A Very Private Murder

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘OK, Charlie. I’ll serve first. I have to warn you that I’m a demon server.’

  She wasn’t joking. It cleared the net at about Mach 4, made a vvvrriip noise as it bounced, and rattled against the wire behind me, all before I’d transferred my weight to the appropriate foot. I was in big trouble, so I took the only course left open to me.

  ‘Out!’ I called.

  Her shoulders slumped and the racket trailed on the ground. ‘Was it out?’ she asked, forlornly.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It was a good one. Fifteen-love.’

  I missed the next two but she was so surprised when I got one back that it went straight past her. Then she wrapped it up and it was my serve.

  Her backhand was hopeless so I played to it and regained some respectability as she continually hit her returns into the net. I was beginning to realise that she spent hours practising on her own, blasting them aimlessly with nobody there to hit them back.

  As we changed ends I said: ‘Show me how you hold the racket.’ It was the standard shaking-hands grip. ‘And how when the ball’s on your backhand?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘OK. So from now on I want you to rotate the racket in your grip … like this …’ I demonstrated, holding her wrist ‘… whenever the ball’s coming over to your left. It’s a lot easier than it looks. Just try it for a few minutes, see what you think.’

  We played pat-a-ball for a while and soon her returns were clearing the net and giving me the run-around. I was beginning to puff when a burst of derisory applause behind me caused me to turn and I had my first in-the-flesh sight of the celebrated Miss Curzon senior. And her father. I waved to Toby, signalling that the game was over, and went to meet them.

  ‘DI Priest,’ I said, and we shook hands. ‘Miss Curzon, Mr Curzon.’

  Toby had joined us. ‘Charlie’s showed me how to hit backhands,’ she blurted.

  Ghislaine turned to her. ‘Inspector to you, young lady,’ she said. ‘And we expected you to offer him a drink, not a game of tennis.’

  ‘My fault,’ I said. ‘I was offered the option and chose tennis. She’s a very talented player. Beat me fair and square.’ I winked at her and she gave me a half smile.

  ‘We’ll believe you,’ Curzon said. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  We walked back towards the house, leaving Toby behind, and a few seconds later I heard the plunk … plunk … of tennis balls being smashed pointlessly across the court.

  We drank instant coffee from mugs that grated on your teeth, seated at a refectory table in a kitchen that once had buzzed with action. At one end an old iron range stood, a cold and indifferent observer of feasts and orgies in years gone by. Now it was decorated with copper pans and strange utensils for obscure culinary tasks. A two-gallon kettle hung on the spindle that had once held a rotating boar or a swan stuffed with skylarks. Sunlight streamed in through the tiny windows and everything glowed in shades of gold and orange. Ghislaine Curzon wore faded jeans and a check shirt and was everything I imagined she’d be. Freckles spanned her face, I noticed. Why do freckles make my knees go weak?

  ‘How’s the dexter?’ I asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Curzon told me. ‘They’re both fine. They’re hardy little beasts.’

  ‘Heifer or a bull?’ All those years listening to The Archers hadn’t been wasted.

  ‘A heifer.’

  ‘Good. How many do you have?’

  ‘Ten. Eleven now. They’re a little sideline, that’s all.’

  I turned to Ghislaine. ‘So who did the graffiti, Miss Curzon? Any ideas?’ She looked awkward for a moment, or was it my imagination? Perhaps it was simply the recollection of an embarrassing moment. I didn’t allow it any importance.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘You’re the policeman.’

  ‘But you know your friends and enemies. Any boyfriends still holding a torch for you?’ I would have liked to talk to them separately, but it felt inappropriate to say so, and she’d hardly confess to having sex with half the men in the village whether her father was present or not. Not that I thought for one second that the wholesome Ghislaine – Grizzly, was it? – would do such a thing.

  ‘I can’t think of anyone,’ she replied.

  Now that was a lie, if ever I heard one. She was twenty-five years old, fairly rich and beautiful. Girls like that attract all sorts of attention, plenty of it from nutters and chancers. ‘I’d like you to think about it,’ I said, then went on: ‘How do you feel about the incident? Have you got over it?’

  Now she looked sheepish. ‘It was hilarious. Embarrassing for everyone, but it was almost worth it to see the expression on the face of that pompous twit who calls himself the mayor.’

  ‘Threadneedle?’

  ‘That’s the man.’

  ‘Can I ask how you became involved with the Curzon Centre?’ I flapped a hand around and stumbled on: ‘You’re obviously well connected, for want of a better expression, but at what point was it named after you? And when were you invited to open it?’

  ‘About two years ago,’ Ghislaine said, ‘it became public knowledge that I was friendly with, you know, one of the royal princes. Shortly afterwards Threadneedle wrote to me, saying that he was an old friend of Daddy’s and would I be interested, et cetera et cetera. We thought, why not? We couldn’t stop him calling it the Curzon Centre and I thought my friendship would have fizzled out long before the Centre was completed, but it sounded like good fun. I talked to Daddy about it and then told Mr Threadneedle I’d be flattered and delighted. He wasn’t the mayor then, of course, but was chairman of the development committee, or something like that, and wielded all the power.’

  ‘And he probably knew that he’d be mayor when it opened,’ I said. ‘There’s usually some sort of progression with the title.’ I turned to her father and asked: ‘Did you know him? Was he an old friend?’

  Curzon shuffled in his seat and looked uncomfortable. He was wearing pressed jeans with leather brogues, a white shirt and a tweed jacket with leather-reinforced cuffs. It probably cost about three hundred pounds from Bond Street and had been repaired several times. ‘I knew him slightly,’ he admitted. ‘Back in the Eighties, early Nineties, we owned a couple of racehorses. Or my wife did. I humoured her. She enjoyed going to the races and we sometimes saw Threadneedle in the owners’ enclosure. Rarely in the winners’ enclosure, sadly.’ He allowed himself a wry smile as he remembered the folly and the enjoyment of those days.

  ‘Mummy died in ninety-six,’ Ghislaine explained.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  ‘She’d been ill for a long time,’ Curzon went on, looking out of the window. ‘She loved her racing. Christmas Day, it was. We were planning to go to the Wetherby Boxing Day meeting, but she was too poorly. Died later that night. I haven’t seen Threadneedle since some time before then.’

  We chatted for a while about policing and the weather and the risks of backing horses compared to the stock market. I rounded things up by asking how concerned they were about the graffiti incident.

  Curzon shrugged his shoulders and looked at his daughter. Ghislaine looked at me. I went dry in the mouth.

  ‘It’s water under the bridge, as far as I’m concerned,’ she said. ‘Presumably they’ve removed the plaque and will either clean it up or replace it. Or perhaps they should leave it as it is and call it a reflection of the times. That might be fun.’ She smiled at me and the five thousand midget Cossack dancers that live in my nether regions slapped their thighs and shouted ‘Hoy!’ in unison. I tried a nonchalant smile back but it felt all wrong from my side and probably came out as a cheesy grin.

  Curzon said: ‘We were quite surprised when we heard an inspector was coming, but presumably it’s all part of the chief constable’s zero tolerance initiative.’

  I didn’t know anything about a zero tolerance initiative, but I nodded my agreement. ‘That and the fact that it was a breach of security,’ I added. ‘That’s where the cri
ticism will lie. General consensus is that the perpetrator was a malicious youth doing it for kicks, that’s all, but we’ve got to run with it, just in case.’ By ‘general consensus’ I meant big Dave and me. I turned to Ghislaine. ‘Will you be at home, Miss Curzon, if I need to speak to you again?’

  Her cheeks turned pink under the freckles and she rotated her coffee mug in her fingers. Curzon stared at her, his face a blank but eloquent mask.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted, sheepishly. ‘I might go away for a few days.’

  I let it sink in. What she meant was that she might be visiting her aristocratic friend, to do what they’d been doing to the rest of us for a thousand years.And Daddy wasn’t pleased. I changed the subject. ‘Do you have any trouble with the paparazzi?’

  ‘Here? No, not really. I keep well hidden, and they’re not the types to relish camping in Yorkshire for days on end. They come, grow discouraged and leave. The people in the village are used to seeing me around and give them short shrift.’

  ‘OK. Well, thank you both for your hospitality. And Toby, too. She’s quite a character.’

  ‘I think you’ve made a friend there, Inspector,’ Curzon said.

  Ghislaine walked me to the door and closed it behind me. The gravel drive led round in a big arc, everywhere was neatly cropped grass and the only limit to the view was the wall of heavily laden trees that stood like silent witnesses as they had done for hundreds of years. I opened the car door and leant on it for a few seconds, wondering if Constable had ever painted there. Blackbirds and thrushes foraged for worms on the lawns, a flock of swallows – or were they swifts? – wheeled and dived overhead, and behind all the screeching, whistling and cawing, almost lost, was the steady plunk … plunk … plunk of young Toby, measuring her skill against a wire-netting cage. I slid into the driving seat and started the engine.

  Threadneedle had told me he was going down to the Belfry for a few days, but I didn’t think Mrs Threadneedle was present when he said it. I ran the scene through my brain. That was right: he’d walked out to the car with me. He said it after we caught the dog, Wolfgang, staking his claim to my offside front wheel. I pulled into a lay-by just before the end of Curzon’s lane and dialled his number. Mrs Threadneedle answered quicker than an Indian call centre, like in about ten minutes.

  ‘Mrs Threadneedle?’

  ‘That’s right. Who is this, please?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Charlie Priest. I came to see your husband this morning. I was wondering if I could pop in to see him again, in about an hour? I have a few more questions for him. Nothing important – just background information.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but he’s gone away on business for a few days. Is it anything I could help you with?’

  ‘Um, that’s very kind of you. I’m in my car at the moment. Will it be all right if I call, in about an hour, perhaps a bit less?’

  ‘I’ll be expecting you, Inspector.’

  Sometimes, I don’t know where I get it from. Look for the weakest link, that’s my guiding principle. I turned out on to the lane, towards the A64, and imagined the diminutive Janet dashing around the house with her feather duster, plumping up the cushions, waiting for her inspector to call.

  Perhaps I did her an injustice. She was upright and coherent and politely welcoming. Or maybe she could hold her liquor. I asked for a coffee again, when invited, and this time she managed to keep most of it within the confines of the cup. She was wearing a pretend-velour jogging suit the colour of unripe bananas and as she lowered the cup in front of me her newly refreshed perfume hit me like an avalanche in a potpourri quarry. I’d found myself a seat in an easy chair; she curled up at one end of a settee.

  ‘How can I help you, Inspector?’ she asked, leaning forward, her chin on her fist. Her slippers had long pointed toes, and with a matching hat she’d have made a passable pea pod in a fancy-dress contest. I looked past her and saw the glass and Gordon’s bottle on the floor beside her settee.

  ‘I haven’t made much progress,’ I confessed. ‘Trouble is, we’re still not sure who was the target of the vandalism: your husband or Miss Curzon. Or perhaps both of them. How well did you know the Curzons?’

  ‘Not too well. We haven’t seen them for years. Ghislaine was just a little girl, and look at her now. Quite regal, don’t you think?’

  ‘You knew them through horse racing, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. For a short while we had a small stable near Malton but it burnt down. Arthur had applied for a trainer’s licence. Before that he had shares in a horse called Shergar. You might remember it. He introduced Mr Curzon to the right people and he became a joint owner, too.’

  ‘Shergar!’ I exclaimed. ‘You mean the horse that vanished? It won the Derby, didn’t it?’ I was taken by surprise but it soon subsided. The two big unsolved mysteries of my lifetime were what happened to Shergar and where was Lord Lucan, but I doubted if I was hot on the trail of either. I decided she was as nutty as a fruitcake.

  ‘That’s right,’ she replied. ‘The IRA kidnapped it. The Aga Khan sold shares in it when it went to stud, and Arthur introduced Mr Curzon to the syndicate manager. I imagine they both had their fingers burnt when it vanished but you’ll have to ask Arthur for the details. He doesn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘Was it insured?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I was wasting time, heading up a blind alley, so I decided to push things along. ‘Did you ever meet Mrs Curzon?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes. She was a lovely woman, no edge to her at all. Not very well, though. I don’t know what was the matter with her but she died a few years ago. We didn’t know about it until weeks afterwards, or we would have sent some flowers. I was disappointed about that.’

  ‘Has your husband mentioned any names when you’ve talked about the graffiti incident? Or does any acquaintance stand out as a suspect?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Any problems with the neighbours, Mrs Threadneedle?’

  ‘No. And call me Jan, please.’

  ‘Right. Jan. Any disgruntled employees that you might know of?’

  ‘I can’t think of any.’

  ‘Has Arthur appeared under any extra stress lately?’

  ‘Well, yes. But that’s down to the opening of the Centre. There was always the chance that it wouldn’t be ready on time.’

  ‘I see. But otherwise, he’s been OK?’

  ‘Fine. He’s been fine. To tell the truth, he has a bit of a thing about Ghislaine. I think it’s his age, an older man’s crush, that sort of thing. He was looking forward to meeting her more than he’d ever admit to me.’

  I knew the feeling. An older man’s crush; was that it? As Dave once said: ‘If you’ve got to be an old man you might as well be a dirty one.’ I thanked Mrs Threadneedle for her assistance and stood up to leave, saying I’d had a busy day.

  ‘I never offered you a proper drink,’ she said, struggling to her feet. ‘I’m sure you deserve one.’

  It might have been my imagination, or wishful thinking, but I’d swear the zipper on her jogging top had crept an inch or two down towards her navel. ‘Not while I’m driving,’ I said, rather meekly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Is Arthur Irish?’

  ‘He pretends to be. His father was, but he came over here years ago, before Arthur was born. Made a fortune building roads and what have you, and lost most of it. When he died of cirrhosis of the liver Arthur took over the business. We’ve done very well out of it, as you can see.’

  ‘You certainly have,’ I replied, taking in the Ashley Jackson watercolours and the glass coffee table balanced on a tangle of driftwood, but the expression on her face told that the benefits of wealth had bypassed her. She’d gained a fur coat and an architect-designed house, but lost a marriage. ‘Threadneedle’s not an Irish name, is it?’

  She said: ‘No.
It was his mother’s name. I think he wanted to deny his Irish roots. Thought he’d do better in business as an Englishman.’

  ‘There’s a local legend that says he was born in a caravan in rural Ireland. Is it not true?’

  ‘Not a word of it. He’s a chameleon, changing his colours to please the people he happens to be dealing with. That’s his romantic side. He was actually born in St James’s hospital in Leeds. You know what they say: the further you get from the Old Country, the more vociferous are the immigrants.’

  I nodded. ‘He seems to know what he’s doing.’ We were standing barely a yard apart, me towering over her, she looking up into my face. She said: ‘He hasn’t gone to the Belfry to play golf with his business chums, you know.’

  ‘Hasn’t he?’

  ‘No. He’s said he was going there on several occasions before. Last June it was his birthday while he was away, so I hid a birthday card in his bag of clubs. It was still there when he came home three days later. They’d never been out of the car boot. And there’ve been other times … other … lies …’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, turning to leave, but the little bit of me that I despise was filing the information for future use. Knowledge is power, it whispered in my ear.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Toby would never make a top tennis player, and that thought made me unhappy. She just wasn’t tall enough. Tennis matches, like presidential elections, always go to the taller candidate. I was on my way back to the office before the evening rush started, with both visors down against the low glare of the sun. The lights changed and we moved off. I was disappointed that I hadn’t questioned Ghislaine more, but she was in an odd position. I could have gone to any of the celebrity magazines and sold anything she confided in me for a year’s salary, so her answers to my questions would have been guarded and worthless. No matter, fingerprints would have it all sewn up by now. They’d have found some prints on the paint tube and matched them against the database. If they hadn’t lifted the culprit already it was only because they’d decided to wait until I could be in on the action.