Unbecoming Habits (The Simon Bognor Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  Around the area of dried blood, a lot of which had matted the hair, there were two distinct and separate lumps. Two blows. He remembered the arm rising and falling. It was all embarrassingly unprofessional. Then he remembered the rain and the fatigue. The tea was helping him.

  After another gulp which almost finished it he got out of bed and tried standing. To his surprise it seemed to work. He tried a few steps. It was like having a terrible hangover. He felt frail, slightly dizzy, had a ghastly headache and was on the verge of being physically sick, but he’d live. There was a packet of aspirin in his suitcase and he opened it up and took four. He washed it down with the last of the tea.

  Suddenly he realised that he was wearing his pyjamas. That was odd. Then he looked at the chair. His corduroys and the blue sweater were draped over the back, his underpants and socks were on the seat. He walked over and felt them. They were dry. Warm too. Someone had had them over hot pipes. Who? Brother Barnabas? Had Brother Barnabas hit him? No. Whoever had done it had been stronger than Barnabas had appeared and bigger. Bognor was certain he remembered someone taller than himself. He went to the mirror and bent to inspect his wounds. Leaning forward, he held the hair apart with his finger-tips and stared at his scalp. The bruising looked terrible, but the cut was nothing too serious. It looked as if it had been cleaned up. Bognor judged that he must have lost more blood than what was caked on his head and stained on the pillow. So. He picked the file up again.

  ‘Three attacks,’ he wrote. ‘Two deaths. One injured. Considerable efforts to ensure survival and well-being of injured party.’

  He chewed the pencil. It could mean two things. Either the attack had been a mistake perpetrated by someone who had nothing to do with the murders. No, surely not. All right. He started writing again.

  ‘Theory One. I was hit on head by murderer of Collingdale and Thomas. If so, why not kill me too? Theory Two. I was hit on the head by someone unconnected with murder.’ He threw the pencil down in exasperation and decided to face breakfast. There was no point in giving his assailant the satisfaction of seeing him staggering about like a man on the point of death. On the other hand, if the assailant had taken the trouble to bathe his wound and put him to bed in his pyjamas and dry his clothes he would presumably want to see him fit and well. He decided to compromise in the way he had originally suggested. Breakfast yes. Kippers no.

  He slipped on the blue sweater and looked at himself again in the glass. He looked terrible. The dark blue accentuated his pallor more than the brown pyjamas had done. It was conceivable, he supposed, that he could have made his own way back to his room without remembering anything about it. He had done that a couple of times about ten years ago, when very drunk. No, it wasn’t credible. He would have remembered. He was sure he couldn’t have managed it. In any case he wouldn’t have bothered with pyjamas, couldn’t have cleaned the wound, and didn’t know where to get clothes dried even if he had had the energy. He had been put to bed by someone and that someone was a strong man to have carried him or even dragged him the hundred or so yards from the store-room. Certainly not Father John. Nor Barnabas. Nor even the two between them.

  Then again, perhaps the man—or men—who had put him to bed had nothing to do with the attack. Perhaps he had been slugged by someone, left there, and been found by someone else quite different. His shoes were still damp, though he noticed that someone had attempted to dry them by putting rolled-up balls of newspaper in them. He put them on and went outside.

  Brother Barnabas had been right about the quality of the morning. The storm had cleared the atmosphere, and the sun, shining on the overnight rain, had brought out an indefinable smell of fertility, of things growing very fast. Bognor paused and sniffed. It made him feel better. Some birds—he wished he was able to recognise individual birdsongs—were singing slightly hysterically and from somewhere up the hill came the sharp rat-tat-tat of an industrious woodpecker. There were human noises too. The whine of electric saw, chug of tractor, chime of breakfast bell. People start early in the country. Bognor began to walk gingerly in the direction of the refectory, looking aimlessly for any sign of the previous night’s adventure and still trying to explain it.

  There could now be no question that the cupboard held some secret, and that Father John was party to it. It seemed probable too that Brother Barnabas knew at least something about his injuries. Yet neither could have contributed anything very physical to the affair. It began to look like conspiracy. He wished he knew if there had been someone in the cupboard when he was hit. Was his attacker the man who had turned on the light? Was he just returning? Or was it someone arriving to join the man in the cupboard?

  He kicked a pebble fiercely off the path and swore loudly. His head hurt and the whole situation was becoming more and more confused. He hated it. They were all in it together, trying to make a fool of him. He followed the pebble up the path and kicked it again. It took off and hit the side of a wheelbarrow with a satisfying ping.

  ‘Shot!’ said a voice behind him. It was Xavier.

  Bognor waited for him to draw level.

  ‘Lovely morning,’ said Xavier, ‘although I must say the prospect of kippers doesn’t appeal.’

  Bognor might normally have made a joke out of it. His head throbbed, and he didn’t. Instead Xavier looked suddenly and genuinely shocked. ‘Good heavens,’ he said. ‘You look terrible. What in God’s name have you been doing? Have you been on the sleuth all night? You look like death.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Bognor. ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘You look worse than tired,’ said Xavier. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Xavier sighed. ‘It’s none of my business, I suppose. Anyway. Did you hear the wireless? Anselm must be wetting his knickers by now.’

  ‘He what?’ Bognor was disturbed by the vulgarity of the phrase, then he had a worrying thought. He hoped nothing had leaked out to the B.B.C. That would make life difficult. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened now?’

  ‘It’s Brother Bede. He’s done over the bishop.’

  ‘What bishop? Why?’

  ‘That pompous old bugger Woodstock. He’s really massacred him by the sound of it.’

  The aspirin hadn’t worked yet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bognor, ‘could you go a bit slower, please?’ They had almost reached the door of the farmhouse. Xavier put a hand on Bognor’s elbow.

  ‘We’re late,’ he said. ‘If I tell you now you’ll miss your kippers. Do you like kippers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor do I.’ Xavier looked reflective and added: ‘I always say…’ but Bognor, almost involuntarily, cut him short.

  ‘I know what you always say,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, what?’

  ‘That God didn’t mean kippers to be eaten because of the bones.’

  ‘Ah.’ Father Xavier was amused. ‘I suppose Barnabas told you that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He would. Anyway, are you prepared to take a risk of missing some breakfast?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bognor was suddenly impatient. ‘I’d like to know precisely and in some detail what you’re on about and if necessary I’m prepared to miss the beginning of breakfast.’

  ‘O.K.,’ said Xavier. ‘You know Woodstock, Bishop of.’

  Bognor had an uncertain image of an elderly person of reactionary sentiments. ‘Sort of,’ he said.

  ‘O.K. Well, the other day old Woodstock, who is a genuine cast-iron horror, a hanger and flogger of the old school, wrote a letter to The Times about church involvement in politics. Exceptionally silly letter even for Woodstock. He kept rambling on about the Lords spiritual and the Lords temporal. Even invoked the spirit of Thomas à Becket, which struck me as singularly ill-advised. All very confused.’

  ‘The gist of it being,’ said Bognor, ‘that the Church should stick to religion and leave everything else to the experts?’

  ‘Yes. In so far as there was gist. He’s a comple
te moron, Woodstock. I don’t know why The Times printed it. Basically he was laying in to leftie clerics whether they were in Brazil or Spain or here or anywhere else.’

  ‘And Bede?’

  ‘Well, Bede is by way of being rather a free thinker. You’ve met him, presumably?’

  ‘Not yet. I thought he was just an indifferent cook.’

  ‘That’s true. But he’s also our tame revolutionary. He’s currently sold on a rather complex mixture of Basque nationalism and Jung. Between you and me he’s not much brighter than Woodstock. He’s a sort of champagne navvy. Oh and he won’t eat meat. Though I think that’s more biological than metaphysical if you follow.’

  ‘So he wrote to The Times.’

  ‘I thought I said that.’ Xavier was irritated. ‘I must say you really aren’t your incisive self today, are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Bognor wondered if he should be flattered by Xavier’s reference to his incisiveness.

  ‘That’s all right. Yes. It was on the seven o’clock news. Not very prominent, but prominent enough. He seems to have delivered himself of as all-embracing a message as Woodstock but there were some rather choice phrases if the B.B.C. is quoting accurately. “The sort of thinking—or lack of it—which has characterised the Church of England for too long”, “calculated to do immense harm”, “positively unchristian” and “mindless bigotry”. Those are the ones that stick in the mind.’

  ‘They seem to have stuck in yours.’ Bognor was feeling a bit better. He wondered whether it was aspirin or adrenalin.

  ‘Well, considering he’s not frightfully well educated they do have a certain ring to them.’

  Bognor looked at him, with a suspicion of intuition. It was a face full of humour certainly, but it was by no means lacking in malice.

  ‘Almost as if he’d had some help with it.’

  ‘Dear boy,’ said Xavier, chuckling a little, ‘I do believe your critical faculty is returning. But what a very unworthy suspicion.’ He looked up at the sky, which was clear and blue and almost perfect. ‘It really seems a pity,’ he said after a moment, ‘to waste any of a morning like this in the company of kippers but I think you ought to eat something. It will set you up.’ They went on in.

  It was a silent meal. Only the noise of eating, which was considerable, interfered with the tedium of Father Simon reading from a Victorian life of St. Augustine. It was poor stuff, monotonously read. The combination of sounds made Bognor irritable and the fact that the coffee was stewed and the porridge burnt made him feel still worse. He wondered if Brother Bede was in the kitchen again.

  There was no mistaking the atmosphere. Although everything superficially appeared normal, there was an air of tension and expectancy which was greater even than after either of the deaths. Someone dropped a plate, which smashed on the stone floor, and it was as if the Abbot had been shot. When Xavier and Bognor entered late the air of corporate inquisitiveness was almost tangible. The main object of attention was Father Anselm.

  He sat at his place, his face a dull grey, not eating at all and barely touching the bitter coffee. Every time he looked up at least thirty faces had to turn away for fear of being caught staring. At length the apology for a meal, and with it Father Simon’s half-hearted recital, came to an end, and Father Anselm rose to speak.

  ‘Save me, O God,’ he said, ‘for the waters are come in, even unto my soul. I stick fast in the deep mire, where no ground is: I am come into deep waters so that the floods run over me. I am weary of crying; my throat is dry; my sight faileth me for waiting so long upon my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: they that are mine enemies and would destroy me guiltless are mighty.’ He paused for what seemed a very long time and continued very precisely. ‘A short time ago the B.B.C. Home Service news announced that one of our number had gravely insulted our Beloved Visitor in a letter to one of the national newspapers. It is no business of mine to enter into political dispute with any of my brothers. However, I cannot countenance vicious and unprovoked personal attacks on our Father in God, Ernest Bishop of Woodstock. I have to tell you that on hearing the news I summoned the brother concerned, heard his words of mitigation and dismissed him from the order. His name will not be mentioned here again. It must be as if he has never been.’

  Bognor, whose headache had fully returned, found his irritation worse than ever. The man was making an absurd fuss over a rather adolescent letter in The Times, but, much worse, he’d expelled one of his few remaining suspects. It was too much.

  The effect on the Community was extraordinary. This was real drama. You could read it on their faces. They were enjoying it, each one of them. Bognor was reminded of school again, and of expulsions. But Father Anselm was not finished.

  ‘This,’ he continued, ‘is without doubt the worst few days in the history of the Community. Today we have the funeral service for Thomas who was our friend. Just as, so lately, we witnessed the passing of Luke who was our brother. These are tragedies. I feel as the great majority of you do that these things are sent to try us. That we must not succumb.

  ‘I had thought that in this time of adversity we might be compelled to cancel our retreat scheduled for this week-end, at least to visitors. But I am convinced that it would be proper to go forward and not to look back. We must be courageous. We must be hopeful. Above all, we must not lose our faith in the Lord God Almighty.’

  As they all rose to go, Bognor noticed Xavier. He was looking almost shocked and deeply angry.

  ‘The sod,’ he said softly to Bognor as he left.

  In the yard Anselm was standing, the big black bible clasped to his chest and an expression of sorrowing martyrdom on his face. He said good morning to Bognor, and added a remark about his sorrow at exposing him to the embarrassment of family feuds and difficulties.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bognor, ‘I’m only sorry that I don’t really appreciate the significance of this disagreement. From what I’ve heard he was quite justified in most of what he wrote.’

  Father Anselm smiled patronisingly. ‘You are an outsider and a layman. I understand that it is difficult for you to see that this was a betrayal of every vow in our life.’

  ‘Oh balls,’ said Bognor and regretted it almost immediately. However, by the time he did he was walking away across the yard, having turned his back on Father Anselm, who was still standing in the same position smiling vacantly and shaking his head from side to side with an expression of great melancholy and world weariness.

  There were a number of aspects of the business which upset him. Of course the retribution of the community was one but more selfishly he was desperate because one of his suspects had probably left already and he was the one suspect who was a real possibility for every crime. Moreover, this morning’s letter had revealed a sort of motive for espionage which while woolly was still better than anything else he’d managed to find. It was after eight now and the Community had filed into the chapel for Terce. No doubt they would be offering up some frightful comminations, wishing no good for Brother Bede.

  He ran his hand through his hair and was reminded painfully of his earlier experience. Everything was moving too fast for his liking. He walked out of the yard and into the lane to wait for the friars to come out of chapel, and for Inspector Pinney to arrive for his day’s work. Already the day was becoming hot. It was only a short drive to Oxford with its beckoning profusion of punts and Pimms. It was a genuine temptation, as genuine as Pinney’s pint of beer, and he actually toyed with it for a moment.

  It was half past eight before Pinney arrived. By that time Bognor had chewed through a great many stems of grass grabbed from the edge of the lane and had discovered from Barnabas that Brother Bede had been driven off in the Community van by Brother Vivian in the hope of catching the eight o’clock train from Woodstock. Such belongings as he had not been able to bundle together in twenty minutes flat were to be sent on to his elder brother, a G.P. with a practice in South London. He had been given
the price of a rail ticket and five pounds.

  During his perambulations up and down the lane he had also seen Paul. The youth had been in the kitchen with Bede and a couple of others at the time of Thomas’s death. Bognor asked him more or less idly whether he had heard anything and he replied that there’d been a lot of noise and he’d been busy so he hadn’t. There was something strangely familiar about the boy. He almost felt he’d met him before but it was scarcely likely. It was probably just that he was feeling tired.

  So even though Inspector Pinney was late he got a distinctly less hostile reception from his superior than if he had arrived half an hour before. Bognor’s temper had cooled, and his head just ached dully so that it was bearable if not pleasant.

  ‘More trouble, Inspector Pinney,’ he said. ‘Would you mind frightfully if I went down to the village to make a phone call while you keep an end up. I’ll be back in time for the funeral.’

  Inspector Pinney nodded with more than a touch of surliness. He had no idea why, if it were suicide, his presence should be required. Nor could he see, if it were not suicide, why he shouldn’t be told. Besides, he had a hangover and had come fresh from a row with his wife.

  Bognor thought of taking the Land Rover, but decided that he needed the walk. There was nothing much he could do for the moment up at the Friary. As he walked to the phone box by the Boot he arranged his programme. There were two outstanding mysteries, either of which could be crucial. The first was Brother Aldhelm’s afternoon walk and the second was the light in the cupboard. Even if Aldhelm took a walk every day he certainly couldn’t get away for long before afternoon, so he would have to wait till after lunch. As for the honey store cupboard he had a hunch that that particular secret would be yielded after dark. In any case, suspicions might be aroused if he tried to sneak in during the day. He was also hoping that a chat with Lord Camberley might produce something, and he had great hopes for the weekend retreat. By the time he got to the kiosk he had it decided. To stay beyond the week-end would make them realise he was still dissatisfied. He must solve as much as he could by Sunday night. If he had no spy and no murderer by then he would have to take the easy way out. Wait for the next Expo-Brit and have the Beaubridge representative or representatives thoroughly searched. He made a mental note to find out who was going this year. It was halfway through September that the Expo-Britons left for Eastern Europe. Less than a month away. That wasn’t a long wait. In some ways he should have decided on that the minute Collingdale had been found in the potato patch. It would have made life a lot less painful.