Backhand Smash

by J M Gregson

  ‘I have really no grounds for thinking it would be anyone. But I am only human.’ She spoke as if confessing a moral weakness. ‘A natural curiosity has overtaken us since we heard the news bulletin. I am not exactly surprised that you now tell me the victim was Jason Fitton – I presume that we are speaking of a victim of murder or manslaughter. I confess that I had rather favoured the notion of Arthur Swarbrick as the dead man myself. But Eric is of a commendably more open mind. He had not committed himself.’

  Her husband smiled. ‘She flatters me, Mr Peach; she does that when it suits her.’ He grinned at his wife affectionately. ‘I shan’t speculate. I don’t have the necessary knowledge of the tennis club membership and wives to do so.’

  ‘Partners, Eric. You need to say “partners” these days, to be at all comprehensive.’ Olive corrected him with a fond smile.

  Peach had watched the husband-and-wife exchange as closely as he observed everything when he made a business visit to someone’s house. He had no idea yet what would prove to be relevant to this crime. Olive Crawshaw was a suspect until proved innocent, and the state of her marriage might well be important. People under stress of any kind often behave out of character. This marriage appeared unusual but perfectly sound, with an intelligent older man becoming a little vague and prepared to concede the initiative. He looked at the woman now and said, ‘Why did you think the victim would prove to be Arthur Swarbrick?’

  Olive took her time. How she presented herself might be important if she was to allay suspicion. That thought excited her and adrenalin surged through her veins. ‘Good question, DCI Peach. I’m not sure I can give you a very convincing answer.’ She glanced for a moment at the very serious Clyde Northcott. ‘Mr Swarbrick and I have had certain contretemps in the last few weeks. We’ve known each other and opposed each other for years; we have very different views of the world, but I needn’t go into that here. Suffice it to say that we’ve never been bosom pals and we’ve argued regularly over tennis club policy for quite a long time now. We understand each other, but that doesn’t mean we’ll ever become friends. We’ve had two or three open clashes over the last few weeks, however.’

  ‘Then you had better tell us about them.’

  ‘Is this relevant? You’ve just told me that Arthur Swarbrick isn’t the victim. I’m thankful for that, though in view of what I’ve just said you may find it surprising.’

  ‘No, I don’t find it surprising, Mrs Crawshaw. I should find it much more surprising if you were disappointed that he wasn’t last night’s victim. I don’t expect a few differences over the policy of a sports club to make women wish to see their opponents killed. However, Mr Swarbrick will be investigated, as will everyone else who was in attendance last night, until we can clear them from suspicion or extract a confession from someone else.’

  ‘Including me?’

  ‘Including you, Mrs Crawshaw.’

  She smiled at him, showing that she was neither apprehensive nor intimidated. ‘That’s really rather exciting, don’t you think, Eric?’

  Her husband smiled rather apprehensively.

  ‘This isn’t a game, Mrs Crawshaw, exciting or not. Tell us about Arthur Swarbrick and your most recent disagreements with him.’

  She looked at Northcott. ‘You sergeant can tell you about the most recent ones.’

  ‘I want to hear it from you, not from him, Mrs Crawshaw.’

  Olive felt for the first time at a disadvantage. She didn’t know whether Clyde had told his chief about his interview and Swarbrick’s opposition to his membership, or about last night’s more openly insulting behaviour towards the club’s newest member. ‘Arthur Swarbrick is conservative in most things. In everything, as far as I can see. He’ll maintain vehemently that he isn’t a racist or a bastion of privilege, but as far as I’m concerned he is both.’

  ‘I imagine from what you’ve said so far that you head up the opposition in the club. You are probably what he would call a dangerous leftie, or at least a liberal do-gooder, who is anxious to see all standards and traditions disappear.’

  She pursed her lips and then nodded. ‘You put it rather trenchantly, DCI Peach. But that’s probably a fair summary.’

  ‘So Mr Swarbrick opposed my colleague’s application for membership of Birch Hills?’

  ‘I think it’s fair to break the confidentiality I should normally accord to discussions in committee, in view of the crime you’re investigating. Yes, Arthur opposed Clyde’s membership, as it was predictable that he would do. That was despite the fact that the general committee of the club had agreed that we should make every effort to broaden the social spectrum of our membership and cast our net much more widely.’

  ‘But your chairman opposed this policy?’

  ‘It was predictable. He opposed Asian membership fifteen years or so ago. That is a battle that has long since been fought and won. Or fought and lost, in Arthur’s case. You can see how tardy, even prejudiced, we’ve been at Birch Hills when I tell you that Clyde is our first black member.’

  She looked directly at Clyde, who smiled nervously. This was the wrong way round, he thought: it was supposed to be the interviewees who were nervous and embarrassed when you conducted interviews. He said, ‘Mrs Crawshaw encouraged me to apply for membership of the club and I am sure she was instrumental in securing my acceptance. I am not sure that I would have pursued membership without her … her encouragement.’

  Olive grinned delightedly. ‘Without my pitchforking you in and giving you no option, you mean?’

  Clyde gave a rather sickly smile. ‘You supported me throughout. You also arranged for me to meet and play with friendly members for my first game. I shall always be grateful for that, at least.’

  ‘Elaine Brockman and I supported you, you mean. You’ve got a gem there, Clyde, and if you’re as sensible, as I believe you are, you’ll hold on to her. I’ve known her since she was ten. She’s bright as well as pretty.’ She glanced impishly at Peach. ‘Too bright to become a policewoman, in her dad’s view.’

  Peach said unsmilingly, ‘We don’t have policewomen any more, Mrs Crawshaw. They’re all police officers now. That’s the result of campaigning by liberal do-gooders, I suppose. PC Brockman is graduate entry. Be ordering us all around in a few years, I expect.’

  ‘It’s good to find a senior policeman so open to new ideas.’

  Peach smiled graciously. ‘I deduce from your attitude that Mr Swarbrick annoyed you last night, Mrs Crawshaw.’

  She looked at him, then at Northcott. The immediate shake of the head told her that he had not informed his chief of Swarbrick’s attempt to humiliate him publicly. This man Peach seemed able to divine all sorts of things that she hadn’t expected him to know. ‘It was a small thing really, but designed to be very wounding. Arthur was touring the edge of the floor, doing his gracious chairman’s act of welcoming members and their guests at our summer ball. It’s old-fashioned and to me it reeks of elitism, but he likes to do it and most people seem to appreciate it. A Brunton version of the local aristocrat at the hunt ball, if you like – Arthur would certainly have revelled in that role.’

  ‘And did my sergeant disturb the even tenor of this traditional circuit? He has a tendency to do that, does DS Northcott; he’s what’s technically known in police jargon as a hard bastard. All right for simple, rough-cut souls like me, but a little crude for Birch Fields Tennis Club.’

  ‘Clyde behaved impeccably. He showed grace in the face of blatant ill manners.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound much like him,’ said Percy doubtfully.

  ‘It is exactly like him, as far as I am concerned. I have not known Mr Northcott for as long as you have, but I am prepared to back my judgement in the matter.’

  ‘There’s really no need for all this!’ said Clyde, by this time highly embarrassed by the spectacle of these two formidable adversaries picking over his corpse. ‘It was a trifling incident which was over in a few seconds. Most people didn’t even notice it.’

/>   ‘If that is so, it is because you chose not to take offence. You rose above Swarbrick’s petty snobbery and dismissed it as the futile nonsense it was.’

  ‘DS Northcott is good at rising above things. He has the build for it,’ said Peach. ‘Would you now tell us exactly what happened, please?’

  Olive Crawshaw sighed. ‘When the chairman arrived at Clyde and Elaine Brockman in his peregrination, he stopped and made a great fuss of Elaine, whom he has known, as I have, since she joined the club as a child. That was fine. Miss Brockman has been away at university for three years and has made very few appearances at the club during that time. Arthur very properly welcomed her back. But he then pointedly ignored her partner for the evening, whom he should have welcomed cordially as his newest member. Clyde was waiting to be greeted, but he was left standing like a muffin beside the girl of whom Arthur had just made such a fuss.’

  ‘“Standing like a muffin”,’ said Peach slowly, as if making a mental note of the phrase. ‘He’s also good at that, is DS Northcott.’

  Olive gave him a thunderous look, which left Percy quite unabashed. ‘Clyde conducted himself with admirable restraint. I was proud of him.’ She spoke of the huge black man as if he were a favourite pupil of twelve rather than the most formidable DS in Brunton’s CID section. ‘He showed himself to be the bigger man in what could have been a very embarrassing situation. He refused to take offence.’

  Clyde said rather desperately, ‘It wasn’t very embarrassing for me. I’m used to much worse than that. It’s like water off a duck’s back to me. I think we should move on.’

  To his relief, Mrs Crawshaw nodded. ‘We should do just that, with a major crime to be investigated.’ She darted another disapproving look at Peach, who responded with the blandest of his smiles. ‘I shall have a word with Arthur Swarbrick about it when the opportunity arises.’

  ‘Now that you have found that he is still with us in this world, when you thought he had been thrust out of it.’ Peach nodded. ‘Did you see Jason Fitton during the evening?’

  ‘Yes. Not until around eleven, I think. He arrived late but made sure that everyone knew he was around, once he was in the room.’

  Peach nodded. ‘This is good. You don’t seem to have missed much of what happened last night.’

  ‘I was on my own at the ball. Eric attends other social events, but he says that the formal ball at the tennis club is not his scene.’ She glanced briefly at her husband, who nodded his agreement. ‘I danced a few times, when asked. I’m an old-fashioned person. I don’t ask men to dance unless a ladies’ invitation or excuse-me is announced. They don’t have many of those nowadays. I was free to observe the passing scene for most of the evening.’

  ‘Which now makes you an expert witness, as far as we’re concerned. Did you see anything worthy of note in Mr Fitton’s behaviour?’

  ‘No. He circulated quite widely, making himself as agreeable as possible, in a superficial sort of way.’

  ‘You didn’t like Mr Fitton, did you?’

  ‘Is that relevant? Or is it an intrusion into my private opinions?’

  ‘It’s highly relevant, as the man is at this moment being cut up in the pathology lab for the purposes of finding his killer.’

  Peach saw Eric Crawshaw flinch away to his left, but his wife gave no such evidence of weakness. ‘You’re quite right, of course,’ she conceded. Then she gathered her thoughts for what she planned to say. ‘Derek Fitton was a great benefactor of this place. He built up Fitton’s Metals, bringing prosperity and employment to the town. He used his wealth to help a number of local charities, without ostentation or publicity. I didn’t approve of his sending his son to Eton, simply because I don’t approve of private education. I don’t think the state system will improve whilst the rich and the influential can buy out of it.’ She breathed deeply, then turned reluctantly away from what was plainly a hobby horse. ‘But that was his business. I got to know Derek Fitton quite well. I admired him and I was saddened by his early death.’

  ‘But his son was a different kettle of fish?’

  She winced at the cliché, then added to it with gusto. ‘A different kettle of stinking fish, you might say. I don’t know the details of how he made his money and I don’t wish to know them. But I think he was a malignant influence in our town, whereas his father had been a benevolent one.’

  ‘Brunton CID section would agree with you wholeheartedly on both counts. We had been investigating Jason Fitton for some while at the time of his death.’

  ‘But not arresting him. Not putting a stop to his baleful activities.’

  ‘You need evidence to put a man in court, Mrs Crawshaw. I’m sure that you would agree that is a good thing. But it makes it difficult to bring charges against clever men. Most of the major criminals nowadays are clever men. I’m told that clever people in criminology departments at universities are busy compiling PhD theses on the subject. Meanwhile, we poor devils at the crimeface work very hard to assemble the evidence to charge men like Fitton. It’s a fact of life we have to live with.’

  Olive nodded. ‘Which we liberal do-gooders have forced upon you.’

  Peach smiled at her. ‘It might surprise you to know that I agree with most of the restrictions now placed upon the police. Please treat that as confidential and don’t broadcast it amongst my colleagues: I have a reputation to maintain.’

  Olive returned his smile.

  Northcott could see what he considered the unlikeliest of agreements between these two people who had had the greatest effect upon his recent activities. He said, ‘I was aware of Fitton’s presence last night. He was one of the few people there whom I already knew – in a quite different context, of course. I didn’t see him do anything suspicious or have any significant disagreements with anyone at the ball.’

  ‘As you have already informed me earlier in the day, DS Northcott. But you had distractions, viz. the multiple attractions of PC Brockman. I’m sure Mrs Crawshaw was able to be much more single-minded and observant.’

  Olive smiled. ‘I confirm what Clyde has just said. Fitton knew what I thought of him and he barely acknowledged me, but I’d say he was anxious to avoid any sort of conflict last night. In my opinion, he was showing himself at the biggest social function at Birch Fields because people he considered important were there. People with money and influence in the town, whose support he needed for his future plans.’

  Peach nodded thoughtfully. ‘Clients of his, would you say, Mrs Crawshaw? I don’t mean at Fitton’s Metals, but in his other and more dubious enterprises.’

  There was quite a pause whilst she considered this. ‘You’re probably right. I wouldn’t like to speculate about who those clients might be.’

  ‘I see. Well, that’s quite understandable. You have an enquiring mind, but you don’t have the information that we have assembled over the years. Was Younis Hafeez at the summer ball?’

  Peach had seemed quite relaxed with Olive Crawshaw. He had even seemed to be enjoying her company. But this last question was fired at her like a pistol shot. She stared hard at him, recognizing his aggression. ‘He was there, yes. I didn’t see him in conversation with Jason Fitton. That does not mean, of course, that no such conversation took place. I am neither omnipresent nor all-hearing.’

  ‘He had an association with Fitton that interests us. That’s why I ask about him.’

  ‘You mean he’s another wrong’un, as we call them in Lancashire? You don’t surprise me. I don’t know Hafeez well, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. That’s just from what I’ve seen of him around the tennis club. I used to be in charge of the youngsters – boys and girls from ten to fourteen – and I didn’t like the interest he took and the way he used to watch those kids.’

  ‘How is he with older women? Women in their twenties, say?’

  ‘Older women should be able to look after themselves, in my opinion.’

  ‘But not all women are as resourceful as you.’ Peach caught a smil
e at that thought on the face of Eric Crawshaw, away to his left, but kept his gaze on the face of his wife.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. It’s surprising how naive some women can be where men are concerned, even at the age of thirty or forty. I’m sure Younis Hafeez would be dangerous. He’s good-looking, I suppose, in a slightly sinister sort of way: you can never quite tell what he is thinking. He has a nice olive skin and he can be quite charming when he puts his mind to it. I’ve seen him in action once or twice.’

  ‘Thank you for being so frank. Everything you have said here will be treated as confidential, as you would expect. Did you see anything last night or are you aware of any previous happening that would suggest who killed Jason Fitton? Again, any speculation will go no further than this room.’

  Olive gave the matter due thought. It was rather exciting, this game of cat and mouse with a real detective; it helped that the body of a man she had despised was at the centre of things. ‘No. I’m sure there were several people there who either feared or hated Fitton, but I can’t give you any further pointers.’

  ‘Did you leave before the end of the ball, Mrs Crawshaw?’

  ‘No. I stayed to the end. I removed the hand of a harmless lecher from my right buttock during the final stages of the last waltz. Then I drove myself home.’

  ‘And your husband will no doubt be able to confirm that for us.’

  Olive’s face filled with outrage. ‘You’re treating me as a suspect, aren’t you?’

  ‘These are the questions members of our team will be asking other people who were there last night. It’s routine. We proceed by elimination.’

  ‘But I get the big cheese who’s in charge. I’m treated as a major suspect, despite my complete cooperation in answering your questions.’

  Clyde said hastily, ‘I’m sure you should take that as a compliment, Mrs Crawshaw.’

  She gave Peach a baleful glare, then said tersely, ‘I must have been back here by about one thirty. Eric will be able to confirm that for you.’