Devil's Game

by Patricia Hall

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you if you’re not well, Mrs Brough,’ Mower said. ‘But we’re becoming increasingly worried about your friend Karen Bastable.’

  At the mention of Karen’s name Charlene shuddered and flung herself down on a chair by the fireplace, drawing hard on her cigarette. But she said nothing.

  ‘Have you any idea why she might have taken her car up onto the hills and abandoned it in the middle of a forest?’ Mower asked, an edge of anger in his voice. He had seen many guilty men and women and he had no doubt that this woman sprawled in front of them, oblivious to the fact that her negligee had flopped open to reveal her bra and thong, was as guilty as hell.

  Charlene gazed at the glowing tip of her cigarette before stubbing it out and lighting another and belatedly pulling her wrap more closely around her as she began to shiver.

  ‘I should have gone with her,’ she said. ‘I should never have let her go on her own.’

  ‘Where did she go? And why?’ Mower asked.

  ‘You heard o’dogging?’ Charlene asked and Mower nodded impassively, although Nasreem looked startled.

  ‘That’s what it were. Karen and me got into it a few months back. People were meeting up there, in them woods, every couple of weeks. We always went together but last time I got close to a bloke and he wanted a bit more, wanted to see me again, so I didn’t go that night. I met him here instead.’ She glanced at the ceiling above their heads where sounds of movement could be heard.

  ‘He were here again last night. My husband drives a long-distance truck. He’s away a lot.’ Her explanation was matter-of-fact, as if that excused everything.

  ‘So Karen went on her own?’ Mower asked.

  ‘She must of, mustn’t she? She wouldn’t want to miss, I know that. She loved it.’ She noticed Nasreem’s appalled gaze and flushed slightly. ‘It were just a bit of fun,’ she said. ‘Just a bit of a laugh. Nowt serious.’

  ‘I’ll need a full statement, from you and your boyfriend,’ Mower said. He had no right to criticise with his record, he thought, but this industrial-scale adultery made him shudder. ‘I’d like you both to come down to the police station and give us all the details you can.’

  ‘There aren’t any details,’ Charlene said. ‘You never know who’s going to be there, who you’ll go with. No names, no details. As I said, just a bit of fun.’

  ‘Well, it may not have turned out so funny for Karen,’ Mower said. ‘I need to know whatever you know about the men who turned up there, what they looked like, what cars they were driving, anything else you can recall. And the same from your boyfriend, if that’s where you met him.’

  ‘Do you have to get him involved?’ Charlene asked, her reluctance obvious. ‘That’ll be the end of a beautiful friendship, that will.’

  ‘Karen could be dead,’ Mower said flatly. ‘I need you both to cooperate. Will you go and get dressed now, please, and tell him to do the same? If you don’t come with us voluntarily I won’t hesitate to arrest you both.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Superintendent Jack Longley gazed at his DCI in disbelief.

  ‘This isn’t a joke, is it?’ he asked.

  Thackeray shook his head.

  ‘We’ve got chapter and verse from Karen Bastable’s workmate and the bloke she picked up on one of these dogging expeditions. Married man, of course, terrified we’ll shop him to his wife. Unusually, he arranged to see Charlene again after they first met up there in the woods. Generally the whole thing’s completely anonymous.’

  ‘I’m getting too old for this job, Michael,’ Longley said, his broad face crumpled with incomprehension. He ran a hand over his shining bald head. ‘I thought I’d heard it all, but this beggars belief. It’s like something out of ancient Rome. And in this climate! Where do they go when the weather’s bad, for God’s sake? They can’t have orgies up there in the middle of winter, surely.’

  ‘In the village hall if wet?’ Thackeray suggested mirthlessly. ‘I’m sure we’ll find out when we get hold of more of them and find out who does the organising. Charlene Brough said she and Karen had only been up there half a dozen times previously and it had been fine weather every time. She thinks it’s been going on for a considerable time.’

  ‘So how do they arrange to meet, then?’ Longley asked sceptically. ‘Someone must be organising it.’

  ‘Box number in the Gazette. Simply a time and day,’ Thackeray said. ‘Signed Pan. Someone who’s had some sort of education, obviously. We’ve still got Charlene downstairs. I’ll get Mower to press her on how she got involved in the first place, if he hasn’t already. Someone must have told her about it.’

  ‘And there must be a record of who put the ad in? That’s a lead,’ Longley said, but Thackeray shook his head.

  ‘We already checked that out,’ he said. ‘Someone simply handed it in over the counter on one of those forms they print in the small ads section. Paid for in cash. There’s nothing illegal about printing a time and day, so no one ever queried it. I’ve got someone talking to all the people who work the desk to see if they recall what the advertiser looks like, but I don’t hold out high hopes.’

  Longley whistled gently between his teeth.

  ‘There must be something we can throw at them all, once we get hold of them.’

  ‘I’m sure there is if we do get hold of them. They can hardly claim it’s in private, however far from the road they were. But the more urgent thing is to find Karen Bastable. Or her body.’ Thackeray’s face was grim. On the evidence of what Karen’s friend had told them he had little hope of finding Karen alive. The dogging rendezvous was a perfect place for a sexual predator and he had no doubt that at least one had been present the night she had foolishly decided to drive to the Bently Forest alone.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve any choice, have we?’ Longley said grudgingly. ‘Get a major search organised. I’ll talk to county about the overtime budget. If it turns out to be a major investigation, we’ll be all right. If we end up having searched half the Pennines while the lass is holed up somewhere with a boyfriend, we’ll have egg all over our faces. But I don’t see that we’ve got any choice, so you’d best get on with it.’

  ‘I’ll get the troops organised. Will you talk to uniform?’

  ‘Oh aye, they’re going to love this,’ Longley said. ‘There’ll not be enough overtime money in the kitty to make up for being stuck up there.’ He glanced out of the window to where they could see dark clouds tumbling down towards the town from the high Pennines. ‘Especially in the bloody rain.’

  Thackeray went back to his own office and set the wheels in motion for a search of the whole forested area around where Karen Bastable’s car had been found. Then he went to the interview room where Sergeant Kevin Mower and PC Nasreem Mirza were still talking to Charlene Brough. The three of them looked at him inquiringly, the officers impassive, their witness pale and red-eyed, clutching her packet of cigarettes as if her life depended on it.

  ‘I’ll sit in now, Nasreem,’ Thackeray said and the PC nodded and reluctantly gave the senior officer her chair. Thackeray introduced himself.

  ‘Do you think Karen is still alive?’ he asked. Charlene shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Can I have a fag? These bastards won’t let me smoke.’

  ‘You can go outside for a cigarette break shortly,’ Thackeray said, knowing as a smoker himself he was likely to have been more sympathetic than his colleagues. ‘Just tell me what you think might have happened to your friend.’

  Charlene’s face crumpled.

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’ she said again. ‘It were just a bit o’fun. She were really up for it. She were right bored wi’her husband. Have you seen him? If you see him, you’ll know what I mean.’

  ‘Could she have made a more serious commitment, like you did? Gone home with someone? Did she give you any indication she wanted to go out that night to see someone in particular? Or was it just…’ Thackeray hesitated, lost for words, unable to hide his dist
aste. ‘Was it just random?’ he asked after a pause.

  Charlene shook her head.

  ‘She never said owt about anyone special,’ she whispered. ‘It were just a bit o’fun, no strings, no names, just a quick shag or two, or three sometimes, a quick drink – people brought their bottles of booze – and off home.’

  Thackeray caught Nasreem Mirza’s eye and saw the same incomprehension there he knew must be in his own. The young PC was still hovering by the door.

  ‘You can go now, Nasreem,’ Thackeray said, and she slipped out looking grateful. The DCI turned back to Charlene Brough, feeling weary.

  ‘You say that the cars in the circle had their headlights on,’ he said. ‘So whatever was happening was well illuminated.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that were the point, really,’ Charlene said. ‘The audience, like.’

  ‘So, given that it was quite light you can give us descriptions of the people who were there.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Charlene said grudgingly. ‘Some, any road.’

  ‘And you can tell us who invited you up there in the first place.’

  Charlene looked even more mutinous at that.

  ‘I mean it,’ Thackeray snapped. ‘You must realise that what was going on up there is illegal. What we decide to charge you with will depend very much on how cooperative you are today. I want a list of everyone you can remember, and whatever you can recall of the cars, with the dates they were there, if possible. We’ll ask your boyfriend to do the same. From the sound of it, neither of you want to be appearing in court tomorrow. It’s the sort of case which would be meat and drink to the newspapers. The Globe would be up here like a shot. Your friend Karen could have been abducted or even killed, remember. We need this information and we need it now.’

  Charlene stared at him horrified, cigarette halfway to her mouth in a trembling hand. She licked dry lips.

  ‘I’ll see what I can remember,’ she whispered.

  Bob Baker, the Gazette’s crime reporter, was a dab hand at seizing Ted Grant’s attention. And this morning, this had been simply achieved by coming back from police HQ with his own interpretation, which was far from the official one, of the disappearance of Karen Bastable.

  ‘It’s bound to be the husband,’ he told Grant confidently. ‘They’ve started a massive search up on the Forestry Commission plantation on the Nelson road. Word is that she had a boyfriend, hubbie followed her up there when she went to meet him and bingo – she never came back. I wouldn’t be surprised if they find two bodies. The boyfriend probably copped it as well.’

  ‘So that’s the official line, is it?’ Grant asked.

  ‘Not yet, it isn’t,’ Baker confessed. ‘That’s from my own sources. All they’re saying officially is that they’ve started a search, and the husband will give a press conference later today. Hankies out for that, of course, but we all know how good killers are at playing the grieving relative. We’ve seen enough of them. You can’t believe a word they say.’

  Grant glanced at his computer screen thoughtfully.

  ‘You’ll only get a couple of paras in today. Tell the subs to make a bit of space on the front, give it a trail if you think it’s a serious runner. We’ll follow up big time tomorrow, by which time you’ll have the press conference to get your teeth into, and hopefully a body.’

  ‘Right,’ Baker said. ‘I’ll go and do a bit of doorstepping, see what the neighbours know about the Bastables. And there’s a couple of kids, apparently. And I’ll have a quiet word with Laura. She might have picked something up on that pillow grapevine she runs.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky getting anything out of Laura,’ Grant said, his expression sour. ‘She’s as tight as a Saudi virgin with information from that source.’ Baker grinned.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Baker said. ‘I get the feeling that liaison’s not as cuddly as it used to be. She may be susceptible to a bit of charm.’

  But when he approached Laura, with a friendly hand on her shoulder, she looked at him with incomprehension.

  ‘Michael never mentioned a missing woman to me,’ she said sharply, removing the offending hand with a sharp shrug. ‘And if he had, I wouldn’t be telling you about it. You should know that by now.’

  ‘It’s the sort of story you should be interested in – missing mother of two, husband likely to be the prime suspect. After all that stuff you did about domestic violence recently, this looks like it might be another instalment. Just thought you might like to know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Laura said. ‘I’ll bear it in mind. Have they found a body, then?’

  ‘Not yet, but they’ve launched a major search up at Bently. Husband’s giving a press conference later. So it’s looking bad.’

  ‘I might come to the press conference if I’ve got time,’ Laura said grudgingly. ‘I want to do a follow-up on the Julie Holden murder case before it comes to trial. I’m furious that they’ve charged her at all, really. It was an obvious case of self-defence.’

  ‘You’ve been called as a witness?’

  Laura nodded, her face grim, not wanting to relive the moment she saw a domestic dispute end in tragedy.

  ‘Really not where I want to be,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure you’ll enjoy the cross-examination.’

  ‘I’m sure we all will,’ Baker said with an unfriendly smile. ‘A bit embarrassing for your copper, wasn’t it, all that?’

  ‘He’ll cope,’ Laura snapped, not even wanting to think about her private life in close proximity to Bob Baker.

  ‘Well, I may see you later, lover,’ Baker said. ‘It looks like this is another domestic gone badly wrong. Right up your street. Ciao for now.’

  Laura sighed. She never intentionally tried to get close to the cases Michael Thackeray handled, but again and again their paths crossed, making their respective professional lives almost always more difficult than they needed to be. And the Julie Holden case had been a particular disaster as she had ended up witnessing what could have been a preventable death. She logged off her computer screen and picked up her jacket. She had, she thought, different, if not bigger, fish to fry, and she knew Ted Grant’s gimlet eyes were on her as she left the office. Life, since she met Michael, had never been easy, but she had a depressing certainty that it was about to get seriously worse.

  This time when Laura Ackroyd arrived at Sibden House, the electronically controlled gates swung open in response to her call, and she drove up the gravelled drive and parked outside the portico of a squat Victorian mansion overlooking manicured gardens which stretched as far as the eye could see. It must have taken more labour than Fred Betts could provide, she thought, to have kept this estate in good order before the advent of the garden machinery that now kept the lawns as smoothly striped as a first-class cricket ground. As Laura got out of her car she was conscious of a CCTV camera on the corner of the portico, no doubt recording her every move. As the landlord of the Shoulder of Mutton had said the first time she came to the village, the security was high tech and extensive; only the most determined burglar would gain access here.

  The front door was opened before she had time to reach the top of the steps leading up to it and she found herself face to face with a tall, slim black man in a smart suit whose smile of welcome did not quite reach his dark eyes.

  ‘Winston Sanderson,’ he said, holding out his hand in Laura’s direction but only allowing the briefest of touches when she responded. ‘And you must be the persistent Miss Ackroyd. I’m David Murgatroyd’s personal assistant and he’s asked me to give you some help with your article. Do come in.’

  He led her into a broad tiled hallway, furnished with antique furniture of lustrous beauty, which no doubt justified the security systems. The solid oak doors on each side were closed and the hall ended in a broad, branching, oak staircase which rose in shallow steps to the upper storeys. Sanderson opened a doorway to the left of the front door and led Laura into an equally elegantly furnished sitting room, overlooking the front drive.

  ‘A beautiful h
ouse,’ Laura said, as she took the seat Sanderson waved her into.

  ‘It wasn’t much to look at when he decided to refurbish,’ Sanderson said, pausing with his hand over a bell beside the marble fireplace. ‘Would you like tea?’

  ‘Not really,’ Laura said, slightly reassured that there was someone in the house to make it. ‘You said you hadn’t much time.’

  Sanderson hitched his trousers carefully and sat down opposite her. ‘I have to leave for London at three,’ he said. ‘So perhaps you’re right. Let’s concentrate on how I can help you. But I must warn you. Sir David is a very private person. He really dislikes personal publicity.’

  ‘He’s proposing to take over one of Bradfield’s schools,’ Laura objected. ‘People will expect to know who he is and what his plans are.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sanderson said, his expression bland. ‘But there are limits to what he is prepared to talk about, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘Right,’ Laura said. ‘So can we talk about his local connections first? That’s naturally what a local paper is interested in. And then perhaps we can talk a bit more widely.’

  Sanderson waved a hand around the room.

  ‘As you can see, he has a home locally, his family home, which he inherited from his father. His business interests are international, of course, but he gets here a couple of times a year at least.’

  ‘So I can write about the house, can I?’

  ‘No reason why not. I’ll give you a quick tour before you go. It’s a fantastic old place, built about 1860, I believe, by some textile magnate, and bought by Sir David’s father in the 1950s. No one was interested in these old places back then.’ Sanderson glanced around the room with a proprietorial air. ‘He got it for a song, apparently.’

  ‘But it must be worth a fortune now,’ Laura said, wondering just how wealthy Murgatroyd was. No expense had been spared on the meticulous period detail around her.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Sanderson said, with satisfaction.