Death in the Opening Chapter by Tim Heald Page B

French.’
    â€˜Quite.’ Bognor watched the bead in his glass, saw the bubbles ascend and vanish as they broke the surface.
    â€˜Don’t like him,’ said Bognor.
    â€˜Doesn’t make him a murderer.’
    â€˜Don’t like his food either.’
    â€˜Nor does that.’
    â€˜I suppose not.’
    They stared morosely at the dead flat-screen.
    â€˜So, you eliminate him from your enquiries?’
    â€˜I’ll talk to a sous-chef or two just to firm up his alibi, but basically he’s eliminated, yes. Strange interviewing him. I felt like that greengrocer on Celebrity Masterchef . Nothing but meaningless superlatives and droolings about how he’s getting a sense of well-rounded peach fragrance. I’ve never had snail porridge, but I’m more interested in discussing that, than I am in establishing his alibi. If you know what I mean.’
    â€˜Up to a point,’ agreed Monica, ‘though if he didn’t have an alibi and was a murderer, that would make him interesting, wouldn’t you say?’
    Bognor considered this.
    â€˜You mean,’ he said, ‘that haute cuisine is more interesting than murder.’
    â€˜The other way round, actually. But the one against the other.’
    â€˜Hmm,’ said Bognor, ‘we live in a world which rates them both pretty high. After all, cooks and murderers make flawless celebrities, along with models and failed spin bowlers.’
    â€˜Especially if they can dance.’
    They both laughed. Their world seemed real enough to them and yet, to dancing cooks and models, it would have carried just the whiff of make-believe that they ascribed to television, soundbites and the meretricious in general. You paid your money and you took your choice, and the future would deliver a verdict which would change according to the times, and whether or not the world survived. In the meantime, Bognor reckoned that all you could do was the best possible according to one’s own lights, and not to be seduced by bright lights, instant success and a certain sort of suit.
    Talking of which, he supposed that he really ought to interview Sir Branwell and Lady Fludd. In the event of things going wrong and of publicity ensuing, a failure to interview the Fludds would be held against him. Apocrypha College would be called in evidence to prove some sort of old school tie, and the fact that he and Monica were staying as guests up at the Manor would not look good. The headlines would scream, pseudo-egalitarians would snigger, and there would be a general consensus that it served him right, that he had fallen down on the job, and what could one expect from old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy, grumpy, long-lunching plutocrats anyway.
    Bognor felt none of these things, and regarded himself as being, in practically every important aspect, at the well-honed cutting edge of life in general. Even so, he had seen enough of real life to know that he should appear to play by the book, if only to avoid having it thrown at him if things went wrong.
    Which meant interviewing Branwell and Camilla, if only for form’s sake.
    It would yield nothing, but it would look good on paper and better still in the paper, if it ever got that far. The Fludds would dislike the interview, but the possible alternative was almost too dire to contemplate.

ELEVEN
    S ir Branwell had never, well hardly ever, heard of anything so ludicrous in his life. It took the absolute chocolate digestive. It was the Bath Oliver to end all Bath Olivers. A real Huntley and Palmer. I mean he had never been so . . . well if the suggestion had come from anyone but Simon he would . . . on the other hand . . . was he absolutely certain . . . even in this day and age . . . I mean really.
    And so on.
    Bognor explained that the conversation was an essential formality. A formality, but essential nonetheless. It was simply a matter of insuring against criticism, of