Red Herrings (17 page)

‘With no clothes on, Bognor? Is that your usual custom? ‘He could imagine Parkinson asking with that thin Presbyterian scepticism.

‘Alone in the house with that woman and you jumped into the pool in the nude? And you expect me to believe you weren't dying for her to jump in with you?' He could visualise the quality of Monica's disbelief all too well.

Nevertheless he had no alternative. He might not broach the subject quite yet. Might just let it ride for a while and see how things panned out. Dandiprat might not need to threaten him and the films with exposure. But he didn't see how.

On his way out past the drawing room he heard a sound and poking his head around the door he found Samantha, now dressed in a white trouser suit and high-heeled gold sandals. She was pouring herself a Scotch from the drinks trolley and when she looked up at him she seemed quite distressed.

‘That was a very low trick, Samantha, a very low trick indeed.'

The door opened at the far end of the room and Dandiprat slunk in, servile menace festering in every pore. Samantha looked up, then back at Bognor, and seemed on the point of words or even tears for all Bognor knew.

‘And I thought you liked me,' said Bognor in a voice which was supposed to sound like ice but came out rather unimpressively strangulated. He ignored the butler, however, spun on his heel with considerable panache and exited smartly in the direction of the Pickled Herring.

Guy and Monica were waiting for him outside the pub. Or so they said. Actually they were sitting at a table on the front lawn under a parasol labelled Campari and as Bognor grumped sweatily down the lane towards them he would have said that until they spotted him they were staring into each other's eyes at close range. Monica had obviously decided Guy was not such an ass; Guy that Monica was not to be patronised. Suddenly Bognor felt less guilty about himself and Samantha in the pool.

‘Hello there Simon,' called Guy. Guy was looking as cool as the younger man in the Harrods catalogue. He had the same chiselled tailor's dummy looks which Bognor, especially in his present frame of mind, couldn't abide. Same blazer too.

‘Where've you been?' asked Monica. ‘We were beginning to worry.' Bognor could see no evidence of concern from either party.

‘You look hot,' said Guy. ‘Drink?'

‘I'd love a pint,' said Bognor. ‘Thanks.'

Guy was on aerated water as usual. Monica asked for a glass of white wine. Her second by the look of things.

‘You shouldn't be drinking,' he said, shortly. ‘Remember what the doctor ordered.'

‘I'm not impressed with that doctor,' said Monica. ‘Nor is Guy. Guy thought he was very shifty.'

‘Guy's right for once,' said Bognor. ‘My information is that he's an aspiring drug pusher.'

‘Where does your information come from?'

‘You'll never guess. The Chosen Light himself told me. Said Macpherson propositioned him as soon as he and his Blessed Followers got here. You'll never guess who he is.'

‘Who?' Monica looked ungratifyingly curious.

‘The swami. We were right about his being a Balliol man. But he's a real one. He sends his regards.'

Monica chewed her thumbnail. ‘Too long ago,' she said, ‘and there were so many flawed Indians in Balliol.'

‘Bhagwan Josht,' said Bognor. ‘Phoney Fred is Bhagwan Josht.'

‘Is he really?' Monica smiled indulgently. ‘Bhagwan Josht. He asked me to a Balliol commem one year.'

‘And did you go?'

‘No, I'd already promised to go with you to the Apocrypha one. It was the year you got so drunk.'

‘You were drunk too.'

‘So? What else did Bhagwan say?'

‘Quite a bit actually. Perry Contractor came nosing around looking for some sort of sex and was sent packing. But, more interesting, he says that when Wilmslow came to check over the VAT figures he offered him a deal.'

Guy returned with the drinks.

‘Did you hear that, Guy?' asked Monica. Bognor did not care for the enthusiasm in her voice. He could be quite a jealous husband.

‘No.' Guy looked enquiringly at Bognor.

‘I was up at the hall,' said Bognor, ‘and the swami told me that Wilmslow tried to cut him in on some crooked deal to do with Value Added Tax. They'd cook up some fake figures and share the profit.'

‘I was up at the hall, too,' said Guy. ‘And he didn't say anything about it to me.'

‘Well you were asking about alibis,' said Bognor, wiping beer froth off his lip. ‘Whereas I was asking about motive. I warned you I'd have more fun.'

‘I wouldn't trust that swami further than I could throw him,' said Guy. ‘He was very offhand with me. Rushing off to play real tennis. Or so he said.'

‘It's their holy game,' said Bognor knowledgeably. ‘Did he have a good alibi?'

Guy shrugged. ‘He said he was in bed with a bride of his called Blessed Orchid.'

Bognor smiled. ‘I met her,' he said. ‘Pretty girl. I suppose most of our potential suspects claim to have gone to bed early and stayed there all night.'

‘Aha!' said Monica with a gleam. ‘Tell him about your discovery, Guy.'

Bognor did not at all like this ‘Listen to this Guy,' ‘Tell him that, Guy' business. He decided to put any ‘confession' about Samantha and the pool firmly on the back burner.

‘Well it is rather interesting,' said Guy, bursting with mock modesty.

‘What?' Bognor was sure it would be something irrelevant.

‘The only person with a proper alibi is the padre.'

‘That drunken sky pilot as Sir Nimrod would call him,' said Bognor. ‘Where was he, then?'

‘You're not going to believe this, old boy, but he told me he was spending the night with Lady Amanda Mandible at Groove.'

‘Amanda Mandible.' Bognor frowned. ‘The Society Tart.'

‘Penny farthing Mandible as she's known round Annabel's,' said Guy. ‘The oldest bicycle in the business.'

‘I'm sorry?' Bognor was not with him.

‘Sorry,' Guy flushed, ‘vulgar slang I'm afraid. She has a considerable reputation as a nymphomaniac of a certain age but it's an open secret that she's also one of the top three Madams in Britain.'

‘Is that so?' Bognor was not up on that sort of thing. ‘Prostitution doesn't come under the Board of Trade,' he said. ‘Though the Treasury seem to be taking an increasing interest.'

‘No, well.' Guy was looking very self-important. ‘You can take it from me that that's who she is. So it's a very rum place for the Reverend Branwell Larch to be spending the night. Much less to be proud of spending the night.'

‘Oh, I don't know,' said Bognor, ‘he's probably as ignorant about her line of work as I was. You can't expect country vicars to know about that sort of thing. He's probably just a social climber. After all she does have a title of sorts. Maybe the reverend is impressed by all that.'

‘There's nothing wrong with having a title,' said Monica pointedly.

‘Oops! Sorry, Guy. I didn't mean to imply anything. I just meant. Oh, well never mind. What exactly are
you
implying? That the vicar of Herring St George is a sort of chaplain to a brothel?'

‘I motored over to Groove,' said Guy. ‘It's only ten miles away. Lady Amanda confirmed it. His name was in the visitors' book.'

‘It's all very interesting,' said Bognor, ‘but where exactly does it get us?'

‘That remains to be seen. You see Wilmslow had been working on Lady Amanda's VAT business immediately before moving on here. As I say, she lives only a few miles away.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I checked with Customs and Excise as soon as I found out about Larch. I've asked them to see if there is any record anywhere of Larch having received money from Lady Amanda.'

‘It's all very interesting.' Bognor tapped his pocket to make sure the computer disk was still there. ‘But the only thing it actually proves is that Larch was several miles away on the night of Wilmslow's disappearance. So he can't have done it.'

‘We may be looking at a conspiracy here, Simon.'

‘I agree.' Bognor paused for effect. ‘Tell me something,' he said, slowly, ‘does the name Dull Boy Productions mean anything to you?'

Guy shook his head.

‘Not offhand,' he said. ‘Should it?'

‘I'm not sure. But it seems to be cropping up with sudden frequency. I first heard it this morning from Parkinson, my boss at SIDBOT HQ. He said the Americans were investigating it. It's Miami based but the president is Sir Nimrod Herring and Peregrine Contractor is chief executive.'

‘Sir Nimrod Herring!?' Guy and Monica combined in incredulity.

‘You must be joking,' said Guy.

‘Parkinson doesn't make jokes.' Bognor spoke with feeling.

‘I can confirm that.' Monica spoke with almost as much feeling as her spouse.

‘When Parkinson phoned this morning about Dull Boy I'm more or less certain that Felix or Norman were listening in. I cut the phone off as soon as I realised and rang back from the public call box in the village. But I think that whoever it was must have heard the message about Sir Nimrod and Dull Boy because, when I called round at Herring and Daughter, Naomi said the old boy had done a bunk rather rapidly, and just after fielding a phone call. It's only a guess but I have a hunch that one or other of the Pickled Herring boys tipped him off.'

‘But tipped him off about what?' Guy was plainly exasperated at having his thunder stolen.

‘Rumbled the fact that there was more to him than purveyor of gumboots and mouldy bacon to the rural proletariat,' said Monica crisply. ‘He was supposed to be totally broke. That's what the VAT figures show; that's what he was saying all through his confession about Wilmslow and the blackmail business. And now it transpires he's the president of some company based in Miami. It doesn't square. Where did the money go?'

‘I have a nasty feeling,' said Bognor, ‘that he was only telling us half the truth. Naomi says he made a trip up to town once a month, ostensibly to have lunch with some old military muckers of his. But what if Wilmslow was blackmailing him all the time? What if old Sir Nimrod was drawing a monthly packet from his presidency of Dull Boy and passing it straight on to Wilmslow? It makes a horrid sense. You can bet your life Wilmslow would insist on cash. And nobody would trust that sort of cash in the post.'

‘Pure speculation!' said Guy. ‘You've got no proof at all. And what in hell is Dull Boy Productions anyway?'

‘London are finding out all they can.' Bognor was pleased by Guy Rotherhithe's obvious pique. Monica looked almost impressed. He pressed home his advantage.

‘After I'd been to the stores,' he said, ‘I wandered off to the mysterious Emerald Carlsbad.'

Guy nodded. ‘I went there. Typical dykey old trout with a raft of dogs. She claims she was at home and asleep all night. On her own though, no Blessed Orchid in sight. Though I dare say she'd have welcomed the opportunity.' He laughed sourly.

‘But you didn't discover the source of her secret income, did you Guy?' He felt he was entitled to feel superior now. This made Guy's stuff about the Reverend Larch seem very small beer. At least he thought so. So, obviously, did Monica.

‘Do tell,' she said. ‘Is her secret as sexy as the vicar's?'

‘No, not really.' Bognor allowed himself a not altogether appealing smirk. ‘You'll never guess but apart from her seminal two volume treatise on
Freudian Traumdeutung in the Cook Islands
she is also the author of God knows how many pulp novels. She writes hardboiled American whodunnits as Earl J. Tuxedo; westerns as Matt Durango and, best of all, bodice-busters as Emerald A. Trawle, which as you will instantly appreciate just happens to be an anagram of Walter de la Mare.'

‘She never!' said Monica. ‘Good for her.'

Guy was looking frosty.

‘With respect,' he said, ‘that's extraordinarily interesting, but I fail to see quite how it's relevant.'

‘It almost certainly isn't.' Bognor thought he was playing his cards rather effectively. Just as he conceded a point like that he trumped Guy with another. ‘This, however,' and here he extracted the computer disk from his pocket, ‘did seem rather more pertinent. I was in her study and on her table next to the IBM Personal she uses for her work I saw a disk labelled, would you believe, Dull Boy Productions.' He paused again.

‘Get on with it,' said Monica.

‘Well,' said Bognor. ‘I managed to get her out of the room and slipped another disk into the second disk drive and made a copy. This is the copy.'

‘The marvels of modern technology,' said Monica. ‘Are you sure you pressed the right buttons?'

‘We do have computers at the Board of Trade,' said Bognor. ‘And I went on that course at Bracknell.' This was true. He had not been a star pupil but he had learned the basics.

‘Well,' said Guy, grudgingly, ‘there's no harm in putting it into one of our machines in Whelk and getting it on to a screen. But it seems rather far fetched to me.'

‘Listen,' said Bognor, ‘it may be far fetched but the fact that that particular company name crops up at Miss Carlsbad's, just after we've established that Peregrine Contractor is its chief executive and Sir Nimrod Herring is its president is, to put it mildly, suspicious.'

‘I think it may be time we had a word with your friend Mr Contractor,' said Guy.

‘He's out,' said Bognor, hurriedly. For the moment he preferred to steer clear of the manor. He didn't want Dandiprat muddying the waters with his compromising photographs. ‘So was Sir Nimrod Herring when I called earlier. He's the one I want to talk to. All that long confession about Naomi's parentage and Wilmslow being a blackmailer. And never a word about Dull Boy Productions. It's very suspicious.'