Red Herrings Read Online Free PDF Page B

change.’
    â€˜Don’t be pompous,’ said Bognor. ‘He knew perfectly well who I was, he was just being difficult.’
    â€˜That, if I may say so,’ said Monica, saying so, ‘is the sort of attitude which led to Burgess and Maclean and that man Prime at GCHQ.’
    â€˜Now you really are being pompous,’ he said, falling into a fussy chintz armchair and removing a wad of papers from the envelope. ‘There is absolutely no similarity whatever between me and Guy Burgess or Geoffrey Prime.’
    â€˜I do so hate it when you deliberately misunderstand me,’ said Monica. She glowered briefly and returned to her Wendy Perriam.
    Bognor too began to read. There was an awful lot of stuff, much of it quite irrelevant and footling. Like so many of his colleagues, Wilmslow had been a tree not a wood man. Or, more accurately, a twig man. His papers were full of triumphal discoveries of restaurant bills where the fifteen per cent of VAT had been added before rather than after the service charge; of phone bills where businesses had been trying to claim back VAT on what were clearly personal private calls; of zero ratings being claimed on invalid imports; of muddles between input and output. Wilmslow would not have had a chance, reckoned Bognor, of seeing Birnham Wood for the stage props. Never. His eyes never strayed from the small print taking care of the pennies while the pounds took care of themselves. Bognor, who had good grounds for believing that some large and clever companies were perpetrating genuine frauds on a massive scale was outraged. It confirmed everything he had always believed.
    The Herring St George papers were not the only ones there and for a while, as he riffled through the pile, Bognor even wondered if they had been omitted altogether. That too would have been bloody typical.
    He found them in the end, however. Like the earlier stuff they were a mixture of typing and Wilmslow’s characteristically tiny, punctilious handwriting. A nitpicker’s hand. Not many people in the village were registered for VAT. It required an annual turnover in excess of eighteen thousand pounds and although the character of the place had changed drastically in recent years the new affluence was not, on the whole, self-employed. Moreover the weekenders, of whom there were several, were registered in their town homes and would be visited by Wilmslow or a colleague in London.
    The first few names were exactly as Bognor had expected: The Society of the Blessed Followers of the Chosen Light, PLC (SBFCL), Herring Hall. He knew perfectly well that the swami’s lot had considerable international holdings, not least in North Sea Oil.
    The Village Stores, Herring St George. This was a very different story but even though Sir Nimrod’s profit margins were undoubtedly modest, VAT was a turnover tax, not an income tax.
    The Pickled Herring, Herring St George. Larger profits here for Felix and Norman, though not yet vast.
    Fashions Sous-tous PLC, The Manor House, Herring St George. Bognor knew that although Peregrine Contractor employed no fashion staff – either production or design – at the Manor it was nonetheless the base for all his operations thanks to the wonders of modern computer technology.
    There were just two other VAT registered people, one of whom he should have thought of. Doc Macpherson was a high enough earner, even under the National Health scheme, to qualify. But the final entry was quite unexpected: Emerald Carlsbad, author and self-employed therapist.
    â€˜Emerald Carlsbad!’ he said out loud, ‘Who she?’
    On the bed Monica, immersed sulkily in her novel, did not reply.
    â€˜Emerald Carlsbad,’ repeated Bognor, ‘The New Maltings, Herring St George. I wonder where that is. Means nothing. Funny name and funny occupation. Not much need for therapy in Herring St George even in this day and age.’
    He turned the page and found photostats of