Red Herrings (20 page)

Monica looked sceptical. ‘I think he's too clever by half,' she said. By which she meant too clever for Guy and Simon and the Mid-Angleside Constabulary.

It was hazy, hot and humid by the time Guy dropped them outside the Pickled Herring. The old inn sign hung inertly, its ancient red fish flaking in the sun. Mermaid rose crowded over the porch and almost obscured the art deco of the yellow and black Automobile Association sign which, like the inn sign itself, the landlords kept meaning to remove. The AA sign would go altogether. The Pickled Herring was to be replaced with something more contemporary. Felix had hoped to commission Hockney but had failed. Instead a man called Bugle who taught at the Whelk School of Art had promised to do something clever for them.

Bognor and his wife watched as Guy's Rover climbed away from them towards Roman Bottom, Mailbag Corner and all that remained of Sir Nimrod Herring.

‘Feels almost deserted,' said Bognor, as the chief inspector disappeared into the hillside.

‘Yes.' Monica scuffed at the gravel. ‘I wonder if we ought to go and comfort Naomi Herring? Make her a cup of tea or something.'

‘Oh,' said Bognor. ‘There'll be plenty of people doing that already. Ladies from the Women's Institute and district nurses. That's what villages are for. It's called good neighbourliness.'

‘Ah,' said Monica, following her spouse indoors. The only sound was the gentle tick of a particularly fine George III mahogany longcase clock by James Smith of London.

‘I do like that brass chapter ring and the spandrels,' said Bognor who was enthusiastic about clocks. The owners of the Pickled Herring did not have a taste which coincided with the Bognors at every point. But they did have some nice pieces. The longcase clock struck four melodically and was echoed a few seconds later by the chimes from the village church echoing out across the fields. As they faded the house seemed even more empty and quiet than before.

‘I think I might take a little shufty,' said Simon. ‘See if I can't find something or other incriminating.'

‘Oh,' said Monica, ‘I don't think you should. Snooping around doesn't suit you. It always ends in tears. It's far too hot anyway. I'm going to have a cold shower and a bit of a zizz. Why don't you?'

Bognor stared at her incredulously. ‘A bit of a zizz!' he exclaimed. ‘At four o'clock in the afternoon of a working day? Can you imagine what Parkinson would say? Or Guy?'

‘No need for them to know,' she said. ‘Not under normal circumstances. But being you I suppose you'd get caught out.'

‘I don't know, Monica,' he said looking at her incredulously, ‘I really don't. You sometimes amaze me, you really do.'

And he turned away, walking towards the dining room on tippytoes with cat-like tread. Monica watched him go, then shook her head, and flounced upstairs. He was the most extraordinary man, she told herself, and extraordinarily irritating at times. One of which was this.

There was no one in the dining room and so Bognor crossed it speedily and passed through the swing doors into the kitchen. It too was empty. Spotless copper pans, some very old Sabatier knives, an ice cream maker, antique wooden spoons, strings of garlic and shallots, stainless steel hobs. No people.

Bognor surveyed the emptiness for a few seconds and sighed. He had been hoping for a clue but there was nothing here. His eyes caught a cork noticeboard by a door which looked as if it might lead to a pantry. He strode across and scanned the pieces of paper. There was a butcher's bill and a list of fresh herbs and spices to order from a couple of specialist shops in London; also the Boulogne telephone number of Maître Philippe Olivier, the ubiquitous cheesemonger. He had been praying for something which might, like the Carlsbad disk, say Dull Boy Productions, but there was nothing. Nothing at all.

He sighed and scratched, aware suddenly that even in the kitchen it was devilishly hot.

Gingerly, he tried the door. It yielded but not to a pantry as he had expected but to a sort of pantry corridor which led some thirty feet to a glass back door giving on to the kitchen garden. More doors led off the corridor. The first on the left seemed very heavy, almost like the door to a safe. Bognor tried it, but it seemed very stiff. He tried again but it still wouldn't give. The third time he wrenched at it quite hard and the door opened with surprising ease so that he almost fell into the room.

Suddenly it was cold and he realised that this was the hotel cold store. A whole side of beef was suspended from a hook on the left; shelves held butter and bacon; but most surprisingly of all, stretched out on a marble slab at the far end of this gigantic fridge, was a naked woman.

Bognor gasped.

She was raven-haired and statuesque. Her skin was almost unnaturally white and her lipstick a very vivid red which matched finger and toe nails and, more surprisingly, her nipples. She looked, to Bognor, like Snow White without clothes. Or perhaps the Sleeping Beauty. Dead or sleeping? Bognor was not quite sure, though as he shivered with cold he realised that no naked person could lie like that for long even if they were SAS trained and participating in some peculiarly rigorous NATO exercise. Dead then. With a sick shiver that had nothing to do with the cold he suddenly recalled the steak last night. Surely it couldn't … tremulously he searched the lady's flanks for any sign that a pound or so of flesh might have been removed, but she was intact. No surgeon's knife had disturbed that perfect corpse.

Bognor slapped his arms against his chest. It was exceedingly chill. His breath showed foggy as a car exhaust in a December dawn. He advanced apprehensively on the body, wondering if it was anyone he knew. There was a new girl in the typing pool who, but no, she was shorter and spottier … and that girl in Dallas had a slight look except that she had a café au lait colour and this girl was all strawberries and cream. She looked odder and odder as he got closer, almost as if she had been embalmed or chiselled from some easily worked rock. Moulded in clay even. At a distance of three or four feet he paused. There was something
very
inhuman about her. He was dimly aware that some publisher or other ran a series of books of nude photographs under the generic title
Rude Food.
Publishers, it seemed to him, were increasingly interested in producing artefacts of this nature. This luscious corpse was obviously a gastronomic centrefold.

He advanced still further and ran a finger across the girl's navel. It left a faint line like the first ski on new snow. He licked his finger and frowned thoughtfully. Vanilla with a dash of Cointreau? Or was there some fruit in there too? A suspicion of mango? He reached up to a nipple and removed what looked like a glacé cherry. He was just going through the difficult process of deciding whether to replace it or eat it when he heard a sound behind him.

He spun round swiftly and saw Norman Bone and Felix Entwistle standing in the now open doorway. Norman held a meat cleaver in his right hand; Felix an open litre of tarragon vinegar. Bognor could see at once that the disabling effects of a litre of tarragon vinegar would be near total. He doubted whether Norman would use the cleaver. But it was all fairly academic. He was armed only with a glace cherry.

‘Oh, Mr Bognor,' said Felix nastily. ‘Curiosity killed the cat.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Bognor, ‘I was just looking for some ice.'

‘And instead you found Mademoiselle Fifi.' Felix grinned. ‘I'd be obliged if you would put her nipple back where you found it.'

Bognor did so, wondering as he did whether there was any way he could turn the naked lady sundae into an offensive weapon. He could not think of one.

‘It seems to us,' said Felix, sniffing appreciatively at the bottle of vinegar, ‘that in your very particular way you are becoming as much of a menace as your late and unlamented colleague Brian Wilmslow. His problem was greed. Never satisfied, was he Norman?'

‘Never,' said Norman, testing the meat cleaver. ‘We did consider cutting you in on the deal, Mr Bognor, but we decided against it. Not that you would have agreed, I suspect.'

‘We formed the impression,' said Felix, ‘that you were a man of integrity and therefore not to be trusted. Were we right?'

‘I don't know.' Bognor was playing for time. ‘It depends on the deal.'

‘I doubt that.' Felix had a revoltingly obsequious smile, even more stomach-turning here than when deployed at the dining table. Bognor was beginning to realise that the ‘boys' represented a tougher proposition than he had thought. ‘The point is,' continued Felix, ‘that your attentions are unwelcome and must cease. Alas, the only way in which we can guarantee that they cease is by ensuring that you cease also. And, by venturing in here, you provide us with the perfect opportunity.'

Bognor realised that his shivering was as much from cold as from fear.

‘This is rather a remarkable room,' said Felix, smiling around it. ‘As you can see it is exceedingly efficacious for storing meat and dairy produce. You wouldn't have found ice in here. There is a refrigerator next door for that. This place is just kept chill. However it does have the capacity to freeze. Freeze very hard. A few points on the dial and we can reduce the atmosphere in here to positively arctic conditions. A man would be unlikely to survive for more than a few minutes even in one of those new eiderdown overcoats. Wouldn't you agree, Norman?'

‘No wind chill factor in here,' said Norman. ‘And it would take a little while for the temperature to drop.'

‘We could always put on the fan,' said Felix. ‘But I see no reason to accelerate the process. I think we should allow Mr Bognor some minutes for quiet contemplation. I would guess that if we allow a modest reduction in temperature we could give him up to an hour of consciousness. Death should, I imagine, follow fairly soon after consciousness is lost, but we can always check with Doc Macpherson about that. One of us can make the sad discovery around about six o'clock.

‘That's murder,' said Bognor.

‘But extremely difficult to prove,' said Felix, ‘just as it's extremely difficult to prove that Wilmslow was murdered. Or poor Sir Nimrod. Poor Sir Nimrod.'

‘Sir Nimrod was murdered?' Still Bognor was playing for time, though he could see no way out of this predicament. Even with less than an hour to live, his professional curiosity did not desert him.

Norman looked at Felix. Felix looked at Norman. They smiled with a wan mock compassion.

‘Poor Sir Nimrod,' said Felix. ‘His nerve was failing. He had to go.'

‘Tell me one thing,' said Bognor, mind desperately trying to find a way of stalling, ‘I mean, what exactly
is
Dull Boy Productions?'

The ‘boys' looked at each other and smiled again. Not very pleasingly.

‘In view of your imminent demise,' said Felix, ‘we can perhaps tell you a little something though really we know remarkably little. We have been to one or two of their little soirees but … well let's just say that they're not entirely to our taste. We're only humble caterers.'

‘Fiddling your VAT returns and constructing obscene confections for orgies.'

‘It's all quite harmless,' said Felix. ‘We do have a little stake in the company, but it's very little. And it's true the books wouldn't stand up to a very detailed examination although Brian Wilmslow was ever so clever. Cooked them quite beautifully. We shall miss him.'

‘Erotic cuisine is a very considerable challenge,' said Norman. ‘I spent days on Fifi. We've come a long way since it was just naked ladies leaping out of cakes. You've no idea of the sophistication. The things you can do with meringue!'

‘It all sounds perfectly revolting,' said Bognor. ‘And I don't understand why you bothered. You've got a perfectly decent business here.'

‘Brian Wilmslow was very persuasive,' said Felix. ‘And there's a lot of money in it. Also there's ever such a nice sense of community involved. Almost everyone in the village is a Dull Boy or a Dull Girl one way and another. All except for that dreadful bogus swami and his harem. It's a real co-operative.'

‘It can't be a real co-operative,' said Bognor. ‘There must be a Mr Big. Someone must run it. Peregrine Contractor I suppose.'

‘Now that
would
be telling,' said Felix. He giggled softly. ‘Good night Mr Bognor. Nice knowing you. And don't worry about the bill. We'll make that our little gift of condolence for Mrs Bognor. A token of our respect.'

And very suddenly they stepped outside. Bognor heard a key turn in the lock and footsteps walk away down the flagstones. Then it was silent, and already it was bitterly cold.

Bognor started to jump up and down.

Monica had second thoughts about her shower and her zizz as soon as she got upstairs to Myrtle. It was the thought of the bereaved and destitute Naomi Herring all alone among her gumboots and bacon which was preying on her conscience. It might be that the good samaritans of Herring St George would converge on the stores bearing tea and sympathy, but Monica had formed a low opinion of the good neighbourliness of this particular village. She suspected that there would be precious few shoulders for the squire's daughter to cry on.

She was almost right.

On entering the stores she found that Miss Herring was almost alone but not quite. The professionals, in the person of God's representative in Herring St George, had arrived. The Reverend Branwell Larch had come to dispense his own particular brand of extreme unction – and extremely unctuous it was.

‘“The Lord God giveth and the Lord God taketh away”,' he was saying when Monica arrived, ‘“and in the midst of life we are in death. Just as in the midst of death we are in life.”'

Monica felt like saying ‘Right on, Brother Larch'. But instead she said, ‘Good afternoon, Naomi. Good afternoon Mr Larch.'

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Bognor!' said Mr Larch. ‘It is Mrs Bognor, isn't it? This is a sad day, a sad day indeed. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”'