Just Desserts (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 8

  ‘Quite.’ The lamb was indubitably succulent.

  ‘Let us further suppose that this paragon wishes to accompany his paramour in what the vernacular describes as “a dirty weekend”.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well …’ Blight-Purley carefully laid his knife and fork on his plate and leant across them in the manner of an oral examiner about to pounce. ‘Where would you take her? Bearing in mind that the adulterer is a man of comparatively limited imagination.’

  ‘Um.’ It was not a problem with which Bognor, blamelessly unmarried, had yet been faced. The time, he reflected, visualizing his inevitable nuptials with Monica, was still to come. ‘How about Brighton?’ he offered.

  ‘More than likely, but where in Brighton?’

  He thought. ‘The Excelsior.’

  ‘Very good.’ Blight-Purley’s reaction was one of a schoolmaster whose recalcitrant pupil has at last satisfied him that he is not quite an imbecile. ‘Exactly the reputation for raffish discretion he would want. Illicit passion concealed from prying eyes by the waving fronds of the palm court. And yet,’ and here Blight-Purley seemed to assume a more-than-usually-luminous yellow glow, ‘he would have reckoned without Fritz Finkelman.’

  Bognor’s eyes questioned the revelation but he did not speak.

  ‘Finkelman,’ continued the Colonel, taking a long draught of the Cantemerle, ‘is general manager of the Excelsior and has been for fifteen years. He is an excellent manager. He misses nothing. Every guest is known to him and so is their every movement. Natürlich. It is part of his job. He is also, of course, or was, a good friend of our late friend Escoffier Savarin Smith. Do you begin to see what I’m driving at?’

  ‘I think so. There was something to that effect in Smith’s file at the BOT.’

  ‘I’ve seen the entry. That was de Lesseps. One of the old school.’ A thin nostalgic smile played briefly round Blight-Purley’s lips. ‘Scoff had a thousand Finkelmans all over Britain. And some in Europe, too, come to that.’

  ‘But Parkinson never took advantage of them?’

  ‘I rather think not. Not enough. Little pieces of information, odds and ends, but not enough to provide Scoff with the stimulus or the lucre that he needed.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘That’s rather for you to find out. I don’t know anything else for sure but my feelings are that Scoff was playing an extremely dangerous game. The Cantemerle slips down easily, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. But what sort of game?’ Bognor hated riddles. It was deplorable that he had to spend his life dealing in them.

  ‘He believed everyone had his price. Fair enough. That’s always been my assumption in life.’ Bognor winced inwardly. ‘So he decided to operate on that basis. He had more information than Parkinson had any use for, so he decided to flog off the surplus to the highest bidder.’

  ‘Newspapers?’

  Blight-Purley regarded his guest with friendly superciliousness. ‘Scoff’s stories were infinitely more problematical than the average newspaper would stomach. Conceivably your particular acidulous or foolhardy gossip columnist, your Nigel Dempster for instance, might be tempted, but I hardly think his editor would thank him for it. No, seriously, there were two sorts of story Scoff was dealing in. One concerned the back room chaps. Whitehall coves of no interest to the press. The other were the peccadilloes of cabinet ministers and the like. Difficult to substantiate by journalists, and Scoff’s contacts liked to appear discreet. If the stories had appeared in the press they could have been traced back. Rather different if they were picked up by our people—or, of course, by, er … other people’s people.’ He wiped his mouth on a napkin and pushed his plate back.

  ‘And what do you think happened then?’

  ‘Once again I think that’s for you to discover. My own impression was that Scoff was out of his depth: Ebertson and Petrov, for instance. They may have seemed very affable and agreeable on the surface, but we all know our Brecht.’ He sang very softly, ‘Und der Haifisch …’

  Bognor, too, finished his lamb. The waitress reappeared. They agreed on Stilton.

  ‘Which brings us to Petrov,’ said Blight-Purley.

  Bognor still refused to be drawn.

  ‘I still don’t know why you’re telling me all this. It just doesn’t fall within my province. In any case it’s all hypothetical.’

  ‘Even if Petrov didn’t connive in Scoff’s death,’ said Blight-Purley, ‘I would guess that he was trying to grab some of the pickings.’

  ‘You mean that the network would have survived Scoff’s death?’

  Blight-Purley raised an eyebrow barely perceptibly. ‘I seem to have gained your attention at last,’ he muttered. ‘Empires tend to outlive their emperors, at least until the heir proves himself inadequate. If there is any suggestion that the new emperor—or empress—is going to be a weak ruler then the vultures approach the corpse with less caution than otherwise.’

  ‘And you think Ebertson would be trying to pick up the pieces as well?’

  ‘That would seem to follow.’

  ‘And you think Ebertson had something to do with killing Petrov?’

  Blight-Purley shook his head and waited until he had finished a mouthful of cheese before continuing, ‘I didn’t say that, and even if I had you rightly point out that this is all conjecture. All I am saying is that Scoff Smith had a certain amount of information which could have been of use or value to a number of people. He led them on while he was alive. He may even have tried playing them off against each other. If you’re looking for motives, then I suggest you think of the network as providing one.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Bognor wondered again what Blight-Purley’s own motive was. Was he just meddlesome? Or was he working for someone? If so, who?

  ‘How did you manage to engineer an invitation to Acapulco for me?’

  ‘Delphine and I have known each other a long time.’

  ‘Since the war?’

  ‘Before the war, but the war cemented our friendship. Mutual antipathy towards the Bosch.’

  ‘I see.’

  Blight-Purley shoved back his chair, picked up his stick and began to limp towards the exit. ‘I doubt whether you do,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t terribly matter. You keen on cricket?’

  ‘Quite. Why?’

  ‘Just a thought. There’s a match every year. Wine writers and other parasites versus the trade. In a couple of weeks. Might be worth a visit.’

  They passed through into the smoking room: worn red leather; signed photographs of De Gaulle, Churchill, Eisenhower and other lesser lights, many in the stiff kepis of the French armed forces. Coffee was on a sideboard. They helped themselves to black and Blight-Purley ordered a brace of club Madeiras while Bognor lit one of his cheap cheroots.

  ‘I hope I’ve been of some help.’

  ‘Very much, sir.’ Bognor judged the ‘sir’ to be judicious. ‘Acapulco should be very instructive. The cricket sounds fun, too. Perhaps you could let me know more about it when the time comes?’

  ‘I was thinking of Smith’s network.’

  Bognor drew on the cheroot. ‘I don’t want to seem ungracious,’ he said, ‘but quite honestly I’m not all that interested in Scoff’s network, and I’m perfectly happy to accept the idea of suicide if the coroner’s jury has done the same.’

  The Madeira came and was sipped.

  ‘Then why,’ Blight-Purley was at his most patronizing, ‘did you call on Gabrielle yesterday morning?’

  Bognor suddenly felt a hot flush creeping over him. It had nothing to do with the Madeira.

  ‘Me? At Scoff’s? Yesterday morning? No, not me. Definitely not me.’

  ‘Ah. Perhaps there’s some mistake.’

  They looked at each other. It was quite clear to both of them that there was no mistake.

  ‘Well,’ said Blight-Purley eventually, ‘we’ll leave it like that then. You should be hearing from la Veuve au sujet d’Acapulco. Meanwhile I’m always here if I�
��m needed.’

  Madeira and coffee was finished. Blight-Purley escorted him to the front door. ‘Don’t be under any illusions,’ he said, as he made his farewell. ‘Scoff Smith laboured under an illusion and look where it got him. It’s meat and drink to us, but it isn’t to everyone; it may be another man’s poison. And it wouldn’t do you any harm to raise your profile a little.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Bognor, waving in an unconcerned manner he was far from feeling.

  Blight-Purley raised his stick in acknowledgement and stood on the steps of the Mess for a moment, a lobstery, slightly sinister figure with his arthritic limbs and yellowish eyes. Bognor wondered if he was any nicer than he looked.

  Instead of returning directly to the office he once more took a bus, this time a thirty-three, though its destination was, again, East Sheen. Discreet enquiries on the phone that morning had elicited the name of Scoff’s doctor. The coroner had been difficult at first but had succumbed quickly enough when Bognor had started listing credentials and talking about the national interest. He had thought of risking the doctor by phone as well but decided against it, which was why at three-thirty he was once more walking along the leafy suburban streets of south-west London.

  The receptionist in the surgery was adamant. ‘You wouldn’t even get in if it was an emergency,’ she said, blue rinse abristle. ‘Dr Burgess is fully booked.’

  ‘This is an emergency.’

  She looked Bognor up and down. ‘It doesn’t look like an emergency, but as I said, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference. He still wouldn’t see you.’

  ‘Even if I were dying?’

  ‘You’re not dying.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Bognor recognized that the conversation was ludicrous. He produced his identity card and watched the grudging conversion from scourge of the malingering public to lackey of the all-powerful establishment.

  ‘I’ll slip you in after the next patient,’ she said, ‘but try not to keep him too long. He really is very busy.’ Bognor grunted and sat down to read the frayed two-year-old colour magazines which constituted the waiting room’s principal reading matter. He was still negotiating the elusive humour of a very old Punch when the buzzer buzzed and the blue-haired lady, now almost ingratiating, said, ‘Mr Bognor. Doctor will see you now. It’s the first door on the left.’

  The doctor was middle-aged, crinkle-haired, impatient. He was sitting at his desk scribbling on a medical record, presumably the previous patient’s. ‘Yes,’ he said, not looking up.

  Bognor again produced his card. ‘I wanted to ask one or two questions about one of your late patients.’

  He looked up now, irritated. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Bognor. Board of Trade.’ He jabbed at the card with his finger.

  ‘Who let you in?’

  ‘Does that matter?’ Bognor was suddenly off-guard. On the wall behind the desk was a framed scroll, illuminated in many colours. It proclaimed that at some ceremony or other in Epernay ‘Gilbert Burgess’ had been ‘élèvé à la dignité de chevalier de l’ordre des coteaux de Champagne’. That was an odd coincidence, but as he was considering it he realized that the doctor was continuing to protest, indeed was asking him to leave. He had risen now and was going on about business and patients and interlopers and bureaucracy.

  ‘It’s about Scoff Smith,’ said Bognor. ‘I understand he was a patient of yours.’

  ‘A private patient, yes. But I don’t see what business it is of yours.’

  Bognor was not greatly interested in the status of Scoff’s professional relationship with Dr Burgess. ‘Are you going to help me or not?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Smith was a personal friend of mine,’ said the doctor, ‘as well as being a patient. I’m really not at liberty to discuss him. You ought to know that.’

  ‘Even if it helped to establish the cause of death?’

  ‘We know the cause of death,’ said Burgess. ‘He gassed himself, poor fellow.’

  ‘Even if we accept that, we don’t know precisely why he did so. That’s why I want your help. Were you treating him for depression?’

  ‘I can’t answer that.’

  ‘Were you treating him for anything else? Had you prescribed anything?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the doctor, ‘but if this sort of thing has to be discussed, it will have to be discussed at the inquest, not with any tuppenny-ha’penny Tom, Dick or Harry who comes barging in here from some lickspittle government department.’

  Bognor was used to abuse. He merely frowned. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘we know you had prescribed something because we found the bottle. We just want to know what it was.’

  ‘If you found the bottle why do you come round pestering me? It only has to be analysed.’

  Bognor was not to be drawn. ‘Naturally,’ he said. ‘I can arrange for an independent analysis to be done. It just seemed simpler to come and ask.’ He watched carefully as he made the suggestion. Was it imagination or was there a flicker of apprehension in the doctor’s expression?

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he said, caving in abruptly. ‘I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. He had migraine. Nothing new. He’d had it for years. I prescribed codeine. Nothing new in that either.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bognor. ‘That’s it. You’d never prescribed anything else for him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had he been to see you about depression?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’d rather not say.

  ‘But you’ll say it in the coroner’s court?’

  ‘If necessary, I suppose I might. But it probably won’t arise. It’s what they call an open and shut case.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Bognor enjoyed the opportunity of appearing mysterious. ‘Would you say that it’s possible to induce depression by artificial means?’

  ‘Of course. The market is saturated with depressants and stimulants. Half my colleagues spend their time damping down what they themselves have stoked up or vice versa.’

  ‘But you don’t approve.’

  ‘No, frankly, I don’t.’

  ‘So even if Scoff had come to you suffering from depression you’d have given him a pep talk rather than pep pills.’

  ‘If you put it like that, yes.’

  ‘But, going back to my earlier question, would you say you can induce depression artificially? A bad enough depression to make you suicidal?’

  ‘Most depression is artificially induced in the sense that it’s caused by other people being nasty to you,’ said Burgess. ‘If you beat your dog the dog will cringe. That’s the object of the exercise.’

  ‘And you think something like that was happening to Scoff?’

  ‘That I can’t say.’

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’ Bognor tried to stare him down but failed.

  ‘I must ask you to leave now,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ve already said far more than I should. Next time would you please phone for an appointment?’

  ‘If I did I wouldn’t get one.’

  ‘No.’ Burgess pressed the button on his desk. ‘Good-bye,’ he said.

  Bognor left, wondering who had been responsible for making the good doctor a chevalier of the ‘ordre des coteaux de Champagne’. Scoff? It seemed most likely. Was it important? Arguably not, and yet the recurrence of champagne in general and Bitschwiller in particular was beginning to worry him. In such circles perhaps it was inevitable. He bought an evening paper at the news-stand on the corner of the main road but was unable to concentrate properly on the headline, which told of the country’s continuing economic woe. Instead he assessed the day’s meetings. The doctor had been treating Scoff for migraine but claimed to have prescribed nothing else. He had more or less admitted that Scoff had been to him for depression. Yet he had still not prescribed anything. It finally was out of the question that he might have prescribed contraceptive pills. There must have been a substitution by someone else, someone else who bargained on the contraceptives inducing impotence. Also, by depriving Scoff of his migraine tablet
s, the migraines would have gone untreated. They would have been insupportable. Nasty.

  Blight-Purley’s allegations about the Scoff network were intriguing, too. If true, they opened up a tantalizing variety of potential motives. Scoff’s double-dealing, his auctioning of damaging secrets, could certainly have provoked retaliation. Alternatively, he might have been ‘murdered’ by someone whose secret he had discovered. He might even have been indulging in a little blackmail on the side. Blackmail, as Bognor had discovered on previous assignments, was sometimes practised by the most outwardly respectable, and Scoff was clearly involved in enough disreputable practices already not to have baulked at blackmail. Or perhaps someone wanted Scoff out of the way so that they could take over the network. It could be an avaricious individual, or it could be one of the international intelligence agencies as exemplified by Ebertson and Petrov. The possibilities were dazzling and mind-boggling. It seemed increasingly likely that Bognor had stumbled on a sort of espionage gang-warfare. That went on, God knew, but he had never previously supposed that it went on in food and drink.

  ‘Food and drink,’ he muttered. Perhaps Amanda Bullingdon knew something. She seemed to be a markedly more peripheral figure than any of the others he had encountered, her involvement more detached and commercial, her attachment to comestibles and potables less personal and passionate. He had better have another word with her; perhaps even reveal a little more of his hand. As the bus bumped uncomfortably over the half-repaired bridge at Hammersmith he fell to contemplating Miss Bullingdon. She seemed completely innocent, and yet the most innocent-seeming were frequently the most dangerous—a fictional adage which Bognor had found true in real life, too.

  Back at the office, there was a message for him. Bognor always lived in hope that on his return there would be a message which would transform his life completely: a telegram from Littlewoods, announcing a massive football win; a call from the Premium Bond people; even a new posting or transfer. Usually there was nothing, but this time there was a pencilled note saying, ‘Mr Ebertson rang from the American Embassy. Please call back before six.’