by Tim Heald
‘Might they?’
‘Not unless they want him knocked off.’
‘But they might want him knocked off.’
‘True enough,’ he conceded, ‘but surely not here. I mean the Umdaka may be a bloody nuisance alive in Mangolo, but he’d be even more of a nuisance dead in Buckinghamshire.’
‘All right. Let me finish it. There’s not a lot more.’ She read on for a few minutes, frowning. ‘It’s not very conclusive,’ she said finally.
‘I suggest he should go to see Lord Montagu’s motor cars instead, and the maritime museum at Buckler’s Hard. That’s pretty conclusive.’
‘I don’t mean about what we should do with the Umdaka; I mean about who’s guilty.’
‘That’s not my brief. Officially, anyway. Besides, I don’t feel conclusive about guilt. In fact, I haven’t the first idea about it. The more I think about it the less conclusive I get. It’s Smith’s job not mine.’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On what Parkinson says among other things.’
Bognor’s report was on Parkinson’s desk at eight-thirty and Bognor was summoned by him at eight-thirty-five. Parkinson was still scrutinizing it when he arrived. He stood waiting, uncomfortably aware of the gaze of Her Majesty the Queen from the official regulation photograph behind Parkinson’s desk.
‘You had an interesting weekend,’ said Parkinson, looking up. ‘Sit down. Tell me more. Have a cup of tea. How do the other half live, eh? How do the other half die?’
Bognor was basically frightened of Parkinson, but he drew spurious comfort from the notion that his aggression stemmed from an inferiority complex. Unlike him, Parkinson had never been to university, nor had the benefit of a formal education after the age of fourteen.
‘You agree with my conclusion?’
‘What conclusion?’
‘That the Umdaka shouldn’t go to Abney.’
Parkinson looked at his subordinate with an expression of infinite weariness. ‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t advise my little old granny to go to Abney, even if she went in an armour-plated charabanc with the 3rd Parachute Regiment. Your friends would still find some way of dealing with her.’
Bognor remained silent and looked at the Queen. Parkinson returned to the report. ‘I should say,’ he said, ‘that this was a verbose and pompous statement of the obvious. Naturally I will not have the Umdaka wandering round the Thames Valley while every idiot aristocrat in the country attempts to murder him. I had already decided that. What I want to know is: one, was Maidenhead murdered for political reasons? Two, was Abney murdered for political reasons? If so, by whom? These are simple questions and they should be simply answered. They require the answers “yes” or “no” in the first two cases and they require one name in the last instance. That is all. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes. Very.’
‘Good. I’m glad.’ He paused and sipped tea. ‘To be absolutely honest,’ he said, mellowing slightly, ‘I did not want to expose you to this sort of situation after that disastrous affair of the friars, and when I sent you down to investigate the Umdaka’s visit I had no idea… however, now that you’re involved in it, I’m afraid you will have to stay involved. It’s not what I would have wished but I see no alternative.’
‘Surely it could be left to the police?’
‘It is being left to the police. You will simply liaise with the police. Please try to remember that your interests are political. Try to leave the dramatics to the police. I don’t want to find you on the front pages of the papers. I don’t want complaints about you. I just want an unobtrusive presence.’
‘What about the police? Are they agreeable?’
‘Oddly enough, they suggested it. Man named Smith, backed by his Chief Constable. Said you seemed to have infiltrated very adroitly.’
Bognor smiled. ‘So someone appreciates me?’
‘I put them right on that. I told them it was simply a matter of class and education.’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘Now.’ Parkinson shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘This could become mildly embarrassing. At least, if this means anything and isn’t someone’s idea of a practical joke. Foreign Office passed this over.’ He waved a piece of paper which bore the warning “Immediate—by hand at all stages”. ‘It appears that some Mangolan nationalist organization in conjunction with the “Pan African Liberation Corps”’—he glanced up at Bognor, ‘mean anything?’, to which Bognor shook his head—‘have claimed responsibility for shooting the Earl of Maidenhead.’
‘Ah.’ Bognor wondered if it could have emanated from Grithbrice and Johnson. ‘You were right about the Johnson girl,’ he said. ‘If that’s a genuine claim then it obviously implicates Johnson and Grithbrice.’
‘Do you believe IRA claims and PLA claims and Black September claims?’
‘Not always.’
‘Well, I never believe them,’ said Parkinson firmly. ‘It’s our job not to believe anything anyone else claims until we have proved it. So pay no attention to this claim unless you can prove, and I mean prove, that the girl Johnson or the man Grithbrice actually did it. And when you do prove it don’t go charging around making a fool of yourself. Tell me and tell Smith and we’ll let the police do it properly.’
Bognor turned to go, but before he did, Parkinson said, placatory once more: ‘Do you really have no idea who might have done it? Done them?’
Bognor took a deep breath. ‘In my opinion, sir, it could have been Sir Archibald McCrum of that ilk, Lady McCrum, the Marquess of Lydeard, the Hon. Anstruther Grithbrice, Miss Honeysuckle Johnson, Lady Abney, Lady Maidenhead, Peter Williams or Cosmo Green. And the Earl of Maidenhead could have been shot by Sir Canning Abney. Or the butler, Mercer, might have done it.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Parkinson, ‘I’m delighted to hear that you’re making such swift progress.’
Outside Bognor swore vehemently and went off to the library. He would start again at the beginning by looking out the file on each suspect and both corpses. He had dismissed the thought that the Saturday explosion was intended to kill Captain McAvity and not Abney, but it recurred suddenly. Reluctantly he added the thought to all the others.
Three hours later after a lengthy study of the files and of Debrett’s and Burke’s he was immersed in irrelevant coats of arms, courant dragons and tigers proper, dead dowagers, cousins in council houses and unheard-of titles covering every part of the country from Orkney to Padstow. He had learnt that most of them were multiple car owners: Abney, a Rolls, a Mercedes, two Toyota Estate cars and a Mini Cooper; Maidenhead had had a Rolls, Lamborghini, Morgan, Range Rover and Mini Cooper; Grithbrice had a Bentley, Range Rover, Porsche and Mini Cooper; Green had four Aston Martins; McCrum a Daimler, two Land Rovers and a Rover 3-litre; Lydeard a 1928 Lagonda and a Ford Escort. The first four had personalized number plates: CAB 1 for Abney, M1 for Maidenhead, GR 11 for Grithbrice and CG for Cosmo Green. All, of course, had vast estates, though only Grithbrice, or rather his father, had two stately-homes—apart from Netherly there was a castle in Sutherland—but all except Lydeard and McCrum had places abroad. Abney on Corfu, Maidenhead on Sardinia, Grithbrice in Provence and Green in the south of Italy.
Under ‘politics’ he learnt that all except Grithbrice were conservatives and pillars of local associations. Grithbrice appeared to have played around with innumerable beliefs in a candy-floss way, but had never stuck for long.
Each one, as he already knew, retained large personal staffs. Even the McCrum, who seemed the most impoverished, managed a chauffeur, a housekeeper, two gardeners, four ghillies, a bailiff and ‘numerous domestics and entertainment staff retained on a part-time or temporary basis’. One man, Mercer, was mentioned by name. ‘Mercer,’ he read, ‘Major James Mercer, MC and bar, butler to Sir Canning Abney for fifteen years, served with distinction in Special Operations Executive in Occupied France, 1940-5. Drinks.’ That, conceded Bognor, was interesting if hardly relevant.
There was no file on Williams, and nothing of any interest on Captain McAvity. Of the wives, Dora Maidenhead had evidently been some sort of model though it was not clear what. Isobel Abney was the fifth daughter of the seventeenth Earl of Ormskirk and had, as Bognor knew, been a famous beauty; Mabel McCrum came from a naval family and her father had ended his career at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. ‘Honeysuckle’ Johnson’s file told him nothing that he didn’t know already except that she had been involved (although nothing was officially proved) in an abortive hi-jack operation in Wyoming two years previously.
All were marked down as extravagantly rich, though in terms of possessions rather than cash. Lydeard had his Canalettos and bison; Abney his museum and a fine collection of modern paintings; Maidenhead magnificent family silver and porcelain, Van Dycks, animals; Grithbrice—or rather Arborfield—more animals, Turners and tapestry. Even the McCrum boasted the world’s finest collection of hunting knives, an important display of stuffed wildlife and an unequalled collection of Landseers. Only Cosmo Green managed liquidity and income to any massive degree. He ‘advised’ seventeen major companies on fiscal matters and was chairman of three more; he held shares amounting to several million pounds. In addition he owned Hook, arguably the finest country house in the country; indeed, if you admired Vanbrugh’s work, probably the finest in the world. Green had stuffed it with Picassos and Constables. It appeared they were the only two painters of whom he had heard. The library alone was insured for a million pounds. Bognor was surprised. He knew he was rich, but not that rich.
Nevertheless, as far as murder was concerned, there was depressingly little. There was nothing even to suggest a political motive for murdering Abney. Apart from his presidency of the local Conservative Association he had no politics, and even the most rabid Marxist could scarcely make such a position the pretext for murder. As well assassinate Sir Tufton Beamish or Sir Clive Bossom.
He had assembled all this half-relevant information in his customary list and was staring at it dejectedly when a secretary came into the library and motioned to him to come to the telephone.
‘Someone called Smith,’ she said, ‘from Maidenhead. I asked if you could ring him back but he said it was urgent. I hope you don’t mind.’
Bognor said it was perfectly all right. He was feeling put upon.
‘Morning,’ said Smith. ‘You were right about Lydeard.’
‘What about Lydeard?’
‘He had a look at the Lysander that afternoon before the explosion. The crew say he was on board for about five minutes and they left him alone for about two of them.’
‘That was careless.’
‘You can hardly blame them, the man’s a buffoon.’
‘So you don’t think he had anything to do with it?’
‘Well, apart from the conspicuous absence of motive, he doesn’t know the first thing about steam engines. Anyhow, the crew would have noticed if anything was wrong.’
‘Would they?’
‘Well, you have a point there. Neither of them seemed to know much more about the workings of the Lysander than your friend Sir Canning and that was precisely nil.’
‘So it looks like accident again.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. It’s what I was ringing about. Can you meet me in Gray’s Inn in an hour?’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve had a call from Sir Canning’s solicitor. He says there’s something he has to tell us. I thought, since you’re, as they say, “liaising” with us, you might as well come too.’
They arranged to meet in the Blue Lion in Gray’s Inn Road, and Bognor decided to walk over. It was a fine day and it would take no more than half an hour from Whitehall. He tidied up and strolled across St James’s Park, stopped on the bridge to watch the flamingoes and the casually dressed morning strollers, raced up the Duke of York’s steps two at a time. At Piccadilly he bought a Standard and saw that the Mangolan claim had made the front page. ‘Rebel exiles claim Maidenhead death’ it said, but it was not the lead story, and it was extremely vague, based on an Agence France Presse report. He very much doubted whether anyone would bother to send a reporter to Algiers to find out more, though it was conceivable that someone might get on to Grithbrice and Johnson. He wondered if these revelations were going to mean the end of a beautiful friendship.
Smith was waiting in the Blue Lion when he got there, sipping at a half pint of bitter and reading the Standard.
‘Did your people know about this?’ he asked, pointing to the Algiers story.
‘Naturally,’ said Bognor.
‘Taking it seriously?’
‘Not unless we can prove anything.’
‘It would mean the Johnson girl and that Grithbrice character,’ said Smith. ‘Grithbrice had so many motives it’s ridiculous. I have an idea that Cumberledge is going to give us another in a few minutes.’
‘Cumberledge?’
‘Cumberledge is Abney’s old solicitor, the one we’re going to see.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘He wouldn’t discuss it over the phone. I pushed him a bit and he said something about Abney having been to see him last week. Said it concerned Anstruther Grithbrice and Cosmo Green.’
‘We haven’t had those two names bracketed together before.’
‘No we have not.’
Bognor swilled some of his half-pint round in his mouth and thought for a moment. ‘What do you think about a conspiracy theory?’ he asked.
‘I don’t,’ said Smith flatly.
They finished the beer and walked round the corner to an elegant eighteenth-century terrace where Cumberledge, Cumberledge, Cumberledge and Smithers had their offices. The interior was as elegantly Georgian as the outside, and so in his way was Mr. Cumberledge senior. His office was on the first floor, an amply proportioned room with a large mahogany desk littered with papers tied with pink ribbon. Books lined three corners of the room and Bognor noticed Dicey, Halsbury and Salmond on torts. The fourth wall, behind Mr. Cumberledge’s high-backed leather-upholstered chair, was largely window and gave a pleasant view of the similar terrace on the other side of the street. Mr. Cumberledge rose stiffly, and came round the desk revealing dark striped trousers below his black coat.
‘Good day, gentlemen, good day.’ He was a man of about sixty, with a dry lined face, a thin mouth and gold-rimmed glasses. He wore a red rose in his buttonhole, and had done every day of his working life. He grew them.
‘You’ll take a glass of sherry, I trust.’ He went to an occasional table and poured three glasses from a decanter, which dated from the same period as the house, and gave one to each of them. He then returned to his chair, motioned his guests to sit, and took off the glasses, which he started to polish with his pocket handkerchief. When they were cleaned to his satisfaction he returned them to his nose, adjusted them and sifted some papers. Then he took them off and addressed his audience, now in precisely the agony of suspense which the operation had been intended to produce.
‘Well, gentlemen, no doubt you are asking why I asked you to come to see me?’
There seemed to Bognor to be no need for an answer, and neither he nor Smith gave one.
‘As I told you on the telephone, I am the legal representative of the late Sir Canning Abney—indeed my family have represented the Abneys for a number of generations.’ He coughed, and continued, ‘Now what I am about to tell you must please remain in the very strictest confidence at this stage. I hope I have your agreement on that point.’ He looked from one
to the other of them and waited until they nodded in agreement. ‘You will understand why in a moment. It could be said that I am acting unethically but after giving the matter the greatest possible consideration, especially with regard to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the death of the deceased, I find that I am left with no alternative.’ Again he paused, and for a moment the only sound in the room was the gentle tick of the gilt carriage clock on the marble mantelpiece beneath the (very bad) portrait of the first John Cumberledge.
The present Mr. Cumberledge picked up a piece of paper and read it for a moment. ‘This is Sir Canning’s last will and testament—of which incidentally I am the sole executor—but before I divulge the contents of this I had better return to the circumstances of its commission.
‘Last week, on the Tuesday, Sir Canning came to see me, by arrangement. He seemed to me in a condition of some distress. I must impress on you, by the way, that I tell you this not only because I believe it to be my duty to assist the course of justice, but also because I consider myself still bound by my obligations to my late client.’
Bognor was consumed with boredom. He noticed Smith look at his watch. Cumberledge, though he gave no sign of it, must have noticed.
‘To be brief, gentlemen, he wanted to change his will. His previous will, you understand, left everything to Lady Abney. However, it seems that he had lately become cognizant of some… er, marital infidelity on her part. Although I understand he had no wish to pursue the matter during his lifetime in view of the unfortunate publicity and distress such action might cause, he nevertheless felt it wrong to leave the estate to Lady Abney. There are, I should say, certain insurance: policies in her name, which still stand. There is no question whatever of Lady Abney being left destitute. Sir Canning made certain disclosures of a sexual nature, which frankly I do not feel I should repeat.’
Bognor moved nearer the edge of his chair. This was interesting.
‘There were two crucial points,’ continued Mr. Cumberledge, in a voice which was utterly devoid of emotion. ‘First of all, Sir Canning wished the Small Ships Museum and Abney House itself to remain open to the public and to continue to be run in precisely the same way as hitherto. As you probably know, he had no issue and he felt that neither Lady Isobel nor his younger brother, Grafton, could be relied upon to carry out his wishes in this respect. He therefore willed the entire organization with all the contents to…’ Bognor had a distinct impression that Mr. Cumberledge was enjoying this much more than he should. Mr. Cumberledge squinted at the document, and looked up smiling slightly, ‘to the Honourable Anstruther Grithbrice of Netherly, Staffordshire.’ He put down his glasses and regarded Bognor and Smith with an expression of malicious anticipation. ‘In view, as I say, of the unfortunate occurrences of last weekend, I felt that this was something which should be brought to your attention… A little more sherry?’