by Tim Heald
Gawain Dorset had been a contemporary of Bognor’s at Oxford, and was now, he understood, commuting between his surviving estate in Caithness and a villa in Tuscany where he wrote doubtful verse. He had tried to keep Hook going after his father’s death, but eventually the nudists and jazz bands with which he’d attempted to make the place pay proved too much for him. The final straw had been a gorilla which he’d purchased in a last desperate attempt to attract the coach trade and which has escaped and killed two pet dogs and a budgerigar before being shot by a local farmer for worrying sheep. After that they had sold to Mr. Green, and, by the look of it, Mr. Green was in the process of restoring some privacy to Hook.
Bognor got out of the Mini and walked up to the gate. Underneath the large notice there was a smaller one which said: ‘All inquiries to Major Struthers, Estate Manager, the Dower House, Hook.’ Bognor had no intention whatever of entering into discussion with the Major. He hanged on the gate. Nothing happened so he went back to the car and blew the horn. This time there was a response. A flap in the gate was opened and a voice said simply: ‘Yeah?’
‘I’ve come to see Mr. Green.’
‘Not here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. Not here. Go away.’
Bognor didn’t like the voice. It was whining. ‘I insist on seeing him,’ said Bognor, ‘I’m a government inspector.’
‘You’ll have to see Major Struthers.’
‘Oh come on.’ Yet again Bognor was becoming irritated. ‘Who are you? Let’s have a look, I can’t have a conversation with a hole in a gate.’
‘Oh, all right.’ A moment later the gate swung open to reveal a large fat man in the uniform of a security guard. He had a truncheon and an emaciated alsatian dog was attached to a chain on his belt. Bognor found the alsatian’s silence unnerving. It sniffed at him. He showed the guard his identity card.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘I haven’t time to see Major Struthers. Is Mr. Green really not here?’
‘No.’ The man was still surly, but apparently impressed.
‘Where is he then?’ The man remained silent and Bognor reluctantly produced a pound note from his pocket. He was singularly inept at giving out bribes and hated doing it, but the guard didn’t care about finesse.
‘That all?’
Bognor peeled off another two. ‘They left in the helicopter round lunch time.’
‘They?’
‘Mr. Green and the lady.’
‘Who was the lady? What did she look like?’
‘About fifty. Hair going a bit grey. Not bad looking.’
‘Thanks.’ Bognor walked back to the car and accelerated away in a bad temper. In the village he went to a phone box and rang Smith.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ said Smith, immediately. ‘He rang from the airport.’
‘Saying what?’
‘That they’re going away for a few days to Green’s villa in the south of Italy. Place called Maratea, about three hours south of Naples.’
‘And you let them?’
‘No alternative.’
‘What flight were they on?’
‘They weren’t. Green has a BAC-III.’
‘I suppose I just have to come back to London and wait.’ He heard Smith laugh dryly. ‘I’ve had a word with your Mr. Parkinson,’ he said, ‘and we agreed it would do you good to have a day away from it all. You’re on the ten o’clock flight to Naples. Tickets waiting at the Alitalia desk. You have a room booked in Naples at the Hotel Mediterraneo, and a car to pick you up at seven-thirty in the morning and take you down to this place, Maratea. The driver will bring you back for the night flight home.’
‘Last time I had a day away from it all,’ said Bognor, ‘I got blisters.’
10
IT WAS A NERVE-RACKING flight and the drive south from Naples was worse still. The autostrada was clogged with heavy lorries on their way to Reggio and Sicily beyond, and his driver weaved in and out of them as if he were driving a Ferrari and not a clapped-out old Fiat. Bognor was so nervous he hardly had time to take in the curve of the bay at Salerno, the luxuriance of the flowers, the charm of the hill-top villages.
‘Per favore,’ said Bognor haltingly as they cut out behind an articulated petrol lorry and into the path of an overtaking Maserati. ‘A little slower, please.’
The driver, a crumpled middle-aged figure with his chauffeur’s cap rakishly over one ear, turned round to face him. ‘Bobby Charlton,’ he said. ‘You like Bobby Charlton. Is marvellous. I have been in England. Southampton. Northampton. All over.’
Bognor sighed and held tightly on to the strap at his side. At Lagonegro they turned off the autostrada on to a minor, windy, hilly road. This seemed a signal for the car to be driven even faster, but worse was to come after another dozen or so kilometres when they reached the coast and turned right. Here the road, which had room for only one car’s width, followed the line of the cliff which rose higher and higher above the Gulf of Pollicastro. By the time they arrived in the village of Maratea the sweat had penetrated to his unsuitable tweed suit. At the centre of the village they stopped to ask the way of an elderly peasant with a donkey, who reacted immediately to the name of ‘Signor Green’. There was a great deal of pointing and gesticulating before they set off again at the same suicidal speed.
Two miles out of the village after the road had moved inland they turned down a drive to the left. Two hundred yards down it they came to an automatic barrier and a young man in dark glasses and a lightweight suit emerged from the hut to one side and exchanged words with the driver. He peered in at Bognor and waved. The barrier was raised and they drove on.
Just as he feared they were about to plunge over the cliffside they emerged into a courtyard, surrounded on three sides by a futuristic bungaloid building. Bognor remembered his arrival at McCrum Castle. It had only been two days before. It seemed like an eternity.
As he stepped out of the car, part of the building slid to one side and a slim youth in dark blue trousers and white jacket with gold braid walked towards him and bowed slightly. He was, in a slightly feminine way, astonishingly good-looking.
‘Good morning,’ he said, with only a trace of accent. ‘Signor Green is on the beach and asks if you would care to join him.’
Indoors Bognor just had time to notice the depth of the carpet, the efficiency of the air-conditioning, and the unequivocal obscenity of an original Picasso drawing in the hall, before he was descending to the level of the Mediterranean. It must have cost a small fortune, he reflected, just to cut a lift shaft through the rocks.
‘Would you like to swim?’ asked the young man, eyeing Bognor’s tweeds with friendly disbelief.
‘Yes, but I don’t have any things.’
‘I will arrange it.’
Bognor blinked as they re-entered daylight, then, shading his eyes, distinguished Cosmo Green standing a few yards away under a palm tree. He was wearing a vivid purple shirt and Bermuda shorts, and in his left hand he held a cocktail shaker.
‘Simon, dear boy,’ he shouted, waving the cocktail shaker in greeting, ‘I’m glad you made it. Great to see you. Will you have a Bacardi?’
Bognor walked nervously across the mosaic tiles towards him, noticing that the palm tree had a fully equipped cocktail bar built round it. ‘Isobel’s in the pool,’ said Mr. Green, extending a fleshy hand. ‘Or rather she’s just out of it.’ He pointed to the other end of the pool which was situated, superfluously Bognor thought, only a short distance from the inviting Mediterranean. Mr. Green caught the look of disapproval.
‘Very cold this time of year in the sea,’ he said, ‘too cold for comfort.’ He finished shaking the Bacardi and released it into two frosted glasses on the bar. ‘Very trim for her age,’ he said, gazing towards Lady Abney who was standing by the diving board in a modest bikini. She was talking to a lithe young man in a minute white g-string. ‘She likes Giovanni too, so that’s nice,’ said Mr. Green sipping his drink. ‘So,�
� he took Simon by the elbow, ‘so, dear boy, I’m delighted to see you. What terrible clothes. We must get you into something more suitable. What can I do for you? It’s a long way to come, to see us. We’re very honoured.’
‘I called at Hook,’ said Bognor.
‘So I heard,’ said Mr. Green tapping his nose. ‘So I heard. That’s why we were expecting you.’ He stood back and looked at him. ‘How long can you stay? You look terrible.’
‘It’s not really a social visit,’ said Bognor, ‘I’m here on business.’
‘Business is always a pleasure to me,’ said Mr. Green. He pointed up to the cliff and beyond to a huge statue of Christ, arms akimbo. ‘Biggest statue like that in the world, except for Rio.’
‘I’m still investigating the murders at Abney,’ said Bognor.
‘Murders did you say? In the plural. You mean what happened to Canning and the Captain was no accident? That’s very bad indeed. Isobel wasn’t very happy about it either. I told her not to be silly.’
Bognor found the Bacardi gave him renewed confidence.
‘The point is,’ he said, ‘that you weren’t being quite honest with me when you said that Maidenhead and Abney didn’t owe you very much money.’
Mr. Green laughed. ‘Honesty never got anyone anywhere. So I told you a little white lie. So. Have another drink.’
Bognor accepted and Mr. Green refilled his glass before continuing. ‘So now I suppose you found out how much it was?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ he patted his paunch, ‘it’s not much to me. May have been more to them, but to me…’ He made an expansive gesture, encompassing the beach, the palm, the pool, Lady Abney and the villa at the summit of the cliff. ‘What’s two hundred thousand pounds?’
‘Enough to buy you a peerage or membership of Pring’s,’ ventured Bognor, the alcohol spurring him on.
Mr. Green laughed, a little too readily. ‘I see you’ve been talking to someone,’ he said. ‘All right. I don’t deny it. I lend my money, I want a return for it. I don’t need more money, or if I need more money I invest in some shares or in some property or in some oil or something like that. But I say my money’s as good as the next man’s. All your so-called aristocrats bought their titles—or their ancestors did. That’s what I’m doing. Buying a position for myself.’
‘So,’ said Bognor, ‘you lent the money purely in order to buy yourself a position in what’s laughingly known as Society.’
‘Right in one, Simon,’ said Mr. Green, equanimity now apparently restored, ‘I have money and no status. The English aristocracy have status and no money. So there is an opportunity to do good business.’
‘But when Maidenhead and Abney wouldn’t do what you wanted, you started to threaten them.’
‘I what?’ Mr. Green seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Now, Simon,’ he said, ‘I do hope for everyone’s sake you haven’t been listening to silly stories. In business, you understand… you understand business?’
‘The basics.’
‘In business if the guy you lend money to stops paying the interest you ask him nicely the first few times and then you say you’re sorry you have to have the money back.’
‘And if they haven’t got the money?’
‘The money is found,’ said Mr. Green, in a sinister fashion. Then he laughed. ‘Me, I’m careful where I lend money. Remember I told you I would never lend money to that old Lydeard? Never get it back, that’s for why.’
‘But Abney wouldn’t get you into Pring’s and Maidenhead wouldn’t get you a peerage.’
‘So I was asking nicely. I always asked nicely.’
‘No threats?’
‘No threats. And even if I had threatened them, which I wouldn’t, where are the witnesses I ask myself? Anyway what are you saying? That I killed the golden geese because the eggs were late? You have to be joking. I should be so silly. All right, so I need my status, so with this I can afford to wait.’
‘What about Lady Abney? How long’s this been going on?’
Mr. Green looked up-pool for a moment, and waved in her direction. She waved back and blew a kiss. ‘I’m sorry, Simon. How long has what been going on?’
‘Well, you and Lady Abney, of course.’
Mr. Green looked at Simon through narrowed eyes and then reached inside his purple shirt and scratched his chest. He had a hairy chest and the hair, which was turning silver, sprouted out of the top of the shirt towards his chin.
‘If you didn’t have a nice open English face, Simon,’ he said, ‘I might think you were a very cynical person. Now look up there,’ and he pointed again to the other end of the pool where Lady Abney was lying watching as the boy in the white g-string did cartwheels. ‘Now there you see one English lady. She is more than fifty years old. All right, so she is well preserved but she is still more than fifty years old. Her husband has just died, in a nasty mess. She is very sad. The press are chasing her. You also see one young Italian boy. He is exquisite. You look back here at me and what do you see? You see a fat, rich, middle-aged Jew who prefers to sleep with beautiful boys than women of more than fifty. And something else. English ladies, even when they are more than fifty, don’t sleep with people like me. You perhaps. Though I understand Lady Isobel thought you less than passionate the night you were pushed in the river.’
He laughed and winked. Simon, who had forgotten the incident, choked on his drink and blushed. ‘Don’t look so sad. Self-knowledge is a wonderful thing. We have a saying in Yiddish, “Truth is the safest lie”. Very true saying. Now you want a swim? Here is Sandro with your bathing things.’ He laughed again. ‘Don’t look so nervous. He only shows you where to change. He won’t touch you. Not unless you ask.’
Bognor blushed. Mr. Green had read his thoughts precisely. He allowed himself to be led off to a changing room which, instead of the usual minute cubicle, was a spacious air-conditioned room with a daybed, a dressing-table equipped with scents and colognes and a fridge of cold drinks.
‘The sauna is through here,’ said Sandro opening a door at the back. Bognor thanked him and locked the door after he’d left. Then he changed into the mercifully baggy and British trunks which had been provided. He didn’t see himself in a silver g-string.
Outside he felt pudgy and white. Gingerly he eased himself into the pool, realizing when he was halfway in that the water was almost warm. Mr. Green came to the edge, and looked at him with approval. ‘Good boy,’ he said, ‘much better. Have a good refreshing swim, and then you’ll be ready for another drink. But,’ he struggled down on to his haunches and whispered, ‘I know you have to talk to Isobel, but try to be careful. She may not look upset, but remember looks can be deceptive. Take me, for example.’ He laughed. ‘Her father was the Earl of Ormskirk. You like seafood?’
‘Yes,’ said Bognor. He pushed off into the tepid water and began to swim in a slow meticulous breaststroke. It was, he knew, not an elegant performance but it got him where he wanted. Rather like his approach to life in general. At the other end of the pool he climbed up the steps, puffing heavily. To his surprise a small boy in overalls was waiting with a tray and a towel on which there was another glass of Bacardi. He took both and walked over to where Lady Abney was still watching the g-stringed catamite doing PT.
‘Simon,’ she said, standing up and removing her dark glasses. At her age she shouldn’t really have worn the bikini and her skin had a slightly wrinkled appearance round the navel and the upper chest, but she had the shape for it. ‘How delightful.’ They shook hands. ‘This is Giovanni,’ she said, waving in the direction of g-string who was standing on his head. ‘He speaks absolutely no English whatever, poor darling.’ Giovanni somersaulted back to an upright position and smiled sexily. Bognor smiled back awkwardly.
‘I know, Simon. You can help us,’ she said, sitting down on the edge of a convenient hammock. ‘Cosmo and I couldn’t work this out at all. It’s the answer to a riddle and we can’t think what the question can have been. “One rode a horse
and the other rhododendron.” Now what can that be the answer to?’
Bognor drank white rum and wondered why everything was so confusing.
‘I’m not awfully good at riddles. I’m sorry about the will.’
For a moment she looked as if the façade of brittle gaiety might collapse, but only for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but there’s really no need. Canning and I had discussed it and it made perfectly good sense. Quite honestly I’m not crazy about Abney, and I’m rather like poor old Basil Lydeard. I’m not sure I like all those people traipsing around looking at you. As for money, I have a little of my own. And Canning had the most enormous life insurance policies made out in my name. I’m really not too hard done by and there are always friends like Cosmo to help out. The only aspect I do rather regret is Tony Grithbrice getting it. I have to confess that young Master Grithbrice is not my favourite person.’
An ignoble thought occurred to Bognor. Perhaps Lady Abney had killed her husband for the insurance? In conjunction with Cosmo Green who was maddened by Abney’s refusal to put him up for Pring’s?
‘I went to see Cumberledge,’ he said.
‘Oh, he’s ghastly,’ she said, ‘dry as a stick but wet with it. I don’t know how he manages it. I suppose he talked about sex?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes.’
Lady Abney arched her eyebrows. ‘Typical. It’s why I changed. What did he tell you? That I was sleeping with Cosmo?’
‘No.’
‘But I suppose he said I was sleeping with half Burke’s. Well that’s no particular secret though I do think it’s extremely indelicate of Cumberledge to discuss it with a perfect stranger. I mean, I do like you enormously, Simon, and so did poor dear Canning. But we haven’t known each other very long.’
‘Cumberledge did say something about Mr. Green having threatened your husband over some money.’
She frowned for a moment, as if she was trying to remember. ‘Oh Cosmo and Pring’s. Poor Cosmo. He is a poppet. Really, in his curious Levantine way he is the sweetest of people, but he is incorrigibly vain. Canning and I shrieked with laughter about Pring’s, but I don’t think Cosmo was really serious. He wouldn’t know what to do once he got into Pring’s, and he wouldn’t know anyone, and even if he did they’d all cut him. It’s too absurd.’ She pronounced the ‘s’ of absurd as if it was a ‘z’. Bognor, on his third rum, found it rather attractive.
