Tim Heald - Death in the opening chapter

‘You don’t think that this indecisiveness had anything to do with his death?’

Not for the first time Sir Branwell appeared to give the question some thought. Eventually, he said, ‘Rum notion.’ Then he thought some more and said, ‘I suppose not being certain might have helped suicide, but, as it happens, I don’t think he killed himself. Difficult to tie the knot and Sebastian wasn’t practically inclined. Not one of nature’s knot-tiers. And, if someone else killed him, the doubt would be neither here nor there. But none of this matters a jot, because it won’t bring him back. Which is why, basically, I think the whole investigation is a waste of time.’

‘ Branwell and Camilla didn’t do it,’ said Bognor. ‘I knew that already, but I needed to get it down in black and white. Besides which, I thought what he had to say about Sebastian was quite interesting.’

‘Quite,’ said Monica. She was easily bored, only interested in the really interesting; difficult to please.

They were sitting quietly in a corner of the maize. This was a modern number designed at Sir Branwell’s request, and conceived and executed by Michael Ayrton. It was made of well-topiaried beech and was a tribute to the squire’s unexpected complexity. The bench they sat on was of burnished something or other. Wood. No plaque. Sturdy. Modern. Designed to last.

‘Well, I thought it was interesting. It can’t be easy being Branwell.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ she said. ‘Nothing could be easier. He has a title, money, a nice house, reputation, and he’s never done a hand’s turn in his life.’

‘That’s not fair,’ he expostulated.

‘Maybe not,’ she said, ‘but who said anything about “fairness”? To echo the immortal words of Malcolm Fraser: “Life’s not supposed to be fair.”’

Malcolm Fraser was a tall, notably patrician, Australian prime minister who had many inherited acres of prime land, was born with silver spoons in every aperture and pretended that he had worked hard to get where he was. Monica evidently believed that Sir Branwell Fludd shared some of these attributes.

‘I wouldn’t want a literary festival named after me.’

‘It’s not named after Branwell,’ protested Monica. ‘It’s named after Flanagan. Flanagan was an ancestor. Or not, as the case may be. I don’t actually think he was a real ancestor. He didn’t have the family ears.’

‘It’s called the Fludd Festival. Most people don’t have a clue about Flanagan or who he was. They think it’s named after Branwell. He’s damned either way. Either he supports it, or he doesn’t. It wasn’t his idea.’

‘Only because he’s too lazy and uninspired. Branwell’s never had an idea in his life and he’s certainly never acted on one.’ Monica was on a high horse. She often was. It suited her and she enjoyed being there, even if the position wasn’t always logical.

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Back to Malcolm Fraser,’ she said. ‘I’m extremely fond of Branwell and Camilla, but that doesn’t mean that I approve of them. I think they’re an affront, actually, and the literary festival is the most obvious source of irritation. It’s not, as you put it, fair, and I think he’s living off his ancestor’s talent. I don’t really object, except when I stop and think about it. But don’t give me that ridiculous line about being him not being easy. Being the fourteenth baronet with your own literary festival is an extremely soft option.’

‘I disagree,’ he said. ‘It was the council’s idea, and if he supported it he was damned, just as he would have been damned if he had opposed it. They just wanted to extend the holiday season, and the Fludd name was a good way of doing it. They’re the ones who are exploiting it. It wasn’t Branwell’s idea to call Mallborne the centre of Fludd Country and put up signs to prove it. In fact, he finds it pretty embarrassing.’

‘Then, why not say so? He goes along with the idea and the money rolls in, while he wrings his hands in a weedy way and pretends to thinks it’s all a bit vulgar and common.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Bognor, defending his old friend and fellow Apocrypha man, ‘a lot of people think he’s vulgar and common, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it. Imagine the outcry if there was a story along the lines of “Fludd scion attacks family festival”.’

‘I disagree,’ she said.

‘Why? How? It’s no use disagreeing for the hell of it; you have to have a reason.’

Their voices were ever so slightly raised, though they were enjoying an argument, not having a domestic tiff. It was argument such as this that kept them going: adversarial, but not mortally so. Theirs was a learning process, not just because their verbal battles ended in an increased knowledge of the matter under debate, but because they always knew each other even better when they had finished. It was this mutual knowledge, honed over years of matrimonial bickering, that made them such a formidable team, both professionally and over the dinner table, and during the long weekend. It didn’t pay to mess with the Bognors.

‘He gets to seem to ride shotgun,’ she said, ‘but actually he’s just riding on coat-tails. Other buggers’ efforts. Like I said, he’s never done a hand’s turn, but he has this reputation. Everything’s inherited; the festival most of all.’

It didn’t seem like that to Bognor, though he had to admit that most things to do with Branwell Fludd were the result of what other people had achieved and what other people had left him. What Monica didn’t seem to take into account was that the inheritance carried obligations, as well as benefits. Branwell was not his own person; he was determined by circumstance; his freedom of action was circumscribed. His prison might have gold bars, but it was still a cell.

‘Branwell can’t do what he wants,’ he said, ‘and that’s limiting. He controls a living and that’s a perk. But then a relation takes holy orders and comes to him as a supplicant. The church is in his gift, but he has to bestow it in a particular way to a particular person. That’s an obligation.’

‘ Noblesse oblige,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘You could put it like that,’ he agreed. ‘It wouldn’t be original, but, otherwise, it’s about right.’

‘Nice sort of obligation,’ she said.

He smiled. This was an argument, he felt, that he had won.

‘The point I am making,’ he said, ‘is that most of us are free to live our lives as we wish. In my case, I became a special investigator. No one asked me to become such a thing, but that’s what I do. By the same token, I met and married you. The lack of children I suppose I regret, but that is outside our control, as are a number of other facts, such as our appearance, our life expectancy and so on. For Branwell, it’s different. Inheriting his title and Mallborne Manor is limiting, but being descended from Flanagan Fludd, and then having Councillor Smallwood of the Mallborne District Council deciding to create a literary festival with him as the central figure, creates further constraints. I’m not saying that Branwell is not in a number of portent respects a lucky and privileged bleeder, but he can’t lead his own life in his own way, like the way the rest of us can.’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Monica with something approaching grace. ‘You win. What about Sebastian?’

‘What about Sebastian?’ This sounded like round two: seconds out of the ring, ding-ding, start boxing.

‘Would you say he had freedom to do as he wished? Or was he circumscribed in the same way as Branwell?’

‘Not in the same way as Branwell, no. On the whole, he had complete freedom of choice to begin with, but then the minute he got religion in a serious professional way he was hamstrung. So are the rest of us, but becoming a reverend imposes a tighter straitjacket than the one most of us are laced into. The fact that he did it himself doesn’t make it any easier. Rather the reverse.’