Death in the opening chapter

FIFTEEN

They weren’t at all sure about the snail porridge, which was greyish and tasted of, well, porridge and snails. It was followed by baked haunch of emu with a mousseline of apricots, and hake cheek and sprouts a la Fludd; finished off by fudge fondue with grape nuts on a whitebait foam. Bognor thought the emu haunch was delicious, though he wasn’t sure about the rest. Most people weren’t sure about the emu either. Gastronomic certainty was a wonderful thing, and at least at the manor you knew where you were. Here, at the Two by Two, you could have been anywhere except where you actually were, which was middle England.

Before Gunther, the food at the Fludd Arms was more predictable and in a sad way perhaps more apt. This evening’s was at the cutting edge, cooked by a chef at the acme of his profession. The fact that most of the diners thought it inedible was, frankly, neither here nor there. It would play well on TV and in the newspapers and magazines. It was the sort of scoff that would raise the Fludd Lit Fest in to the front rank, alongside Hay-on-Wye and Cheltenham.

This was the thinking of the public relations department at the Daily Beast who sponsored the festival, and whose literary editor would be arriving with selected ‘jawnalists’ some time to tomorrow. Sir Branwell drew the line at the Beast and its sponsorship; refused to have them in the house; hadn’t realized that Gunther Battenburg was their idea until too late. Actually, considering that Gunther was some sort of kraut and produced disgusting, overpriced and pretentious food, the Fludds thought he was quite a good egg.

The Bognors were split up, but were at quite an important table. The tables were round and there were eight diners at each. The Bognors were with Brigadier and Mrs Blenkinsop, Vicenza Book and the bishop, and Martin Allgood and someone from his publishers who was described as his ‘publicist’, but who seemed to know little or nothing about books, whether by Allgood or anyone else, and whose high cheekbones, pert breasts and generally gamine appearance, suggested that she was his girlfriend and had no literary pretensions. Literary pretensions were, as far as Bognor could see, rather old hat as far as cutting edge festivals and publishers were concerned. Several times he had heard festival organizers and publishers say that their profession (always a profession never a job, nor a trade) would be quite agreeable, if it were not for authors. He had even heard TV producers debating how they could avoid actually having to read books before deciding whether they should be turned into some kind of visual treat. The bishop may have thought that the word was paramount and the Bible a best-seller, but this was a view not widely shared by those in the know, at the sharp end, who actually determined what the rest of the world – poor saps – actually read.

The point of the round tables was that none should be seen to be more important than others. It was a sort of Orwellian conceit, for it was perfectly obvious that, even if all tables were equal, some were more equal than others. The Bognors’ was, happily, one such and, once the bishop had said grace (the usual Anglo-Saxon), those who had made it to tables obviously above the salt looked a little smug while sipping their elderflower cocktails, and those who found themselves just as obviously below, looked predictably sour.

‘Jolly sound sermon, Your Grace,’ said Brigadier Blenkinsop, leaning across the bowl of valerian and sweet peas which formed the centrepiece of each table. ‘Just the ticket. First class.’

Ingratiating wanker, thought both Bognors, smiling at him.

The bishop looked slightly uncomfortable and asked if anyone had heard the latest test score.

Bognor said, truthfully, that the last he had heard, England were 125 for nine, although the last pair had put on more than thirty.

‘Sounds about right,’ said Ebenezer, who really was keen on the game, still an episcopal characteristic, though not a mandatory one. Time was when the country was full of cricketing clergy. Now, however, there were precious few clerics, and very few of them had either the time or the inclination for cricket. Not like the days of Prebendary Wickham of Martock, who kept bees and the Somerset wicket.

‘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.’

‘Of course,’ said Brigadier Blenkinsop. ‘Not a problem. Delighted.’

His wife, Esther, who heard the invitation and its acceptance, and was obviously not included in either, pursed her lips even more than before, and was clearly even less happy than hitherto.

And it wasn’t just the food or the company.