Death in the Opening Chapter by Tim Heald

raised his best game.
    â€˜I always associate Battenberg with cake,’ said Monica, puckering over her fizz. ‘From a small town in Germany. Marzipan. Brightly coloured squares. Mildly embarrassing name for our own dear House of Windsor.’
    â€˜The cake is spelt with an “e” not a “u”,’ said Gunther. ‘My name has little or nothing to do with the cake. Hoffentlich . I do not like cake in general, and I abhor this one in particular.’
    â€˜Like Vyvyans with a “y” in Cornwall, as opposed to an “i”,’ said Monica, ignoring her husband’s fond but forbidding stare. He was warning her off, an admonition which the chef noticed and evidently respected.
    â€˜Prosit,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘I was here yesterday between the hours of five and seven, in answer to your question, Maestro. I was supervising prep for dinner. It is my custom.’
    â€˜We only have your word for that,’ said Bognor beadily. Such scepticism was a stock-in-trade. He liked being thought of as a Maestro, though. He must use it in future. The flattery softened his response.
    â€˜I had my batterie here. You can ask them. They will vouch for my presence.’
    â€˜OK,’ said Bognor, ‘I have to ask questions such as this. Form’s sake, you understand. Nothing sinister about them. They have to be asked, that’s all. Busy night?’
    Gunther looked thoughtful. ‘ Comme ci, comme ça ,’ he said eventually. ‘The first guests for the festival have arrived already. Brigadier Blenkinsop and his wife. Mademoiselle Book, the singer, and her friend. Maestro Allgood, the writer. They were all here.’
    Bognor disliked Martin Allgood being referred to as ‘maestro’. He had always thought of little Martin as a bit of a pipsqueak, and much disliked what little he had read of his. It didn’t help that Monica seemed to a bit of a fan.
    â€˜All here already, so soon?’
    Gunther nodded. There didn’t seem to be anything to add, so a silence hung in the air, until it was broken by Bognor asking, ‘The dead man. Did you know him?’
    â€˜The vicar? Of course. In a small community such as ours the vicar is a known person. Just like the squire, the person who runs the pub. And so on. There are not, I am told, as many vicars as once upon a time, and the Reverend Sebastian had other congregations and churches. He was busy. In former times, the vicar would perhaps not have been quite so busy but, alas, times have changed and the vicar today is a busy person.’
    â€˜You, however, are not a member of the Church of England?’
    The chef seemed to think about this, but finally shook his head a little sadly.
    â€˜I was brought up as a Lutheran,’ he said, ‘but I am, as you say, “lapsed”.’ He laughed, as if pleased at having mastered such a difficult and essentially English concept. ‘Lapsed,’ he repeated. ‘It is like your tea. It is weak, with much water.’
    â€˜Lapsang souchong,’ said Monica, not helpfully.
    The chef looked blank.
    â€˜So you knew the reverend as a pillar of the Establishment, rather than as a man of God?’
    Gunther looked blanker yet. Maybe, thought Bognor, he really was foreign, and not a cookery school graduate from the East End of London.
    â€˜How well did you know the Reverend Sebastian?’
    This time Gunther understood the question perfectly.
    â€˜He always said the grace at my festival dinner. Always the same words. “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.” Quite dull. Always the same. Sir Branwell said that at school they had a joke toast which said “For baked beans and buttered toast, thank Father, Son and Holy Ghost”, but I am not understanding the joke. Nor the reverend. He was very conservative. He liked to be thought, as you would say, “progressive”, but he did