Death in the Opening Chapter

Death in the Opening Chapter by Tim Heald Read Free Book Online

Book: Death in the Opening Chapter by Tim Heald Read Free Book Online
Authors: Tim Heald
confidence.
    â€˜We’ll have to be clever.’
    â€˜Naturally.’ Sir Branwell never allowed his 4th class honours degree to interfere with his assurance on this account.
    Bognor couldn’t help feeling that things had come to a pretty pass when a Lord Lieutenant and the Board of Trade’s head of special investigations had to resort to subterfuge in order to ensure rights that were supposed to have been established almost eight hundred years earlier. But then things had come to a pretty pass. He was aware of that.
    â€˜Assuming our man was murdered, who would have done it? And who could have done it?’
    The squire thought for a moment. ‘Opportunity is almost universal,’ he said, after a moment’s reflection. ‘Motive practically the reverse.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Bognor, wanting and needing more.
    â€˜Well,’ said Sir Branwell, ‘the padre was in the habit of going to his church for a bit of solitary rehearsal, communion with his Lord and whatever took his fancy before preaching the following day. He was very much a creature of habit. Everyone knew that he was due to preach the opening festival sermon – which, incidentally, we had better cancel – and that therefore he would be alone in church the evening before. Solitary and vulnerable.’
    â€˜No need to cancel,’ said Bognor unexpectedly and at an apparent tangent. ‘I’ll preach.’
    â€˜You what?’ Sir Branwell had not been expecting this.
    â€˜I said I’ll preach,’ said Bognor. ‘Could be a useful opportunity to pre-empt some thunderous chief costabular strike.’
    â€˜But you’ve never preached before in your life.’
    â€˜Always a first time,’ said Bognor, with a characteristic lack of modesty. ‘And I’ve always fancied it. Nice frock, captive audience, pulpit. Ask Monica. Being a bishop was always one of my several ambitions. I’d have made rather a good bishop. Pope, even.’
    â€˜He captains one of the other teams,’ said Sir Branwell, who had taken to the pulpit on a number of occasions in his role as one of the county’s great and good. He too rather rated himself on the sermon front, though with better evidence than his contemporary. He had to concede, however, that Bognor had the better degree.
    â€˜I’d have been a perfectly acceptable Mullah and a decent enough rabbi,’ said Bognor, not wholly facetiously. ‘I might not have been quite so hot on the Indian fakir front. Swami Simon doesn’t tremendously appeal, though I quite fancy the frock and the beard.’
    â€˜Not to mention the sex.’
    â€˜Much exaggerated, I’m told,’ he said. ‘Besides, I have a feeling Monica might have views on the matter, and if it came to a head-to-head between the Lord God Almighty and my wife, I know who I’m backing.’
    â€˜So,’ said Sir Branwell, returning to his subject in a single leap, ‘when it comes to opportunity, the world is your oyster. When we’re dealing with motive, the oyster becomes shut like a trap. There aren’t any. Traps, that is. Nor much in the way of motive. As for opportunities . . .’ He seemed suddenly thoughtful.
    â€˜Well,’ said Bognor, being constructive, ‘ cherchez la femme . In the absence of any other suspects that’s where one is always taught to start. La femme . Crime passionelle .’
    â€˜I hardly think . . .’ began Sir Branwell. ‘But then . . . well . . . poor sausage.’ He recalled the messenger who had, as it were, brought the bad news from Ghent. ‘You mean Dorcas. Cherchez Dorcas. It doesn’t sound convincing. I’m not convinced. I doubt you’ll convince a jury. Or a judge. Not by starting with Dorcas.’
    â€˜We have to begin with someone,’ said Bognor. ‘And if Dorcas is the only candidate, then we have to begin

Similar Books

Rebellion

J. D. Netto

Sheri Cobb South

The Weaver Takes a Wife

Dangerous Intentions

Dori Lavelle

The Grand Design

John Marco

Her Perfect Gift

Theodora Taylor