Brought to Book (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  Yet this was what Capstick did. Bognor did not follow his argument in every detail, not least because much of it was couched in the same impressive-sounding but ultimately opaque language of Looking After Number One and The First Billion. For example: ‘Self advancement is fundamentally the apotheosis of the Yin’ or ‘Only by realising the true potential of self can one truly achieve one’s goal: to grow is to grow’. The Bognor brow furrowed as he scribbled a few notes on key passages and he gave up completely when Capstick embarked on his famous anthropomorphic metaphors. ‘In the warren the king rabbit will attract the greatest number of does by the simple expedient of…’or ‘A single mating call from the sperm whale when broken up into an infinite number of micro-cells corresponds…’ were ideas which seemed to Bognor to be effectively bereft of meaning. Yet the gist of Capstick’s message came across loud and clear. What Capstick was actually saying in his forty minutes of apparent gobbledy-gook could best be summed by a word Oberdorf Charles was fond of using, though only in private.

  ‘Arseholes!’

  Although an increasing restiveness became apparent during his speech there were no interruptions or obvious manifestations of displeasure until he had finished. (One elderly gent with a silver-handled cane did walk out in the middle but evidently only to answer a call of nature because he reappeared in the middle of Capstick’s dissertation on ‘man as rabbit’ or ‘writer as rabbit’; Bognor was not sure which.

  However, as soon as he had sat down and Oberdorf Charles had thanked him for ‘that characteristically golden (smile, smile) piece of oratory’, a forest of hands went up for questions.

  The first was more by way of being a speech than a question and was from a thin woman with her hair tied severely close to her head. ‘I don’t want to seem to speak ill of the dead,’ she began, ‘but I have to say that I think the late Vernon Hemlock did more to damage the English language than any man this century. Speaking as someone who had the misfortune to have been an Author of Aspen and Larch’s when Mr Hemlock took the firm over I can only say that if that’s how Mr Hemlock believed a publisher should behave then we’re better off without him.’

  One or two members applauded at this but Mr Charles had risen to his feet, brow like thunder. ‘I don’t wish’, he said, ‘to comment on the gratuitous insensitivity, pettiness and downright bad manners of that last remark,’ (applause from the Big Book authors in the front row) ‘but I would ask the questioner to ask a question and not merely make a statement. If she has no question I respectfully suggest she sit down and make way for someone who has.’

  The angular lady did not seem in the least put out by this.

  ‘My question is,’ she said, with an almost gleeful menace, ‘Would Dr Capstick’s book have sold as many copies if it had been written in proper English?’

  A noisy outbreak of clapping and even some cheering greeted this.

  ‘Next question,’ said Mr Charles, but Capstick was keen to make an answer.

  ‘I would only say’, he ventured, ‘that at the last count, sixty-two point three-seven per cent of my total world sales are in foreign language versions of the book.’ He grinned, feeling, evidently, that he had scored a bull’s-eye. The front row clapped noisily.

  ‘Then I only hope the translators had a better grasp of grammar and syntax than you have,’ called the voice from the back.

  ‘Next question; you, sir,’ Mr Charles was pointing at the man who claimed to have published Bognor’s schoolboy poem.

  ‘It has been suggested,’ he said, ‘that the colossal sales of non-books like Mr Capstick’s and others from the Hemlock stable actually damage the sale of proper books and prevent people reading. Would the speaker care to comment?’

  ‘Whaddya mean, “non-books”?’ Mr Charles showed signs of losing his rag. ‘Each one of the Capstick books contains over one hundred thousand words. They have been recognised in every country in the globe. They have received encomia from the White House and from Number Ten Downing Street and from Mrs Mary Whitehouse. Dammit, if your sort of books were the only books, no one would read any more.’

  Capstick was beginning to look ruffled. ‘Each book’, he said, ‘goes through many different drafts. There is a degree of editorial input at every conceivable stage. One draft is always seen by a Professor of Linguistics who is a world expert in his field and whose advice is received with very real sympathy by all of us involved in the book’s creation. I want the books to appeal to the sort of person who doesn’t normally read books and I’m very careful to make them as accessible as possible to the non-reader.’

  Bognor was slightly upset to note that several people, including their dapper friend in the row in front, laughed immoderately at this sally.

  ‘You may not recognise it,’ said Oberdorf Charles, ‘but men like Hemlock and Capstick are creating The New Literature. Without them there’d be no books.’

  The applause and counter-applause which greeted every remark was beginning to become uncomfortably adversarial. Bognor noticed one or two of the RIL officials becoming restive.

  Now another voice intervened from the end of the row on which the Bognors were sitting. It belonged, Bognor realised, to a once-popular novelist, author of Bladon Races no less, now fallen on hard times and, at this moment, a little the worse for drink.

  ‘I’ve ’ad enough,’ he stormed in his once-famous Geordie accent. ‘I thought it was a bloody outrage when I saw this feller ‘ad been asked to come and talk but I decided I’d come and I’d give ’im ’benefit of ’doubt. Well, I’ve been and come and I’ve heard ’im out and I think it’s even more of a bloody outrage than it were in ‘first place!’

  There was a storm of clapping. A cheer here and there, even a boo and possibly a hiss. In the front row Danvers Warrington had risen and was attempting to restore order. Bognor thought he caught ‘aperçu’ and possibly ‘bon mots’ but he could not be sure. The speaker had gone very white and was taking a drink of water. Oberdorf Charles, incandescent, was trying to fight his way through the throng to get at someone at the back – presumably the person who had thrown a sausage roll which scored a flakey hit on his exposed upper chest. Bognor thought he heard him shout ‘Whingeing bastards’. It was impossible to be sure. Two of the RIL ladies advanced on the microphone which let out another of its banshee yells to add to the hubbub. The author of Bladon Races, making an enthusiastic foray to the bar, tripped over someone’s crutches and fell into the arms of the small girl in black who almost collapsed but was saved by another young girl with long blond ringlets.

  Out of the corner of his eye Bognor saw that Romany Flange had grabbed hold of little Arthur Green and was leading him away by the elbow while talking eagerly into his right ear. Bognor smelt rats.

  ‘See you later, darling,’ he said to his wife who was on her feet like everyone else, savouring the full flavour of this clash of culture, this collision of art and artefact. He slipped away through the ranks of the Literati, all ready for the chase but sadly oblivious to the beady-eyed, athletic man in the leather jacket who had seen the departure of Romany Flange and Arthur Green, had watched Bognor go too and now, with a mean expression and a purposeful hitch of the collar, set off in a pursuit of his own.

  It was cold outside, with bright stars in a cloudless night and not a cab to be seen. Bognor saw Flange and Green walking north up Radnor Walk towards the King’s Road. It was no problem following them. There were very few people about and they never once looked behind, far too keen on each other’s company. They were still talking. At least, Romany Flange was talking. Arthur Green seemed to be listening.

  At the corner of the King’s Road they hesitated for a moment. He hoped they weren’t going to take a cab for he had a chronic aversion to leaping into London taxis and telling the driver to ‘follow that cab’. It invariably meant disbelief which could only be dispelled by bribery by which time it was usually too late. In any case in his experience cabbies seemed very bad at following each other. At least once he thoug
ht he had executed the perfect chase only to find that they had been following the wrong taxi. ‘All look bleeding alike to me, sunshine!’ was the usual protest when he remonstrated.

  There were more crowds now and Bognor quickened his pace, reducing the difference to about twenty yards as they passed the Duke of York’s Barracks and a handful of punks in tartan mini-skirts and safety pins. He was perplexed by punks.

  At Sloane Square there was another short hesitation by the taxi rank but then his quarries disappeared into the tube station. From the other side of the road Bognor saw them turn right for the westbound trains. As soon as they had disappeared down the stairs he hurried across the road and bought himself a 60p ticket and an Evening Standard to hide behind. Then he turned up his coat collar, sank his head into his chest and shuffled downstairs keeping close to the wall. Looking around he saw that they were sitting on a bench near the front end of the platform. He positioned himself outside the pub to the right and waited. The first train was for Ealing Broadway. Flange and Green did not catch it. Nor the next, for Wimbledon. The third was a Circle Line train and they ambled nonchalantly on to that.

  Bognor waited until the last moment then sprung on and stood by the door. He did not notice a leather-coated man two coaches to the east who left his entry even later than Bognor, so much so that he only just squeezed between the rubbery jaws of the automatic sliding doors.

  They did not leave the train at South Kensington, Gloucester Road or High Street Ken. At each stop Bognor lowered his newspaper just enough to be able to watch the doorway through which Flange and Green had entered. A stop further on, at Notting Hill Gate, the two finally left the train, still talking. Again Bognor followed as they climbed the stairs and left the station on the south side of the road.

  From there they walked east, past the wine and food store, still open for late-night shoppers, across the lights, and on to Kensington Palace Gardens, otherwise known, like other plush London thoroughfares, as ‘Millionaire’s Row’. It was ill lit here, the road shrouded by tall trees, and Bognor eased back as they turned right. The crowds had thinned again. In fact there was hardly anybody around. It was a street of mansions, each one surrounded by walls and railings and the very latest security gear, for this one was embassy country and hostile embassies at that. The Czechs were here up at the north end; the Russians further down. Odd that the Communists should have set up shop cheek by jowl with Kensington Palace, home of Charles and Di, and Margaret, and poor Michael of Kent and his preposterous Austro-Australian bride. Thank God he wasn’t a royal, thought Bognor, waiting for Flange and Green to be far enough away for him to follow discreetly. Thank God he wasn’t a Russian diplomat, come to that.

  It was really very dark just under the tree where Bognor was standing so he didn’t see the man approach from the busy street just a few yards away. Nor did he hear him until he was a few feet off. He seemed to be about Bognor’s height.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but I wonder if I could trouble you for the time?’ Bognor could not see the face at all clearly but was vaguely aware of a leather jacket and a faint smell of Gauloise and wine quite recently consumed.

  ‘Er, hang on a second. I’ll need to light a match.’ Bognor’s very old watch was not luminous. It had belonged to his father and was hopeless – unluminous, unwaterproof, unshockproof – but he persisted with it for old time’s sake and out of filial piety. He struck the match and held it close to the dial, bending his head right down to try and figure out the numbers.

  ‘I make it…’ he said. But that was as far as he got. He was about to say ‘ten-fifteen’ but before he could say anything at all everything went both black and blank. It was a blow to the back of the neck, expertly delivered and guaranteed to put him out for quite a while. His assailant caught him before he fell, lowered him gently to the ground, then slipped away silently south towards the Palace.

  He came round to find Monica staring down at him.

  ‘Don’t move,’ she advised. ‘You are perfectly all right. You are going to be better still but for the moment I don’t advise you to move.’

  Bognor turned his head. Not far, just enough to see if he could get his bearings and try to work out if he was (a) at home; (b) in hospital; (c) dead; or (d) dreaming.

  ‘Aaaargh,’ he moaned. Hearing his own voice, albeit from far away and in some distress, he decided that he could probably eliminate (c) and (d). It seemed to him, too, that in the split second before he had to close his eyes again he had noticed that peculiarly horrible yellow flowered wallpaper that the previous owners had put up in their bedroom. It certainly didn’t look like curtain or plain Snowcem which is what he associated with hospitals.

  ‘I’ll get a doctor if you like but I don’t think there’s any need. You’ve got a lump the size of a baked potato behind your ear but your eyes look all right and your pulse is OK.’

  ‘Don’t shout!’ said Bognor, ‘I’m not deaf.’

  ‘I couldn’t wake you,’ said Monica. ‘I had to shout. You are a clot. You’re too old to be knocked out cold and dumped on the doorstep.’

  ‘Dumped on the doorstep?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Monica, ‘you picked a real gentleman mugger.’

  ‘What happened?’ Bognor tried sitting up and thought better of it. ‘God,’ he said, ‘I could use a drink.’

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ said Monica. ‘A nice warm drink. Horlicks or Ovaltine.’

  ‘You know bloody well we don’t keep Horlicks or Ovaltine. I need a stiff Scotch.’

  ‘Tea,’ said Monica, ‘coffee if you insist.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Monica, old biscuit, but honestly I’d feel a whole lot better if I had some alcohol coursing about the veins.’

  ‘You shouldn’t. You know what the rule book says.’

  ‘You know I’m an exception to all known rules.’

  Mrs Bognor gazed down at her man with a mixture of pride and concern.

  ‘You are one prize gitto, Simon Bognor, and it’s time you grew up.’

  ‘Please, Monica…I really think I need that whisky quite badly.’ He attempted a boyish smile which went horribly wrong but she succumbed all the same.

  While she was fetching the drink Bognor tried to piece together what he could remember. There had been the evening at the RIL which disintegrated in chaos. Then he had followed Romany Flange and that rather pathetic Green creature as far as the entrance to Kensington Palace Gardens. He had waited until they had gone a little way down the road and while he was waiting this chap asked him the time. It was 10.15 he remembered but he didn’t think he’d managed to tell him. He’d blacked out. Chap must have bopped him one when he was trying to work out the position of the hands on his watch. He fingered his bump. Quite expertly done.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked Monica when she came back with a tray, bottle, jug and two glasses.

  ‘About half-eleven.’

  ‘Good grief!’ He did manage to sit up this time. ‘How in God’s name did I get back here so fast?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Monica, pouring stiff ones. ‘At about ten-forty-five I got a call but there was nobody there. Then around half an hour later the doorbell went and when I opened the door there you were lying on the mat, snoring.’

  ‘Snoring?’

  ‘Well, breathing heavily if you prefer.’

  ‘I see.’ Bognor gulped, coughed and immediately felt a whole lot better. ‘Did he take anything?’ He was in shirt sleeves. His jacket was hanging, he saw, on a hook on the door. He nodded at it.

  ‘I didn’t check,’ said Monica. ‘Too busy worrying about you.’ She was relieved. He hadn’t looked at all good when she found him on the mat and she had seriously thought of sending for the doctor. Trouble was their own GP probably wouldn’t have come out and then he would have fussed and finally he would have asked a lot of silly interfering questions and tried to make Bognor report it to the police. This last in particular was, she guessed, almost certainly quite the wrong thing to do. She could hav
e asked the Board of Trade’s man, Simcocks, but he was a rat and would have told Parkinson. Monica guessed that this was not something that should reach Parkinson’s ears. Not yet, anyway.

  She checked his wallet. ‘Fifty-two pounds cash,’ she said, ‘driving licence, credit cards – various – photograph of your mum and photograph of me. You are soppy, I’d no idea you had that one, and it’s ghastly. Makes me look like a retired weight-lifter.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. That all sounds in order. Keys still there?’

  She rummaged. ‘Keys still here.’

  ‘Diary?’

  ‘Yup,’ she said.

  ‘What about my ID card?’

  ‘Yes. In with the credit cards.’

  Bognor drank another soothing draft. His head ached, particularly where it was so bruised, but otherwise he felt in surprisingly good nick. ‘The phone call was presumably him checking to see that you were in.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Silly to go to all the trouble of dropping me off back home if there was no one in. I might have stayed on the doorstep all night. Died of hypothermia. Been remugged by someone altogether more lethal.’ Bognor sighed. ‘You didn’t see anyone slip out of that meeting just after I did?’