Body Politic

by J M Gregson

  He slipped off his jacket and tie, stole to the boot, extracted Lambert’s five-iron from his bag like a thief in the night, and made briskly for the professional’s shop.

  Just time for a basket of forty balls. And no one would know: he could have the club safely stowed away by the time the chief returned. Help him to think, the exercise would. Help him to apply himself to the analysis of that strange interview with Moira and Dermot Yates which they had just concluded. He put his coins into the machine and watched the balls tumble into the wire basket, then took them swiftly to the most private of the bays alongside him, looking over his shoulder guiltily like an unpractised shoplifter.

  The first few attempts were as bad as he had feared. ‘Sodding bloody game!’ he said as he topped the first one miserably forward. Then, by way of emphasis after a further attempt which hit the mat well behind the ball, ‘Sodding, bloody stupid, bastard game!’ This, be it noted, from a bowler who had taken the blindness of umpires to plumb lbw’s in his stride, who had even remained equable when edged through suddenly paralysed slips for four.

  The trouble with this stupid game was that there was no batsman to glare at with your hands on your hips. You could only be angry at yourself. Bert decided he was going to be good at that. Even on this crisp day in early January, his temperature was rising, despite his shirt sleeves. By the time he had dispatched forty balls, there might well be steam rising above his straining torso.

  Then, on about his sixth attempt, something very strange happened. He scarcely felt the ball on the face of his club. There was merely a tiny tremor through his body, similar to that which had occurred on those very rare occasions when he had hit a six off the very meat of a cricket bat. He looked automatically at face level in front of him, expecting to see the ball careering away savagely to the right from the low, topped shot which seemed to be his normal product.

  Then he spotted it. It soared gloriously against the pale blue heaven, became a speck, seemed to hang lazily for a moment, then descended lazily, until it hit the earth and bounced high and straight, coming to rest many yards beyond anything he had previously perpetrated. ‘Bloody hell!’ said Bert in astonishment. And then, more enthusiastically and appreciatively, ‘BLOODY HELL!’

  No subsequent shot matched that sublime effect. But there were several more which got into the air and travelled a reasonable distance. And Bert had quickly acquired one of the habits of the regular golfer. He now took that one perfect shot among forty as being his normal game.

  He went back into the pro’s shop trying not to look too pleased with himself. It was quiet in there. No one in the shop seemed to have observed that perfect stroke, which was a pity. But that also meant that there was no one to witness the move he planned now. He spoke quietly to the professional, who said he was sure he could accommodate him, looked in the large diary he kept beneath the counter, and made the entry which Bert requested there.

  By the time Lambert returned, Bert Hook was sitting erect in the passenger’s seat, with his jacket and tie resumed. The preoccupied superintendent seemed not to notice his detective sergeant’s heightened colour and glow of rude health. Bert was pleased to be informed that Christine’s progress was all that could be expected. He assured the chief that he had not been bored.

  But superintendents are devious men. Bert, feeling his secret was secure as they drove away, knew nothing of the arrangement John Lambert had made a week previously with the professional.

  *

  Gerald Sangster was a surprise, even to men who had schooled themselves over the years to be surprised by nothing.

  The passing references to him which had been made by others, by Moira and Dermot Yates, by Zoe Renwick, had led them to expect a worthy but rather pathetic figure. Old flames who flicker around the candle after they have been rejected compel sympathy, but they are often passive, inadequate figures, without wills of their own. Wimps, in the modern vernacular.

  Gerald Sangster was clearly no wimp. They met him as he had suggested at his place of work. ‘That way it won’t matter what time you arrive,’ he had told Hook on the phone. ‘There is plenty I can be getting on with if you are delayed.’

  He was over six feet, with the broad shoulders and the easy movement of an athlete as he rose to greet them. Tennis had never been Hook’s sport. In the days of his boyhood, it had not been thought an appropriate activity for Barnardo’s boys. It was Lambert who should have remembered Sangster’s name from his Wimbledon days, but he had been too preoccupied with his wife’s illness to think ahead as he normally did to the interviews he was to conduct. He made a note to delegate the next one to someone better suited to the exercise, almost as a punishment to himself for his negligence.

  Sangster had been for a brief period the British number one in the rankings in the eighties. He might well have gone further than that, had it not been for a persistent knee injury which eventually forced his retirement. Since then he had built up a business in sports facilities and coaching. And obviously done it very successfully, from what they had already seen on their way to this large, thickly carpeted office, with its wide mahogany desk and elegant armchairs.

  ‘Sergeant Hook said that you wished to see me in connection with the death of our late and unlamented MP. We shall not be disturbed,’ he said, gesturing to two of the armchairs and coming from behind his desk to take a third one himself.

  ‘Mr Keane was murdered, sir. We now know that. It is our job to find the man or woman who did it.’ Lambert was stiffly formal, irritated already by the man’s confidence, by Sangster’s open acknowledgement that he welcomed the death of Raymond Keane.

  ‘Woman? That’s surely unlikely, isn’t it?’

  Lambert cudgelled his mind. Did this smiling figure with the piercing blue eyes and the blond eyebrows raised interrogatively above them know more of the detail of this death than an innocent man should? ‘Why do you think it should be so unlikely, sir? What do you know about the way in which Mr Keane died?’

  The broad shoulders shrugged, the close-curled yellow hair, receding a little now at each end of the broad forehead, shook a little from side to side. ‘Only what I’ve seen in the papers. He died at his cottage, I read this morning. I think the word “brutal” was used about his killing. But I’m well aware that accuracy is not one of the virtues of the fourth estate. If you say it could have been a woman, I bow to your professional expertise.

  ‘Keane was divorced five years or so ago, and I’ve never met his first wife. I think he preferred to pretend she’d never happened. But the woman whom he wronged most grievously has been confined to her brother’s house for the last four months, as I’m sure you’re aware by now.’

  It was a challenge to comment on their interview earlier in the day with Moira Yates, but Lambert had no intention of rising to it. Privately, his present opinion was that the cool and efficient Zoe Renwick was a more likely candidate for murderer. She stood to gain a small fortune by this death and had refused to comment on the reasons for her rejection of Keane as a fiancé, but Sangster of course knew none of this. Lambert said, ‘How well did you know the deceased, Mr Sangster?’

  ‘I met him a few times. Once as an MP, when I was still a member of the Conservative Party. The other occasions I suppose you would call social; they were during the time when he conducted his—his association with Moira Yates.’

  ‘And you didn’t approve of him.’

  It was a statement, but Sangster took it as an invitation to enlarge on his opinion of Keane. ‘He was a liar and a cheat. The last person I would want to represent me in parliament or anywhere else. And he treated Moira abominably.’

  He was suddenly breathing heavily, his earlier composure gone in an instant with the mention of Moira. Hatred and love are the strongest, and thus the most revealing, of all emotions, reflected Lambert. It might be worth keeping this man on a pitch where he was vulnerable. ‘How long have you known Miss Yates, Mr Sangster?’

  He half expected to be told this was
private and irrelevant, as Moira Yates herself had indicated firmly to him when he had tried to explore the relationship earlier in the day. Instead, Sangster was only too anxious to talk. ‘I’ve known Moira for twenty years. Since we were juniors together at Wimbledon.’

  ‘Miss Yates played there?’ He hadn’t realized that she had reached such standards.

  ‘She was the best woman player ever to come out of Ireland, in my opinion. And Moira can be very determined. She’s capable of anything, if she puts her mind to it. There’s no knowing what heights she might have reached, if she had chosen to push her talent as far as it would go.’

  ‘But she didn’t?’

  ‘No. I often wonder if she regrets that, now. But whenever I try to ask her about it, she refuses to tell me. She came from an older tradition: I suppose you might call it the amateur tradition. Her family had money in Ireland, and she was good at all sports. Perhaps they came too easily to her. She qualified as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital—said she needed to do something worthwhile in life.’

  ‘So you didn’t see as much of her then as when you were both playing serious tennis?’

  Sangster looked at his questioner sharply, as if he suspected some ulterior motive in this, some prying into that period of his life when he felt that he had lost Moira. ‘No. She played when she could, and she was still astonishingly good. Still capable of upsetting the very best, when the mood was upon her.’ His pride in that flowing, laughing girl shone in his eyes for a moment. ‘But of course she couldn’t play outside this country, and she had to let her ranking go. That didn’t worry her. She said she played for enjoyment, and she wanted to keep all of her sports going. She’s a wonderful horsewoman, you know.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘She doesn’t ride to hounds, never has done. Upsets the county set round here, that does.’ But plainly not Gerald Sangster, who approved of her views on blood sports; but then he probably approved of everything the divine Moira did. Except her liaison with Raymond Keane.

  ‘So Miss Yates didn’t develop her full potential in tennis.’

  ‘She couldn’t. You have to specialize nowadays, to reach the very top levels in any sport. She chose not to, that’s all.’

  He was quick to defend her, even in this. Most people would have called it lack of dedication, this failure to exploit a special talent of this magnitude. Lambert said, ‘Why did Mr Keane and Miss Yates decide to split up, Mr Sangster?’

  It was an abrupt switch, and it caught him off guard. With a little forethought, a modicum of his normal coolness, he would have told them brusquely that it was none of their business, perhaps none of his. Instead, his desire to defend Moira overrode his judgement and he rushed to her defence. ‘They didn’t “decide to split up” as you describe it. Nothing so civilized. He found this new blonde woman, and promptly told Moira that her services were no longer required.’

  ‘He was as abrupt as that?’

  ‘He just told her to get out. Ask Moira!’

  ‘Oh, we have, Mr Sangster.’

  Sangster looked fiercely at Lambert, then snarled, ‘Then why the hell are you asking me about it?’

  ‘I’m exploring your relationship with a man who is now a murder victim. It’s my job, you see.’

  ‘You’re accusing me of killing him now, are you?’ Sangster laughed harshly. He seemed to get a bitter amusement from the notion. ‘Well, he did enough to ruin my life whilst he was alive; why should he stop now? Shouldn’t you remind me of my rights to have a lawyer present?’

  ‘No. You are helping the police with their enquiries, in a voluntary capacity. Of course, if you think that you need to have a legal representative present, you are perfectly entitled to call for one.’ Lambert held the man’s gaze as the fierce blue eyes flashed angrily. He enjoyed testing wills against a strong-minded opponent.

  ‘And if I choose to terminate this interview now? To cease helping you in this voluntary capacity?’

  ‘You would be within your rights. We should draw our own conclusions about your refusal to help an investigation into the most serious of all crimes, of course.’

  Gerald Sangster stared at him for a moment, his fine nose seeming to grow thinner for a moment with the fierceness of his breathing. Then he smiled; the broad mouth relaxed, taking defeat as sportingly as he had taken it across the net all those years ago. But this time it was a conscious effort, a policy move rather than a spontaneous reaction.

  Gerald Sangster realized suddenly how few people stood up to him nowadays; in the workings of a successful business empire, most people found it politic to pretend that the boss knew best, even when they had reservations. He said, ‘You’re right. You have a job to do, whatever my personal feelings might be about Keane. What do you want to know?’

  Lambert looked at Hook, who said, ‘Where did you spend Christmas Day, Mr Sangster?’

  ‘With Moira and her brother. At Dermot’s house. I was there from about eleven in the morning until nearly midnight, I think. But they must have told you this.’

  He was accusing Lambert, and it was the superintendent who smiled grimly and gave him his answer, ‘Indeed. At least, they have given us their recollections of what happened on that day. People sometimes tell us different things, and the discrepancies are always interesting to us, as I’m sure you would understand.’

  They looked at each other, chins jutting a little in the air. Then Sangster said, ‘It was a strange Christmas Day. With Moira being ill, I mean. I think both Dermot and I were watching her all day, trying not to make her condition worse. But she was all right, more cheerful and animated than she’d been for a while. I didn’t know whether she was making a special effort for the day, or was genuinely feeling better. We all had quite a lot to eat, I think. And to drink. Well, I certainly did. I knew I was going to walk home at the end of the day, so I wasn’t worried about the breathalyzer.’

  It was the second time that information had been volunteered to them in three hours, thought Lambert. Was the idea to convince them that neither Dermot Yates nor Sangster was capable of driving on Christmas night? If his calculations about the ice on that pond were right, it would have been around that time that the body was committed to the water. A conspiracy between those two was quite likely; or maybe between all three, if Moira was included. He said, ‘Didn’t you think of getting a taxi to take you home at the end of the day?’

  Sangster smiled. ‘I could have afforded it, you mean? Of course I could, but I might have had to wait a long time for one, on Christmas night. And I haven’t entirely lost the use of my legs, you know, as I’ve translated from athlete to businessman. I enjoyed the walk, as a matter of fact. It’s only a couple of miles, and it was a fine frosty night, with a full moon. It helped me to sober up a little.’

  ‘Do you live alone, Mr Sangster?’

  ‘Yes. I have a flat in Old Park.’ It was the most luxurious of the many conversions of old houses around Gloucester.

  ‘Is there a porter there?’

  ‘No. There are only four flats in all. It doesn’t warrant a porter.’ He looked Lambert evenly in the eye, and the superintendent was sure that he followed his thoughts: there was no one able to vouch for his movements, to say whether he had driven off into the night when he came home from his day with the Yateses.

  ‘What car do you drive, Mr Sangster?’

  ‘A Mercedes 300 SE. Dark-red metallic.’

  ‘You drove this car on Christmas Eve?’

  For a moment Sangster was shaken, as if he feared the car had been spotted in some incriminating place. Then he said levelly, ‘Yes. Do you want to know my movements on that day?’

  ‘Yes. We are asking everyone we speak to about this death to recall Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.’

  ‘I spent most of the day here.’

  ‘On a Saturday?’

  He smiled, happy for the first time to have them a little on the back foot. ‘It’s our busiest day. We have four indoor tennis courts here and four squas
h courts. They’re normally booked from eight in the morning until ten at night.’

  ‘And you were there until then?’

  ‘No. It was Christmas Eve, and even the fanatics among our clients weren’t going to use the courts on that evening—we knew from our bookings, you see. We shut at four o’clock on that day. As a matter of fact, there was only one squash court in use in the last hour. I sent the staff away at half past three and shut the place up myself at four.’

  ‘And where did you spend the rest of the day?’

  ‘I spent most of the evening in my neighbour’s flat. He had people in for drinks. There would be eight people who could account for my presence there, if you should find that necessary.’ He smiled at Hook as he watched the sergeant write the facts busily in his notes. He was coolly controlled again, now that they had left the subject of Moira Yates.

  ‘Times, please,’ said Lambert evenly.

  The wide, well-formed lips pursed a moment, affecting to give due consideration to a question Lambert was sure had already been anticipated. ‘About eight to eleven p.m.’

  Lambert left the obvious question to Hook, and there was a pause until the DS had completed his record of these times and looked up at Sangster’s expectant face. ‘We shall need an account of your movements between four and eight that evening, then, sir.’

  Sangster looked from one to the other of the CID men’s faces, as if he hoped to discover something there. He must have expected this obvious request, but perhaps he was wondering how precise they were now able to be about the time of this murder. Hook, like Lambert, would have been happy enough to imply that they knew the time of Keane’s death to the minute. Police omniscience is a useful idea to spread among the public: it makes people nervous about what they conceal.