by Tim Heald
As the vessel, with its two captains now looking distinctly ruffled, came opposite the narrow harbour mouth, she seemed to slow, ready to turn in. At this point it was generally agreed—later it was almost the only thing that was generally agreed—she was almost exactly in midstream, that is to say some thirty-five to forty yards from either bank. Abney and McAvity had been busy waving, saluting and generally gesticulating in the direction of both lots of spectators. But as she slowed both men stopped this and, it seemed to Bognor, suddenly became alarmed. Abney began to raise an arm and although Bognor was not so sure, it was later agreed by most that this was to sound the inaugural whistle. But the whistle never came. Instead there was a sudden blinding flash and a mighty explosion, followed almost immediately by pandemonium. Men and women began to scream. Some clutched their faces from which blood poured freely; the band of the Royal Marines, after faltering briefly, continued to play Rule Britannia, a posse of tipsy journalists came rushing from the drink tent and ran headlong into an advance party of fleeing starlets and TV personalities; a voice on megaphone (later found to be Peter Williams) exhorted people to stay still and not panic; and in the middle of the river, where the Lysander had been, there was a dense and dreadful cloud of steam and smoke and a gentle, sinister, hissing noise.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Bognor, immobilized by shock. He looked round to Monica. ‘You all right?’ he said shakily. She was very white but apparently unhurt. ‘Is everyone all right?’ he asked more loudly, and inanely, and looked along the row of Abney house guests.
They all looked very pale and several had been cut by flying debris of some sort. Mabel McCrum was clutching her arm and moaning. Her husband, blood flowing from a cut in his neck, was wrapping a large spotted handkerchief round it and shouting: ‘It’s only a bloody scald, woman’. Basil Lydeard, apparently unhurt, was sitting motionless with tears streaming down both cheeks. Grithbrice, whose girl friend was bleeding from her head and shoulders but who appeared quite composed, was jumping about shrieking, ‘Doctor! Doctor! for Christ’s sake someone get a doctor!’ Cosmo Green could be seen struggling down the stairs holding his hand to his right eye and Dora Maidenhead was sitting in her place laughing hysterically. Bognor told Monica to try to shut her up, and decided to move down to the centre of things to see if he could help. In the distance he could hear sirens starting, and already, after barely seconds, some sort of order was being imposed. Two or three doctors had come forward and the band, which had now stopped playing, were acting as medical orderlies. The drink tent had become a field dressing station, and it seemed from a first questioning that most people’s injuries were superficial. ‘Cuts, scalding, shock,’ said a busy professional-looking man who was tying lengths of torn shirt round wounds. ‘But they hadn’t a hope, poor buggers.’
For whatever reason—fear, futility, simple selfishness—no one except the photographers was paying any attention to the mess in the middle of the river. Bognor hurried to the water’s edge and peered through the smoke and steam which still lay heavy on the surface. He was joined a moment later by Peter Williams.
‘Pointless, I’m afraid,’ he said flatly, staring into the fog.
‘I suppose so,’ said Bognor. Then a thought struck him, belatedly. ‘What about Lady Abney and the Captain’s wife?’
‘Taken care of,’ said Williams gloomily. ‘I’ve sent them off with Dr. and Mrs. Nolan. They’re friends, which helps. I imagine he’ll put them both under sedation.’
‘How were they?’
He shrugged. ‘How would you be?’
‘Don’t you think we ought to do something?’
‘Yes, but what?’ Williams half-turned to look at the subsiding confusion behind him. The sound of fire appliances and ambulances and police cars indicated imminent arrival. ‘I don’t think anyone is badly hurt,’ he said, ‘and the organization’s here now.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘You forget, we have a highly trained staff to deal with big occasions.’
‘But surely,’ said Bognor, ‘we ought to go and have a look at…’ his voice trailed away, ‘at the Lysander?’
‘I hope,’ said Williams, sounding near breaking point, ‘there’d be nothing to see. But I’d rather not find out if you don’t mind.’
Nevertheless, they continued to peer into the fog. It was beginning to drift away slightly now and they could see a big oily patch of water spreading slowly towards the banks and downstream. Tiny pieces of wood and fabric showed up on the surface but nothing remotely recognizable. Bognor moved to the very edge and leaned over. There among reeds and undergrowth was a blue and white object with something gleaming in the middle of it. He lay down on the bank and put an arm down to reach it. It was firmly lodged between two boughs, but he pulled it free after a couple of tugs, and stood to examine it. It was the dinky pillbox yachting cap he had been so scornful of a few minutes earlier. He stood holding it at arms’ length, wondering what to do with it, and feeling terribly guilty.
‘I’ll have that, if you don’t mind.’ Bognor turned and recognized Smith, the policeman.
‘Of course,’ he said, and handed it over. ‘I’m glad to see you,’ he said fatuously, but meaning it all the same.
‘I’d like a word in a minute or two,’ said Smith. ‘Don’t go away.’ Bognor sat down feeling deflated. Peter Williams went off to be busy. Bognor recognized the therapeutic nature of the mission, and watched Smith organize the cordoning-off of the bank. Over on the other side of the Thames, now visible again, he could see uniformed police conducting a similar exercise. He wondered if the drink was being served, and was just thinking he might sneak over to see, when Smith returned carrying a champagne bottle and one glass. ‘It may seem inappropriate,’ he said, ‘but you look as if you could use a drink and everyone else is hard at it in the tent. You’d think they’d all go home, wouldn’t you? I’ll never understand about people.’
Smith managed to open the bottle without an ostentatious pop and Bognor gulped at it. It was very cold and dry. Under any other circumstances he would have appreciated it, but at the moment he would have preferred brandy. He was feeling distinctly queasy.
‘What a ghastly accident,’ he said, choking slightly on the drink and then retching.
‘Accident?’ said Smith.
‘Presumably. That old tub was almost a hundred years’ old. It can’t have been safe and quite honestly I don’t think Sir Canning knew how to work it.’
‘Well.’ Smith looked suspiciously at the dirty water. ‘I wonder if we’ll ever know.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We’ll have to put down divers, but I don’t imagine they’ll come up with anything very conclusive. I don’t suppose there was a black box flight recorder on board.’ He laughed harshly. ‘I don’t somehow think they’re going to find an awful lot of Sir Canning Abney and Captain James McAvity either.’
Bognor retched again, and Smith looked at him unsympathetically. ‘Except that we have his hat,’ he added.
‘I don’t think that’s particularly funny,’ said Bognor, wondering if Monica had managed to calm down Dora Maidenhead and, if so, what she was doing now. He felt like some moral support against this callousness.
Smith looked at him again, hard. ‘You really think it was an accident?’
‘I don’t know. How should I know?’
‘You’re the clever one from Whitehall.’
‘I’m not a trained detective, I’m a civil servant. Of sorts.’
‘Pull the other one. You’re not as silly as you make out or I’m a virgin.’
‘Honestly, at the moment I have no ideas at all.’
‘Look,’ said Smith, ‘I know you’ve had a nasty surprise, but the rest of us have had a nasty surprise too, so be a good boy and give me some bloody help because right now I need it, frankly. I’m going to have my Chief Constable going bloody spare over this. So please.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Anything.’
‘Well, for a start I don’t
think, as I said, that he knew how to drive the thing. He looked very uncertain and the crew had to do an awful lot of what looked like basic instructions before he got in.’
‘That’s a start. One of my men’s talking to them now. You seem certain of the fact that it’s an accident. Why?’
‘I don’t know. There are lots of motives for people killing Maidenhead, but as yet I don’t see motives for killing Abney. Sorry.’
‘All right. What about Maidenhead? Did you find out any more? Could the same man have killed both?’
‘I suppose so. If you insist Abney was murdered.’
‘Have to think of everything.’
‘Well, Abney might have killed Maidenhead.’
‘Ah. That would be tidy. But why?’
‘He wanted to take Maidenhead over and Maidenhead wasn’t having it.’
‘I don’t like it but I’ll buy it for now. So then what? Who killed Abney?’
‘Must someone have killed him?’ It had grown quite quiet now. Bognor felt life was becoming unreasonably complicated.
‘Darling, are you busy?’ It was Monica.
‘I’m sorry, Miss,’ said Smith, ‘but yes.’
‘See you back at the house then,’ she said, ‘I’ll get packed.’
‘Right-o.’ Bognor sucked his teeth. ‘Maybe it was suicide. Perhaps he couldn’t live with his guilt.’
‘Did he behave like a man who was about to commit suicide?’
‘I don’t know. He was a good actor.’
‘Hardly an ideal way to commit suicide. Nasty messy explosion in front of your wife and friends and all the papers, and taking the Captain of the Queen Ann with you at the same time. Hardly likely.’
‘He was always a showman.’
‘Did anyone have a chance to tamper with the boat? Other than Abney himself?’
‘The crew. And old Basil Lydeard asked if he could have a look at her before the opening.’
‘And did he?’
‘I don’t know, but he couldn’t have done much. The crew were there all the time. Besides, he wouldn’t know the first thing about steam engines.’
‘Sure?’
‘Fairly. He doesn’t know much about anything.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘Could have been any of us,’ said Bognor. ‘I’m sure if I’d tipped the attendant yesterday he’d have let me look under the tarpaulin. It wasn’t closely guarded. At least not to Abney’s personal friends.’
‘Funny lot of friends, if you ask me,’ said Smith. ‘Right, that’ll do for now. Where can I get you?’
Bognor gave him phone numbers and went in search of Monica. He found her in their room. She looked shaken still. ‘I didn’t like that,’ she said. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘Nor did I,’ he said, squeezing her hand. He moved to the window and looked across Cock Marsh. The police had cordoned off the bank but large crowds had gathered and were pushing against the police and gazing moronically at the house. Bognor remembered the morning’s interlopers and wondered if they were there. There was even an ice-cream salesman.
‘Ghouls!’ he said, with distaste.
‘Not really,’ said Monica. ‘Just people. They’re curious that’s all. I wonder what they expect to see.’
‘Smith thinks it was murder.’
‘Do you?’
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘It’s a bit too close to the other thing, isn’t it? And after your being pushed in the river… Oh, by the way, Mercer came with a message from Lady Abney.’
‘Saying?’
‘Saying, would you believe, that she was extremely sorry for any inconvenience that had been caused, that she was afraid she was going to be away for a short while with friends but that she hoped people would stay on as planned, treat the house as their own and that the staff would be at their service.’
‘You don’t imagine she meant it?’
‘I should think so.’
‘That really is carrying the stiff upper lip to an extreme.’
‘Yes.’
Bognor chewed his lip and looked at her. ‘You don’t want to stay on, do you?’
‘No, of course not,’
‘Do you imagine any of the others will?’
‘Some of them do seem particularly insensitive,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t put it past them.’ She looked round the room, at the drink-filled fridge, the Pipers, the Bradley and the bottle of Balenciaga. ‘Pity,’ she smiled wistfully, ‘I was looking forward to a touch of high living.’
Downstairs in the hall there was a row of expensive leather luggage. Bognor read the labels on each pile. No one was staying on.
7
ALL NEXT DAY BOGNOR worked on his report. He made lists, he chewed pencils, he cudgelled his mind and he drank endless cups of coffee. Monica made the coffee and read the Sunday papers, where the late Sir Canning had exceeded even the optimistic predictions of the public relations executives at Intercommuniplan. Occasionally she would read passages out to Bognor, partly for information, partly for amusement.
‘Three suspect foul play, two accidental death, and two undecided,’ she said, curled up in the most comfortable armchair. And this one says, “Does a sinister fiend lurk in the leafy glades and peaceful pastures of England’s tranquil Thames Valley?”’ She read on. ‘Doesn’t seem to know,’ she said eventually. ‘Pretty tame stuff.’ Bognor chewed silently on his remaining inch of HB pencil.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘This one must have been in the booze tent when it happened. “I watch as baronet and seadog perish in Thames tragedy… One second it was a cheerful, happy Saturday afternoon with dolly girls and celebrities thronging the stately grounds of the hundred-year-old Abney House… the next it was grief and confusion as death struck in the blazing inferno they called the Thames yesterday. As Sir Canning (motto, J’ai bien servi) Abney turned his magnificent £200,000 steamship Lysander towards shore, the ship erupted in a holocaust of destruction…”’
‘Do be quiet,’ pleaded Bognor, ‘I’m trying to concentrate.’
They went to the pub round the corner for lunch and had sandwiches and beer.
‘Just think,’ said Monica, who seemed to have recovered from her shock. ‘If it hadn’t been for “holocaust in river of death”, we’d be having an eight-course lunch, with wines to match.’
‘Well, we aren’t,’ said Bognor, spearing a sausage. ‘I think it may have been suicide. Perhaps he knew he had an incurable disease as well as having killed Freddie Maidenhead.’
‘Now who’s being flippant?’ said Monica peevishly. She had been ticked off several times for her improper attitude.
‘I’m being perfectly serious,’ said Bognor. ‘I’m just rather perplexed, that’s all.’
By mid-afternoon he had become extremely irritable.
‘Your friend Smith says every possibility is being considered,’ said Monica. ‘He says he is unable to rule out foul play and he says there could conceivably be a connection between the death of the Earl of Maidenhead and the deaths of Sir Canning Abney and Captain McAvity.’
‘Bugger Smith,’ said Bognor.
She went for a walk in the park. When she got back he had started typing, but all the same he didn’t finish till ten that night. He said he wanted it on Parkinson’s desk first thing in the morning. At last he passed it to her for comment.
‘PROPOSED VISIT OF HM UMDAKA OF MANGOLO TO ABNEY SMALLSHIP EXHIBITION,’ it began.
‘Good God,’ said Monica, ‘I’d forgotten all about him.’
‘He’s why I was there in the first place,’ said Bognor. ‘I wonder if he’s significant at all?’
She read on. ‘In view of recent events at Abney House it is quite clear that no such visit as suggested should take place in the foreseeable future.
‘A murder inquiry into the death of Frederick Earl of Maidenhead is being conducted by the local police force and, although in my opinion, the inquest on Sir Canning Abney and Captain McAvity will return an open verdict
, it is my considered belief, shared by the police, that the latter deaths were also the result of murder and that the murderer or murderers were the same in each case.
‘As yet no clear motive can be established in either case but, in view of his Rhodesian connections, a political motive could account for the first murder. If so it would appear likely that the Hon. Anstruther Grithbrice and Miss Honeysuckle Johnson might be involved, as both are known Mangolan and African nationalist sympathizers. I am not aware that Sir Canning was politically involved, but I cannot emphasize too strongly that suspects must include the staff of Abney House and Abney enterprises, and that security is extremely lax. This is largely inevitable since the River Thames which flows past the house and grounds is, in effect, a public thoroughfare.’
Monica looked up. ‘Turn that down, would you?’ she said. (Bognor had put on a record of massed pipes and drums.) ‘You don’t really think it was one of the staff?’
‘Never liked the look of Mercer. Peter Williams must be a possible.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ve discussed all this.’
‘Only in relation to Maidenhead.’
‘Well, he wanted Abney dead so he could run the business all on his own.’
‘Who would inherit?’
‘Isobel Abney presumably. No children.’
‘Cosmo Green would get his debts back.’
‘Yes.’ He smiled at her. ‘I have to put that bit in to make sure they don’t send him there.’
