Yet Another Death in Venice (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  “No,” said Bognor, “I suppose not.”

  They ate their fish thoughtfully and more or less silently.

  They drank wine and water, tap, from tumblers.

  “Cards at Christmas,” said Dibdini, “regular as clockwork. That was all. No message. Just a line, always the same. ‘Your little Sis.’” He shrugged. “Not so little if the photos are true. Obese.”

  “Photos?”

  “The marvels of modern science. We checked the flat. My man sent them on the Net. JPEG or something. Magic but useful.”

  “I like magic,” said Bognor, “when it’s useful. Not when it isn’t. Just gets in the way.”

  His friend grinned and speared squid.

  “When it is useful,” he said. “Even food has use, sì?” And he grinned, happy.

  “Sì,” said Bognor. He smiled back. Happy, too.

  This was obviously going to be a case for Bognor. Like many of the best cases, it would not go through the normal channels. Bognor did not like the normal channels, mistrusted them and used unconventional methods wherever and whenever possible. This was obviously a classic case of nodding, winking, and committing as little as possible to paper. He preferred it that way. Always had. It made him enemies, but he liked that, too.

  SIDBOT, the Special Investigations Department of the Board of Trade, was not what it seemed. In the sometimes-murky world of intelligence, counterintelligence, and espionage, very little was. Indeed, you could argue that every organization in that world was some sort of a front. Even the most obvious—MI6 and MI7—had bland exteriors that often concealed the lethal truth within.

  SIDBOT was often overlooked, even by its peers. So-called “experts” tended to ignore the department within a department despite the fact that it was, in its own estimation at least, the ultimate lean machine and better connected and better at its job than any of its bigger and more cack-handed competitors. Parkinson had been, in his old-fashioned, unobtrusive way, one of the great operators. He was a classic back-of-the-room boy, unnoticeable, unnoticed, shadowy, and unknown. He lived a modest, unaffected suburban life, kept regular hours, inspired intense loyalty among friends and colleagues, including Bognor, and disdain among those who did not even think of themselves as rivals. If part of the game was not being noticed and not being reckoned, then people such as Parkinson, Bognor, and Contractor were past masters. Very few people even knew they existed. That was a huge strength, particularly in such a self-congratulatory world.

  “He made The Coffee Grinders,” said Bognor. “Produced, directed, wrote. Did everything but act. He left acting on screen to his employees. Off-screen he did lots.”

  Dibdini, his mouth full, nodded agreement. When he had swallowed, he said, “I’m afraid I didn’t see it.”

  “Nor I,” said Bognor.

  “In Italian,” said Dibdini, “it was called Espresso. The literal translation would have been Macinacaffè, which is not such a good title. Espresso is better.”

  “In English, the word refers to the machine and to the person who operates it. Sort of double entendre. That’s not the case in Italian. An extra reason for Espresso being a better title. We have the word in English, too. In fact, it could have been a better title in England as well.”

  Dibdini looked noncommittal. “I understand it was a very poor movie,” he said.

  “Silverburger only made poor movies,” said Bognor. “That was his stock-in-trade. People enjoyed them. It was what he was famous for and it made him a lot of money.”

  “Evidently.” Michael looked pained. “You have no idea who killed him?”

  “None whatsoever,” said his friend. “Could have been anyone. It was the middle of Carnival. A crossbow would have attracted no attention. It was simple. How do you say? ‘Beautiful in its simplicity.’” He smiled with satisfaction at having got the phrase right.

  “No leads?” said Bognor. “No ideas? Nothing?”

  “Nothing whatsoever,” Michael seemed to relish drawing a complete blank. “Our friend took a private water taxi from the Hotel Danieli to Marco Polo airport. Somewhere along the route, he was shot in the back by a bolt from a crossbow. It was Carnival time. The revelers wore masks. Many would have carried crossbows. A real-life assassin would have passed unnoticed. Did pass unnoticed.”

  “Maybe it was someone having target practice?” The policeman spread his hands. “Possible.”

  “A joke?”

  “Not in good taste, but also possible.”

  Michael speared the final piece of fish. “Everything is possible. All we know is that Mr. Silverburger was alive when he entered the boat and he was dead by the time he arrived at the airport. Beyond that, nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Fred cleared away their plates and brought the dolcelatte. The portions of blue-veined cheese looked stark and unadorned. Sometimes they had the tiramisu or the tartuffo. Latterly, elsewhere, they had tried the affogato—hot espresso, cold vanilla ice cream, and Amaretto. But not today. They always ate and drank the same. Today was the cheese. It was part of the ritual.

  “A little grappa,” suggested Michael, “with the coffee. To settle the stomach.” The grappa had nothing to do with settling the stomach and they both knew it. They didn’t care, but it was part of the ritual, so they ordered it. And it came with the coffee and another wispy smile from Fred, who was part of their game and knew it and enjoyed it as well.

  “Your man Silverburger. He had a lot of enemies?” ventured Bognor.

  “Not my man,” said Michael. “God’s perhaps. Or the devil’s. And nobody liked him but nobody enough to kill.”

  “Un crime passionnel,” said Bognor. “Cherchez la femme. Or in this case le garçon. Or something.”

  “Something possibly,” said his friend. “He was insatiable and without discrimination. Anything, anyone that moved. He took a gondola down the canal soon after he arrived and invited the gondolier home. He came. Money changed hands. And bodily fluids.” He laughed. “We have taken a statement. Maybe we should also speak to Benito’s mother. And Benito’s Doberman. The family goat?”

  He drank coffee and smiled. “You’re incorrigible,” said Bognor.

  This was not a word in the Italian’s English vocabulary, but he caught its gist and smiled.

  Bognor smiled back. “On this trip, then, a gondolier called Benito? Anyone else?”

  “He was seeking finance for his new movie. In English, I think it was to be called The Lemon Peelers. In Italian, Limoncello. That would make both the English and Italian movies sequels, if you follow me. Coffee Grinders, Lemon Peelers; Espresso, Limoncello.”

  Michael smiled. Like so many Italians, he took pleasure in language, enjoying the noise, letting words and syllables luxuriate in his mouth, before escaping in an exhalation of onomatopoeia. Bognor enjoyed the sound of words, too, but had an almost Germanic interest in meaning. He viewed language primarily as a means of communication, not of entertainment. He valued precision, whereas Dibdini did not like meaning to interfere with a mellifluous sound. Like a journalist who did not allow the truth to interfere with a good story.

  “You want me to be involved and yet not involved,” said Bognor, returning to basics. His moutons, as the French would insist.

  Dibdini said nothing but looked conspiratorial and acquiescent. This was how the two men liked to do business, with as much under the table as up front. It had become a trademark of SIDBOT so that newcomers to the corridors of power would sometimes ask one another, “What exactly does SIDBOT do?” and receiving no satisfactory answer would pass on. Bognor’s attitude was that SIDBOT dealt in shadows, illusions, and poker. If they reflected that and played a real-life game of grandmother’s footsteps and ‘now you see me, now you don’t,’ then that meant the organization was only behaving in character. “Spremiagrumi,” said Fred, who was hovering around as always on the thin pretext of something to do with the coffee and/or grappa. He would have made a good spy; maybe was one. “That’s a juicer not a zester,” said Bogno
r, not fazed and not changing rhythm nor breaking sweat. He accepted Fred and his perfect right to take part in their discussion.

  Fred, for his part, didn’t accept that what he had done was eavesdropping let alone what Bognor was brought up to call ‘picking up fag ends.’ He was an equal partner. Just because he was a waiter didn’t mean that he was some kind of inferior. He had just as much right to express a view as either of the two. Just because they had paid and he was getting paid. It was different in England. Waiters were by definition inferior to those upon whom they waited. Elsewhere, it was not the same, and there were even countries mainly in the gastronomically developed world where the reverse was true. Jack was not only as good as his master; he was better.

  Neither Bognor nor Dibdini was stupid or snobbish enough to ignore Fred’s thoughts. They were not gullible enough to believe everything he said, but they listened. Unusual, but both men prided themselves on their open minds.

  “So you want me to have a look at Silverburger’s life in London.”

  “My understanding is that he spent much of his life in your country. He had several dwellings around the world, but he seems to have been based in London. He was what I believe you call a ‘non-dom.’ His films were made in studios in the United Kingdom. The locations were wherever he could broker a deal.”

  “Where he could do something on the cheap?”

  “He did not like to spend money,” said Dibdini, “except possibly on himself. But even then he preferred to have someone else paying the money.”

  “Who were his benefactors?”

  “That is what I am asking you,” said Dibdini. “We know that he was seeking finance here in Venice, but we know very little about his activities in the United Kingdom. You, my old friend, are expert in such matters. Even if you do not know, you can discover.”

  Michael was surprisingly ham-fisted when it came to flattery.

  Bognor smiled and sipped first coffee and then grappa. “So you do the Italian end, and I do the English. And we compare notes on a regular basis. Should we develop a watertight case, then it’s your baby.”

  “The murder was committed here in Venice, so it’s my problem,” he said. He raised a glass. “Cheers!” he said. “So we have a deal? And how is Monica? Or should I say Lady Bognor? She is with you? Will you be going to Torcello? Is there a concert? An exhibition? What brings you here?”

  Bognor sighed. “This,” he said. “That. You. No, she’ll always be Monica to the two of us. And Signora Dibdini? Laura?”

  “Laura is fine,” said Dibdini.

  The wives did not get on; nor the wives and their husbands’ foreign counterpart. Pity. It didn’t interfere with the relationship between the two men, and it didn’t impinge, either. They were both uxorious in their different ways and yet also very masculine in an old-fashioned way. There was something of the bachelor about both—a whiff of tweed and leather and eau de cologne. They liked books and libraries and the sort of food one associates with the better boarding schools and gentleman’s clubs: savories, claret, oysters, game. Their wives were much more emancipated and progressive. To those who didn’t know both, Bognor and Dibdini might have seemed old-fashioned. Very few people began to understand what they were doing with Monica and with Laura. Yet their women were vital, and if you didn’t understand that and if you didn’t get the relationship and its importance, then you would always find them unfathomable. Which most people did.

  “Doesn’t seem a very nice man,” said Bognor, stating the obvious.

  “But successful,” said Dibdini. “Contemporary society seems to like that kind of person. Life today is little other than one Silverburger after another.”

  This, too, was a statement of the obvious. “He won’t be missed,” said Bognor.

  “Maybe not,” said Dibdini, “but he was alive, and now he is dead. And this was not natural. Not what was meant. Someone has interfered with the natural course of events. A religious person would say that the murderer got in the way of God.”

  “Yes.” Bognor knew that. Neither man was religious, but they had respect for those who were. They did not believe in God, but part of each of them wished that they did and had affinity for those who had that belief. Aside from which, much of their jobs consisted of resisting an interference with which they basically agreed. Most of those who were murdered got what they deserved and even what they were asking for. This, however, was something which neither the special investigator nor the superior Italian policeman realized until after they had entered their profession. By then, it was too late.

  “We’re better off without him.” Dibdini raised his glass and nodded. “The world, too,” continued Bognor. They agreed about that, too.

  “We still have a job to do,” said Dibdini. “You, in this case.”

  “Not now,” said Dibdini. “We are agreed. The job is ours.

  We may not like it. But it is ours. It is shared.”

  Bognor thought about this. Then it was his turn to raise his glass and to nod. He said nothing, but they understood each other.

  4

  Irving G. Silverburger was not a nice man, dead or alive.

  This was a hazard of Bognor’s job. He had discovered over the years that it was more than possible to establish a rapport with murderers, but that those they killed were often unpleasant. You could even argue that they had it coming to them. Death, that was. It came to everyone sooner or later, a cliché that Bognor kept at the forefront of his mind most of the time and preferred to describe as a truism. Bognor’s job was to try to minimize the artificially induced early arrival of this universal fact and to punish those responsible. He was not a great believer in rehabilitation and, though not religious, tended to subscribe to the doctrine of original sin. It should also be conceded that murder cases, though high profile and on the whole enjoyable, were not the stuff of his life, which had much more to do with pieces of paper, customs, and excise, and useless clutter of daily life.

  He and Lady B. spent a happy few days in La Serenissima and came home sated with dubious seafood, painting, music, and the novels of Salley Vickers. Both had a good time, and it wasn’t until his return to the office that Bognor’s thoughts turned to the dead Mr. Silverburger. Contractor’s report was on his desk. At the top. Mandatory reading.

  Reading carefully took him the best part of half an hour. He read the print, of course. But also—as required and, as he always did—he read between the lines as well. At the end of it, he liked the late Mr. Silverburger even less than at the outset. If such a thing were possible, which seemed unlikely. He buzzed for Contractor, who came running, though not breathless. Bognor noted the alacrity and the youth and fitness and came to his point. “Nasty piece of work.”

  “You could say that, Boss.”

  “I just did.”

  “Right. I agree. Should have been able to get to the airport without a crossbow bolt between the shoulder blades, though.”

  “True.” It was his point entirely. Just because Silverburger was a waste of space didn’t mean that you had to shoot him. If that were the case and SIDBOT had a license to kill, there would be no one left on the planet. “Do you think there was anyone in London who might have killed him?”

  “Difficult to say, Boss,” said Contractor, hedging his bets like the good civil servant he was. It was the correct response, but unhelpful. Bognor knew better than to expect anything else to such a question.

  He thought of asking if Contractor thought the murderer lived in London but thought better of it.

  “Was he sleeping with Ingrid Vincent?” he asked instead.

  It was obviously on the tip of his subordinate’s tongue to come up with something that was open to any one of a number of different interpretations, but Contractor clearly thought two ambiguities in a row was too much.

  “Probably,” he said. “Silverburger slept with anything that moved, and Miss Vincent distributed her favors to anyone she thought might help her. If she thought Silverburger would get her
work, she’d have sex with him. The casting couch. It’s an old tradition in celluloid circles.”

  “Grandmother,” said Bognor.

  This was a private code that basically meant don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs; meaning in plain English that Contractor should not tell his boss things that he knew perfectly well already, especially when these had to do with common practice. Bognor knew that aspiring film stars were traditionally supposed to sleep with producers of movies in which they coveted work. He had also heard the ancient story about the dumb blonde who slept with the writer by mistake. He suspected that Silverburger was a past master of the casting-couch ploy. “So is Ingrid a suspect?” he asked.

  “Lousy actress. Loose morals. Big boobs. I’d say yes, but I have no evidence.”

  “That’ll do for now. Anyone else?”

  “Ingrid was in The Coffee Grinders,” said Contractor, “which means that she had form. In a manner of speaking. All she had to do was flaunt her breasts and pout. Both of which came naturally.”

  “Figures,” said Bognor. “And to a lesser degree, every winnable starlet in London. What about Trevor?”

  “Helps out at tea parties,” said Contractor. “In other words, gay as all get-out. Looks after the flat that is one of those 1920s mansion jobs off Kensington High Street. I just have a feeling in my bones that there’s no sex involved and that it really is a professional arrangement. Don’t ask me how or why. But that’s my feeling.”

  “So you rule him out?”

  Contractor considered. “I wouldn’t rule him out, but I wouldn’t have him on my A-list, either. Certainly not near the top. Don’t ask me why; it’s just a hunch.”

  Contractor’s hunches might not stand up in court, but they were usually right. Which is why Bognor was inclined to work on them.

  “But you do have a feeling about the accountant? The financial adviser, that is.”

  “Bromley man,” said Contractor. “Yes. Don’t ask me why. He doesn’t fit into any pattern. Rather the reverse. I just don’t feel happy about him.”