Only a Game

by J M Gregson

  Tea and what appeared to be home-made biscuits were laid out on the long low table in the lounge. As they sank back into the soft leather of the sofa, she poured tea from the silver teapot, her hand perfectly steady. Lucy Blake produced her notebook whilst Peach let a short silence develop, waiting for any hint of nervousness from Helen Capstick, who seemed determined to act the part of hostess on this bright spring afternoon. There was something ludicrous in the cameo, with a woman who must know she was a murder suspect behaving as if she were in an English comedy of manners.

  It was Peach who had to speak first; he was beginning to feel that if he didn’t some bright young man in white shorts would appear at the French windows and ask if there was anyone for tennis. He said, ‘We now know considerably more than when we spoke to you on Sunday, Mrs Capstick.’

  She offered him a biscuit and said brightly, ‘I would expect that. I am grateful for your efforts. Are you near to an arrest?’

  It was his turn to be lightly amused. ‘You would not expect us to answer that if we were. We have a list of people who had the opportunity to commit this crime. A rather longer list than we would wish to have.’

  ‘And a list of motives, no doubt.’

  ‘Motives are not always immediately obvious. We prefer to establish facts first. Several people, including your good self, had the opportunity to climb the steps to your husband’s office and kill him. That is fact.’

  His briskness did not disconcert her. She said reasonably, ‘I can think of motives which are equally factual. All the people who felt their jobs threatened by the sale of Brunton Rovers FC obviously had a motive to be rid of the man who was engineering that sale.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Peach finished his biscuit before he said, ‘Other motives are less obvious, but perhaps even more powerful. When emotions are aroused, the strongest motive is often a matter of conjecture. But whenever people are less than fully honest with us during a murder investigation, that inevitably interests us.’

  Her measured phrases dropped suddenly away from her. Her face hardened and she said, ‘You’re accusing me of that.’

  ‘I am. I think you should have told us that you were conducting a liaison with another man at the time of this death.’

  ‘It was irrelevant.’

  ‘In that case we shall dismiss it. But we shall need to check it for ourselves before we do that.’

  ‘You’ve been talking to Wally Boyd.’

  ‘I know it’s a cliché, but we don’t reveal our sources, Mrs Capstick.’

  ‘That bloody man!’ For the first time, her composure was shaken and the blue eyes flashed real anger. Peach didn’t envy Boyd’s position, but he was no doubt a man used to taking care of himself. ‘Boyd’s making mischief, nothing more. It’s what I’d have expected of him.’

  ‘Mrs Capstick, I take it your husband did not know of this affair.’

  For a moment, he thought she would dispute his use of that term. But all she said was a terse, ‘No.’

  ‘And what do you think your husband’s reaction would have been if he had discovered these meetings of yours?’

  ‘DCI Peach, I’m a woman of forty-seven and my husband was ten years older than me. We’d both been round the block a few times, but we were genuinely fond of each other. So what do you want me to say? Jim wouldn’t have been pleased, I’ll admit that. All right, he’d have been bloody annoyed.’ She paused, her face at once pained and furious. ‘This is that man Boyd, isn’t it? He has his nose into everything.’

  ‘Perhaps he saw it as his duty to protect his employer’s interests, Mrs Capstick.’

  ‘He did that all right. But most men wouldn’t have seen spying on their boss’s wife as part of their duties.’

  Lucy Blake looked up from her record, noting the slightest of nods from Peach. She tried not to be intimidated by this sophisticated woman whose dress and shoes would represent a year’s clothing budget for her. She tried not to imagine what Helen Capstick had experienced when she claimed to have ‘been round the block a few times’. She said as boldly as she could, ‘We have to investigate every avenue in a murder enquiry, Mrs Capstick. Are you a major financial beneficiary as a result of this death?’

  Helen resented the woman’s youth and looks. DS Blake was not as young as she had thought at first – late twenties, perhaps – but she had that light colouring and lustrous dark red hair which no beautician’s art could ever reproduce, and the vigour and openness to experience which the older woman had lost and could never recapture. Helen sighed, more to give herself a moment to frame her reply than in disapproval of the question. ‘I imagine that I shall be a major beneficiary of Jim’s will, yes.’ She gave Blake a humourless smile. ‘I am so confident of that that I haven’t yet bothered to check the details.’

  She watched Blake make a note, and was startled when Peach broke into the silence. ‘Your expectations of wealth might have been severely affected if Mr Capstick had learned from Mr Boyd or anyone else that you were being unfaithful to him. You’ve already admitted as much.’

  This time she did not attempt to control her anger and frustration. ‘Yes! What the hell do you want me to say? That I walked up the stairs and killed Jim so that he wouldn’t disinherit me?’

  ‘It’s a possibility we have to consider.’

  ‘Then go away and consider it. I’ve nothing more to say to you.’

  ‘And no idea of who might have committed this crime you say wasn’t down to you?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Peach! Robbie Black or his wife, I should think – they’re both capable of it, if you ask me. Or Pearson: he looked pretty sick to me when he heard his job was in danger. Or even old man Lanchester. He never liked Jim and he didn’t bother to hide it. You’d better get on with it. You probably know them all better than I do, by now.’

  That was correct, thought Peach, as he sat in the passenger seat of the police Mondeo whilst Blake drove it slowly back down the long drive. The gardener on his ride-on mower was giving the first cut to the sweeping north-facing lawn by the drive. The window had shut now in Wally Boyd’s flat. He didn’t envy the chauffeur his next meeting with the mistress of the house.

  NINETEEN

  The children were in bed and asleep. The au pair was watching television in her own quarters; the canned laughter from an American sit-com spilled occasionally into the silence which filled the rest of the house. Debbie and Robbie Black had tried to release their tensions through separate sessions in the gym they had built on to the back of the house. At nine o’clock, they were sitting with drinks in their hands and trying to relax.

  They talked about the children’s school, about Brunton Rovers’ prospects in their away match at Newcastle on Saturday, about the children’s charity for which Debbie, using her tennis fame and continuing celebrity status, had raised over a million pounds in the last two years. None of these subjects had occupied them for than two or three desultory sentences.

  Eventually Debbie said abruptly, ‘Did the police speak to you again today?’

  ‘No. There were coppers about, taking statements from cleaners and secretarial staff and even the players. I didn’t see that aggressive little chief inspector or the detective sergeant woman who seems to be his sidekick.’

  ‘Are they any nearer to an arrest?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? You’d need to ask them.’ He realized he’d spoken sharply, but couldn’t think how to put it right, whereas normally contact would have been automatic and unthinking. ‘How are your Open University studies going?’

  She smiled at his deliberate, clumsy attempt to take them away from the subject which filled their thoughts. ‘I got a good grade and some complimentary remarks on that last assignment. I’m considering whether to make Philosophy one of my final options. We’ve got a good group going and two or three of the others are going to do Philosophy. What do you think?’

  Normally Robbie would have made a joke about how little he knew of the subject and they would have had a laugh about
it. Now there was silence and she knew he hadn’t even registered what she had said about her study choices. It seemed a long time before he said, ‘Are they coming to see you again?’

  ‘The police? I don’t know. They said they might do, but I don’t see the point. There’s nothing more I can tell them.’

  He nodded and they left it at that. Each of them fell silent, unable to voice the one thought which preoccupied them. What was the possibility, however remote, that you were sharing your bed and your children with a killer?

  Darren Pearson put the phone down and stared at it as if it had a baleful power of its own. ‘They’re coming here,’ he said. ‘You’ve only been back in the house for three hours and they’re coming here.’

  ‘They don’t know that, do they?’ said his wife. ‘There’s no reason why you should tell them that we’ve been separated, if you don’t want to. It’s probably better that you don’t.’

  ‘They probably know it already. They seem to get to know everything. Maybe I told them last time we spoke. I can’t remember.’

  ‘Well, there’s no need to tell them anything about us, unless they raise it. But don’t lie about it. It wouldn’t do to be caught lying.’ She was obscurely glad that the CID were visiting him at nine o’clock in the evening. She hadn’t been looking forward to the awkward intimacies of a sexual reconciliation, to the preliminary fencing more appropriate to a first night together. Neither of them was much good at negotiating these things. They would have something else to talk about once the police had been. With luck, they would be able to fall into bed together preoccupied with the menace of outside agencies, to resume married life as a welcome afterthought to other, more urgent, external threats.

  Darren said suddenly, ‘Why are they coming round here at this time of night? What is it that can’t wait until the morning?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Perhaps they want you to be alarmed about their visit in exactly the way you seem to be. I think I’ve read somewhere that the more time that elapses after a crime, the harder it is to solve. Perhaps they just don’t wish to waste any time. You’ve nothing to hide, have you?’

  Darren didn’t like her framing that as a question rather than a statement. He grinned bleakly at her and said, ‘I’ll be better with you here, Meg. I know that much.’

  Margaret Pearson said firmly, ‘You’ll be neither better nor worse, Darren. You’ll just be yourself, and that will be enough to satisfy them.’

  ‘I don’t want to tell them someone else did this, when I don’t think they did.’

  That was a strange thing to say, thought Meg Pearson. She glanced at the clock. ‘They’ll be here in a minute. Just be yourself and let them be the judge of what things mean. Don’t try to conceal anything.’ She felt that as if she were instructing an inexperienced teenager, not the efficient chief executive of a company with a turnover of millions of pounds. She saw with searing clarity what he had been aware of for many months: the contrast between the public life which was all quiet efficiency and the private life which was on the edge of chaos. She was back where she had been for years, hating the gambling vice which threatened to destroy what had been a good and reliable man.

  It was at that moment that they caught the sudden brief blaze of the car’s headlamps as it turned into the drive. He squeezed her arm and said, ‘I’m glad you’re here, Meg!’ It was a small, ridiculous gesture of love.

  If the CID pair were surprised to see Margaret Pearson here, they gave no sign of it, nodding amiably at her as she opened the front door to them and directed them to the dining room where Darren had said he would talk to them. Peach said briskly to Pearson, ‘This shouldn’t take too long. There are one or two things we’d like to clear up as quickly as possible.’ He shut the door firmly upon the hall and the woman whom Darren saw as his chief means of support.

  They sat on each side of the dark surface of the table with the light directly above them, as if about to embark on a game of cards. Peach gave his man the wide smile which suddenly seemed menacing rather than affable. ‘We now know considerably more about the people who benefit by this death than when we spoke to you on Sunday, Mr Pearson. Not conclusive stuff, by any means, but very interesting in several cases, including your own.’

  Darren licked his lips and tried to answer the smile. ‘I can’t really think what you could discover about me which pertains to this crime.’

  ‘Can’t you? That seems to show a certain lack of imagination.’

  Darren gathered his resources and prepared to resist. ‘I’m a practical person. Being the chief executive of a Premiership football club calls for hard work and a combination of abilities, like handling figures and dealing with people from a variety of backgrounds. It doesn’t need a lot of imagination.’

  ‘I see. Well, DS Blake and I will help you along, then. Perhaps you should put yourself in our position for a moment. Thanks to your prompt action, we are called to the football ground at Grafton Park on Sunday morning to a suspicious death. We quickly establish that this is murder and that it has taken place on the previous evening. Within an hour or two, we know that a gathering of people in the hospitality suite at Brunton Rovers on the previous evening had access to the deceased after he had left the gathering and isolated himself in his office. Agreed so far?’

  ‘Yes. Several people had the opportunity.’

  ‘Indeed they did. And I will take you into my confidence and tell you that so far we have been able to eliminate very few of them. As far as the major suspects go, I’m afraid I would have to say none of them.’

  ‘Major suspects?’ Pearson uttered the phrase unwillingly, like a moth drawn to Peach’s flickering candle.

  ‘Our major suspects are all people who stood to gain by Capstick’s death, whether positively or negatively.’ He waited for this phrase to be questioned, but this time the grey eyes were watchful and the mouth in the prematurely lined face remained shut. ‘Mrs Capstick is obviously going to be a very rich woman as a result of this death.’

  ‘One presumes so. But it isn’t certain, is it? Capstick was a ruthless man. He was quite capable of cutting Helen out of his will if he felt that way.’

  Peach wondered how much Pearson knew about Helen Capstick and her relationship with her husband. But he smiled and said, ‘As you would expect, Mrs Capstick is a major financial gainer by this death. That was confirmed to us by her husband’s solicitor this afternoon. Murder sometimes compels the disclosure of these things. Other people have more negative gains. Edward Lanchester now has reason to hope that his beloved Brunton Rovers will not fall into foreign and insensitive hands.’

  ‘You can’t think that Edward Lanchester would do a thing like this.’

  ‘I may think it unlikely, but at this stage I cannot rule it out. He cannot prove that he did not climb the stairs to that room and see off a man that he makes no secret of disliking.’

  ‘You don’t kill a man because you dislike him.’

  ‘The sentiment does you credit, Mr Pearson. Let us say that I have to take into account that dislike can quicken into hatred when a man’s passion is threatened. Let us agree that Mr Lanchester is an unlikely rather than an impossible candidate.’

  Darren felt himself being drawn into a dangerous game, whose rules he did not understand. He shook his head, trying to clear it. ‘Your killer won’t be Edward.’

  Peach was apparently at his most benign. ‘Others who feared the developing situation and who seem much happier after this death are Robbie Black, your football manager, and his wife Debbie.’ He waited for Pearson to intervene on their behalf as he had done for Lanchester, but this time he said nothing. ‘Black would in all probability have lost his job when the new Middle Eastern owners moved in, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘It’s not certain, but probable, I suppose. These people usually like to put in their own people and establish their control over all aspects of a club.’

  ‘Black’s fortunes obviously affect those of his wife Debbie. Apart from a natur
al commitment to her husband and his career, she seems genuinely attached to this area and its people.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that, yes.’ Pearson looked as if he was about to say more, but he checked himself and looked at the table with a series of little nervous nods.

  ‘Which brings us to your own situation, Mr Pearson. Perhaps the most perilous of all.’

  Darren hadn’t expected anything as head-on as this. He said rather feebly, ‘Oh, I’d hardly say that!’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? You’ve just indicated that the new owners would probably have wanted to replace you with their own appointment. If that were to happen, I’d say that a chief executive with a serious gambling problem wouldn’t find it easy to obtain a similar post elsewhere.’

  In the agonized silence which followed, Lucy Blake concentrated on her notes, whilst Pearson stared aghast at Peach, who returned his stare steadily and unblinkingly, until the man dropped his eyes to the table and said hoarsely, ‘My gambling has nothing to do with this murder.’

  ‘That may be so, Mr Pearson, but you can hardly expect us to accept your word on that. I should tell you that we know the state of your personal finances and the amount of your personal debt. Very little can be kept private, once a murder investigation is under way.’

  Pearson did not look up from the table as he said in a voice which was barely audible, ‘It’s under control.’

  Peach, who enjoyed bouncing ruffians much more than he enjoyed bouncing men like this, felt suddenly very sorry for Pearson, who seemed from what he had seen to be a model administrator, with consideration for even the humblest of his staff. He was too professional to let the thought affect his probing of the man and his motives. ‘Forgive me for saying so, but there is very little evidence that your debt is under control. Your bank has repeatedly requested you to reduce your overdraft, with nil effect.’

  ‘I’ve joined Gamblers’ Anonymous. They’re going to be a great support to me, the group there. And Meg’s come home. She’s going to help me get through this.’ He showed his first signs of animation in many minutes with this assertion; his grey eyes were moist and wide, pleading with them to believe him.