Unbecoming Habits (The Simon Bognor Mysteries Book 1) Page 8

  There were a few predictables: a book of Offices, Bishop Bell on Christianity and World Order, Lebreton and Zeiller, de Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man, but these were greatly outnumbered by other more secular works.

  He was no apiarist and the titles were unfamiliar: Fraser, Beekeeping in Antiquity, Grout, The Hive and the Honey Bee, Root, The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture, and Von Frisch, Bees: Their Vision, Chemical Senses and Language. On a table below the bookshelf there were stacked a sieve-like mask and a pair of leather gauntlets together with bound volumes of the American Bee Journal and Gleanings in Bee Culture. He had selected a hefty gleaning of bee culture and was reading with increasing disbelief about something called Isle of Wight disease when Father John returned with a boiling kettle.

  ‘I understood from your namesake that you had displayed an interest in the manufacture of honey,’ he said drily as he made the coffee. ‘It seems rather unlikely, somehow, but there’s no accounting for taste.’

  ‘I’ve always been interested in bees,’ said Bognor.

  Father John looked profoundly sceptical. ‘I must say,’ he said, ‘that I find your credulity concerning today’s little incident surprising.’

  ‘Well, I do have the benefit of having seen the letter he wrote.’

  ‘So I believe.’ They sipped at their coffee. ‘Anyway, since you pretend to an interest in my obsession I shall tell you about it,’ said the older man, smiling swiftly. ‘I take it that we shall have to start at the beginning.’

  Bognor nodded wearily and remained silent for the next fifteen minutes while Father John rambled tediously on about fructose and glucose and sucrose, the relative merits of different kinds of clover, the brilliant thinking behind the Langstroth hive, the exact shape and size of the hive tool, the excellence of research findings from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Logan, Utah, the disastrous results of mite infestation of the adult breathing tract, and the predatory habits of mice.

  ‘Well,’ he said finally, pulling a pocket watch from the folds of his habit, ‘perhaps you’d like to come and see for yourself. We’ve just about got time before Compline.’

  It was really too dark to see the hives properly. Father John brought a torch, and shone it around them, pointing to the various features which he felt should interest Bognor. The atmosphere was even more oppressive than it had been on his return from the Boot, almost as if the clouds had physical weight. After a few rather ineffectual minutes standing in the corner of the field where the bees lived, he asked if he could see the honey store.

  ‘It’s not in the least interesting,’ said Father John.

  ‘I’d like to see it, all the same,’ he said.

  He half saw, half felt Father John shrug in the gloom, before he led the way back to the buildings a hundred yards away. Just inside the courtyard he produced a key and opened a door on the left, the first in a range of what had once been stalls or loose-boxes. The light snapped on and Bognor saw that year’s consignment of the famous Beaubridge honey.

  ‘Not very much of it,’ he said, looking round the wooden trestles stacked with jars, still unlabelled owing to the peculiar muddle which had so upset Father Simon.

  ‘We only manage twenty pounds a hive maximum,’ said Father John.

  ‘Even so,’ said Bognor. He picked a jar up and held it to the light. It was strangely pale, almost like a very old vintage brandy. He had vaguely assumed that it might be like supermarket honey, solid and opaque. That therefore it might have been possible to conceal some object, message, piece of film in the honey itself. Obviously that would have been out of the question. Father John was saying something about the weather having been particularly difficult that year. Bognor put the jar down with a feeling of disappointment.

  He looked round the room once more. It told him nothing. There were just the trestles, the honey, stone floors, whitewashed cobwebbed walls, a second door in a far corner. But he was certain the answer lay in this room. It had to.

  ‘And what goes on through there?’

  ‘It’s just a cupboard.’

  Bognor checked himself. The nonchalance of the remark was a shade too studied, there was a tension about it. He moved over to the door, and put his hand to the handle.

  ‘It’s only a cupboard,’ said Father John. And this time there was no mistaking the tension in his voice. Not quite fright but definitely anxiety. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘it’s locked.’

  ‘Do you have the key?’

  ‘Good Lord no. It hasn’t been opened for years.’

  Bognor looked swiftly along the crack between the door and the wall. It was clear of cobwebs; nor were there any round the hinges.

  Mentally and metaphorically he patted himself on the back. Practice was, he told himself, making him increasingly astute.

  ‘Could you find a key for me?’

  Father John was still agitated. ‘I think it really is time to be moving towards Compline,’ he said. ‘No, I’d have no idea where to start looking for a key. It hasn’t been open for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Then how do you know it’s only a cupboard?’

  Father John looked at him with exasperation and something very near fright. ‘Your curiosity,’ he said, ‘sounds almost professional. If you are still investigating some crime, then I think you ought to tell us what it is. In which case perhaps we could arrange for this lock to be forced, though what good it would do I can’t imagine. If, on the other hand, you’re simply being inquisitive for the sake of it, then I have to tell you that you’re wasting everyone’s time. That cupboard is simply a cupboard. It has always been a cupboard. It always will be a cupboard. It has not been open for years. It is not open now and it is not going to be opened again. Not by me, anyway.’

  Bognor stood watching this outburst with interest.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, when the honeymaker had finished. ‘I didn’t wish to interfere with your routines. I’m sure it’s not important.’

  They stood staring at each other in the naked light of the single bulb in its wire cage and then the warning bell for Compline chimed in on the confrontation.

  Father John smiled with evident relief. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I have a duty to attend this office. Will you join me?’

  Bognor suddenly felt rather sheepish. ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘I feel this is a particular service I might grow to like.’

  It was true too. There was more ritual and more mystery about Compline than about the other offices. It was dark outside, which helped, and the lighting in the chapel cast shadows. Some were inanimate black shapes of beams and rafters thrown in black relief against the white walls; others were those of the friars themselves, constantly moving, changing in an almost musical pattern. That night it was more theatrical than before because the storm broke with almost absurd symbolism just as Brother Aldhelm, whose singing voice was more competent than most, was calling upon his brethren to be sober and vigilant. As he did there was a great shimmer of light from outside, and he started slightly, just as Bognor did. Then he continued intoning: ‘Because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,’ and, just as he finished, a treble thunderclap blasted them, as if from immediately overhead, and then bounced back off the hillside, echoing away for several seconds and merging into the mounting drum of the rain.

  He found it impossible to order his suspicions against this melodramatic background. It had been a tough and frustrating day and he was tired. The death of Batty Thomas already seemed years old, the strange business of Brother Aldhelm could have happened at any time in the last few weeks. Already, he realised, as he tried to focus on the dim brown shapes in front of him and tried to make out the words of the precise chant, he had become part of this place. Whereas twenty-four hours before, the idea of crime and intrigue, let alone murder, had seemed absurd in the context of the Friary, now anything seemed possible. It was the Community which was real now; Sir Erris and the Land Rover and Whiteh
all and his department had become illusory. He shook himself from drowsiness as another thunderclap cracked overhead, and remembered the cupboard door.

  From where he sat, on the cross-benches, as it were, he could see Father John kneeling, muttering prayer. The top of his walking stick protruded just above the level of the pew and the friar’s arthritic hands clasped in front of his face with a tortured clumsiness reminded him that Brother Luke had been murdered by strangling. Father John’s face, raised to the rafters, eyes tightly shut, seemed almost rapturous. He looked saintly. And yet he was hiding something behind that cupboard door. Bognor decided to concentrate on that particular little mystery. It was easy and straightforward, a proper and manageable concern for a man as tired as he was.

  The thunder seemed to be moving away, north towards Banbury, as they rose to sing a final hymn. It was that haunting song of thanks for ‘the day thou gavest’.

  To his surprise Bognor found that he knew the words, and that they came creaking out of some corner of his memory with total accuracy.

  ‘We thank thee that thy Church unsleeping,

  While earth rolls onward into light

  Through all the world her watch is keeping

  And rests not now by day or night.’

  The words made him sleepier still, though the suggestion of the Church’s permanent watchfulness and insomniac tendencies made him unhappy. He let the few remaining prayers pass him by until he was jolted out of his lethargy once more—this time by the departure of the friars. The raising of their cowls, which had seemed menacing the night before, was even more chilling tonight. The storm and the tiredness heightened his imagination and he had a sudden vision of pulling the covering off one of those heads and having a skull revealed. He shivered.

  Outside, the storm rumbled in the distance on the other side of Oxfordshire, but the rain came down with an ever-increasing strength. There was little wind, but the rain was so thick that it bounced back off the ground, as if someone was throwing it from above. The friars gathered up their habits and ran, looking absurd in the gloom. Bognor hesitated in the doorway for an instant and sprinted off like the others. He reached his cell sopping, his hair flattened against his scalp, splashes of mud up to his knees, and water seeping extravagantly from his left shoe. He took it off and saw to his irritation that there was a hole in the bottom. He cursed and looked at his watch.

  If he was to make an outing to Father John’s cupboard it would be best to wait. Even if the Friary followed the verse of the hymn and stayed awake, no one was likely to be wandering round in this rain.

  However, to be safe he decided to leave it for an hour. He took off the other shoe, thought for a moment and took off both socks as well. Then he picked up Wisden and lay down on the bed. An hour’s wait should be enough to make it safe to go snooping, he reckoned, and he started to read the Somerset batting averages.

  An hour and a half later he woke. He had been dreaming about sex in the pavilion at Glastonbury, and the first thing he saw as he opened his eyes was the Holman Hunt staring at him. He looked at his watch and swore when he saw that it was almost eleven. The dampness had soaked in and he felt very stiff and even more tired. With a sigh he sat up, threw the still-open Wisden back on to the chest, felt in his pocket and with a little smile of satisfaction withdrew a six-inch metal rule. It was a standard piece of equipment for operatives and, although he had a very imprecise idea of what to do with it, its presence reassured him.

  He put on another pair of socks and tiptoed outside and down the passage to wash the sleep from his eyes. There wasn’t a light to be seen anywhere and the only noise was snoring from behind one of the flimsy doors. That and the thudding drum of the rain which was still coming down as hard as before. Outside it was blacker than black, the rain making it impossible to see further than a few yards. He stood at the corner of the new building for a moment, pressed against the wall while the rain poured all over him and dripped down his neck from the guttering. No sign of anyone. He ran as lightly as possible with holes in his shoes, up the path towards the courtyard and stopped again at the entrance where he repeated the quick look out. Still no movement and no light. He was absolutely wet through.

  Peering round the corner and into the yard he tried to gauge the exact position of the honey store. It was the third door on the left, but in the dark and the rain it was impossible to see any doors at all. He took a deep breath and ran across to the other side of the yard. When he reached the wall he started to feel his way up it in the direction of the old farmhouse. He passed one door, stepped in a large puddle and said ‘Shit’ loudly, passed another door, edged on with the rain in his eyes so heavy that he could hardly keep them open, then came to the third door.

  Freezing for a second, he felt for the metal rule and pulled it out at the second attempt. He wished he had brought a torch. It would be risky to turn the light on. He felt in the other pocket and hoped the matches hadn’t got too wet to strike. Then he turned his attentions to the door, found the handle and was about to force the lock when he had a thought. He turned the handle and pushed slightly. To his surprise the door gave. That was odd. Father John had used a key to enter the store-room and he had ushered Bognor out before leaving. Bognor was certain he had locked it. He paused and tried to think; decided to listen. It was pointless. The noise of the rain and his own shattered physique would have made it impossible to hear anything less obtrusive than a rifle-shot. He put the rule back in his pocket and opened the door very gently, then stepped quickly inside and closed it behind him.

  Inside he tensed immediately. He could make out the trestles and the honey very dimly. Nothing had changed in the room, since his pre-Compline inspection with Father John. But it wasn’t anything in the room which interested him. It was the cupboard.

  The door itself was shut as it had been that evening, but it was an ill-fitting door and from all round it came light. There was no sound above the rain, but there was a light on in the cupboard. Bognor put the matches away again, and crept as noiselessly as his soaked condition would allow to the other side of the room. Once there, he positioned himself at the hinge end and stretched out towards the handle. Then he put his ear to the crack and listened. He could hear nothing. He tried to peer through the crack, but it was too narrow for that. He could see nothing.

  His preoccupation with the cupboard was total. So much so that he failed to hear the door behind him. The man was three-quarters of the way across the room before Bognor realised it. He swung round sharply, saw a dark shape, tried desperately to raise a hand to parry the blow, was too tired, failed, felt a heavy horrible pain, and had a sudden brief shocked impression of vivid colour, before there was another movement, another pain, and an all-embracing black.

  4

  ‘IT’S A FINE MORNING,’ said Brother Barnabas. ‘It would be a pity for you to miss it. I brought you a cup of tea. I mean, seeing as you weren’t in Matins or Prime or Communion, I thought you might have overslept. And I always say there’s nothing like a good hot cup of tea to wake a man on a beautiful summer morning like this. Breakfast’s in half an hour. Did you sleep well?’

  Brother Barnabas was skipping from foot to foot as he had done the first time Bognor had seen him. In his present condition Bognor was in no mood to decide whether this was natural embarrassment or concern. He had only just woken. He put a hand to his head.

  ‘Oh God,’ he said with feeling, and didn’t bother to apologise. He reached out for the cup and took a swig. It was hot and very sweet. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s very nice.’

  Brother Barnabas was still hovering. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You’ll be coming to breakfast. It’s kippers. Being Friday. I can fix two for you if you like. If you’re keen on kippers. Some people don’t like them. It’s the bones, of course. Very awkward, kipper bones, and so many of them. Father Xavier always says that if God had meant man to eat kippers he wouldn’t have made them with so many bones. Personally I think that’s sacrilegious. But Father Xavi
er will have his little joke.’

  All this time Barnabas was continuing to fidget, his North Country accents becoming squeaky as he talked faster and faster, and shuffled his feet.

  ‘No kippers,’ said Bognor, almost shouting the words. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got rather a headache. If you want to stay, please could you stand still. You’re making it worse.’

  ‘All right.’ Barnabas seemed more relieved than offended. ‘But we’ll see you in breakfast?’

  ‘Yes.’ He took another draught of the tea and looked at Barnabas with pleading. ‘Now, please?’ Brother Barnabas went.

  Left on his own, Bognor tried to think. His mind was a jumble of random disconnections: Harold Gimblett, the Unsleeping Church resting neither by day nor night, a very sunburned girl talking to him in Spanish and feeding him spoonfuls of honey, a disembodied voice saying over and over again, ‘There’s no such thing as idle curiosity,’ croquet mallets, stations of the cross, the American Bee Journal, Holman Hunt. All muddling round his mind in a mess of pain like dried fruit in a cake dough. He focussed very hard on the text on the wall, treating it like the testing board in an optician’s. It was a struggle.

  ‘Verily, Verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die… fall into the ground and die.’ He managed a half-smile, and winced, leant over to the chest of drawers and picked up his file and a pencil.

  ‘Notes,’ he thought to himself. ‘Must make some notes.’

  He started to write. ‘Visited honey store with Father John… went to Compline… returned to room… decided to investigate mystery cupboard… went to sleep.’ He remembered Somerset batting averages. ‘Went out in… light on in cupboard… hit on head… wake up in room.’

  ‘Oh God,’ he said again. He reached tentatively to his head and put a couple of fingers on the spot where the pain was coming from. It was agony. Whoever had done it had the luck or the foresight to hit him above the hairline. Nothing would show. He ran his finger round the damage, biting his lip as he did. There had been blood, but it had dried in the night. He sat up and looked at the pillow. There was a slight rust-coloured patch where his head had been.