Red Herrings (15 page)

‘And most of them happen to be very rich.'

‘There's no means test,' said the swami. ‘Not even an admission fee.'

‘But there's an overwhelming tendency to take on poor little rich people?'

‘There are an awful lot of poor little rich people around these days.' The swami turned up his palms in a gesture of mock despair. ‘The other day a man came to me. His family run one of the biggest breweries in South America. He pleaded with me to let him join. Miserable as sin he was. A wreck. Now he works in the greenhouse and thinks I am some sort of god. He's probably crazy but he's happy for the first time in his life. What should I have done? Turned him away?'

‘And how much money did he bring?'

‘Around fifty million dollars.' The swami shrugged. ‘Sure. It's a lot of money. But it's very carefully invested and he gets the benefit.'

‘Working in the greenhouse?'

‘It's what he wants. Why should I answer.'

‘I don't know,' said Bognor. ‘It doesn't seem quite right somehow.'

‘All communities are the same,' said the swami. ‘Many people who have worldly goods are unhappy with them but they can't renounce them altogether. So they make them over to cynics like myself. We look after them and enjoy the loot. The Church has done it for centuries.'

‘Oh well,' said Bognor. ‘There are some things I shall never understand.'

‘That's life,' said the swami, looking profound. ‘But it's something I'm afraid your colleague Mr Wilmslow had some trouble understanding.'

‘Oh?'

‘You knew he'd been to see me?' The swami raised his eyes to the ceiling which was painted by minor Pre-Raphaelites. A Judgement Day scene of peculiar lugubriousness. Bognor often wondered if all Victorians were such whey-faced drips as the PRB made out.

‘Yes,' said Bognor. ‘He'd been to see everyone in Herring St George of any substance. Anyone that is who was registered for VAT. I'm afraid that includes Sir Nimrod Herring who could hardly be said to be of substance.'

‘Yes.' The swami seemed thoughtful. ‘Sir Nimrod. I think there may be slightly more to him than meets the eye but I'm afraid his so-called shop isn't much of a success. I had hoped to deal with him in the interests of good community relations. Not possible. In fact, to be perfectly frank, the village is pretty impossible all round. I don't know what the country's coming to. A right lot of faggots and johnny-come-latelies.' Bognor remembered that Bhagwan Josht had been to Harrow. His father had held some minor Indian title. His elder brother still lived in the family palace, crumbling slowly to dust in some God-forsaken northern city where once their word had been law. Bhagwan was better off where he was.

‘No, your Mr Wilmslow was a most unpleasant piece of work,' said the swami, ‘but not the first we've come across since moving in to Herring St George.' He paused. ‘I'll be perfectly frank, Simon, we're not everyone's cup of tea, and partly for that reason I'm extremely careful to do everything by the book. No hard drugs, for instance. Yes, we allow marijuana but we exercise strict quality control. We have a reputation for sexual libertarianism but really by the standards of the outside world we are positively prudish.'

‘Present company excepted.' Bognor grinned.

The swami grinned back. ‘All company directors have their little perks,' he said.

‘As far as money goes,' he went on, ‘we are totally scrupulous. We can afford to be. We have a very great deal of it. That brewer I was mentioning, he's just one of many. We invest shrewdly, of course. And at times we may sail a little close to the wind but everything is strictly legal and above board. If anyone wishes to inspect the books he can do so whenever he likes. Even you.'

He rubbed his whiskers, and paused before continuing. ‘Now the second we arrived here we had a visit from the doctor. We have our own trained medical staff here naturally but we received him kindly until it became clear that what he was trying to do was to negotiate some sort of contract for supplying illicit drugs.' The swami looked scandalised. ‘As far as I could make out this was something he was already doing for others, but I didn't enquire. We sent him packing straight away.'

‘Are you sure?' Bognor was startled but not totally unsurprised. Macpherson had not impressed him.

‘I couldn't prove it,' said the swami, ‘not in a court of law. But yes, I'm sure. The next thing was that fellow Contractor from the manor was round. Very oily he was. Now I still don't know exactly what he was after but it was to do with sex. No doubt about that. He seemed to think I was running some sort of brothel. Could people stay for the weekend. He had one or two clients who … nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean. He got quite ratty when I said we didn't go in for that sort of thing. Even got his cheque book out, which was pretty naive of him because I could buy him out twice over before breakfast.'

The swami looked more outraged by the insult to his financial strength than by the appeal to his larder of sexual goodies.

‘And now Wilmslow …' said Bognor.

‘And now Mr Wilmslow of the Customs and Excise,' concurred the swami, adjusting his robes, then kicking off his sandals and hoisting his legs on to the sofa. ‘What a little tick he was. Dear me. Such poverty of expression too. Do you know what he said? He'd only been in here a few minutes when he looked at me – he was sitting just where you're sitting in that armchair – and he said to me, “O.K. swami, how about a slice of the action?” “Slice of the action!”' The swami repeated the words and snorted with disbelief.

‘What exactly did he mean?' asked Bognor, knowing perfectly well but wishing to have it spelt out.

‘What he meant, Simon dear boy, is that he and I should connive over a falsification of our Value Added Tax returns and split the profit.'

‘Could he do that?'

‘Easiest thing in the world.' From somewhere out in the garden a muezzin-like call disturbed the pastoral calm of morning. Seconds later it was followed by a communal mantra chant from below the window. The swami glanced at his gold Rolex. ‘Excuse me just one second,' he said apologetically, and walked across to the french windows which led on to a balcony. From where he sat Bognor could see him waving beatifically back in the direction of the mantra and then dipping into his pouch for some purple papers which he scattered majestically towards the earth.

‘What was all that about?' asked Bognor when he returned to the sofa and was sitting again with his legs pulled up beneath him.

‘To be honest,' said Bhagwan Josht, ‘I'm not entirely certain myself. My Minister for Spiritual Affairs thought it up. At noon and at six p.m. everyone has a bit of a chant and I go out and bless them. It's very popular.'

‘I see,' said Bognor.

‘To return to Mr Wilmslow,' said the swami, wrinkling his nose in contemplation of such a slug-like subject, ‘it became quite clear in the course of our conversations that your Mr Wilmslow was doing it the entire time. Quite apart from anything else he as good as told me that he was working some sort of VAT return fiddle with everyone who was registered in Herring St George. Including, I may say, Fashions Sous-tous and that tasteless rip-off down at the Pickled Herring. That, by the way, used to be a proper pub with skittles.' The swami sighed. ‘Those two queens have ruined it.'

‘You couldn't prove any of this I suppose?' Bognor expected nothing. Wilmslow was no fool, greedy though he may have been. If VAT returns had been cooked they would be cooked à point. Just so. It would take a clever investigator to identify the frauds.

‘I've got a tape recording,' said the swami nonchalantly. ‘Not admissible in court I don't suppose; if he were alive it would be strong enough to get him fired. It's fairly clear that he's making an improper suggestion to me.'

‘And what about the others? The Contractors and Felix and Norman?'

The swami pursed his lips. ‘I think you'll find he's been quite careful. Implied everything but said nothing. However if you play your cards right I should think you've got enough here to put the wind up one or two people. I'll run you off a copy before you go. Would you care for lunch?'

Bognor said, no, he'd better not. Miss Carlsbad's word-processing disk was burning a hole in his pocket and he wanted to touch base with Monica and Guy. A lot seemed to have happened that morning and the waters were growing murkier by the moment.

‘I'll get one of our people to drop the tape off at the pub,' said the swami. He stood up and eased on his stout leather sandals. ‘It's been super seeing you again. If ever you find the pressures of life too much you know where to come. Monica as well, of course.'

‘I'm not sure I like the idea of sharing her with you,' said Bognor.

‘There are ways round that,' said the swami, pausing in the passageway to tear off a strip of paper from a Telex. He frowned, then opened the door of the Communications Room and called out, ‘Sister Fatimah. Sell that Hong Kong stock you bought this morning and buy Bannenbergs. And for heaven's sake go easy on gold.' A doe-eyed bride, crouched over a computer screen, glanced up and smiled.

‘Right on boss, baby,' she said.

The swami smiled at Bognor. ‘I like to keep things very informal except when we're actually going through some act of worship,' he said. ‘I don't want them treating me as a god the entire time. That way lies certain madness.' He giggled. ‘I hope you find who killed him,' he said. ‘He wasn't my cup of tea, but I do draw the line at murder.'

‘You think he was murdered then?' asked Bognor.

‘Oh yes,' said the swami, ‘beyond a peradventure.'

It was a bit of a hike back to the Pickled Herring and the sun was high in a cloudless sky. He knew he should not have worn such thick socks, let alone the grey flannel bags. He could take the tweed jacket off and swing it nonchalantly over his shoulder, but not the trousers. Nothing indecent about nobbly knees and underpants but not the done thing either. Especially when about one's government's business. One just had to sweat it out and look forward to a pint of bitter when one reached the Pickled Herring. Maybe a shower as well.

He was striding along humming Lilli Marlene and thinking wistfully of the Israeli girl paratroop clone when he heard a busy, buzzing car engine approaching briskly from behind. Yet again he was aware of the recklessness of country drivers in these treacherous high-banked lanes. He wondered if it was the district nurse who had a reputation for being the fastest thing on wheels in all the Herrings. She drove a Metro with an MG trim, and was alleged to be no better than she should be, though Bognor put this down to village gossip.

It was not the district nurse however but a scarlet Mercedes sports car with the hood down, and the driver was Samantha Contractor. She tore past him, then screeched to a halt and reversed noisily until she was alongside.

‘Hi stranger!' she called, leaning across to open the passenger door and exposing large expanses of bra-less breast, ‘Want a lift? You look hot.'

‘I am hot,' said Bognor, guiltily remembering the photograph he had so recently picked up off Emerald Carlsbad's back path.

‘Where've you been?' she asked as she crashed the gears and let out the clutch. Bognor felt himself being thrust back into the seat like he did in an aircraft just before take off. She did drive awfully fast.

‘Oh, all over,' he said.

She glanced across and smiled mischievously as she let the car slide into the bend, checked the drift and accelerated away fast.

‘Where's Monica?' she asked.

‘Back at the Pickled Herring. She had a bad night.'

‘Oh!' Sam did not seem particularly surprised. ‘Come on up to the manor and tell me what you've been up to. Do you have a moment?'

Bognor looked at his watch. It was after twelve-thirty. He really ought to be getting back. On the other hand a few minutes wouldn't hurt and she was rather gorgeous. He found himself thinking back to her photo again. ‘O.K.,' he said, ‘just for a second.' Then before he could stop himself he found that he was blurting out: ‘By the way I saw an absolutely ravishing picture of you earlier today.'

She looked across at him with interest.

‘You did?'

‘I was up at Miss Carlsbad's. Damian Macpherson was coming out. He dropped his file …'

Sam stamped on the accelerator again. Bognor's left hand tightened on the door handle. She was a very fast lady.

‘Funny,' she said. ‘I saw Damian about half an hour ago. He said he'd seen you but he didn't mention that you'd seen one of the pictures. He's good isn't he?'

They had reached the back lodge. Sam slowed for the bend, rattled over the cattle grid, then stabbed on the gas again. She seemed disturbed, thought Bognor, though he guessed she always did drive aggressively.

‘How do you mean good?'

‘He hasn't been taking pictures long. Perry and I have been sort of sponsoring him. He's keen to try nudes so I agreed to sit for him. If he's going to use nude models he might as well start at the top.'

‘Yes.' Bognor relaxed. It was a plausible enough explanation. In any case what other explanation could there be? Sam was wonderfully sexy but also wonderfully naive. Perry was the brains. Perry might well be a crook. Sammy on the other hand was one of nature's innocents. He was sure of that. Indeed, it occurred to him suddenly that if he was going to get straight answers out of either of the Contractors it was much more likely to be from her.

They had pulled up outside the house now. A scrunching of gravel, a stench of burning rubber and life had come to a merciful halt. ‘Ah!' said Sam, ‘I love to live dangerously!'

‘By the way,' said Bognor, trying to appear offhand and nonchalant, ‘tell me about Dull Boy Productions.'