Game Over

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Swilley shook her hand (thin, extremely cold, with long fingers made longer by polished nails so perfect Swilley guessed they were false) and looked into her eyes. The blue eyes that looked back were as cold as a highland spring.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this,’ Swilley said. ‘I gather you’ve heard what happened to Mr Stonax. You must be very upset.’

  ‘I’m devastated,’ said Candida Scott-Chatton. She didn’t meet Swilley’s eyes and her voice was rather high and strained, but it seemed to Swilley more like nervousness than grief. ‘Of course, we live in dangerous times and we all know something like that could happen to any of us, any time. But somehow you never expect it to happen to you, or to someone you know.’

  She doesn’t care a jot, Swilley thought.

  Perhaps something of the thought showed in her face, because Scott-Chatton turned away abruptly, went behind her desk, and with her back turned took out a handkerchief and seemed to attend to her nose and eyes with it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a muffled sort of voice. ‘Will you give me a moment?’

  ‘Take your time,’ said Swilley, unmoving and unmoved.

  When Scott-Chatton turned back her eyes did seem a little moist, but Swilley, determined to yield nothing, told herself that that was easy enough to fake.

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ Scott-Chatton gestured to a leather upholstered upright chair by the desk, and Swilley sat. ‘I’m not sure that there’s anything much I can tell you, though I’m willing to help in any way I can. On the news they seemed to be saying it was a burglary that went wrong. Is that true?’

  ‘That’s what it looks like,’ Swilley said. ‘How well did you know Mr Stonax?’

  ‘We’ve been friends for some years. He was always interested in environmental and countryside issues, and of course he was environment correspondent at the BBC at one time, so we tended to meet in a professional way quite often.’

  ‘But you were more than friends, weren’t you?’

  She seemed taken aback. She paused too long for the answer, whatever it was going to be, to look unstudied. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said faintly, uncertainly.

  ‘I think you do,’ Swilley said, interested that she should want to deny the connection. She wasn’t married – Swilley had checked that in Who’s Who. ‘I should mention that we’ve spoken to his daughter.’

  Was it relief that flickered through her eyes? She said now, in a calm voice, as if she had never prevaricated, ‘We’ve been lovers for about two years, if that’s what you mean.’

  What else? Swilley thought. There was something here she didn’t understand. ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Oh – it would be last week. We went out to dinner. Wednesday evening, I think? Or Tuesday? No, Wednesday, the twenty-third. We both have busy lives, so we don’t – didn’t – get to see each other as often as we’d like.’

  ‘And how did he seem on that occasion?’

  ‘Just as usual.’

  ‘Was he worried about anything? Preoccupied?’

  ‘No, why should he be?’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  There was a hint of impatience in the reply. ‘Goodness, I can’t remember. Nothing in particular. Just what we always talked about. Why on earth are you asking me these questions? What relevance can our dinner conversation a week ago have to his being attacked by a burglar?’

  ‘It’s just routine,’ Swilley said soothingly. ‘We have to cover all possible angles. Someone might have overheard you saying something that helped them decide on the break-in.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t talk about his flat being full of valuables,’ she said with grim humour. ‘I think he talked about his daughter – he was looking forward to her visiting sometime soon – but otherwise I can’t think of anything specific.’

  Swilley nodded and changed tack. ‘You say you both had busy lives. Do you know what Mr Stonax was doing that kept him so busy? As far as we know he didn’t have a job.’

  Scott-Chatton would have frowned if she were a frowner. The eyes glittered frostily. ‘He was involved with several charities, and he always took an interest in our campaigns and wrote letters and went to see people. I can tell you he never sat around idly feeling sorry for himself. Ed wasn’t that kind of man. He’s a great, great loss, to the country, as well as to me personally. It’s awful to think of him being cut down in his prime for nothing more than the contents of his wallet. I hope you put every effort into catching this young thug, and putting him away for a long, long time.’

  ‘We will,’ Swilley said. ‘We are. Do you have a key to his flat?’

  She threw the question in out of the blue and was gratified to see the faintest hesitation before Scott-Chatton replied, ‘I used to have one, but in fact I gave it back to Ed. We didn’t meet at his flat any more. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s just a routine question,’ Swilley said, her eyes unmovingly on Scott-Chatton’s alabaster face. ‘Something we have to ask people.’ There seemed to be no more forthcoming and Swilley stood up. ‘Well, thank you for your time. If there’s anything else we need to know I’m sure you won’t mind if I contact you again.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Scott-Chatton said, seeming – to Swilley’s quiet pleasure – a little put out. She rose too and they walked towards the door.

  ‘I’m afraid the press will be hounding you soon, if they aren’t already,’ Swilley said with a sympathetic smile.

  ‘No, they haven’t troubled me yet,’ Scott-Chatton said absently. Then her gaze sharpened. ‘I hope nothing the police say or do will expose me to unwelcome press attention.’

  ‘We don’t talk to the press unless we absolutely have to,’ Swilley said, ‘and then we make a point of not telling them anything they don’t already know. Goodbye, and thank you again.’

  In the outer room the secretary had flung Swilley a fleeting but searing look before going back to her typing, so she made a business of putting her notebook away and fiddling in her handbag until Candida Scott-Chatton had closed the door to her own room behind her. Swilley turned to Shawna Weedon, but before she could speak the girl flung a silencing finger against her lips, shoved a folded piece of paper across the table, and continued with her typing, having missed only a beat or two.

  Swilley took the paper, winked, said aloud, ‘Well, goodbye, then,’ and took her departure.

  At a safe distance from the building she opened the note. ‘Ciggie break, 10 min, down mews.’

  An assignation, Swilley thought, amused. Now what could young Shawna have to say that her tartar of a boss would object to?

  Four

  Widow of Opportunity

  ‘So tell me – if you don’t mind talking about it – about your father’s bit of trouble last year,’ said Slider.

  Emily Stonax was sitting beside him in the car, hands between her knees for comfort. The low afternoon light striking her face through the windscreen emphasised how tired she was. She looked grey.

  She sighed, as if talking was an effort, but she answered freely enough. ‘It was very strange. I mean, that sort of thing just isn’t like Dad. He’s the straightest person I know. And as for sharing anything with Sid Andrew – he’d as soon lick the pavements. He had a very low opinion of him.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Oh, he told me more than once that Sid was a waste of space, a complete liability in the department. He’s the sort of man Dad always despised – a time-serving career politician, who got on by being lobby fodder and a cabinet lickspittle. He was punching well above his weight at the DTI – the Permanent Secretary practically had to guide his hand when he signed things. But then, look what happened when the scandal broke: Sid Andrew does a couple of months in purdah and then he’s Lord Andrew of Leuchars. Now he’s sitting pretty – directorships, quangos, committees, you name it.’

  ‘So what do you think really happened?’ Slider asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said in frustration. ‘Dad would n
ever talk about it. I was out of the country at the time, of course, but I read all the British papers and I watch the BBC so of course I saw everything that was in the news. It was taken up by one or two of the American papers, because Dad had been Washington correspondent for a while, but they didn’t run with it past one issue. We have our own sex scandals over there, much fruitier ones, and no-one had ever heard of Sid Andrew so it wasn’t interesting enough. But I phoned Dad straight away, of course, and asked what was going on. I said I know it isn’t true, and all he said is, “It’s pointless for me to deny it. You’ve seen the photos.” I said to him, “Dad, I know you wouldn’t do something like that.” And he said, “The evidence is irrefutable.” And then he changed the subject and wouldn’t talk about it any more. And when I next came over, it was a forbidden subject between us.’

  ‘So what’s your theory?’ Slider asked. She looked at him, and he gave a faint smile. ‘I’m sure you must have a theory, a thinking woman like you.’

  She shrugged off the compliment. ‘I suppose he must have been tricked into it somehow. But I can’t think how. What was he doing with that girl in the first place, when he and Candida were so close? Maybe he was drunk,’ she added, as though anticipating that he would say it, ‘but being drunk doesn’t excuse bad behaviour.’

  ‘Was it so very bad? I mean, these days, don’t men have these little flings now and then?’

  She looked disappointed in him. ‘Other people, maybe, but not Dad. And not like that. Anyway, the government thought it was serious enough to sack him and Andrew.’

  ‘Why do you think your father wouldn’t talk about it to you?’

  She looked down at her hands. ‘Maybe because he was ashamed,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. I could bear it if he did it and was defiant and said, “Mind your own business,” to everyone. But I couldn’t stand it if he did something he was ashamed of. Not Dad.’

  It was quite a pedestal, Slider thought. Was Stonax really that virtuous? They were silent until they turned into Riverene Road, and then she said, ‘You don’t think that old stuff has anything to do with . . . with this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Slider said. ‘Probably not, but I like to know everything I can in cases like this. And I was born curious.’

  ‘I thought you said it was just a robbery?’

  ‘It looks that way,’ Slider said. ‘I’m just being thorough.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I should be glad about that,’ she said bleakly.

  Swilley walked down Queen’s Gate a little way and came back into the mews from the other end, and then stationed herself in the shadow of a fire escape to wait. Soon enough Shawna Weedon came scuttling across the road from the office. Swilley made herself visible and the girl almost flung herself into the hiding place as if the Feds were after her.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ she said, fumbling in her handbag for a cigarette. She offered them to Swilley, who took one in the interests of the case, though she hardly ever smoked any more. Shawna lit them both and savaged the weed as though it was her last. ‘She doesn’t like me smoking,’ she said, ‘and of course I can’t do it in the office, but it’s in my contract, two ten minute breaks as well as lunch-hour, and she can’t stop me taking them. But I daren’t be a minute late.’

  ‘All right, what did you want to tell me?’ Swilley asked calmly.

  ‘Only to set the record straight, that’s all, because it’s so shocking about poor Ed Stonax. He was such a lovely man. He often used to come into the office, and always so polite and friendly. Not like some people, who think they’re better than everyone else. But he was a complete gentleman.’

  ‘Well, up to a point,’ Swilley said. ‘There was that three-in-a-bed stuff last year.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ Shawna said with robust scorn. ‘Well, if you want my opinion, there was something fishy about that. I said so at the time. He just wouldn’t do a thing like that. If you want to know what I think, I think he was drugged to make him do it. Because there was no way he would have if he was in his right mind.’

  ‘But then why didn’t he complain about it afterwards?’

  She shrugged. ‘Oh, well, you know how these things go. Once something’s been in the papers no-one ever believes you again. He’d have just looked like a fool to argue. And according to what I heard they gave him a big settlement, so unless he wanted his job back he was better to leave sleeping dogs lie. And he wouldn’t have wanted it back after that, would he? Besides, they’d never have given it him anyway because I believe that’s what they did it for, the whole photo thing – to get rid of him. But that wasn’t good enough for madam.’ She jerked her head back towards the office. ‘Dropped him like a hot potato as soon as he was in trouble.’

  ‘I heard that she stood by him,’ Swilley said.

  ‘The moment she realised there was bad publicity in it, she gave him the elbow. She’s mad about publicity – lives for it – but it’s got to be the right kind. Got to reflect well on Miss Snooty Pants and the old school, doncha know.’ She put on a ludicrous ‘posh’ accent.

  ‘When you say she gave him the elbow . . .?’

  ‘There was this time, just after it all broke, when she phoned him and I picked up the line by mistake. Well, I couldn’t put it down again because it would have made a click and then she’d have thought I was listening.’

  ‘So you listened?’

  She had no shame about it. The end had justified the means for her. ‘I heard him say they needed to talk about it, and she said no they didn’t, there was nothing to say. So then he said could he come round and see her and she said he could, but it wouldn’t make any difference, he wouldn’t be able to change her mind. So then he rang off and about half an hour later he came in through the door and she took him into her office and shut the door. I couldn’t hear what they were saying – they must have been keeping their voices down – but then she buzzed me and when I went in they were standing on opposite sides of the room, and she was quite red in the face and he was looking really fed up. So she says, all polite and chilly, “Will you have a cup of coffee?” And he says, “No, thank you. I’d better go.” Might just as well have said, “No thanks, it’d choke me,” because it was obvious he’d been pleading with her and she’d been giving him the old heave-ho. So he just up and leaves, and she turns to me and says, “I think you should know that Mr Stonax and I are no longer going out together.” I felt like saying, surprise, surprise!’

  ‘I wonder why she would tell you that,’ Swilley said, almost to herself.

  ‘Well, we all knew how things were between them before that, so I suppose she was making sure we knew she wanted nothing more to do with him. Too good for him, the stuck-up cow.’

  ‘But he had two-timed her in a pretty nasty way.’

  ‘I told you, I never believed in that. He was set up. Anyway, what about “stand by your man”? She should have forgiven him and taken him back,’ Shawna said sententiously, straight from the pages of whatever magazine she had most recently been reading. It wasn’t Country Life, that was for sure. ‘Anyway, before you can turn round, she’s started going out with someone else.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Freddie Bell,’ Shawn said, with a certain ripe, significant look.

  ‘The casino mogul?’

  ‘That’s him. And a real rough diamond he is. When he comes in the office to see her it’s “What are you lot staring at? Haven’t you got any work to do?” Never stopping for a chat like poor Mr Stonax did.’

  Swilley was fascinated. ‘Are you sure about that – Candida Scott-Chatton going out with Freddie Bell? I wouldn’t have thought he was her type at all.’

  ‘Well, if you want my opinion, she likes a bit of rough. And of course he’s mega-rich. It got her into the papers all right – didn’t you see?’ Swilley shook her head. ‘They were photographed together all over the place. Rubbing Mr Stonax’s nose in it, I thought.’

  ‘So she wasn’t still seeing Ed Stonax?’
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br />   ‘You kidding? He was history. Besides, Freddie Bell’s not the sharing type, and he’s got a temper on him. He broke that bloke’s arm just for looking at his girlfriend funny – didn’t you read about that? It was in What She Wants and Chat magazines.’

  ‘I don’t get those.’

  ‘I couldn’t live without them! It’s the only way you find out what’s really going on in this world. Anyway, that was years ago, but it shows what kind of man he is. I suppose that’s what she likes. So all I’m saying, if she comes over all holier-than-thou and pretends to be the grieving widow, don’t you believe her.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Christ, I must go.’ She dashed the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out.

  Swilley said, ‘Thanks, you’ve been a great help. Just one last thing – did she see Mr Stonax at all after that time?’

  ‘Oh, yes, now and then, because they were interested in the same campaigns. But it was just official stuff. Freddie Bell would never have stood for anything else.’

  The rest of Stonax’s flat seemed as immaculate as the drawing-room, except for the obvious signs of forensic activity. There were taped ‘safe lines’, and Slider conducted Emily Stonax through them to look around the flat. She seemed pale but in control, and said that she couldn’t see anything out of place or missing. ‘It all looks just the same,’ she said. There was a bad moment when they looked into the spare room. She said, ‘He made the bed up for me,’ and pressed her fingers to the inner corners of her eyes, to keep the tears back. When they came to his bedroom, she couldn’t speak at all.

  Bob Bailey came up to say to Slider in a low tone, ‘We didn’t find any money, credit cards or wallet, but there are a couple of watches in one of the drawers. If you could ask her . . .?’