Deadline (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  ‘Did you speak to him?’ asked Molly.

  ‘As a matter of fact I did. We had a natter before dinner and then afterwards I suggested we went on to Sally’s but he said he had to meet someone. He seemed a bit out of sorts, I thought, but I put it down to the usual.’

  ‘Did you say meet someone?’ asked Bognor, but his question was drowned by the stentorian bellow of ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, pray silence for …’ Bognor recognized the voice of the toastmaster who had officiated at lunch and standing on tiptoes confirmed that it was indeed the same man, in the same ill-fitting jacket.

  Dmitri and Molly swore in unison.

  ‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d known,’ said Molly in a stage whisper. ‘They never have speeches at the Western Fine Arts.’

  ‘Waste of time anyway,’ said Dmitri. ‘Sanguinetti doesn’t speak a word of English.’

  Nevertheless there were speeches. First from the owner of the gallery, then from the diminutive and diffident Sanguinetti who had to have every word translated, inadequately, by a pretty Italian girl with enormous cow-like eyes, and finally a vote of thanks and appreciation from a long-winded pseud who claimed, according to Dmitri and Molly, to be London’s leading art critic. During them Dmitri managed to filch a full bottle from the waiter’s tray. By the time the art critic had finished speaking the combination of boredom and drink had reduced Bognor to near insensibility.

  ‘Did you say meet someone?’ he asked again.

  ‘Sorry, dear boy,’ said Dmitri. ‘What?’

  ‘Meet someone? St John Derby. Did he say he was going to meet someone?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dmitri. ‘Sorry, excuse me but I must have a word with Sanguinetti about bicycle chains.’ He kissed Molly goodbye and disappeared in the crowd. Bognor suddenly felt very weak.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he said, ‘but I really think I’d better get home. I seem to have been drinking all day and I’m not used to it.’

  Molly looked at him, and smiled sympathetically. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘you’ve gone quite white. I really don’t think I would trust you to get home. Come on.’

  She took hold of Bognor by the elbow and propelled him towards the door, smiling and exchanging the odd word with fellow guests as she went. Outside, by good fortune, a taxi was just depositing a late arrival. Molly opened the door, pushed Bognor in, gave an address to the driver, and climbed in after him. Bognor shut his eyes and burped noisily.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve had a skinful.’

  ‘Just go to sleep,’ said Molly. ‘It will take a quarter of an hour to get there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Go to sleep.’

  Bognor shrugged, nodded, burped again and closed his eyes. He hadn’t felt so grim for ages. Thank God he only had a week of Fleet Street to do. Otherwise he certainly wouldn’t last the pace. He prayed he wouldn’t be sick in the taxi. After a moment he dozed off. He woke briefly five minutes later and saw that they were driving along a tunnel. It must be the Hyde Park underpass.

  ‘This isn’t the way home.’

  ‘Not your way home may be, but my way home.’

  ‘Am I going home with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How very improper.’

  ‘The only improper thing is your present condition. You’re paralytic.’

  ‘That’s the second time someone said that this evening.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Don’t tell, will you.’

  Molly laughed softly. ‘Why should I tell?’ she asked. ‘And who?’

  But Bognor had dozed off again.

  He didn’t really come round until he was in her flat. He was sitting on one of those PVC sacks filled with polystyrene. Dimly he realized that he was unlikely to be able to get up without help. He tried to focus on the wall opposite which was covered in hessian and lithographs. There was a leopardskin rug on the floor and a huge fireplace with row upon row of printed invitations on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Feeling any better?’ Molly came in carrying a tray with a steaming half pint mug and a bottle of Alka Seltzer. ‘Drink this,’ she said, ‘I’ve made it black.’ She’d changed into a long, low cut house-dress which clung to her hips. To Bognor she looked infinitely desirable.

  ‘And there’s no point in looking at me like that,’ she said. ‘You’re far too drunk.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like that. Underneath your bland, chubby exterior Simon Bognor I suspect there lurks the Blagdon amateur rapist.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Surely you read Private Eye?’

  ‘Oh yes. I see what you mean. Ouch.’ The coffee was boiling and he’d burnt the roof of his mouth.

  ‘Drink it all,’ she said, ‘and take two Alka Seltzer.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ he said, sipping nervously, ‘what’s the time? Monica will be going spare.’

  ‘In fact it’s only just after eight,’ she said. ‘You got your drinking done early. So Monica won’t be going spare just yet. She won’t go spare till she sees you.’

  Slowly he finished the mug. Molly came back with another and when he was halfway through it she said, ‘Feeling anything approaching sober?’

  ‘I’m not as drunk as all that.’

  ‘Simon darling, you are quite as drunk as all that. More so.’

  ‘Well I’m sobering now. I’m quite sober.’ It was true that the coffee and the Alka Seltzer were removing the cotton wool feeling. He still felt sick.

  ‘I’m a bit queasy,’ he said, ‘but quite sober.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll try to go slowly. Stop me if you don’t understand.’

  ‘OK’

  ‘Right.’ She took a cigarette from the mantelpiece and lit it, breathing out smoke slowly. It reminded Bognor of Bertie Harris. Suddenly he felt a lot more sober.

  ‘Granny Gringe says you once worked for a paper called the Eagle in Winnipeg,’ said Molly, slowly as she’d promised.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Simon, adrenalin starting to flow. ‘What about it?’

  ‘No such thing,’ she said softly, shaking her head and looking at Simon with amusement coupled with kind contempt.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, feebly. ‘I ought to know. I worked for it.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s being ridiculous. First of all I looked it up in the reference books and it wasn’t there. So then I rang the press attaché at the Canadian High Commission and he confirmed it.’

  ‘It must have gone bust.’

  ‘Simon, will you stop being pig-headed. I am trying to make things easier for you and I’m going to try to help you. There is not and there never has been a paper called the Winnipeg Eagle. You claimed that you had worked for a paper called by that name and therefore you were telling a lie. The only possible reason for telling us a lie like that would be to persuade us that you are a real life journalist which you obviously are not.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Can’t take your drink for a start. Also you have an untapped vein of innocence running deep down inside which most journalists have mined by the time they’re twenty-five. So if you’re not a journalist what are you?’

  ‘You’re being silly.’

  Molly puffed impatiently. ‘You arrive in the office on the very day that the boss of the column is murdered. Nobody mentioned you were coming the day before. It was a total surprise to all of us. You were sent on the personal orders of Lord Wharfedale which is unusual. In other words if it wasn’t for your unconventional appearance it would be quite obvious to all and sundry that you’re some sort of plain clothes policeman.’

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘If you are I’d like to help.’

  ‘Oh all right. It strikes me that everyone on the bloody Pepys column is a lot more keen on detection than I am.’

  He handed her the identity card, and she read it, eyebrows raised in amused half-belief.

  ‘Board of Trade,’ she said, appraising
him for a moment, ‘I’d have said Treasury myself. However it’s better than the Post Office or the Ministry of Agriculture.’

  ‘We do cover areas which are not strictly speaking the province of the Board.’

  ‘Clearly.’

  ‘You said you could help.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You know I once had a brief fling with old St John?’

  ‘You denied it this morning. Not very convincingly.’

  ‘That was because of the appalling Milborn. He’s the one man on the column I have never laid a finger on. He resents it.’ She crossed her legs and Bognor again felt sexual stirrings deep down inside him.

  ‘So what?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing except that I’m afraid I threw him over for Bertie. That’s a bit dramatic. Anything between me and Bertie’s always been entirely superficial and I thought the same applied to St John. Then he came round to my flat and made a scene. He got rather over-excited about it all and mucked it up by bringing me plastic roses very good ones to symbolize the everlasting nature of his undying love.’

  ‘That was rather sweet.’

  ‘Except that when I rejected him he threw them on the fire. The smell … God it was dreadful.’

  You bitch, thought Bognor wanting her even more. She laughed.

  ‘I don’t see where this gets us,’ he said.

  ‘Ever since then he became a real pain. He’d cut back my expenses, call me in on my Sunday off, stop me going on foreign trips, that sort of thing. Then I had an affair with Arlington Fingest.’

  Bognor grinned. Arlo Fingest was now Minister for Overseas Development. A Catholic; his young, beautiful and numerous progeny and his immaculate and handsome novelist wife were much advertised in the press. He presented a public picture of utter fidelity, yet even Bognor had heard rumours.

  ‘The Member for Barnes?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a poppet but a two-timing, hypocritical poppet. And very good … never mind. St John found out.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He found a letter in my drawer. He intercepted a phone call. He saw us in a restaurant.’

  ‘All by chance?’

  Molly arched her eyebrows. ‘Are you feeling better?’ she asked. Bognor nodded. ‘Do you think you’ll remember this in the morning?’

  He grimaced. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If you were a journalist you’d write it down. That’s why journalists are supposed to do shorthand. They’re too drunk to trust their memory. Usually too hung over to read their notes the next day but that’s another story.’

  ‘Aren’t you exaggerating?’

  ‘Of course I’m exaggerating, darling. That’s journalism too.’

  Bognor suppressed another burp. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘St John Derby found out you were having an affair with Arlington Fingest. Then what?’

  ‘He tried to blackmail us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’ She got up and went over to a trolley loaded with bottles from which she helped herself to a Scotch. For a second she looked at Bognor inquiringly and then said, ‘That coffee’s having a remarkable effect but I don’t think you’re ready for a drink, do you?’ He winced back at her and wondered if she had to wear a corset. She was remarkably flat tummied.

  ‘I don’t have any letters if that’s what you mean,’ she went on. ‘St John was far too sly to put it in writing. He asked Arlo round to his club for dinner, said he wanted to pick his brains about some stories and then tried to blackmail him over the brandy. Arlo stalled and came to me. I fixed it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Child’s-play. I told St John I didn’t give a bugger who knew that I was having it off with Arlington Fingest and that I for my part would rather see him in the nick for blackmail than pay up, even if it did mean the end of a promising career and a lovely relationship.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘St John stayed out of the nick, the promising career flourished and the lovely relationship came to an end.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘St John believed me, which was just as well because I wasn’t bluffing.’

  ‘It can’t have helped your relationship with him.’

  ‘On the contrary. He bought me lunch at the Connaught and we became the best of friends again. It appealed to his sense of humour.’

  ‘And Fingest?’

  ‘Fingest was thoroughly ungrateful and rather huffy. He thought I’d trifled with his career and trifled with his affections, and since to be honest the only things I had actually trifled with were his body and his cheque book I was glad to be rid of him. I never went near his affections let alone his career.’

  Bognor sighed. The adrenalin was on the wane and he was feeling sleepy again. ‘I’m fascinated,’ he said, ‘and it’s kind of you to be so frank, but I don’t see why this is relevant. I mean it’s years ago. You’re surely not suggesting that St John Derby was murdered by the Minister of Overseas Development because of an extra-marital indiscretion committed in Opposition.’

  ‘Opposition? Opposition to what?’ It was Molly’s turn to be bemused.

  ‘To the Government. He was only an opposition MP when it happened.’

  ‘I have had ministers,’ she pouted, self deprecatingly. ‘Not very senior ministers I admit, but still ministers.’

  Bognor felt mounting frustration, sexual and conversational.

  ‘Where does this get us?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I forgot you’d had so much to drink. St John Derby tried to blackmail my lover about ten years ago. He didn’t succeed because of me but nevertheless he handled it with quite a high degree of sophistication. If Fingest had been involved with some professional tart or a married woman who had more to lose than me, then he’d have coughed up.’

  ‘How much did St John ask?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Quite a modest sum, but he’d have been back for more. They always are. The point is it all came quite naturally to him. Second nature, you could say.’

  ‘You mean he blackmailed other people?’

  ‘I don’t know for certain but it seems very likely. I can’t believe Fingest was the only one.’

  ‘No. Do you know if he blackmailed anyone else? Anyone on the column for instance?’

  ‘I doubt it. Everyone always assumes that gossip columnists sleep around, and drink and take drugs, so there’s no opportunity to blackmail them. But he must have been getting money from somewhere and you can be sure it wasn’t bloody Wharfedale Newspapers. Rich as Croesus and mean as Scrooge. You learn a lot about the foibles of the rich and famous doing our sort of job. It’s an obvious base for a professional blackmailer.’

  Bognor frowned and tried to concentrate.

  ‘I’m going to give you one small drink to help you think,’ said Molly, ‘and then home to bed.’

  ‘I don’t want another drink,’ said Bognor feebly, but she poured out a cognac and another Scotch for herself.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘all I have to do is find out who he was getting money from and eliminate from there.’ He sipped. ‘You’re the second person today who’s pointed out the disparity between Derby’s money and his earned income.’

  ‘And who was the first?’

  ‘Bertie Harris, actually.’

  ‘Bertie would know the exact salary, and he’s not exactly unobservant. I could tell you a thing or two about him.’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘Some other time.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s getting late. You’d better get to your girl before she really does go spare.’

  Bognor made a face. He had forgotten about Monica and he was getting drunk again. She was going to be censorious and unsympathetic. Getting to his feet was going to be the problem, he decided. These sacks were very relaxing but it wasn’t easy to extricate yourself at the best of times and this certainly wasn’t that. At the second attempt he managed it.


  ‘Oh dear Simon,’ she said, stubbing out a cigarette, her fifth at least. ‘You are in trouble. That cognac wasn’t wise.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I told you so.’

  ‘No willpower, Mr Bognor,’ she said, laughing. ‘Come on, I’ll help you out.’ She armed him to the lift, which was tiny. So small that they had to stand very close. Bognor felt more sexual stirrings.

  ‘Who,’ he asked, ‘do you think might have a clue about Derby’s blackmailees?’

  ‘I’d start with Anthea Morrison,’ said Molly, as the lift clanged to the ground floor, ‘she doesn’t miss anything that girl, though I don’t think anyone else realizes how much she takes in. They’re all wildly indiscreet with her. And occasionally she has provided a shoulder to cry on. She kept St John’s diary too.’

  They were out in the street now and she pulled her arms round her chest and shivered. A light sleet was falling and the pavement was slippery with slush. ‘Sloane Square’s just down there,’ she said, pointing left where the street turned a corner fifty yards away. ‘It’s not far and there’s a taxi rank. I’d come with you only it’s too bloody cold and I’m not wearing anything.’ She stamped her feet. ‘Are you going to be all right?’ She put her hands out and placed them on his cheeks, staring at him for a second. ‘You look terrible,’ she said softly. ‘Absolutely bloody terrible. But I think you’ll make it.’ She leant forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said, and turned back through the swing doors into the block.

  Bognor set off uncertainly. The street was deserted and ill lit and he was smashed out of his mind. The last cognac had set the alcohol in motion again and he could scarcely see where he was going. He set his sights on a lamp-post at the junction of the street and a small alley, and steered towards it.

  ‘A kiss,’ he muttered to himself. ‘A small kiss but a kiss nonetheless.’ Light as a gossamer’s wing. More of a peck than a kiss, but it had been on the lips. It could have been on a cheek. That would have been different. No hint of promise in a kiss on the cheek however sensuous, but a kiss on the lips, even one as light as a gossamer’s wing. What was a gossamer’s wing anyway? Had he got it right? It didn’t much matter. Did she fancy him? Did she fancy everyone? Not Milborn Port. Was he in love? Maybe not but she had kissed him. On the lips.