Masterstroke (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Read online

  ‘So if I were to tell you that he covered up for him you wouldn’t be altogether surprised?

  ‘Covered up? How do you mean?’

  ‘A la Watergate. A Nixon-style cover-up.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’ Bognor wondered whether he should order more brandy. He was about to become confused. ‘You mean that Humphrey Rook was working for the Master in some undercover operation, got found out and was bailed out by the old boy himself?’

  ‘No. He wasn’t working for the Master. The Master caught him red-handed and didn’t let on. Except that he did tell Uncle Bert.’

  ‘Uncle Bert?’

  ‘Humphrey’s father. My uncle. He’s chairman of Chippenham’s.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Bognor now called for two more brandies and concentrated hard. ‘The Master caught him red-handed, but doing what? With a woman, do you mean?’

  ‘More likely to be a boy. Women aren’t exactly Humphrey’s style, or hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘No.’ Molly Mortimer laughed, and a smoky, purring noise came from the back of her throat. ‘Not many do … anyway this had nothing to do with sex. One day, evidently, Humphrey went to see the Master on some pretext or other, only the Master wasn’t there. The door of his study was open, though, so Humphrey went in and, being Humphrey, had a bit of a snoop at the papers on his desk.’

  The second brandies arrived. Molly paused, extracting the maximum possible theatricality from the moment.

  ‘As you may recall,’ she continued, as the waiter departed, ‘Lord Beckenham was responsible for setting the political theory paper that year. And when Humphrey started poking around almost the first thing he saw was the proof copy, and whereas you or I might have had a quick gander and then made a swift and discreet withdrawal, Humphrey sat down and started copying the questions out.’

  ‘Taking a bit of a risk, wasn’t he?’

  ‘That’s his style, as you know. He’s always been a chancer. He was right, too. It paid off.’

  ‘The Master found him, though.’

  ‘Yes, but he came in too late and he wasn’t sharp enough. Or there may have been collusion. Or … I don’t know, we never will exactly. Apparently the Master came in without Humphrey hearing him and he saw Humphrey reading the political theory paper. But what he didn’t know was that Humphrey had already copied out the questions and stuffed the copy into his trouser pocket.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Bognor pondered. It certainly explained a lot. Rook’s pure alpha in political theory had been one of the most extraordinary results of the year. The oddest in Modern History. ‘But,’ asked Bognor, ‘do you mean to say the Master let him go – just like that?’

  ‘No, no, certainly not just like that. There was an enormous amount of agonizing. Humphrey, naturally, swore blind that he’d hardly read any of the questions, hadn’t realized what it was anyway, etc., etc., but the old boy wasn’t daft. He saw through that one. On the other hand, what could he do?’

  ‘He could have had him sent down.’

  ‘With all the scandal? Bad for Humphrey, whom he liked. Bad for the college. Bad for him, being so careless. Bad all round.’

  ‘He could have set a new paper.’

  ‘He could. But remember, it was already in proof. It would have been an awful bore. Besides which, questions would have been asked. How could he have explained it away?’

  Bognor shrugged. ‘So what did he do?’

  ‘Well, as I say, he agonized for a bit and then he told Humphrey he’d have to think about it. After he thought about it he decided to do nothing, and just let Humphrey off with a severe caution.’

  ‘And told his father.’

  ‘Yes. And told his father – who couldn’t have cared less, as it happened. Boasted about it to my father, if you please. My father was the sort of man who cared very much, but that’s by the way.’

  ‘All jolly interesting,’ said Bognor, ‘but I’m not absolutely crystal-clear about the business of motive. Why should all this lead to Humphrey doing in the Master twenty years later?’

  Molly blew smoke and gazed at him with affectionate condescension. ‘You are adorable, but you’re fantastically dense,’ she said. ‘One of the reasons Lord Beckenham let him off with a caution was that he didn’t think Humphrey had had the time to absorb very much. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And he goes on believing this until the schools’ results are out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At which point Humphrey produces this phenomenal result which can only mean one thing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now.’ Molly leaned forward and spoke very slowly and distinctly as if addressing an idiot child. ‘It is too late for the Master to accuse his pupil of cheating. In fact, if he were to do any such thing Humphrey would say that the Master had connived at it. In fact he was all prepared to say that he had actually shown him the paper on purpose, by appointment with malice aforethought.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So what happens is that the Master has Humphrey in and says that he will let the matter rest, but that the secret remains and that if he feels it is in the public interest to reveal it then he would not shrink from doing so.’

  ‘Is that conjecture?’ asked Bognor. ‘Or do you know for certain?’

  ‘I know,’ said Molly, smiling guiltily. ‘I got it out of Humphrey in an unguarded moment, but I’m not going to go into all that.’

  ‘How much more do you know?’

  ‘Oh, from here on in it’s guesswork,’ she admitted, ‘but it’s not difficult to guess. We know that unless something goes badly wrong Humphrey is shortly going to be adopted as the prospective candidate for Sheen Central. Right? As the Conservative candidate and hence the MP for life, with all that that implies.’

  Bognor nodded again. It was beginning to make sense.

  ‘All of which Lord Beckenham would consider as being a matter of some concern to the public. It has an added bite because his Lordship’s old protégé has moved across from the extreme left to the far right, and as a lifelong member of the Labour Party Beckenham disapproves. Worse than that, he feels betrayed. He forgave Humphrey his Trotskyism because it was just the sort of youthful excess he would like to have indulged in himself, only he didn’t have the guts.’

  ‘So you think Lord Beckenham was determined to scupper Humphrey’s chances of becoming MP for Sheen,’ Bognor concentrated very hard on getting his thoughts into logical order, ‘and used the only means at his disposal, namely Humphrey’s cheating in his final exams?’

  ‘I didn’t quite say that. And you don’t have to prove either that he did or that he intended to – only that Humphrey thought he was going to.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bognor frowned at the remains of the amber liquid in his brandy balloon. ‘And you think he did? And murdered him to prevent it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bit far-fetched, isn’t it, for a born-again Christian?’

  ‘If you knew Humphrey like I knew Humphrey you wouldn’t think it far-fetched. He wants to be a Member of Parliament more than anything else in the world.’

  Bognor shifted ground. Also his bottom. He had eaten too much and felt over-filled. Was drinking too much as well. Ought to stop. Probably wouldn’t. No self-control, that was his trouble. But what in hell was the point of self-control? You were only young once, and he wasn’t any more. He had had youth, and he felt pretty let down by it. Hadn’t someone once said that youth was wasted on the young? Wilde probably. Sort of thing Wilde was given to saying. Facile old pouf. Well, as far as he was concerned youth had not been wasted by him – mis-spent, arguably, but not wasted. It was just not what it was cracked up to be. Middle age seemed likely to be equally disappointing, but he had every intention and expectation of mis-spending that too. Unlike Vole, Rook, Crutwell and Edgware.

  ‘Let’s have another brandy,’ he said, dangerously.

  Molly eyed him with a slight leer. ‘Why not?’ she agreed. ‘Too late to mend my
ways now.’

  By the time they returned to the Randolph they were quite tipsy and not much further on with the solution to the crime. There was a motive for Rook, a motive of sorts, but Bognor was too fuddled to be sure whether it was a convincing motive or not. He had also been compelled to admit that he was in Oxford to investigate the Master’s murder, and he had promised light-heartedly and light-headedly to give the lady an exclusive when he finally got his man, cousin Humphrey or not. But thoughts of murder and detection had slipped his mind somewhere between the second and third brandies, and as he ambled along the street arm in arm with the femme fatale of the Daily Globe he was aware mainly of her. She smelt rather nice, and he was enjoying her proximity. Of course, she was older than him and she had been around a bit, but he was not averse to a little experience. A nightcap in the bar, and then, who knew what might happen? She had had designs on him before, and although they had never progressed beyond the drawing board Bognor was nothing if not easily led. As he entered the vaulted foyer of the old hotel his thoughts were therefore mainly concupiscent. He had quite forgotten that there was work still to do, and he was quite unprepared for the elongated figure in scarlet leathers who rose up before him wagging its finger.

  ‘At last,’ it said. ‘And about bloody time, too.’

  ‘What?’ he said. For a moment he thought it was an urgent telegram, but just as he was about to reach out for the little yellow envelope which would contain some appalling news, probably from Parkinson, he realized that he was being accosted by a Fellow of Apocrypha. ‘Oh,’ he said, disengaging himself from Molly Mortimer.

  ‘Well might you say “Oh”,’ said Dr Frinton. ‘I’ve been waiting in this wretched morgue for an age.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Molly, not in the least abashed. ‘I’m Mortimer of the Globe.’

  Hermione Frinton favoured her with a disdainful glance and returned to her prey. ‘It’s clearly after dinner,’ she said, ‘judging from your condition. You stink of garlic and booze.’ She sighed. ‘Too bad. I’ve brought you a helmet.’ And before either Molly or Bognor could do anything about it she had thrust a white and silver bone dome into Bognor’s unwilling hands and marched him reluctantly back into the night.

  ‘Honestly,’ she said, in an exasperated voice, when they were outside. ‘I did expect a little professionalism from the Board of Trade. Bad enough to go out on the binge like that, but to go out with the press really is a bit steep.’

  ‘I was following up a lead,’ said Bognor, trying to sound haughty and self-righteous, and realizing to his chagrin that he was slurring his speech.

  ‘Not good,’ said Hermione. ‘Not good at all. Never mind, a quick spin on Bolislav will bring a rush of blood to the head. Reactivate the old grey matter.’

  ‘Bolislav?’ Bognor was bewildered.

  ‘Bolislav the Mighty. My favourite medieval monarch. Also my bike.’

  ‘Bike?’

  ‘A Velocette. Last of the truly Great British bikes. Big, black and oily.’

  And indeed, even as she spoke, Bognor saw the machine in question parked rakishly on a double yellow line a few yards from the main entrance to the hotel. It looked, in the lamplight, almost alive, like some supercharged beetle. Bognor swallowed hard. ‘Those are your wheels?’ he inquired, not even attempting to mask his petrified incredulity.

  ‘What did you expect? A Metro?’ she snorted through those equine nostrils. ‘Hop on!’ She swung a drainpiped leg across the saddle, grasped the handlebars and pushed the machine off its side stand. ‘You ride these things?’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘Never,’ said Bognor, gritting his teeth. Gingerly he got on behind her. As she kicked the starter and the bike immediately throbbed into action with a deep and prolonged farting from the silvery exhausts, Bognor was aware of a disturbing quantity of horsepower underneath him. Reluctantly he pulled the helmet down over his head and tried to buckle the strap.

  ‘Hold tight,’ she instructed, shouting over the engine’s beat, ‘and just move with me. Pretend we’re dancing.’

  Bognor reflected that if they were to do that he’d be off in no time. Dancing was not his strong point. He was incapable of moving in time either to the music or his partner. He saw no reason why he should find motorcycling any different.

  ‘Hold tight,’ she shouted again, and obediently he clasped her round the waist. ‘Tighter than that! And bunch up closer.’

  He did as he was told, shut his eyes and said a quick prayer to St Christopher. Then the machine jerked away from the kerb, swung over at a forty-five-degree angle, righted itself and powered up to a red light where it came to an abrupt but well-controlled halt. Bognor had shut both eyes at the first sign of motion, but now very cautiously he opened one and, peering over his chauffeuse’s shoulder, observed the back gate of Balliol straight ahead. He clenched his fingers across Dr Frinton’s stomach and felt his paunch press against her back. The smell of motorcycle was very strong but his nose, tight against the nape of her neck, caught something more feminine, which lulled him a little.

  The security was false and short-lived. Just before the light went green Dr Frinton spurred Bolislav into flight again, cutting the right-hand bend, running through the gears with an impressively staccato series of double de-clutches and hugging the middle of the road with deadly precision. Bognor had an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach as if riding in a high-speed lift. The alcohol’s anaesthetizing effect had gone completely. He felt ill, frightened and not in the least exhilarated. He did not want to die on a motorbike in the Cornmarket late at night. Messy. Painful, too, he would imagine. He tried to call out to Hermione to slow down, but the words would not come. Besides, Bolislav’s din would have drowned all but the most stentorian appeal. Dr Frinton would have been like something from Wagner if she hadn’t been so thin. Well, slim. Bognor kept both eyes closed, held on so tightly that he felt as if he must be squeezing the life out of her, and had no option but to sway in time to the bike. He tried to numb his mind with thoughts of food, drink, sex, anything to remove the fear and the torment, but nothing worked. He prayed to St Christopher and St Jude and St Doubting Thomas and bit his lips to stop himself screaming until, quite without warning, the torture ceased.

  ‘I said “Would you mind letting go?” We’re here.’

  ‘What?’ Bognor was not going to commit suicide.

  ‘Unhand me, varlet. We’ve arrived.’ Hermione cut the engine and Bognor felt the bone-shaking rhythm beneath him die away. Reluctantly he relinquished his grasp on the English tutor’s waist and tottered backwards off the bike.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ he announced weakly.

  ‘Teach you to make a pig of yourself,’ said Hermione, removing her bone dome and clipping it to the side of the bike. She shook her hair free and grinned. ‘You do look an alarming shade of mint. Take your hat off.’

  Bognor gave an undignified lurch towards the wall of Apocrypha, leaned against it, and belched. The release of natural gases had a beneficial effect on his nausea, but he still felt grim.

  ‘Oh, do pull yourself together!’ Dr Frinton removed her gauntlets and unzipped her jacket a few inches, then glanced up at the college coat of arms above the Great Gate. ‘Great is Truth, and mighty above all things,’ she recited. ‘We have work to do and you’re shirking it. Come on. The Board of Trade expects …’

  Bognor flapped a hand at her in a pathetic gesture of dismissal. ‘You go and look at the files. I’ll stay out here and get a bit of fresh air.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ she snapped. ‘You’re coming with me. This is a team effort. Now listen. I’m going over to Waldy Mitten’s rooms to get the keys to the lodgings. By the time I’m back I expect you to be in better shape.’ She gave him an exasperated glare, relented slightly and advanced on him. ‘I said you should take your hat off,’ she told him, unstrapping it herself and pulling it off his head. ‘Put your head between your legs,’ she ordered, ‘like this.’ She grabbed the back of Bognor’s
neck and thrust his head down to knee level. ‘Touch your toes! Come on! One, two, three. One, two, three.’ She pumped him up and down as if she were a PT instructor of the old school. He began to feel dizzy. ‘OK,’ she said, stopping. ‘Keep doing that until I get back with the keys.’ And she marched off, swaggering.

  Bognor cursed her under his breath, not daring to do so aloud for fear of more of the same. Watching her retreating form, though, he was compelled to admit that, alarming and assertive and generally bloody though she could be, she had astonishing legs. And motorcycling gear set them off a treat. He belched again and stood upright, unaided. It was time to take a grip on himself.

  Ten minutes later when she reappeared he was back to something approaching normal. She not only had the keys, but Mitten too. The acting Master had come along to see fair play.

  Mitten was muttering, ‘Not altogether happy, Hermione … rather irregular … I mean, I am in charge … does put me in a somewhat embarrassing position … really would prefer it if the chief-inspector chappie could be informed … I mean …’

  ‘Oh, do stop wittering,’ said Dr Frinton, crisply. ‘I’ve got enough trouble with this inebriate from the Board of Trade without you being an old woman. Why can’t everyone behave normally for a change?’

  Mitten looked aggrieved, but shut up all the same.

  Hermione now turned on Bognor. ‘You all right now?’ she inquired with no evidence of sympathy.

  ‘Perfectly,’ lied Bognor. ‘I’m just not used to being hurtled down the wrong side of the road at 100 miles an hour on the back of a motorbike with a pretentious nickname.’