The God Game

by Jeffrey Round

  Dan stared. “Simon Bradley claimed Wilkens was connected with Tony Moran. He sent me a link showing a photo of the two of them standing side by side at a political event. Bradley says Wilkens was murdered. I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t entirely discount it, either.”

  Nick whistled. “Does he think Tony had something to do with Wilkens’s death?”

  Dan eyed him. “If it turns out that John Wilkens was murdered, then maybe he did.”

  They watched as a TV crew pulled up outside the perimeter outlined in tape. A cameraman jumped out and headed for the mausoleum.

  Nick nodded in their direction. “You may find this case has been taken out of your hands, now that the media is onto it.”

  Dan heard his name called out. He turned and saw Simon Bradley heading toward him with a second cameraman in tow.

  “Speak of the devil,” Dan murmured.

  “Good to see you again,” Simon said, coming up to him.

  “You got here awfully quick.”

  “So did you. One might think you had inside information.”

  He gave a knowing look in Nick’s direction. Dan’s internal danger sensor flickered into the red zone.

  Simon smirked. “Word travels fast in my game.”

  “Very fast,” Dan noted.

  The operator mounted the camera on his shoulder, pulled the lens into focus and trained it on Simon.

  “I’m at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where police are looking into the disappearance of Tony Moran, husband of Queen’s Park Special Assistant Peter Hansen. With me is Dan Sharp, private investigator.” Bradley turned to Dan. “Has Tony Moran been found?”

  “Not to my knowledge, no.”

  “What can you tell us about recent developments in the case?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  Undaunted, Simon went on. “Are there indications of violence at the crime scene?”

  Dan shrugged. “I haven’t looked at any so-called crime scene. You’d have to ask the police.”

  Simon’s inquisitive look stayed glued to his face. “Can you speculate on how Tony Moran’s ID came to be found in a cemetery?”

  Dan’s incredulity turned to outrage at the mention of ID. “I haven’t got a fucking clue, but I’m pretty curious how you found out about it so fast.”

  Simon turned to his cameraman. “Strike that.” To Dan, he said, “I thought we were on the same side.”

  “Don’t make assumptions about me.”

  Simon shook his head and turned to his camera operator. “Let’s head over to the cops.”

  The pair turned and walked away. Nick had been watching the exchange. He smirked. “Good one.”

  “Old trick. If you don’t want to be quoted on prime time TV, just swear.”

  A howling in the distance announced that the dogs had been let off the leash. Dan turned and watched them dash for the south end of the field, in the direction of the river and the storm drain.

  Ten

  Tea and Privilege

  The dogs failed to discover any further trace of Tony Moran. Either someone else had left Tony’s wallet in the cemetery or, if he’d been there at all, he was exceptionally skilled at covering his tracks. Dan never knew whether to be relieved when a search turned up with negative results. It could be good news or simply a postponement of the inevitable. On the whole, no news was simply no news. In this case, however, it served to inflame his curiosity about one thing.

  He took a final look at Simon Bradley and his cameraman scouring the cemetery for something newsworthy, then said goodbye to Nick, got in his car and headed east. By coincidence, John Wilkens’s family home lay a mere three blocks away in one of the city’s most established neighbourhoods. Despite a reputation for being “where the old money lives,” Rosedale was no longer the white, Anglo-Saxon domain it had been when the city was first settled. It had since fallen to others who likewise believed that affluence conferred status, flocking there while the younger generation of WASPs moved out to seek its own values, leaving the diehards and the newcomers to battle it out over privileges they felt were their birthright.

  Gays, too, had their status symbols, but following old wealth around generally wasn’t one of them. Dan hated neighbourhoods like these on principle, but without any real vehemence. Rather, he found them curious anachronisms, like the English class system or American gun culture.

  The home of John Badger Wilkens III, Dan learned, had been in his family for three generations, thus the III designation. It turned out to be a surprisingly modest two-storey house surrounded by birch trees on a quiet street corner. Up close, there was nothing particularly reprehensible about it, apart from the hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar vehicle in its drive. Dan admired its gardens, noting the enviable distance between the Wilkens property and the neighbours. Maybe that was all the race for money was about: misanthropy, plain and simple. A desire to live in the city, but with as much distance as possible from the nearest resident. He could sympathize on that count.

  The young woman who answered the door was dressed in a pink blouse and grey tweed skirt. You might have thought she’d shipped over from Scotland circa the 1930s. Her eyes were blue and sharp, her face pleasing, though there was nothing suggesting warmth under the coolly efficient features. A rose, but one with thorns. Little got past her, Dan could see. She was the public school teacher everyone feared. She clearly didn’t like his looks either, but held back from saying so. Had she been a hotel desk clerk, he would have ended up with a windowless room on the top floor of a creaky walk-up.

  He held up his identification. “Mrs. Wilkens?”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  Her expression said she knew very well he didn’t.

  “I’m a private investigator. I’d like a word, if I might.”

  “On what matter?”

  “It’s a private matter concerning Mrs. Wilkens.”

  The frown she gave him suggested she would speak to her mistress and do everything in her power to discourage a meeting, but at least she went. She was back in a minute, followed by another woman. Or rather, a shadow of a woman, noticeably thin and dressed entirely in black. She teetered as she stood there, the Duchess of Windsor on her fifth gin martini. If he hadn’t known better, Dan would have thought her John Wilkens’s mother rather than his widow.

  “Mrs. Wilkens?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  Her eyes were large and solemn. Something said grief had taken up permanent lodging there.

  Dan held up his identification again. “My name is Sharp. I’m a private investigator. I’m looking into the disappearance of a man named Tony Moran. I understand your husband knew him.”

  Her eyes darted over Dan’s shoulder. Perhaps the presence on her doorstep of a private investigator required a close watch on the neighbours, lest they get too curious.

  She turned to the woman at her side. “It’s all right, Doris. I can handle this.”

  Doris went reluctantly away with a last look, as though memorizing Dan’s face for a future police line-up. That’s the rich for you, Dan thought, hiring someone just to shoo away unwanted visitors.

  The woman in black turned to him. “Tony Moran? I don’t recall the name. I doubt I can tell you anything.”

  But she made no effort to close the door. Perhaps she was just amusing herself by keeping him there with no intention of helping him out with his query.

  “Mr. Moran is the husband of a ministerial assistant at Queen’s Park. Your late husband’s name and address were in Mr. Moran’s wallet, which was found discarded earlier today.”

  She drew herself up. “Why wasn’t I informed of this by the police?”

  “I just learned it myself. The police may call to ask you about it in due time.”

  “I see.” Her look was pure skepticism. “Still, I don’t recognize the name.
”

  “What about Simon Bradley? Does his name mean anything to you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I believe Mr. Bradley is a reporter of some sort. Are you associated with him?”

  Dan hesitated, more from fear of frightening her unnecessarily than from any sense of delicacy. “No, I’m not. But it was Mr. Bradley who first suggested there might be a connection between my missing client and your husband.”

  Her face was stone. To some women grief gave a dramatic expression, an overwhelming look of loss, while in others it took everything away. An emptying, a depletion. She was definitely of the latter type.

  “What connection might that be?” she asked at last. “My husband was a man of considerable virtues and high personal standards. If this has anything to do with his dismissal, I can only say what I know to be true from the bottom of my heart: John was innocent.”

  Here was the missing link, Dan saw: a woman seeking to redress the wrongs her husband was accused of. This, if anything, was his way in. Whatever the truth of the matter, she believed in his innocence. It wouldn’t be the first time a gullible spouse had stood by an absconding bastard.

  “Did Mr. Wilkens feel he was in any way threatened or being framed by someone?”

  She hesitated, then pushed the door open.

  “Come in, Mr. Sharp. Let’s not stand on the doorstep forever. There’s obviously something you want to say to me.”

  He stepped inside a dimly lit hallway and waited as she closed the door before following her to a salon appointed with plush carpeting and antique furnishings. For a moment it seemed as if they had entered another century. The clavichord in a far corner might once have been played by Mozart. The entire room seemed to indicate a desire to eradicate the passage of time, a return to what some erroneously believed to be a gentler, kinder age.

  They sat among various family portraits and the bric-a-brac of years gone by. Someone’s grim ­grandparents glowered down from behind a clock encased in glass, its pendulum stopped dead. Vases with crackled patinas sat beside weighty-looking candlesticks on gilt side tables with marble inlay. A bronze eagle stretched its wings in imitation of flight, while behind it, a sword plunged into a scabbard hung on the wall. Below, two laughing, scantily-clad figurines curled flirtatiously toward one another, their amorous advances forever stilled by the chill hand of time.

  Dan looked for signs of recent mourning, but saw little apart from the solemnity of the room with its air of a mausoleum, which he suspected was its normal state. Family history. It buried you long before you died. Some managed to get out from under its weight, but not many, by the sounds of it. Whatever state you were born into was usually yours for life, without a reprieve. It was the outcasts — the gays, the intellectuals, the radicals — who broke away from the pack, when they weren’t driven off and forced to reinvent themselves. Even they sometimes returned, he knew. The undertow of family was strong.

  Mrs. Wilkens stood by the fireplace, her frown turned up to full volume. No longer an agitated duchess, but a pensive lady-in-waiting.

  “I was just about to have tea. Would you care for a cup?”

  Given her state, he wondered if she meant it as a euphemism for something stronger.

  “Or perhaps coffee,” she added, seeing his confusion.

  “Please, that would be nice.”

  “Which?”

  “Either. Both. Would be fine.”

  She smiled at his awkwardness. “Tea, then.”

  She called out. The Scottish rose came in quickly, as though she’d been standing right outside the door waiting.

  “Please serve the tea in here, Doris. With a cup for Mr. Sharp.”

  Doris nodded and vanished again.

  Dan looked around at the photographs. One in particular caught his eye. A young man in ruffles. Little Lord Fauntleroy, a real mama’s boy. It was a private-school photo, Dan suspected. You’d have to have a forceful personality to get away with that getup in a public school.

  “That’s John,” she said in response to Dan’s inquisitive glance before pointing out another photograph. “And that is me.”

  While she looked considerably younger in the photo than she did today, it was clear the Wilkenses had had a May-December marriage. Mama’s boy indeed, Dan thought.

  “You’re thinking my husband was younger than me. You’re correct,” she confirmed. “We were fourteen years apart.”

  Dan had long held the belief that when people confessed their secrets without prompting it was a passive form of boasting: Yes, I’m nearly old enough to be his mother, but I nabbed him for my loving husband and bedmate.

  “Actually, I was thinking what beautiful eyes you have,” he said.

  She smiled grimly. “You’re a liar. But thank you for the compliment. He chased after me, in case you’re wondering. In the beginning, anyway.”

  He was right again.

  “I’m sure you were very happy together, Mrs. Wilkens. And if I didn’t say it earlier, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Somewhere in the distance a kettle came to a boil with a long, drawn-out sigh, followed by a sound like mice scurrying as tea leaves were scooped from a container and dropped into a pot.

  “He should never have gone into politics,” Mrs. Wilkens said abruptly.

  “Because of what happened to him?”

  Her look said he could never understand. “Because he was too good for it. From the start we knew he was special. John was not made for this world.”

  The rich seldom are, Dan thought.

  “If you think this sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale, I can assure you I am not mistaken in my assessment of my husband. He had a long history of public service. That was what motivated him to go into politics.”

  Dan nodded politely.

  “After what happened, even his party dropped him. Like a sacrificial lamb, as they say. What could he do? He tried to tell the party higher-ups, but they wanted nothing to do with it.”

  “Tried to tell them what?”

  “That things were awry, things were amiss. But they couldn’t afford to get their hands dirty. Well, now they’ve got blood on those same hands. They did this to him. When he’s cleared of the charges, as he will be, I’ll see that the blame is laid where it should be.”

  “What things did your husband believe were amiss?”

  Her startled glance told him perhaps she had said too much. “I …”

  Before she could answer, a tray arrived, carried in by the same conservatively dressed young woman.

  “My sister, Doris,” Mrs. Wilkens said, as though to dismiss any idea of privilege he might be forming. “Mr. Sharp is investigating the disappearance of a man whose wife works at Queen’s Park.”

  Doris passed them each a cup and sat on the settee beside her sister.

  “Husband, actually,” Dan corrected. “Tony Moran is married to a man.”

  “My mistake,” Mrs. Wilkens said. “One never knows these days.”

  Dan could detect no undertone of condescension in her statement. “My client’s name is Peter Hansen.”

  He saw the change of expression on both women’s faces.

  “And it’s Peter Hansen’s husband you believe had some connection with John?”

  It was the sister, Doris, who asked. Dan was right — she had been listening at the door.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. I’m sure the police will call and speak to you about it soon,” Dan told them. “For now, all I’ve got is the assertion by Simon Bradley that John and Tony knew one another. This is partially substantiated by a photograph of them together at a public function, though that doesn’t prove much.”

  He brought out his phone and showed them the photograph. They looked at it warily, as though anxious to restrain their curiosity.

  “Do you recognize the occasion?” Dan aske
d.

  Doris shook her head then turned to her sister.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Mrs. Wilkens. “It could be any official function.”

  Dan nodded. “I’m looking into the possibility that a third person had some connection with the two of them, possibly someone who in some way represented a threat to your husband. And now to Tony Moran.”

  “What sort of threat?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  The older woman put both hands around her cup and looked down, lost in thought. Dan wondered what she saw there. Memories wavering in and out of the wisps of steam. Or maybe she saw her dead husband’s ghost, his spirit vexed and wandering. She looked up again, pushing the visions aside, and returned to her current state of gloom.

  “You asked if … if John felt threatened. I don’t know whether this is exactly what you meant, but he did say he felt he was being pushed by various people within the government to perform distasteful tasks.”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “Mr. Sharp, if you knew my husband, you would know he was one of the most honest and honourable men who ever lived. John was suspended for suspected bribery. The idea that he paid someone to cover up illegal activities is simply unthinkable. The stress of those allegations obviously ruined his mind for him to … to do what he did to himself. It drove him to the edge of madness. He thought night and day of how to reinstate his good name, even before the press got hold of these unfounded allegations.”

  “So, your husband felt his reputation was under attack even before the allegations were made public?”

  She placed her cup on the saucer. “John was being hounded well before the news came out. By politicians and media alike. They’re all the same.”

  Her sister wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

  Dan recalled the official statements regarding Wilkens’s death, the eulogizing of a dead colleague. Guilt, perhaps. Or party pressure. He wasn’t about to tell her what Simon Bradley believed, namely that her husband had been murdered, possibly by someone who had tried to threaten or coerce him.