Let Sleeping Dogs Die (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 7

  Even as he fell he saw the front door open, and the Duchess and the animal portraitist emerged into the moonlight. Once more, however, luck seemed to favour him. Without his noticing, clouds had started to bank up. A small one hid the moon fleetingly, just as the two women were half-way towards him. He heard them talking, and discerned the word ‘torch’, then footsteps returned to the house. The door slammed. He had a respite and for a moment the darkness was total. He picked up the orange box. It was heavier than he’d hoped, and bigger, but he could just manage. He would have to stop every few minutes anyway. It would not be safe to run in the full glare of the moon. He just managed to complete his first clumsy dash of twenty yards when he heard the door slam. Craning through the grass he saw that the two women now had their torch. Luckily it was only a pocket torch. Bright enough to dig by but not to conduct a chase by. As he lay panting with exhaustion the moon came out from the cloud. He swore once more but saw that the clouds were swelling now and moving fast towards the light. Another thirty seconds, he judged, and it would be safe to run. He prayed that the women would not have discovered the missing crate by then. They didn’t, and as darkness descended he scampered off clutching his trophy to his dung-sodden chest, optimism finally beginning to raise his spirits.

  Whether it was the aspirin or the injection or pure over-confidence he never knew, but whatever caused it the result was idiocy. He was still in full pelt when the moon came out again. For an instant he was clearly visible and when he sank to the ground it was with a distinctly audible thud and gasp that could have been heard all over the grounds. But worse, much worse, he had forgotten the third person. Only the women were behind him. The man had obviously been to fetch the spade and had, unknown to Bognor, used a back entrance. Just as the moon lit the park, just as he crashed to earth, he realized that the man was standing barely a yard in front of him. He didn’t have a hope. Exhausted and prone on his orange box he only had time to jerk his head upwards and see the karate chop descending towards him. Unconsciousness followed with merciful speed. There was scarcely time for more pain.

  4

  ‘PERHAPS, DEAR SIMON, THAT will teach you that alcohol may turn on your desire, but it does precious little for your performance. Didn’t you read Macbeth at school?’

  Coriander Cordingley sat on the end of the bed and smiled at him. She was wearing a white shirt and purple slacks. To his surprise Bognor realized that underneath the blankets he was wearing nothing at all.

  ‘What on earth?’ he asked. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Me?’ asked Miss Cordingley giggling, ‘what am I doing here? That, if you’ll pardon the expression, is a bit rich. This just happens to be my room if you remember. I belong here. The correct question is, “What on earth are you doing here?”’

  ‘Oh God.’ Bognor’s aches and pains were returning now. He groaned.

  ‘If you’re feeling ill,’ she said, ‘you have only yourself to blame. Alcohol and anti-typhoid injections and aspirin as well according to the hall porter. No wonder you passed out.’

  ‘Me, passed out?’

  Bognor felt his head. There was no bump. The back of his neck was sore, but not as sore as his stomach.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  She smiled at him, infinitely patronizing, oozing mock pity.

  ‘You really don’t remember?’

  Bognor’s memory was still incomplete but he definitely recalled his drive to Piddlehampton Manor, his discovery of the orange box. More came flooding back as he tried desperately to remember it. Particularly the final act. The tall dark stranger with the pseudo-effete voice, administering the coup de grâce. However, his faculties were returning.

  ‘Remember anything? Me? No, not a thing?’

  Coriander gave a smirk of satisfaction.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ she said. ‘It may come as rather a shock. Perhaps you didn’t realize you were such a potential Lothario. Still, in aspirin veritas. Or aspirin, vino and typhoid and cholera serum. … You remember coming back from Dora’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’d had gin, claret and one too many brandies.’

  ‘I disagree about one too many.’

  ‘Maybe not usually, but you had had that jab. Then you made it worse with the aspirin and I rather suspect you had a bottle in your room, but I won’t press that suggestion.’

  She was purring like a Siamese. Bognor suddenly began to find her story dreadfully plausible.

  ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘I’d just got undressed when you knocked at the door with an absurd suggestion about my showing you the sketches I’d done of Dora. I knew that wasn’t what you’d come for, and you knew I knew that wasn’t what you’d come for, and as a matter of fact it was all shaping up for a very happy night together when I suddenly realized you were as pissed as a newt, and no sooner had you got into the room and taken your clothes off than you were out like a light.’

  She pouted with humorous petulance. ‘Not very flattering for a girl,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t make a habit of it.’

  Bognor lay back and frowned. He would have to think about it.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Straight out. You didn’t even kiss me.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  She smiled again. ‘You really don’t remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I promise you it’s absolute gospel.’ She stood up and became brisk.

  ‘Now I have to get back to London. I do hope we meet again soon. You’ve got my number and I think after your performance last night you definitely owe me something, even if it’s only a drink.’

  She walked over to the pillow and kissed him. ‘You still don’t look very well,’ she said. ‘If I were you I’d go back to sleep. Bye-bye.’

  She picked up a slim leather suitcase, gave him an airy wave and was gone.

  Bognor sat up and then, because the effort made him feel sick, lay down again.

  ‘What an absurd story,’ he said out loud. The time had come, he knew, to make a comprehensive list of all that had happened. Otherwise he was going to be hopelessly duped. He knew that after the strange man had slugged him they must have brought him back and dumped him in Coriander’s bed, but how could he possibly prove this version to anybody else? It was hard enough to convince himself.

  He was in London again before lunch. A heavy mixed grill of a breakfast and the clear blue of a perfect summer sky put him in a better mood and his staggering lack of success made him positively light-headed. The stomach pains had disappeared and to his puzzlement there was still no bruising or even pain where he had been hit during the night. His attacker must have felled him with a professionally placed and executed blow to have left him unblemished. That in itself was unnerving. He had assumed that he was up against amateurs. The thought that one of the dog smugglers was an expert in unarmed combat made him distinctly depressed.

  So too did the prospect of Parkinson and when, after making arrangements for the cake tin to be dealt with, he found himself in the sparsely furnished office of his superior, the reality proved as unpleasant as his forebodings.

  He gave a slightly bowdlerized account of the previous twenty-four hours, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the portrait of Her Majesty the Queen which hung above Parkinson’s head.

  ‘Would you recognize the man again?’ asked Parkinson, his expression hovering between incredulity and great weariness.

  ‘I’d know his voice.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Parkinson’s fingers drummed sharply on his blotter.

  ‘Surely to God you could have done better than this?’ he asked, the same mixture of irritation and hopelessness fighting in his voice.

  Bognor moved his gaze from the monarch to the lino at his feet. He thought of trying to reply and then decided that the question was rhetorical. After another unhealthy pause Parkinson spoke again.

  ‘What are your suspicions then?’ he asked, managing to suggest th
at although he was bound to listen to them, he asked only as a polite formality.

  ‘It seems,’ said Bognor, picking his words very deliberately, ‘to me, that the Dandie Dinmont in Colombia and America was almost certainly the Duchess’s and that Sparks contracted rabies after it had bitten him.’

  ‘I might conceivably buy that if you had a shred of evidence. Do you?’

  ‘A handful of dust,’ said Bognor lamely. ‘Well, a cake tin of dust.’

  Parkinson swore. ‘I’m not in the mood for frivolity,’ he said. Bognor reflected glumly that he never was. ‘And I do not wish this affair to take up too much of the department’s time.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘If the dog did appear in Bogota and Cairo it would have had to be smuggled?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it could hardly have gone out in the normal way through a conventional airport?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Whoever organized it would have had to have specialist knowledge of animal transport?’

  ‘It’s a reasonable assumption, yes.’

  Parkinson stopped drumming the blotter and brought the side of his hand down sharply on the edge of his desk.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Bognor,’ he shouted. ‘You’re paid to make those sort of assumptions for yourself.’ He stopped and then continued in a calmer vein. ‘Kindly prepare a list of dog transporters or whatever they are, and I suggest at the same time that you make some sort of enquiry about Percy Pocklington and Eagerly. But this time, please curb your enthusiasm. It is not part of your job to go prancing about digging things up in the middle of the night. You invariably balls it up. Kindly confine yourself to asking questions and interpreting the answers.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bognor, miserably.

  ‘Now.’ Parkinson leaned back and assumed the manner of a tutor who knows that his pupil is not only an imbecile but has also failed to do the work required. ‘Why precisely do you imagine that these people have gone to such lengths to prevent you seeing the corpse of this damned poodle?’

  ‘I somehow assume that it’s because the dog died from rabies.’

  ‘Is that logical?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And yet when the Duchess’s dog contracted the disease she was ready enough to inform the authorities?’

  ‘She had to. It attacked her kennelmaid.’

  ‘That doesn’t follow. Your hypothesis is not logical. I do not believe that the poodle died from rabies.’

  Bognor was confused and unconvinced. Then he looked at Parkinson and saw that he was wearing his smuggest expression.

  ‘Do you have grounds for saying that?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘I might,’ said Parkinson, smiling thinly. ‘I should have told you earlier, but when the police were going through Sparks’ effects at his flat, the telephone rang. It was a kennelmaid at Mrs Potts’ by the name of Rose. It appears that she was in the habit of giving Sparks information from time to time, which helped him in his approach to canine matters of one sort and another.’

  ‘And …’

  ‘And, Bognor, I’ve arranged for you to take her out to lunch.’

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘You heard me.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘She’ll be here in a moment or two. A coffee and a plate of spaghetti or an omelette will do, and I’m not going to sign expense claims for anything more.’

  ‘Why me? Why lunch?’ Bognor was plaintive.

  Parkinson shrugged, a malicious half smile making him look, to Bognor, even more than usually loathsome. ‘She wanted to see you. Wasn’t keen to talk to anybody else. Evidently you’d made some sort of impression on her and now that poor Mervyn has passed away it seems that she has information she’s prepared to divulge to you instead.’

  ‘But I didn’t even talk to her.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why she’s impressed.’

  Bognor didn’t reply. ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ he said, ‘if there’s anything to keep in touch about.’ He slammed the door behind him.

  He recognized Rose as soon as he saw her in reception, though it was her girth rather than her face which prompted the recognition.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, in his most avuncular manner, ‘Miss …’

  ‘Smith,’ she said, ‘but I’d like Rose better. Mr Sparks always called me Rose.’

  ‘Good. Fine. There’s a little place round the corner where we can get a bit of Italian food. If you’d like that?’

  She said she would and Bognor led the way down Victoria Street, to a small spaghetti shop he usually patronized when he was feeling hard up and greedy. Miss Smith ordered spaghetti and chips while Bognor suitably shocked, had a lasagne and also, heedless of Parkinson’s warning, splurged on a carafe of red plonk.

  ‘Well,’ he said, regarding her plump, amiable features with muted goodwill, ‘what have you got to tell me?’

  ‘It depends,’ she said, looking scheming in a coy way.

  ‘On what?’ asked Bognor, lighting a cheroot and looking less avuncular. She smelt of stale poodle.

  ‘Mr Sparks used to pay me for information.’

  ‘Oh. Did he? Well, I’m very much afraid I can’t pay you for anything I haven’t had. If you expect to be paid you’ll have to tell me what I’m paying for.’

  She looked disappointed. ‘What’ll you pay?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Fiver,’ she whined. ‘It’s less than Mr Sparks paid.’

  Bognor looked in his wallet. He only had one five-pound note left, along with three singles. He sighed.

  ‘If it’s useful, yes.’

  Their food and drink arrived. Rose attacked both with gusto.

  ‘It’s about Fred,’ she said, mouth full of pasta.

  ‘I was hoping it might be.’

  ‘I think he was done in.’

  ‘Done in?’

  ‘Yes. I found him, you see, early in the morning. I’d seen him the night before and he was all right then. Full of beans, good wet nose, clear eyes, coat shiny. Nothing wrong with him, there wasn’t. And in the morning there he was. He looked as if he’d been in pain.’

  ‘You don’t think it could have been rabies?’

  ‘That’s what Mrs Potts said you’d said. She laughed about it.’

  ‘And you agree with her?’

  ‘It wasn’t rabies,’ she said emphatically, jabbing a fork-impaled chip in his face. ‘He was as sweet natured as ever he was.’

  ‘What makes you think it was murder?’

  ‘It was so sudden, that’s why.’

  Bognor was irritated. He watched her stuff another load of carbohydrate into her mouth and then said, ‘Is that all?’

  She finished her mouthful and drank, then wiped her face messily with a paper napkin. ‘Nope,’ she said, ‘it’s the day before which makes me think it was murder. I think it was something to do with Mr Cecil Handyside.’

  ‘Handyside?’ He grimaced. Another new name. Another wild goose or red herring to be chased or hooked. He had enough already.

  ‘Handyside,’ he said, ‘who’s he?’

  ‘Nasty bit of work if you ask me,’ she said. ‘He’s been round a lot lately, poking about. He runs “Animal Transport” at Andover. Mrs Potts uses him when she sells a dog abroad. He does it all. Gets the dog crated up, fixes all the licences and the clearances and takes the thing up to the airport. Breeds pugs on the side.’ She sniffed.

  Bognor was interested for the first time. ‘And did he come on the day before Whately Wonderful died?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’

  ‘And …’

  ‘They had this row. They didn’t seem to have been getting on very well for a bit. I don’t know why not. Mrs Potts didn’t say, but I think he wanted her to do her domestic business with him as well. We always pack up ourselves if a dog’s just going to somewhere in England. Or Scotland come to that. I mean, you only have to put it on a train and slip something to the guard. Or people will come
and collect. It’s no real trouble. Only I think Mr Handyside wanted to start some special delivery service with his own vans. Something like that. Anyway, the last time he came they had this terrible argument. Dreadful shouting and swearing and Mrs Potts pushing him down the path and him shaking his fist and saying he’d see her finished. Quite frightening it was, I can tell you.’ She wiped up the final spots of tomato sauce with a piece of roll.

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘In the morning. Just after feeding time. Probably around eleven.’

  A waitress came. Rose asked if she could have a slice of the gateau. He said yes and ordered coffee for himself.

  ‘Are you suggesting Mr Handyside killed the dog himself?’

  ‘Yes. He’s got mean eyes. He’d do it all right.’

  ‘But you’ve no proof.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think he’d do it just because Mrs Potts wouldn’t join in with his dog transport scheme?’

  She lowered her eyes and went red. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know.’

  Bognor lit another cheroot and pondered. If Handyside had been involved in the dog smuggling then perhaps he had been trying to persuade Mrs Potts to participate. And if Mrs Potts had refused to join in, then he would start to threaten her and if she persisted, some of those threats might have been carried out, in which case …

  ‘Here you are, Rose,’ he said impulsively. He took the last five-pound note from his wallet and handed it across the table. ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ he said. ‘If anything else turns up don’t hesitate to get in touch.’

  Back at the office there was a message to ring the laboratory. He feared the worst and was proved right.

  ‘Is this some sort of joke?’ It was the senior analyst—McAlpine, a humourless technocrat whom he occasionally encountered in the canteen when a total failure of funds or very bad weather forced him to eat there.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘I thought this bloody cake tin of yours was supposed to contain the remains of a dog.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Bognor, improvising rapidly. ‘I was more interested to know whether or not it did contain the remains of a dog.’