Green and Pleasant Land

by Judith Cutler

  It was a good job they’d gone for the layered look, with smart underneath the layers. Their host sported smart casual clothes, with the emphasis on smart, which might, had Mark worried about such things, have made him feel underdressed.

  Tall as Mark, but broader and more self-consciously muscled, Dean had apparently been on the Albion staff as a physio when Phil was a player. Now he ran several sports injury clinics; not just physio, he assured them as he held their hands in greetings he prolonged, as if assessing by touch possible treatment programmes for them. He listed massage, hydrotherapy, acupuncture, Pilates and also a whole range of other therapies they didn’t recognize by name. Such quasi-medical treatments always made Mark nervous, as if the very mention of a torn muscle or snapped hamstring would prompt the tennis gods to fix him in their gaze. Fran, who had spent much of last spring on crutches, drew Dean’s fire, mentioning her leg injuries and eliciting a further barrage of remedies. She took more interest in his suggestions for preventing further damage, though she had no intention of attempting heroics again. Come to think of it, however, she’d not intended to be heroic at the time, so she could make no promises, even to herself.

  He checked a Rolex she didn’t expect to be fake. ‘Let’s get those questions of yours out of the way fast – or you can stay behind after the game for an extra tipple. It’s best to wait till the traffic clears,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a lot of away supporters. Probably victorious away supporters, Chelsea being the club they are,’ he concluded sadly.

  ‘Thanks. That’d be lovely, result apart,’ Fran declared. ‘So you’re happy to talk to us?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have invited you if I wasn’t, would I?’

  Mark smiled. ‘Apart from Natalie’s parents, who might have been biased, you’re the one person of all those we’ve spoken to who actually knew Phil Foreman well – or the only one who admits to it, at least.’

  ‘Yes. I should imagine I saw more of him than most while he was here. In both senses,’ he said drily. ‘He was a bit injury-prone, was Phil. But he was a client; I can’t tell you anything that would violate practitioner–patient confidentiality. So why me?’

  ‘You answered that question yourself: you saw more of him than most,’ Fran said. ‘And people are unguarded while other people are stretching and bending them – talking distracts you from the pain of someone’s fingers delving into parts of muscles best left in decent torpor.’

  He gave a bark of laughter. ‘You may think you’re walking well, but that calf of yours is still pretty tight, you know.’

  ‘Wading round floods in wellies should stretch it a bit! Actually, after a broken leg and a torn muscle I owe my mobility to your NHS colleagues. Until then I was physio-phobic. Was Foreman?’

  ‘Professional footballers can’t be. Most carry an injury most of the time. They’re young, they’re fit, they’re highly paid. Most of all, they’ve got a limited shelf life: they have to do whatever’s necessary. No argument. Things have got much more sophisticated than when he was a player: ice baths, cryotherapy, that sort of thing. And no,’ he added, ‘cryotherapy’s nothing to do with having a good weep on someone’s shoulder.’

  ‘I thought it meant freezing dead bodies to wait until a cure had been found for their illness,’ Mark quipped. ‘But did he weep on your shoulder?’

  ‘Yorkshire lads aren’t in the habit of weeping.’ Redhead grinned. ‘Some folk think because he played a lot of his life for Arsenal he was a southerner. But they come from all over, these kids – because that’s all they are, most of them, remember. And in most Premier League clubs, despite academies like ours designed to bring out the best of talented players in the area, you’d be hard put to find many local born lads. Many UK born lads, to be honest. Anyway, young Phil was tough as they come – came from mining stock, I shouldn’t wonder. No, he’d be a bit tall. He could have played rugby, only the game wasn’t professional in those days, or cricket, but again, there wasn’t so much money. He just had ball skills to die for – could always pop the ball into the net just when you needed him to. But he was already on a downward trajectory when he came to us, to be frank. He still had the miracle feet, but, my God, he was a rough player. And between ourselves he let fly at one or two of his team-mates during training sessions. He was on the receiving end of endless verbals from the manager. From us he went to Millwall, then a couple of overseas clubs. Don’t think we didn’t try to help him, though; someone who does that’s troubled, isn’t he, as well as trouble?’

  ‘So what sort of support could the club offer him, Dean? Theoretically. I appreciate we may have to wait to see his file to get specifics.’

  ‘There’s the club doctor for starters. It’s hard to pull the wool over his eyes. All our medics care about the game and they care about the players. So if he’d seen the doc back then – and I’ve every reason to believe he did – he’d have been assessed for specialist treatment. A shrink, maybe, or an anger management course. All that testosterone, all that adrenalin: he’s not the first player to need to learn to calm things down.’

  ‘When he was hurting other people, did he ever get hurt himself? Did you see injuries that might not have occurred on the field of play?’

  It was clear that Redhead was reluctant to reply.

  ‘Put it another way, could you imagine him being violent with people off the pitch?’

  Redhead got to his feet, staring down at them. ‘Let’s get this straight: you’re asking if he could have killed his wife. Right?’

  ‘Wrong. At least for the time being. Technically he was never in the frame. His alibi was absolutely watertight: he was in Newcastle with the team. There’s no evidence that we’ve seen that made us think he hired a hit-man or anything like that.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be his style at all. Strictly between ourselves I can imagine him taking a swipe at her – back of the hand stuff when he was in a temper. But he wasn’t a forward planner, young Phil. He was an impulse man.’ He sat down again.

  ‘When the police found no trace of her he hired a private detective,’ Mark said. ‘Why would he do that?’

  Redhead smiled grimly. ‘Plainly you don’t think he simply wanted to find her. But I do think he’d want to find his son. He worshipped that lad. Can I tell you a little story? My kids and his Hadrian used to go to toddler tennis. Half a dozen kids with oversized tennis balls and racquets with very large heads. I know, I know: it’s like Baby Mozart and whatever. Four he was, Hadrian, just. And he was good. Even a doting dad like me could tell he was going to be better than my Thomas. He could see the ball, move around the court, put the ball where he wanted.’

  ‘At that age? Why do I bother?’ Mark groaned.

  ‘You play? Well, maybe it’s a good job you don’t play like he did. A couple of times Thomas was crying after coaching. I spoke to the coach: what the hell was going on? Coach said that another kid was the problem. It wasn’t bullying or anything like that. It was just if this kid missed a ball, or walloped it out – and he was only four, remember – that kid lost it. He literally hit his head on the wire netting. Made himself bleed.’

  ‘A kid of four?’

  ‘Right. Then the coach asked me to step back a bit because he was going to have to have a word with this kid’s dad. At this point Phil turned up. I made myself invisible. Best I could, anyway. Must have worked because I heard the weirdest conversation. The coach explained the problem – the headbanging and everything – and asked Phil to explain to Hadrian that he must do as he was told and cool it or he couldn’t come back. And do you know what Phil said? He said he liked Hadrian that way. Hard. He wanted him hard and hungry. “Not,” Phil said, pointing at Thomas, “like that little poofter over there.” Funnily enough, next time Phil needed a treatment session, I wasn’t available. Within two months Natalie had gone and soon after Phil signed for Millwall. That’s the kind of bloke Natalie was married to.’

  ‘Be straight, now: did he hit her?’ There were people outside the door. There was on
ly time for a blunt question.

  A swift nod. ‘Skin off his knuckles a couple of times.’

  Fran asked another, less threatening one, because she wanted to know and it didn’t matter if people heard. ‘And does Thomas still play tennis?’

  ‘He switched to badminton.’

  ‘Lovely game; I used to play myself.’

  ‘I’ve lost count of the hours I spent ferrying him around for tournaments, and then sorting out his niggling injuries afterwards.’

  ‘My dad just did the ferrying,’ Fran laughed. ‘I had to deal with the niggles myself.’

  Dean looked at her with renewed approval. But his guests were swarming round. He put a hand on her arm. ‘Do hang back afterwards, remember; maybe we’ll have a chance to talk again. Especially about that private detective: that worries me.’

  The seats might have been outside, up near the roof, but they were comfortable and, to their amazement, heated. The noise from the PA system pop music and the crowd was overwhelming. From somewhere came the visceral pulse of drums – or maybe fans rhythmically hitting barriers. Talk about The Rite of Spring! Even Fran would have danced herself to death impelled by this tribal force. No matter she couldn’t hear what people were saying; they weren’t out there for conversation. She was on her feet too, yelling, baying with the crowd. Yes! She’d never dreamed it would be like this. She turned to Mark to share the force. But Mark wasn’t there. Before she could get to her feet, Dean was moving, gesturing her to stay put.

  ‘I’m fine, Dean. Honestly. I just needed to take these out.’ He held out his hearing aids. They were both equipped with a mini-switch with which to raise or lower volume, indicating their position on the scale with a number of beeps only audible to the wearer. However, their tiny sounds had been completely drowned, and he truly didn’t know whether he’d been making things worse or better.

  ‘They’re so unobtrusive I didn’t realize you wore them.’

  ‘They’re life savers, normally. And usually I can just turn them down. But it was like being smothered in sound. I’ll be fine now.’ He returned them to his ears. ‘Please: I don’t want to spoil your afternoon.’

  ‘The Chelsea goal’s spoilt it already! Sit down a second – no one’s allowed to see us drinking, you see.’ He tweaked the blinds. ‘I’ve been thinking about this PI thing, Mark: it’s so out of character for an action man. Phil was more the sort to be out there scouring the area himself.’

  ‘But according to a number of people he never even visited the place where they were last seen. There was some tussle about little Julius’s funeral, too. His in-laws can’t say a decent word about him. Nothing new there, I suppose.’ Not that he’d been bothered much by his own decidedly eccentric mother-in-law – though he knew Fran’s relationship with her was desperately difficult.

  Dean topped up their glasses and nodded.

  ‘Are you still in touch with any of his team-mates?’

  ‘They’re scattered to the four winds. But what about her friends?’

  He’d keep the missing nanny under his hat for a bit. ‘The weird thing is no one’s ever remembered a single name.’ Which must of course be significant in itself. ‘Unless …?’

  ‘Sorry. I hardly knew her. I wonder … look, I’ll give this some thought and maybe call you.’

  Mark did the unforgivable: he fixed him with the stare he’d used on a thousand witnesses. ‘You did know her, didn’t you? You treated her.’

  Dean raised his hands. ‘OK, I did. Which means, Mark, I’m bound, since she may still be alive, by patient confidentiality. I’m sorry. You’re a decent guy doing your job. I’ll try and work out what I can tell you and what I can’t.’

  Mark put an apologetic hand on his shoulder and passed him his card. ‘I’m sorry to press you. I’d be grateful for anything. Anything at all. But I’m keeping us from the match. The view’s stupendous from up here, isn’t it?’ But he made sure he turned his aids to minimum before following his host.

  The post-match celebrations in the hospitality box would hardly have been excessive if the Albion had actually defeated the opposition. They hadn’t – they’d just managed a 1–1 draw. But they’d certainly dented the collective ego of Chelsea, a team that, according to the people almost dancing for joy in Dean’s suite, seemed to regard their position at the top of the league as a right. It probably was, given the huge sums of money and world class players the money bought. But they’d been brought low by one of the least experienced attacks in the Premier League. A draw! A wonderful opportunistic goal just minutes from time! Dean Redhead called for champagne all round.

  Mark and Fran were everyone’s best friends, southern mascots that had somehow kept the club out of the relegation zone. Mark found himself with an invitation to play tennis at the Priory: it seemed his putative opponent was a Warwickshire cricketer. As for Fran, it was fortunate she was no longer afraid of physios: Dean insisted that he’d give her a morning’s free treatment on her leg. Both, without reference to the other, accepted – for a day when they’d finished their short-term contract.

  Fran could have partied all night. But as she looked across to Mark, she caught a brief glimpse of horror before he rediscovered his social smile. His ears, of course: his aids might work wonders, but they couldn’t replace the miracles that were human ears.

  In any case, what were they doing here when they should have been keeping an eye on Edwina? She was straight out of hospital, for goodness’ sake. She collected a relieved-looking Mark, and thanked Dean for all his kindness. Would he join them for a thank-you supper on Monday evening? He couldn’t do Monday, but Wednesday was good; he’d await a text with the details.

  EIGHTEEN

  They’d have liked to go to church on Sunday, but there wasn’t a service at St Andrew’s, only one at a neighbouring village. But this was inaccessible because of the floods, or Edwina, who insisted she was completely recovered, would have asked them for a lift.

  The other thing that was inaccessible was the restaurant Hugh had chosen. Since his house was separated from the main road by thirty yards of two-foot deep and rising flood water, the news was academic anyway. ‘And I’m busy moving furniture upstairs at the moment: I know you need to cross-question me, but this really isn’t a good time. Maybe this evening?’

  The decision to go into Hindlip to work was easy enough. Edwina wanted to cook them lunch, but admitted that she’d been planning to spend the afternoon playing Scrabble with a group of like-minded old friends. But she did insist that she’d prepare an evening meal for them all – they’d made themselves part of her family, she said, with all they’d done for her over the last two days. And surely one of her packed lunches would be tastier than anything they’d find in a police canteen?

  Who could argue with that?

  ‘And have you got a change of clothes?’ she called to them as they were about to set off. ‘Excellent. You never know in this weather.’

  ‘Do you remember that TV quiz back in the mists of time,’ Fran said, ‘when the audience used to yell at the contestants to open the box?’ She slowed as a four by four came too quickly towards them, like an ugly Viking longboat bearing people inclined to do a spot of raping and pillaging. The bow-wave swiped at old red-brick walls as if deliberately undermining them. She waited for the troubled waters to subside, located the middle of the road and set off more circumspectly, but making sure to maintain the engine speed.

  ‘That was Take Your Pick!, wasn’t it? Michael Miles? My parents loved it. I suppose I did – but I chiefly remember sneering about it. Horrible teenage superiority.’ Mark sighed at the thought of his younger self. ‘What about you?’

  Now clear of the flood, she kept pressing the brakes to dry them. ‘I was too busy playing badminton all over the place, wasn’t I? But what I want to do now, more than anything else, is open the Garbutts’ box. OK, I know that technically it’s been opened and examined and that Stu’s logged the contents. But I really want to see the items and handle
them myself. I don’t want to wait till tomorrow and I know you’ve been dying to tell me what you’ve seen.’

  ‘We’ve both been paragons,’ he agreed. ‘I just thought it would make more sense if you saw things through unprejudiced eyes. Look at this devastation,’ he said, gazing out at the countryside spread before them. ‘You almost feel that it’s not just the locals who don’t want us to investigate properly – it’s the whole environment. Not being able to get here or there, people trapped in their own homes. Who knows if any of the team’ll be able to get in tomorrow? Who knows if we will?’

  ‘I’d hate to take up Webster’s offer of single accommodation,’ she said glumly. ‘Look, would it speed things up if we did ask Ted to join us, even if it’s just for a couple of hours a day? It seems silly to look a gift-horse in the mouth.’

  ‘Assuming, of course, that he’s a gift-horse, not a Trojan horse. And remember, you should fear Greeks when they come bearing gifts. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.’

  ‘Don’t I remember you having a long discussion with someone about the meaning of that? Isn’t there some debate about whether it means even when they come bearing gifts or especially when they come bearing gifts? Sometimes I wish I’d had the benefit of a Latin education,’ she added, shaking her head. ‘Then I’d know if Ted was a Greek or not. Assuming a Danaan is the same as a Greek anyway.’ Then she became altogether more serious. ‘I really do not like the look of that tree!’ No time to tell him which. She slammed the protesting car into reverse, accelerating as hard as she dared. ‘When I have to stop, get out and run! Now!’

  ‘Shock, that’s what that’ll be,’ a traffic officer declared, as they stood dithering on the grass verge, staring at their car. He found them another foil blanket.

  ‘Or it might be something to do with the fact that we’re ankle deep in icy water,’ Mark said with a grim smile. ‘Heavens, it isn’t much more than a twig that’s done all that damage. If my wife hadn’t reacted as she did …’ He drew his hand across his throat. ‘Now, sergeant, if you think it’s safe, we’d like to retrieve a few items from the boot and thumb a lift with someone to Hindlip Hall. And if it violates Elf and Safety, just look the other way. We’ve got important police documents in there I really wouldn’t want to let into the hands of a scrap merchant.’