Death in the Opening Chapter (24 page)

He met her in the drive up to the manor. She was looking smug and humming. Always a bad sign. Especially when, as now, she was humming Mozart.

‘I skived off,' she said. ‘Made my excuses and left. I've just been having an absolutely delicious beef sandwich at the Two by Two. Underdone beef, brown bread, fresh butter, home-made English mustard. And a glass of jolly-nice Rioja, made in an obscure village by an old man called Pablo.'

‘As one is,' said Bognor, unamused. His tummy rumbled.

‘Not a trace of snail; not a hint of porridge,' said his wife, not noticing. ‘Perfection. Just what the doctor ordered. Pub food as she was intended. The best of British. And Gunther came by for a chat and let me into a juicy little secret.'

There was a bench nearby, dedicated to Mavis, with dates. They sat on it. The sun shone, lemony, thin and antiseptic, bright enough but conveying no warmth.

‘Secret?' said Bognor, envying the sandwich and the glass of wine but not saying so. He thought of the Rubáiyát and fancied himself briefly as Omar Khayaam, curbing this flight of fancy, as speedily as it had arisen.

‘He didn't like the vicar. Hated him, in fact. I think it was mutual. The Reverend Sebastian didn't like poofters.'

‘Plenty of gay people around. Even in Mallborne. That's no excuse for a serious feud.'

‘They fell out over food. Gunther being gay didn't make things easier.'

‘Everyone in Mallborne fell out over food with Gunther. He'd be all very well in Bray. Or even Padstow. But Mallborne is another matter. They don't go for his sort of scoff. It's classic meat and two veg country.'

‘I know, I know.' Monica knew. ‘The point is that it could be a motive. Gunther thinks so anyway. There was a grudge which persisted; business was unfinished. Worst of all there was a campaign on some allegedly impartial website. Lots of anonymous people claimed to have eaten at the Two by Two and hated it. Some even alleged food poisoning. Gunther thinks the vicar was behind it. He's afraid it could be a strong enough motive to excite suspicion.'

Once again, Bognor exercised his scepticism. ‘He would say that. Might even think it. But at the end of the day, it's like I say – we've only got his word for it.'

‘Well,' she said, ‘he's a worried man.'

‘Which,' said her husband, ‘may explain the uncharacteristically orthodox beef sandwich. He saw you coming.'

His tummy rumbled agreement, but once more Monica affected not to notice.

TWENTY-FIVE

H
e 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.'