Just Desserts (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Read online

  Embarrassing confession was prevented by the reappearance of the glum waiter who told them, gracelessly, that their table was ready, and then ushered them to it.

  It was a perfectly respectable table as tables went. The tablecloth was pink and clean, the wax night-light affair in a sort of inverted goldfish bowl shimmered romantically, and there was a rose in a vase. It looked wan enough to be real. The meal, when it appeared, was by no means as disgusting as they had supposed while in the bar, and by the end of it they were feeling more or less content, if less than euphoric. Just as two brandies arrived they were both suddenly aware of noise. It was not that the restaurant had hitherto been silent, but there were no more than half a dozen other couples in the large, rather starkly Apicello-style room and, as is the way with apprehensive diners in half-empty restaurants, they conversed, when they did, in virtual whispers. Whether this affected the staff or whether the uncharacteristically dour mien of the staff was there in the first place Bognor could not conceive. At all events the noise from the bar was unexpected and out of place. Whoever had arrived was clearly in convivial mood. Moreover the pitch of their voices and the slightly braying quality of their laughter suggested that they expected convivial surroundings. It also suggested alcohol, freely imbibed.

  ‘At least someone is happy,’ said Monica.

  ‘Aren’t you happy?’

  ‘Not unhappy, anyway.’ She put her hand across the table and rested it momentarily on Bognor’s. He smiled back at her intending to convey warmth but actually transmitting a mild embarrassment. Bognor was not by temperament what he called ‘physical’. And certainly not in public. Besides, he was too old to indulge in petting, however mild, in restaurants. Although he was only in his mid-thirties, he was, as everyone always told him, old for his age.

  Offstage in the bar the sound of raucous conviviality increased.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Monica, ‘do you think there’s going to be one of those scenes? Someone does sound terribly obstreperous.’

  They both listened, but it was impossible to distinguish exactly what was being said, nor indeed whether a complaint was being expressed, or if it was merely bonhomie. It was difficult, too, to determine whether the noise emanated from a single couple, or from a charabanc-load of revellers.

  ‘Talk of the devil,’ said Bognor suddenly. He drew on his cheroot and leant forward, frowning. ‘It is, you know. There’s only one person I’ve ever known who could make a noise like that.’

  ‘Even though you only knew him vaguely.’ Monica was not generally quick on the uptake, but she was where Bognor was concerned. The long years of their liaison had made them almost psychic together.

  ‘I only knew him vaguely,’ said Bognor, a shade archly, ‘but everyone in the university was intimately acquainted with the noise he made. As you can hear, it’s a very loud one, and utterly distinctive.’

  As he said this, the noise erupted into the restaurant itself. Most of it came from a short stout person with a vivid scarlet face and loud check trousers. In one hand he grasped a bottle of champagne. His other fist contained a fat cigar, and the arm attached to it seemed to be on the point of strangling a large flushed blonde in a very little black dress.

  ‘I thought,’ said Monica, ‘the rule was that you held bottles by the neck and birds by the bottom and never …’

  ‘Round the waist, not the bottom,’ said Bognor. ‘No, not Aubrey. He’s always made a point of making his own rules.’

  ‘Which he then breaks.’

  ‘No, never.’

  They both watched, fascinated, as the couple lurched to a corner table, under the long-suffering guidance of the waiter.

  ‘Well?’ muttered Monica. ‘He doesn’t seem to have recognized you. Are you going to make yourself known?’

  If Bognor had been standing he would have shuffled about with embarrassment. As it was he merely said, ‘He hasn’t looked over here, that’s all. Besides, in his present state he wouldn’t recognize anyone.’

  ‘Oh, but surely he’d recognize you. Even if you only knew him vaguely you must have made a great impression on him.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bognor, stubbing out his cheroot with the air of one goaded beyond the bounds of reasonable behaviour, and before Monica could restrain him, he was moving purposefully in the direction of the Pring table. Even as he did he could feel his resolve slacken. Pring and his friend were, on closer inspection, even more distressingly glassy-eyed than he had previously assumed. He was also aware that his shoes squeaked, and that the restaurant had grown even more silent. There were not many eyes available, but he sensed, unhappily, that they were on him. All, that is, except those of Aubrey Pring and the blonde, who were engrossed now in mute contemplation of each other, inebriation clearly compounding their mutual lust.

  ‘Ahem,’ coughed Bognor, arriving at Mr Pring’s elbow.

  ‘Aha,’ echoed Mr Pring menacingly, swivelling to meet Bognor’s averted gaze. ‘I take it that you are in what, for want of a better word, I shall call “charge”.’

  Bognor blinked. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘no, not in the least.’ He put out a hand. ‘Bognor,’ he said, ‘Balliol. The Wine and Food Soc. You probably won’t remember but …’

  For a second Aubrey Pring’s face was contorted in a dreadful effort of concentration, and then just as Bognor feared that this must result in, at worst, coronary thrombosis and, at best, failure, the diminutive gastronome staggered to his feet, took Bognor’s hand in his own and exclaimed: ‘Good God! Bognors-and-Mash! Long time no see! Sit down. Take a pew. What’ll you have?’

  ‘Well, actually …’ Bognor, like others who undertake daring missions on sudden impulses, had not planned his campaign beyond the first skirmish. This unexpected initial success stymied him. Around him he was aware that their fellow guests had lost interest in what they had clearly expected to be a confrontation. Lost in confused thought, Bognor was dimly aware that Pring was still speaking.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bognor, ‘I didn’t quite, I mean …’ Then he realized that he was being introduced. Pring was saying, ‘Aubergine Bristol … Ginny, this is a very old friend of mine indeed, known to all of us in the Wine and Food Soc. as “Bognors-and-Mash” on account of his extraordinary interest in the sausage which, in the days when we first knew one another was, even for the fastidious, a staple form of diet. Bognor, old fruit, do sit down and have a glass of something. We’re in the middle of drowning our sorrows “For …”’ and here Pring assumed a declamatory stance:

  ‘… Death has illumined the Land of Sleep,

  And his lifeless body lay

  A worn-out fetter, that the soul

  Had broken and thrown away!’

  Bognor dimly remembered Pring’s rather embarrassing addiction to Longfellow and, very much to his surprise, found himself saying:

  ‘He is dead, the sweet musician!

  He the sweetest of all singers!

  He has gone from us for ever,

  He has moved a little nearer

  To the Master of all music,

  To the Master of all singing!

  O my brother, Chibiabos!’

  ‘You’ve heard then?’ asked Pring, after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Heard?’

  ‘About Scoff?’

  ‘Yes. Appalling. Look, I say,’ Bognor sensed Monica growing restless behind him. ‘I’d love to join you for a sec, but I am actually with someone. Do you think …?’

  Pring gestured expansively. ‘My dear chap,’ he said, ‘of course. Why didn’t you say?’

  Bognor returned to his table where Monica remained, stony-faced. ‘He’s asked us to join them,’ he said.

  ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘No, really. Are you coming?’

  ‘Must we?’

  ‘We don’t have to, but it could be useful. I’d prefer it.’ She pulled a face but rose, albeit with bad grace. As she did he reflected that though Aubergine Bristol was faintly absurd, Monica was undoubtedly o
n the dowdy side. He dismissed the thought instantly as unworthy, but it bothered him and recurred as he made the introductions.

  ‘You knew Scoff then?’ asked Pring when they were all seated and drinking champagne.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I think Simon means “only vaguely”,’ said Monica, flicking his shin under the table. If she looked dowdy alongside Aubergine Bristol she also seemed a lot sharper. Aubergine was wearing an expression of almost total vacuity.

  ‘We were there last night,’ said Pring. ‘Had a drink with him and Gabrielle. Most extraordinary thing. Simply don’t understand it. He seemed perfectly all right to me. Not even pissed.’

  ‘I thought he seemed peculiar,’ said Aubergine. ‘In fact I think he’s been peculiar for ages. Peculiarer and,’ she hesitated before continuing, ‘… and peculiarer.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Bognor.

  She thought for a few seconds and then said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Just sort of peculiar.’

  ‘He drank too much,’ said Pring. ‘Occupational hazard. Let’s have the other half.’ He ordered another bottle and some food. ‘Is the nosh here as bloody as the service?’ he asked when the waiter had slunk off. ‘Because if it is I’m not paying.’

  ‘Ours was all right, actually,’ said Monica, loyally. ‘In fact the stiffado was really quite good.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pring without interest. ‘We were told about it by that bloody woman, Ailsa Larkin.’

  ‘So were we,’ said Bognor.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ asked Pring.

  ‘Friend of Monica’s,’ said Bognor.

  ‘Oh.’ He seemed to lose interest again and stared morosely at the tablecloth. This was infectious. They all stared morosely at the tablecloth until Pring jerked himself back to the present.

  ‘So,’ he said with a jollity which seemed forced and unnatural, ‘as I said, “long time no see”. What happened to you? Someone told me you’d gone into the post office. You don’t look as if you went into the post office.’

  ‘No. Board of Trade actually,’ said Bognor.

  ‘Oh, well,’ Pring looked patronizing. ‘Not far out. What exactly do you do in the Board of Trade?’

  Bognor took a deep breath, another slug of champagne, and tried desperately to remember what Parkinson had suggested as a cover story. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, it’s funny you should mention that because I’m working on something to do with food at the moment,’ he said. ‘I do special investigations, you see.’

  ‘Can’t imagine it’s the sort of food we’re interested in,’ said Pring. ‘Investigating the precise digital component of the standard fish finger preparatory to a white paper produced under the auspices of the White Fish Authority, I suppose. Or how much soya you can legally put in a sausage. Or whether toast has to be made with bread.’

  ‘No, actually,’ said Bognor, stung by this all too accurate description of what habitually went on around him, ‘we’re looking at the top end of the market, trying to find how the government might help out there.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll get the Queen’s Award for Industry, Aubrey,’ said Aubergine Bristol. ‘I’m awfully peckish, I wish they’d bring our food.’

  ‘And how,’ asked Aubrey, perceptibly sobering, ‘do you imagine the government might help? Nationalize the restaurant trade, I suppose? Or introduce a caviar subsidy? If there’s one thing calculated to destroy what little decent eating’s to be had in this country, it’s government interference. They’ve practically ruined the wine trade as it is.’

  ‘Oh that’s not entirely fair,’ said Bognor. ‘The Prime Minister’s very keen on his wine.’

  ‘Only if it’s British. He’s not a wino—he’s a reconstituted grape juice addict.’

  ‘That’s not really quite fair,’ said Bognor, loath to be caught defending a prime minister and a government of whom he strongly disapproved but nevertheless feeling that his position demanded it.

  ‘It is, and you know it,’ said Pring heatedly. At that moment, before genuine misunderstanding could interfere with Bognor’s intentions, the waiter arrived with pasta. It appeared hot and sufficient. ‘About bloody time,’ said Pring, ‘and get us a couple of bottles of the Santa Cristina.’ Both Bognor and Monica expostulated, but Pring flapped his hands about in limp gestures of dismissal. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, forking a great skein of noodles into his mouth. ‘Why don’t you join us on this jolly to Petheram tomorrow? You might pick up a few tips, and you’ll meet some people.’

  ‘What happens at Petheram?’ asked Bognor.

  ‘Pendennis Brothers,’ said Pring. ‘They do mainly Alsatian stuff, very good too. It’s their annual tasting for the trade. Well, I say the trade, but it’s not really the trade—it’s for one or two of the better-known wine and food writers and some top restaurateurs. I should come along. It will give you some valuable insights.’

  ‘But I haven’t been invited,’ said Bognor, lamely.

  ‘Well, I’m inviting you now,’ said Pring. ‘Freddie Pendennis is an old mucker of mine. He’ll be delighted to see you. I say, Ginny, this pasta’s perfectly passable.’

  Little gobs of ragu now spattered his chin, and he seemed incapable of getting any noodles inside him intact. Every time he closed his mouth, a few pathetic white strands were left dangling outside only to disappear slowly from view with a wet sucking noise. They looked alive, and Bognor, against his will, was reminded of the way older dog breeders docked puppies’ tails—by biting them off at birth. Both he and Monica were relieved when a decent interval had elapsed (during which an indecent quantity of chianti was consumed).

  ‘We really must be going,’ they said, and Pring at last seemed content to let them depart. ‘A demain,’ he said, waving. ‘The ten o’clock from Charing Cross. Platform six. We meet at the barrier. Don’t buy a ticket.’

  2

  BOGNOR ARRIVED EARLY AT the barrier. He had a nervousness about missing any form of scheduled transport which amounted almost to a neurosis and meant that he invariably arrived at termini with time and a half to spare. On this occasion he was also keen to observe his fellow travellers before being formally introduced. He felt, without much justification, that it gave him an advantage. Bearing this in mind, he made quite certain that he was the first of the party to arrive and then retreated to the station bookstall, where he bought a Daily Telegraph and stood, occasionally glancing over the top of it in a manner which he believed, erroneously, to be anonymous and unsuspicious. It was fifteen minutes before he saw anybody who could conceivably have been a Pendennis-bound gastronome, and when he did he was far from being absolutely sure. The first person to hover expectantly at the entrance to platform six was a rather attractive blonde in green trousers and a cardigan. She clutched a sheaf of papers and a clipboard and appeared, as yet, unmarked by the ravages of food and drink which he associated with the profession. Bognor, not unappreciative, retreated behind the paper. A few minutes later, he glanced out from his camouflage and saw that the young woman was now engrossed in animated conversation with an elderly lobsterlike gentleman who was crouched heavily over a serviceable walking stick. Bognor recognized him immediately. It was Erskine Blight-Purley, war hero, Francophile, bibliophile, oenomaniac and lecher of long-standing and renown. Despite the fact that he must now be over seventy, his elongated crustacean figure was dangerously close to the young woman, and from where he stood Bognor fancied that the unsteadily leery smile was one of concupiscence. The girl was laughing, slightly nervously. Blight-Purley had a reputation as an after-dinner speaker too. He was probably telling blue jokes.

  Just as Bognor decided that it was time for him to announce himself, he saw a half-familiar figure walk briskly up to the girl in the green trousers and kiss her, equally purposefully, on the cheek. It was the man from the American Embassy, Anthony J. Ebertson III, and he appeared to be wearing a golfing suit in a loud check material composed exclusively of Oxford and Cambridge blues. The girl introduced him to Blight-Purley who nodded sou
rly but did not remove his hands from his stick. A second later another figure of identical familiarity joined them. It was Petrov, the man from Soviet Synthetics, wearing a Soviet equivalent of Ebertson’s suit, an ill-cut affair in Lovat green. He too kissed the girl, though with an enthusiasm which had been missing from Ebertson’s more perfunctory effort. Bognor experienced a frisson of excitement. As he folded his paper and walked over to join them the group suddenly exploded into something which almost resembled a party. Everyone, which is to say Aubrey Pring, Aubergine Bristol and some dozen or so bonhomous colleagues, converged at once. There was an enthusiastic rhubarb of greeting; the green girl distributed tickets and pieces of paper; people kissed each other, shook hands, clapped each other on the back—all except for Blight-Purley who stood slightly apart, hands still clasping the stick, and nodded shortly at anyone who had the temerity to look in his direction.

  ‘Bognor, old Sausage!’ exclaimed Pring. ‘Glad you could make it. Mandy, have you got some bumf and a ticket for my old mucker Simon Bognor? Simon, this is Mandy Bullingdon of F and D Associates—they’re doing the PR.’

  ‘F and D?’ asked Bognor, smiling hello.

  ‘Food and Drink,’ said Miss Bullingdon, displaying slightly irregular teeth and half a dimple. Bognor observed that one of her eyes was slightly larger than the other. ‘Haven’t we met somewhere before?’ she was saying.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Bognor. ‘I’m afraid it’s just one of those faces.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere. Gstaad in seventy-four? Or last year in Cannes? Aren’t you a friend of Andrew Stevenson’s?’

  ‘No,’ said Bognor, ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I haven’t ever been to Gstaad or Cannes, and I don’t know anyone called Andrew Stevenson.’ Then, not wishing to seem gratuitously dismissive, he said, ‘We can’t possibly have met anyway. I’d be sure to remember.’

  ‘Simon,’ interposed Pring, who was bustling, ‘come and meet Erskine Blight-Purley. He’ll tell you about the top end of the market; the top end of anything you care to ask about actually. You’ll have to shout though. He’s very deaf these days. If you’re having real problems go for the left ear—it seems to be his best.’