Let Sleeping Dogs Die (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

  Let Sleeping Dogs Die

  A Simon Bognor Mystery

  Tim Heald

  For Alexander

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Preview: Just Desserts

  Prologue

  IT WAS SCARCELY DAWN as Champion Whately Wonderful of Three Corners, better known to his friends as Fred, pushed an anticipatory muzzle round the front door of his kennel. Pausing outside, he peered about him, sniffing the cool Home Counties air. It was too early yet for his owner, Mrs Ailsa Potts, also of Three Corners of Surblington, Bucks, to be about. Too early, too, for the kennelmaids. Champion Whately Wonderful stretched his hind legs and sniffed at the high barbed wire. There had been a noise of some sort and there was a smell which was appetizing. He loped to the wire netting and sprang up on his hind legs, leaning his front paws in front of him for support. Standard poodles didn’t come finer than Whately Wonderful with his shining black coat cut in the regulation French style, his high domed head and clear intelligent eyes. Success in next week’s Windsor show would make him one of the half-dozen top dogs in Britain and a leading contender for next winter’s Cruft’s.

  The dog got down from the netting and started to pace round the perimeter of the run. Somewhere he could smell meat, and he rolled the skin back off his teeth and gave a low whine as he set about his search. It was scarcely light yet and none of the dogs in the adjacent kennels had stirred. In itself that was not surprising. Champion Whately Wonderful was a notoriously light sleeper. He continued pacing along the wire until he turned the second corner, the one nearest the entrance to the kennels, and froze. There, on the grass about two feet inside his territory, was a large slab of raw sirloin steak. For a few seconds he sniffed round it warily, for Fred, being a champion, was an intelligent animal and poodles are intelligent dogs. Nevertheless canine intelligence has limitations while canine greed has none and before long he had started to eat the steak. At first he had done so slowly, savouring its succulence, but then he began to bolt it, scarcely chewing at all.

  Two hours later the keenest kennelmaid, a stout pink girl named Rose, came walking briskly down the path and noticed a sleek black shape stretched out at the corner of one of the enclosures. In an instant she knew that it was the champion of Three Corners, the son of Champion Whately Winner and Champion Connemara Cutie and the finest dog ever bred in Ailsa Potts’ kennels. A few seconds later she was inside the cage, kneeling beside him. He was, of course, extremely dead.

  1

  AILSA POTTS HAD BEEN in poodles all her adult life. She’d toyed with Yorkshire terriers just after the war and in the early fifties had been duped into promoting the introduction of Irish water spaniels. Throughout both experiments she had remained loyal to the poodle, particularly to the full-size variety, which, as she constantly told everybody, she regarded as more ‘virile’ than its diminutive forms.

  On the morning of the death of Champion Whately Wonderful Mrs Potts had porridge for breakfast. Porridge followed by bacon and egg and sausage, followed by thick slices of toast and butter and dollops of sweet, transparent marmalade. Mrs Potts had the reputation, throughout the canine world, of being a ‘fine trencherwoman’ and a ‘good doer’. As a consequence she was quite remarkably fat and had grown fatter with the meals. She had little time for clothes and cared nothing for her personal appearance. As a result she never seemed to meet in the middle, for the grey skirts and pastel cardigans which constituted the whole of her wardrobe had been bought years before when she was under twelve stones. Safety pins held the cardigans together under her gigantic, drooping bosom and more safety pins aided her skirts. Where the holes had appeared in her garments she had occasionally sewed a large button, though more often she left them. Recently as the skirts were becoming impossible she had purchased two pairs of dark brown corduroy trousers which she tied at the waist with string. Once upon a time she had been pretty, in a cuddly way, and hidden among the folds of flesh and under the piles of sloppily applied face powder you could still see it. But it had been a long time ago.

  That morning she was consuming her third piece of toast and was brewing up a second tea-bag when a hysterical kennelmaid rushed into the room.

  ‘It’s Fred,’ she cried, ‘Fred’s dead.’

  Mrs Potts had a mouthful of toast and marmalade and a handful of tea-cup. For a moment mouth and hand remained immobile. Then, slowly, she swallowed the toast and replaced the cup.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  The kennelmaid was weeping noisily and uncontrollably. Mrs Potts got up, wiped crumbs from her wobbling chin and walked to the corner cupboard. From it she produced a bottle of Grand Seigneur ten star brandy and poured two fingers into a china cup.

  ‘Drink that, girl,’ she said, forcing it down the maid’s mouth. The maid coughed extravagantly but stopped crying. Mrs Potts poured another measure of Grand Seigneur into the cup and drank it herself. Then she lit a cigarette.

  ‘Now. What did you say?’

  ‘Fred. He’s dead.’

  Mrs Potts exhaled.

  ‘I was afraid that was what you said.’ She sat quite still for five seconds and momentarily it seemed that the fat face might pucker into distress as uncontrolled as the kennelmaid’s. Instead she took another drag at the cigarette and brushed the suspicion of a tear from her left eye.

  ‘We’d better have a look then.’

  It was sunny outside but still chill. There was a heavy dew. Mrs Potts, strapped uncomfortably into a navy blue duffel coat, walked purposefully down the asphalt path, striking out at encroaching nettles with her stick. Rose, tears still streaking her cheeks, followed a few strides behind. The kennels were fifty yards from the house, on the other side of a patch of wasteland which had once been a herbaceous bordered lawn. Mrs Potts walked through the gates and glanced unseeingly at the dogs who came running to the front of their cages to wag good morning. Instead she walked on to the far corner where, in the Number One kennel, Whately Wonderful had lived.

  Two kennelmaids were standing in grubby brown overalls staring down at the dead dog. They were doing nothing but stare. Mrs Potts spoke sharply.

  ‘No use crying over spilt milk,’ she said. ‘There’s still work to do. You’re not buttering parsnips like that. You too, Rose.’

  When they’d gone back to routine, Mrs Potts knelt down beside Fred’s body. He was very obviously dead. His jaws sagged open and his eyes gazed blankly into the distance. Mrs Potts shut them with unexpected gentleness and then picked up his left front paw. For fully a minute she held it in her hands, then she let it fall back on to the earth. She stood and dusted herself down, her face settling into an expression of resolution.

  ‘Rose,’ she shouted.

  Rose came running.

  ‘We’ll bury him after lunch,’ she said with a crispness which did not entirely conceal her true feelings. ‘Use a dustbin liner and then find a good strong box. No cardboard this time. And get Andrews to dig a grave under the cherry tree.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Potts,’ said Rose. Then, nervously, she said, ‘Straight away, Mrs Potts? I mean shouldn’t Mr Agnew …?’

  Mr Agnew was the vet. He came to the kennels most days to advise and inoculate and examine, and most of all to drink gin and water.

  ‘No need for Mr Agnew,’ said Mrs Potts, ‘the dog’s dead. And I know what caused it.’ She grimaced. ‘I’d rather Mr Agnew didn’t know anything about it, so don’
t go gossiping.’

  Simon Bognor was not happy with his latest assignment. There was nothing unusual in this since he had never yet been happy with his latest assignment. Nevertheless in a career which had taken him to an Anglican Friary in pursuit of missing industrial secrets, to stately homes in search of titled murderers and to the gossip column of a national newspaper to find the identity of the columnist’s assassin, this took the biscuit. He grinned wanly. ‘Taking the biscuit’ was an unfortunate turn of phrase in view of the task before him.

  Parkinson, his immediate superior in the Special Investigations Department at the Board of Trade, had tried to impress him with the seriousness of this situation but he hadn’t succeeded.

  It was not the first time that Bognor had wondered what he was doing with his life. He wondered about it daily, sometimes hourly, and invariably he came to the conclusion that he was wasting it. Ever since the interview at Oxford when he had foolishly allowed himself to be deflected from a sensible, routine application for some Civil Service posting into what was laughingly called ‘intelligence’; ever since then things had gone wrong. He wasn’t cut out for it, and his superiors, realizing this, had not, as they should have done, asked for him to be transferred or even sacked. Instead they had fobbed him off with absurdities in the hope that he would thus stay out of trouble. Alas, it meant no such thing. The more absurd and low-key his assignment, the more trouble he attracted.

  He had an uneasy feeling that this would be the same.

  ‘Dogs,’ Parkinson had said. ‘Know anything about dogs?’

  ‘Very little.’ Bognor didn’t care for them since, as a child, he had been bitten on the hand by a stray in Richmond Park. They alarmed him—even chihuahuas—and he had been known to kick out at perfectly inoffensive animals when the owners weren’t looking.

  ‘Never mind.’ Parkinson had been unnervingly friendly. ‘This could be your chance.’ He had referred to the open file on his desk. ‘Dogs are very big dollar earners. We make the best in the world, set very high standards. Total export income from dogs is more than two million pounds a year. Did you know that, Bognor?’

  Bognor had not known.

  ‘British dog breeders send more than two thousand Yorkshire terriers abroad every year. Are you impressed, Bognor?’

  Bognor was very impressed. Also apprehensive. He thought he could see what was coming.

  ‘So you will understand that the Board of Trade is surprisingly interested in man’s best friend,’ Parkinson had continued. He had droned on a bit about the place of the dog industry in Britain’s balance of payments crisis and then stopped.

  ‘Heard of quarantine?’ he asked.

  Bognor had said something facetious about chickenpox. Parkinson was not amused. Very patiently he had explained to Bognor that rabies was endemic in every other country in Europe and most other countries in the world except for Australia and New Zealand. To prevent it being imported all dogs coming in to Britain had to spend six months in quarantine kennels. Bognor nodded. He was getting worried.

  ‘Now.’ Parkinson was approaching the nitty gritty. ‘These quarantine restrictions mean that it is not possible to fly dogs in and out of the country for very short periods. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So that if a breeder wanted to put one of his dogs in for a show in Tokyo or Los Angeles he would have to kennel the dog when it returned. The same if he wanted to mate the dog with a Peruvian or Australian bitch.’

  Bognor had frowned and Parkinson, very patiently, explained what was going on. According to the Board of Trade’s information an international gang was smuggling pedigree dogs in and out of Britain. They were appearing at foreign shows under assumed names and carrying off all the big prizes. They were being mated with foreign dogs for improbably high stud fees. And at no time were any of them going into quarantine.

  ‘What makes you think this?’

  Parkinson laughed. ‘Our experts have reported an unusual rise in the standards of some breeds in some exceptionally unlikely places. Best of Breed boxer at Moscow this year,’ he shuffled through papers, ‘was quite exceptional. In my opinion only one kennel in the world could have produced such a dog, and that is in Lincolnshire. Then there was a Dobermann in Darjeeling and a Sealyham in Sydney. Exactly the same. Our man insists that those dogs could not have been produced by any breeder operating in that country, let alone the one who claims to have produced it. The latest is a Tibetan terrier in Tokyo. That was last week.’

  Now sucking his pencil in the scruffy subterranean office off Whitehall Bognor pondered the fate which ordained that he should investigate a team of international dog smugglers. He was not amused, but it could have been worse. For a hideous moment he had feared that Parkinson was going to make him impersonate a dog breeder. Worse things had happened in the past, but to his intense relief he had only told him to get in touch with the Board of Trade’s informant, a man called Mervyn Sparks.

  For the last thirty minutes Bognor had been sucking the pencil and staring sadly at the telephone. He knew that soon he would have to stir himself and dial the wretched Sparks but somehow he could not yet bring himself to do so. Sparks was an international dog judge who had once bred Airedales but had stopped when the breed had lost popularity after the war. He had his own public relations consultancy and had worked in wartime intelligence, hence his continuing, if tenuous links with the Civil Service.

  Bognor was on the verge of picking up the receiver when the phone rang, making him jump.

  ‘Bognor,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, Mr Bognor,’ said the voice in the machine, ‘Mervyn Sparks here. I wonder if you’d care to lunch. I think I may be able to help in your latest investigation. Mr Parkinson tells me you’re in charge.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘I have an appointment at two, so if you don’t mind an early bite perhaps you’d meet me at the Club at 12.30.’

  ‘The Club?’

  ‘The Kennel Club. Clarges Street.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Fine.’

  Bognor did not want lunch at the Kennel Club and disliked eating before 1.30. Nevertheless duty was clearly beckoning. He sighed and went on sucking his pencil.

  Mr Sparks was shuffling testily up and down just inside the front door of his club when Bognor arrived at 12.31. Bognor apologized for being late and remarked approvingly on the large canine bronze which stood at the entrance.

  ‘Nice dog,’ he said fatuously.

  ‘Not a dog,’ said Mr Sparks acidly. ‘It’s a hound.’

  Bognor was about to ask the difference and then thought better of it. They ascended by lift, in silence.

  They went straight into lunch since time pressed and for the same reason ordered from the set menu which, Bognor noticed, was extremely modestly priced. Mr Sparks had the face of a weasel and drank a glass of cider with his lunch. Bognor would have preferred wine but did the same. Over the soup Mr Sparks, who had hitherto confined himself to curt banalities, leant across the table and said, ‘I’ve just heard something very remarkable which might just be relevant.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bognor felt put upon. He was certainly not going to display enthusiasm without due cause.

  ‘Whately Wonderful’s been found dead.’

  For a moment Bognor thought of trying to bluff his way out of this inexplicable revelation but instead he looked what he felt: totally blank.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to explain. It means nothing.’

  Mr Sparks sipped cider and looked wary.

  ‘Whately Wonderful,’ he hissed, ‘dead.’

  ‘I heard you perfectly clearly. I just don’t understand. I’ve never heard of anyone called Whately Wonderful.’

  ‘It’s not a person, it’s a dog.’

  Bognor despaired. He didn’t even seem able to identify breeds correctly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything at all about dogs. I was only assigned to this thing this morning.’


  Mr Sparks looked pained and his rodent’s mouth twitched in disapproval. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is becoming obvious. I shall start at the beginning. You’ve heard of Ailsa Potts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I really am tempted to ask where you have been all these years, Mr Bognor, I am really. Mrs Potts is the country’s, probably the world’s, leading breeder of poodles.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And she owns—or rather owned—a young dog called Whately Wonderful which by all accounts is the finest poodle ever bred. A superb creature. Magnificent animal. She’d already been offered £15 000 for it.’

  ‘£15 000?’

  ‘That’s a top price but not so remarkable these days. She wouldn’t sell for that, of course, and quite right. The dog’s worth far more to her.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It was an almost certain Best of Breed for Cruft’s and it had a better than evens chance of becoming Best in Show. That would have put its own price up and also inundated her with orders from all over the world. She could have sold any dog she had several times over. Albert Ramble would have gone berserk.’

  ‘Albert Ramble?’

  They were on to their steak and kidney pie now. Mr Sparks was having difficulty with a piece of gristle. Eventually when he’d extracted it from his teeth and put it neatly on one side of his plate he said, ‘Ailsa Potts’ old rival. The second best breeder of poodles in Britain. He tries harder but then he has to. Nice man but doesn’t quite have what it takes. His dogs are never as well bodied up as the Three Corners’ animals. The ribbing’s not good enough.’

  ‘And the dog’s dead.’

  ‘Yes. This morning. One of the kennelmaids telephoned.’ Mr Sparks tapped his nose suggestively with an ill-kempt finger. ‘I have to keep up to date, know what’s going on. That sort of thing.’

  ‘And you think this dog’s death might have something to do with the smuggling?’

  Mr Sparks looked evasive.

  ‘I can’t be certain, but it’s a peculiar coincidence. The circumstances are highly suspicious. I understand Mrs Potts wouldn’t have the vet in. The dog was being buried this afternoon with no post mortem.’