Just Desserts (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  ‘I’m delighted you’re being so reasonable,’ continued his opponent. ‘The photographs aren’t developed yet, of course, but I am quite optimistic about them.’

  ‘Christ!’ swore Bognor. ‘Pottinger, you rat!’

  Through the scarf there issued a sardonic, superior chuckle. ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest for you to be aware of my identity,’ said the anonymous blackmailer. ‘This is, of necessity, a rather one-sided transaction.’

  ‘So I gather,’ said Bognor bitterly. ‘Even supposing that I go along with your implications, what exactly are you suggesting?’

  ‘Not much. One, that you have nothing further to do with Colonel Blight-Purley. We consider that particular liaison to be most undesirable. Two, that you should terminate your blundering inquisition into the deaths of Mr Smith and Mr Petrov. They are no longer amusing. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you agree?’

  ‘I shall have to think about it.’

  ‘Ah. Well. I shall know immediately if you do not do as I suggest. And if you are foolish then we shall be in touch with dear Monica. I make myself plain, I hope.’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Excellent. Good-bye then, for now. I have enjoyed our little talk.’ There was a click followed by a renewal of the dialling tone. Bognor remained holding the receiver hand for a few moments, then noticed that his cigar had gone out. He replaced the receiver and swore, then smiled. ‘So there is a spy ring and they do deal in blackmail.’ It was confirmation of his suspicions though he was as far as ever from discovering the ideal way of having his suspicions confirmed. He was supposed to be the hunter. Now, it seemed, the roles had been reversed.

  7

  ‘A WATCHING BRIEF,’ REPEATED Parkinson, dwelling censoriously on the ‘r’ of ‘brief’ which he rolled around his mouth as if it was cognac. ‘A watching brief.’ He stared at his subordinate with unconcealed resentment. ‘And for what exactly will you be watching?’ he enquired. ‘And how brief is brief? And to what are we to attribute this sudden diminution of enthusiasm? Dyspepsia perhaps? Or is it worse than that? Is your liver beginning to give out? Having trouble sleeping at night? Is that what it is? Too much cream and alcohol? Eh? Eh?’ He jabbed at Bognor with the rubber end of his pencil. ‘Is this an admission of failure?’

  ‘No,’ said Bognor, re-crossing his legs. ‘It’s simply that I think some of those concerned are beginning to rumble my true intentions, and I think we would be well advised to lie low for a little.’

  ‘I see,’ said Parkinson, ‘lie low for a little …’

  ‘Yes.’ In the distance Big Ben struck half past the hour.

  ‘This is rather sudden, Bognor. The last time we spoke you seemed markedly enthusiastic. “Salivating” one might say. What exactly has induced this sudden change in attitude?’

  Bognor swallowed. ‘There was this cricket match,’ he said, and stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ prompted his boss.

  ‘Well, there was quite a lot of rather obviously threatening behaviour.’

  ‘Isn’t that cricket?’

  ‘Not necessarily. And in this case I’m fairly certain there was an ulterior motive. They as much as said so.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No, there was a problem with Blight-Purley’s car.’

  Bognor, long used to signs of incipient choler in his superior, did not fail to observe the gleam in Parkinson’s eye.

  ‘Whose car?’

  ‘Erskine Blight-Purley’s.’

  ‘I thought I gave you specific instructions to avoid that man.’

  ‘It was his cricket team.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

  They sat staring at each other, momentarily immobilized by their mutual despair.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Parkinson eventually, his voice heavy with gloom. Bognor told him.

  ‘You seem to be fulfilling your usual catalytic role,’ he said when the tale, expurgated, needless to say, so that Amanda Bullingdon’s role was given in less than its entirety, was complete.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Until you got caught up in all this we just had one probable suicide whose death was tinged with the merest hint of a suspicion. No more. Since your arrival we’ve had one death—definitely murder—a horrendous cricket match with projectiles narrowly missing a number of targets, plus a car crash which seems to have been as obviously and artificially induced as the late Scoff’s suicide. I suppose if I hadn’t put you on it nothing would have happened and everyone would have been living happily ever after.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ said Bognor. ‘Besides, we know Scoff was getting useful information, and we know that with his death the supply of that information hasn’t dried up.’

  ‘Hmmm?’ Parkinson did not seem to be concentrating.

  ‘Oh, forget it,’ said Bognor.

  Parkinson tapped his upper lip with the pencil. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘a watching brief it is. You’re in charge. Just carry on. Keep me informed and stay out of trouble.’

  Bognor was greatly relieved. ‘I still hope Acapulco will yield something,’ he said cheerily.

  Parkinson’s expression remained unchanged. ‘I believe we had an understanding about that place,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bognor. ‘If I solve everything there, then well and good. If not you dock my leave.’

  ‘By double.’

  ‘Of course.’ Parkinson stretched his mouth in what might, in another man, have passed for a smile. Then he said, ‘Meanwhile, while you’re keeping your profile appropriately low there is some routine positive vetting I should like you to get on with.’ He opened a drawer and shoved two folders across at Bognor. They were ordinary tasks: a research chemist from a large pharmaceutical firm who had been taken on by the germ warfare people at Porton Down, and a bright young philosophy don who was being hired to give a little much-needed extra tone to the Cabinet Office. They needed checking out, just to make sure they weren’t known rapists, junkies, Maoists or any sort of deviant who might be undesirable in either place. Bognor would have to interview a small number of their friends and associates. It was the sort of boring but essential enquiry which seldom if ever produced anything remotely untoward.

  ‘Fine,’ said Bognor. He put the folders under his arm and walked out, gratified by the ease with which he had managed to satisfy Parkinson and, by extension, the demands of the anonymous muffled voice on the telephone.

  He did not want the blackmailer, whoever he was, to tell Monica what had happened at the Orange Lily. Far less did he want photographs to be bandied about. Secretly he doubted whether photographs existed, but he was not prepared to take risks. Perhaps, in what he told himself might prove to be the fullness of time, he might jettison Monica, but it was not something about which he was prepared to be precipitate. Unfortunately, the embarrassingly personal nature of the blackmail was such that he found it difficult to confide in anyone, least of all the person in whom he usually confided—and who frequently provided him with the answer which was staring him, unobserved, in the face—Monica herself.

  ‘What’s happening with the Scoff–Petrov business?’ she asked him, a few nights after the incident at the Orange Lily.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, airily, ‘we’ve decided to give it a bit of a rest until Acapulco. Lull our suspects into a false sense of security.’

  ‘Your opponents are always lulled into a sense of security,’ she said waspishly. ‘The trouble is that it’s never false.’

  That was as far as it went. Otherwise their life together pursued its usual affectionate if humdrum course, untouched by anything that Bognor felt or did not feel about Amanda Bullingdon.

  Quite what he did feel about her was less than sure. He did telephone her one morning, and she did agree to have lunch with him. During the meal she was pleasant and polite but almost distant. Certainly no one would have guessed that they were lovers. It was as if nothing had ever happen
ed. When, over coffee, he mentioned the blackmail phone call, she blushed.

  ‘Who could it be?’ she asked. ‘The same people who fixed the car?’

  When he mentioned the possibility of photographs she giggled.

  ‘I’d quite like to see them,’ she said, and then, noticing his pained expression, changed her mind. ‘Oh well, perhaps not.’

  The possibility of a repeat performance was not mooted. Bognor did not know how to without seeming indelicate. It was not something you discussed at lunch—at least not something Bognor discussed over lunch. And there was Monica. And the chance of yet more blackmail. For the time being at least he decided to restrict their meetings to lunch. He could kid himself that such encounters were a necessary part of a watching brief.

  Fearful of exciting further telephonic threats, he steered clear of his new gastronomic friends, though invitations continued to arrive from all and sundry. He accepted the more impersonal—large wine tastings for example—and eschewed the more intimate on grounds, usually legitimate, of pressure of work. The positive vetting, though boring, was time-consuming and did not leave him much time for anything else. He continued to converse, slightly nervously, with those he met at such functions—Ebertson, Pring, Aubergine Bristol among them—but tried to avoid Blight-Purley as much as possible. Before long, the old man inevitably spotted this and telephoned to ask for an explanation. Bognor prevaricated but finally explained that he was biding his time on the investigation and was, anyway, under great pressure from Parkinson to have nothing whatever to do with the Colonel. This was more or less true and Blight-Purley seemed to accept it.

  What worried him more than anything was the invitation to Acapulco. His anonymous caller had not mentioned the trip, but he was fairly certain that to go there would involve a breach of whatever agreement he was supposed to have reached. On the other hand he wanted to go, partly because he was mildly curious, partly because he had a hunch about it. Besides, Parkinson, despite his initial hostility (perhaps because of it), would undoubtedly smell a rat if he were to drop out of it now.

  Accordingly, on the last day of May he was at Heathrow, a jaded, chubby, apprehensive figure in an all too obviously brand new lightweight suit. As always on venturing abroad, he was in a state of constant, if subdued, panic, fretting over the seemingly endless items essential for safe departure and arrival. His suitcase was packed and checked in, but he nevertheless felt obliged to consult his baggage check every five minutes. He kept repeating to himself, ‘ticket, passport, travellers’ cheques, wallet,’ and patting the relevant pockets to make sure they were all in place. This was made the more difficult because every so often he would withdraw one or other just to make absolutely certain. He would then replace it in a different pocket thus rendering the next patting of the pockets even more frantic than the last.

  ‘Having trouble?’ Aubergine Bristol and Aubrey Pring stood before him. They both carried glasses of what looked like gin and tonic and hand luggage which Bognor was sure was the work of someone called Gucci or Pucci. He could never remember which.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said.

  ‘We thought you had fleas or something,’ said Aubergine, smiling. ‘You were sort of hitting yourself all over.’

  ‘Oh,’ he coloured, ‘no. I’d just mislaid my, er … diary.’

  ‘Oh.’ They seemed unconvinced.

  ‘Any sign of Hugh ffrench-Thomas?’

  Bognor changed colour rapidly from puce to off-white.

  ‘Is he coming?’

  ‘Of course. He’s the Bitschwiller rep. He’s more or less in charge. At least he’s in charge until Roissy. Why?’

  ‘The cricket,’ said Aubergine pretending to kick him. ‘I shouldn’t have thought you’d be worried by that,’ she continued. ‘It seemed to me to be a victory for you rather than him.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  There were about fifteen of them as it turned out. Very much the mixture as before. In fact Bognor was beginning to realize that the monde gastronomique, or at least that part of it which was concerned in one way or another with its popularization, was an extremely small one. ffrench-Thomas marshalled them with reserved politeness into a small VIP lounge where there were bottles of Bitschwiller. Aubrey and Aubergine knocked back their gin and tonics and filled up with champagne. Conversation became convivial and Bognor wondered, as he peered around over Ebertson’s left shoulder, whether the man who had made the anonymous phone call was in the room. Neither Dotto nor Pottinger was among the guests and they were his most likely suspects. He wondered also whether the inducer of the Scoff suicide and the murderer of Dmitri Petrov were among them, and he wondered, too, whether his hunch was going to turn out correct, and that something significant was going to happen in Acapulco.

  ‘Hello,’ said an effusive, mildly effeminate voice. ‘Haven’t congratulated you properly on your innings.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Pendennis,’ said Bognor smiling. ‘Whenever we meet we seem to be drinking this.’ He held up his glass and watched the bubbles silhouetted against the neon strip lighting. ‘Are you joining us in Acapulco? I hadn’t realized.’

  Pendennis looked pained. ‘Surely you remember Château Petheram?’

  ‘Château Petheram? Oh, of course.’ How could he ever have forgotten it, he wondered, recalling the disgustingly acid red muck that Pendennis had served up on his first visit. ‘You’re introducing it to an astonished world in Acapulco, aren’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Bognor could not for the life of him imagine how the man had the effrontery. It was undrinkable. No amount of endorsement from la Veuve, no ludicrous snobism about it being an English wine, could possibly persuade any normal palate of anything else.

  ‘I hope it travels,’ he said.

  ‘It will travel.’

  They were interrupted by ffrench-Thomas, still looking as youthful and fit as he had on the cricket field. He was asking them to drink up and board. They did so. It was a more painless exercise than usual. Less of a queue. The search for bombs or guns was more perfunctory, and when they arrived on board they were ushered into the first-class compartment and plied with more alcohol. Bognor disliked flying, but if he had to do it then this was the way in which it should be done. By the time they arrived on French ground he and his colleagues were in a uniformly genial frame of mind.

  ‘You’ll enjoy Delphine,’ said Blight-Purley, as they ascended a moving staircase built into a transparent plastic tube which led to the main reception areas. He was standing on the step behind Bognor, flushed and buoyant as a schoolboy going on holiday.

  ‘I hope so. She sounds rather daunting.’

  ‘Don’t be daunted.’ He lowered his voice and leant forward so that his lips almost touched Bognor’s right ear. ‘Made any progress?’ he asked, sotto voce. For a moment Bognor was tempted to tell him about the anonymous phone call. If he was right then merely by making this trip he had called the caller’s bluff—if bluff it was. Monica might even now be being apprised of his infidelity.

  He was on the point of imparting the confidence when a thought struck him—a new one. Perhaps his blackmailer was Blight-Purley himself. He knew what had happened that night. Perhaps he was frightened by Bognor’s persistent enquiries. Bognor wondered what the Colonel’s voice would sound like through a handkerchief, softly. ‘No,’ he replied, as they emerged from the perspex and were spewed out into a wide glassy concourse. ‘No progress at all.’ And then partly because the idea that Blight-Purley might after all be villainously inclined, and partly because it was true, he said, ‘I have an idea it’s one of those mysteries which may just go away. A lot of people seem to think it might be better left unsolved.’

  ‘Ha.’ Blight-Purley’s eyes sparkled with irritation and something which appeared almost like lust. ‘Don’t forget the Jag.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Bognor’s amnesia seemed worse than usual today, though in this instance it was only temporary. The Jaguar had merely slipped his mind, not escaped it alto
gether. ‘Had it been tampered with? Did they find out who did it?’

  ‘Yes and no. Yes to the first; no to the second.’

  ‘Ah.’ They had traversed the hall now, following obediently in ffrench-Thomas’ footsteps. He turned left down a corridor and the crocodile turned with him, emerging almost immediately into a large and distinctly merry cocktail party. There seemed to Bognor to be about two hundred men and women in the room—all of them undeniably foreign and probably French. It wasn’t that he was in any sense a xenophobe—rather the reverse—but the foreignness was obtrusive and mildly disturbing. They seemed to be enjoying themselves more than any similar English group would have done. And smoking more. Foreign noise; foreign smells; tantalizing foreign canapés being hurried about by uniformed lackeys; in every hand a glass of what Bognor was beginning to think of as ‘that drink’. He mentally flexed his nose and ears and eyes, an islander preparing to do battle with the great abroad.

  ‘Come and meet Delphine,’ said Blight-Purley, putting a hand on his elbow and propelling him, none too gently, through the throng. Bognor’s senses were assailed by unaccustomed vowel sounds accompanied by that aroma of garlic and gauloise which he knew was too characteristically French to be true. Nevertheless here it was. Perhaps they were Frenchmen from Central Casting.

  Suddenly they were out of the scrum and in an oasis of decorum. Throughout their passage Blight-Purley had been wringing hands and exclaiming in passable Gallic accents such things as ‘Maurice … comment ça va? Pierre … mon vieux … enchanté. Monique you are looking irrésistible,’ and so on. Now a small woman clothed entirely in grey and black caught sight of him and exclaimed in tinkling tones:

  ‘Erskine!’ She emphasized the last syllable making it sound like ‘skein’.

  Blight-Purley kissed her on both cheeks, then said, ‘Delphine, I’d like you to meet a young friend of mine, Simon Bognor.’

  ‘Of course.’ She held out a hand which Bognor shook diffidently, wondering after he had done so whether he should have kissed it. Blight-Purley, looking on, muttered something about, ‘Delphine Bitschwiller, our hostess.’