Death in the Opening Chapter Read online

  ‘So, your husband suddenly developed misgivings about sex and about God,’ said Bognor. ‘Do you think this sudden access of doubt would have been enough to drive him to take his own life?’

  Dorcas seemed to give the idea some thought.

  ‘I wouldn’t have said Sebastian was into suicide,’ she said. ‘You have to be certain of something to kill yourself, and I wouldn’t have said Sebby was like that. On the other hand, I would never have believed he could have had second thoughts about God . . . or sex.’

  ‘So, whatever else he may have thought about things, he remained pretty certain about his doubts.’

  Simon was rather pleased with this, which while not sufficiently polished to qualify as an aphorism, contained enough unexpectedness to be worth the work. The idea of certainty about doubt was appealing, as well as paradoxical.

  ‘You could say that,’ she conceded, ‘and in a way, it simply made him a more consistent character. He was in a quandary about absolutely everything, which was not originally the case. It could have driven him to killing himself, though I’d be surprised. On the other hand, his life was full of surprises, so why not his death?’

  ‘Seems a slightly melodramatic way of doing it,’ said Bognor. ‘He could have taken an overdose, or slit his wrists in the bath.’

  ‘Perhaps he wanted people to notice,’ she said. ‘Nobody paid much attention to him while he was alive, so why not do a celebrity-style death. It would surprise everyone and possibly draw attention to whatever he wanted people to be drawn to.’

  ‘Which was?’ No one had found a note. There was no indication of what he was planning to preach from the pulpit.

  ‘Ebenezer took away his notes for the sermon,’ she said as if reading his mind. ‘He said it might be helpful and that, in any case, no one else would understand. If they claimed to, they would be guilty of getting everything wrong.’

  ‘How did the bishop get hold of the notes?’

  ‘Sebastian . . .’ and then she went pink and checked herself again, ‘gave them to him,’ she said, after what seemed like another long moment of thought. ‘It seemed only right. They were God’s business, and it seemed only proper that they should be shared by his servants and not by enemies.’

  Bognor made a mental note to ask about the state of Dorcas’ own beliefs.

  ‘I hadn’t realized that the bishop was on the scene so fast,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t say he was,’ she said, flustered.

  ‘That’s not what I said. Or questioned,’ said Bognor.

  He supposed he had better have another, perhaps more formal, word with the bishop.

  ‘Does he still have your husband’s notes for the sermon?’ he asked.

  Another silence, and then she nodded. ‘I can’t think he hasn’t,’ she said, ‘but you’d better ask. I simply don’t know.’

  ‘I will,’ he said. And he would.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Monica and the Fludds had been listening to a talk by Martin Allgood. Bognor was working while they played. This was irritating because he had been looking forward to hearing authors speak. On the other hand, it gave him a moral upper hand. That was the theory. Unfortunately, authors, often the least likely, had a habit of getting in the way and saying stuff that was more germane to the puzzle than routine enquiries. That was the reality.

  Thus, Allgood.

  ‘Did you know that the Reverend Sebastian had written a book?’ asked Sir Branwell. ‘Dark horse, Sebby. Provisional title: The Vicar’s Wife. Taken, I rather fancy, by Trollope minima.’

  ‘Wrong on a number of counts,’ said Monica, predictably and crisply. ‘Joanna Trollope’s book was The Rector’s Wife, and was inspired by her clerical upbringing in the Cotswolds. And Allgood didn’t say Sebastian had written a book. He was being hypothetical.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Monica.’ Bognor recognized Branwell’s combine-harvester mood, devouring all before him and scattering vegetation and wildlife before him, without serious discrimination. When he took on this guise, he was unstoppable and destroyed everything in his path. ‘Little Allgood doesn’t do hypothetical. His oeuvre is one long roman-à-clef, a hymn of self-congratulation.’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ said Monica, ‘and not true, either.’ But Sir Branwell was unstoppable. Bognor tried silently warning his wife, flashing his eyes and kicking her under the table. Nothing worked. She stood like an obstinate stook in his path, grass about to be cast to the wind and rendered into featureless chaff. Except that it was unwise to mess with Monica. She was just the sort of rogue blade who would clog otherwise irresistible machinery.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Sir Branwell, with all the braggadocio which had once earned him a congratulatory fourth. ‘Little Allgood’s never written an original word in his life. It’s all faction at best, plagiarism at worst. Everything comes from somewhere else. He just takes real life and makes it boring.’

  ‘Please explain,’ said Bognor to all three. ‘I am not understanding.’

  Camilla Fludd, who had remained silent and seemed to have less of an axe to grind, spoke.

  ‘Allgood spent his entire talk saying what it was like having a novel turned down.’

  ‘Then he can’t have been drawing on real life,’ said Bognor. ‘Allgood’s never had a rejection in his life. That’s part of his problem.’

  ‘Just because he personally hasn’t been turned down,’ said Sir Branwell, ‘doesn’t mean to say that he doesn’t know people who have.’ He sounded triumphant, like a truculent undergraduate confronted by a particularly dim examiner. ‘Don’t tell me little Allgood doesn’t know all about slush piles and unsolicited manuscripts. Just because it hasn’t happened to him.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bognor, aware that he was sounding petulant, ‘but nobody has told me what he actually said. All I know is that you all agree that it was good. Branwell said it was based on fact; Monica says it wasn’t. But what exactly was it?’

  ‘He said,’ said Camilla, ‘that rejection was enough to drive someone to drink. Or suicide. Or worse.’

  ‘What could be worse than suicide?’ he asked. ‘I mean, that’s as bad as it gets.’

  ‘Killing someone else is worse than killing oneself. At least, it is in fiction. It may be different in real life, but Allgood is about novels. It’s what he does.’ This was Camilla again. The other two glowered and said nothing.

  ‘So where did the vicar come in?’

  ‘Allgood brought him in,’ said Camilla.

  ‘He didn’t have to,’ said Branwell. ‘I’m afraid Sebastian brought himself in. Evidently, he had written a novel and he couldn’t take the constant rejection. Being Sebastian, he went about it all in completely the wrong way and naturally failed to see it, which is why he strung himself up. So, ergo, I was right all the time. He strung himself up. Admittedly, I failed to guess the reason for his topping himself, but I’m afraid that’s not the point. He was responsible and he alone. All jolly sad. But no need for any more fuss than deep regret and a proper funeral. New padre needed, but that’s another matter. Allgood hit the nail on the head, I’m afraid.’

  ‘With respect,’ said Monica, ‘that’s not what he said. Everything was prefixed with doubt and speculation. He kept saying “if ” and “let us suppose”. He may have been putting a prosecution case, but that’s all. He certainly wasn’t putting forward facts. There was absolutely nothing he said which would stand up in court.’

  ‘But had the vicar written a book?’ asked Bognor.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sir Branwell.

  ‘No,’ said Bognor’s wife.

  ‘We can’t be sure,’ said Camilla.

  ‘One speech,’ said Bognor, ‘an audience of three and three completely different interpretations. I’m afraid that, in my experience, that’s entirely usual. It doesn’t matter how many witnesses you have. It doesn’t matter if each one has qualifications to pass themselves off as a trained observer, you are likely to have three completely different versions of wha
t actually happened. That’s one reason truth is so difficult to ascertain. Basically, there’s no such thing. One man’s fact, is another man’s fiction; one man’s truths are another man’s lies. And so it goes on. That’s why there is no such thing as real history, why it’s possible to have a Marxist interpretation and a Christian one, why it is possible to be Arthur Bryant and tell our island history entirely in terms of kings and queens, or be Christopher Hill and tell the same story as if the only real people involved were diggers and levellers. There is no such thing as objectivity. Never was, never will be. Fact of life.’

  ‘That’s what they taught you at Apocrypha?’ asked Monica, not really expecting a straight answer and not receiving one.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said her husband. ‘Case rests.’

  ‘I don’t see that what we were taught at university makes a blind bit of difference,’ said Sir Branwell. ‘The fact of the matter is that the vicar wrote a novel, had it turned down by a number of publishers, and killed himself as a result. Little Allgood says it happens all the time.’

  ‘Just because it happens all the time,’ said Bognor, ‘doesn’t mean it happened here. What was the vicar supposed to have written?’

  ‘Doesn’t make a blind bit of difference,’ said Branwell. ‘Could have been Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy and Jane Austen rolled in one, for all the industry cared, and for all the difference it made to the poor fellow’s disillusion and suicide. He went about it completely the wrong way: didn’t have an agent, probably submitted a photograph of himself in a dog collar, which said middle-class, middle-aged, Caucasian male failure. Wouldn’t be surprised to find he sent a picture of himself with a beard. I’m not a celebrity get me out of here. Except that, he was never even in it. Wherever “it” is.’

  ‘What if the book was any good?’ asked Bognor innocently.

  ‘You don’t suppose anyone actually read it?’ Sir Branwell was incredulous. ‘Never had a lot of time for little Allgood, but he talked a lot of sense today. The vicar’s book would have gone straight into the slush pile and stayed there until someone sent him a rejection slip. No one would have read it. They don’t read books nowadays. Probably can’t. That’s what Allgood said. You can learn a thing or two at a good literary festival like ours. Beats reading any day.’

  ‘Everything seems to beat reading these days,’ said Monica. She was obviously spoiling for a fight. ‘Including so-called literary festivals. You’ve heard the author plugging his latest book, so you don’t have to bother reading it. Dead vicar at end of rope in own church; don’t read all about it; just listen to Martin Allgood being speculative. Honestly.’ She was very angry.

  ‘I don’t see the problem,’ said Bognor. ‘We only have to ask Dorcas if Sebastian had written a novel. Either way, I don’t see rejection as a motive. Thousands of people have books rejected.’

  ‘Most of them unread,’ said Sir Branwell with an air of triumph.

  ‘What if Sebastian had written a good book?’ Bognor was being faux naif, but it was a perfectly legitimate question. It was unlikely that the vicar had written a good book, whatever that might be, and the semi-plagiarism of the title was a bad augury. Nevertheless, the idea was possible, and Bognor was not a man to leave a stone unturned. If he did, it might gather moss, he told his long-suffering subordinates whenever the opportunity arose.

  Sir Branwell was exultant. ‘In the unlikely event that little Sebastian had written a good book, it would have been even less likely to find a publisher.’

  Even Bognor found this a little over the top, but the squire was now in full flight.

  ‘Sebby being Sebby would have sent the manuscript off with all conceivable strings left unpulled. His typescript would therefore have gone straight on to the slush pile. There it would have remained for the requisite number of months, before the book would have been returned in the stamped addressed envelope so thoughtfully provided. Without an sae, it would just have been thrown out. Just possible it would have been picked up by some typist, who might have taken it home to read, might conceivably have enjoyed it, might possibly have put in a recommendation to that effect. If she did, which would be very unlikely, her bosses would have ignored it. They always do. It’s in the job description.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as a typist these days,’ said Monica, still combative. ‘They all have laptops, even the super bosses, even if they don’t know how to use them.’

  Sir Branwell ignored her.

  ‘Had Sebastian been a celebrity of some description – a cook, say, or a supermodel – he might have stood a chance. But he was a common-or-garden middle-aged man with a dog collar, and more hair on his chin than the top of his head.’

  This was true, metaphorically at least, so Monica kept shtum but looked mulish.

  ‘Not a chance, poor bugger. And the reasons were completely beyond his purlieu, let alone control. And after two or three, or even more, such rejections he was feeling a bit down. Only human nature. Even for a man of God. Maybe particularly, for a man of God.’

  He looked round, evidently thinking he had scored a great victory and talked lots of sound common sense.

  ‘I still don’t see any evidence that the vicar had written a book at all. Still less submitted it to a publisher; even less had it rejected several times and been driven to suicide.’

  ‘It’s happened to better men than the Reverend Sebastian Fludd,’ said Sir Branwell, portentously. ‘Established authors; men of letters; anybody lacking celebrity status. I wouldn’t be surprised if even little Allgood had had his problems.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Monica, pouncing. This was her moment and she seized it. ‘Little Allgood is getting a bit long in the tooth; he’s past it; he has trouble staying in flight; which is why he was so keen on using the vicar as a hypothetical example.’

  ‘Talking of long in the tooth,’ said Branwell, ‘you have to admire the man’s gnashers. They must have cost a pretty penny. That’s a lot of copies.’

  ‘That’s Amis not Allgood,’ said Monica, who liked to keep up with matters literary, even when they concerned dentistry. ‘He’s in danger of becoming a grumpy old man, but he’s not like Allgood. Not remotely. And certainly not when it comes to teeth or slush piles.’

  ‘I still thought he spoke awfully well,’ said Camilla, managing to miss several points at the same time. ‘I felt really sorry for poor Sebastian. I mean how could they?’

  ‘I feel sorry for him too,’ said Bognor. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘And however well Allgood spoke, and however much everyone huffs and puffs about whether or not he was being hypothetical or not, neither of you is going to bring him back. Much better to do as I said, draw a line in the sand and get on with things. It’s what he would have wanted after all. No use crying over spilled milk or hanged vicars. These things happen. Life has to go on.’

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say that they had had this argument before, but Bognor thought better of it, buttoned his lip, which was stiffish, and gave very little away. Privately, however, he decided it would be sensible to have another word with Martin Allgood, and to establish whether or not he knew more of the deceased than he had previously been letting on. After all, Bognor reckoned he was the only one present who had read Allgood – the aptly named Minimal Expectations, which had Dickensian echoes and more than a little Dickensian hubris.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Before talking to Allgood again, Sir Simon had to phone the office. Harvey Contractor, his ambitious, talented, overqualified sidekick was manning the place in his boss’s absence, and it was to him that Bognor spoke. He was so immersed in the English countryside and the death of the vicar, that he had almost forgotten that Contractor existed.

  ‘Thick plot already,’ he said. ‘But getting thicker by the moment.’

  Contractor had a degree, a good one, in semiotics from the University of Wessex in Casterbridge. His boss pretended not to know what this meant. Contractor humoured him in this, as in most respects. One da
y, Bognor’s job would be his. No competition. All he had to do was bide his time and keep his nose clean.

  ‘Anything you say, boss.’

  ‘This is supposed to be a holiday,’ said Bognor, trying not to whinge. ‘It’s anything but. I’m working flat out. Bloody hideous.’

  Contractor yawned. The phone call had interrupted his ‘fiendishly difficult’ Sudoku. Contractor habitually finished it fast. He himself could be fiendishly difficult when he wanted, but he tried not to be with Bognor. He rather liked the old thing and saw through the veil of assumed stupidity which, on the whole, Sir Simon wore lightly. It did not fool Contractor, nor really was it meant to.

  Contractor had read the whole of Proust in the original French, being averse to translation, and being able to read in a lot of languages. He was weaned on Simenon, also in French, and was an expert on crime literature from Bulgaria, Flanders and Finland. He was fluent on Thomas Merton and early Coetzee. He had fingered Henning Mankell as an emerging talent before anyone else in Britain was aware of him, and he had learned to despise Dan Brown similarly early on. He was, in short, literaturely perspicacious and he didn’t do festivals. He believed that writers should be read and not heard. Had he been at the Fludd, he might have heckled.

  ‘Problem?’ he asked.

  ‘Routine,’ said his boss. ‘Quick trip to Kew. Check out the army list in the National Archives. I want you to cast an eye over the Mobile 13th in the sixties. See if there are any familiar names there.’