by Tim Heald
‘My recollection,’ said Rook, ‘is that you were in two minds about whether to go running with Ian and Peter or come to Holy Communion with me. You were certainly going to do one or the other, conceivably both, but in the event it seems you did neither. You had a lie-in instead.’ Rook, who had been a student Trot before such things became fashionable, was now a born-again C of E communicant and a Conservative parliamentary candidate.
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Vole, finishing off his bacon. ‘I had a bit of a lie-in myself.’
‘Only a bit of one,’ said Edgware. ‘Besides, I hear you were up till five, playing poker with Badman and Scrimgeour-Harris.’
‘Five-fifteen, actually,’ said Vole, smiling smugly.
‘Well, there you are then,’ said Edgware with an air of triumph.
‘Where?’ asked Crutwell.
Bognor poured himself another cup of coffee and wished to God they would all shut up. He had forgotten the incessant chatter which went with Oxford. Yak yak yak. How they adored the sound of their own voices. How he hated it. How his head hurt. How sick he felt. How much worse the coffee was making him. He wished Monica had packed Alka-Seltzer as well as aspirin.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
It was the Frinton woman. Bognor was in no condition to leap to his feet. Besides which, leaping to one’s feet while sitting at an Apocrypha bench with your legs under an Apocrypha table is never easy. Instead, like his friends, he made a half-hearted gesture, a sort of half knees-bend, which Miss Frinton (Ms Frinton? wondered Bognor, Mrs Frinton?) waved away with genial contempt.
‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ she said, sliding her legs across the bench and under the table. They were very long and slim, encased in tight, tailored jeans and thigh-length boots.
‘Bad news?’ asked Vole, blearily. ‘Bad? Very bad? Or catastrophic?’
‘It’s the Master,’ said Miss Frinton, who was actually entitled to be called Dr Frinton but countenanced no such thing from anyone except her bank manager and the occasional Leavisite. ‘He’s dead.’
There was a dramatic silence. For a second no one even swallowed.
‘Did you say dead?’ asked Bognor, at the end of this eloquently unspoken tribute to the late Lord Beckenham.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘dead.’ She poured herself coffee. ‘Scout found him when he went in with his morning tea. Sounds like heart. He’d had trouble with his ticker.’
‘Had he … I mean when exactly …?’ This from Crutwell.
‘Never even got to bed,’ said Hermione breezily. She had a strong-boned, equine quality which suggested she was not easily fazed, even by death. ‘Struggled up the stairs, four sheets to the wind, and keeled over on the landing.’
‘Not a bad way to go,’ said Rook, smiling weakly. ‘Funny, though, I thought he was on pretty good form last night.’
‘What happens when a Master dies in office?’ asked Edgware.
‘What do you mean – happens?’ Hermione Frinton put her head back slightly in order, so it seemed, to squint down her exaggeratedly long, though elegant, nose with an expression of some contempt.
Edgware shrugged. ‘I mean, who takes over?’
‘There’ll be some sort of caretaker,’ said Vole, who had gone rather white, ‘until there’s an election. It happened at Prendergast.’
‘That’s hardly a reliable precedent,’ said Rook.
‘Presumably the senior fellow caretakes,’ said Bognor, ‘or takes care.’
‘No,’ said Hermione Frinton. ‘Not since they started the Vice-Master scheme. Nowadays he automatically takes over in a situation like this.’
‘So who’s Vice-Master?’ Edgware seemed undiplomatically irritated.
‘Waldegrave,’ said Hermione. ‘The job rotates. He’s been Vice-Master for a week.’
‘The Hon. Waldegrave Mitten, Master of Apocrypha,’ said Rook. ‘He’ll like that.’
‘Poor old Beckenham,’ murmured Bognor, but no one paid any attention. …
Bognor disliked Mondays as much as the next man, and after a weekend out of town they always came as a more than usually bloody surprise. He had driven back to London after breakfast, arriving just before noon at the flat, where he found Monica in bed with the Sunday papers. He was at first displeased by this but after a brief and, he felt, necessary show of pique he threw aside the Sunday papers and took their place. An hour or so later the newspapers were retrieved and, what with one thing and another, they never did get properly dressed, only leaving bed for long enough to cook and eat a couple of steaks and drink a bottle of Banda Azul. They then retreated to the bedroom with two glasses, a bottle of Rémy Martin and the television, for which Monica had recently bought a remote control device. In the end it was as pleasant a day as Bognor could remember. It quite restored his faith in life, which had waned considerably at the Apocrypha gaudy, and even his quite genuine affection, indeed, on occasion, lust and, yes, love for his accommodating spouse, which had been temporarily eclipsed by Dr Frinton, the new English don. He had become aware of her doctorate when passing the bottom of her staircase and seeing her name writ large in white paint on black. Dr Frinton did have everlasting legs and also a certain supercilious hauteur which, frankly, he fancied. He enjoyed dominating females, but now that he was home again he had to confess that he was pleased to be back in the bosom of his wife where he belonged. She was a thoroughly good sort, Monica. Not just a pretty face. Not even a pretty face come to that, though perhaps that was being unduly ungallant. She had her failings, God knew, but they had been together so long now that these were almost attractive.
Monday morning therefore came as a more than usually unpleasant douche. It began before breakfast with a telephone call.
‘Only one man in the world makes a telephone ring like that.’ Bognor winced. ‘Can you answer it, darling?’
Monica entered the bedroom, brushing her teeth.
‘Why should I?’ she protested, foaming at the mouth. ‘I don’t want to talk to Parkinson and he doesn’t want to talk to me.’
‘Please.’ Bognor pressed fingers to his temple. The Rioja and the Rémy, to say nothing of his wife, had been wonderful at the time but it meant a hangover two days running.
‘I’ll tell him you’re in conference,’ she hissed.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’ll know I’m here and refusing to talk to him.’
Monica spat into her toothmug. ‘All right. I’ll tell him you’re here and you refuse to talk to him.’
‘Right,’ Bognor said viciously. ‘You say just that. I’m fed up with him pestering me at all hours of the day and night.’ He turned over and pulled the blankets over his head. Then, as Monica picked up the receiver and the ringing ceased, he hurriedly emerged again and grabbed the telephone from her before she could utter.
‘Yes,’ he answered thickly.
‘Bognor?’ He grimaced. Right as usual. The Scotch terrier yap of his immediate superior was what he had expected, and it was what he was now hearing. It whined aggressively at him from the earpiece, causing him to start and hold the receiver away from his head for a few moments until he judged it safe to bring it back to closer proximity.
‘There’s no need to shout,’ he said. ‘Yes. Bognor here. At your disposal. What can I do for you?’
‘Truly, Bognor, you are a remarkable phenomenon. Death dogs your footsteps, wouldn’t you say, in a manner of speaking?’
Bognor glanced up at his wife and made circling gestures with his unoccupied index finger, then followed these with further gestures intended to convey the notion of drinking. He was badly in need of some coffee. Monica made one of her ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake get it yourself faces, but retired in the direction of the kitchen, presumably to grind beans.
‘I’m sorry,’ Bognor said into the telephone, ‘I’m not sure I’ve got your drift.’
‘Am I not correct in thinking that you attended the gaudy of your old college on Saturday night?’
‘Yes.’
&
nbsp; ‘And, further, that the college in question is Apocrypha, Oxford?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that the Master of Apocrypha is … was … Lord Beckenham of Penge?’
‘Oh, I see. Yes. Lord Beckenham passed away after dinner. But he was seventy-one. And he’d had a dicky ticker. A heart condition. He could have gone any time. My presence was entirely coincidental.’
‘I wish I could agree, Bognor.’
Bognor frowned. In the middle distance he could hear the sound of beans being ground. ‘What are you driving at?’ he asked.
‘You tell me Lord Beckenham died from a heart attack?’
‘That’s what I was told.’
‘Well, I have news for you, Bognor. My information is that the post-mortem shows otherwise. Your old Master was murdered.’
‘Oh, really.’ Bognor was quite peeved. ‘Someone’s been having you on. They haven’t had time for a post-mortem yet.’
‘Arranged through the good offices of the Fellow in Clinical Pathology.’
‘I see.’ Bognor was inclined to say this when stalling for time. He did not see, and Parkinson knew that he did not see. It was a convention.
‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said his boss, ‘because it’s more than I do. I’d be grateful if you would step round at your earliest convenience. I’m afraid someone calling himself Dr the Hon. Waldegrave Mitten is calling on us ere long.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Bognor was prepared for once to concede defeat. ‘Why is Mitten coming to see you? Lord Beckenham has nothing to do with the Board of Trade. It’s a police matter. Nothing to do with us.’
Monica reappeared with coffee which she handed to him, at the same time pressing a finger to his lips. He was beginning to sound tetchy. It was not good for him, nor for Parkinson. One of her roles in life as Mrs Bognor was to keep him calm.
‘As a matter of actual, historical fact, Bognor, Lord Beckenham was once, very briefly, secretary of state for this department. I’m bound to say it was not a happy experience for the department. Nor, I suppose, for Lord Beckenham. But that’s by the way. What I have to tell you, Bognor, is that the demise of Lord Beckenham of Penge, God rest his soul, does have something to do with the Board of Trade, and that something is you. Do I make myself clear? So enough of this shilly-shallying, and get round here PDQ.’
The phone went dead. Bognor stared at the receiver for a moment, vengefully, then returned it to its cradle and took a slug of coffee. His wife was now sitting on the end of the bed, painting her nails.
‘You never used to paint your nails before you married me,’ he said.
‘I have to employ all my feminine wiles to make sure you don’t stray.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Do you want to go back to bed?’
‘Yes, but it’s out of the question. That was Parkinson. He says the Master didn’t just die, he was killed.’
‘Gosh.’
‘You don’t sound very surprised.’
‘With you I’m never surprised. You ought to know that by now. I’d be much more surprised if you were able to go to an Oxford reunion and come back without leaving at least one corpse behind. I’m surprised you showed such moderation.’
‘You sound just like Parkinson. Besides, it’s not funny. Poor old chap’s dead, after all.’
‘Yes. Who do you think did it?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest.’
Monica put down her nail varnish bottle. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘you’re going to have to have the foggiest before too long, because it seems to me that the murderer is almost certain to be someone you know – or knew – moderately well. A contemporary, in fact.’
‘And they’re going to ask me to help them find out who? Set a thief to catch a thief?’
‘Something like that.’
This, therefore, represented a particularly bad start to a traditionally bad day. Worse, if anything, was to come. Thanks partly to Parkinson’s telephone call and subsequent discussion with Monica, Bognor was late and had to take a taxi. This cost over three pounds, putting him in an even viler mood than the one in which he had started. Pounding through the subterranean corridors of the Board of Trade, he collided with the tea lady, upsetting hot water over himself. Arriving at his office, wiping at his trousers with a filthy handkerchief, swearing the while, he was astonished to find a smarmy individual in a pinstripe suit sitting at his desk. The interloper gazed up at him with an air of profoundly irritating self-confidence.
‘Yes?’ he said, cocking an eyebrow at him.
‘What do you mean “Yes”?’ Bognor did not normally shout, but this was an exception. ‘This is my office. This is my desk. That is my umbrella stand and that is my personal copy of Who’s Who, paid for with my own personal money. And that’s my tin of Earl Grey. Not to mention my Bitschwiller champagne poster and my Crufts’ poster. They are souvenirs.’
‘Sorry,’ said the intruder, languidly, ‘must be some mistake. I was told you were in Oxford on a case. That is, if you’re Bognor. Parkinson said you were likely to be in Oxford all week.’
‘Did he indeed?’ Bognor wondered whether to seize the man by the lapels and remove him by force, but decided against it. Not that he doubted his ability to do so, but he did not want to make a scene. Parkinson would not like it. ‘And who the hell are you anyway?’
‘My name’s Lingard.’
‘Lingard who?’
‘Lingard nobody. I’m Basil Lingard. How do you do?’
‘Not at all well. What’s your position? What are you doing here? Where are you from?’
‘Same as you, more or less. Special investigator. I’m from Teddington branch.’
‘Teddington branch?’ Bognor swallowed. Teddington, variously known as the Lilac Lubianka or Stalag Luft Thames, was a sort of SS to the Board of Trade’s Wehrmacht. They were crack troops, hard men, marked ‘for emergency use only’.
‘Yes,’ said Lingard, ‘Teddington.’ He smiled, evidently under the impression that his provenance gave him the advantage.
‘There’s obviously some mistake.’ Bognor wished he could inject a little more certainty into his voice. ‘I shall have to discuss it with Parkinson.’
‘You do that.’ Lingard grinned and brushed dust from his lapel in a gesture which was clearly intended to be symbolic.
Bognor did not smile back. ‘I most certainly will,’ he snapped, and swung on his heel.
For once he did not knock on the door of Parkinson’s office, but barged straight past his startled secretary and into the sanctum almost in one movement. He was very angry indeed. Once in Parkinson’s office, however, his nerve failed somewhat. The man did not even look up, and although Bognor recognized this as a hackneyed old Parkinson opening gambit he was still disconcerted by it.
‘Do sit down, Bognor,’ said Parkinson, continuing to write on a lined foolscap pad.
Bognor fixed the portrait of the Queen with an insolent stare. It was curiously foreign of Parkinson to keep a portrait of Her Majesty above his desk; not something that was generally done in Whitehall.
‘We leave that kind of chauvinism to the Bulgarians,’ Ian Edgware had told him at the weekend. ‘Understatement is all.’ Not for nothing was Edgware talked of as a coming man at the FO. He made the men of Munich look like ravaging Huns or those unpronounceable European émigrés who were always popping up in the White House to bolster lame duck presidents.
‘I prefer to stand,’ said Bognor, directing his remark at his Queen, who stared graciously but unblinkingly back.
‘As you wish,’ said Parkinson. ‘I’ll be with you in just one minute.’
The minute elapsed in a silence punctuated only by the scratch of Parkinson’s pen nib across the paper. At last he drew a thick, very straight line, cast the pen aside and looked up.
‘Ah,’ he said.
Bognor was not going to help by volunteering some pleasantry. He said nothing at all.
‘Something wrong, Bognor?’
‘You could say that, yes.’
‘Care to tell me what it is?’
‘I should hardly have thought that was necessary.’ Bognor thought his sarcasm sufficiently heavy for even Parkinson to catch.
‘I shouldn’t worry unduly,’ said Parkinson, spreading his mouth in what, had he been a humorous man, might have passed for a smile. ‘You may be under formal suspicion, but I scarcely think it’s a suspicion which is going to be very seriously entertained.’
Bognor frowned. He had no idea what Parkinson was talking about.
‘I’m alluding to that, that person at my desk.’
It was Parkinson’s turn to frown and look fuddled. ‘Are you sure you won’t sit?’ he inquired. And on receiving a negative answer he said that, in that case, he too would stand. When he heard this Bognor, wishing to be difficult, said that, in that case, he would sit. The standing was making him giddy.
The charade completed, Parkinson said, ‘You mean Lingard?’
‘Naturally.’
‘You’ve not met him before?’
‘No, never.’
‘Pity. He’s a good man. He may lack your, shall we say, individuality, Bognor, your unorthodox methodology, but he’s eminently sound.’
‘I’d prefer it if he went back to Teddington.’
‘But Bognor …’ Parkinson raised his eyes to the ceiling and pressed his palms together so tightly that his hands went white. ‘Don’t you understand?’
‘Perfectly.’ Bognor spoke crisply. ‘The second my back is turned you sneak some whippersnapper from Teddington into my office, plonk him down at my desk and don’t even have the courtesy to tell me about it.’
‘On a point of fact I sent you a memo about it last week. Foolish of me. I forgot that it’s not your policy to read internal memoranda.’
This was perfectly true. It was Bognor’s practice to consign them to the waste-paper basket, unperused, just like bank statements and parking summonses. If it was important, he argued with some justice, he would find out soon enough by word of mouth. If it was not important it was just bumf and should be treated as such.