Red Herrings Read online

  Guy paid no attention. ‘O.K., Mitcham,’ he said, ‘stay at Roman Bottom until I or someone else from CID gets over. It may not look like it but this could be a serious crime.’

  He flicked the switch and cut the conversation.

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Monica.

  ‘So’s this,’ said Guy waving the print-out at the Bognors. ‘I’ve never read such filth in my life. If that’s written by Miss Carlsbad she must have a mind like a sewer.’

  Bognor focused and read out loud: ‘Dull Boy Productions. Standard captions for “The Adventures of Fifi and the Dentist from Copenhagen.” Or “How Mademoiselle Discovered Oral Sex”. Photographs by Danish Blue pictures.’

  ‘I say,’ he said. ‘Are our wires crossed?’

  ‘My guess is not,’ said Guy. Bognor read on. The text was curiously child-like in its early simplicity. ‘Fifi had to go the dentist. She needed a filling.’ But after a sentence or two it became quite uncompromisingly pornographic. He lapsed into silence.

  ‘Let me see.’ Monica put out a hand, but Bognor pulled away from her. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not for your eyes.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, crisply, ‘I can take it. You forget I’m married to you. I’m practically unshockable.’

  Bognor blushed. ‘You might not be shocked but I’d be shocked by your reading it. It’s not fit for a lady to read.’

  ‘I’m no lady, I’m your wife.’

  ‘That’s a very silly remark. Particularly at a time like this. Two people are dead already.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. I’m a married woman of almost forty. Surely to God I’m old enough to read dirty literature.’

  She snatched the paper from him and read swiftly, eyes widening as she did. ‘I don’t think that’s physically possible,’ she said after a few moments, ‘even if you were double-jointed. I shall never be able to go to the dentist again. Miss Carlsbad is certainly a mistress of the double entendre. “Open wide” indeed.’

  She handed the print-out back to Guy.

  ‘Is that obscene within the meaning of the Act?’ asked Bognor morosely.

  ‘If it was published, then, yes, no question,’ said Guy running a palm over sleek aristocratic hair (the sort that’s dressed by Mr Trumper). ‘But you can write what you want on a computer in the privacy of your own home.’

  ‘That’s not exactly keeping a private diary,’ said Bognor. ‘Those pornographic passages were marked Dull Boy Productions. And we know that Peregrine Contractor is chief executive and Sir Nimrod – the late Sir Nimrod – was the president. What are the connections, I want to know?’

  ‘Whatever else, I don’t see old Herring being tied up with pornography. And why would they want him anyway?’

  ‘The usual.’ Bognor smiled sardonically. ‘There may have been a total collapse of all the values that we hold nearest and dearest. The fabric of feudal society may have crumbled to nothing. Village life may be only a sick pastiche of Merrie England but people are still snobs. Especially Americans. Sir Nimrod Herring Bart gave Dull Boy a touch of class and respectability. With a name like that on your masthead you could pretend to be dealing in eroticism and not porn.’

  ‘And he did it for the money,’ said Monica, ‘which he needed because that rat Wilmslow was blackmailing him. I know he didn’t say anything to us about Dull Boy but that stuff about him and Mrs Macpherson rang true to me.’

  ‘Too preposterous not to.’ Bognor ran his forefinger around the back of his neck under the collar as if trying to tease out some elusive or recalcitrant fragment of truth. ‘So Wilmslow was blackmailing Sir Nimrod all the time. And Sir Nimrod was collecting his president’s stipend from Dull Boy and passing it straight on to Wilmslow.’

  ‘Once a month in London.’ Guy was sitting with hands together as if in prayer. The tips of his fingers touched his lips which were pursed. He paused. ‘Do we assume that Sir Nimrod killed Wilmslow; that he did himself in today because he couldn’t live with the guilt?’

  ‘Fat chance,’ said Bognor. ‘Besides, no notes. If he did kill himself he’d have told us why, especially if he had as compelling a reason as that. Also, he couldn’t have killed Wilmslow on his own. Not if Wilmslow didn’t walk into Gallows Wood under his own steam. There must have been two of them if he was carried.’

  ‘It’s turning into quite a day.’ Monica got up and walked to the window. She stood for a moment, arms folded across that increasingly ample – though still rather magnificent – bosom, and then turned back to face the men.

  ‘If you ask me,’ she said, ‘all roads seem to be leading inexorably towards Peregrine Contractor.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bognor, hurriedly, ‘I wouldn’t say that. Perry couldn’t have been listening in to my phone call this morning. And that was what precipitated Sir Nimrod’s hurried departure.’

  ‘We can’t be sure of that,’ said Guy.

  ‘In any case,’ said Monica, ‘just because he wasn’t actually listening in personally doesn’t mean to say he wasn’t tipped off p.d.q. One of the boys at the Pickled Herring had only to get on the blower to the manor and “Bob’s your uncle”.’

  ‘What have the boys at the Pickled Herring got to do with it?’ asked Bognor, in a semi-rhetorical attempt at putting up a smokescreen. He had still not fathomed a way of explaining Dandiprat’s photographs. ‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘they tried to murder me with their Nouvelle Cuisine steak and then they bug the phone and cause Sir Nimrod to be tipped off. Why?’

  ‘They tried to murder me.’ Monica evidently felt credit was due here. She had been in the firing line. This should be acknowledged. ‘And it happened after Sir Nimrod had come to us with his confession.’

  ‘But,’ – Bognor wondered if he was getting one of his amazing flashes of intuition – ‘they can’t have known what it was that Sir Nimrod was confessing to. They wouldn’t have known about him and Mrs Macpherson and Naomi. Surely not. But they might have known about Sir Nimrod and Dull Boy Productions.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Guy.

  ‘Because,’ said Bognor with a logic-defying glimpse of the obvious which would have deeply upset Parkinson and Inspector Lejeune, ‘they listened to the phone call and grassed. They must have realised the significance of Dull Boy.’

  ‘Which is more than we do,’ said Monica gloomily.

  ‘Parkinson is bound to find out more from the States.’ Bognor wished he was truly confident about this. He had a feeling the ‘cousins’ as Parkinson now invariably called all Americans (the result of reading too many bad thrillers) would obfuscate. And Parkinson was ludicrously deferential in dealing with American intelligence agencies. They were bigger than him and his, and he allowed it to show. ‘But it’s obviously to do with “sex”.’

  ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ agreed Guy. ‘Even I had worked that out, Simon. But I’m not sure I see where it gets us.’

  ‘I think it’s a conspiracy,’ said Bognor. ‘I think they’re all in it together.’

  ‘Including Peregrine Contractor?’ Guy frowned. ‘I tell you, he’s a bad lot, that Contractor. I know he’s a friend and all that but I’ve had my suspicions for a long time. And,’ he eyed Bognor with what looked unpleasantly like suspicion, ‘that tarty wife of his is no better than she ought to be.’

  ‘Just because she models lingerie,’ said Bognor, aware that he was sounding more shrill than he meant, ‘doesn’t mean to say she’s tarty or any worse than she should be.’

  ‘If it’s all about sex,’ said Monica, ‘which is, in the circumstances, a not unreasonable hypothesis, then I still don’t see where the boys from the Pickled Herring come into it. Felix and Norman generate about as much sexual electricity as a limp lettuce leaf.’

  ‘The one thing about this case,’ said Bognor, ‘is that we’re dealing with the most deceptive appearances since those monks.’

  ‘Friars,’ said Monica. A decade ago Bognor had uncovered a spy ring using an Anglican religious community
as a front. He was naive enough in those days to be surprised to find enemies of the state hiding in coarse habits. Not any more. The years had tempered him and endowed him with a scepticism which did not come naturally.

  ‘Friars, monks, hermits, eremites, cenobites, anchorites, it’s all the same,’ said Bognor, sounding like Mr Toad in fullish flight. ‘The point is they’re none of them what they seem. Strip off a cassock and you find a Blunt or Burgess skulking about underneath. Scratch the surface of an archetypal spinster like Emerald Carlsbad and you find a Xaviera Hollander or Fiona Richmond – sisters beneath the skin, pornographers all.’

  ‘Breastless creatures under ground I suppose,’ said Monica. ‘I do dislike it when you show off. Especially when you’re only trying to deceive us. I said, if it’s all about sex, I don’t see where Felix and Norman fit into the scheme of things. Nor do you.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Bognor’s eyes flashed, ‘caterers – they’re caterers. Man cannot live by sex alone and so on and so forth. You’ve got to eat and drink. Any self-respecting Roman orgy had caterers. That was half the point.’

  ‘You’re suggesting Felix and Norman are catering for orgies?’ Guy was at his most ploddishly disbelieving.

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,’ said Bognor, ‘and if you don’t believe me why don’t you phone your friend Lady Amanda Mandible and ask her who does her food and drink?’

  ‘It’ll be Fortnums or Harrods or Justin de Blank or Lady Elizabeth Anson,’ said Monica who had, from time to time, worked in the upper reaches of the catering trade and knew her gastronomic onions.

  ‘Only if it’s above board,’ said Bognor. ‘If it’s not I’ll bet you it will be Norman and Felix.’

  ‘No proof,’ said Guy. ‘No proof whatever.’

  ‘I suggest, ‘said Bognor, ‘that we go down there and search the kitchens. Or do as I say and phone Lady Amanda.’

  ‘I still don’t see,’ said Monica. ‘I mean even if we accept that Dull Boy Productions is involved in some form of dubious and possibly illegal sexual activity and if we agree that the Pickled Herring does the catering for them … I mean there’s no crime in it. If I provided sausage rolls for a chain of brothels it wouldn’t be a crime.’

  ‘There are sausage rolls and sausage rolls,’ said Bognor darkly. ‘Catering and catering.’

  The three of them thought about this for a moment, then Guy stood up and said, ‘I have to get down to the corpse. See that everything’s done properly. No need for you to be there. I’ll drop you in the village and we can get together later. I tend to agree with Monica. It all seems to be pointing in the direction of our friend Contractor but if he is the spider at the centre of the web then I think perhaps we should let him stew in his own juice for the time being.’

  ‘Spiders don’t stew in their own juice,’ said Monica, ‘and I’ll bet Perry Contractor won’t stew in his. He’s too sharp for that.’

  ‘I want a word with Norman and Felix,’ said Bognor. ‘If it’s a question of stewing in juice they should have the answers. But while we’re mixing our metaphors I think we should give Perry enough rope to hang himself. We have questions to put to both Miss Carlsbad and Felix and Norman. And after that there will be others. Time enough for Perry when we have some cast-iron confessions.’

  Monica looked sceptical. ‘I think he’s too clever by half,’ she said. By which she meant too clever for Guy and Simon and the Mid-Angleside Constabulary.

  It was hazy, hot and humid by the time Guy dropped them outside the Pickled Herring. The old inn sign hung inertly, its ancient red fish flaking in the sun. Mermaid rose crowded over the porch and almost obscured the art deco of the yellow and black Automobile Association sign which, like the inn sign itself, the landlords kept meaning to remove. The AA sign would go altogether. The Pickled Herring was to be replaced with something more contemporary. Felix had hoped to commission Hockney but had failed. Instead a man called Bugle who taught at the Whelk School of Art had promised to do something clever for them.

  Bognor and his wife watched as Guy’s Rover climbed away from them towards Roman Bottom, Mailbag Corner and all that remained of Sir Nimrod Herring.

  ‘Feels almost deserted,’ said Bognor, as the chief inspector disappeared into the hillside.

  ‘Yes.’ Monica scuffed at the gravel. ‘I wonder if we ought to go and comfort Naomi Herring? Make her a cup of tea or something.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bognor. ‘There’ll be plenty of people doing that already. Ladies from the Women’s Institute and district nurses. That’s what villages are for. It’s called good neighbourliness.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Monica, following her spouse indoors. The only sound was the gentle tick of a particularly fine George III mahogany longcase clock by James Smith of London.

  ‘I do like that brass chapter ring and the spandrels,’ said Bognor who was enthusiastic about clocks. The owners of the Pickled Herring did not have a taste which coincided with the Bognors at every point. But they did have some nice pieces. The longcase clock struck four melodically and was echoed a few seconds later by the chimes from the village church echoing out across the fields. As they faded the house seemed even more empty and quiet than before.

  ‘I think I might take a little shufty,’ said Simon. ‘See if I can’t find something or other incriminating.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Monica, ‘I don’t think you should. Snooping around doesn’t suit you. It always ends in tears. It’s far too hot anyway. I’m going to have a cold shower and a bit of a zizz. Why don’t you?’

  Bognor stared at her incredulously. ‘A bit of a zizz!’ he exclaimed. ‘At four o’clock in the afternoon of a working day? Can you imagine what Parkinson would say? Or Guy?’

  ‘No need for them to know,’ she said. ‘Not under normal circumstances. But being you I suppose you’d get caught out.’

  ‘I don’t know, Monica,’ he said looking at her incredulously, ‘I really don’t. You sometimes amaze me, you really do.’

  And he turned away, walking towards the dining room on tippytoes with cat-like tread. Monica watched him go, then shook her head, and flounced upstairs. He was the most extraordinary man, she told herself, and extraordinarily irritating at times. One of which was this.

  There was no one in the dining room and so Bognor crossed it speedily and passed through the swing doors into the kitchen. It too was empty. Spotless copper pans, some very old Sabatier knives, an ice cream maker, antique wooden spoons, strings of garlic and shallots, stainless steel hobs. No people.

  Bognor surveyed the emptiness for a few seconds and sighed. He had been hoping for a clue but there was nothing here. His eyes caught a cork noticeboard by a door which looked as if it might lead to a pantry. He strode across and scanned the pieces of paper. There was a butcher’s bill and a list of fresh herbs and spices to order from a couple of specialist shops in London; also the Boulogne telephone number of Maître Philippe Olivier, the ubiquitous cheesemonger. He had been praying for something which might, like the Carlsbad disk, say Dull Boy Productions, but there was nothing. Nothing at all.

  He sighed and scratched, aware suddenly that even in the kitchen it was devilishly hot.

  Gingerly, he tried the door. It yielded but not to a pantry as he had expected but to a sort of pantry corridor which led some thirty feet to a glass back door giving on to the kitchen garden. More doors led off the corridor. The first on the left seemed very heavy, almost like the door to a safe. Bognor tried it, but it seemed very stiff. He tried again but it still wouldn’t give. The third time he wrenched at it quite hard and the door opened with surprising ease so that he almost fell into the room.

  Suddenly it was cold and he realised that this was the hotel cold store. A whole side of beef was suspended from a hook on the left; shelves held butter and bacon; but most surprisingly of all, stretched out on a marble slab at the far end of this gigantic fridge, was a naked woman.

  Bognor gasped.

  She was raven-haired and statuesque. H
er skin was almost unnaturally white and her lipstick a very vivid red which matched finger and toe nails and, more surprisingly, her nipples. She looked, to Bognor, like Snow White without clothes. Or perhaps the Sleeping Beauty. Dead or sleeping? Bognor was not quite sure, though as he shivered with cold he realised that no naked person could lie like that for long even if they were SAS trained and participating in some peculiarly rigorous NATO exercise. Dead then. With a sick shiver that had nothing to do with the cold he suddenly recalled the steak last night. Surely it couldn’t … tremulously he searched the lady’s flanks for any sign that a pound or so of flesh might have been removed, but she was intact. No surgeon’s knife had disturbed that perfect corpse.

  Bognor slapped his arms against his chest. It was exceedingly chill. His breath showed foggy as a car exhaust in a December dawn. He advanced apprehensively on the body, wondering if it was anyone he knew. There was a new girl in the typing pool who, but no, she was shorter and spottier … and that girl in Dallas had a slight look except that she had a café au lait colour and this girl was all strawberries and cream. She looked odder and odder as he got closer, almost as if she had been embalmed or chiselled from some easily worked rock. Moulded in clay even. At a distance of three or four feet he paused. There was something very inhuman about her. He was dimly aware that some publisher or other ran a series of books of nude photographs under the generic title Rude Food. Publishers, it seemed to him, were increasingly interested in producing artefacts of this nature. This luscious corpse was obviously a gastronomic centrefold.

  He advanced still further and ran a finger across the girl’s navel. It left a faint line like the first ski on new snow. He licked his finger and frowned thoughtfully. Vanilla with a dash of Cointreau? Or was there some fruit in there too? A suspicion of mango? He reached up to a nipple and removed what looked like a glacé cherry. He was just going through the difficult process of deciding whether to replace it or eat it when he heard a sound behind him.

  He spun round swiftly and saw Norman Bone and Felix Entwistle standing in the now open doorway. Norman held a meat cleaver in his right hand; Felix an open litre of tarragon vinegar. Bognor could see at once that the disabling effects of a litre of tarragon vinegar would be near total. He doubted whether Norman would use the cleaver. But it was all fairly academic. He was armed only with a glace cherry.