Business Unusual (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 5

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Bognor. ‘Could I have a look?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no,’ said Freddie and the fist in front of Bognor’s eyes grew a little larger. ‘It’s just, well, personal, you know, like.’

  So Bognor changed the subject and asked him what a world-class cocktailer like him was doing in a dump like this and Freddie shrugged and said that life was a funny thing.

  ‘So,’ Bognor returned to the matter in hand. ‘Tell me about the Artisans.’

  And up to a point and in a manner of speaking he did. But the mood had changed beyond repair. Freddie had seemed on the verge of euphoric disclosure, a return to the days of wine and roses when he was young and fancy-free in New Orleans or on the High Seas. For a few moments, faced with the choice between telling Bognor about the world as it seemed and the world as it was, he had appeared to be on the verge of expounding the second. In the end he gave him the first. He did not lie but he was economical with the truth. He also made a second Scarpington Special, but without the sudden access of nostalgic enthusiasm it was not as good as it seemed. And Bognor noticed that this time he did not use his barman’s friend — the little quill-topped bottle stopper for squirting infinitesimal quantities of bitters. This time Bognor did not mention it.

  The information was all right as far as it went. Bognor already knew that, according to the original charter of the Artisans, drawn up in the reign of bad King John and last seriously amended in the reign of Edward VII, there could only be thirty-nine full Artisans, though there could be any number of Associates. These Associates, like the more notorious legion of Associate Members of the Marylebone Cricket Club, constituted a form of waiting list, enjoyed minimal privileges and contributed liberally to the Artisans’ Coffers. There was a Council of Thirteen, a President, a Vice-President, a Grand Patron (the Earl), a Chaplain (the Bishop), and a Treasurer (Puce). The Traditional Office of Sconce Bearer was in perpetual abeyance and the Visitor was His Majesty the King of Norway who had never attended any Artisan Functions nor ever replied to any Artisan correspondence. The Council consisted of President Brackett, Vice-President Brown of Brown’s Dairy (who now succeeded the deceased just as Dan Quayle would succeed George Bush in the event of any similar unpleasantness) and Puce. The remaining Council members were, in order of seniority: Fothergill of the Times, Sinclair the invalid carriage maker, Festing the solicitor, Moulton the Brewer, Green, the builder’s merchant, and Doctor Dick. The Earl, the Bishop and the King were Honorary Members but did not attend Council meetings. And the thirteenth was a Queen’s Counsel called Benger who was in his ninety-third year and was confined to a home for distressed gentlefolk where he languished under the impression that he was the Master of the Rolls. He was, needless to say, not allowed out.

  Because Freddie, even allowing for the second Special, was being the acme of discretion, Bognor did not glean a great deal from the biographical sketches he provided. On the other hand, by listening carefully to what was left unsaid and by putting the occasional two and two together to make five he began to build a dossier. Brackett appeared to be a nice little man with no business sense. Remembering Fothergill’s opinion to the contrary, Bognor pressed the point.

  ‘Mr Fothergill and Mr Brackett had a falling out over golf some years back,’ said Freddie. ‘I’m not a golfing man myself. Someone moved a ball. Or didn’t move a ball. There was a lot of feeling.’

  ‘And what about Mrs Fothergill?’ Bognor continued. ‘She seemed to have quite a soft spot for Mr Brackett.’

  For a second Bognor sensed a confusion in Freddie which might or might not have hinted at something irregular, but if so he recovered swiftly. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘they partnered each other at, er, bridge, from time to time.’ Was it Bognor’s imagination or did Freddie hesitate before the word ‘bridge’? If so it was marginal and the barman’s speech appeared to be hesitant at the best of times.

  ‘Does Mr Fothergill play bridge?’

  Again Bognor sensed a shiftiness.

  ‘Not as far as I know. A lot of the bridge goes on in the afternoons and Mr Fothergill tends to be busy during the day. Always says he’s got a newspaper to bring out.’

  Bognor scribbled ‘Fothergill self-important’ in his notebook and added ‘Reg Brackett=Edna Fothergill?’

  ‘Bridge popular in Artisan circles, Freddie?’ he asked.

  ‘More so among the Artisans’ wives, Mr Bognor.’ Freddie seemed to be daring him to make more of this. Bognor guessed that bridge and good works would be significant if not universal diversions among the wives of middle England. He must ask Monica for an opinion.

  ‘But Mr Brackett could sometimes slip away for an afternoon’s bridge.’

  ‘Mr Brackett always used to say the laundry ran itself,’ said Freddie. ‘God rest his soul.’

  ‘Did he?’ Bognor did not make a further jotting since this was merely corroboration of a belief universally held. Bracketts Laundry and Dry Cleaning Services had obviously been allowed to run itself for some time and in doing so had run itself virtually into the ground. If Brackett had been killed, as Osbert Wartnaby seemed to think, then could this fecklessness provide a motive? For the moment Bognor did not quite see how, but it might be worth pursuing.

  ‘So who plays bridge and where?’ asked Bognor, changing tack.

  ‘I couldn’t say for absolute certain,’ said Freddie. He really didn’t seem to enjoy the questions about bridge. ‘Dr Dick’s very keen, and Mrs Moulton and Mrs Festing and Mrs Sinclair come to that.’

  ‘But not their husbands?’

  ‘Not nearly as keen.’

  A group of rather shapeless dark suits had entered the St Moritz bar and been served with sweet sherry and white wine spritzers by Gavin. Bognor glanced across at them and, turning back to Freddie, raised an interlocutory eyebrow. ‘Regulars?’

  ‘Out of town, Mr Bognor. Representatives of some description, I should imagine.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re from Mr Clean or Bleach’n’Starch,’ said Bognor, ‘come like vultures to pick over the corpse.’

  Freddie gave Bognor an extremely old-fashioned look at this.

  ‘Do you do the stock market as well as the gee-gees?’ Bognor had had another of his impulses.

  ‘I prefer to stick with animals, Mr Bognor. I’ve always found them more reliable than humans.’

  Very meaningful, thought Bognor. Freddie was a misanthropic old buzzard. He guessed barmen always were. You could hardly spend a lifetime watching people get drunk and listening to their inebriated catalogue of woes and misfortunes without developing a jaundiced view of the human race. Perhaps it was a rule that everyone in the service industry despised their clients. It was certainly true of waiters and said to be true of tarts. Bognor considered the barman’s heart of gold as illusory as the prostitute’s. His only experience of the latter had been professional. ‘Immoral earnings’ occasionally came within his ambit.

  ‘Anything else I should know about the Artisans, Freddie? They do seem to represent the absolute heart of the Scarpington community.’

  ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said Freddie. He seemed relieved to sense that the interview was coming to an end. ‘Heart and soul.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of my sitting in on any of their meetings?’ he said, as a final question.

  Freddie shook his head. ‘Gracious, no. The annual dinner’s the only time guests are allowed, Mr Bognor. Otherwise they’re very private.’

  ‘“Private” Freddie, or “Secret”?’

  Bognor, through what, he suddenly realised, was a fog of exotic alcohol, felt that this was a fine distinction, so he repeated it slowly in the hope of nonplussing his interviewee, who, he reckoned, should be almost as drunk as he was himself. After all, he, Bognor, was only a half of Parsnip ahead.

  ‘Private or Secret?’

  ‘Comes to the same thing,’ said Freddie, not, seemingly, in the least nonplussed.

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Bo
gnor. ‘I mean, they could get up to all sorts of nonsense in what you call “private”. Like the freemasons. Mad oaths and rituals.’

  ‘Oh, there’s an Artisan oath,’ said Freddie. ‘Not that I know what it says. I do know the penalty for breaking it, though.’

  ‘Which is?’ Bognor, despite having taken drink, was pretty certain what the answer was going to be, but even so, and even allowing for the fact that in this day and age it would hardly be invoked, it still chilled him when it came.

  ‘Death,’ said the barman.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  An English Countess goes upon the Stage

  MONICA WAS NOT IN their room, but there was a note stuck to the frame of the dressing-table mirror. ‘Cathedral is parish church in all but name. Hideous banners woven by Townswomen’s Guild. V. Bored Scarpington. Have gone to flicks for matinee. See you teatime. Love, M.’

  Oh, well. Bognor kicked off his shoes, lay down on the bed, and consulted the room service menu. It was all chargeable to boring old Parkinson. He fancied a cheeseburger. It wouldn’t put on any weight if he left the chips. The cocktails had made him thirsty as well as wobbly. He wondered if he should have something soft but the idea was not appealing. Perhaps he should compromise and have a low cal lager. Maybe they did a low cal Parsnip. He would ask. He turned to his notes and squinted at them. Difficult to decipher. Never mind, he prided himself on his photographic, well, near photographic memory. Besides, the barman would be there again this evening and tomorrow and the next day. He could always ask again. Damn and blast, he hadn’t pursued the question about where the Artisan wives played their bridge. He had been deflected by the untimely arrival of the people in the suits with their ridiculous white wine spritzers. Perhaps he should have a white wine spritzer with his cheeseburger. No, it didn’t go, it really didn’t. Maybe a steak. Parkinson would be bound to query it, he’d better not. Besides if Monica had eaten on the hoof she’d be ratty about it and she sounded ratty enough already.

  He dialled seven.

  ‘Marketing,’ said a nasal male Scarpingtonian voice.

  ‘I wanted room service.’

  ‘Well, you’ve come through to marketing.’

  ‘Can you put me back to the switchboard?’

  ‘Just replace your receiver and dial “7” for room service. This is marketing.’ There was a click and drone as the man in marketing replaced his receiver.

  Bognor swore very loudly and dialled “7” again.

  This time a female Scarpington voice answered, flat and bored and none too bright.

  ‘Yes,’ it said.

  ‘Is that room service?’

  Pause. Then, ‘Room Service.’

  ‘Do you do low cal Old Parsnip?’

  There was another click and drone as this receiver was also replaced. Bognor wondered whether he might risk an amble down to the dining-room but decided to make one last effort. This time he established a genuine two-way communication with what sounded like a Spanish person who admitted to being room service but said all burgers were off. Bognor asked if he could have steak. Steak was on. There was no low cal Parsnip so he ordered a pint of the real thing. Frankly it was too much hassle to do otherwise. He would go easy later on.

  He returned to his notes. What next, he wondered. The obvious thing was to work through the Artisan Committee. At least that seemed the most obvious thing. It certainly fitted in with his brief from Parkinson and was what he had been intending to do when poor Brackett kicked the bucket. Where to start, though? The top seemed the best idea. The Earl was presumably still in town, or, at least, just outside at Scarpington Castle, rumoured to be the least comfortable house in the whole of England, though it did have fabulous views over the Sludgelode valley and what was alleged to be a fragment of St Peter’s loincloth in the family chapel. With any luck he would get another glimpse of the Countess.

  He rolled over on the bed to see if there was a phone book. There was. There was no entry under ‘Scarpington, Earl of’, but several under ‘Scarpington Estates’. What was the time? Crikey, approaching two. They’d probably be listening to the Archers. Best leave it till just after two and catch them before they go out and do whatever the nobility do on drizzling afternoons in the country. He lay back, thought briefly of England, and had another go at deciphering his notes.

  All his instincts told him that the Artisans were rotten to the core. Yet that was grossly unfair. It was pure Londoner’s prejudice, an Oxford-educated snobbery about trade, and a personal hang-up about golf and bridge. The Artisans were simply the provincial equivalent of one of the great City livery companies. He had no axe to grind about the Merchant Tailors or the Fishmongers or the Cordwainers; though come to think about it he did once have to investigate a particularly grubby murder which had occurred in the immediate aftermath of a great feast of the Worshipful Company of Harbingers. No, he was being silly, egged on by the lifelong chippiness of Detective Chief Inspector Wartnaby. Wartnaby was manifestly suffering from persecution mania. Nice chap in an eccentric way and obviously well read, widely travelled, particularly for an out of the way, end of the road dump like Scarpington but obviously not rational when it came to the local Establishment to which he so obviously did not belong. Come to think of it, Freddie seemed well travelled as well. Strange that in such an obviously one-eyed place, out of which you would not expect the average inhabitant to have moved at all, he should encounter two people who had knocked around as much as Wartnaby and the barman. It only went to show. God, what had he put in those cocktails? Brandy, gin, cointreau and Old Parsnip. No wonder he was feeling light-headed. Mind you, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was now almost two o’clock. That would explain it. Not that he was entirely sober. He was the first to admit it, always was. He wasn’t the sort of ‘social drinker’ who couldn’t face up to his addiction. Not a bit of it. Besides, it would have hindered his enquiries if he hadn’t joined in. A certain amount of drinking was an essential concomitant of the job. You had to win people’s confidence.

  It was stuffy in the room and he went to open the window, only to find that it was one of the double-glazed unopening variety. An innovation of the new owner’s, no doubt; a hallmark of Jolly Trenchermanship; a bit of Puce newbroomery. Out goes fusty old fresh air and in comes trendy new controlled environment.

  There was a knock at the door. ‘Room Service’ called a male voice.

  That was quick, he thought, and lurched over to let the waiter in.

  He was a tall, athletic, vaguely eastern European youth in a cleaner version of Freddie’s maroon jacket and black bow tie plus a plastic card over one nipple which said ‘Frantisek’.

  ‘Hi!’ he said. ‘I’m your Jolly Trencherman. One pint of Old Parsnip and a steak tartare with baked potato and sour cream.’

  ‘But I asked for steak and chips.’ Bognor did not wish to appear spoiled, petulant or drunk, but nevertheless he had definitely heard himself place the order.

  ‘We regret that because of a problem in the kitchen it is not possible to prepare your steak as you had wished.’

  ‘Well, what about the baked potato?’ sighed Bognor. ‘I asked for chips.’

  ‘Microwave,’ said Frantisek.

  Oh well, he thought. At least that’s honest. He signed the chit and sat down to eat.

  He had forgotten how so much hunger could be brought on by a couple of drinks.

  The steak tartare was little more than raw mince and egg, and the baked potato just cardboard sog. But the Old Parsnip went down well. He would have liked a cheroot when he finished, but he was supposed to have given up and Monica had booked them in to one of these new-fangled non-smoking bedrooms. He was not too sure about them. Unpleasant though he found other people’s used smoke when it permeated the carpet and blankets, he did enjoy his own. But Monica had said ‘no’. It was difficult having a bossy wife but there you were, it was a fact of his life.

  He dialled the Scarpington Estates number which said ‘Castle’ by the side of it. It r
ang for an eternity and he was on the point of replacing the receiver in the manner of his first two attempts at room service when it was picked up and a voice said, ‘Scarpington three thousand’. The voice was female and drawled.

  ‘Could I speak to the Earl of Scarpington?’

  ‘No.’ The negative was drawn out into about three syllables and that was it. Nothing before, nothing after, just ‘noooooo’, exhaled down the line like dry ice. Bognor found himself tingling. He was a sucker for feminine hauteur.

  ‘That is Scarpington Castle?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Could I, by any chance, be speaking to Lady Scarpington?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, drawing the affirmative into even more syllables than the negative, and adding, ‘You most certainly could.’

  This was getting silly.

  ‘When,’ he asked, ‘are you expecting Lord Scarpington?’

  The voice suddenly became brisk. ‘He’s shooting with chums, so he won’t be back till later. Can I help? To whom am I talking?’

  ‘Um, Simon Bognor of the Board of Trade.’

  ‘Goodness!’

  Even through his own alcoholic haze Bognor was beginning to realise that the Countess, if indeed it was she, was not entirely herself either. If this was the case, he told himself, perhaps this was the time to strike. A squiffy wife might be prevailed upon to part with more family secrets than a sober one. Stood to reason.

  ‘The fact of the matter,’ he said, ‘is that I’m trying to put together a sort of report thingy about Scarpington for my boss and I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to set about it. I really need someone to talk to.’

  ‘Don’t we all, darling!’ exclaimed the Countess with what sounded like considerable feeling.

  ‘Perhaps if I were to come over you could fill me in on one or two bits of information about Scarpington and then your husband can fill me in on some others when he gets back from his shooting.’