Poison At The Pueblo (27 page)

‘You could say so,' agreed Lola, ‘but you have nothing in the way of proof. And I maintain only that I am dangerously progressive. Dangerous, that is, for people of orthodox beliefs, such as yourself.'

‘All right,' Bognor was slightly cross, ‘I put it to you that you and George are both working for British Intelligence, as was Jimmy Trubshawe, and that between you, you fixed his mushrooms in such a way that he snuffed it. You don't like the fact that I arrived and rumbled your little plan which would otherwise have gone completely undetected.'

‘Prove it,' she said. ‘You can't prove anything. If I deny it, which I will, everyone will believe an innocent young nun's word against that of an elderly policeman.'

‘I know,' said Bognor, ‘and if possible I will prove it. George was Trubshawe's brother. You are an undercover agent working for another branch of the secret services and between you, you have done for poor old Trubshawe simply because he was embarrassing to the services. No one suspects George because he is so obviously dim and no one suspects you because you are so apparently holy.'

‘Maybe, maybe not,' she said, ‘to coin one of George's more effective phrases. He is not nearly as stupid as he may seem. You may think that I am not so holy. But things, as you say, are seldom what they seem. It is perfectly possible that a jury would think – for want of a better word or concept – along the same patterns as you yourself. However, the case will never come before a jury. Nor will it ever come into a court. The verdict of the Spanish authority is that Trubshawe's death came about because of a terrible accident. He should never have consumed those mushrooms. George knew that he had a weakness. He liked the fatal fungi more than the fatal fungi liked him. So. Dreadful, dreadful, pish, tush, accident, accident, accident.'

‘But you and I know that it was not an accident.'

Lola looked both naughty and conspiratorial. ‘I say again, maybe, maybe not. But even if we do know, then that is not the same as proving. In any case, there will be no opportunity. It has already been decided.'

‘Well, to borrow your boyfriend's immortal but useful little phrase “Maybe, maybe not”. I myself am not without influence. I shall take it up with the highest possible authority. I am not in the least bit happy.'

‘Happiness has nothing to do with the matter. Nor contentment. Nor justice.' For once she was being, almost, serious. ‘It is expedient. Much that happens, happens because it seems sensible at the time it is planned. It is a good idea. One says that the best laid plans always go astray and maybe that is so. Life is a mess. Life is full of what you may call a grey area. But life is always like that.'

‘There is such a thing as natural justice.'

‘Not on this earth. It is no more than an illusion. You know that. You have spent all your life helping to prove the illusion. If something must happen then there are those who will make it happen, and as you and yours will always say “then bugger the consequences”. I am a real nun, oh yes, because I believe that in the end, when we are dead, that is when some kind of justice happens. Until that moment everything is a half-truth, a deceit, a tissue of lies. Why a tissue? It is more than a tissue. A tissue is fragile, it disintegrates at a single blow of the nose. We deal with something much stronger. We deal with lies, deception, intrigue and, above all, the triumph of the strong and the failure of the weak. That is what this life is about. You should know this. You, of all people should know this. You are useless, futile, a waste of time and of space if you believe anything else. Maybe when we are dead there is some law, some justice. Until that time, the race is won by the person who cheats, who lies, who needs to have enjoyment. Before that, all is grey.'

‘That's quite a speech,' said Monica from her dark corner. ‘So what you are saying is that we should enjoy ourselves now and possibly answer for that enjoyment when we're dead. Perhaps. Surely, though, how we behave affects God's judgement later. He will want to know how we behaved. How else does he decide?'

‘Maybe,' she laughed, ‘maybe not.'

‘Well, I am not at all happy about it,' said Sir Simon, aware that he was sounding pompous and that he was probably out of his depth. ‘I'm not having it. And I am not without influence. I will take it up with the highest possible authority.'

She shrugged. ‘You must do what you have to do, but you would be unwise. It would be much neater and much more satisfactory for all of us if you accepted that the matter is finished, and that you are only making a big interference and a foolishness where one is not needed. Go away. Eat a good meal, have a nice drink, maybe even sex . . . But do not interfere.'

Not for the first time it occurred to Bognor that he was past his sell-by date and had been only a small cog in a big wheel at best. He was approaching retirement, he had a nice wife, there were titles for both. Why not just exit left gracefully and walk off into the sunset? But he still had an old-fashioned belief in right and wrong and a possibly ludicrous idea that he might make a difference. This could have been no more than a conceit, but it was, nevertheless, what he believed, and led him therefore to say, ‘You do whatever you like Sister, but I have to tell you that I am not without influence, that I still have friends in high places and I shall take this up in the very topmost circles. You haven't heard the last of this. Nor George. Trubshawe may have been expendable in your world but not in mine. He was a human being and human beings count.'

He knew he sounded pompous but truth did sound pompous. Sad but true. He may not have been able to contribute as much as he would have wished; there may have been something Pooterish about his aspirations, but he believed in justice and his whole career was based on the concept of seeing it done. If he occasionally sounded pompous that was a small price to pay.

‘Rats,' he exclaimed, ‘rats and double rats. You may win. You and your kind. But some of us have to be awkward and some of us believe in the right things. This may be an unpopular view but there are times when a chap just has to stand up and be counted.'

Sister Lola smiled. ‘You're not altogether unlike George,' she said, ‘and I respect your ideals. I really do. Not your fault, I suppose, that they are misplaced. Nor that you will always lose. Still, you'll go down fighting. Go down, you most certainly will. But I guess fighting is a good way to go.'

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
he Admiral and the
Teniente
escorted Monica and Simon to the airport. Superficially, this seemed like a courtesy, but both Bognor and his wife sensed that it was as much a matter of seeing them safely off the premises than any gesture of Iberian friendship.

The questioning was barely mentioned. Bognor was secretly terrified that some form of torture had been invoked, but was too scared of the answer to ask the question. This was a sensitivity that had dogged his career.

The Admiral, in particular, seemed worried about Bognor's well-being.

‘I should never have countenanced such a risk,' he said, ‘and someone took what you would no doubt describe as a “pot shot” at you. It is indescribable.'

‘Do we know who that was?' asked Bognor, as the big black SEAT smoothed along the highway towards Barajas. A bomb had exploded at the new terminal four which was designed by one of those fashionable British airport architects whose name Bognor could never remember. The bomb hadn't achieved a great deal, except to make travellers jittery. Airports were vulnerable no matter how many people were asked to remove their shoes. Spanish airports were more at risk than many other airports because the country itself was both at risk and generally considered a soft target. The States and Britain were, if anything, a more desirable option, but neither presented as soft an underbelly. At least that was the perception.

The
teniente
smiled. ‘We have found the bullet. It was embedded in the window frame of your accommodation. Therefore, I think it is only a matter of time. Unless, as I fear, your bird has flown.'

‘The bird being . . . ?' asked Bognor.

His two hosts shrugged.

‘The Camilla person,' said the Admiral, ‘it is all most unfortunate. My foreign minister has summoned your ambassador to issue a rebuke and demand an explanation but . . .' and here he spread his hands in an expression of inglorious impotence, ‘I ask myself, what is the use? Albion seems to have been perfidious but we are, as you would put it, in bed together, and since this person insists that she was only obeying orders, and since the orders seem to have been issued by the authorities themselves, it is . . .' His voice trailed away until he said once again, lamely, ‘It is unfortunate but there is very little to be done.'

‘You and I have our hands tied, as we say.'

‘I am familiar with the expression,' said Admiral Picasso, ‘and I regret to say that you are correct. If it were my own decision I would not have let the woman go but . . . There was a Qantas flight that seemed appropriate and she will be many hundreds of miles away by now. No one will ever know. Not even the hotel guests in the bay.'

Bognor nodded. It was a
fait accompli
. The limo had reached the airport perimeter, but the status of the Admiral and the
Teniente
meant that normal procedure was abandoned and they were accorded seriously VIP treatment, being chauffeured straight on to the tarmac and deposited at the steps of the waiting aircraft, just like visiting royalty or maybe even a British Prime Minister, although their status was not like it was. The other passengers would be cross and this was gratifying. Sometimes Bognor believed that, in a quiet way, his whole life was dedicated to making the other passengers cross.

‘So no one will ever know what really happened to Jimmy Trubshawe, whoever he was.'

The Admiral and the policeman glanced at each other.

‘No one will ever care,' said
Teniente
Azuela. ‘He is as if he had never been.'

Bognor looked out of the window and said nothing.

He cared, he thought. Even about Jimmy Trubshawe.

And, if only for that funny little reason, he would be back.

He smiled at Monica and she smiled back.

At least she, sort of, understood.

TWENTY-NINE

B
ognor was bidden to the audience with the Prime Minister that he had requested on Thursday at eleven a.m. This was not a time of his choosing, nor was Downing Street his preferred venue. He knew his own office was out of the question but he would have liked a semblance of neutrality. A Whitehall club and a pink gin was ideal but, well, needs must.

At five past the hour the Balliol knight who played Sir Humphrey to the PM's Jim Hacker came into the waiting room to tell Simon that he was afraid the PM was running late, was fantastically busy, and had just had the President on the line from the White House to discuss the suicide bomb in Kabul (in other words, thought Bognor, cynically, to give him his instructions, tell him what to think, say, and not to attempt to walk and chew gum at the same time). Bognor was an Apocrypha man and not therefore impressed by Balliol, nor by the frankly even dimmer college attended by the Prime Minister, let alone Harvard, which was the President's
alma mater
.

Very little impressed Bognor, besides which he was extremely cross about Trubshawe and the mushrooms. Not for the first time the Security Services had gone way beyond their brief and bungled things into the bargain. The PM and the Balliol knight were to apologize on their behalf because this was where the buck stopped. Apology, on the other hand, came neither naturally nor easily to either man. Apology was not what government was about; self-justification was the name of the game.

Sir Simon did not care for the PM, had little or no respect for him, and regarded him as a jumped-up ninny. Just because he was Prime Minister he thought he was, well, Prime Minster. Worse still, he behaved like it. And he had strange blubbery lips, a limp handshake and, worst of all, facial hair. Bognor hated whiskers.

‘Must be incredibly busy being Prime Minister,' said Bognor, not meaning it, ‘Luckily, I have nothing much better to do, so I'll wait.'

The Balliol knight, whose name was Edward, was privately crestfallen but smiled all the same. ‘Good,' he said. ‘Yes. Good. Well, he shouldn't keep us long. Got everything you need? Tea? Coffee? Sticky bun?'

Bognor said he was fine, actually, and settled down to read
The Oldie
, which was on the coffee table. He wasn't fine, any more than Sir Edward was perky, but he was damned if he would let it show.

‘Great,' said Sir Edward. ‘Well this won't butter any parsnips. I'll be back p.d.q. as soon as my Master calls.'

‘Good,' said Bognor, not looking up.

He was going to tell the PM where to get off. He was going to say that it was all very well to think one could ride roughshod over convention and to play fast and loose with democracy, but there were still men such as Bognor who were fundamentally decent citizens and who, not to put too fine a point on it, felt that in the last analysis there were certain things that a chap simply didn't do. And poisoning a fellow citizen with mushrooms was one of those things.

The Prime Minister was half an hour late. Sir Edward came for him, led the way briskly down corridors and into the presence.

‘Very kind of you to come,' said the PM, standing up behind his desk and leading the way towards a battery of more or less easy chairs. He was wearing a dark suit, a newly ironed white shirt and an electric-blue tie. This was uniform kit for a sound-bite. Bognor, who was not into sound-bites or uniform, felt uncomfortably scruffy – like Michael Foot, the one-time Labour leader, caught out in a duffel coat at the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Foot was the last party leader to dress according to his own lack of fashionable instinct and he had lost the general election by a street. There were those who thought this was a matter of substance, but many more saw it as a question of style, and since then leaders had dressed accordingly. This prime minister did as he was told, and in appearance matters his stylist ruled. He knew that in a televisual age nobody listened to what you said but they noticed your appearance.