by Tim Heald
Drinking Perrier all the time was one of the reasons, Bognor supposed, that Guy Rotherhithe looked like Guy Rotherhithe, just as drinking gin and other alcoholic drinks quite a lot of the time was the reason Simon Bognor looked like Simon Bognor. Now that they were wallowing through their forties Bognor and his friends and contemporaries were beginning to reflect their life styles. There was no escaping the fact that Bognor did look a mite seedy just as Guy Rotherhithe looked extremely chipper. If you played squash and jogged and drank no alcohol you looked like Guy; if you were largely sedentary and ate and drank what you felt like you looked like Simon. Fact of life. Simon would rather like to look like Guy but he told himself that his life style was the more enjoyable. In any event it was too late now to change.
‘I’m not at all sure I like the look of things,’ said Guy, when they had found a quiet table in a quiet corner. It was very dark in the bar and the subdued lighting which just highlighted the brass buttons on Guy’s blazer and the silvery pennants on his yacht club tie made him look even more unbearably handsome than he did in daylight. ‘This is a very unorthodox little village: swamis and knicker manufacturers and God knows what else. There’s a rumour that some writer chappie’s moving in to the old watermill. He made a fortune out of a book about a parrot; writes about TV for one of the Sunday papers.’
‘That’s Kingsley Amis’ boy Martin. He writes Litero-nasties; HPH.’
‘HPH?’ Guy sipped Perrier water; as he leaned forward the silver at his temples flickered suddenly, then merged into dark again.
‘Hard porn for highbrows,’ said Bognor. ‘It’s the in-thing. The parrot was stuffed. It used to be that the only writers who lived in villages had initials and pipes: J.B. Priestley and H.E. Bates. Now they’re all called Julian.’
‘You said Martin,’ said Guy.
‘Did I?’ Bognor was unabashed. ‘It’s all the same thing. I suppose I’m getting old. Anyway if he hasn’t moved in yet he can’t have murdered the VAT man. Writers don’t kill people except in print.’
‘The Carlsbad woman’s supposed to be some sort of writer,’ said Guy. ‘But we’re having a job finding out what exactly it is that she writes. Only one title under her own name and that’s hardly likely to account for her declared income.’
‘What is it?’
‘Freudian Traumdeutung in the Cook Islands. Two Volumes. Published in 1947 and 1950.’
Bognor looked as blank as he felt. Then he said: ‘Freudian, eh?’
‘Yes.’ One of Guy’s eyebrows could just be seen to rise quarter of an inch in the gloom. ‘Why?’
‘She’s down in Wilmslow’s files as “therapist”,’ said Bognor. ‘I wasn’t sure what that means. In view of Freudian Traumdeutung in the Cook Islands I take it we can assume she’s some sort of psycho-therapist?’
‘Plenty of scope for that sort of thing in Herring St George,’ said Guy poking at his lemon with a toothpick.
‘You think so?’
‘Sure so.’ Guy sighed. ‘There are those nutters up at the hall. Phoney Fred’s lot. Doc Macpherson’s boy Damian. Old Sir Nimrod’s got a screw loose or two. And …’ He paused and then said, darkly, ‘There are others.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well …’ Guy suddenly seemed to be experiencing tremendous difficulties with his lemon, ‘No names, no pack drill.’
‘You mean the Contractors?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Bognor knew perfectly well that was who he meant. Even when he was Lord Wapping Guy Rotherhithe had not been a creature of subtlety. When he put his foot in it, which was often, he had fearful difficulties getting it out again.
‘Do you know something about the Contractors that I don’t?’ he asked.
Guy abandoned the lemon and crossed his legs.
‘I don’t know what you know about the Contractors,’ he said uneasily.
‘Listen Guy,’ Bognor leaned towards the immaculate blazer and his paunch brushed the table top.’ If we’re going to cooperate on this case then we’re going to have to cooperate. You level with me and I’ll level with you. It’ll be hopeless otherwise. If there’s something you know about the Contractors then I think you should tell me.’
Guy swallowed. ‘There’s nothing I can prove in a court of law,’ he said. ‘Nothing criminal.’
‘What then?’
‘Well, you know, parties and things.’
‘Parties and things?’ Bognor was incredulous. ‘Since when were parties and things an offence?’ he said. ‘Of course they have parties. They’re party people. Boxes at Ascot; boxes at Glyndebourne; knees-ups in Annabel’s. They’re in the Tatler and Harpers every month. It’s all part of the image; good for business. He’s going to have his own polo team next summer. Trying to get Prince Charles to play. Of course they have parties and things.’
‘I don’t mean that sort of party,’ said Guy, ‘I mean … well you know … Sex … and drugs.’
Bognor still affected astonishment.
‘I never thought of you as a prude, Guy,’ he said, smiling. ‘But I suppose it’s all these years as a country bumpkin. Nowadays lots of parties are full of sex and drugs. If you’re part of the fast set that’s what you expect. It’s normal.’
‘That the sort of party you and Monica go to?’
Some of Bognor’s gin went down the wrong way and he had a brief splutter of coughing.
‘We’re …’ he tried when he had regained his powers of coherent speech ‘not really like that. Never been ones for gadding about and we’re alcohol people as you know. Rather behind the times. But if you’re into gadding about, then it’s sex and drugs all the time.’
Even in the gloom Guy did not look very convinced. ‘From what I hear,’ he said, very seriously, ‘this isn’t just horseplay: not just canoodling and cannabis. It’s hard drugs and serious sex. Orgies. And if it were to get out there could be a scandal. If my sources are correct then it’s that fatal combination of call girls and cabinet ministers. Judges too; but no bishops.’ He smiled grimly. ‘They’re not the best company to keep, Simon,’ he said.
‘Well,’ Bognor back-pedalled a little,’ in my line of work it’s as well to keep informed. We’ve had our eye on the Contractors, we at the Board of Trade. It’s not just for pleasure that Monica and I have cultivated them you know. But I must say I’m surprised. They sail a bit close to the wind now and then but I’d be surprised if they were running orgies. They’ve certainly never asked us to one.’
Guy said nothing, just gazed at Bognor and looked knowing. One eyebrow raised a little and the corner of his mouth twitched. Bognor was finding him extremely trying.
‘The point is,’ said Bognor, ‘that standards in town are not like standards in the country. What seems perfectly acceptable up there may seem over the top down here. What seems normal in Herring St George would often seem antediluvian in town. I dare say people round here dress for dinner and wear three-piece tweed suits for church.’
‘That’s all changing,’ said Guy morosely. ‘I mean look at this.’ He waved a hand around the bar. ‘It’s not so long ago that this was a regular old-fashioned pub with skittles and mild and bitter. Now it’s a poncy wine bar run by a couple of pretentious Nancy boys. There’s a chapter of Hell’s Angels at Nether Pillock; the Mayor of Whelk was done for interfering with boy scouts at the annual camp last Whitsun; and you’ve seen for yourself what’s happened to Herring St George. You might as well live in Golders Green.’
‘Nothing wrong with Golders Green,’ said Bognor. ‘My mother-in-law lives in Golders Green.’
‘You know what I mean,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Everywhere you look it’s spivs and wide boys, tarts and con men. If this is what the Prime Minister means by a return to Victorian values she can keep it. I’d rather live in New Zealand.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bognor, weakly.
‘Well I do,’ said Guy. ‘As far as I’m concerned the bottom’s fallen out of this country. Moral fibre gone to the dogs. Anythin
g goes. Everyone wants something for nothing and devil take the hindmost. It’s bloody awful, frankly. And there’s nowhere that’s more symptomatic of the decline in civilised standards and values than the English village. Used to be the salt of the earth, English villagers. And now look what’s happened, they’ve either emigrated or gone to live in housing estates in Whelk. And all we’ve got here is a lot of weekenders in sheepskin jackets and crocodile brothel creepers. Makes you weep.’
‘You’re not old enough to talk like that,’ said Bognor. ‘You’re not allowed to be that reactionary until you’re eighty. Not unless you’re a brigadier or belong to the National Front.’
‘It’s not reactionary, just reality,’ he said. ‘And this latest business is a symptom.’
Bognor was not keen on this right-wing popular sociology.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s all very well but what we have to decide is whether a crime has been committed, and if so by whom.’
‘Perfectly simple,’ said Guy, ‘to let the coroner bring in an accidental death verdict, even if it’s hedged around with a few doubts and ambiguities. It looks pretty accidental on the face of it.’
‘Except that he didn’t drink.’
‘Did your people say that?’ Guy did not sound surprised.
‘Yes,’ said Bognor.
‘Confirmed by the people here at the Pickled Herring.’ The policeman swallowed the last of his Perrier and signalled for another round. ‘Never seen with more than a half of bitter or maybe a single glass of the house plonk with a meal. He could make either last for an eternity.’
‘But he was drunk when they found him?’
‘Stank of alcohol. Haven’t had the autopsy reports yet but either way I presume they’ll show an uncharacteristically large intake of alcohol.’
‘Either way?’ Their second round of drinks materialised and Bognor signed for them, wondering as he did whether there was going to be another boring row with boring Parkinson about boring expenses.
‘Either he drank it voluntarily or it was poured down him by what we professionals usually call a person or persons as yet unknown.’
‘A third party,’ said Bognor.
‘Just so. It seems unlikely he drank whatever he drank of his own accord. He had dinner here on his own; then went into the lounge and drank coffee while he watched the news.’
‘Then went to bed,’ ventured Bognor.
‘The bed hadn’t been slept in,’ said Guy. ‘He had a standing order for morning tea at seven. When the maid went in the sheets were turned down and the complimentary After Eight mint was still on the pillow where it had been put the night before.’
‘So where did he go after the news?’
Guy shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘We found a diary in the room and he’d got nothing down for that evening. He was seeing your friends the Contractors the following morning and Emerald Carlsbad the day after that. In other words he logged his appointments very conscientiously. So if there was nothing down for that evening he can’t have had anything planned.’
‘So something cropped up at the last moment. Or someone.’ Bognor frowned. It was looking more and more like crime. ‘There’s no way he could have wandered off into the night clutching a bottle of Scotch?’
Guy Rotherhithe shook his head. ‘Had it been you …’ he said.
Bognor chose to ignore this gibe, though it did not go unrecorded.
‘What we’re saying,’ he said, ‘is that we have no idea what the hell Brian Wilmslow was doing between nine twenty-five and this morning when he was killed at the Clout.’
‘If he was killed at the Clout,’ said the chief inspector darkly.
‘You’re implying he was murdered during the night and dumped in Gallows Wood.’
‘Yes.’
‘Now why,’ said Bognor, ‘would anyone do a thing like that?’
‘Why which?’ asked Guy with an unexpected sharpness. ‘“Why murder?” is one question; “why dump?” is quite another.’
‘If he had been murdered already, then he was presumably dumped so that we would think he was killed by the arrows. And if he was killed by the arrows there’s no telling whose arrow it was. Who knows who pulled the string. It’s like that Agatha Christie where they take turns stabbing the man on the train.’
‘The Orient Express,’ said Guy.
‘Albert Finney in a hairnet,’ said Bognor, who was not that keen on Dame Agatha’s work, mainly because the solutions were always so neat and unlike his experience of real life. ‘The point is that if he was murdered by one of the archers we’ve no way of knowing which one.’
‘My point precisely,’ said Guy. ‘No better way of spreading the blame than to arrange for your victim to be skewered by the entire population.’
‘Just suppose,’ said Bognor after a pause while they digested their hypotheses, ‘just suppose that someone sandbagged him or doped him or alcoholled him into some sense of false security; and just suppose that that someone left him in Gallows Wood knowing full well that he was in the line of fire from the massed archers of the Popinjay Clout. Now would that person be guilty of murder? Always supposing that Wilmslow was still alive when he was abandoned in Gallows Wood. What do you suppose?’
‘You sound like my old chief constable, Lejeune of the Yard,’ said Guy. ‘Let us suppose this … let us suppose that. He was the ultimate pedant. Always had to go through every letter of the alphabet to get from A to B.’
‘You haven’t answered me,’ said Bognor relentlessly.
‘My answer,’ Guy sighed, ‘is that whether or not such a person is guilty, and if so of what, is no concern of mine. That’s what judges are for. All I know is that if we have reasonable grounds to suppose that X or Y abducted Wilmslow and left him in Gallows Wood on the morning of the Clout then it is our duty to arrest X or Y. What happens after that is none of our affair.’
‘Now you sound like Chief Constable Lejeune.’ Bognor was, as always, irritated by this nitpickish worrying of the bones of the case. He wanted to get on with it. And yet his experience was that without this attention to detail, to unturned stones and ludicrous hypotheses, you never got anywhere at all. You could create the illusion of progress but it was quite false. Detection was a tortoise and hare affair. It was his main complaint about it. ‘Put it another way,’ he said carefully, ‘if he really did have too much to drink and blundered into the wood to sleep it off, then there’s no real case to answer. Death by misadventure. Person or persons unknown.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ said Guy.
‘But you don’t know that.’
Guy grinned. ‘I’ve never been more certain of anything.’
Bognor frowned. ‘That’s intuition. You aren’t allowed intuition in our game, you know that. It’s inadmissible. “How did you know that Professor Plum did it in the conservatory with the poker?” “Intuition, my lord.” It wouldn’t wash. Case dismissed. We need a rational progression of facts leading inexorably to a logical conclusion.’
‘Quite,’ said Guy. ‘Nevertheless intuition can play a part in directing you to asking the questions which elucidate the facts. In any event I intend proceeding on the basis that there was foul play. I think Wilmslow was interfered with. Whether he was alive or dead when he was abandoned in the wood is neither here nor there. The court can play around with that. Our job is to find out who put him there – dead or alive.’
‘I see,’ said Bognor.
‘So the first thing I shall do,’ continued Guy decisively, ‘is to have a chat to all the people on Wilmslow’s list and get them to account for their movements between the end of the nine o’clock news and breakfast.’
‘What about motive?’
‘Sod motive!’ said Guy, who had obviously been transformed by the Perrier. ‘Let’s find out who did it. Once we’ve done that we’ll get the reason soon enough.’
Bognor wondered whether he should order another gin and decided against. Not because he didn’t want one but becaus
e he didn’t want the police thinking he was some sort of lush.
‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll concentrate on motive. We’ll be approaching it from two different ends of the stick.’
‘One of the ends is bound to be the wrong one,’ said Guy. He laughed with the rather gratified air of a man who has been surprised by a joke he had never intended.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Bognor, managing to imply a depth of hidden meaning which he hoped he was not going to be called upon to reveal. He was happier with the shady ambiguities and semi-conscious neuroses implicit in dealing with people’s reasons for wanting to kill other people. Guy’s self-appointed role of investigator of times and places of alibis and whereabouts struck him as mundane and unintellectual. The difference, to his way of thinking, between philosophy and algebra. But then he was only a modest arts graduate. Also he was well aware that in the upper reaches of academe there were plenty of dons who would tell him that algebra and philosophy were one and the same. Perhaps that was what he meant about there being two right ends of this particular stick.
He was saved from these not entirely relevant musings by the entrance of Monica, Mrs Bognor. She did not enter Popinjay’s in the prescribed Chandler manner, carrying a smoking gun, but she might almost have done for she was clearly the bearer of dramatic tidings. Her air of disarray and incompletely applied lipstick suggested, even to men like Bognor and Guy Rotherhithe, that she had been interrupted in mid toilette.
‘I was hoping I’d find you two boys in here,’ she said. ‘Can I have a quick drink? Sir Nimrod’s in the bedroom and I’m not going back without one of you.’
‘Good grief!’ said Bognor. ‘You don’t mean …’
‘Oh don’t be so ridiculous,’ said Monica, eyes flashing through the artificial gloaming. ‘And get me a large Scotch. I hate this dump. Give me the North End Road any day.’
Bognor thought of saying something crisp but went to the bar instead where he ordered his wife’s whisky and surreptitiously procured another gin for himself. The Inspector was still only halfway through his Perrier.