A Game of Murder

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘Who’s they?’

  She turned away to stare out of the window. After the first shock of his appearance her confidence was beginning to return.

  ‘We’ve been looking all over for you,’ Harry said. ‘We want to ask you some questions about the murder of Peter Newton.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Peter,’ she said angrily, turning round to meet his eyes. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘We’re not suggesting you did, but we still think you can help us by answering a few questions.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can tell you. I don’t know anything about the murder.’

  ‘There’s a great deal you can tell us. We know, that you’ve been living with Newton. Haven’t you been living with him for over, a month now?’

  Judy answered coldly. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you.’

  Harry leaned forward and tried to speak in a more friendly tone, to coax her into talking to him.

  ‘Judy, listen. If you didn’t kill Newton then the best thing you can do—’

  ‘Don’t call me Judy,’ she whipped back. ‘When I want you to call me Judy I’ll say so.’

  Harry sighed. He reached in his pocket for his cigarette case. The taxi had negotiated Trafalgar Square and was heading along the Mall.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘To Scotland Yard. I want you to meet a friend of mine. Inspector Fletcher. He’s in charge of, the case.’

  Judy gave an almost professional nod. ‘I know Fletcher.’ ‘You know him?’

  ‘I’ve seen him around. I’m glad he’s a friend of yours.’

  Harry surmised that this girl was a good deal less tough than she tried to make out. He moved over to the seat she was sitting on, letting the occasional seat snap back into place. He offered her his open cigarette case. She hesitated, then mink one. Before she had managed to get his lighter out, she had produced her own, lit the cigarette and replaced the lighter in the bag.

  Harry lit his own cigarette.

  ‘Do we have to go to Scotland Yard?”

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid we do.’

  ‘Couldn’t we go somewhere else?’

  ‘Where – for instance?’

  ‘For a moment he wondered whether she was going to try and buy him off, whether she was like those girls in Peter Newton’s collection of photographs. But somehow she did not seem to fit into that category.

  ‘I don’t know. Anywhere we can talk.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to talk.’

  ‘Not about Peter, I don’t. But there are other things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Stop the damn cab and I’ll tell you!’

  Harry studied her face for a moment. She had attempted to run away from him once. This could be another device for trying to elude him. The floodlit shape of Buckingham Palace was looming up ahead. To the left were the dark lawns, pools and copses of St. James’s Park. He made up his mind and leaned forward to pull aside the panel in the glass partition.

  ‘Okay, driver. Pull up here, will you?’

  The driver braked gently. He knew that a car was behind him, the same mini-van as he had held up in Charing Cross Road, and he did not want to be shunted from behind.

  As he stopped and reached round to open the door for Judy he said: ‘You happy about this, miss?’

  ‘Yes.’ Judy nodded. ‘He’s okay.’

  Harry paid him off. He was keeping a close eye on Judy to make sure that she did not make a run for it, so he did not notice that the mini-van had quietly gone past and pulled in to the kerb fifty yards farther on.

  As the cab drove away he steered Judy to a bench at the back of the broad footway, screened by a clump of bushes growing at the edge of the park.

  ‘Now,’ Harry prompted. ‘What kind of things are we going to talk about – Miss Black?’

  ‘Well, we could talk about – your father, for instance.’

  They had reached the bench. From a dozen yards away a street lamp cast deep shadows through the branches that now hung over their heads. Judy sat down. She had thrown her cigarette away and was now reaching for another one.

  ‘What do you know about my father?’ Harry asked her very quietly. He felt a peculiar nervousness, a sense that he might be on the verge of some discovery that would destroy the image which he had built up of the father whom he had worshipped almost as a hero.

  This time she accepted the light he offered her. She inhaled deeply and then breathed the smoke out slowly before she answered.

  ‘I know who killed him.’

  Chapter 2

  The driver of the mini-van parked fifty yards farther on, leaned across and lowered the window on the passenger’s side. He put his head out just far enough to see the couple settle themselves on the park bench and the flame of the lighter as they lit their cigarettes.

  He slid back into the driver’s seat. He had not stopped the engine. He engaged a gear and moved off towards Buckingham Palace. He was a small man with the hungry, lean look which some jockeys have. But Marty Smith was not a healthy specimen. His cheeks were pocked by the marks of acne and he had a facial twitch which caused his right lip, nostril and eye to flicker every few seconds. It was as if one half of his face was continually wincing as a result of a flat-handed slap.

  He drove carefully round the Queen Victoria Memorial and came back down the Mall, now on the opposite side. A little way past the park bench where the couple still sat, he turned left, and parked the van facing the boundary at the back of Clarence House. It was not an authorised parking place but there were no coppers about. He climbed out, invisible under the shadows of the shrubs and trees and stared thoughtfully across the road. He would have given a lot to be able to hear what those two were saying.

  ‘I met Peter about a year ago. I’m an actress, you know.’ Judy smiled and then corrected herself. ‘Well, a dancer, really. It was Peter who persuaded me to come down from Liverpool. He got me a part in that show at the St. Edward’s theatre which was such a flop.’

  ‘I gather he’d put quite a bit of money into it.’

  ‘He had. But it didn’t seem to worry him. He had plenty of the stuff and I must admit he was pretty generous with it. That’s why in the end I accepted his invitation to move in with him.’

  ‘Do you know where his money came from?’

  ‘He told me he was in the property business. And he also had an uncle who died and left him a quarter of a million.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Harry sounded dubious. ‘How did he treat you?’

  Judy took out a fresh cigarette and lit it from the stub of the one she was smoking. ‘We were very happy – at first anyway. Peter was really a very amusing person and good company. Then a funny thing happened—’

  ‘Go on,’ Harry prompted. Without much interest he was watching the small man who was dodging his way across the road. He disappeared down some path that led into St. James’s Park. ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘Well, we came back from a cocktail party the other night – it was the night before your father was killed. Peter was in a terrific mood. We were supposed to be going to Paris the next day. He said my education would not be complete until I’d been to Maxim’s and the Tour d’Argent.’

  ‘But you didn’t go,’ Harry prompted.

  ‘No. It was very eerie. It must have been about ten when the door-bell rang and this man in evening dress came in. I was – well, I wanted to get some more clothes on so I skipped into the bedroom.’

  ‘Did you see the man? Do you know who he was?’

  ‘I recognised his voice straight away. His name is Arnold Conway. Peter. and I had been out once or twice with him and his wife Sybil. But he was talking to Peter in a way I’d never heard before. It made me frightened, but I couldn’t help listening.’

  ‘Can you remember what he said?’

  Judy’s brow puckered as she made the effort to remember. ‘No, I can’t really recall the words. Peter was obviously surprised to see Conway and asked him wh
y he had come. And Conway told Peter that he had to be at Highgate Golf Club at ten o’clock sharp because that was the time Tom Dawson was going to be there. Peter made some sort of protest, but Arnold didn’t give him a chance.’

  She stopped, glancing nervously at Harry’s face. ‘Well, go on,’ he said.

  ‘There’s nothing more. I walked out into the sitting-room then and Arnold suddenly became all affable. He left almost at once. Peter was obviously terribly upset but I was too. The idea of cancelling a trip to Paris for the sake of a game of golf . . .’

  ‘That’s what he told you?’

  ‘Yes. He said he’d fixed up the game some time ago and had forgotten all about it. We ended up by having a proper row. I said something about him being Tam Owen’s following dog and he went nearly berserk. Slapped me on the face and told me I must never mention that name – either to him or anyone else.’

  ‘Tam Owen,’ Harry repeated. ‘Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘Only that Peter used to be on the phone to him every day for about half an hour. I thought they were discussing property deals.’

  In the telephone kiosk a hundred yards along the Mall, Marty Smith had just pushed in the coin which gave him his connection.

  ‘Tam? Marty here . . . Look, he hasn’t taken her to the Yard. Not yet. He stopped the taxi along the Mall . . . Sitting there talking, they are . . . But I thought you wanted her nicked.’

  He put a finger in his free ear to mask the noise of a passing motor-scooter, his weasel face concentrated on what he was hearing.

  ‘Linda said what? . . . Oh, suffering crows! . . . Yes, they’re just down the road from me. You wani me to bring her back?’ He listened for a moment. His twitch had started again. ‘Okay, Tam. Okay, you’re the boss.’

  He hung up, left the booth, glanced all round him suspiciously, then set off along a path that led into the park. He did not follow it for long. He turned right, stepping over a barrier that was meant to keep people off the grass and slipped in amongst the shrubs which grew profusely at that part. The street lamp which he had noted near the park bench gave him a beacon to work towards. He put a hand against his pocket to prevent the hard metal instrument which reposed there from bumping against his skinny hip.

  ‘Well,’ Judy was saying, ‘the next day Peter went off to play golf. He came back earlier than I had expected. He looked awful, obviously very shaken, white as a sheet. He announced that he’d killed a man, just like that. I shall never forget the shock it gave me. Then he went on to make out that it had been an accident, that he’d gone out to practise and one of his shots had hit this man on the head.’

  ‘I’ve heard that story, too,’ Harry commented. ‘Did you believe it?’

  ‘Frankly, no. I could see he was lying. I asked him if he knew who the man was he’d killed and he told me Dawson. Well, I recognised the name at once as the one Arnold Conway had mentioned. But when I told Peter so he grabbed my arm so hard I’ve still got the bruises. He made me swear that I’d forget all about that conversation I’d overheard.’

  Harry did not break the silence as she lit yet another cigarette and drew deeply on it. Her description had given him a vivid picture of what had happened in Peter Newton’s flat. He could fill in the details for himself. No wonder the girl was frightened. If someone had found good reasons to murder Newton, doubtless to ensure his silence, there were just as good reasons to deal with Judy Black in the same way.

  He cocked his head sideways. There was a rustling in the bushes behind them. Probably some small, timid animal which only dared to venture out of its hole at night.

  ‘When I read about the accident,’ Judy went on, resuming the narrative of her own accord, ‘I was even more worried. I knew that Peter had not told the truth and I had a feeling, a horrible feeling, that your father’s death was not an accident. Arnold Conway’s words kept coming back to me.’

  She was as nervy as a cat. Even the faint rustle of leaves in the thicket behind them made her turn her head fearfully.

  ‘The next morning – yesterday, in fact, though it seems forever – Peter received a phone call from Tam Owen. I was only half awake at the time and he took the call in the living-room. But I heard what he said.’

  ‘What did you hear?’ Harry had to prompt her.

  Her voice had sunk very low. ‘He said: “Tam, remember this! You’re the one who killed Dawson. Not me. Now for God’s sake leave me alone!” When he came back into the bedroom he was furious, almost trembling with rage. I kept my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep.’

  ‘This man, Tam Owen. Were he and Peter in business together?’

  ‘They may have been-but Owen was certainly the boss.’ ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It was obvious. If Tam said “Go to Birmingham or Leeds or Manchester” Peter went. There was never any argument about it.’

  ‘And Arnold Conway. How does he fit into the picture?’ ‘Arnold was a friend of Peter’s. It was through him that he met Tam Owen.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  A couple of hundred yards away Harry could see the sentries on duty at Buckingham Palace being changed. A little party of three figures in scarlet tunics and busbies moved stiffly across the front of the floodlit building. The spectacle gave a sense of security and order to the whole scene.

  ‘Now then, Miss Black. Tell me about—’

  ‘Judy, please.’ She made a brave attempt at a smile and put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry I was rude to you in the taxi. I didn’t know who you were and I was frightened.’

  Her smile and her touch had affected Harry more than he wanted to show. He tried to keep his tone on a dispassionate, official level, but a part of his mind could not help speculating on what it would be like to take this very attractive girl in his arms.

  ‘Tell me about last night.’

  ‘Peter took me out to dinner and we had another—’ Her face puckered in distress.

  ‘You had another row?’

  ‘Yes. A terrible row this time. That’s why I left him.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About ten o’clock.’

  ‘Where did you leave him? In the restaurant?’

  ‘No. We left the restaurant at about half-past nine and drove into Hyde Park. We sat in his car near the Serpentine for about half an hour.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘I told you,’ Judy said, slightly uneasy under the questioning. ‘I left him.’

  ‘And what did you do?’

  ‘I went for a walk.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘Where did you walk?’

  ‘In the park most of the time.’

  ‘Did you talk to anyone – anyone you knew?’

  She stared at him, aware now of the reason for these questions. The period they were speaking of was the time when Peter must have been murdered.

  ‘No. No, I’m afraid I didn’t.’

  ‘Go on. What happened?’

  ‘I – I stayed the night with a friend of mine. I wish to God I hadn’t now. I wish I’d gone back to the flat. Perhaps if I’d done that – If only we hadn’t had that bloody silly row.’

  She was near to tears. Harry gave her a moment and then spoke in a more gentle tone.

  ‘What was the row about, Judy?’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing.’

  ‘Was it about my father – about what happened?’

  ‘No. It was the silliest thing.’ She was fumbling in her handbag, this time for a handkerchief.

  ‘What was it, Judy?’

  ‘We had a row about the most ridiculous thing – a dog’s collar.’ She blew her nose and then gave a little laugh that was somehow more pathetic than tears. ‘I told you it wasn’t important.’

  Harry swung round on the seat and gripped her by the shoulders. She gave a little cry at the sudden urgency in his manner and the strength of his grip.

  ‘Judy, listen—’

  He saw Ju
dy’s eyes suddenly widen and swing towards the bushes behind the seat. In the back of his mind he had heard the brush of a body against leaves, the crackle of a fallen branch breaking under a foot. Too late the sense of danger flooded over him. He began to rise and had half turned when Marty Smith’s cosh caught him behind the ear.

  He found himself falling into a gleaming whirlpool, its spinning sides reflecting Buckingham Palace, the dark trees of the park, Judy’s mouth open in a silent scream, a pocked face contorted with hatred and violence . . .

  ‘I’m all right, I tell you. I’ve got to get out of here. Now, will you please tell that idiot of a nurse to bring me my clothes!

  Harry had recovered consciousness to find himself in a bed in a hospital ward, surrounded by screens and naked except for a rather stiff kind of shift, not worthy of the name of nightgown. His protestations had cut no ice with the young and rather plain nurse who had been tucking the sheets in when he opened his eyes. Now, a somewhat formidable though not unattractive lady doctor had come to deal with this very difficult patient. She wore a white coat and the stethoscope dangled between her breasts.

  ‘It is quite out of the question. You may have severe concussion and should remain in a darkened room for several days. Besides, we wish to X-ray your skull. It could be cracked.’

  ‘It’s not!’ Harry said. ‘Look, I’ve been laid out before. You don’t know how thick a skull I’ve got.’

  It was no good. The doctor was adamant. The best that Harry could do-was to persuade her to get a message through to Nat Fletcher at Scotland Yard, and he only achieved that by threatening to run naked down the corridor to the call box.

  Nat was there in twenty minutes.

  ‘So it was you!’ was his first remark.

  ‘It is me,’ Harry corrected.

  ‘No. I was referring to a report that came in just before we got your message. A passing motorist saw you being mugged on a bench in the Mall. He stopped and went back but all he found was you. The mugger and the girl who was with you had disappeared into St. James’s Park. He decided that the first thing was to call an ambulance for you.’

  ‘No sign of the girl?’

  ‘No.’ Nat sat down on the edge of the bed and lowered his voice. “He said she was a blonde girl. Not Judy Black by any chance?’