Death in the Opening Chapter by Tim Heald Page A

an ordained minister. Bad enough for anyone, but, for someone in Sebastian’s position, a particularly difficult – and lonely place – in which to be.’
    â€˜He shouldn’t have been lonely. There was you, his flock, his wife.’
    â€˜Alas, poor Dorcas!’ said the bishop in sepulchral tones, accompanied by the eye-rolling, both of which Bognor was beginning to find a touch irritating, fond of Ebenezer though he was.
    â€˜Why “poor Dorcas”?’ asked Bognor, wondering if he was right to follow the advice about searching for the femme , if the femme was Dorcas, or whether there was another femme involved. Fatale ,presumably.
    â€˜Let us just say,’ said Ebenezer Lariat, ‘that Sebastian’s relationship with his wife was deteriorating as rapidly as that with his Lord and Master.’
    Bognor said nothing. There was nothing much to say. Internally, however, cogs were whirring.

NINE
    T he Bognors’ bedroom belonged to another era. It was enormous, and the bed was a four-poster, which needed the hot-water bottles scrupulously filled and inserted under the sheets every night by Peggoty Brandon. The walls were hung with pictures to do with hunting and the Fludds – caricatures of previous baronets in the manner of Spy, with Fludds in pink, dogs lolloping along with tongues hanging out, jovial looking men on horseback, and the occasional fox, glimpsed from afar. The central heating existed, but was ancient and perfunctory, the windows leaked and there was a damp patch on the ceiling and a bucket on the floor. The patch grew wetter in bad weather and the bucket filled. There were two high-backed Victorian armchairs on either side of the fire, which was always laid and sometimes lit. There was a bottle of Malvern water and two glasses, also, because the Bognors were the Bognors and the Fludds the Fludds, a decanter of Scotch. This was not normally provided for guests; the Malvern water was.
    The Bognors enjoyed the room, which was the one in which they always stayed. They were used to it and it suited them. Very occasionally, when the Fludds opened the house and gardens for charity – usually the Red Cross or the Army Benevolent Fund – the four-poster was roped off behind a plush bell-pull of a barricade kept for such occasions, but more often it was a private sanctuary for the Bognors, penetrated only by the Brandons, apart from themselves.
    This was where they retreated for the obligatory ‘forty winks’ which broke up the afternoon.
    â€˜The bishop turned up,’ Bognor told his wife, who was already ten winks ahead of him.
    â€˜What, old Ebb?’ Monica wanted to know.
    â€˜Yes. He was quite interesting about the deceased.’
    â€˜How so?’
    Bognor told her about Fludd’s loss of faith and loss of Dorcas.
    â€˜Reciprocated?’ she asked.
    â€˜My sense is that the Lord still considered him one of his anointed, even if He felt a bit let down. Dorcas, on the other hand, was still fond of him. Not nutty or passionate, but that isn’t, wasn’t, in Dorcas’s nature.’
    â€˜I’d feel a bit let down if one of my servants stopped believing in me. Imagine how Branwell and Camilla would feel if the Brandons suddenly said they didn’t believe in them any more.’
    â€˜That’s silly,’ said Bognor.
    â€˜Not really,’ said his wife. ‘If the Lord dunnit, then it was suicide. That’s one of His ways of doing people in. Otherwise it’s war, car crashes, tsunamis, earthquake, wind and fire.’
    â€˜That’s silly too,’ said Bognor, ‘but probably not as silly as anything to do with Dorcas.’
    They mused and agreed silently. Dorcas was not, on the face of it, the sort of woman you would kill for; nor did she strike one as a murderess.
    Bognor told her about the hymn board. Her memory was more photographic than his and when he repeated the numbers he had written