by Tim Heald
‘He had that all right,’ exclaimed Monica. ‘Gold through and through. All gold from his top to his toes.’
‘Hush,’ said Bognor. ‘This is where it’s about to get interesting. Listen:
I therefore concocted a plan. As you have seen there is scarcely one among those I have mentioned who does not have a reason to wish me dead. Amos would like the horses; Jean-Claude would like me out of the way for obscure political reasons I scarcely understand; Eleanor despite the ties of blood prefers my odious son-in-law whom I threaten by cutting her out of my will; little Crombie, of course, and poor Dolores … but all this you know. I repeat myself.
My plan is this. There is to be a dinner party. A last farewell. No one knows quite how ill I am. Many of them believe there are a few years in me yet. The dinner will be lavish. Drinks will be consumed in quantity. As soon as coffee is served the lights will fail. Confusion reigns. There is a search for candles. Everyone, remember, is drunk. Suddenly there is a crash of breaking glass and when order is restored I’ll be found seventeen storeys away, facedown on the sidewalk. Not a very pleasant way to go but quick, or so I’m told. After that you should know the rest. I hope that by the time you come to read this you yourself will have been led a merry dance and my enemies will have had occasion to sweat a little. Only one, I presume, will have actually been charged with my murder and he may be released now that you are in possession of this “my confession”.’
Bognor stopped.
‘Are you,’ he asked his wife, ‘thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘I can’t imagine I’m thinking anything else,’ she said softly.
‘In other words,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t suicide at all.’
‘Doesn’t he say anything about that bloody bath oil?’ she asked.
‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘there’s more.’ He carried on reading.
‘If, as I suspect, no charge is brought and my death remains an unsolved mystery, I shall have achieved my ambition. A question mark will hang over each person who attended that fatal dinner. Perhaps your unique capacity for getting things wrong will triumph. I expect that. Your spectacular misapprehensions over the Gentleman’s Relish lead me to believe that you will blunder into making an arrest for a crime which was never committed. I hope you will agree that it was neatly set up. They all had motives. They all had opportunities. And because none of them are guilty all are equally guilty. Therefore you had better unarrest whoever it is that you have had the folly to charge. I wonder who it is, and I would like to think that wherever I go from here I shall be allowed at least the chance of finding out.
I hope that I have caused as much anguish and distress in my leaving of life as I have in my living of it.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Roderick Farquhar Bart.’
‘I’d no idea he was a baronet,’ said Bognor. ‘Plain “Kt”. I think that’s a con.’
Monica said nothing for a while. Then she got up, fetched the Cliquot bottle and replenished their glasses. ‘That is the most extraordinary letter I have ever read,’ she said.
‘Pretty odd,’ agreed Bognor. He watched the bubbles rising. ‘So that whole bath oil business was a complete red herring?’
‘Not at all. It killed him. It was the bath oil that got him.’
‘No, but …’ Bognor wanted to write things down. It was the only way he could marshal his thoughts. On the other hand his good leg had gone to sleep and his bad one was still stiff.
‘You couldn’t get a pencil and a notebook, could you?’ he asked her quite nicely. ‘I can’t move.’
She did as she was asked. ‘I still think,’ she said, ‘that the bath oil was a plant.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s still just as peculiar as it was in the first place. It’s his own personal, exclusive, nobody-else-for-the-use-of, boring bath oil. That’s the first fact.’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Have you written that down?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Well, you’d better, because it’s important.’
Bognor wrote, then frowned. ‘It’s only really peculiar if you know that he was going to be killed with bath oil,’ he said plaintively. ‘It’s quite normal if you don’t know that. So if Farquhar didn’t know that he was going to be killed with the stuff then there is nothing out of the way about giving it to people for Christmas.’
‘But,’ persisted Monica, ‘if he or A. N. Other knew, then it’s peculiar again.’
‘Agreed.’ Bognor wrote furiously. ‘But it wasn’t himself because we know that he was going to throw himself out of the window.’
‘He could have changed his mind,’ said Bognor. ‘He was obviously barking mad.’
‘Not especially,’ said Monica. ‘Just nasty.’
‘Hmmm.’ Bognor sucked the end of the pencil. ‘Let’s leave him out of it for a moment. Who else in the world could have organized Balenciaga for Christmas?’
‘Prideaux,’ said Monica, ‘obviously. Amos Littlejohn obviously controlled the supplies but he wouldn’t be responsible for deciding on appropriate Christmas presents. I doubt it would be him.’
‘Fair enough. What about the others? We can rule Baker right out. And Crombie and the Bentleys. What about Eleanor or La Bandanna? He might have taken advice from them.’
‘Or your friend Maggie Baker.’ Bognor didn’t care for the way Monica said her name. It made him feel a frisson of guilt. Quite unfairly. ‘They were still madly in love around Christmas,’ she continued, ‘or so she says. She seems to be rather keen on being madly in love.’
‘The whole point,’ Bognor spoke witheringly, ‘is that she wasn’t madly in love with him. She refused to marry him. Remember?’
‘Yes.’ Monica was grudging.
‘Talking of her, she wants to talk to me. She turned up. She’d been missing.’
‘Oh, really.’ Monica stood up again and smoothed her dress. ‘I’m going to heat up those exotic thingies,’ she said. ‘You’d better phone Smith and tell him what’s happened. He’s going to be thrilled. First he’s murdered, then he’s a suicide, then he’s murdered again. Next thing, he’ll turn up alive and laughing and telling us all it’s one big joke.’
‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Bognor. He poured the last of the champagne into his glass, and phoned Smith.
It was not a very happy conversation. The man from the Mounties was on the point of leaving his office for a game of racquetball with one of his colleagues. He had just completed his report of the affair for his bosses and regarded it as signed, sealed and all but delivered.
‘Jeez, Si,’ he complained. ‘What are you doing to me? I mean, like, this is crazy. You’re gonna have to come out with this letter and show it to our people. I mean, they are not going to believe this.’
‘I’m not sure I believe it myself,’ said Bognor. ‘I’ve always believed the dead should rest in peace but Farquhar seems determined not to.’
‘He sure is giving us a hard time from wherever he is,’ said Smith. ‘Also I have to tell you that the Baker broad is giving us trouble. She says she has a story to tell only you’re the only guy she’ll tell it to. She won’t talk to me or Gary or anyone. Only you.’
‘That’s going to be popular around here,’ said Bognor, thinking apprehensively of Monica.
‘Can’t help that, Si. From where I’m sitting you just have to get back on the next plane and come right back here.’
‘But that imbecile Baker’s still gunning for me.’
‘Could be Baker. Could be those French bastards.’
‘Either way,’ said Bognor, ‘it’s exceedingly dangerous.’
‘That’s the name of the game, Si. Duty calls. You Brits know all about that. You’re just gonna have to button down that lip and get on out. Leave your wife this time.’
‘Yes,’ he said, with feeling. ‘Listen I’ll call you in the morning when I’ve spoken to the boss. OK?’
‘Sure, Si. Be seeing you.’
And Bognor went off to the kitchen to eat warmed up gourmet beef bourguignonne and drink Rioja red with his long-suffering wife.
15
HE HAD NOT EXPECTED to see Toronto again so soon. He sat in the back of the limo as it creamed down the Airport Expressway, and watched the dreaded CN Tower loom before him. It seemed years since he and Monica had been trapped in that terrifying little capsule so high above the city. Now from the cocoon of his well-heated Chevrolet Impala the tower looked only bizarre, a trademark of a space-age city, no threat to anyone, only a folly of self-esteem, or self-promotion. Certainly not dangerous. Indeed Bognor viewed it with something approaching affection. He and it had been through a lot together. He was not going up again, but from ground level and at a respectful distance the two of them could be friends. He sighed. He did hope that this was going to be a less action-packed visit.
At the hotel there were two messages. One was from Smith, the other from Maggie Baker. His slight feeling of let-down was caused, he realized, because there was none from Louise Poitou. There was no reason why there should be. Rather the reverse. And before arriving it had not consciously occurred to him that he would see her or hear from her. Indeed it would be better, probably, if he did not. That way, he feared, lay trouble, but he knew too, that he invited trouble and, if the truth were told, rather enjoyed it. He was on the point of elevating it to a principle of life. Nevertheless he was not only surprised to feel let down, but rather shocked by the reason.
His room was not the same but similar. Identical in fact. Two floors lower and a few yards to the left, but the view of the harbour and the towers of Toronto was the same. So were the furniture, the wallpaper and the glossy magazine proclaiming the cosmopolitan delights of the city. He tipped the bellhop, sat down on the bed and debated which call to make first. He opted for Maggie. Smith could be postponed. Indefinitely for preference. He dialled the number, and was surprised to hear a small Quebecoise voice answer.
‘Louise?’ he asked.
‘Who’s calling?’
‘It’s me. Bognor. Simon Bognor. Board of Trade.’
‘Oh.’ She sounded very guarded.
‘Is Maggie with you? I had a message to call her.’
‘Of course. One moment.’
Oh, well, thought Bognor. All for the best. He liked to be friends though, and she sounded only just this side of hostile.
‘Si, hi.’
He was beginning to wish they didn’t call him Si all the time.
‘Hello. Maggie?’
‘Yeah. Say, you and I have to talk. Are you in town?’
‘Yes. I got your message. That’s why I’m ringing.’
‘Oh. OK. Listen, I’ll be right over.’
‘Hang on. Hang on.’ Bognor was suddenly terrified. ‘Your husband. That baboon who tried to do me in with a Chivas bottle. If you come here he’ll be round with another mob of heavies.’
‘I understand you have protection, Si. Also I believe he’s a little more in the picture now. I can’t guarantee anything but … well, look, we’ll talk when I see you. OK. I’ll be with you in thirty minutes. Maybe less.’
Bognor hung up. He wondered if Baker knew he was back in town. Baker obviously had eyes everywhere and he would be virtually certain to be having his wife followed. Or would he? Maybe he had finally got the message and thrown in the sponge. Bognor decided to err on the side of caution. He dialled Smith.
‘Hello, Pete,’ he said, ‘may I have Gary back?’
‘Oh.’ Smith seemed surprised. ‘Is that necessary? Are you planning on walking into more trouble?’
‘I have Mrs Baker coming to see me. My experience is that she brings trouble.’
‘You want a witness, eh, Si?’ Smith chuckled. ‘OK. I’ll send Gary along. Anything else?’
‘I don’t know. I have the letter. It depends on what Maggie Baker has to say.’
‘She surely wasn’t saying anything to me, Si.’ Smith sounded envious. ‘That’s some girl,’ he said.
‘Let’s hope she knows something,’ said Bognor. ‘I suppose you’ve released our friend the French bastard.’
‘That hurt. That hurt real bad.’
‘Never mind.’ Absurdly, Bognor felt guilty at depriving Smith of his victim, even though he had nothing to do with the murder. Or the suicide. Why should a man write a suicide note announcing his imminent death by defenestration, only to gas himself in the bath? Would it ever be solved? He doubted it.
‘I don’t trust the guy,’ said Smith.
‘I don’t trust any of these people. No more than I trusted Farquhar. But that doesn’t mean to say you can arrest them all for murder.’
‘Pity.’
‘I agree.’ He did too.
Mrs Baker, alias Maggie, arrived only a few minutes later. He found it hard to think of her as any man’s wife, let alone Baker’s. In the same way that he himself had appeared married even when single, so she seemed incorrigibly unattached despite all evidence to the contrary. He said he would come down to the foyer when she called on the house telephone. Inviting her up to his room was the sort of gesture which her husband might misunderstand.
‘Hallo,’ he said, lamely.
‘Hi,’ she said. She had luminous lips today. They were smeared with shining pink lipstick which glowed in the dusk of the hotel lobby and she kept them permanently parted, the better, he decided, to display her teeth. Her white trousers were skin-tight. So was the angora sweater. Her toenails were painted and prominently displayed since the flimsy, high-heeled, sling-back sandals had no toe caps.
‘Drink?’ he asked. ‘We can find a quiet corner in the bar.’
‘Sure,’ she said.
Bognor guided her to the Anne Boleyn Room, where the hostess showed them to a secluded spot behind a bank of greenery. Maggie ordered a large milk, Bognor a scotch.
‘I have a confession,’ she said, crossing and recrossing her legs. She was, he realized with a start of surprise, very nervous. He would have thought nervousness alien to her. She was far too self-possessed.
‘A confession?’
‘Yeah. I hope you won’t think too badly of me.’ She passed the tip of her tongue along fluorescent lips. They looked far too moist to be dry.
Their drinks arrived. Maggie’s milk was decorated with a large strawberry which she removed and ate before sucking at her straw. Bognor regarded her over the rim of his glass and waited. She looked back at him and smiled as she drank. Bognor sipped and went on waiting.
‘I must seem just awful,’ she said eventually, licking her lips again. There was a thin moustache of white running above the fluorescent pink.
‘You said you had a confession?’ he offered, helpfully.
‘Yeah.’
‘Well?’
‘You remember I told you I had an affair with Sir Roderick?’
‘I’d hardly forget.’
She blushed. ‘That’s not … well, that’s not all.’
Bognor frowned. He was being as helpful and sympathetic as he knew how. Obviously that wasn’t helpful enough. He was out of his depth.
‘I’m in love with Jean-Claude.’ She said it very quickly, then went back to her milk, avoiding his gaze.
‘Present tense?’ It seemed a reasonable enough question.
‘Is that all you can say?’ she flared.
He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean to appear insensitive. I just wondered how long you’d been … “in love” … with Jean-Claude and whether you still were. It may affect what you have to say.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, confused now. ‘I really don’t know. I have no idea.’
‘Suppose we start at the beginning,’ he said, ‘like last time. Only let’s have the whole story.’
She crossed her legs again and gave another embarrassed smile which acknowledged the memory of her previous confession.
‘It was Farquhar first,’ she said. ‘What I told you at the zoo was true. He had a—I don’t know,
a quality I guess, that I found kinda irresistible.’
‘He was good in bed,’ said Bognor succinctly and harshly, ‘for a man of his age.’
She sighed. ‘OK,’ she acknowledged, ‘I suppose I asked for that. Any road, I had a relationship with him, and he asked me to marry him. I turned him down.’
‘Whereupon Farquhar sent your letters to your husband?’
‘Uh, no. That was Jean-Claude.’
‘Why?’
‘One, he was jealous. Two, he wanted to deflect my husband’s suspicions.’
‘In which he succeeded?’
‘Sure. No one knew about me and Jean-Claude. Not even Louise.’
‘Does she know now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And Baker—your husband?’
She concentrated on her milk. ‘I guess so,’ she said.
‘OK,’ said Bognor. ‘You were having an affair with Jean-Claude at the same time as you were having an affair with Farquhar. Meanwhile you were still married to Baker. Anyone else?’
‘You make me sound terrible.’
‘I don’t make you sound anything, Maggie. Anybody else?’
‘Nobody else that matters.’
Bognor signalled the waitress for another round of drinks. Maggie said she’d switch from milk and join him in a scotch.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘He was killed with that goddam bath oil, right?’
‘Right.’
‘That was Jean-Claude’s idea.’
‘What? Killing him with it—or sending it out as Christmas presents?’
She leaned across the table. Talk of killing seemed to upset her. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘He suggested the Christmas presents. He said Farquhar was mean as hell and it would appeal to the Scrooge in him. It did.’
‘But did he kill him? And was it premeditated? I mean, did he know when he persuaded Farquhar to send them out at Christmas?’
She shook her head but in bewilderment rather than denial.