Tim Heald - Death in the opening chapter

‘Blenkinsop,’ said the brigadier, shaking hands around the table. He and Bognor had met somewhere or other before. Bognor remembered, Blenkinsop didn’t. Remembrance and amnesia were instructive; they said a lot about both people.

‘Come here often?’ he asked Monica, originally. She was on his right, which Blenkinsop obviously took as a compliment. Monica didn’t.

‘It depends what you mean by often?’ she said, being deliberately difficult.

‘So, you’ve been before?’ Blenkinsop didn’t notice. Or, if he did, he was determined not to show it.

‘Yes,’ agreed Monica, not bothering to come up with anything more ambiguous.

‘May I ask why?’ the brigadier asking anyway.

‘My husband and Sir Branwell were at the same college together. At Oxford. They both read Modern History. Shared tutorials. That sort of thing.’

The brigadier had been to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, which was not at all the same. He nodded, privately put out, publicly at ease, consummately so.

‘Oxford, eh.’

‘Yes.’ Monica had been there too. She read Mods and Greats on a scholarship at Somerville, but judged it unwise to say so just now. It was where she had first met Simon, but she thought it better to keep quiet about that too.

‘Mmmm,’ said the brigadier, and turned speculatively to his left which was where Martin Allgood’s girlfriend was sitting.

‘How about you?’ he asked, managing to appear raffish. ‘Were you at Oxford too?’

On receiving the answer ‘No, actually’, Brigadier Blenkinsop seemed to relax, and concentrated on his neighbour and her cleavage, which was more obvious than Monica’s, even if its owner had not been to Oxford.

Monica’s right-hand neighbour was Martin Allgood.

‘I enjoyed Rubbish,’ she told him, naming one of his best-known books. It had been shortlisted for the Booker.

‘I hated it,’ said Allgood, shovelling snail porridge into himself as if it were all that stood between himself and starvation. ‘Pig to write. Cost me a relationship. Reputation has dogged me ever since. Still, I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

He smiled wolfishly, displaying two rows of all-too-perfect teeth.

‘And are you enjoying Mallborne?’

‘Beats work,’ he said.

She winced. It was obviously going to be one of those evenings. All this and three-star Michelin food as well. She sighed.

Her husband, meanwhile, was seated between the brigadier’s wife, Esther, and Vicenza Book. The brigadier’s wife, mouth like a prune, sensible hair, sensible dress, sensible shoes, which he could not see but sensed nonetheless, oozed sense and sensibility, and looked like hard work. He decided to go for Vicenza Book who had a decolletage that made Allgood’s girlfriend look scrawny, and a mouth and come-hither eyes that suggested more barmaid than world-class soprano. Though, reasoned Bognor, there was no reason not to be both.

‘I gather you’re singing tomorrow in the big tent?’

‘Yup,’ said Miss Book, her mouth full of emu and apricot. ‘And you’re the police. I don’t like police.’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he agreed. ‘I’m investigating the death. But I’m doing it instead of the police. I don’t like them either.’

‘Good to hear it,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘If that’s an emu, my father’s the pope. Just chicken tarted up, if you ask me. I sing as Vicenza Book, but my friends call me Dolly. Pleased to meet you, Si.’

And she stuck out a hand which Bognor shook with enthusiasm. He decided he liked Ms Book, aka Dolly.

‘Hi, Dolly,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind?’

‘Cool,’ she said, which could have meant anything, but which Bognor took to mean assent.

‘What exactly are you singing?’ he asked politely, though he sensed that Dolly didn’t do politeness.

‘Usual load of crap,’ she said. ‘Plus a bit of Faure’s requiem and what they’re describing as a “medley” by Flanagan Fludd. That really is crap. Old man Fludd makes Andrew Lloyd Webber look original. Everything’s like, you know, pastiche Gilbert and Sullivan. They say Queen Victoria liked to hum along to Fludd. Typical effing royalty. Ever done a Royal Variety Performance?’

Bognor said he hadn’t had the pleasure.

‘Then don’t,’ said Ms Book. ‘Absolute crap. None of them are interested. Couldn’t sing a note. Only one who could was that Princess Margaret. Liked a smoke and a drink. Dead, but she could tinkle the ivories. Or so they say. Mind you, she liked tinkling more than just ivories.’ And she let out a mirthless cackle which would sound witchlike when she had grown into it. Bognor reckoned she had been at the booze, but could not think how as it was flowing like treacle. She either had a very low tolerance for alcohol or carried her own flask.

‘Been here long?’ he asked, eye on a possible alibi.

‘Came down yesterday afternoon to have a look at the old place. Me Mum used to work here. Right here, when it was the Fludd Arms. Proper little knocking shop by all accounts. All sorts of people used to come down from London for dirty weekends. You’d never guess who. Royalty and all.’

‘Probably better at that sort of thing than the other kind of Royal Variety.’

She laughed again. Immoderately. One or two people turned to look. The brigadier was one. He was obviously not enjoying himself and was half-inclined to share in the joke, except that he obviously suspected – correctly – that there was no real joke involved.

‘Anyway,’ she said, pulling herself together rapidly and giving him a queer look. ‘I was here when the poor old beggar snuffed it. I didn’t know him. I can’t really account for my movements. And I didn’t do it. Next question.’

Bognor couldn’t think of one.

Instead, he bit into the white stuff on his side plate and said, ‘Is this bread?’

She bit into hers, made a face and said, ‘Toilet paper more like.’

For the rest of the meal, Bognor swapped inane pleasantries with the soprano, managing to virtually ignore Esther Blenkinsop who suffered in silence, picked at her food, and was just as ignored by Martin Allgood on her other side. She didn’t enjoy the meal any more than her husband, but she made less effort to conceal the fact.

Ms Book on the other hand consumed her fudge fondue with gusto, though she left her whitebait foam, which she referred to as ‘fish froth’, a description which Bognor preferred. In deference to his companion, he too left his whitebait, while doing his best with the fudge, which he thought as disgusting as most of the rest of the meal.

The only proper speech was a welcome from a tiny Scottish person called William Glasgow, who rose from a long way below the salt and who plainly did all the work. He held the title of ‘Festival Convenor’.

‘To all those who do not actually live here but are here as guests of the Fludd Festival, I say welcome,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Mallborne.’

The Fludds scowled. As far as they were concerned, they were the only people entitled to issue a welcome, or otherwise. Mr Glasgow was an impostor. And a paid pipsqueak to boot.

Glasgow’s was a poor speech, but a welcome respite nonetheless. He got tied in knots over the late priest, got the punchline at the wrong end of a story involving Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen and Englishmen, and neglected to mention the brigadier who appeared unfazed, but whose wife seemed furious. Nevertheless, it made a change, and the Bognors enjoyed it for its amateurishness. There was too much polish around, too much style getting in the way of substance. Bit like life, actually.

When Mr Glasgow had finished, Bognor leant across to the brigadier and said, ‘I wonder if I might have a word afterwards? In confidence. In private.’