Red Herrings by Tim Heald Page A

direction he was off and away.
    â€˜Conceited ass,’ said Monica. ‘I can’t stand those sort of superficial good looks.’
    Bognor knew this was not a good moment to gloat.
    â€˜We’d better go and unlock the squire,’ he said.
    He had his back to them when they entered the room and seemed for a moment unaware of any intrusion. Only when Bognor coughed did he turn from the window with a surprised shake of the head, like a man emerging from a dream which, it immediately transpired, was just what he was doing.
    â€˜We came here from Caen,’ he said, blinking.
    Mr and Mrs Bognor looked blank.
    â€˜William d’herring. Knight. Namesake of the Conqueror. Came from Caen.’ The incongruous tuft of ginger hair waggled curiously as he spoke. ‘We’re nearly all in the vault. You realise I’m the twenty-third baronet and when I’m gone the title passes to my cousin Keith in Canterbury.’
    â€˜That’s not so far,’ said Bognor, grasping at straws.
    â€˜About twenty-four hours as the crow flies,’ said the old man. ‘Six weeks by P and O.’
    â€˜Canterbury, New Zealand, you idiot,’ hissed Monica, spitting in his right ear. Bognor nodded. Keith was clearly a Kiwi.
    Sir Nimrod was obviously not finished. He was nowhere near the point. Bognor was about to ask him to come to it a little more rapidly but stopped himself, realising that this was probably a case of ‘softly, softly’.
    â€˜The whole of English history’s in the Herring family tree,’ continued the squire. ‘Forget all that clever stuff they teach you at Oxford and the London School of bloody Economics. You don’t need a lot of damned Marxists banging on with their half-baked theorising – it’s all here in Herring St George.’ He rubbed a rheumy eye and repeated, ‘All here in Herring St George and when I’m gone it’s finished.’
    â€˜Perhaps your cousin Keith will come home and settle.’
    Monica meant to be soothing but Sir Nimrod only glowered. ‘Whole damned country’s gone to the dogs or New Zealand,’ he said and sat down heavily in a high-backed porter’s chair which Felix had picked up in a junk shop in Whelk. It was covered in nutmeg brown velvet. ‘Fact of life. God knows we might as well have let Hitler and his chums in. It couldn’t have been worse than it is and at least the trains would run on time.’ He paused and looked thoughtful. ‘Was it Hitler who made the trains run on time or Mussolini? There hasn’t even been a station in Herring St George since that fat oaf Beeching axed it. And they’ve taken the dining car off the eight-thirty from Whelk to town. Would you believe the station’s just been bought by some writer chap for over a hundred thousand? Writes tea commercials. Something to do with monkeys.’
    Bognor felt it was time to impose a little order on these ramblings.
    â€˜Monica said you had something to tell me,’ he said, not unkindly but with officer-class authority. ‘About the death this morning.’
    â€˜You wouldn’t have such a thing as a drink would you?’ The old man rummaged in his pocket and produced a packet of cheap thin Woodbine cigarettes. The Bognors always had a bottle of Scotch in their hotel room. Bognor poured a thimble into a tooth mug and added water. When this was done and the Woodbine was alight Sir Nimrod said: ‘Look at the Clout. The Clout was going even before we got here. Hundreds of years. Happy family occasion. Private affair. Now it’s day trippers and cameras and even journalists.’ He pronounced the last word ‘jawnalists’ and he pronounced it with a dreadful contempt.
    â€˜Oh, not really a journalist,’ said Bognor, trying to maintain a light tone, ‘a gentleman from The Times. ’
    â€˜Gentleman from The Times! ’ Sir Nimrod spat the words out.