Murder at Moose Jaw (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  Bognor frowned.

  ‘Don’t be so scrupulous,’ said Colonel Crombie silkily. ‘Provided we find a good lawyer the guy will only get a few years. There’ll be plenty of mitigating circumstances, and remission for good behaviour. He’ll be out again in a few years. And Canadian penitentiaries are fine, civilized places. OK, so it’s not perfect, but it has to be done.’

  ‘Have anyone in mind?’ enquired Bognor dryly, but Crombie did not seem to notice the irony. Or if he did he was not letting on.

  ‘I’m sorry about the food,’ he said, ‘they must have changed chef. The coffee’s OK though. Come and have some coffee and a brandy to take away the taste. We’ll find somewhere really quiet.’

  In the elevator Crombie said he had been to see the Leafs play a couple of nights back. He had been shocked at the ineptitude of their performance but disturbed, too, to find that even in Maple Leaf Gardens he had run into old friends who had got wind of the bad vibes coming out of Mammon HQ. It was only a matter of time, said Crombie, before the press did start running speculative stories, and once that happened shares would really start to dip. Right now the talk was confined to makers and shakers in Rosedale and Westmount. Once the gossip filtered into the Globe and Maclean’s it would be on the little-old-lady circuit. People owned Mammon shares even in Lethbridge, Alberta, and Cape Breton, and they’d sell the second they got wind of what was being alleged.

  ‘OK,’ said Bognor, as they sat in the remotest corner of the smoking room, yards from the twitching ears of the nearest potential eavesdropper. ‘Shoot.’

  Crombie pulled out a pipe and spent a minute or so lighting it. He smoked Sobranie, its vanilla smell wafting across to Bognor in a series of blue storm clouds.

  ‘My information,’ said Crombie, now very conspiratorial, ‘is that Farquhar was killed with a solution in his bath oil which combined with the water in his bath to give off some form of toxic gas.’

  Bognor nodded.

  ‘Am I right?’

  ‘More or less. I’m not a chemist. But that’s the essence of the matter. As it were.’

  Crombie did not even flicker in recognition of the pun. Perhaps he considered it tasteless, though how he could think anything tasteless beside what he was suggesting Bognor could scarcely imagine.

  ‘In which case anyone who could lay his hands on one of those bottles would be able to uncork it, put the solution in, re-cork and get it into Farquhar’s bathroom. Or into Littlejohn’s reserve stock.’

  ‘In theory.’

  ‘The real problem would be getting a hold of one of those bottles.’

  Bognor said nothing, but waited.

  ‘You’ll know by now that several of us were given bottles as a Christmas present.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s more than Smith of the Mounties knew.’

  ‘Or cared,’ said Bognor.

  ‘So you have a fair number of plausible suspects.’

  ‘Did you have bath oil for Christmas?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Dolores too. And Harrison.’

  ‘Are you telling me that I should just pick one or other of you out of a hat?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Crombie fiddled with his pipe. ‘Some of us have more compelling motives than others. I, for instance, made no secret of my dislike for Farquhar but I’d learned to live with it. Nothing new about it. If I was going to kill him I’d have done it thirty years ago or more.’

  ‘And your friend, Dolores?’

  ‘Same thing. She had a great deal more reason to kill him when they were living together. He treated her abominably. Also she was well looked after. He paid her a handsome pension and he bought her the apartment in Manhattan as well as the house in Saratoga.’

  ‘Who then?’

  Crombie sucked hard on the stem of his pipe. Smoke rose in puffs the size of men’s hands.

  ‘Have you talked to Ainsley Cernik?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I think you should.’

  ‘I appreciate the advice. Are you going to be more specific? Or am I to find out for myself?’

  ‘I’ll suggest one or two thoughts. You know Cernik’s background history?’

  ‘I’d like to hear it from you.’

  ‘OK. Cernik came out of Czechoslovakia in sixty-eight. He’s from Prague. Claims to have been some sort of dissident leader, a freethinking liberal who was on the Russians’ blacklist because of his outspoken views. All that junk. They all say that. Frankly I don’t believe a word of it. I’ve talked to one or two other emigrés who knew him in the old days and they all say Ainsley swam with the tide and bent with the wind. He was big in the black market. He had a garage downtown somewhere, used to service the official Tatra cars for the government ministries and some of the embassies too. That gave him all sorts of useful entrées and he was into everything—booze, dope, girls, gasoline—the lot. My information is that he was a casualty of the Prague Spring, not the Russian invasion. They say he actually came out while Dubcek was still in charge.’

  ‘Why didn’t he go to Russia if that’s where his friends were?’

  ‘Oh, there wasn’t anything ideological about Cernik’s Russian friendships. He’s always been a chancer, a natural capitalist. If there was money in it Cernik would sell his wife, his mother, his daughters, maybe even himself. No future in the Soviet Union for that sort of entrepreneur.’

  ‘I take it you’re not too keen on Mr Cernik.’

  Crombie shrugged. ‘Easy come, easy go. I liked Farquhar in a way. Cernik’s a shit but I’d sooner have an entertaining shit than a tight-arsed saint, if you’ll forgive the expression.’

  ‘So Cernik played the black market in Czechoslovakia, and then he came here.’

  Crombie picked up the story. ‘Yeah. He came here and went straight into the second-hand car business, made a neat little fortune and was bought out by one of the smaller Mammon subsidiaries. Farquhar spotted him. He was on the main board inside six months. And a year later they started to fight.’

  ‘What did they fight about?’

  ‘Eleanor to begin with. Only child. You know what men are like about only children. Particularly an only girl. Even more particularly when the mother died giving birth. Farquhar was obsessive about Eleanor. Indecently so.’

  ‘Farquhar tried to stop her marrying Cernik?’

  ‘They fought over Eleanor and Cernik won out. Inevitable.’

  ‘If Cernik won out then I don’t see why he had a motive for killing Farquhar. The other way round, maybe.’

  ‘That was only the beginning,’ said Crombie. ‘From then on they fought about everything. We all fought with Farquhar in our different ways, but usually we saw the commercial sense of what he was doing even if we didn’t like the way he did it. Most of us were too greedy to make real trouble and most of the time he was right. We all did well from Farquhar’s decisions.’

  ‘Including Cernik?’

  ‘Including Cernik. But that didn’t stop him fighting. And gradually he began to win some support. Younger guys were co-opted on to the board. He said that Farquhar was flying by the seat of his pants, taking decisions based on hunches when they ought to be based on proper market surveys and analyses and god knows what all. Most of us, particularly the older ones, we were prepared to back Farquhar’s hunches against any number of statistical analyses but around the mid-seventies we started getting some new blood in: men in their late thirties and early forties with degrees in business studies from Harvard. They sided with Cernik.’

  Bognor nodded. He wished sometimes that there could be an influx of new blood into the Board of Trade to support him in the unending battle with Parkinson.

  ‘That’s still no more of a motive than anyone else’s,’ he said. ‘Especially if he was beginning to win, and it sounds as if he was.’

  ‘You forget,’ said Crombie, ‘Cernik was powerful and clever and he married the boss’s daughter, but he still had less than ten per cent of the shares. Farquhar had a controlling interest all his life.’


  ‘I see.’ Bognor did indeed begin to see. ‘And when he died Eleanor was to inherit the lot, so that she would be the most powerful single figure in Mammoncorp.’

  ‘Right.’ Crombie leaned back and jabbed at Bognor with his pipe. ‘Now even though Farquhar was upset by Eleanor marrying Cernik he was still besotted with her. There was no way he was going to cut her out of his will, specially as there was no other kith and kin. Cernik banked on this and he overstepped the mark. There was no one deal in particular but he took Farquhar on once too often and finally Farquhar couldn’t take any more. He had Eleanor in and said that if her husband didn’t toe the line then he would disinherit her. He wouldn’t cut her out altogether. There would be cash and property but very definitely no Mammon shares. She was given six weeks to talk him round and if she didn’t do it, then it was going to be a new will and Cernik’s chance of taking over at Mammon right out the window.’

  ‘When was all this? This confrontation between Farquhar and Eleanor.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Crombie, softly. ‘It happened almost exactly six weeks before Farquhar died.’

  ‘And do we know whether Eleanor did persuade Cernik to cool down?’

  ‘We may, but I don’t.’

  ‘And who told you all this?’

  Crombie hesitated for a while. ‘Dolores,’ he said, at last. ‘She remained very close to Farquhar after they split. He confided in her a great deal.’

  ‘And she in you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Crombie smiled a soft superior smile. ‘And she in me.’

  10

  IT WAS NOT EASY to agitate Monica. She had the rather bloody-minded sangfroid that one associates with the better sort of memsahib, an indifference verging on disdain for those who attempted to make her life difficult. These ranged from tax inspectors to taxi drivers and included most foreigners, especially those living abroad, practically all shop assistants and all cloakroom attendants. This attitude frightened some people to whom she appeared hard and even, it was sometimes alleged, ‘bitchy’. She had once frightened off a would-be rapist on Hampstead Heath by advancing on him waving her umbrella and shouting fearful obscenities. The man had turned and run, leading Bognor to remark superciliously that he did not think he had been a potential rapist but simply a harmless flasher trying to make someone take an interest in him. Whatever the truth of the matter the story had gone the rounds so that when her name was mentioned people would say, ‘Oh, yes, isn’t she the woman who attacked the rapist?’ This was unfair, but not wholly so.

  When, therefore, Bognor lurched down the corridor of the hotel and managed to press the doorbell with his forehead—his reliance on crutches meaning that he did not have a hand free to deal with it in the normal manner—he was surprised to find that Monica had put the door on the chain and at first refused to open.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called, suspiciously.

  Bognor put his eye up to the peephole in the middle of the door and peered in. It was quite dark.

  ‘Stand back from the door,’ Monica’s voice sounded shaky. ‘I can’t see who it is if you don’t stand back.’

  ‘I can’t stand back. I’ll fall over. I’m leaning against the door. I’m on crutches.’

  ‘Who is it? Will you please move back?’

  ‘Monica. It’s me. Simon. Your husband. Let me in.’

  ‘Simon! Is that you?’

  ‘Yes. It’s me. What’s up? Let me in.’ This was peculiar. Most unlike Monica.

  ‘Hang on.’

  He heard bolts being shot. Then the door was pulled back a few inches, causing him to stumble against it.

  ‘Careful,’ he shouted angrily. He had stubbed his toe, which protruded from the plaster and was covered only in gauze and bandage. Moreover, he was in danger of falling completely if the door was opened any more. ‘Wait a sec,’ he shouted but she did not hear in time and opened the door to its full extent whereupon he did fall, like a pine tree under the axe, straight into his wife’s arms. She staggered back but clung on and together they tottered into the room locked together, before finally collapsing on the bed in a heap. He lay still, surprisingly unhurt by the tumble. ‘Hello,’ he said, staring into his wife’s eyes. He was surprised to see that they were brown. He knew that they were brown, of course. Or had known and forgotten. Or seldom thought about it. Or hardly ever looked to check. ‘Hello, brown eyes,’ he said, kissing her nose.

  ‘Thank heaven you’re back,’ she said. ‘Hang on.’ She extricated herself and hurried to the door. Bognor sat up and watched with disbelief as she bolted it and reattached the chain.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ he asked, beginning to catch her concern. She looked uncharacteristically flustered. Her hair, usually immaculately mousey, was a mess, her face blotchy.

  She sat down in the armchair, perching on the edge. ‘Have you got a cigarette?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not. You know I don’t smoke cigarettes. I’ve got a panatella. Quite a thin one. Cuban I think.’

  She shook her head, stood and went to the window.

  ‘Do you mind if I have a drink?’ She was staring down at the city streets below, hands sunk deep in the pockets of her skirt.

  ‘Of course not. Isn’t there some of your duty-free left?’

  ‘I feel like brandy actually.’

  ‘OK. I’ll ring room service. Or would you rather go down to the bar?’

  ‘The bar won’t serve alcohol in mid-afternoon. Anyway, I’d rather not go out if you don’t mind.’

  Bognor pulled himself up awkwardly and dialled room service on the bedside phone. ‘Look, what is all this?’ he asked, quite peevish now.

  She waited until he had ordered the brandy. Two brandies in fact. Then she said, ‘I had a phone call.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bognor grinned. ‘I know you don’t enjoy telephone calls but I can’t help feeling you’re rather overdoing the reaction.’

  ‘Don’t be flippant. It was an anonymous phone call.’

  ‘A heavy breather? A Canadian heavy breather? Or a British breather?’

  His heavy flippancy coaxed a timid half smile but it evaporated at once.

  ‘Worse than that,’ she said, pushing back a stray strand of hair. ‘He was threatening us.’

  ‘He? Who?’

  ‘I don’t know who. He was anonymous. He didn’t give a name. Oh, where’s that brandy?’ She sat down again and then stood immediately.

  ‘But what did he say?’ Bognor was exasperated. Try as he might he could not understand Monica’s anguish. She was usually so level-headed. She was the only one of them who could stand the sight of blood, who did not flinch from the dentist.

  ‘He threatened us. Both of us. You in particular.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m always being threatened. What would life be without threats?’

  ‘I wish you’d be serious.’

  The doorbell rang. Monica went to answer it, peering with exaggerated care through the spy-hole. ‘It’s OK,’ she said to Bognor. ‘It’s the drinks.’

  ‘OK,’ said Bognor. ‘So it’s the drinks. So let him in.’

  ‘Are you sure it is?’ she said, hesitating with the chain. ‘It could be a trick.’

  ‘For god’s sake.’ He seized a crutch and swung himself up into a standing position, where he remained briefly and uncertainly before thinking better of it and subsiding once more on to the bed. ‘Let him in. If it’s an assassin I’ll hit him with a crutch. Be your age.’

  She let him in. The youth, a slim Thai of about fifteen, looked at them apprehensively. Monica followed him across the room one hand held very stiff in the position she had learned at evening classes in karate the previous year. Bognor had not been impressed with her karate, which she had practised on him from time to time with ambiguous results. Bognor signed the check and Monica followed the bewildered waiter out of the room peering down the corridor to left and right before re-entering and rebolting. Then she picked up the glass and took a large slug of brandy. She gas
ped slightly. ‘That’s better,’ she said.

  ‘Please explain,’ said Bognor, not very sympathetically, ‘why you’re in such a state?’

  ‘Because he could see me.’

  ‘See you?’

  Now Bognor was concerned. He too drank a deepish draught of alcohol. ‘How do you know he could see you?’

  ‘Because he told me.’

  ‘Be sensible.’

  Monica sucked in her bottom lip and chewed on it for a second. Then, choosing the words with care she said, ‘He described everything I was wearing.’

  ‘That’s not difficult,’ said Bognor, nervously. ‘Inspired guesswork. You usually wear a skirt and a shirt.’

  ‘He told me the colours and the patterns. He described my earrings. He knew you were out. He knew what time you left. He knew I’d had a room service lunch. He could see me.’

  ‘Maybe he’d seen you outside.’

  ‘I haven’t been out of the room all day. I had a bath and I’ve been reading. The only way he could possibly know what I was wearing was by looking in through the window.’

  ‘Maybe it was the boy who brought you lunch. Or maybe he bribed the boy who brought you lunch.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ said Monica, ‘but it doesn’t make it any better.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Bognor swilled the brandy round in his glass and wished he had a clearer head. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That we must leave. Within forty-eight hours at the latest. Otherwise there would be more trouble and this time it would be worse than just a beating up. He said it would be perfectly possible to shoot us through the window of our room.’

  ‘Now that,’ said Bognor emphatically, ‘is being melodramatic.’

  ‘If he can see into our room, why shouldn’t he shoot into our room?’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I should have thought that was enough.’

  ‘What did he sound like?’

  Monica thought for a moment, frowning. ‘He didn’t sound like anything much. I got the impression he was disguising his voice somehow. Probably talking through a handkerchief. He was quite indistinct.’