He kept thinking about the unexpected beef sandwich and glass of red wine, but had to make do with builder’s tea and biscuits. He rather liked basic tea with sugar and milk, and Branwell and Camilla provided Chocolate Olivers, which were, arguably, the best biscuits ever invented. For a man who had missed lunch, he was therefore reasonably happy.
Mallborne should, by rights, have been the cosiest place imaginable; its vicar the least likely corpse. He was reminded of the old Conan Doyle adage about the smiling English countryside being far more lethal and threatening than the mean streets of the most sinister city. Lincolnshire was more menacing than London; Gloucestershire than Glasgow; Sussex than Stoke.
It was fashionable to suggest otherwise. Chicago, Los Angeles and Detroit had meaner streets than anything funny old Britain had to offer, and latterly it was Danes and Icelanders who had acquired a reputation for really revolting killings. Scandinavians did sex; Americans assassination; the English nothing more deadly than scones with cream and strawberry jam.
And yet.
Horrible things happened in the English countryside. Harmless spinsters and blameless bachelors in picture-postcard English villages dropped dead in mysterious and often rather disgusting circumstances. Honeysuckle and roses under a roof of thatch afforded a plausible disguise, just as, let’s face it, so did much of the apparatus of the typical English village. A benign exterior often concealed something nasty. Things were just as likely to go bump in the night when you could see the Milky Way, as when the only lights were neon; the woodshed concealed as much nastiness as any tenement; and the nightshade in the environmentally friendly hedgerow was as deadly as the detritus in the gutter. Cosiness was an illusion; security a sham; there might well be honey still for tea, but only a supremely gullible innocent would accept it from a stranger.
Bognor knew all this in theory, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept when it hit him in the face. He really had thought that a few days with his old university friend and his wife in the sleepy town of the Fludds would be a happy, peaceful holiday. A literary festival, even allowing for the scratchy reputation of rival writers, was almost by definition, a somnolent affair. He had anticipated a lazy holiday, far from madding crowds and sudden death.
And now this.
‘Almost everyone in the place seems to have had a motive for killing the vicar,’ he said conversationally, chomping on a delicious biscuit.
‘Oh, come on, Simon,’ said Camilla, pouring strong black tea from an enormous silver teapot. ‘Present company excepted.’
This was Bognor’s belief but it was an exaggeration, and though acceptable, perhaps, as a figure of speech, it would not show up in any written report to which he attached his name. He was much too canny for that. What he really meant was that the Reverend Sebastian was the sort of person who was probably better off dead. What he also meant, but naturally failed to say, was that if he were the murdering kind, then he would cheerfully have murdered the Reverend Sebastian Fludd. Bognor, basically, believed that the world would be a better place without clergymen. At least, he believed that the good cleric was someone who had at least one, and preferably several, lay lives before being ordained. He also believed that successful clergymen smoked, drank, swore and probably gambled. If they did, the last they often lost. But then Bognor liked sinners and he liked losers. The dead vicar was definitely one of life’s losers, but he certainly wasn’t a sinner either. And Bognor believed that sanctimonious souls were better off dead, and that most people wished them to be so. If necessary, most people would help them on their way. Or would if they did not run a real risk of being caught.
‘Oh, all right,’ said Bognor. ‘But there are a surprising number of people who will be only too happy to see the back of the vicar.’
‘That says something about the nature of belief in today’s society,’ said Sir Branwell, drinking tea with enthusiasm. ‘Dawkins and his friends have a lot to answer for. One of the things I always liked about religion in the good old days was its non-aggressive character. It just was. No one particularly believed in stuff like transubstantiation or the virgin birth, or what have you. Never gave it much thought, if they were honest. Just formed up in their best suits on Sunday, belted out something familiar from Hymns Ancient and Modern and buggered off home until the next week’s show. It was like glue or cement. Kept everyone in their place but everyone knew where that was. Made a good noise, gave a lot of comfort. Good thing, very.’
‘Talking of Hymns Ancient and Modern,’ said Bognor, addressing his wife, ‘did you get anywhere with the hymn board.’
‘’Fraid not,’ said Monica shaking her head. ‘There’s something there, all right, but I haven’t worked out what it is. Not yet, anyway. But I will. Promise.’
She would too. If Monica promised something, she would deliver. That’s what promises were about. As far as she was concerned. She was that old-fashioned figure – a woman of her word.
‘Anyhow,’ said Bognor, helping himself, unasked, to another biscuit. I’m afraid I seem to have uncovered something of a can of worms in this little paradise. Everyone loathed the vicar.’
This was not an absolute truth, more of a conversational ploy. In a community such as Mallborne, most people were indifferent to the vicar. He was a fact of life, much like the squire or the doctor. Most people didn’t loathe the vicar, because they couldn’t be bothered. Bognor, living in London, didn’t even know who his vicar was. Had he done so, he felt he should loathe him, but he was a kind-hearted person and also disinclined to do the right thing. This meant that he tended to rather like priests. On the other hand, he took little satisfaction in this. In fact, he regarded it as a lapse.
‘Not us,’ protested Camilla. ‘We thought he was a perfectly nice little man. And his wife. Charming.’
‘If you like that sort of thing,’ said Sir Branwell. He spoke stiffly, as one who patently did not like that sort of thing, but considered himself (wrongly) too well-bred to show it.
‘You have a perfectly acceptable alibi, and I don’t for a second believe you killed him. However, that’s not the same as saying you liked him. Or the Reverend Mrs. You tolerated them. They kept the vicarage warm; they ran the church and everything that went with it. But that’s not the same as liking them.’
‘Vicars are trade,’ said Sir Branwell. ‘Simple as that. They are. They exist. They help keep things in their place. But their place is, well, put it this way, Sebastian and Dorcas were not one of us.’
‘Well,’ said Camilla, ‘they used the front door.’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ said her husband, ‘but they weren’t the sort of people you’d have to dinner. Not for pleasure. Duty, perhaps. But that’s something else altogether.’
Sir Branwell was not Lord Lieutenant for nothing. He knew the Queen and she had been to stay. Actually, he thought the Windsors and especially Prince Philip were foreign upstarts, but this was an opinion he did not often voice out loud. Nor did he know any of the royal family at all well. In fact, they wouldn’t know him from the proverbial bar of soap if they met outside the county. Within it, however, he was Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant and, in a very real sense, monarch of all that he surveyed.
‘Men of God,’ he said, ‘are a necessity. However, the necessity is painful. And that includes the bishop.’
‘I think Ebenezer is rather a good egg,’ protested Bognor. ‘He’s by way of being a bit of a friend.’
‘You have to have bishops and vicars, but I take a Cromwellian view of such people. If you catch my drift.’
The Bognors caught it but were not altogether impressed. They knew that Branwell was a cheerful agnostic, who took a pragmatic view of clerics and the church. Broadly speaking, he liked the noise, but expected ‘his’ chaps to toe the line, not step over it, or rock the boat. They were part of a team dedicated to decency, common sense and, above all, the preservation of the status quo. The last thing he wanted creeping into their behaviour, was any sort of damned religious nonsense. As far as he was concerned, the true Christ was a dangerous lefty and would have been run out of town, double quick. Probably wore sandals and read the Guardian. On the other hand, Branwell was not stupid, nor ill-educated. When he spoke of Cromwell, he might just as well have been talking of Thomas as Oliver. He had read Hilary Mantel, but did not believe hers was a historically accurate account of a flawed life.
Sir Branwell was right wing but that did not make him a patsy.
‘Point taken,’ said Bognor. ‘You regarded the Fludds as socially inferior and professionally suspect, but you were in charge and you tolerated them. Above all, you didn’t kill him. End of story. Correct?’
‘In a nutshell,’ agreed Branwell. ‘Next?’
‘Gunther,’ said Bognor. ‘He and the Reverend Sebastian had a falling out over the harvest dinner. Gunther suspects that Sebastian conducted a vendetta against him on one or more Internet sites like TripAdvisor. But Gunther has a reasonable alibi and, for the record, I don’t think he killed the vicar either.’
‘He’s an emet,’ said Camilla. ‘He comes from Essex or somewhere.’
‘Germany even.’ Sir Branwell laughed. ‘Whatever else he is, Gunther’s certainly no Kraut. With respect. So, Germany’s a joke. Besides, Germany doesn’t do haute cuisine.’
‘Don’t you like Gunther, either?’
‘Oh,’ said, Branwell, ‘he’s all right, if you like that sort of thing. He paid perfectly decent money for the Arms, and he can’t help being the sort of bloke who helps out at tea parties. Not that I have anything against shirt-lifters. Or ersatz Krauts, come to that. On the other hand, there’s a time and a place for everything, and I just don’t happen to think we’re ready for young Battenburg yet. Maybe in a generation or two, but right now, I’d say we were into heterosexual Brits who produce decent pub grub. I’ll bet you anything you like that young Gunter will be gone in a year or two. Like I said, I’ve absolutely nothing against the chap, but at the end of the day he’s only the cook. I mean, I’m perfectly fond of Mrs Brandon, but that doesn’t mean to say that I think she’s anything other than a perfectly nice artisan. She does exactly what she’s paid to do, no more, no less. Doesn’t give herself airs and graces. Doesn’t pretend to be anything more than she is. Salt of the earth.’
It was on the tip of his tongue for Bognor to observe that the salt of the earth was Mrs Brandon’s glass ceiling, but he thought better of it. Better leave any fancy wordplay to his host.
‘Do you think the Reverend Sebastian was writing hostile web reports in an effort to get rid of Battenburg?’
‘If he was, he wasn’t the only one,’ said Branwell. ‘Lots of the town were at it. Quite a creative enterprise. I like snails and I like porridge, but, as far as I’m concerned, never the twain shall meet. The one thing we don’t want is a whole posse of foreign foodies mincing down to Mallborne, and hanging out at the pub taking pictures of each other and various kinds of foam with their Instamatics. That’s all very well for that American with the funny voice.’
‘You mean Lloyd Grossman,’ said Monica, not from her tone of voice, agreeing with a word he said. ‘He left ages ago. Masterchef is presented by an Australian and a London greengrocer. Grossman does mass-produced sauce.’
‘Just another cook as far as I’m concerned,’ said Fludd. ‘Like I said, I’ve nothing whatever against cooks, and nothing whatever against food. I just think they should know their place. And if the vicar agreed with me, then that’s one thing on which we saw eye to eye.’
‘Eye for a tooth,’ said Bognor, facetiously and regretted it.
‘As in nature red…’ said his host, thinking himself pretty clever.
‘Anyway the cook didn’t do it,’ said Bognor. ‘Flawless alibi and not his style, anyway. I don’t see him killing anything, even if it was edible. So you can rule him out.’
‘Mind you, I would put the bit of high-class cannibalism past him. Sort of thing you’d expect from Essex man.’
Bognor judged it best to change the subject.
‘Vicenza Book,’ he said. ‘What about the sultry soprano?’
‘The town bicycle,’ said the squire. ‘Slept with practically every red-blooded single male in town, and more besides, if you’ll pardon my French, ladies. Vicar wasn’t entirely sensible when it came to her and her mum, and I dare say she harboured a grudge, but she’s never looked back since leaving us. She has as good an alibi as anyone else, and I’d say no. Why? I mean, I know why, but…’
Bognor wondered whether Sir Branwell had bedded either mother or daughter. Probably on the family billiard table. He wouldn’t put it past him. And yet.
If Vicenza Book had not existed, then Laurie Lee would have invented her. She was a hoyden with decolletage and a heart of gold, though, despite the large and much exposed mammaries, she had vital organs of ice or steel, depending on one’s point of view. What you saw, was most definitely not what you got, though she had always sung like the proverbial angel. Even in the bath.
Her real name was Marigold Bean, though she hated the name Marigold and called herself Mary in her early teens. She took the name Vicenza Book as soon as she turned professional. She chose Vicenza because she wanted something Italian, and dabbed with a pair of compasses. She selected Book because she wouldn’t be seen dead with one; had never even attempted to read one. Bognor reflected that everyone, these days, abandoned their given names and opted for a new one. He personally never cared for Bognor, with which he had been born, nor for Simon, which he had been given because his mother liked the noise it made. As for his second name, Montmorency, the less said the better. But he never considered changing any of them. Chaps didn’t.
The Reverend Sebastian hated the Beans. Of course he did. He was an ascetic authentic man of the cloth, and he therefore hated strong drink, joking, jesting and excessive behaviour. He forgave, naturally, because that was what our Lord ordered, but he didn’t like it. He was a natural do nothing, a creature of minimalism. He was thin, pale and not very interesting. Enjoyment did not come naturally. In fact, it didn’t come at all.
The reverse was true of Marigold or Mary Bean. She lived for enjoyment and without it she was nothing. She liked to shout, she liked to swear, and she enjoyed sex.
When the vicar came calling and her mother was out, something was bound to happen. And if it didn’t happen, it was alleged to have done so. It was, on the other hand, unprovable and grey. In such circumstances, it always was. There were no witnesses and two sexes. The eternal nightmare.
It was one reason for his abiding unease over crimes of rape. This had led to sometimes enraged and abusive arguments with Monica, not because he was a male chauvinist pig or believed that women made false sexual accusations. Actually, he rather prided himself on his credentials as a new man, and thought of himself as a bit of a women’s libber. He just had a tendency for thinking things grey, for seeing all sides of every question and, above all, having what he believed was a nice regard for the fair play principle. Monica, on the other hand, was much more black and white, and only believed in fair play when it suited her. That, though, he conceded, typically, was only his point of view. Monica thought otherwise.
Anyway, the point was that something had obviously happened. Mary Bean, nubile, flirty and unashamedly female, was alone in the house when the Reverend Sebastian came calling. He was etiolated, puritan, off-white, but in his own, possibly frustrated way, as male as she was, more obviously, female. Had he made a pass? Had she baited him? Was it a real misunderstanding or a product of wishful thinking?
Bognor shrugged. It didn’t much matter and one would never know the exact truth, anyway. Contractor didn’t know, either. It obviously did not interfere with Sebastian’s assessment of la Whatsit’s musical ability. He had evidently been very supportive of Vicenza’s visit to the festival and as convinced of her musical ability as everyone else. Vicenza’s voice was unquestionably brilliant. She occasionally did the Katherine Jenkins-Hayley Westenrath thing and stooped to singing the Italian national anthem before rugby matches, though it had to be admitted that the Italian national anthem was worth singing, even if the team wasn’t worth supporting. Vicenza seemed to have a soft spot for rugby players, though it had to be conceded that her spot was soft for most males, and she would probably have bedded even Berlusconi, particularly if the money had been right. She would probably have demanded a portfolio, but the prime minister clearly gave them out to his girlfriends like so much confetti.
Sebastian had a fine collection of old 78s and enjoyed Mahler. He was something of an all-round opera buff. Something, ill-defined, told Bognor that the reverend also fancied Vicenza carnally. He couldn’t say what this was, and there was nothing in Contractor’s report to suggest such an aberration. Perhaps it was just a hunch. His hunches tended to play well, though he was the first to concede that they were, in the end, only hunches. The Reverend Sebastian may have seemed anaemic, but there had been more flesh and blood to him than anyone else cared to admit. And Vicenza Book was all flesh and blood. If she had done national service, she would have been described as ‘oversexed’ and given bromide in her tea.
The phone trilled and Lady Fludd answered. Bognor realized, as she told the caller that he was at her elbow, that he had, as usual, switched off his mobile. It was bound to be Contractor, and he was bound to berate the boss for rendering himself inaccessible, or at least overheard.
‘Bognor,’ said Bognor into the phone, which was black and traditional, and very much to his taste.
It was indeed Contractor.
‘I thought you’d like to know, boss,’ he said, ‘that the Brandon was a promoted sergeant major and had a son who went into service. Also, and I think this could be important, there was a famous debagging. Our friend, the deceased, left soon afterwards, but it left a nasty smell. Hushed up, of course. Still known in Mobile circles as the Blenkinsop black balls-up. Our friend has never talked about it outside the mess since it happened, but, if you ask me, he seemed rather pleased with the memory. Not altogether unhappy to have been rumbled. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.’
‘No,’ said Bognor, ‘I’m afraid not.’