by Tim Heald
‘Who’s going to report it?’ he asked.
‘I’ll see to it,’ said Pring, releasing his girlfriend. He walked over to the parachute where it had been flung down on the sand. ‘Extraordinary,’ he mouthed, stroking at the material with the toe of his shoe. ‘It was perfectly all right when you were up wasn’t it?’ he asked Aubergine. She nodded. ‘Perfectly.’
‘Did he have relations?’ asked Bognor.
Pring shrugged. ‘I’ll have to find out,’ he said officiously. ‘Don’t worry. Just leave it to me. I’ll have a word with the Consul. He’ll set the ball rolling.’
‘I need a drink,’ said Aubergine. ‘Can we go back to the hotel or something? I don’t want to stay here.’ They went. As they climbed back into the candy-striped jeep Bognor glanced back to sea and the watery grave of Erskine Blight-Purley, a man of whom, he realized with a sudden pang of sadness, he had actually become rather fond.
‘I just don’t think it was an accident,’ he said. It was an hour and a half later, and he was in his room, lying shattered and disconsolate on the bed. Amanda Bullingdon sat in a standard hotel issue wood and plastic chair and played with her glass. The news had travelled fast, and she had come at once. Not just because she was curious and involved but also because she had found out a little more from Gabrielle. First, however, she wanted to know about Blight-Purley.
‘So Aubrey Pring helped strap him in,’ she said, recapitulating, ‘which means that if it wasn’t an accident then Pring was the man who fixed it.’
‘It could have been one of the Mexicans. I imagine there would have been some sort of connivance.’
‘It’s terribly like what happened to his Jaguar.’ She inhaled a king-size duty free. ‘Could Aubrey have done that too?’
‘Anyone in the world almost could have done it. But why Aubrey? He can’t be involved in espionage. He’s hardly a blackmailer.’
‘Why not?’
Bognor thought desperately. ‘He was at Wadham,’ he ventured finally.
‘Well, there you are then.’
‘Yes. I suppose so. But on the other hand, why?’
‘Gabrielle is worried.’
‘I’d forgotten Gabrielle.’ He poured duty-free Hine into his glass and diluted it with iced water from the thermos at the bedside. ‘How is she?’
‘Like I said, worried.’
‘How was the dress rehearsal?’
She laughed. ‘What you’d expect. They over-ran by hours. There were rows all over the place. We’ll be lucky to finish by two in the morning the way things are going.’
‘And the omelette?’
‘The omelettes were smashing. The committee were delighted. The Norwegians were the worst. They’re withdrawing their herrings, and the Israelis were jolly lucky to get away with their gefilte fish.’
‘Gefilte fish? They’re not putting in gefilte fish?’
‘They are.’
Bognor’s taste buds rebelled. ‘Ugh,’ he retched, momentarily forgetting death, espionage and the real reason for his presence in the Mexican holiday resort. When he had recovered he said: ‘Gabrielle. You were saying.’
‘Aubrey did threaten her, and he did threaten her with taking away the Bitschwiller rosette, and he made it quite clear that he could.’
Bognor narrowed his eyes and stared into the Hine and water. There was a small insect in it. He put in a finger and squashed it against the side of the glass before removing it. Brandy, he decided, should anaesthetize and destroy any malaria-inducing agent it was carrying. ‘Which means only one thing,’ he announced.
‘That he’s the anonymous British correspondent of the Guide Bitschwiller.’
‘I’ve always thought some of their verdicts distinctly shaky,’ he nodded.
‘But you see what it means,’ insisted Amanda, whose detective enthusiasm was beginning to get up Bognor’s nose.
‘Of course,’ he responded in a manner calculated to crush.
‘It means that Aubrey’s been working for la Veuve Bitschwiller all the time.’
‘And,’ Bognor suddenly became excited himself, ‘he killed poor Erskine because the Bitschwiller bag told him to, after Erskine had gone on the rampage about Château Petheram and Oreille de Cochon.’
He hadn’t told her about the Colonel’s suspicions of wine substitution. ‘God,’ she exclaimed, when he had. ‘It’s all beginning to fit.’
‘So Aubrey was threatening Gabrielle and trying to make her hand over the Scoff network to Bitschwillers.’
‘She didn’t say that.’
‘What did she say?’
‘The usual story. That Aubrey was trying to get her into bed.’
‘And would take away the Dragoon’s rosette if she didn’t.’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘And you think that’s likely.’
‘It’s not impossible.’
‘I suppose it happens.’ He got up and went to the window where he stared hard at the waters of the bay, rather as if he expected them to part before his gaze and yield up their secret.
‘It’s still very complicated,’ he sighed. ‘If it was Pring all along then he would have to have fixed the pills for Scoff, and that could only be done by co-operating with Gabrielle; and if he killed Petrov, then he would have to have been in league with Massimo and the others at the Dour Dragoon. And possibly the Americans. But he obviously isn’t any of those things. I think perhaps I’d better have a word with Ebertson.’
Amanda was looking as confused as he felt. He dialled the operator and asked for Ebertson’s room. Presently the American’s dapper New England voice responded.
‘Simon. I just heard about Blight-Purley. You were there, what happened?’
‘He fell,’ said Bognor laconically, guiltily realizing that it sounded callous. ‘Listen,’ he went on, ‘I need to talk. Can we meet?’
‘Come on over. I have a bottle of bourbon.’
‘Give me five minutes.’
Ebertson seemed subdued by the news of Blight-Purley’s death. ‘He wasn’t exactly discreet in what he said to Delphine,’ he said when Bognor had given his account of the accident, ‘from what I heard. And he had no proof. So he ended up sounding shrill. I just don’t see that Delphine would have the old man eliminated because he had some cock and bull story about her doctoring Pendennis’ wine with her uncle Yves’ pig’s ear. It’s not enough.’
‘But Blight-Purley might have been putting two and two together.’
‘And making five. That’s Blight-Purley’s style all right. Or was.’
‘In which case it might have seemed wise to have him eliminated.’
‘I don’t altogether follow you.’
‘He had always thought Delphine Bitschwiller was pure as the driven snow. Whiter than white. He would never have believed that she could be in any way corrupt, but like the rest of us he’s aware that a lot of corruption has suddenly appeared in the world of eating and drinking. He’s been looking for a villain. Maybe he suddenly decided that the villain or villainess was none other than Delphine. And maybe he was right. In which case the sooner Delphine had him out of the way the better.’
‘You could be right,’ said Ebertson. He frowned and seemed to be on the point of saying more, then appeared to think better of it.
‘We’re supposed to be buddies,’ said Bognor, rattily. ‘If this is your idea of Anglo-American co-operation it’s not mine.’
‘I said you could be right.’
‘How much do you know?’
‘I don’t know all that much,’ he said. ‘But if Pring is the anonymous Guide Bitschwiller man in the UK then that could explain a thing or two.’
‘Such as?’
‘The French have been behaving truculently—as usual. Aubrey Pring’s been hanging about Gabrielle. There have been one or two ham-fisted attempts at putting the finger on some of our people. They’ve come from the other side of the channel, but they seem to have originated in the UK. It could all quite easily point b
ack to Pring.’
‘That sounds tentative.’
‘It is tentative, Simon.’
‘Do you have anything on Delphine Bitschwiller?’
‘I’ll be absolutely honest with you, Simon.’ He paused and felt in his jacket pockets and produced a meerschaum pipe, which he stuffed full of Sobranie tobacco from a leather gold-initialled pouch. Then he said, ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing. As far as we’re concerned Delphine Bitschwiller is a pillar of the French establishment. We have no reason to think that she is anything other than what she seems.’
‘I see.’ Bognor swigged bourbon and rose to go. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ironically. ‘Most helpful.’
‘Don’t be like that, Simon,’ said Ebertson, puffing. ‘Between you and me, and I’m talking in complete confidence now, I’d say you were on to a winner here. I’ve never cared for Delphine Bitschwiller. She’s too good to be true. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that she could quite easily have been supplying information to French Intelligence—and maybe others—and that she’s been using the Guide Bitschwiller organization to find it. That’s only speculation, mind, and it’s confidential. But for what it’s worth, there it is.’
‘Yes.’ Bognor shrugged and drained his bourbon. ‘I’m going to have a sleep,’ he said, ‘before this bloody dinner. I might try and have a word with Gabrielle afterwards.’
‘Right,’ said Ebertson, ‘and if there’s anything I can do, feel free.’
‘Thanks,’ said Bognor sarcastically, ‘I certainly will.’
He had hoped to escort Amanda Bullingdon to the dinner, but now that she was embroiled in the manufacture of the chocolate omelettes he was without a partner. There wasn’t even the sardonic old man’s wit of Blight-Purley. He was off Ebertson. He was right off Pring. He had never been particularly ‘on’ Pendennis. Aubergine was silly and, anyway, bespoke. As he adjusted his black tie and dabbed Old Spice on his jowls, he felt distinctly sour. He wished Monica and Parkinson, those two jealous souls who preyed on his conscience, could see him now.
Not that the dinner wasn’t elaborate and lavish. It was held near the summit of Las Brisas. It was a warm clear night, and the sky was bright with stars. Down below, the town was bright with electric light bulbs. The effect was similar: both sorts of light and an orange moon were reflected by the Pacific Ocean. By the pool a Mexican band with maraccas and guitars played popular Mexican music. Girls in Mexican national dress handed round tacos. Guests wore tuxedos if they were American males and black dinner jackets if they were European (all except for the odd Italian in tobacco brown ‘smoking’). The women wore evening gowns which covered most of their lower halves and not much of their tops. Like the town and the sky and Acapulco Bay, they too twinkled with bright lights—mostly diamonds. Everyone, in deference to the host country, drank Margaritas, though there was Mexican champagne on offer. Everyone knew too much about Central American wine production to take that particular risk.
The same toastmaster that had performed at the Château Petheram affair ushered them in to dinner, where Bognor found that national boundaries had been crossed and that he was sitting between a florid Finnish lady and the wife of the Peruvian vice-consul in Monte Carlo. Neither knew English. Opposite him was an intense Slovak from the Czech Embassy in Mexico City. It was clearly going to be a silent or, at the most, monosyllabic meal. The menu gave some ideas of its abundance, though when it appeared the reality proved even more dyspepsia-inducing than the promise. The Indians alone had come up with Pacha Kabab Yakhni, Mattan Sukha, Khumbi (also Sukha), Phul Gobi, Turcam Molee Badam and Navrattan sabzi Dum and, as their contribution to dessert, a cheese fudge, called Sandesh. He felt more familiar with the French bouillabaisse and quenelles and coq au Chambertin, though not with the Burgundian lampreys. The Chinese offered Quick-Braised Oyster on Toasted Bean Curd, Prawns on the Snow Mountain, Stuffed Eight Treasure Tomatoes, Casserole of Lion’s Head, Hot-Fried Shredded Carp with Celery, and Silver Tree-Fungi in Crystal Syrup. All these, of course, were described in their native language but Bognor had no more Mandarin than his neighbours English so he relied on the translations. Those countries less well endowed gastronomically were, naturally, less well represented. The Malays boasted only Satay. The New Zealanders, suspiciously, Hot-Pot of South Island Lamb.
If the food was frankly an embarrassment of excess, the drink was much the same. Not just claret from Château Lafite and burgundy from Chambertin, but fomented coconut juice from the mountainous interior of Sarawak; juniper-flavoured kvass from Georgia; a twenty-year-old single malt whisky from the Hebridean island of Eigg; Acapulco Aficionado—a cocktail invented for the occasion by the doyen of the resort’s barmen consisting principally of tequila, lime juice and egg whites; Marsala and Muscadet; Tigermilk (or Ranina Radgona Spätlese) and Tokay; even Zoopiyi.
Bognor did not have the stomach for it. Despite such culinary or bibulous punctuation marks as the occasional Trou Normand or sorbet, he was soon doing no more than pick at the various dishes set before him. A truffle here, a prawn there, a sip of mineral water even. Others were less inhibited, though before the first hour was out one or two had had to leave the room looking green, and one man, a rubicund white-haired Arab with a mayoral chain of office around his neck, suddenly keeled over into his Langoustine Mousse and was carried out by a squad of waiters, pieces of cream and shell fish still adhering to his face.
From time to time Bognor attempted conversation. So did the Czech diplomat and the ladies on either side of him. Such attempts ceased after the fifth course and, indeed, it was noticeable that the general level of conversation slipped as the meal progressed. The chocolate omelettes were served at one-thirty. They were by any standards—even those of their late, lamented inventor—delicious. Bognor dutifully managed a spoonful but noticed, sadly, that most of his fellow guests were beyond even that. He could hardly blame them.
Shortly after two the meal came to a mercifully speechless conclusion as a band began to play what Bognor, who was tempo deaf (rather than tone deaf), took to be a waltz. He waited long enough to see what other replete couples were dancing and then asked the Finn to join him on a circuit. They managed this in shuffling silence. A few minutes later he asked the wife of the Peruvian vice-consul, and they too walked round the floor more or less in time to the music, not bumping into anyone else and holding on to each other in a manner which succeeded in being polite without hinting at any form of intimacy—or even communication. Afterwards, satisfied that his duty was done, he made excuses to his neighbours and went off in search of the kitchens. These, a few yards from the banqueting hall, presented a scene of unspeakable chaos. It suggested to Bognor’s food-and-drink-sated—and therefore impressionable—mind one of those immense oil paintings to be found in a French museum of a certain sort and entitled After Borodino. The atmosphere was heavy with steam and cigarette smoke. There was debris everywhere: bones and raw flesh and egg and oyster shells; blood and chocolate; cabbage leaves and broken brandy bottles. Among this men and women, many in tight check trousers, white jackets or aprons, sometimes a tall chef’s hat, wandered about dazed, as if shell-shocked. Others sat on stools or chairs, or slumped over stoves and sinks. Some were asleep, some drinking, some smoking; in one corner a Franco-Japanese group had begun a poker school.
He stood for a moment, shading his eyes with his hands and peering for Gabrielle and Amanda. He found them by a sink where they were lethargically, but conscientiously, washing up.
‘Delicious omelettes,’ he said.
The two women pulled faces. ‘Had to cheat,’ said Amanda. ‘They aren’t designed for mass catering.’
‘Well, it didn’t show. Can I help? Surely there should be someone to do this for you?’
‘You must be joking.’ Gabrielle’s colour tended to conceal ill health or unhappiness until either had got really bad. Tonight she looked haggard and depressed. ‘It’s a shambles.’
‘You’re surely not washing up everything?’
�
��No, just the things we brought from London.’
‘Gabrielle won’t go anywhere without her favourite omelette pan,’ laughed Amanda. Bognor lit a cheroot.
‘Gabrielle,’ he said, ‘I hear Aubrey Pring’s been pestering you.’
She went on scrubbing at an elderly copper saucepan, but he thought he detected a sudden tension in her, as if his question had put her on her guard. ‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’
‘I’m not just being prurient or nosy. I have good reasons for asking. I even think it may be dangerous if you don’t help me.’
She turned and glared at him, still scrubbing the saucepan fiercely.
‘You are a nuisance. You interfere. You stick your nose where it is not wanted. Because of you, people get hurt.’
He winced, not least because there was something in what she said.
‘You heard about Colonel Blight-Purley?’
‘Amanda told me.’
‘Did she tell you that Aubrey was responsible for strapping him into the harness—that he was the last person to talk to him before he went up?’
‘No.’ She was busying herself neurotically, fiddling with plates and pots in an effort to seem preoccupied. ‘In any case I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’
‘One way or another,’ he sucked on the cigar, ‘it might have quite a lot. You see, I believe that if you don’t agree to go in with Pring and the Bitschwiller organization you could lose more than your rosette.’
She put down a plate and started to dry her hands on a tea towel, staring at him sullenly while she did so. Finally she said, ‘You think Aubrey Pring had something to do with Erskine’s death?’
‘It seems likely.’
‘And that if I don’t agree to do what he asks, then …’
‘If you don’t sell out Scoff’s empire to Pring then … Exactly,’ he said. He was, he knew, being uncharacteristically incautious. Nothing he had said was capable of proof—at least not at the moment, and not by him—even allowing for the generally unsatisfactory nature of what passed for proof. Yet to judge by Gabrielle’s resigned expression his mixture of knowledge and conjecture was not far off the mark. He decided to say no more than necessary about the cause of the death of Escoffier Smith.