Deadline (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  ‘Rather a painful mistake.’

  ‘Yes I’m really extremely sorry. I’m afraid I was rather over-emotional and I didn’t realize quite who you were.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bognor couldn’t think of anything satisfactory to say. Wimbledon looked embarrassed and contrite and he had apologized. The convention was to thank him for apologizing but Bognor’s mouth still ached too much for that. Besides he had hit him. At least that was what he was saying and Bognor wasn’t in the mood to let him off lightly.

  ‘Can I buy you a drink after work?’ he asked.

  Bognor wondered what Molly Mortimer saw in him. Youth and fitness, he supposed. He was callow but he still had his beauty.

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said, ‘but I’m still awash with the excesses of yesterday. Perhaps on Sunday at the Sevens?’

  ‘It would have to be afterwards I’m afraid. Or at least after we’re knocked out. Drinking before matches is frowned on. Ridiculous really when you think how much most of the players will have had the night before.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you were playing. I thought cricket was your game apart from boxing. Surely they don’t play rugger at Eton?’

  The young man smiled and Bognor got a clear and unpleasing idea of why Molly fancied him. The teeth were even and unblemished and the lines at the mouth and eyes crinkled attractively and then disappeared as if by magic, the moment his face went back into repose.

  ‘Not very well but we do play a bit now and I played for my college at Cambridge.’

  ‘Not for the University? I got the impression you played for the University at whatever you tried.’

  The plastically attractive face clouded for a moment. ‘My defence was described as suspect,’ he said, ‘also they weren’t keen on my pedigree. Silly, but there’s a strong rugby mafia and they don’t like interlopers.’

  Bognor allowed himself a complacent little smile. He knew enough about rugger to realize that Viscount Wimbledon hadn’t got any further with it because he was regarded as a coward. Odd for someone who boxed as well as he did but, he reflected, there is the world of difference between deploying pugilistic skill with an opponent of similar size but lesser ability, and having to knock over some muscular oaf of seventeen stone who is running straight towards you. Viscount Wimbledon was obviously a man who did not like getting his knees muddy.

  ‘Who are you playing for?’

  ‘The Terrapins, actually.’

  Odd thought Bognor how a particular sort of person managed to say ‘actually’ so often, particularly when showing off. The Terrapins were very smart, mostly former Oxbridge blues, though their playing reputation was less gilded than in former times.

  ‘Where are you playing?’

  ‘Fly half, actually.’

  That followed. Fly half was the flash position where you could indulge your fancy footwork. Bognor himself, who had not played since school, used to be a hooker. That meant being constantly anonymous, grinding along in the middle of a sweaty mass of heaving humanity and having your shins hacked. Men like him had scant regard for the elegant individuals who pranced about outside the scrum doing none of the work and getting all the glory.

  ‘Good luck then.’ He caught the cynical inflection in his voice and realized with a frisson of self-knowledge that he was jealous. He attempted to remedy it. ‘I really do hope you do well. Are London Welsh playing?’

  The Viscount nodded. ‘They’re favourites.’

  ‘They would be,’ said Bognor, ‘still it can pay to be underdogs … and by the way … about last night. No hard feelings.’ He put out a hand for shaking, privately appalled that he should lapse into such clichéd behaviour. Nonetheless he felt it was what Wimbledon wanted and indeed he responded with enthusiasm, pumping his hand up and down as if an enormous responsibility had been removed.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That’s awfully good of you. I really do appreciate it. I’ll buy you a pint on Sunday, win or lose.’

  ‘Win or lose,’ said Bognor.

  The rump of the column’s staff with no St John Derby, no Eric Gringe, no Milborn Port, and no Anthea Morrison produced a turgid performance. Bognor’s offerings, which could hardly be said to scintillate were the lightest and most entertaining in a dull day. Bertie Harris commented on the fact as he dismissed them, chiding the others while accepting some responsibility himself. It was tacitly acknowledged on all sides that to have produced a column at all under the amazingly distressing and difficult circumstances which prevailed, was a formidable achievement. The Sunday Sevens were awaited with some trepidation but meanwhile Saturday was a day of rest.

  Bognor went home by bus since the London underground system, still ‘working to rule’, was now going so slow that forward motion was barely discernible. His evening newspaper headlined the Prime Minister’s speech to the philatelists, describing it as ‘a back to the wall message of grim defiance’. Elsewhere the news was all of rising prices and lowering morale and monotonous predictions of gloom and doom. He read the report of the premier’s speech and noted that no reference was made to the joke about stamp duty nor to anything in any way connected with philately. Poor old philatelists, he thought and sighed with feeling. It was only two days since he had started as a reporter on the Pepys column and yet already he felt like a hardened professional.

  The bus was crawling almost as slowly as the underground trains. Faced with train strikes all London seemed to have taken to its cars and buses and Bognor was acutely conscious of the lack of morale which the press described. No one even had the enthusiasm left to complain. Instead the other passengers sat staring blankly into space or their papers, their breath hanging on the cold air like smoke. The prevailing pessimism affected him. There was, he told himself morosely, enough to be pessimistic about without a national fit of depression to make it worse. He didn’t suppose anybody else on the freezing double-decker had been hit on the mouth and banged the back of their head on a lamp-post, been witness to another knock-out, and involved, however vicariously, in two killings. The use of the word vicariously reminded him of the feeble pun of yesterday. The trouble was that this was no longer a vicarious experience. He was, willy nilly, involved, and he had a sneaking, scaring suspicion that the more he got involved the more likely it was that he would be the next corpse.

  When, an hour and a half later, he got home he was in a foul, frustrated mood which he was determined to expunge.

  ‘I’m late but I’m sober,’ he said to Monica, ‘and it doesn’t hurt quite as much and I’m not going to think about murders or newspapers until the morning.’

  Monica seemed to think this was a reasonable resolution. ‘I was afraid you were going to spend the evening making lists,’ she said. It was an apprehension founded on past history. Whenever an investigation reached the stage of incomprehensible complexity which his investigations inevitably reached, he found solace in pencil and paper. The simple writing down of names and facts and theories was soothing. It also ordered his jumbled mind, eliminating some of the red herrings and producing patterns where previously there had been only chaos. Best of all it gave him a sense, however spurious, of accomplishing something. It was, he knew, time for some conscientious list-making.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow I’ll make lists and you can help me. We’ll drive somewhere and find a pub and go for a walk and we’ll make lists. Tonight I want to make love not lists.’

  She smiled. She had taken trouble with her hair and her make-up and her clothes and she looked desirable. Not, he knew, in the same way as Molly Mortimer. Cosier, less dangerous, and that was what he needed.

  ‘I’m glad you’re feeling up to it,’ she said, ‘you must be better. But later. I’ve made a curry.’

  He had a bath and then the curry, which was spicy with cardamom and coriander, and only then did they go to bed. Their lovemaking was slow and methodical and quite without unorthodoxy of any kind. It relaxed him so that at 8 a.m. when the telephone rang he was almost ready for it. For o
nce it wasn’t Parkinson.

  ‘Sanders here, Mr Bognor.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake please call me Simon.’

  A pause, then: ‘I assume you’re still interested in the case?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have an impression people are beginning to be nervous. Your Minister’s been making trouble with the Commissioner.’

  ‘Should know better,’ said Bognor, feeling on top of the situation. ‘I’m still interested. Power nil. Interest considerable. You know the score. I’ll play ball with you, if …’

  ‘OK. I thought you might be interested to hear we’ve had the results of the post mortem on Anthea Morrison.’

  Bognor wasn’t in the least interested. It was perfectly clear that she had died as the result of falling from the westbound platform at Blackfriars station. No autopsy could say who pushed her. However he played ball. ‘That’s very kind of you. What did it say?’

  ‘She was pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘Pregnant.’

  Bognor scratched the back of his head and found the bump left by the lamp-post. It hurt. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but does that help us?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking you. It seems she was about three months gone. I’ve made some enquiries. Her mother knew nothing about a boy friend or lover and she was a devout Catholic.’

  ‘You’re suggesting she was murdered because she was pregnant?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything except that her pregnancy could be a murder motive.’

  ‘Or suicide?’

  ‘You said it,’ said Sanders.

  ‘Was that all?’ asked Bognor.

  ‘I should have thought it was enough. Do you know who was having an affair with her?’

  ‘No idea. Not St John Derby.’ That would be a neat solution. A lovers’ tiff at the office, a passionate stabbing, followed by a desolated suicide, bearing his child. However on the strength of what he knew and what had been suggested it seemed implausible.

  ‘Did you find anything interesting in St John’s papers?’ asked Bognor. ‘Letters, photographs?’

  The policeman laughed. ‘You do me an injustice,’ he said. ‘I would have told you. Unless your taste runs to tasteful photographs of young men artistically posed in the nude. Or a useful collection of books on bridge and a complete set of Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack. But nothing to incriminate anybody else.’

  ‘That’s funny. Could you have missed anything?’

  ‘It’s possible. Unlikely but possible.’

  ‘Would you mind if I went and had a peep for myself? I’m not doubting your thoroughness but it might help me to get a clearer picture of what the old boy was like. Besides I’d like to look at the Wisdens.’

  He could almost feel Sanders deliberating. Then he said, ‘I don’t see why not, but for Christ’s sake don’t let anyone catch you. And keep quiet about it. As I said I have a nasty feeling there’s a row brewing and I don’t want the Commissioner on my back. I’ll drop the keys round to you myself if you give me the address.’

  Bognor said he was driving out of town and wouldn’t be home till mid-afternoon. Sanders claimed an appointment in St John’s Wood just before lunch and promised to post the keys through Bognor’s letterbox on his way there. They could be handed back on Monday when Sanders wanted to return to the Globe for more questioning and a thorough examination of the back staircases.

  ‘How odd,’ said Bognor, when he put the phone down. ‘Now who would have made the girl pregnant? And why, in this day and age?’ He put an arm across the bed and patted Monica’s bottom. ‘You never get pregnant.’

  ‘Hope not,’ she said dozily.

  ‘Because you take your pills.’

  ‘’S’right.’

  ‘And so you’d only get pregnant if you were careless.’

  ‘Careless or Catholic. Why? Are you making lists?’

  Bognor lay back and looked at the ceiling which was beginning to peel. There was a cobweb in the corner he hadn’t noticed before and the first signs of a crack in the plaster. ‘Sort of,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ She was awake now, still creased with sleep and less appetizing without make-up. Her eyes seemed to have shrunk. He told her about Anthea Morrison.

  ‘So,’ he asked finally, ‘are we to believe that she allowed herself to become pregnant because her religion prevented her from using any contraceptive method?’ He stopped and pursed his lips. ‘If she were that devout she wouldn’t have had an affair in the first place.’

  ‘Doesn’t follow,’ said Monica. ‘Lots of Catholics have affairs.’

  ‘But they don’t have babies.’

  Another silence. ‘I’ll make some breakfast,’ said Simon, erupting from the bed in sudden enthusiasm. ‘Today will be a good day.’ A few minutes later he returned with a tray of coffee, Florida Orange and toast.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Monica, ‘she was trying to get the man to marry her and the only way she could think of was by threatening to have his baby.’

  ‘It might have had the reverse effect.’

  ‘Do you think the man was married?’

  Bognor mused over the toast, which was charred.

  ‘If it was someone on the column the only unmarried one is Viscount Wimbledon and he hasn’t had time to get her three months pregnant. That leaves old Derby who is unlikely, Gringe, Port and Bertie Harris. Bertie Harris is inconceivable. As for the other two … I suppose “Sir” Milborn might have been having a “bit on the side” as he would undoubtedly put it. I suspect Granny Gringe is mercilessly henpecked and would like a shoulder to cry on but I doubt whether he has the ability or the enthusiasm to find one.’

  He took away the breakfast and made more coffee. Then they dressed for a day in the country Monica in a camel coloured trouser suit and a headscarf, he in a Donegal tweed jacket and pale corduroy trousers. He wondered about a tie but in the end wore a heavy roll neck sweater with a string vest underneath. It would be cold and he wanted to do some walking.

  They were away soon after nine and Bognor drove down the new elevated Motorway which cut across Paddington, and then continued forty odd miles in the direction of Oxford before turning away from the main road and stopping to explore the area round Christmas Common. It was crisp but fine and they walked in silence for two hours, tramping across the spongey hillsides wet with the remains of the night’s frost. Considering it was within an hour of the city the air felt clean and Bognor breathed deeply, almost gargling with it as if by doing so he could wash out the fumes of Fleet Street. Occasionally they would meet genuine ramblers resolute figures with satchels and sticks and trousers tucked into knee-length stockings but for the most part they were alone. Eventually Bognor tired of this rural heartiness. His stomach told him that it was, if not lunch time, at least time for a drink before lunch, and taking one last wistful look across the plain to Oxford in the distance he slapped his stomach and said he’d like a pink gin. Or, if they could fine one, a decent pint. Monica did not demur.

  Quarter of an hour later they were sitting in the lounge bar of a seventeenth-century pub called the Dragon’s Tail which they had found on an empty lane, apparently equidistant between two villages. They were the only two in the bar except for the young barmaid and two earnest rambling ladies eating cheese and pickled onions in a far corner. Bognor bought two pints of bitter from the girl and sat down with Monica next to the log fire. She took a beer and handed him his clipboard.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, getting froth up his nose. ‘Now let’s solve the murder.’

  ‘Suspects’, he wrote at the top of the foolscap sheet. Then on the extreme left of the page he added one above the other but in no particular order: ‘“Sir” Milborn Port, the Hon. Bertie Harris, Ms Molly Mortimer, E. Gringe Esq., and Viscount Wimbledon.’ Then he had another swig of the beer which because it tasted woody and flat and was only just cold represented a good pint by his eclectic standards. ‘As you see,’ he said, ‘the smart thing at the Pepys Show is to
be a commoner. Titles are two a penny.’

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘the most interesting alibi for the first murder is Molly and Wimbledon’s. They claim they were together in bed. So they have only each other and neither is trustworthy in my opinion. However, Molly can’t have killed Anthea Morrison because she was with me. Therefore if the two murders are connected and Molly did the first then Wimbledon must have done the second.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said Monica.

  ‘No,’ said Simon, scratching behind his ear with the pencil, ‘nor do I. Now, listen. None of those people have real alibis for the Derby murder. Port could have come up quickly from Stoke Poges in his Jaguar, and all the others live within half an hour of the office. Even if their wives or lovers did notice they’d gone, they’re not going to say so, are they?’

  ‘No,’ said Monica, ‘but I don’t understand why whoever it was wasn’t spotted going into the Globe offices at that time of night. Derby was.’

  ‘Because Derby went in the front and ordered a taxi and made very sure everyone knew he was there. I think he knew someone was going to try to knock him off. If that dozy doorman had got a taxi more quickly he might have prevented it. Remember the Chesterton lines:

  They cry in their parliament ‘Who goes home?’

  And there comes no answer in arch or dome

  For none in the city of graves goes home.

  He knew, Monica. If only he’d told that Parson Woodforde character at the Harbingers’ Dinner who it was he was going to meet.’

  ‘Well he didn’t,’ said Monica flatly. ‘Nice beer.’

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘No, whoever did it didn’t want to be seen so he went in one of the back ways. That place is like a rabbit warren. If you know your way round you could wander in and out for days on end and no one would ever stop you. And at that time of night it’s easier because the editorial people are mostly at home. If you worked as a reporter or writer the chances are you wouldn’t be recognized even if you were seen.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ asked Monica who was already half way through her pint. Bognor wondered if her liking for beer had anything to do with the way her bottom was beginning to droop.