Bognor considered this.
‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that haute cuisine is more interesting than murder.’
‘The other way round, actually. But the one against the other.’
‘Hmm,’ said Bognor, ‘we live in a world which rates them both pretty high. After all, cooks and murderers make flawless celebrities, along with models and failed spin bowlers.’
‘Especially if they can dance.’
They both laughed. Their world seemed real enough to them and yet, to dancing cooks and models, it would have carried just the whiff of make-believe that they ascribed to television, soundbites and the meretricious in general. You paid your money and you took your choice, and the future would deliver a verdict which would change according to the times, and whether or not the world survived. In the meantime, Bognor reckoned that all you could do was the best possible according to one’s own lights, and not to be seduced by bright lights, instant success and a certain sort of suit.
Talking of which, he supposed that he really ought to interview Sir Branwell and Lady Fludd. In the event of things going wrong and of publicity ensuing, a failure to interview the Fludds would be held against him. Apocrypha College would be called in evidence to prove some sort of old school tie, and the fact that he and Monica were staying as guests up at the Manor would not look good. The headlines would scream, pseudo-egalitarians would snigger, and there would be a general consensus that it served him right, that he had fallen down on the job, and what could one expect from old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy, grumpy, long-lunching plutocrats anyway.
Bognor felt none of these things, and regarded himself as being, in practically every important aspect, at the well-honed cutting edge of life in general. Even so, he had seen enough of real life to know that he should appear to play by the book, if only to avoid having it thrown at him if things went wrong.
Which meant interviewing Branwell and Camilla, if only for form’s sake.
It would yield nothing, but it would look good on paper and better still in the paper, if it ever got that far. The Fludds would dislike the interview, but the possible alternative was almost too dire to contemplate.
ELEVEN
Sir Branwell had never, well hardly ever, heard of anything so ludicrous in his life. It took the absolute chocolate digestive. It was the Bath Oliver to end all Bath Olivers. A real Huntley and Palmer. I mean he had never been so… well if the suggestion had come from anyone but Simon he would… on the other hand… was he absolutely certain… even in this day and age… I mean really.
And so on.
Bognor explained that the conversation was an essential formality. A formality, but essential nonetheless. It was simply a matter of insuring against criticism, of demonstrating efficiency, even-handedness and, above all, justifying the apparently high-handed decision to bypass the usual channels and allow Bognor to conduct the investigation instead of the local police force.
Simon began, naturally, by asking the same question with which he had opened his interview with the cook. Where had the Fludds been between roughly five and seven the previous day, that being the time, as near as could be ascertained, at which the Reverend Sebastian had passed by on to the other side?
‘Oh for God’s sake, you know perfectly well where we both were,’ exploded Sir Branwell. ‘We were here, with you. All the time, until Dorcas came in and told us that she had found her husband dead in church. You know that perfectly well.’
‘That’s not the point,’ explained his interlocutor patiently. ‘I know perfectly well, but the coroner won’t, the court won’t, the press won’t. I need to have your alibi on the record so everyone can see it.’
‘Bugger the record,’ said the baronet. ‘I have absolutely not the slightest interest in everyone, as you put it, seeing the record. I am entirely free to come and go as I please, without the world and his wife having to be told. It’s completely outrageous. Where Camilla and I are, at any time of the day or night, is nobody’s business but our own.’
‘A man is dead,’ said Bognor. ‘Put yourself in everyone else’s position.’
‘On a point of fact,’ Sir Branwell was being dangerously cool, ‘a man is not dead. The Reverend Sebastian Fludd is dead. He was not a man in the accepted sense. He was the vicar of St Teath’s and my cousin. I will not have his memory blasphemed in this fashion. “A man”, indeed. That gives entirely the wrong impression. And I see absolutely no reason at all why I should put myself in everyone else’s position. That is not where I want to be, and it is, to use your own word, completely “inappropriate”. My position is my position, and I have no desire to be anywhere else. Nor is any useful purpose being served by pretending otherwise.’
‘For my sake,’ pleaded Monica. ‘It’ll make life easier for all of us. Help to beat off jawnalists. Allay criticism. Please.’
‘I don’t see it, Monica,’ said Camilla, ‘I really don’t. We know where we were. You know where we were. Why should anyone else know?’
‘That’s the way it is,’ said Bognor.
‘Well, it shouldn’t be,’ said Sir Branwell snippily. ‘Just because you say that’s the way it is, doesn’t mean that it’s right and, or, proper. If people such as us don’t stand up and allow ourselves to be counted, then what the hell’s the point.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m asking,’ said Bognor, trying to keep the triumph out of his voice. ‘I just want you to stand up and be counted.’
‘Don’t be so childish,’ said Sir Branwell, sounding childish. ‘I decide whether or not we’re going to stand up and be counted. Not any old Tom, Dick or Harry.’
‘But,’ said Monica, ‘it’s not any old Tom, Dick or Harry. It’s Simon. Your old friend. Simon.’
‘Simon,’ said Sir Branwell, with an element of truth, ‘is acting on behalf of Tom, Dick and Harry. He doesn’t fool me.’
‘I’m going to write down that you and Camilla were with us in the Manor all through the time concerned,’ said Bognor, ‘and Monica and I will, if asked, swear to it.’
‘Write what you like,’ said Sir Branwell, adding surprisingly, ‘Next question.’
‘I wanted to ask about Sebastian. How well you knew him? What you thought made him tick. That sort of thing. Nothing specific. I just want to build up a picture.’
‘That’s more like it,’ said the squire. ‘Wouldn’t want poor little Sebastian to become a cipher. Just because he’s dead, doesn’t make him a stiff. Rum bloke, very, but not without his points. And he was a Fludd. Never forget that. Quite a distant Fludd. Not part of the mainstream, but a Fludd all the same.’
‘More like a puddle,’ ventured Monica. ‘I always thought of him as pretty wet but small scale.’
Sir Branwell ignored her. He regarded the sally as in poor taste and, in any case, Monica was a girl, a woman. All right for certain things: sex, flower arranging, cooking maybe, but not for opinions or thought or anything practical. For that, you needed a chap. Women were all very well in their way, indeed, you could say they helped make the world go round, but they were definitely only second fiddles. The orchestra was conducted and led by chaps, and the music was composed by one. God was a man, probably elderly, white-bearded, Anglo-Saxon. Almost certainly wore an Apocrypha tie and liked a drink on a cold day. He digressed. One did. And you couldn’t quite say that the Reverend Sebastian was one of us, despite being a Fludd.
‘What sort of Fludd was he exactly?’ asked Bognor. He could see that family sensitivities were at work alongside the male chauvinism. It would be better not to offend them. If the family escutcheon were to be impugned, it would come better from one of themselves. Or not at all. Bognor knew enough about family nature to understand that, if rude things were to be said about the family, they would have to be said by a Fludd.
‘Some sort of a cousin,’ said Sir Branwell airily. ‘There’s a family tree thingy in the study and I think he features on that.’