Masterstroke (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Read online

Vole stopped for a moment and kicked a stone with the toe of his shabby suede boot.

  ‘Did I say that Lord Beckenham of Penge was an utter shit?’

  ‘A shit,’ agreed Bognor. ‘Not an utter shit. Just a shit.’

  ‘Would it surprise you, Simon, to know that our late lamented Master was responsible for the deaths of many hundreds of brave and decent men?’

  Bognor considered this for a moment. ‘Well, yes, it would rather,’ he said.

  ‘Have you ever thought,’ asked Vole again, ‘how peculiar it is that so many of the real shits went to Cambridge?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Bognor. ‘I’ve always taken it for granted.’

  ‘Seriously,’ said Vole. ‘Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt. All Cambridge men. And yet Oxford men are chaste as ice and pure as snow. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Particularly when you think of all the two-faced shits who were up with us. It just doesn’t seem inherently plausible that Cambridge should have a monopoly of four-letter men.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Bognor was doubtful.

  ‘That’s what the book’s about. In part, anyway.’

  ‘About Oxford men being shits too?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes, actually.’ They had reached the towpath now. Even in their time at the university there had been old college barges along this part of the river – quaint, flat-bottomed, wooden boats, ideal for parties down below and for watching the racing up above. They had gone now, replaced by spanking, modern land-based boat-houses, infinitely more practical but quite lacking in romance. One barge was still there, half-sunk and rotting. The rest, Bognor believed, had been sold to wealthy financiers, some of them in the United States. Such was progress. The old values gone, the old Masters dead, and now, it seemed, about to be discredited. Vole leaned against the railings and fished in his pocket for a cigarette. Bognor accepted one too, steeling himself for the revelation to come.

  ‘Ever since my Mussolini book came out,’ said Vole, ‘I’ve been working on a study of treason.’

  ‘I thought that that Andrew Boyle, the man who exposed Blunt …’

  Vole waved the objection aside impatiently. ‘Tip of the iceberg, Simon, tip of the iceberg. Mine is positively the last word. The definitive thing. No messing around. No ambiguity. Not just fourth and fifth men but whole fifth columns of them. Tens, hundreds. Dynamite. It’s pure dynamite.’

  Bognor smiled at two pretty girls in Balliol scarves who ambled past, deep in talk. They looked impossibly young. Bognor felt his age, drew his stomach in and blew smoke out through his nose.

  ‘Remember Cormorant, for instance,’ Vole was saying.

  ‘Cormorant of All Souls? The one who rubbished your Mussolini book?’

  ‘Would you credit it, Simon, but he’d taken the Duce’s lire. In it up to the eyeballs. An Italian spy.’

  Bognor whistled. ‘Really!’ he said. ‘Can you prove it?’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Vote. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve got tape-recorded admissions from two of his old paymasters at the Italian Embassy and, better still, photostats of some of his reports. Piffling stuff, but totally incriminating.’

  ‘Dynamite,’ said Bognor. ‘And Beckenham was an Italian spy too? Or German? Japanese? Russian? Bolivian?’

  ‘If you’re going to be like that about it …’ Vole chucked his cigarette away, plunged his hands into his pockets and strode off, shoulders hunched.

  ‘Oh God,’ thought Bognor. ‘That’s done it. I’ve offended him.’ He watched the departing figure wistfully. It was rubbish, of course. Vole’s mind had obviously been turned by the TLS review of that first book and he had founded the whole of his subsequent career on blind paranoia. Cormorant of All Souls, an Italian agent! Dear, oh dear! What next? It was even more absurd than the new lady English Fellow of Apocrypha working for British Intelligence. Or himself being a Board of Trade special investigator. Bognor considered this for a moment or two, glaring idiotically at his half-finished cigarette. Suddenly he threw it away. ‘What a life!’ he murmured, as he started to trot breathlessly after his old contemporary.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he panted, as he came up alongside Vole. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I was being needlessly facetious. I apologize.’

  ‘It’s perfectly all right,’ said Vole, striding on. ‘I’m not in the least offended. Damned silly of me to expect you to take it seriously. My mistake. Forget I even mentioned it.’

  ‘I said I was sorry,’ protested Bognor, surprised at Vole’s turn of speed. ‘I just had trouble taking it seriously.’

  ‘Always was your problem,’ growled Vole. ‘Never were able to be serious about what mattered.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Bognor had to acknowledge that there was some truth in this. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘tell me about Beckenham. Tell me what you’ve found out.’

  ‘I think, after all, I’d prefer to tell the police, if you don’t mind actually. Mitten said the chief-inspector in charge of the case is a very decent sort and not stupid.’

  ‘True, true,’ agreed Bognor, remembering the way the inspector’s eyes had narrowed during question time. ‘But don’t you think this would be better kept in the college? After all, that’s the whole point of Hermione and myself being involved. We don’t want the college’s dirty linen being flaunted about the place.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree less. That’s what’s wrong with this country, actually, if you really want to know. Dirty linen all over the place, not being washed anywhere at all, because people are frightened the neighbours will see it. Well, this time the dirty linen is going to be run up the flagpole for the whole world to see, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Frankly,’ said Vole, ‘I neither know nor care. Now that I can’t thrash it out with Beckenham, I shall have to confront Aveline directly. It’s not what I would have wished, but that’s all there is to it. Then I shall return to Prendergast to put the finishing touches to the manuscript.’

  ‘Aveline? What’s Aveline got to do with it?’

  ‘Practically everything.’

  ‘What do you mean “practically everything”?’

  ‘Exactly what I say. But I can’t expect you to understand.’

  They were now moving rapidly back towards the city. Bognor was afraid that, once they were past the Botanical Gardens and into the High, Vole would do a bunk, leaving him with a quarter of what, if it were true, was indeed dynamite, and arguably germane dynamite at that. It was all very peculiar and Vole seemed to him to be markedly unbalanced about it. However Bognor’s celebrated intuition was telling him to pay careful attention and allow himself no facetiousness or scepticism until much later. The idea of Aveline being some sort of traitor was as ludicrous as the idea of Cormorant being an agent of Mussolini’s. On the other hand … Bognor tried to recollect what he knew of the man. He had come to Apocrypha in the late fifties after his initial appointment as Regius Professor of Sociology. He must be all of seventy-five now, though he wore his years with a positive swagger and had a reputation, still, for cutting an enviable sexual swathe through his students of both sexes. As one of the leading sociologists in the country he had long been a significant public figure, cropping up on innumerable quangos, advising credulous governments and cabinet ministers, forming popular opinion through regular articles in weekly magazines and papers. He had, in Bognor’s book, been consistently bad news, though not, he had thought, as bad as Vole was now trying to make out.

  ‘Max Aveline was recruited personally by Maisky,’ said Vole, ‘quite late in the day. Some time after 1940. Maisky was Russian ambassador, remember. You think Philby’s important? Philby’s just an office boy compared to Aveline. He came into his own around the time of the Berlin airlift and he was the Russians’ top Brit right through till the mid-seventies. Half-pay now, of course. He’s a super-agent emeritus.’

  ‘Never retired to Moscow?’

  ‘Why should he?’ asked Vole. ‘He’s nev
er been rumbled till now. He’s still of use to them. Besides, he likes it here. Enjoys his creature comforts too much to live out his days in some dacha on the Caspian.’

  They were almost at the High again. Bognor was afraid he was not forgiven.

  ‘So where does this get us à propos Beckenham’s murder?’

  Vole regarded him balefully. ‘I should have thought even an idiot like you could see that,’ he said.’

  ‘No,’ said Bognor, after a decent interval while he appeared to grope for the solution. ‘’fraid not.’

  Vole seemed to relent a little. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must admit that at first I assumed it was suicide. Until Mitten told me about the post-mortem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Simply that I had asked to have a talk with Beckenham. A proper one. And he must have realized what I wanted and that the game was up. So he must have killed himself. Or that’s what I assumed.’

  ‘Wrongly, as it turned out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They had arrived in the High now and were standing on the pavement near the traffic lights, at the intersection with New College Lane. The traffic was jammed as cars waited to turn. The one-way system, installed since their day, did not seem an unqualified success.

  ‘So.’ Bognor was still at sea. ‘What do you think did happen?’

  ‘I don’t think,’ said Vole. ‘I know. Aveline killed him. Aveline realized I was on to Beckenham, and he thought that once I got to grips with Beckenham the Master would talk, and incriminate him. So he did him in.’

  ‘Crikey,’ said Bognor. ‘But they were muckers. Contemporaries. They’d known each other all their lives.’

  ‘Shits, too,’ said Vole. ‘Like I said – they make Blunt and Philby look like a couple of girl guides.’

  Bognor scratched his head at the back, just where it was going baldest.

  ‘Now,’ said Vole, ‘I must be off. I know you don’t believe a word of it. I suppose I shouldn’t have thought otherwise. Just thought you might have improved. Grown up a bit. But no. Ah well, never mind. One thing, though.’ He turned and, in a characteristically melodramatic gesture, grabbed hold of the lapels of Bognor’s jacket. ‘Don’t say anything to anyone for forty-eight hours. Not to the police. Not to Frinton. Or Mitten. Not to anyone. I need Aveline for the book. When I’ve got what I need, he’s all yours. But first of all, he sings to me.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bognor. ‘Forty-eight hours. Tell you what. It’s a deal. I won’t breathe a word till the day after tomorrow. Call me at the Randolph at six p.m., day after tomorrow, and we’ll see what’s happened. Then, if necessary, we’ll have a word with Aveline.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ said Vole. ‘I’ll call you at six the day after tomorrow, before I fly back to Prendergast.’

  ‘OK.’ Bognor was just about to shake hands with Vole when his eye caught the passenger in a scarlet Range Rover drawn up at the traffic lights. It was Edgware. Bognor grinned and waved but to his astonishment Edgware turned hurriedly away. Bognor looked to see if he recognized the driver. He did. It was Crutwell. At least he thought it was Crutwell. Even as he looked the lights changed and the Range Rover drove off. ‘Odd,’ said Bognor. ‘That was Edgware and Crutwell in that Range Rover.’

  ‘Really?’ said Vole. He did not seem interested. ‘I should have thought Crutwell would be closeted with his spotty pupils at Ampleside. And shouldn’t Edgware be at the FO?’

  ‘He’s on leave,’ said Bognor, ‘waiting for a new posting.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Vole. ‘He told me.’

  ‘They cut me dead. Most extraordinary. What do you make of that?’

  ‘BO,’ said Vole sardonically. ‘Shouldn’t let it worry you. I’ll be in touch. Must rush. Tootle-pip.’

  Funny fellow, thought Bognor, as he watched Vole elbow his way through the crowds in the direction of Carfax. Was he quite sane? Even if he were paranoid and unhinged, was there enough in his theory to suggest a real verdict? Should he say anything to Smith or to Hermione, or should he keep his promise? Could Aveline have done it? That was the key question. If it was the Master’s glass that had been doctored, then it had to have been done by someone who was drinking in Mitten’s rooms that evening. But if the bottle had been diluted it could have been someone else. Except that anyone else would have had to get into Mitten’s dining-room (not in itself too difficult) and then into Mitten’s drinks cupboard. (Difficult or not? Impossible to say as yet. Must find out if Mitten kept it locked.) As these questions were racketing around Bognor’s mind he was walking up the High in Vole’s footsteps. It was late afternoon now and he had a choice. At Carfax, the Piccadilly Circus or Times Square of Oxford, he could turn right or left. Right would take him to the Randolph and thence on to Hermione Frinton, a large gin and tonic and who knows what. That way lay temptation. It was attractive, but it was not what he really ought to do. If he turned left and walked down St Aldate’s and past Christ Church he would come to Apocrypha, that elegant, opulent pile so envied by ‘The House’, its larger but less stylish and successful neighbour. That way lay the inspector’s incident room. That way lay duty. He knew what he ought to do, yet still he faltered. Then a newspaper hoarding caught his eye: ‘DEAD MASTER SHOCK.’

  Nervously he bought an Oxford Mail and scanned the lead story. It was headed: ‘Lord Beckenham. It was Murder!’ The story was straightforward enough. It clearly emanated, as Bognor had feared it would, from the office of the city coroner. There were quotes from Chief-Inspector Smith and from Mitten, but these were so anodyne as to be meaningless. It hardly mattered. The news was out. From now on they had the press to contend with. Bognor had some experience of the press, and knowing what he did, he was depressed.

  To proceed straight to Hermione Frinton’s flat was now out of the question. With heavy heart and even heavier legs (aching, too, since he had been walking for at least an hour and a half now and was not used to it) he set off for Apocrypha.

  He turned left through the tiny door set in the great gates (presented by Charles II to replace those looted by a mob of Diggers and Levellers during the Protectorate) and collided with a female figure on her way out. For a moment there was some mutual confusion, but in a gentlemanly manner he retreated almost at once and stood aside to let the lady pass. She was about to do this when she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and exclaimed: ‘Gott in Himmel! It’s Simon Bognor of the Board of Trade!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said nervously, recognizing the voice but unable to put a name to it. The woman was wearing a suede jacket with the collar turned very high, a costermonger’s cap pulled down over the face, and a pair of the most enormous sunglasses he had ever seen. Consequently there was not much to recognize. The scent, musky and expensive, was as familiar as the voice, but that might, he thought, be because it was the same as Hermione Frinton had been wearing this morning.

  ‘How marvellous!’ The woman kissed him noisily on both cheeks. She’d been drinking gin. Probably not since lunch, but the smell triggered his memory.

  It was Molly Mortimer of the Daily Globe. He was very fond of Molly. He had, briefly, shared an office with her during the unfortunate business of the St John Derby murder. They had not met since. Monica disapproved of their relationship and though nothing had – quite – come of it her instinct, like her husband’s, was as usual sound. Normally he would have been overjoyed to see Molly. Any time but now, for he had a strong suspicion that she was going to be a nuisance.

  ‘Hello,’ said Bognor, staggering slightly under the impact of the embrace. Molly, like nearly all the women he ran into, was bigger than him. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’ He realized forlornly that these words were delivered in an unflatteringly sepulchral voice.

  ‘Oh, all right, be like that,’ said Molly, mock grumpily. ‘Are you here for the opposition? Don’t tell me you’ve taken up journalism for real. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I happened to be passing,’ said Bognor. ‘Pure coincidence. And I thought I’d drop
in on my old tutor.’

  ‘I’d forgotten you were an Apocrypha man, I thought you were at Balliol.’

  ‘No,’ said Bognor. ‘I may have said that, but it was part of the disguise. Like saying I worked on the Winnipeg Eagle.’

  ‘Well, well,’ Molly exclaimed. ‘Que suerte! What about a drinkie?’

  ‘Um,’ said Bognor. ‘Er, I, actually think I’d better nip in and see if he’s there. But I could always join you for a jar a little later.’ He thought glumly of his receding appointment with Hermione. Life was not treating him entirely fairly. ‘Anyway, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Covering this murder lark,’ said Molly. ‘They took me off the Pepys column and put me in the news-room. This is exactly my sort of story. Lots of scope for colour. Dons are such dears and it’s such bloody good fun sending them up. They pretend to complain, but they love it really. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Well,’ said Bognor.

  ‘Oh, Simon,’ she exclaimed petulantly, ‘don’t be such an old grouch. What are you really doing here? I’ll bet you’re up to something. Are you staying in town?’

  ‘At the Randolph.’

  ‘Aha!’ Molly was triumphant. ‘In that case you’re unquestionably up to something. You wouldn’t be staying if you weren’t. Let’s have dinner.’

  ‘I, er …’ said Bognor.

  ‘Fine. That’s settled then. I’ll see you in the bar at the Randolph at seven-thirty.’

  ‘Right,’ said Bognor, ‘seven-thirty it is.’ He tried to sound enthusiastic. It was not that he didn’t like Molly, just that he would have preferred … ‘Oh, bloody hell!’ he exclaimed as he hurried through the lodge and on towards the Shakespeare Room. It was all becoming too much. Too many people were clamouring for his attention. Temptations were everywhere, and back home in London he was being observed. Monica was waiting to chastise him for any suspicion of infidelity, real or imagined; for any excess to do with food, drink or women. Meanwhile Parkinson, ever eager to admonish him for those derelictions of duty to which he was unfortunately prone, had now been reinforced by the insufferable Lingard, the oily little twerp sent by Teddington to spy on him. His every step was being watched and he hated it. Even here, out in the field, he was under constant surveillance by Mitten and by Hermione Frinton and chief-inspector chappie, and now by Molly who was far too keen a journalist to respect a confidence. It meant that he would have to watch his drinking at dinner. In his present mood, he decided, he would like nothing more than to go to bed, alone, save for a good book, a hot water bottle and a whisky toddy.