Chapter 1: THE MAN WHO WENT TO PRISON

Sir Crispen Fotherington-Smythe sighed as he looked up at the forbidding grey stone walls of Orangatanga Prison. He’d been visiting the former head of The Big Top regularly once a week since his incarceration there two years earlier, filling him in with the niff naff and trivia that had become the day-to-day routine since the organisation had closed its doors to lay low and concentrate on the legitimate dairy business that was still making money. He told him about the odd covert jobs Jim Friteuse (now James Cook) had been assigned to deal with. There were still the odd Bitey smugglers landing on the shores of New Zealand from Australia, but these had become less frequent since Martin Garré and his more intelligent wife had been deported to Australia to spend the rest of their natural lives shovelling sand into containers, in the blazing heat of the outback, for export to Saudi Arabia, where it would be used to make a concrete wall that would encircle the entire country in order to stop people from leaving.

With the absence of Martin Garré and his more intelligent wife, the Bitey smugglers had fallen on hard times and, as a result, had been forced to become more ingenious in their efforts to bring the contraband cheese into the country. The last shipment may have got through if it hadn’t been for James Cook’s quick thinking and his unerring powers of observation. James had been called in by customs officials at the port of Nikkinakkinori after they had detained a group of people suspected of cheese piracy. When he arrived he found a cell full of men disguised as popular characters from the unpopular TV show Shortarse Street, a short-lived programme devised by the controversial film maker Clancy Taylor and commissioned by Channel One about a community of psychotic dwarfs that was similar to the Australian TV show Home and Away, only less horrific. The smugglers would probably have got past the dimwitted customs officials had James not been vigilant enough to notice that the shortest member of the gang was at least six feet four inches tall – a small detail that was omitted from the Duty Officer’s report – which also failed to mention that the suspected pirates all had patches over one eye, were wearing tricorn hats bearing skull-and-crossbones motifs, and at least ten of them were found in possession of a one-legged parrot.

But Sir Crispen wasn’t here today to discuss the relative merits (or lack of them) of cheese pirates with his old boss, Everard Hinchcliffe. He was here on a far more urgent matter – namely the phone call he had received the previous day from his old friend DCI Barnaby Smith.

Everard Hinchcliffe looked healthy dressed in his smartly pressed orange jumpsuit. He quite liked the dress code the prison insisted on the inmates adhered to as he had always thought that the colour orange suited him. He extended a courteous hand to his old Gadget man and friend and asked him to be seated on chair opposite to him across the table. He usually enjoyed Sir Crispen’s visits, but this day he could see a look of concern on the old man’s face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Something’s come up – in England.”

“What?”

“I’ve had a call from Barnaby Smith – you remember him, from the old days.”

“I do – he was a good guy. So why’d he call you?”

“There’s been an, ah – incident – in a place called Newtown in Buckinghamshire. A man and his wife have disappeared along with their infant. The only thing left of them were their clothes and they had an unknown substance on them – the chemical constituency has baffled the police.”

“How so?”

“Well along with the unknown chemicals there was one constituent that has been identified.”

“Which was?”

“Cheese, Everard. But not just any cheese. It was Australian Bitey Cheese.”

“Interesting.”

“Barnaby’s asked for our help. He wants us to send our best man to assist him in their investigation.”

“You mean Jim Friteuse?”

“It’s Cook now, Jim Cook. He changed his name about a year back. The thing is he’s quite happy acting as our Head Cheese Sniffer. And Claire and him have made a nice home together. I don’t know whether he would want to go permanently back into the field – especially in England – and especially after the Cheesefinger business.”

“I’m sure you can talk him into it, old friend. But before we send him out there we need more information and the only person I know with an extensive knowledge of Bitey is Martin Garré, but he won’t talk to you or Jim. He does however have a thing for the ladies, especially as his more intelligent wife is in another prison soliciting.”

“Soliciting? You mean . . .”

“No, not that sort of soliciting. She’s acting as the prison lawyer, giving advice to anyone that will listen to her. She seems to be enjoying it – having people listen to her – because, God knows, her husband never used to.”

“Who do you suggest we send in to speak to Garré?”

“Claire, of course. The thing is – he’s a dangerous man. From what I’ve heard he’s been placed in the solitary confinement wing where only the most dangerous of cheese-criminals are held. Apparently, he killed one of the guards with a wedge of Gorgonzola that had been smuggled in by one of the trustee’s wives.”

“Do you think she’ll do it?”

“There’s only one way to find out and that’s to ask her.”

* * *

Claire Cook was only too willing to help. Both she and her husband were itching to get back into action. Even though they both had fulfilling jobs they were finding the everyday routine of life dull and boring.

Before she went on her mission, Sir Crispen briefed her on her cover story. “You’ll be going in there under the pretence of carrying out a census on prisoner’s conditions in solitary confinement and the standard of cheese they’re getting served at meal times. You must remember at all times that Martin Garré is a very dangerous man. He can be highly intelligent – not often – but he does have his moments. Just don’t let him get into your head. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear, Sir Crispen.”

* * *

The solitary confinement wing looked like a medieval dungeon. A corridor ran along the length of the wing opposite which was a row of glass cells.

“Garré’s in the last cell,” Claire was told by the prison warden. “Don’t talk to anyone on your way to his cell and don’t make eye contact with anyone.”

As she walked past the cell next to Martin Garré’s the prisoner inside shouted something at her and threw a lump of soft cheese into her face. She moved as fast as could past that cell until she reached Garré’s.

Martin Garré was stood motionless in his cell, looking out at Claire. The walls of his cell were plastered with pictures of farm animals. Since being incarcerated he had discovered that he had an affinity with livestock and he spent many an hour on the prison farm talking to them. Because of his propensity to converse with these animals and his unusual static behaviour when he was in his cell, he was given the nickname Dr Do Little by the guards and his fellow inmates

Claire found herself slightly unnerved by his static appearance. “Mr Garré,” she said, “my name is Claire and I’m here to carry out a census on . . .”

She didn’t finish her sentence as she was interrupted by Garré. “Now then, before you say any more tell me – what did Muggs say to you? Mozzarella Muggs in the next cell. He said something to you. What was it?”

“He said, I can smell your Caerphilly."

Garré sniffed the air. “I see,” he said. “I myself cannot. You use Dove skin cream, and sometimes you wear Poison, but not today. I can smell your husband’s Hi-Karate on you today.”

“You say you are taking a census, but did you know a census taker once tried to test me. I ate his stilton with some Jacob’s Crackers and a nice bottle of port.” Then he made a clacking sound with his false teeth – it was the sound that old men make when they’re trying to impress even older women. “You know what you look like to me? You look like a Kiwi. A well-scrubbed Kiwi with a little taste for tinned and packet goods. But you're not fooling me, are you, Claire Cook – or should I say Friteuse? And that accent you've tried so desperately to shed: pure Kiwi – you can never disguise the lack of vowels. What is your husband, dear? Is he still a Cheese Sniffer? Does he stink of Roquefort and Bleu D’Auvergne when he comes home at night? You know how slowly the smell goes away – even when you’ve double-bagged them and put them into a sealed plastic containers in the fridge. The smell never goes away and while you’re tucking into your gourmet jar-cheese you can only dream of getting out into the field – getting anywhere – getting all the way to the Frontiere Corporation.”

“You see a lot, Mr Garré. But do you think you could point that high-powered perception at this?” Claire passed the file that Barnaby Smith had faxed to Sir Crispen into the cell via a perspex drawer. “What about it? Why don't you – why don't you look at it and tell me what you see? Or maybe you need your more intelligent wife to help you.”

Martin Garré flicked through the pages of the file, before turning to Claire. “You need to speak to a man called Clifford Stine at Arnold Chemicals. Now I’ve done something for you – what are you going to do for me?”

“Warden!” Claire called. “Bring the animal.”

The warden approached Garré’s cell with a lamb on the end of a lead. “I was told that you liked to talk to farm animals and that you especially liked lambs.”

“Oh, I do,” said Garré, with a touch of excitement in his voice. “I love lambs. I love watching them gambol about in the fields and I love them with mint sauce.”

“Then this one’s for you.”

“It’s not noisy is it?” Garré asked. “I hate noisy animals.”

“This one’s as quiet as a mouse.”

Claire opened her briefcase and pulled out a large book and passed it through the perspex drawer. “I’ve also brought you some reading material.”

Garré picked up the large tome and looked at it in disgust. “What’s this? The Complete Works of Shakespeare? I hate Shakespeare! I don’t even understand it!”

“Maybe you could get your more intelligent wife to help you with it.”

Martin Garrè flicked through the pages of the book. “Wait a minute,” he said, “there’s something wrong with this book – it’s got loads of misprints in it.”

“They’re not misprints – it’s the New Zealand Edition.”

“Baa-aah,” bleated the lamb, as Claire was leaving the solitary confinement wing.

“Silence!” Garré bleated back.

 

 

The cover of The Possum Book of Prison Stories, from which book this chapter was taken.