his head and said to his nephews, ‘When I was a young man, you were not supposed to address remarks to the waitress. It was bad form. Rigid class structure. I prefer the way things are today. I discovered at quite an advanced age that I enjoy flirting with waitresses. They don’t seem to mind, so why not?’ He blew his nose on a large white handkerchief. ‘The war changed things. Changed everything. Of course, no one knows exactly what waitresses think, doing the job they do.’

‘Come on, Uncle,’ Dobson said. ‘No one knows what solicitors think about.’

‘Increasingly, waitresses,’ said Uncle Willie, with a laugh. ‘This place used to be a Red Cross shop during the war. Did I ever tell you that? Then it became an antique shop. That didn’t last.’

‘I remember the antique shop,’ Squire said. ‘I bought about ten garage signs from the dealer, including a Redline Glyco and a Pratt’s High Test, enamel on tin. We used them in the Pop Expo.’

‘Your father used to chase waitresses,’ Uncle Willie said, ignoring Squire’s remark. ‘There’s always been a sort of naughty streak in the Squire family, I’m sorry to say. That is why we don’t get on with the branch of the family at King’s Lynn – the Decent Dobsons. Except you, Nick. Do you take after your father, Tom?’

John Matthew Squire, his father, had been a countryman, like most of the family in that generation, involved in the affairs of the village and the county. John Squire seldom moved beyond those self-imposed boundaries except when, following the steps of the ancestor whose name he bore, he joined the Royal Norfolk Regiment and went to fight for four years in the assorted muds of Europe, returning home to Hartisham with the rank of major, saying, ‘It was quite a good scrap while it lasted.’

Somewhere along the way, John Squire acquired several tastes which led to his downfall. He acquired a taste for art. To the dogs and horses which were his life, he added the Norwich School of painters. They were local men, they painted local things and were faithful to them, not prettifying too much. With his favourite mastiffs at his heels, John Squire became a notable figure as he toured the country, attending markets and, just as assiduously, dusty old shops and attics. Where he went, his son Tom also went. Together, while the dogs prowled round them, father and son acquired a commendable gallery of watercolours and oils by Old Crome, Stoddart, the incomparable Cotman, and others.

‘Tractors may drive out Shire horses,’ John said, ‘but Cotman is permanent.’

Pippet Hall estate, in financial difficulties after the Great War, became more neglected as the art excursions ranged further afield. John’s red-haired wife, Patricia, was left to supervise the farm and bring up her other two children, Adrian and Deirdre.

John and his son Tom stayed overnight in country inns as they went on what John called their ‘Grand Tours’. The Morris and the mastiffs would be housed in the stables – very few Norfolk inns expected motor cars in the thirties. Tom would often be tucked into a wooden bed in some attic room; his cheek was scoured by a stiff military moustache as his father kissed him good-night, before disappearing below to join whatever company the bar offered; he disappeared with particular promptness if there were women downstairs.

Sometimes the boy would wake in the summer mornings early and run to the window of the strange room, to gaze out at a panorama of rushes and broads, busy bird life, and little boats already launching into the early golden haze over the waters. He always remembered an inn on Hickling Broad, where there was a tame magpie, and he and his father swam naked in the broad before breakfast.

John Squire had a taste also for jazz and popular dance music. Gramophone records began to accumulate at Pippet Hall. Patricia liked that. The records were played on a wind-up gramophone with a huge horn. When Tom and his brother and sister were small, many visitors came to the Hall, attracted by the happy-go-lucky nature of their parents. The visitors sometimes danced to the music of the gramophone, which Tom was allowed to wind. He watched his father as he took his beautiful wife about the waist and whirled her round the entrance hall, where the floor was good for fox-trots.

There was another taste, and one which slowly mastered the master of Pippet Hall. John progressed from being a heavy social drinker to being a heavy drinker. It was that habit which brought about his death, one rainy day in March 1937, when the rest of the family was out of the house.

Tom returned home in the afternoon. The solemn ticking silence warned him that something was wrong. He flung his cap down and ran straight to his father’s study. His father lay in one corner of the study, against a smashed picture frame, the glass of which littered the carpet. It was established later that he must have fallen over the mastiffs while the worse for drink. Both dogs had attacked him. They lurked in the opposite corner of the room, chops still bloody. Their master’s throat had been ripped away, and the flesh of his face torn off.