He paused, possibly imagining sex in the other Fludd household, and briefly shuddered. He was basically rather keen on sex; the Sebastian-Fludds weren’t. End of story. The Sebastian-Fludds weren’t built for it either. Different chapter, same book. Shame that droit de seigneur had gone out with the ark. He was rather in favour, but there were certain things best left unsaid.
‘So, the Reverend Sebastian wasn’t the victim of a crime passionelle? At least not in a conventional sense.’ Bognor seemed thoughtful. He had seen enough of life, and more particularly of death, to rule out crimes of passion even in unlikely candidates. Perhaps, most of all, in unlikely candidates. Still waters could run exceedingly deep. Springs sprung in unexpected places. He was disinclined to rule out something to do with sex where the vicar was concerned.
‘How many festival performers were in town already?’ he asked, changing tack unexpectedly, though sex and the festival performer could not be ruled out at this stage either.
Sir Branwell thought.
‘Not many, as far as I know,’ he said. ‘The Brigadier and Mrs Brigadier. Vicenza Book.’
‘Not the Vicenza Book?’
‘Why? Do you know her?’
‘She’s famous,’ said Bognor, irritably. ‘Even I have heard of Vicenza Book. She’s probably the most famous soprano in world opera.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Sir Branwell, who didn’t.
‘Monica will be incredibly overexcited,’ said Bognor. ‘ The Nightingale of Padella in Brodo. Italy’s Stoke on Trent. We heard her do an obscure Handel with the ENO.’
‘Yes. Well,’ said Branwell, ‘her father used to work behind the bar in the pub when it was still a recognizable pub. Her mother’s Italian. Hence Padella in whatsit. She was, as it were, passing. She and Bert didn’t last long and she took the girl back to Italy. Bert died. Drank himself to death. Sad story. Vicenza wrote out of the blue saying she’d like to come and sing at the festival, had such happy memories of Mallborne, blah, blah. Sebastian was all for it. All for her. So we signed her up. She should be here. She’s taken a house with her camp followers.’
‘And she’s already in town?’
‘Stretch limo sighted shortly before lunch yesterday. Not many of those in Mallborne. Tinted glass. White. Personalized number plate.’
‘Sounds authentic,’ Bognor conceded.
‘Anyone else?’
‘Martin Allgood.’
‘The novelist?’ Bognor had read an Allgood once and didn’t like it.
‘He’s this year’s writer-in-residence. Here for the duration. Does lots of readings, interviews, judging of things. We put him in Thatch Cottage on the estate and call it the Writer’s House for the week. Rather a good publicity stunt. Always attracts masses of publicity, and Allgood can be relied on to say something suitably foul and controversial. We had him once before, about ten years ago. Seemed surprisingly nice actually. Pretty girlfriend but I think she’s done a bunk. I read an interview with him a year or so ago which seemed to suggest he batted and bowled. AC/DC.’
‘Probably another publicity stunt.’ Bognor had a low opinion of Allgood based mainly on the one reading of the single book – something to do with expectations. Not great in Allgood’s case. He knew this to be unfair, but was convinced that the author was an untalented showman. He had a beard and was very short. Bognor had an aversion to small, hairy writers, which was based entirely on prejudice but was more or less unshakeable, probably for that very reason.
‘Was Sebastian the vicar during Allgood’s previous residency?’ asked Bognor, quick as the proverbial flash. He liked not to be seen missing tricks, especially when so clumsily flaunted.
‘As a matter of fact, Sebastian was newly arrived. They didn’t get on. Allgood criticized Sebby’s sermon, which was ill-advised. He was sensitive about his sermons, Sebastian.’
‘Don’t blame him,’ said Bognor. ‘What was the point of Allgood’s criticism?’
‘Oh, Allgood was going through a Dawkins’ atheist phase as usual and Sebastian was sympathetic to the creationist johnnies. Not hook-line-and-sinkered, but sympathetic. Sebastian had a fatal tendency to see all sides to an argument; Allgood only ever saw one.’
‘Seldom the same,’ smiled Bognor.
‘No one ever accused Martin of consistency,’ said Sir Branwell. ‘Not even Martin, and a lot of the time he is his own worst enemy. As he freely admits.’
‘Did he dislike the vicar enough to kill him?’
The squire thought for a moment. ‘At the time, maybe. But Allgood never harboured anything for very long. Least of all grudges. And these days he’s something of a creationist himself. If you believe what you read in the papers.’
‘No.’ Bognor grinned. ‘I don’t.’
He didn’t either.
Bognor reflected that he had included his old friends in Contractor’s brief. The office genius had duly obliged. But.
Neither Branwell nor Camilla had escaped Contractor’s forensic attentions. They couldn’t. What’s more, they would both have been mortified if they had been left out. There was nothing in the reports of his two old friends that caused Bognor to so much as raise an eyebrow. Nevertheless, he felt as if he we were reading an obituary by a professional who hadn’t known the deceased, or a eulogy by a friend of a friend at one of those impersonal memorial services. Too often, the preacher hadn’t known the centrally departed any more than the obituarist. It was just so with Harvey Contractor. The reports had professional finesse but lacked true knowledge. Bognor knew both rather better than the back of his hand. Which was why he eliminated them from his enquiries.
SIX
Sir Simon and Lady Bognor went for a walk later that morning, before the sherry which always preceded Sunday lunch.
The two had walked together since before they were married and it had become a ritual, even though their walking had an imbalance which handicapped the process from the very beginning. This lay in the fact that Monica had two speeds and her husband only one. Never the twain did meet. Monica moved fast or slow. The former was designed for getting from A to B with maximum expedition and was used in airports, railway stations and other places of no passing interest, where the arriving was all that mattered and the travelling merely a tiresome necessity. The other, slower, speed was for window shopping. Bognor referred to it as dawdling.
He himself walked at a speed which suited him but, essentially, belonged to no one else. Because of this, he was often an anthropomorphism of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘cat that walked by himself’. He was at one and the same time gregarious and solitary, and his walking speed suited him. When it was appropriate he adjusted his speed to that of other people, but he was basically only happy at his own idiosyncratic medium pace. It left him alone with his own thoughts, untroubled by interruption.
So Simon and Monica walked at different speeds, but they sang from the same, or at least similar, hymn sheets and talked the same game. Since they had first met, they had been each other’s greatest, usually only, confidants. They talked together often and in different situations, many stationary, but they had always talked together en plein air, walking. This involved compromise and usually meant that Simon walked faster or slower than he would have liked. If he maintained his own pace, he usually fell behind his wife or pulled ahead. In either case, conversation became impossible. Sometimes this worked.
Today, however, was a talking occasion taken at a slow speed, which meant that Bognor took his foot off the gas pedal and sauntered alongside his wife, concentrating on her but also appreciating the wild garlic.