‘No,’ said Bognor, ‘at the moment I simply don’t have the foggiest. But, unlike some people, I have an open mind. And I value that. And I shall endeavour to hang on to it.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that I don’t.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘But you implied it,’ said Bognor. ‘So who’s being unscientific now?’
They glowered at each other. They were involved in some sort of stand-off, and Bognor wondered idly, as was his wont, whether or not it was Mexican. If so, then part of the definition was that neither party could win, and the inevitable result was some kind of mutually assured destruction. There was nothing particularly Mexican about a situation such as this. Indeed, a dictionary from another place suggested that the term was invented by Australians who, in this instance, at least, knew absolutely nothing about which they were allegedly talking. His own understanding was that a number of terms had the word Mexican inserted by Americans from north of the border, and that this was nothing more than an expression of racial contempt of the kind habitually used by the English about everyone else. It was merely an expression of superiority. In this instance, it suggested that there was no way out of the situation. There was nothing more Mexican about it than, for instance, a Mexican spit roast, which was a very rude expression, given a racial significance by the fact that the men concerned habitually sported sombreros, which were a form of Mexican national headgear, as distinctive and unusual as the Zapata moustache or tequila.
All this flashed through Bognor’s mind, as he realized that he had insulted the pathologist and the only way out was for him to apologize. If he did, the matter should be resolved and the stand-off would cease to be Mexican, in the generally accepted sense.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, but the pathologist was not to be defused so easily. As far as he was concerned, the stand-off was indeed Mexican and there was no way out.
‘People like you always say things like that,’ he said.
‘I only apologized.’
‘Exactly,’ said the pathologist. ‘Typical. You think you can be as rude as you bloody well like, and that you can then apologize, which makes it all right. Well, it doesn’t. Life isn’t like that.’
‘No,’ said Bognor, feeling even more confused. ‘You’re right. It isn’t. Maybe I should make myself plain.’
‘I wish,’ said the pathologist.
‘What I mean,’ said Bognor, sighing inwardly, because he knew this was going to make a bad situation worse, ‘is that I believe that murder and its solution is, on the whole, and as a general rule, not a rational matter, and, as such, is not susceptible to rational analysis.’
‘I disagree,’ said the pathologist.
‘Of course you do,’ said Bognor, irritating his opponent still more. ‘That’s your job. I wouldn’t expect anything else.’
‘Just because murder is usually committed in a non-rational, whimsical manner and for similar reasons, doesn’t mean to say that it’s not subject to rational scientific laws. That’s what my colleagues and I provide.’
‘Up to a point,’ agreed Bognor. ‘But, with respect, it’s quite a limited point.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ The pathologist didn’t really want to know. He was buying argumentative moments. Calling an intellectual time out.
‘What I mean,’ said Bognor speaking very slowly, as if to a foreigner, halfwit or small child, ‘is that death isn’t about scalpels and dissection, and positions of bodies and times of death; it’s about matters of far greater importance and far greater complexity.’ He seemed briefly to backtrack but didn’t, in fact. ‘I concede,’ he admitted, ‘that people, such as yourself, have a part to play in an investigation such as this, but it’s a small part, a subsidiary part and not even necessarily a relevant part.’
‘I don’t agree,’ said the pathologist, desperately.
‘Well, if you think you can tell who killed the Reverend Sebastian Fludd because of what you have found in his stomach, or the sort of knot used to tie the rope to the beam, or to any one of a number of sexy but silly things you have discovered because of your so-called scientific procedures, then you are even more ridiculous than I think you are. Thank you for your report, which is required by law and by convention, and will no doubt make very interesting reading, but will be of no help whatever in determining who killed the dead man or why.’
‘You… you… amateur,’ said the pathologist, making the word sound as insulting and pejorative as he could. It would only have been worse if he had inserted the word Mexican as a qualifying adjective.
‘Well, on that note,’ said Bognor, ‘it only remains for me to take formal delivery of your report, to take official cognizance of what you say, and to assure you that your professional competence will be noted in the usual and correct manner. I may say, in passing, that nothing you have said or written is of the slightest use or relevance to my enquiries. Nevertheless, I acknowledge, that for all sorts of reasons, I am required to listen to what you say and to read your findings. This I have done, this I shall do, but I have more important things to do, and so, without more ado, I will say, again, thank you very much, leave you to your own devices and see myself out.’
Which he did.
He felt he had won the battle, but he was very much afraid he had lost the war.
EIGHTEEN
Martin Allgood, the once trendy, once sexy, once promising writer-in-residence, was Bognor’s next interviewee. He reminded Bognor of a footballer who had once been on the books of Arsenal or Manchester United, but had never entirely lived up to his transfer fee, and was now eking out his days playing for someone like Scunthorpe United or Crewe Alexandra, which, in many respects, the Fludd Literary Festival resembled. Inwardly, Sir Simon allowed himself a quiet chuckle at the notion of the Fludd Festival as the bookish equivalent of Crewe Alexandra. He corrected himself in mid-laugh, however – more like Plymouth Argyle, with Allgood in the role of Paul Mariner. That, though, was inaccurate and unfair to many of those concerned. Mariner was the manager, after all, and Bognor had once seen him in his pomp, as the striker of a high-flying Ipswich Town. Martin Allgood had never had a pomp – only promise. Still, he reminded Bognor of a footballer who had never quite made the grade. Not unlike the brigadier. Once upon a time, the brigadier had kept a field marshal’s swagger stick hidden promisingly in his knapsack. However, he had never had occasion to use it once he had been passed over as a mere brigadier. It was a bit the same with Allgood. No Nobel Prizes for him; nor even an evening with Candia McWilliam and Colin Thubron at the Royal Society of Literature or PEN. Martin Allgood was a bit of an also-ran, which was why, let’s face it, he was the Writer-in-Residence at the Fludd Festival of Literature and the Arts.
It didn’t seem to have dented his self-confidence, however. Better a big fish in a small pond, than no sort of fish at all. And his publicist may have been ignorant and stupid, but her breasts were pert and her cheekbones high, and she was probably very good in bed. Good enough for Martin Allgood, anyway, and she was all his, at least for the duration of the festival. She came with the board, the lodging and the billing, all of which were of a tolerably high order, even if the Fludd Festival wasn’t in the Premiership, even if the eponymous Flanagan had been a bit of a fraud, even if Allgood wasn’t even, truth be told, good enough to be superannuated. As he had said at dinner: ‘Beats work.’
He didn’t like the clergy any more than the brigadier, but he didn’t call them ‘sky pilots’, referring to them instead, quaintly, as ‘God botherers’. This signified his background of minor public school (‘Kimbolton, actually’), decent but unfashionable red-brick university (Hull) and a moderate chip on the shoulder. Incidentally, he claimed to have been a protege of Philip Larkin at Hull, and there seemed to be no one willing or able to contradict him, least of all Larkin, who was dead.