Red Herrings Read Online Free Page A

means of support, when communications were fouled up by some incompetent human in the telephone exchange. When the operator did come on the line she sounded frumpish and surly, peeved at being disturbed. Bognor snapped at her and she snapped back, taking an age to put the call through and doing it gracelessly. ‘I have a Mr Bognor calling from a Rolls Royce in Herring St George. Will you accept the charge?’ he heard her say and was depressed to hear Parkinson saying, ‘Yes, yes,’ just as testily. He did dislike low spirits, particularly when they reflected his own. He liked other people to cheer him up. What was the point in people who simply depressed you?
    Like Parkinson. Bognor’s relationship with his boss was long standing and long suffering. There were those outsiders who regarded his marriage with incredulity, but this was unfair; despite a robust reluctance to be hen-pecked and a permanently wandering eye he was fond of old Monica. He was not fond of old Parkinson. Not a bit. And yet he had suffered under him for so long that life without him was unthinkable.
    â€˜Bognor?’ That staccato almost derisive enquiry. He had endured it for so many years that now he accepted it and would have been uncomfortable if his superior began a telephone conversation in any other way.
    â€˜Speaking,’ he said, just as tartly. It was not a one-sided affair. He gave as good as he got. Well, almost. At least he answered back. And if he did not answer back he was never servile. He had a good line in lip chewing, dumb insolence, an entirely justifiable attitude in view of Parkinson’s permanent truculence and condescension. The trouble was that Parkinson while undeniably good at his job was in every other respect a comparatively low form of life. Bognor, although professionally miscast, was in every other way a person of the utmost distinction. It was a difficult situation to live with, though not uncommon. Bognor’s experience of life was that it was not the cream which floated to the top but the scum. He and Parkinson were a case in point.
    â€˜I do apologise for disturbing your little holiday,’ said Parkinson. As both of them knew full well, he did not mean what he said. Just the opposite. He liked nothing better than disrupting his subordinate’s leisure time.
    â€˜That’s perfectly all right,’ said Bognor. This was also a lie.
    â€˜Not for the first time, Bognor, you seem to be bringing trouble where’er you go. You’ve conjured up a corpse from Customs and Excise.’
    â€˜You’re remarkably well informed,’ said Bognor drily. ‘They only found him an hour or so ago.’
    â€˜The CID man in charge of the case is extremely quick on the draw,’ said Parkinson, managing to imply that this was not quite the case with Bognor. ‘Rather a ball of fire in fact. On checking him out I’ve discovered he’s first rate. Absolutely first rate.’ The inference was again quite plain.
    â€˜He’s not called Guy, by any chance?’ enquired Bognor, glumly apprehensive about a whizz kid who was also, on Mrs Contractor’s evidence, what suggestible women nowadays referred to as a ‘hunk’.
    â€˜Not by you, Bognor. As far as you’re concerned he is Detective Chief Inspector the Earl of Rotherhithe.’
    For once Bognor was able to trump his superior. ‘In that case, sir,’ he said, ‘he’s Guy. I was up at Oxford with him when he was plain Lord Wapping. He was a judo blue. Took my sister out a couple of times. Not my favourite person in all the world and neither as good looking nor as clever as other people seem to think. No real bottom.’
    Now that Bognor was no longer on holiday but on official business, watching over the interests of the Board of Trade and liaising with Guy Rotherhithe, he judged it proper to move his HQ from the manor to the village pub. The Pickled Herring, for years a dozy