Poison At The Pueblo (2 page)

‘I'll call his room,' he said and pressed buttons. Felipe could hear the electronic ringing of a phone through the headset. There was no reply and eventually Ernesto replaced the receiver and stroked his chin.

‘We must go look,' he said. ‘You come too. Perhaps Mr Trubshawe is sick.'

‘Heel,' said Felipe, and followed the Master of Ceremonies outdoors and down the tarmac path towards Mr Trubshawe's chalet. When Ernesto knocked loudly on the door there was no response from within. The little log cabin had an alpine feel to it, with a steep roof and shutters. The prevailing aura was one of snugness, of coolth in hot summer months and warmth in the winter cold. Technically there was no such word as ‘coolth', but where there was warmth there ought to be ‘coolth'; pace Oxford which Bognor invariably cited as the ultimate arbiter except when, as now, he disagreed. Logic and linguistics may not always go together but perhaps they should. Today, at the turn of the seasons, it was like the Lacedaemonians of the New Testament and neither hot nor cold. Nevertheless both men shivered slightly as Ernesto slipped a master key into the lock.

The drawing room was empty, but the door to the small bedroom immediately off it was open. The two men walked briskly towards it, neither saying a thing, but both experiencing the same premonitions.

At the entrance to the sleeping quarters they both paused for a moment, Ernesto in front and Felipe close behind.

On the bed the man who called himself Trubshawe lay flat on his back, clad only in a pair of floppy Hawaiian-style boxer shorts and a pair of white ankle socks. The sparse hair on his chest was white, the equally sparse hair on the top of his head was uncharacteristically awry, and his face seemed more than usually purple.

He was, of course, extremely dead.

TWO

T
he knighthood came as a shock.

The first Bognor knew about it was a letter from 10 Downing Street. It began in handwriting with ‘My dear Simon' and signed off ‘Yours ever, Gavin'.

Despite a lot of walking up and down and cogitating he had no recollection of ever having met the Prime Minister in this or any other life. Either Gavin had got the wrong Simon, or the wrong Bognor, or the wrong end of the stick. Or this was a fiendish Machiavellian stratagem of the kind for which politicians were notorious. Bognor was a committed cock-up man rather than conspiracy theorist, though life had taught him that it was full of surprises.

As so often at moments such as this he rang his wife.

‘Monica, darling,' he said, ‘I've had the oddest letter.' Despite the fact that he suspected he was being bugged on a regular basis due to his position as Head of Special Investigations at the Board of Trade he read it out to her.

There was a long pause.

‘That's real,' she said, at last. ‘Even a consummate parodist couldn't capture the cloying conspiratorial tone of the people's prime minister quite like that. Craig Brown could give it a whirl in the
Eye
but he would go over the top and be shot down in smoke. That's pure Gavin with just a twist of Gina. The real McCoy. Take it. Say “yes”.'

‘You reckon?' Bognor was unsure. ‘You'd be Lady Bognor.'

‘I can live with that. I won't be Lady Bognor to our friends. Just in shops. And at Number Ten, of course. “Lady Bognor always dines in her tiara. Lady Bognor this, Lady Bognor that.” People will loathe it, I can't wait.'

Bognor thought for a moment. ‘You'll always be Monica to me,' he said, eventually.

‘
Au contraire
my
petit choux
,' she said. ‘I shall expect to be Lady Bognor to you, of all people. In public and private. Especially private.'

‘Thus,' said Bognor, ‘“I'm turning in, Lady Bognor. Mine's a Horlicks.”'

‘Something like that,' she said, ‘and I'll often call you Sir Simon. I shall enjoy it. Particularly the expression on the faces of certain third parties.'

At just that moment Bognor's aide, Harvey Contractor, shimmered into his presence in his inimitably Jeevesian way. Contractor was very young, very bright and was on secondment from elsewhere in Whitehall. He had a first in semiotics from the University of Wessex. Well, he would, wouldn't he, thought his boss morosely. He had only the barest notion of what semiotics were and knew nothing whatever about the University of Wessex. Bognor, ever paranoid, believed that Contractor had been sent to spy on him on account of his regularly long lunches and generally incorrect behaviour. It was his belief that there was a large government department devoted entirely to this sort of semi-secret monitoring, but he had been unable, hitherto, to prove it. On the other hand he was prepared to concede that the younger man had been put in place to keep him informed about a modern world with which he was increasingly unfamiliar. He liked Contractor, was impressed by him, but was gravely suspicious.

‘I'd better go,' he said to his wife on the telephone, ‘something's just come up.'

‘Meaning Harvey Contractor,' said the about-to-be Lady Bognor, sounding mildly huffy. She wasn't stupid.

‘Up to a point,' replied her husband, who, despite what some people thought and said, wasn't stupid either. He put the phone down.

‘How does “Sir” Simon grab you?' he asked Contractor.

The aide looked sceptical.

‘I'm not up for grabs,' he said, ‘but I concede that “Sir” Simon has a certain resonance to it. Why do you ask?'

‘Because,' said Bognor, trying to keep a note of truculent triumph out of his voice, ‘I've just had a note from Number Ten telling me that they'd like to elevate me to the knighthood.'

‘Funny,' Contractor said thoughtfully, ‘I'd never have credited the PM with a sense of humour.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Nothing,' said Contractor. ‘Nothing at all. Except congratulations. It couldn't have happened to . . . well, let's just say “it couldn't have happened” and leave it at that shall we?'

Bognor regarded him beadily. He had a keen eye and ear for insubordination but he decided to put his immediate reaction on hold. He had Contractor's number and Contractor, he suspected, knew it.

‘But you didn't come here to discuss my title?'

‘No, sir,' said Contractor, not sounding at all as if he meant the second three-letter word. ‘I've had a very interesting chat with my oppo at the Guardia Civil in Madrid. Carlos seems to think that they have an interesting British corpse on their hands. Died of a surfeit of mushrooms. Likely to be known to us as Trubshawe.'

‘Trubshawe,' said Bognor ruminatively, ‘not “Jimmy” Trubshawe?'

‘That's the fellow,' said Contractor, ‘Jimmy Trubshawe. He was found in some sort of chalet in the hills outside Salamanca. Food poisoning. Ate some dodgy fungus. No known antidote.'

‘Your oppo being a
teniente
?'

‘Carlos Azuela. A
teniente
. Very bright. He specializes in Brits. Particularly crims on the run in the Costas.'

‘Like Jimmy Trubshawe, also known as Don Jones, Greg McDonald, Bert Simkiss and many other cognomens.'

‘That's the guy,' said Contractor. ‘Gang leader, drug dealer, super-pimp, all round bad hat. Escaped from the Scrubs five years ago and rumoured to have been in Spain ever since.'

‘I'll deal with
my
oppo,' said Bognor with a hint of self-importance. ‘The Admiral. Juan what's-his-name.'

‘Picasso,' said Contractor. ‘Quite an easy name to remember. From Barcelona. A political appointment. My spies say he's not particularly good.'

‘No relation to the painter,' said Bognor, miffed at the criticism of his contact, ‘but I wouldn't say your friends are correct. He comes across as a bit of a buffoon but there are no flies on Juan. Not many anyway. There's not much that the Admiral misses.'

‘Well,
Teniente
Azuela says that Trubshawe's snuffed it,' said Contractor.

‘Or whoever he is.'

‘Was,' said Contractor. ‘“Was” not “is”. Trubshawe is now past tense. But, yes, whoever he is, he's dead.'

‘Murdered?' his boss wanted to know, and Contractor hesitated. He had a good enough university degree to be uncertain about certainty. A proper education sowed doubt. This was one of the many attributes he shared with Simon Bognor. To themselves, as well as the average outsider, they were poles apart, but actually they were quite alike. Contractor, however, was less adroit about concealing his intelligence and qualification. It made him seem more of a threat while actually making him less of one. The reverse of Bognor.

‘The Guardia Civil are unhappy,' said Contractor. ‘They don't seem to be saying that it's murder, but they
are
saying the death is suspicious. Trubshawe carried a lot of baggage; he seemed perfectly fit for a man of his age and taste. Death was . . . well . . . unexpected.'

‘Bloody lucky he wasn't bumped off ages ago,' said Bognor with feeling. ‘He almost makes me want to bring back the death penalty.'

He thought for a moment.

‘I'll talk to the Admiral,' he said eventually. ‘Maybe I'll even treat myself to a little Spanish trip. Lady Bognor, that is Monica, is very partial to Spain – a
tapa
or two, a chilled glass of Manzanilla, mosques, markets. And it's time the British criminal community on the Iberian peninsula got some sort of firework up their collective bottom. Wouldn't you agree?'

The younger man nodded and smiled. He had obviously noticed how much his boss savoured the words ‘Lady Bognor.'

‘Remind me though,' Bognor said, ‘the man Trubshawe or whatever. He did a bunk after a road rage incident. That's him isn't it?'

‘He was on remand in Wormwood Scrubs,' said Contractor, ‘and was sprung by some mates with a ladder. Easy-peasy. Inside job. They had screws on their side.'

‘Loose screws in the nick,' said Bognor, smiling thinly, ‘dodgy proposition, very. But I am right, aren't I? The man Trubshawe was an old-fashioned mobster in the Kray style, operating south of the river in the Tooting–Colliers Wood area, enjoyed violence at a personal level, dealt in people-trafficking, drugs of every description, friends in high as well as low places, political party benefactor. All-in-all, the unacceptable face of the twenty-first century.'

‘That's him,' agreed Contractor. ‘Alive and well in sunny Spain and cocking a snook at the forces of law and order back home.'

‘Not alive and well any longer,' said Bognor, sounding pleased.

‘Doesn't sound like it,' agreed Contractor. ‘Sounds dead to me.'

Bognor pushed back his chair, stood and walked to the large window overlooking the River Thames, which flowed sluggishly below his headquarters. ‘Water under the bridge,' he thought morosely. He had been watching Old Father Thames ebb and flow ever since starting at the Board of Trade the best part of a lifetime earlier. Every morning on his way to work; every evening on his way home. For much of his life in that drab building his office had no window at all. Eventually he graduated to a window, but only one looking out over the railway line which ran west from Waterloo. Since his elevation to the directorship he now had a sofa and a window overlooking the river. These were the symbols of authority. A room with a view and somewhere to sit with a visitor. By such tokens was a man's career measured out. Sofas and windows signified. And now he had a knighthood to go with them. How were the mighty risen! Almost without trace. Who would have predicted it? Not his teachers; not his contemporaries; not even Lady Bognor; least of all himself.

He sighed.

‘Trubshawe must have made a lot of money,' he said, softly.

‘Yes,' agreed Contractor.

‘And done what he set out to do?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Enjoyed the respect of his peers.'

‘If you can call them that,' said his assistant. ‘They're just a load of crooks.'

‘That's not how they see themselves,' said Bognor, ‘nor the world at large. Not these days. Being a successful villain is rather desirable. Time was when you would have been despised and vilified, but not any longer. Courted by cabinet ministers, interviewed by personalities, invited on to reality game shows. What price honesty?'

‘Isn't that unduly cynical?'

The boss gazed out at the grubby river and thought what a wasted opportunity it was. Once it had been a great artery, bearing the nation's commerce and the great and the good of the day, even while it was doing service as the national drain. Now it was nothing. The capital city had turned its back on it; men, women and goods went about on wheels. Excrement and other detritus disappeared down holes into sewers. The Thames no longer even had the guts to create a big stink. The river paralleled the nation: a gradual, turgid, unlamented decline.

‘I'm feeling cynical,' said Bognor. ‘It's age. It'll come to you one day. One moment you're bright-eyed and bushy tailed; the next minute you're unsound in wind and limb, and have but a short time to live.'

‘Oh give over,' said Contractor. ‘I mean, “with respect”. “Sir”.'

The Director continued to gaze out of the window, surveying the gun-metal-grey river and the city beyond. When he was young it had been ‘Swinging London'. Whenever you expressed distaste for what it had become, ignorant critics parroted Dr Johnson's adage about a man who is tired of London being tired of life. But that was a quite different city in a quite different life. He, Bognor, had had enough of it. Maybe life as well. He was disillusioned by both. Only half-amused by his knighthood, and not at all amused by the elevation of men like Trubshawe to a sort of Pantheon for the undeserving. He didn't get it; was glad Trubshawe was dead, but sensed he would be obituarized in the national press. And for that he was more than irritated.

‘Know Spain well?' he asked Contractor.