by Oliver Tidy
She looked at Romney. ‘Sir, it’s a police station.’
‘Exactly. And you’re going to find a lot of thieving gits come through it. Grimes!’ The DC looked up from his desk across the room, his mouth full of food. Romney shook his head at the company he was forced to keep. ‘Come on. We’re going to the golf course.’ He turned an annoyed face back on Marsh. ‘Find it and ring that woman.’
*
The heat of the day was easing. The sun had abandoned its zenith some hours before the time Romney and Grimes returned to the White Cliffs Golf Course and the late afternoon was pleasant on the cliff tops. But it was still the same day they had come here to inspect a brutally murdered body.
In contrast with the outside brightness, the interior of the pro shop was a dim confinement made smaller by the huge variety and wealth of golfing ephemera – a golfer’s Aladdin’s cave. It put Romney in mind of an arsenal. Boxes and baskets of balls – the ammunition; an armoury of racked clubs – the weapons; a diversity of clothing all colours and designs to parade around in – the uniforms; bags, trolleys, hats, gloves, shoes and a multitude of miscellaneous novelties and golfing related ephemera that promised to enhance one’s performance, enjoyment and appearance in battle. Anything and everything that one could possibly need, or imagine, to practise the game of golf. It all smelt new and expensive.
Spying Romney and Grimes, Elliot Masters came out from his little office behind the counter. There was a difference in the man. His aura of confidence and jollity had faded to be replaced with something darker. Something was obviously troubling him.
Romney allowed his gaze to swing theatrically around the little shop once more. ‘And I always thought that golf looked such a simple game,’ he said. ‘You just walk up to the ball and hit it don’t you? It’s not moving. No one is kicking lumps out of you, or trying to put you off, quite the opposite in fact. You have all the time in the world to line up your shot and take it. What could be easier?’
Masters had no choice but to listen to Romney sullying his love, life and living. But he did so with seemingly good grace. If Romney had hoped to needle the man into some scratchy remark he was disappointed.
‘All I can say, Inspector, is come and have a go sometime. See what it’s all about. See how easy you find it.’
‘Actually, it’s always looked like such a dull game to me. I’ve got better things to spend my money on.’
‘You’d be my guest. I could provide you with some clubs, balls and a complimentary round. Make it a week day and I’ll partner you myself. You never know, you might enjoy yourself. We’re always looking for new members.’ He raised an eyebrow to emphasise his challenge.
‘We’ll see,’ said Romney. ‘What happened to your little competition?’
‘Given the identity of the victim, it was considered appropriate to postpone it. In fact the course has been shut all day as a mark of respect.’
‘So if it had just been some old boy out walking his dog you’d have got on with it as soon as we’d swept up the bits of his head would you?’
Masters gave up. He sounded suddenly tired. ‘What can I do for you, Inspector?’
‘How well did you know the dead man?’
‘I’m the club professional and he was the club captain. We were bound to have dealings with each other.’
‘Like him?’
Masters was distracted by the form of DC Grimes who had taken a driver out of the rack and was brandishing it like some kind of light-sabre – weighing it up for balance and quality like a man who knew what he was doing.
‘Please, be careful,’ said Masters. ‘Those are rather expensive and as you can see there isn’t much room in here.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ said Grimes. ‘I’ve played a bit of golf in my time.’ As if to emphasise his claim he positioned himself for a tee shot and swung. The crash of the light fitting above him as his backswing impacted on the thin metal casing resounded around the shop like a pistol shot making Masters start and Romney swear. Years of dust and fluff showered down on Grimes in the dim illumination. With surprisingly little embarrassment he slid the club back in its place.
‘Go and have another word with that green-keeper who found the body,’ said Romney, irritably.
Grimes slipped out quietly. The light fitting was still swinging gently from its chains.
‘Did you like him?’ repeated Romney.
‘We got along.’
‘Did he spend a lot of time here?’
‘Quite a bit. When work allowed. He was very fond of his game.’
‘And the clubhouse?’
‘What do you mean by that, Inspector?’
‘Did he like to socialise here? Did he have friends?’
‘As club captain, he’d have had to be socially visible. As club captain, he would have had many acquaintances. Whether they were friends or not, I can’t say.’
‘How long had he been club captain?’
‘Only a year.’
‘And how many had he been a member at the club?’
‘I don’t know exactly. A good number. One couldn’t become captain of this club without having been a fixture for a good while.’
‘How was he regarded? I’m sure that as the club professional you would know how his peers viewed him. ’
‘I understood him to be a generally popular appointment. Although...’
‘Although what?’
‘Can we go outside?’
The two men stepped out into the early evening. It was a relief for Romney after the gloom of the shop.
‘What’s on your mind?’ said Romney.
Masters smiled weakly. ‘Walls have ears and all that.’ He led Romney out towards the putting green. ‘Emerson was using his position to try to push some reforms through. They weren’t all popular with all the full-members, especially the old guard.’
‘Like what?’
‘Relaxation of membership rules, greater focus on youth and the encouragement of women members.’
‘Doesn’t sound like anything that would get a man killed.’
Masters laughed suddenly without humour. ‘Oh, Inspector, what little you know. But seriously, of course, I’m not saying that anyone would want to kill him over such things, but don’t ever underestimate how seriously some men take their game, or the preservation of their club.’
Grimes wandered back from the green-keepers’ shed. ‘No one there,’ he said.
‘Allow me to give you an insight into how focussed on their game, how obsessed, some men can become, Inspector. Sometimes men can lose sight of what’s really important in life. Take this friend of mine. He has a week’s holiday and decides to start every day with a round of golf. First thing Monday, he’s on the course. There’s a single golfer a little ahead of him: a woman. By the third hole, he’s caught her up and sees that she's very attractive. He suggests that they play the rest of the round together. She agrees. As it happens she’s pretty good and beats him on the last hole. No hard feelings, he congratulates her and seeing that she has no car offers her a lift home. She accepts. On the way she says she’s had such a good morning and she’s so grateful for the lift that she offers to thank him properly as he’s driving along. He accepts.
‘The next morning she is there again and he suggests they play together. He likes her, but he’s a bit peeved that she beat him the day before and he wants to put that right. Again, they enjoy the round and again she beats him on the final hole. As the previous day he offers her a lift home and, as before, she ends up making his day as he drives. This goes on all week. Every day she beats him on the final hole, he gives her a lift home and she obliges him on the way.
‘On the Friday he tells her that he’s had such a great week, even though the fact that she always beat him irritated him, that he has a surprise for her. He’s booked a fancy restaurant and hotel for them for the Saturday night. She bursts into tears and says she can’t. Eventually, with much gentle cajoling he persuades her to tell him why.
She breaks down and confesses that ‘she’s’ a transvestite. The man’s anger and indignation overwhelms him in the face of this dishonesty. You bastard, he yells. You’ve been playing off the women’s tees all week.’
Grimes’ horrible laugh raced out across the course like a wayward tee shot. ‘Very good. You got me with that one. Hook, line and sinker.’ He continued his chuckling.
‘The funny bit is it’s actually true,’ said Masters, his face quite solemn.
‘Who should we ask for over at the clubhouse?’ said Romney, maintaining an expression Queen Victoria would have approved of.
‘About Phillip? The club secretary would be your best place to start, I suppose. Good luck. They can be a bit stuffy if, that is, there is anyone there at this time of day and they’re still sober.’
‘Thanks for your time,’ said Romney. He turned to leave and then turned back to Masters. ‘Was Emerson a good golfer?’
‘Not bad. Scratch handicap. But he cheated. Please, you didn’t hear that from me. One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead and all that. Phillip had a reputation for it though, especially in competitions. He had an uncommon knack of finding his ball in the roughest of ground and often with surprisingly good lies. Golfers take a very dim view of that sort of thing. That would be a reason for one golfer to kill another.’ Masters turned his back on Romney and the DI watched him head back to his shop wondering why he felt that behind his obvious false facade Masters was hiding something.
*
By the time Romney returned to the station, CID had assumed the peacefulness that offices devoid of people usually manage. Marsh, however, was still at her desk. She sat grim-faced doing nothing. Her desktop was tidy. Romney didn’t need to be a detective to understand that she hadn’t found Phillip Emerson’s mobile phone.
Her features, when she looked up at him, were hardened. She had been simmering, barely able to keep a lid on her anger. She had gone back over the afternoon and was certain that she had left the mobile phone on her desk. For this she was angry with herself. But she was livid because no matter how many times she considered it, she always came back to the same conclusion – Detective Sergeant Wilkie had taken it. As an idea it was as appalling as it was probable. Marsh could find no other explanation than that the theft of the evidence from her desk had been an opportunist act of professional and personal malice. She hadn’t been able to confront Wilkie but she would. She’d know whether it was him the moment she looked into his eyes. And then she’d decide what to do about it.
As she had sat seething, she had deliberated over how she would deal with it when Romney returned. Despite the damage that the loss of potentially critical evidence could do to the investigation, it was nothing compared to how she saw it impacting on her record. There would be an entry at least, some sort of disciplinary action at worst. The anxieties, outcomes, fury and worry had chased themselves around her mind for over an hour.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I can’t find it.’
Romney stood looking down on her for a long, horrible moment. She would have preferred him to rage at her, to question her professionalism. She might then have been pushed to defend herself with her suspicions. His anger would have been far preferable to the silent disappointment he treated her to. But he said nothing more about it and neither did she.
‘Did you call Lillian West?’
‘Yes, sir.
‘How was she?’
‘Difficult to tell. I told her we are aware of her relationship with the deceased and that we needed to talk to her. She asked us not to go to her home. I offered her that we could meet somewhere neutral. She suggested the cafe at the end of the harbour wall tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. I said that if that would be suitable for you she wouldn’t hear back from us and we’d see her there.’
‘That’s near his flat at De Bradelei Wharf. I can see that before meeting her.’ Romney didn’t say whether Marsh would be going with him. ‘Go home, Sergeant. I’ll see you in the morning.’
From his desk, Romney watched Marsh leave. She’d made a mistake and in doing so she’d put him in a position where he had to do something about it. Maybe he should consider Wilkie’s suggestion of changing them around. He’d sleep on it.
He rang transport and asked if they’d been able to send anyone out to look at his car and was sorry to hear that owing to workload and illness it wouldn’t be until the morning. Still, on the bright side he now had a good reason to insist that his latest significant other stayed the night.
*
Julie Carpenter had given Romney cause to consider ripping up his rule book on women and relationships, a place where the ink had long since dried. Having drifted into playing the field for some years since his second divorce, he’d gradually become disillusioned regarding his prospects of ever finding that special someone with whom he felt he could connect to such a degree that he might consider some sort of permanent commitment again.
When he had first returned to the dating scene in his late thirties in search of female company it had been with a mixture of outward scepticism and naive private hope in equal measure. However, the more he experienced of available women his age the more his hope dwindled to gutter like a cheap candle. His doubt grew to be replaced with the darkness of bitter disappointment as the certainty of each anti-climax was played out. Eventually, he had become more honest with himself over his prospects and intentions. With little hope of bumping into the ‘one’, his encounters with the opposite sex became predictable shallow repeat performances of a sad matinee in four acts: the chase, the sex, the boredom and finally the dissolution. It was a cycle he endured because he didn’t want to pay for it, and, therefore, he had no choice. His resignation to the inevitability of it all became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but, as the saying went: couldn’t live with them; couldn’t do without them. No man can fight his basic instincts indefinitely, while he still has basic instincts to fight. Romney shared the view that Wilde was reputed to have once famously remarked: the only way to deal with temptation was to yield to it. And so he had come to accept the likelihood that each dalliance would probably become just another temporary liaison to scratch an itch and remind himself how much better off he was on his own.
Hooking up with the primary school teacher somewhat his junior had been the result of an audacious act by a man fuelled with a couple of glasses of cheap plonk on an empty stomach and with nothing to lose at some dreary function he had been obliged to attend, as had she. Fortune favours the brave. Not only was it the best sex of his life, but her energy, outlook and qualities as a person made him keen to continue to build their association. The fact that he had twelve years on her was not lost on either his ego or his vanity.
She had no baggage to speak of and, while she was not beautiful in the classical sense, she was a striking looking woman with a stunning figure and she made him feel young again.
The clincher for Romney was that she appeared to be just as keen as he did. Such had been the apparent confidence that each felt in their evolving relationship that they had committed to a week’s holiday together in the sun. They were booked on a flight to Corfu in ten days time.
The murder of Phillip Emerson cast a small shadow over Romney’s anticipation. The possibility that the investigation could drag out and that he might feel obliged to break his obligation to Julie – leaving in the middle of an unsolved murder enquiry would be unthinkable for him – set something gnawing away in the back of his mind, something that he didn’t want to contemplate. He took some small comfort in the knowledge that he still had ten days.
Romney was meeting Julie Carpenter in the Eight Bells at six for an early dinner and, now, back to his place. For tonight, he would put Phillip Emerson out of his mind, enjoy his summer’s evening stroll down the pedestrianised high street towards a pint of Spitfire and nourishment for his body and soul.
***
6
Romney eased himself out from under the sl
eeping naked form of Julie Carpenter and padded off to the bathroom. The temptation to rejoin her was strong, but it was too close to the time of his alarm. He compensated by making proper coffee, pouring orange juice and putting on some toast. He’d read somewhere that food was a good substitute for sex.
With a few minutes spare, he threw open the French windows that opened out onto an area of compacted rubble and hardcore. The morning was once again glorious: the air fresh, clean and fragrant with a pungent mix of damp country scents.
This weekend, he had been expecting to make a start on the brick paving. Several pallets of the rustic blocks along with builders’ bags of blinding sand were stacked up on the front drive. The weeds that were slowly curling up to embrace them were testimony to how long they had sat there. If Romney didn’t get on with it, he’d miss his target of barbecuing at least once on the finished article before the weather turned. But with a murder investigation and impending holiday pushing in on his time, he doubted whether he’d even get around to cutting the straps on the blocks.
The garden was looking good: overgrown. The borders were an unkempt wild affair where, by design, he had allowed nature to run its course. The one mark of his ownership of the land was the occasionally-mowed expanse of lawn that seemed to be shrinking in area with every cut. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to keep an orderly garden and in any case, being bordered on all sides by fields, he felt the need to fit in.
Julie appeared at his shoulder wearing only the shirt he’d discarded as they had progressed towards bed the previous night. Her hair was a mess, her make-up was smudged, she looked barely awake, but the sight made something swell in Romney’s chest. If he hadn’t known it before, and he had, the vision of her, her presence, her company, would have made him realise that he wanted permanency for them. Before Julie, coming back to the empty house had been a pleasure – his last bastion of peace and quiet where he could live as he pleased. Now, her absence left the place the poorer for it. Initially, Romney had found this unsettling, but lately, as their association lengthened and deepened, it pleased him more.
