Yet Another Death in Venice (The Simon Bognor Mysteries)

by Tim Heald

  Bognor had known prefects such as that at school. Teachers, too. Even the headmaster had preached servitude while practicing superiority. If authority were questioned, authority reacted in a predictable reactionary way. If you suggested that the man in charge of the vessel was using his pole in the wrong way, or that the priest was lacking in his knowledge of the scriptures, the men would call “time out” and protest that the heckling itself was a breach of some unformulated rule known only to them. This was humbug. It was recognized as such by Bognor and his subordinate. They both disliked it and the fact that it ruled the world.

  Even so it did not make the practitioners into killers. Hypocrites, yes. And the worst sort, too. Arrogant men pretending to be humble; the Uriah Heaps of life. Yet no one dared to point out that they were wearing the emperor’s new clothes. The smug inherited the earth and especially those who pretended to be subjects but were actually monarchs. Nevertheless, that did not make such men murderers.

  “Didn’t like Father Carlo. Greedy. Eyes like a pig. Sweaty hands.” Thus Bognor. “Didn’t care for the way he ate breakfast. No holding back. Men of the cloth should practice fastidiousness. They should at least seem to be humble. Arrogance is never attractive, especially in servants of the Lord.”

  “Nor in servants of mammon,” said Contractor. “At least bankers are upfront about it. Gondoliers pretend to be interested in their craft while actually only caring for the color of their passengers’ money.”

  “I suppose gondoliers are like waiters,” mused Bognor. “They wring their hands, bend double, walk backward, and yet we are all terrified of them. It’s a farce, a charade.”

  “Wine waiters more than the food guys,” Contractor said with feeling. A sommelier had once refused to serve him an Argentinian chardonnay on the grounds that it was ghastly. When Contractor had protested that it was cheap and on the list, the sommelier had shrugged as if to suggest that he knew best—better than those who compiled the list and certainly better than the common customer, especially one whose girlfriend was too nubile and obviously unearned. Contractor, who had been intent on impressing the blonde, was humiliated but too ignorant to answer back.

  “Don’t like them,” he said, echoing his master’s thoughts, “but that doesn’t make them murderers.”

  15

  Bognor rang Venice. Dibdini answered. “Benito, the gondolier,” said Bognor.

  “Sì,” said Dibdini, “the gondolier, Benito.”

  “You have interviewed him?”

  “Of course. He had sex with Silverburger. He is a suspect.”

  “Because he had sex with the deceased?”

  Bognor could almost feel his old friend spreading his hands in a gesture of exasperation. Bognor didn’t do exasperation to anyone except his wife, and he didn’t spread his hands even for her. Foreign sentiment; extremely foreign gesture. “I didn’t mean that,” he said, trying to appear emollient. “Just wondered what you thought.”

  “I didn’t like him.”

  That meant depressingly little. Both men had a soft spot for murderers. Given a choice between a killer and a thief or swindler, much less a law-abiding member of the public, he and Michael would rather the killer any day. Killers had chutzpah. Those who didn’t would like to but hadn’t the guts. Detectives had more in common with those they chased than those they were supposed to protect.

  “Weasel,” said Dibdini. “He was a rodent. Predatory. I don’t think he would kill; he was more of a scavenger. I do not believe he would have any moral scruples about killing, but I do believe he would lack the essential bravery. He seemed too cowardly. I do not believe he murdered our friend.”

  “Silverburger was not our friend. I am operating on a matter of principle.”

  The Italian did not deal in such abstracts; did not believe in morality, in right or wrong except when confronted by such attributes in human form. He knew a villain when he saw one, but he did not recognize villainy. This did not make him a bad policeman. On the contrary. He was, however, not as good in debate as his English counterpart and certainly could not hold a candle to Contractor. Dibdini thought of semiotics as some sort of pasta. Bognor liked his food, but he was motivated by morality when it came to his work. He was an expert at good and evil, though he was unconvinced by the idea that there was such a thing as a bad man. There were, indubitably, bad things, but Bognor believed they were not done by inherently bad people. In this, he differed from his Italian friend.

  “Berlusconi’s a bad bugger,” Michael would mutter when he had drunk too much grappa. Bognor shared the disapproval but believed that the Italian politician was simply misguided. He was not necessarily a bad man; just one who had mislaid his moral compass.

  For Dibdini, Benito the gondolier was a bad man. End of story. Bognor, on the other hand, thought the boatman had taken a wrong turn. From time to time, Dibdini remonstrated, suggesting that a character was beyond redemption. Bognor believed implicitly that the sin was reprehensible and should be punished. On the other hand, he did not subscribe to the idea of the sinner. The Venetian policeman considered the two as indistinguishable. Bad men did bad things, and society should be protected from them. Bognor believed that there was good in everyone and that even the person who had committed the foulest crimes was capable of being reformed. Dibdini thought this fanciful nonsense and that it cluttered the mind.

  “So Benito is in London?”

  “He is in Colindale. His uncle operates a taxi company. Benito is driving for his uncle, or so he claims. That, as you would say, is his story. However, his uncle pays very little money. The family has a reputation for being less than generous. It is my belief that Benito makes money from sex. He is a male prostitute. He goes with such as the late Silverburger. He is, as you would say, a for-hire person. His body is the only thing that he is able to offer. So he hires himself for sex.”

  “A rent boy.”

  “If you say so.”

  Bognor did. He knew, too, that Dibdini was quite familiar with the phrase. Venice might be relatively free of murder and mayhem but it was full of rent boys and girls. Sex was universal and it often came at a price.

  “So Benito is driving a taxi?”

  This sudden turn of direction clearly took his old friend by surprise.

  “Benito,” he said, “is driving a car. Like Benito’s body, it is available. At a price. You pay the money, and Benito is yours for an hour or what you pay. Same with the car.”

  For some reason, Bognor was reminded of the backwoods Tory member of Parliament of Neanderthal disposition who was told that there was a new brothel within easy reach of Westminster. In this place, you could have a woman and a bottle of claret for a mere thirty pounds or something suitably modest. The knight of the shire wrinkled his nose and said, “Must be bloody awful wine!”

  Now Bognor found himself saying, “Benito may be able to drive, but he does not know his way around London. He hasn’t even done ‘the knowledge.’”

  This made him seem as reactionary in his attitude as the notional Tory member of Parliament, which he was not. Actually, Bognor liked to think of himself as to the left of center. This was not a view widely shared, particularly by those younger than himself.

  “Benito drives a taxicab because this gives him what you might call respectability. It is similar to being a gondolier here in Venice. It is what you would call ‘a cover’ for his other activities. Sex is a great deal more lucrative than driving a machine, even a gondola. Sex is worth money, and it can be fun. Perhaps we should all have been prostitutes.”

  Bognor was shocked by this and said so. Actually, he said, “Taxi driving in London is shocking. Half the drivers speak no English and know Khartoum or Cartagena better than London. Say what you like about old-fashioned black-cab drivers, but they knew their job.”

  He felt Dibdini acquiesce. “However,” pointed out the Italian, “the old-fashioned taxi man did not offer sex.”

  “Quite right,” said Bognor, who was still feeling outr
aged. “One job at a time is quite enough, and it helps to be able to do that job well. I’m far from convinced that Benito is good at either.”

  As he uttered this judgment, he realized that he seemed to be condoning prostitution; could at least be thought to be doing so.

  “Not,” he added hastily, “that I think one should muddle up driving with sex.”

  “Benito is better at the one than the other,” said the Italian, “which is to say that he understands his own body better than he understands the automobile, which is someone else’s.”

  “Helps to know where you’re going,” Bognor remarked drily. “When it comes to sex, the result is always the same. The conclusion is therefore satisfactory. When it comes to driving about London, it’s a crapshoot. You could get anywhere at all, by any means available. Exciting. Unpredictable. Unlike bed with Benito. I should imagine sexual congress with Benito is a sad business whereas driving in the back of his car carries a certain risk and excitement. I know which I’d rather do.”

  “You English are all the same,” said Michael. “You would prefer to drive in the back of a car than experience the amorous adventures of the boudoir.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Bognor, who had a robust no nonsense attitude to sex, typical of his class, generation, gender, and nationality. He and Monica engaged in coital activity in the missionary position, once or twice a week with the lights off. Anything more adventurous was foreign and mildly disgusting. Like aftershave or washing more than necessary.

  Benito had a foreigner’s enthusiasm for bodily functions. Likewise Silverburger. One bought; the other sold. The transaction was, to Bognor’s eye, extremely un-English and, like so many things, probably constituted a beatable offense. Ultimately, though, it was sad. Bognor was not by nature judgmental; nor was he uncharitable. He did not believe in throwing stones, knowing only too well that he was likely to come off second best in any stone-throwing competition. Nor was he sexually greedy. It seemed to him that one person was more than enough for the most self-indulgent libido and also that some sort of monogamy was socially desirable all around. He found it sad when such was not the case; particularly when what should, in his view, have an element of spirituality or at least friendship, and a certain mutual incredulity or at least amusement should become a matter of commercial transaction. He took the view that sex was absolutely not to do with money.

  This was obviously not the view of Silverburger or of Benito, the gondolier. It was sadder by the fact that the one had so little to sell and the other so little to offer, except for cash. It was, he supposed, ever thus. It was not in his nature to be censorious about this, but it still made him a little sad. The thought of Benito in bed made him shudder slightly; Silverburger likewise. But then the reality of sexual congress invariably had a quality of absurdity about it. He never gave a second thought to what Monica and he got up to in bed, but he had to concede that outsiders would find their coupling disgusting or risible, possibly both and only mildly so, but only an imbecile or an extreme optimist would think otherwise. Sex was not a dignified occupation even if it was, for most people, commonplace and usual. Best not to think about it.

  On the other hand, Benito the gondolier sold it and Silverburger bought it. That may have been sad, but it did not mean that the former was a murderer or, come to that, that his being a commercial consumer constituted an invitation for Silverburger to be shot with a crossbow bolt on his way to the airport in the middle of Carnival. Bognor frowned. Abnormality was suspect and this was abnormal. Common, but unusual.

  “I’d better have a word with Benito,” he said, and was agreeably surprised when Michael had the number of Benito’s uncle’s car rental company in North London. “And the girl,” he said almost as an afterthought. “I suppose she has also come to London.”

  “As matter of fact, yes.”

  “I only deal in matters of fact,” Bognor said humorlessly. “I leave conjecture to others.” He almost said foreigners but checked himself. Dibdini was not English, but he was supposed to be a friend. Friendship came before nationality. Well, most of the time it did.

  “They say all roads lead to Rome,” said the Italian, “but in matters carnal, that is not evidently so. London is the center of the sexual universe.”

  “I thought she worked in a hotel,” said Bognor, all faux-naif.

  “That is what you might call a cover,” said Dibdini. “In the hotel, the manager and the rest of the wigbigs turn the blind eye.”

  “Bigwigs,” corrected Bognor, thinking to himself that the malapropism was more sonorous and actually better in most respects. “So she is a prostitute? Sophia?”

  “Not at all,” protested Dibdini, who clearly believed Bognor had maligned his alleged countrywoman. “She is what I believe you would describe as ‘an enthusiastic amateur.’ But if the gentleman is prepared to pay for her recreation, then she will take his money. And, forgive me, my friend, there are more men who will pay for pleasure in England than in Italy. In Italy, we do not believe that one should pay for pleasure.”

  “How can I find Sophia?” asked Bognor, and was unsurprised to be given the name of a well-known West End hotel. It was well known to those in his profession to be little more than what men of his class and generation described as a “knocking shop.”

  “So she’s a tart masquerading as a washerwoman?”

  “She is a maid who enjoys sex and uses her femininity to augment her wages,” said Dibdini. It was his turn to sound pompous.

  Bognor said he supposed he would have to talk to her, too, if only on the grounds of sexual equality. Privately, he did not see that an equation between sex and money made either person a murderer but if, on the other hand, one was prepared to sell one’s body to any Tom, Dick, or Harry, you would presumably not flinch from being a hired assassin. He suddenly felt unaccountably weary.

  “I’ll let you know how I get on,” he said. “For now, though, toodle pip.” And he put down the receiver. He liked his telephones to be functional, traditional, and serviceable. Like sex. He sighed. If only life were not so complicated. So foreign. Much simpler to be British and to take one’s pleasures seriously, even if they came at a price.

  Bognor had no wish to have sex with Benito nor to be driven anywhere by him. He guessed that either would turnout to be something of a magical mystery tour and he had no wish to take such risks in matters sexual or transportational. He liked to know where he was going to end up in both instances and was too old for surprises. He did not, therefore, beat about the bush.

  “I’m the head of SIDBOT,” he said, “and I’m investigating the murder of Irving Silverburger. In Venice. During Carnival. When you were there.”

  “Sì,” said Benito, “many people were there. And Signor Silverburger.”

  “Yes,” said Bognor, sounding grim. “And you had sex with him?”

  “Sì,” he said. “For money?”

  “Sì,” he repeated. He managed to imply that this was quite usual. Maybe it was.

  “You also gondoliered him about the place.”

  “Sì,” said the prostitutional oarsman. “That, too, was for money. Mr. Silverburger paid money.”

  “I put it to you,” said Sir Simon, “that you killed Mr. Silverburger.”

  There was a silence. They were in the HQ of Benito’s uncle’s car rental company. The cars were all right, and the drivers, ditto, in a too-smooth-by-half, cavalier fashion. The latter spoke no known language and had only the shakiest knowledge of London. HQ, however, was terminally tacky with very ancient sofas, magazines of similar antiquity with such esoteric titles as Practical Rollerskating, and limited space. Clients never visited it. It existed only as a place for the drivers to rest between assignments. Clients would be put off. They liked their limos air-conditioned and leathery. HQ was a notch or three down and not designed for customers.

  “Mr. Silverburger was killed?”

  Simon could see that this was a question, but he was perplexed by it. Did it impl
y doubt about whether or not Silverburger was dead? Or that he was known to be dead, but doubt over whether or not he was murdered? And what, if anything, was the subtext? Was it a form of attack being the best defense? What exactly was it designed to suggest? Not for one moment did Bognor consider that it was anything as simple as an off-the-top-of-the-head spontaneous response to his question. Life was not like that. Sometimes he wished it was, but alas it was not as straightforward. There was no such thing as Q and A without a subtext.

  These thoughts passed through Bognor’s mind as he contemplated the apparently simple four words of Benito’s question.

  “Mr. Silverburger was killed.”

  This, too, was a gambit. The apparently simple four words said simply that Irving had been murdered by a person or persons unknown. Benito knew this. He also knew that Bognor knew he knew. This was a vital, if arcane, piece of knowledge, a little of which was dangerous. Seeing the whole picture was relatively safe, but only knowing one corner of the canvas was an invitation to conjecture and an admission of ignorance. The whole picture might be an icon, an impressionist, or a modern faux-naif à la Lowry. A small corner might provide a vital clue that led in the right direction. Or not.

  Interviewing technique was interesting. He supposed he had evolved one, but basically he made it up as he went along and did not believe in rules. He did, however, believe in aphorisms and remembered the late Lord Chandos telling him once that the most significant conversational gambit in the English language was the grunt. This could mean whatever one wished depending on how one grunted. Enthusiasm conveyed approval. There was also the grunt dismissive, the grunt noncommittal, the grunt expecting the answer “yes”; ditto “no.” It all depended on how you grunted. Evidently, it was not what you said, but how you said it. Oscar Wilde had something to say about style, not sincerity, being crucial in matters of great importance. This was one such occasion.