Deadline (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  ‘Bad luck, Willy,’ shouted Bognor’s neighbour on the stick. ‘Bugger the bad luck,’ muttered Bognor under his breath. It had been clear cowardice. The man on the shooting stick was either pig ignorant or hopelessly biased. Bognor looked across at him as the final whistle blew and thought he detected a family resemblance. Of course. The Early of Surrey. Willy’s father. Bognor wondered if he counted as a celebrity and decided that he came within the meaning of the act. Pulling out his notebook he decided to attempt an interview.

  ‘Er … excuse me.’

  ‘Yes.’ Not unfriendly. Just surprised. Bognor was surprised he hadn’t seen the resemblance earlier. The father was the spitting image of the son, thirty years on, with precisely the same slightly effeminate good looks, only gone a little to seed.

  ‘I’m from the Samuel Pepys column. Simon Bognor. Could I have a word?’

  ‘Of course. Didn’t Willy have a good game?’

  ‘Very. Did you play yourself … sir.’ He didn’t see why he should call the Earl ‘sir’ but felt that Granny Gringe would have required it.

  ‘No. It’s quite a new departure at Eton.’

  They talked mundanely for a few minutes before Bognor thanked him and wandered off to find Molly and watch the second game, which had just begun. He had enough for a dull paragraph.

  ‘God I hate this,’ said Molly, stamping her feet. ‘I wish I was at home and in bed. By the way I’ve told them about you. I hope you don’t mind.’

  Bognor stamped with her. It was odd how cold it could be with the sun still shining. ‘How do you mean, told them?’

  ‘About the Winnipeg Eagle and the Board of Trade. It seemed so silly not to.’

  Bognor thought for a moment. ‘You knew already,’ he said, ‘because I told you. Willy knew because you explained to him after you say he hit me. Bertie Harris knew because his father told him. And I think someone else told Milborn. So the only person who hasn’t been formally told is Eric Gringe. And if he hadn’t guessed already he’s sillier than I thought.’

  ‘He’s sillier than you thought then,’ said Molly. ‘He was the only one who seemed at all surprised. I was quite put out.’

  The game in front of them was a more two-sided affair than the Terrapins versus the Cornish but much less speedy. They paid as little attention to it as possible.

  ‘Have you been to St John Derby’s flat?’ he asked her suddenly.

  She seemed unperturbed. ‘Not for years. He had us all to a party about five years ago and before that I hadn’t seen it since we had that mad passionate fling I was telling you about. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was wondering if you knew anything about the Wisdens?’

  She looked at him evenly. ‘Wisdens?’

  ‘Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Bound in bright yellow. He had a full set.’

  ‘What a funny question. I’m not very interested in cricket. It’s quite pretty looking but I don’t understand it. Still the weather’s usually better than this.’

  ‘But you don’t remember the books?’

  ‘Bound in yellow? … Now you mention it, yes, perhaps I do vaguely. Weren’t they up at the top of that mammoth case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well? What about them?’

  ‘Oh … nothing.’ Bognor suddenly felt despairing. ‘Have you got any stories?’ he asked. ‘I’ve had a chat with Wimbledon’s father, but nothing else.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t matter. Let’s go and have a quick drink.’

  There was another drink tent nearer than the large beer marquee, and from it they could see across the main pitch. This time they had brandy and stood in the entrance watching seven men from Cumberland laying into another seven from Hertfordshire. On the other side of the pitch Bognor noticed a small motorized caravan whose roof had been turned into an improvised grandstand or viewing platform. A balustrade surrounded it and half a dozen people with glasses and binoculars were standing on it putting on a brave show of taking an interest.

  ‘That’s the brass,’ said Molly. ‘Wharfedale and the editors and some of the board. Bertie will appear up there before long. He doesn’t really enjoy slumming with the rest of us.’

  Bognor peered. He could see Wharfedale standing at the front of the group, a bowlegged figure in a strange stetsonlike hat and a brown coat with velvet reveres. He seemed engrossed.

  ‘What are we going to write about?’ asked Bognor again.

  ‘Why not do the Plynlimmon Wanderers’ Goat?’ said Molly. ‘We haven’t done it for a couple of years and Wharfedale’s fond of it.’

  The Plynlimmon Wanderers’ Goat turned out to be the mascot of a team of Welsh slate miners. Bognor found it cropping grass quietly behind the pavilion. He spent some time walking round it and then chatted to the pretty girl who was supervising it. She turned out to be the captain’s fiancée so he included her in his story about the goat. Then he bumped into Freddie ffrench-Patrick who he’d known vaguely at school and who had gone on to captain England and the British Lions and achieved nationwide fame as the scorer of ffrench-Patrick’s try the winning score in a historic encounter with the New Zealand All Blacks. He had run seventy-five yards to make it and was later found to have been suffering from a dislocated shoulder. Bognor discovered that he was now a stockbroker. He wrote it all down in his notebook and began to regain confidence and optimism. Three stories done. His watch said half past twelve. One more before lunch and he would be a popular diarist.

  At one corner of the main pitch there was a large notice board on an easel which gave up-to-the-minute details of the competition’s progress. In the early rounds the teams were divided into a series of leagues designed to eliminate all but eight. From that moment on the tournament became a straightforward knock-out with quarter-finals, semi-finals, a play-off between the losing semi-finalists to determine the third place and finally, just as it was beginning to get dark, the grand final itself for the Globe Trophy, an immense challenge cup in the shape of a rugger ball. Solid South African gold.

  He paused by the board and saw that the Terrapins had completed their morning’s programme with an unbeaten record. No doubt Willy Wimbledon had been impressing all and sundry.

  ‘Got plenty of useful copy I hope?’ It was Granny Gringe. He was hatless and wore a beige raincoat and galoshes. It was painfully obvious that he was not enjoying himself.

  ‘I think three,’ said Bognor and told him.

  ‘I’m glad about the goat,’ he said. ‘Lord Wharfedale’s very attached to that goat. Dai isn’t it?’

  ‘No. Dai died two years ago. This is his son Taffy.’

  ‘Ah.’ Eric Gringe seemed abstracted. He took out a notebook and wrote down Bognor’s three ideas. ‘It sounds as if Willy’s doing well.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bognor knew he sounded grudging. ‘I’m surprised. He doesn’t look rugged enough to excel at this.’

  Gringe smiled tightly. ‘I think you’ll find Master Wimbledon will do very well at anything if he thinks it will forward his career. He’s an exceedingly ruthless and ambitious young man. Very dangerous under certain circumstances.’ There was a wavering note of underlying hysteria in his voice which Bognor found disconcerting. ‘By the way,’ he went on. ‘I must talk to you. Later. Molly tells me that … well … that you’re not really an ordinary journalist.’

  ‘I thought you’d have guessed.’

  ‘I prefer to know as little as possible about what goes on around me,’ he said, hunching his shoulders. ‘The more I learn the less I like it. We’re all rogues and charlatans it seems.’

  ‘You look as if you need a holiday,’ said Bognor, not unkindly.

  ‘I take very little holiday. They find it very hard to run the column when I’m away. And now that St John …’ He smiled weakly and Bognor had a terrible feeling that he was going to break down there and then. He took the coward’s way out.

  ‘I’ll just run and see if I can’t dredge up another story before lunch,’ he said breezily and hurried of
f in the direction of the golf course. He found one luckily. A team called the Seven Sisters’ Stompers which had been losing by increasingly embarrassing margins turned out to be a jazz band which had entered as a joke, never having played the game before. Bognor dutifully wrote it all down and thought about murders:

  He typed out his stories over a pint of beer and then joined the others in the drink tent where stale sandwiches and pork pies were provided. They were all there except for Willy who was doubtless lunching off steak and fresh orange juice to keep his strength up. It was an oddly tense gathering. Bognor had supposed that the neuroses and depressions of the diarists would diminish after the deaths. Being callous cynics they should have adjusted quickly after the initial shocks but instead they got worse. It could be, he thought, that it was purely selfish that they were all scared of being accused. Also there were so many skeletons in so many cupboards that even if they weren’t afraid of being done for murder they could be apprehensive about some other piece of dirty washing being hung out by Bognor or the police.

  Nobody talked much. Milborn Port was too plastered to manage anything coherent. Every time he began a sentence you could see him working out the words beforehand, avoiding any long ones that he might stumble over and getting his mouth into position for careful and terribly precise enunciation. Eric Gringe was twitching furiously. Bertie Harris seemed detached and censorious. In any case he left after a cheese and chutney sandwich in order to have a brandy with his father and the top brass. Molly made a few brittle attempts at jollity but they fell sadly flat. He himself was ruminating about the murders. He only had three days after today before Lord Wharfedale would demand a result, and he didn’t know that he was going to be able to do it. He had a nasty feeling that he was going to have to initiate some action. No one else was going to make a move so he would have to do some smoking out himself. He was, he knew, desperately short of real evidence, but there was one tiny bit which didn’t fit, and increasingly he was inclined to chance everything on that. He frowned. It would be a hell of a risk and if it didn’t work …

  That afternoon all play took place on the main pitch. Hearty red-faced men began to arrive in droves and the crowds round the beer tents and bars swelled. The temporary urinals, little more than corrugated iron drainpipes behind canvas screens, attracted such custom that a short and permanent queue formed outside. By the time the Terrapins took the field for their quarter final against the Visigoths there were a few thousand spectators and despite the chill wind there was a promising air of carnival. The Visigoths were a stronger team than anything the Terrapins had met before but they nevertheless scraped through, Wimbledon again well to the fore. He looked undeniably glamorous in his magenta and gold, long blond hair flying out behind him. His shorts and knees were still remarkably clean Bognor noticed and a little knot of teeny bopper girls had fallen into noisy love with him, setting up a shrill chant of ‘We want Willy’ every time he got the ball. Bognor continued to wander about looking rather aimlessly for ‘colour’. On one occasion as he was coming out of the urinal he found himself face to face with Lord Wharfedale who was engrossed in undoing his flies and was obviously not intending to acknowledge him.

  ‘Er,’ said Bognor.

  His Lordship looked up with more than a hint of irritation.

  ‘Er,’ repeated Bognor. ‘Could I have a word with you?’

  Lord Wharfedale was clearly in a hurry. ‘Tomorrow,’ he rasped. ‘Ten-thirty sharp,’ and disappeared at the double in the direction of the drainpipe. Bognor wondered if he was on the right track. It could be unfortunate if he wasn’t.

  By the time the inevitable had happened and the Terrapins had reached the final, the floodlights had been switched on. The boisterous atmosphere had achieved remarkable proportions considering the cold. Several people had started to be sick, notably a party of Scotsmen in kilts who had taken up a position behind one set of goalposts where they were consuming bottles of neat whisky. They were in particularly good spirits since their team, playing prosaically under the title of ‘A Scottish Seven’, were the other finalists. Bognor and Molly Mortimer found a seat on the end of a bench near the half-way line and settled down to watch. Bognor hoped fervently that the Terrapins were beaten. He had no wish to have Willy Wimbledon flaunting his false modesty around the office.

  Molly seemed to sense his mood because she said, ‘I’m not absolutely certain I want Willy to do well. And I do wish those little girls would stop.’ She was referring to the Viscount’s fan club who were chanting nearby in almost as frenzied a state as the Scots behind the goalposts.

  Alas, Bognor had to concede that Wimbledon was a natural ball player. From the first moment of the game he played quite beautifully. He swayed and he swerved, he executed deft little drop kicks and dexterous chips, sold dummies in all directions and shimmied about in a dazzling display. By half time the Terrapins led by twelve points and the little girls were becoming hysterical. One of the Scots had thrown a bottle on the pitch and a policeman had escorted him away amid jovial jeers. At the beginning of the second half a Scottish player hoisted an immense kick in the direction of Wimbledon who caught it and ran thirty yards to score under the posts. One of the little girls ran onto the pitch and pulled at his jersey. Two policemen chased her off. The crowd booed and cheered. A man with a hunting horn blew an erratic call and was answered by a dolorous skirl of bagpipes from the drunken Scots.

  Willy was going to take the conversion kick. It was an easy one the easiest so far and he had succeeded with both his previous attempts. He placed the ball on its’ end in front of the posts and walked back a few paces with studied nonchalance, brushed a golden lock from his eyes and turned to stand in a moment’s concentration before running up to kick. Then an extraordinary thing happened.

  The crowd, in the best traditions of British middle-class sportsmanship, had grown silent in order to let him concentrate. Even the supporters of the Scottish Seven were muted for the kick. Anyone ignorant or boorish enough to talk was quickly quietened by an admonitory ‘Shhh’. But, just as the Viscount stood on tiptoe, preparatory to running three paces and kicking, there was a shout from someone standing on the touchline about ten yards to Bognor’s left. Amid the hush the single word was unmistakable. ‘Fairy!’ The effect on Wimbledon was remarkable. He faltered and stopped and turned back again. He looked suddenly ashen. Once more he attempted a run up and again the voice called out ‘Fairy!’ Again he faltered but this time he managed to continue. The kick was hopelessly sliced and went miles wide, the two touch judges waved their flags at knee level to indicate failure and the crowd erupted into babble.

  ‘Who the hell was it?’ asked Bognor, staring down the line to where the shout had come from. A scuffle had broken out and even as they watched a policeman intervened to restore order. ‘It sounded like …’

  ‘It was,’ said Molly, also staring. ‘It was Granny Gringe.’

  The policeman was leading Mr Gringe away. It didn’t look as if he was under arrest. In fact it was more likely that the policeman was protecting Gringe from the fury of the crowd, but it wasn’t the question of arrest which riveted Bognor’s attention. It was the expression on Gringe’s face, an expression of utter fury and hatred. He looked almost zombie-like. His eyes stared ferociously, his mouth twitched and his rogue eyebrow was once more on the blink. Bognor quite expected him to start frothing at any moment.

  ‘Good God,’ said Bognor involuntarily, ‘what on earth’s got into him?’

  For once even Molly seemed to have lost her cool. ‘Amazing,’ she said. ‘Amazing. I’ve never seen him like that. I’ve never seen anyone like that. He looks bonkers.’ He and the policeman passed a few feet in front of them but Gringe didn’t notice them. Bognor had the firm impression that if he had looked at them, even from a range of three feet, he wouldn’t have seen them. He seemed to be in a trance.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Molly, ‘what did he mean, “Fairy”?’

  ‘Poof, queer, faggot, homosexual, I
imagine,’ said Bognor, ‘unless he was referring to his style of play.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘He’s none of those things. I’ve proved it.’.

  ‘He might be,’ said Bognor, ‘if it suited him.’ I think we’d better tell Bertie,’ she said. ‘He’ll have to take over. Granny’s never going to hold the column together now.’

  ‘No wait,’ said Bognor, ‘I have a feeling this is about to get interesting.’

  Play had restarted and was progressing in an inconclusive fashion with no particular advantage to either side. Then the Terrapin scrum-half passed the ball to Wimbledon. It was a perfect pass, straight into Wimbledon’s hands. Even Bognor would have caught it easily and under normal circumstances Wimbledon would have pocketed it and set off upheld on an elusive jinking run. This time he dropped it. The ball went straight into his waiting hands and fell out again. As he stood apparently mesmerized two Scots charged up, hacked the ball on and within seconds were over the line for a score. Sixteen—four. The Scots kicker converted. Sixteen—six. The crowd sensed a Scottish comeback and began to roar. The bagpipes sounded a more defiant note. Almost immediately after the resumption there was a repetition of the incident in the Cornish match. The largest Scotsman started lumbering straight towards Wimbledon. This time, however, the cowardice was more obvious. Willy simply avoided him. He made no attempt whatever to stop the man who trundled on for another score. Again the conversion. Sixteen—twelve in favour of the Terrapins.

  The teeny bopper girls were silenced now and the drunken Scots behind the goalposts had set up some dreadful Celtic chant.

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Bognor. ‘Very interesting indeed.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody smug,’ said Molly. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘He obviously doesn’t like being called a fairy.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Still two or three minutes,’ he said. ‘I reckon there’s still time for him to lose it for them.’