by Tim Heald
‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ The man was arch, with his stupidity. ‘Tell you what though.’ He took Bognor by the elbow and propelled him towards the water’s edge. ‘See that.’ He pointed towards the largest piece of floating tarpaulin, directly opposite the Fifie skiff and the Shetland Severn.
‘Yes.’
The man lowered his voice. ‘That’s the big attraction. Cost him thousands, that did.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s the Lysander.’
‘But what is it?’
‘Steam pinnace, that’s what it is. Built for the Grand Duke Leopold. Almost a hundred years old.’ They stared at the bulging canvas for a moment. It made Bognor feel oddly uneasy and he wished he knew why. Then with a twinge of conscience he remembered George Mangolo and looked at his watch. One o’clock. ‘Christ,’ he thought, ‘I’d better go and do some work.’
It took him time to negotiate the barriers, guard dogs and the general paraphernalia of security which shielded the baronet and his private life from his paying guests, so that when he finally effected an entrance he thought he detected a faint frisson of disapproval from the butler. Mercer came as near as a well-trained butler can to sneering. ‘You are expected… sir,’ he said, regarding the tweed suit with hauteur. ‘Her ladyship is in the mauve room, and there is a telephone call.’
‘Oh.’ Bognor was nonplussed, as usual, by servants, however servile. ‘Ah. Perhaps I’d better deal with the phone call first,’ he said, and realized as he said it that he had done the wrong thing.
‘Her ladyship is waiting,’ said Mercer, icily managing to convey the notion that Lady Abney had been waiting for the better part of the week. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Bognor, ‘of course. I’m most frightfully sorry. Lead on.’
‘This way, sir.’
The mauvest thing about the mauve room was the immense display of lilac on the important Georgian sofa table in the middle of the room. Lady Abney had been sitting in front of it, drinking whisky out of a heavy glass goblet and reading Harpers. As Bognor was announced she got to her feet and advanced on him with extended hand. He just had time to take in the cut of the suit, the precision with which the make-up had been applied, and the tell-tale age lines round the neck and eyes, when she was upon him. ‘Mister Bognor,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘How awfully good of you to come. I do hope you had a comfortable journey. Were you held up by the crowds? The crowds are a perfect menace at this time of year, but then they are our bread and butter, aren’t they, so we mustn’t complain. Would you like a drink? I do hope you haven’t eaten. I’ve booked a table in the Cabin for the two of us. I hope you won’t mind lunching à deux. My husband apologizes but he’s simply too tied up with this wretched business conference and then,’ a light wrinkle of irritation crossed her face, ‘we’ve had this bother over Freddie Maidenhead. But still, never mind. There’s no need to worry you over that, is there?’ She had, without waiting for any observation on the matter of drink, poured Bognor a very stiff whisky indeed and topped up her own with a generous measure.
‘Do come and sit down,’ she went on, patting the sofa, ‘and before we start talking about the Umdaka, do tell me, are you any relation of Humphrey Bognor?’
Sir Humphrey Bognor was an honorary herald at the College of Arms, and wrote popular books on genealogy. Simon thought him a dreadful bore and had met him only once. He was some sort of cousin and he was always being asked if he was related. Particularly by people with social pretensions. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, sipping at his khaki drink, ‘at least not a close relation.’ He had noticed the disappointment on Lady Abney’s face and was relieved to see it clear after he had claimed some kinship with Sir Humphrey.
‘I’m sorry if I’m here at an inconvenient moment,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty routine, though. It shouldn’t take long. It’s just to make sure that no one takes a pot shot at poor old George Mangolo on his trip over here.’ He coughed nervously, when he noticed that Lady Abney was looking slightly pained. ‘Did I gather there was a phone call for me?’ he asked.
‘I’d almost forgotten,’ said Lady Abney, screwing up her nose in the manner which had won her so many admirers as a débutante, a quarter of a century earlier. ‘A Mr. Parkinson from your office. I understand he sounded rather excited. I suggest you telephone him from the Cabin.’
The Cabin, at which they arrived a few minutes later, was the prestige section of the Abney catering operation. The main cafeteria was a long low building screened from the railway bridge, over which the train called the ‘Marlow donkey’ rumbled every half hour, by a line of weeping willows. The Cabin was on top, a penthouse affair with portholes. Most of the cafeteria roof was given over to roof garden, and after he and Lady Abney had threaded their way through a maze of tubs and trellises they were greeted at the door of the restaurant by a middle-aged man in what Bognor took to be the uniform of a mid-nineteenth-century merchant navy captain. He carried sheaves of glossy menus and smelt strongly of cheap scent. There followed a prolonged and embarrassing ceremony of introduction and ingratiation after which Lady Abney was conducted to a table in the window and Bognor escaped to the phone.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ said Parkinson when he got through.
‘Looking round for threats to the safety of the esteemed George, Umdaka of Mangolo,’ said Bognor lightly.
‘Don’t get funny with me,’ said Parkinson viciously.
He had had to cancel an attractive lunch date in order to wait for his subordinate to phone back and he was even now halfway through a plate of greasy steak and chips from the canteen. ‘I take it you’ve heard by now?’
‘Heard? Heard what?’ Bognor was apprehensive.
There was a pause during which Parkinson could almost be heard counting to ten. Then he started to talk in the very soft tight tones which Bognor dreaded. ‘I’m sorry that you haven’t heard yet,’ he said. ‘It does seem a little strange that you haven’t heard yet since practically half Britain seems to have heard now. But then, of course, you’re only on the scene where it happened so I suppose you could hardly be expected… oh, well, never mind. The Earl of Maidenhead’s dead.’
‘Oh,’ said Bognor, cautiously. ‘So?’
There was another even longer pause. Eventually Parkinson said, through what sounded like clenched teeth, ‘So it’s a case of murder and it interests me.’
‘In what sense? He wasn’t exactly politically involved. It was only Tory whist drives and things, surely?’
‘You’re forgetting one international situation where Tory whist drives represent pretty high-powered diplomacy,’ said Parkinson, not altogether sarcastically, ‘and you’re also forgetting that the late Earl of Maidenhead was the proud holder of the Distinguished Flying Cross, and now surely even you…’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Bognor, ‘so he was involved in Rhodesia.’
‘Right. So he was involved in Rhodesia. So he was shot before his early morning dip. So I’m interested.’
‘Oh,’ said Bognor. ‘Well, what do you want me to do about it?’
‘Do what you’re bloody paid to do.’ Parkinson’s patience had finally gone. ‘Use your fucking initiative.’
Bognor was about to remonstrate when he realized that the phone had gone dead. He returned to Lady Abney humming abstractedly.
‘I’ve taken the liberty,’ she said, smiling widely, ‘of ordering lobster and a bottle of chablis. I do hope you don’t mind. Jules says the lobsters are fresh in from Galway and the chablis comes from Ernest Marples.’
‘Oh. Good.’ Bognor picked up a roll and noticed that there was a glass of whisky in front of each plate. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ he said, ‘that you’d had an… er… accident this morning.’
Lady Abney smiled again and put a finger to her lips. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘pas devant les domestiques,’ and laughed, a little too gaily.
Bognor frowned. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but it is rather important. I mean he was…’
‘Not another word, Mr. Bognor—Simon, isn’t it? Not another word. I’m quite sure that my husband will want to discuss it with you. As far as I’m concerned I know nothing whatever about it. Nothing whatever.’ She waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the river. ‘And now,’ she said, ‘about the Umdaka’s visit. Canning and I were wondering if he might like to arrive by canoe. It would make such wonderful photographs.’
‘Paddling himself, I suppose,’ said Bognor.
Lady Abney raised her eyebrows and smiled at her guest with old-fashioned radiance. ‘Oh, Simon,’ she said, ‘I do believe you’re rather a tease.’
The lobster and chablis were both excellent and Bognor was vaguely conscious that he and Lady Abney were getting not only a good deal more attention than any of their fellow lunchers, but also a great deal better food. A few of them were upper-class trippers; some were lower-class trippers who had wandered in by mistake and were too embarrassed to leave; a very few were businessmen from Wycombe and Slough. Most of them appeared to be eating scampi followed by steak. Throughout the meal his hostess refused, despite many efforts, to make any comment at all about the demise of the Earl. Apart from a great deal of badinage, of a rather forced sort, she remarked only that ‘old Freddie was all right in his way’. She also told Simon that one of the house guests was Anstruther Grithbrice’s latest, a sexy black girl called Johnson. Bognor wondered if she might have anything to do with the crime. If there was a political motive she seemed to be the only person who was even remotely likely.
Eventually, after declining port, brandy or Gaelic coffee from the young man in bell-bottomed trousers (cut extraordinarily tight in the crotch), he got up from the velvet banquette, intent on getting down to using his initiative. ‘You’ll stay the night,’ Lady Abney had said, and although he declined, protesting that he didn’t even have a toothbrush and was in any case expected home, she finally forced him to stay at least to dinner. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘you’ll want to talk to Canning. I rather expect he’ll be playing tennis with some of the other boys. Do you play?’
Bognor who, for one of his comparatively tender years, was grossly unfit, said, ‘Yes, in principle’; to which she replied that next time he must bring his whites.
4
THE TENNIS COURT WAS shielded from the public by a very high brick wall, and as they approached it they could hear altercation. It was not clear what was prompting the argument but there was a general noise in which Bognor thought he could distinguish, occasionally, the words ‘Yours’, ‘Mine’, ‘Shit’, ‘Christ’, and ‘Bloody hell’.
As they rounded the wall and emerged from the trees and shrubs which surrounded the court, the match was revealed in all its gladiatorial glory. All four men were extremely red, though it was hard to tell whether this was from physical exertion or bad temper. There appeared to be a lot of needle involved.
‘I think,’ said Lady Abney, leading the way to a wrought iron seat, ‘that we had better wait until they’ve finished. They looked rather engrossed, don’t you think?’ Bognor agreed and they sat down to watch.
‘The one with the bandana and the very short shorts is Tony Grithbrice, Lord Arborfield’s son,’ said Lady Abney in a stage whisper.
‘The photographer?’ asked Bognor.
‘Yes, and the one with the very long white trousers and the funny racket with the kink in it is Basil Lydeard. He’s a poppet. And the handsome one with the silver hair is Canning. And the short one with the military manner and the moustache is Archie McCrum. He looks awfully cross, doesn’t he?’
The McCrum, indeed, looked apoplectic. It was his service, and the previous interruption had clearly upset him even more than the others. He was having problems with it. Bognor watched as he took deliberate aim at Grithbrice who was standing in the opposite right-hand corner, and threw the ball immensely high. There was a mighty swish as he took a swipe at it, much too jerkily, and the ball shot over the net at a prodigious speed. Unfortunately the Scotsman was either too short for the game or had hit it at the wrong angle because the ball carried over the base line full pitch.
‘Away,’ said Grithbrice unnecessarily, and moved a couple of paces nearer the net. They all waited while the ball boy—one of four in blue shorts and gold shirts—retrieved the ball and lobbed it back to the McCrum, who was already engaged in bouncing his second on the ground preparatory to serving again. The lobbed ball confused him and he dropped both. Eventually he retrieved one, glared at the ball boy, threw up the ball and very gently patted it at his opponent. It plopped softly into the middle of the net.
‘Bother,’ said the McCrum loudly. He had noticed the arrival of his hostess and obviously belonged to the school of thought which did not believe in swearing in front of ladies.
‘Oh, bad luck,’ said Grithbrice. ‘That’s game, I’m afraid.’
‘They moved to change ends and while all four took drinks from a silver tray at the side of the net Lady Abney called out to her husband to find out the score. It was a set each, and though the McCrum’s dropped service represented a break-back for Grithbrice and Lydeard, they still trailed 3-5. It was Lydeard to serve.
It was already painfully obvious to Bognor that if Abney and Grithbrice were tennis players, the other two were not. It was not simply that Lydeard’s efforts to serve were as embarrassing as McCrum’s. It was the way they walked and held their rackets and wore their very old-fashioned outfits. Basil Lydeard began with a double fault to the McCrum and then managed a dolly drop to Abney who smashed it at an acute angle and with relish. Grithbrice made a brave effort to retrieve it and crashed into the netting.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, glaring at his partner as he picked himself up. ‘Have you played this game before?’
Lady Abney muttered something about it being very difficult to get ball boys these days and cupping her hands shouted out: ‘Please, Tony, pas devant les enfants!’ Basil Lydeard said, ‘Sorry.’
Bognor, watching to see if the murderer was on court, wondered if the ineptitude of the two non-players was due to conscience or nerve failure, but as he watched Lydeard serve another dolly to the McCrum and saw him hit it off the wood and into a ball boy, he conceded that their failings had nothing to do with nerves.
‘Where do the ball boys come from?’ asked Bognor, as the boy rubbed his injured face. ‘Some agency or other, I think,’ said Lady Abney. ‘We used to use the staff children, but it’s become so devastatingly difficult to get proper staff nowadays that we’ve had to abandon that idea. Nowadays none of them seem to have children anyway.’
‘Bother,’ said the McCrum again, looking at the handle for an excuse.
‘Try watching it on to the racket, Archie,’ said Abney, fighting to appear casual.
‘Basil Lydeard is such a gentleman,’ whispered Lady Abney, whereupon the Marquess served another double fault. ‘Fifteen forty,’ said Abney. ‘Match point.’
Lydeard turned to face Sir Canning, who sportingly hit the service over the base line with a gigantic lob. ‘Thirty forty,’ he said. ‘But still match point. It’s all up to you, Archie.’ The McCrum said nothing, but to everyone’s surprise the spirited off drive, which he aimed at Lydeard’s next successful service, connected splendidly. The ball flew waist high at Grithbrice who attempted to avoid it but failed.
‘Should have left that, Tony,’ said Sir Canning, ‘I think it was going out. Still. Game set and match. Hard luck, Basil. That wasn’t at all a bad serve. It’s always tough to be let down by your partner. Thank you, Archie.’
‘I must try to play more often,’ said Lydeard. ‘It’s really quite fun.’
‘Not for the others, unfortunately,’ said Grithbrice. ‘How about singles, Canning? I’ll play you the best of three.’ Sir Canning looked at his watch. ‘Better not,’ he said. ‘We’ve got tax in half an hour and Cosmo will be most put out if he doesn’t get a packed house.’
There was, Bognor observed from his wrought-iron seat, a decided atmosphere. Abney an
d McCrum were not magnanimous winners, and Grithbrice had lost gracelessly. Only Lydeard seemed phlegmatic. He studied the four men.
Sir Canning, suave, well-preserved with his silver hair and his manicured hands. He looked just a shade artificial, almost as if he was wearing make-up and a foundation garment, but from a distance, or to the uncritical eye, the overall impression was certainly not counterfeit. He looked every inch a genuine eighteen-carat British baronet. Which, of course, he was. Bognor who had momentarily begun to suspect otherwise told himself not to be ridiculous; but still there was a petulance about the mouth which he found interesting and a little disturbing. Sir Canning was not a man he would lightly cross.
Grithbrice had the same sulky undertone, though at the moment his was more obvious since he was sulking. He was standing with his hands on his hips, watching Abney tip the ball boys, with a definite pout. Afterwards he put a powder-blue track-suit top over his shirt and smiled in Lady Abney’s direction, displaying rather more teeth than was necessary. There was no doubt that the man fancied himself and, Bognor conceded, with reason. According to the press he always had some glamorous female in tow, and he had lifted Netherly to third place in the stately-home league without, apparently, compromising its traditional character. Nobody could explain how he had managed to attract four hundred thousand people a year without offending his father. Old Lord Arborfield, for years Governor-General of Australia, was a crusty conservative figure, now confined permanently and pathetically to a wheelchair. He was said to be mentally sound but those few who had attempted conversation with him recently came away with gloomy tales. Apparently he would talk about nothing but cricket, and then only in monologue, refusing interruption. It was therefore no secret that young Grithbrice was in control. Somehow he also managed to combine the running of Netherly and his adventurous sex life with a passable career as a photographer. Even Bognor, who believed that skill in photography was confined to the lab and the darkroom, was forced to admit that he had taken some good pictures. That, however, didn’t make him any the less conceited or obstinate.