Just Not Cricket

by Joyce Cato

  Causon grunted. He could see for himself that there was very little blood evident on the body, but he didn’t like to spoil the youngster’s fun. No doubt this was his first call out to a murder scene, and if he wanted to show off his skills of observation to the brass, why not?

  ‘You’ve called in SOCO?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir, they’re about fifteen minutes out,’ the young PC confirmed proudly, and then rather ruined it by looking suddenly distinctly nervous. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but when I radioed back and requested that some more man power be sent over right away, HQ informed me that there’s been a massive pile-up on the motorway just a few miles north of here. And apparently it’s taken up a lot of our personnel.’ He clearly didn’t like being the bearer of bad news, and his eyes darted towards the sergeant in an unconscious appeal for support.

  ‘So? We’ll still need at least half a dozen more uniforms here, if not more. They’ll just have to pull their finger out,’ Causon said shortly.

  The poor constable gulped. ‘Yes, sir, I know. But unfortunately, there’s also the big football match on,’ he proffered tentatively. And when the inspector simply carried on scowling wordlessly, he added helplessly, ‘It’s a grudge match, sir, a local derby, and they’re expecting a lot of trouble from the fans. So nearly all our extra men are up there. And what with the two major incidents, we’re very short staffed.’

  Causon said something extremely unprintable about football hooligans, and followed it up with something less than complimentary about football in general. Then he vented his spleen on bad drivers, but clearly his heart wasn’t in that so much. Like nearly every copper who’d come up the hard way, he’d had his fair share of attending road traffic accidents. And they always broke your heart.

  ‘Yes, sir, it’s the fans that drink before going to a match that cause all the trouble,’ the constable wisely agreed. ‘But HQ have already had to ask some of the neighbouring counties to lend us some help, since we’re so seriously short of manpower. So the upshot is, sir, they say they’re really up against it, and that they can’t possibly get any more than a handful of other officers here for a couple of hours or so yet.’

  Causon rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘Bloody budget cuts,’ he snorted. ‘Before long, they’ll be expecting us to secure crime scenes with bloody volunteer support staff. Or police dogs.’

  The constable, very wisely, pretended not to hear this.

  Graham Lane winked at him.

  ‘Right. Well then, we’ll just have to try and manage with the few men that we’ve got until help finally does arrive. Not your fault, son, you’ve done just fine,’ he said matter-of-factly, pretending not to notice when the youngster let out a long, slow breath of relief. ‘Well, there’s nothing more we can do here until a doc’s officially pronounced him dead,’ he added glumly, nodding towards Tristan Jones’s body.

  He got laboriously back to his feet, and then glanced down at his watch thoughtfully. It was not yet quite quarter past six. And there goes the rest of my Saturday night, he thought philosophically. He’d been looking forward to downing a couple of cold pints at his local, too. But he knew there would be hours of work in front of him yet before he could even get the body taken away. The photographer alone would probably want half an hour or more, snapping away. Then there would be the seemingly never-ending round of interviews to be got through, the collecting and logging of evidence, and the one hundred and one other things that denoted the start of an official murder investigation.

  For there could be no doubt that this was murder. He’d never yet come across anyone who’d successfully committed suicide by hitting themselves over the back of their own head with a cricket bat. And since the body was lying behind the pavilion and was not out on the pitch, it could hardly be a case of a sporting accident, either. The unfortunate young man in front of him clearly hadn’t received the injury whilst going about his sporting activity on the pitch.

  ‘OK, Constable. I know you haven’t been here long, but give me what you’ve managed to come up with so far. Start with the victim’s name and as much of the time line that you’ve been able to piece together.’

  ‘Sir.’ The constable succinctly related the gist of what he’d managed to learn, whilst leaving nothing out. He concluded crisply with, ‘The 999 call was logged at five thirty-two.’

  Causon sighed. ‘And I take it that nobody has come forward to say that they saw the victim, after finishing his tea, go around to the back of the pavilion? Or saw anyone else go behind there with him, or just after, for that matter?’

  ‘No, sir. Everybody seems to have been watching the match, or so they say,’ the constable confirmed.

  Yes, they all would be, wouldn’t they, Causon fumed morosely. So much for his earlier hope that the murderer must have been seen by somebody paying proper and due attention.

  ‘Bloody cricket,’ he muttered. ‘When you arrived, who first greeted you? The boy’s father?’

  ‘No, sir. It was …’ he hastily consulted his notes, ‘one Mr Max Wilson. He introduced himself as the individual who made the initial 999 call.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Causon sighed. ‘Was he a friend of the victim?’ he shot out.

  ‘Er, more of an acquaintance, he said, sir. He lives in the village, and knew the boy’s father, Sir Robert Jones, more than his son, apparently. But since the victim regularly visited his parents, Mr Wilson knew him from “round and about.” He’d say hello, maybe share a pint in the local pub if they happened to be in at the same time, that sort of thing, sir. And, of course, they played cricket together, whenever the victim wasn’t in London and they had a match on.’

  ‘Fair enough. OK. Set up the scene-of-crime tape around the back of the building, and wait for SOCO. Sergeant Lane and myself will be taking down some preliminary statements,’ Causon ordered.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Marie Rawley walked openly through the front entrance to the playing fields. They could hardly be called the main gates, since the gap in the low stone wall that fronted just twenty yards or so of the grounds was guarded by little more than a four foot high, single, black wrought iron gate, similar to a garden gate. Furthermore it was never locked, and had stood open for so long that squitch grass and stinging nettles growing around the rusting posts would probably make it impossible to close and latch it, should anyone attempt to do so.

  But she wanted to give the impression that she had nothing to hide, so she strolled openly through the entrance and into the field beyond, dressed in a pair of thin, loose-fitting black trousers, and a red and black patterned top. But she kept one hand clenched tightly on the large casual bag that she carried across one shoulder, and when she looked around, she was surprised to note that there was hardly anybody about at that end of the field. Most people, including, confusingly, the cricket players as well as the spectators, all seemed to be congregating down the bottom end of the field, near the pavilion.

  Which was odd, when she thought about it. Why wasn’t the match in full swing again? Tea time must have come and gone by now?

  She paused, frowning slightly, then slowly moved forward. She spotted one of her neighbours, a woman whose husband was supposed to be fielding that day, and considered going over to her to ask what was going on, but decided against it. Like her son before her, she didn’t want to draw undue attention to her presence. So instead, and with a certain sense of déjà vu, she made her way slowly to the bottom of the field, working her way around the edge of the crowd. And was shocked and scared to see that a couple of uniformed police officers were standing by the back of the pavilion.

  What on earth was going on?

  Her heart lurched in panic and dread. Surely nothing bad could have happened already? She felt a little sick, but took comfort in the fact that Mark was safely back at home. So whatever had happened couldn’t involve him.

  Perhaps something had been stolen? Somebody’s pocket had been picked, perhaps?

  But then she spotted the second man that s
he wanted to confront that day, and moved a little to one side, edging into his line of sight. And, as if sensing her presence, Lorcan Greeves turned from his position on the outer edge of the cricket players, and saw her.

  He immediately began to look uneasy, Marie noticed, and smiled grimly.

  Soon he would be looking even more so, if she had her way.

  Her hand clenched on the strap of her shoulder bag, and for the first time, she felt a brief flare of real misgiving.

  She wasn’t much of an actress, she knew. And she would have sworn that she didn’t have a violent bone in her body. She could never understand, when she read in the newspapers about the elderly being mugged, or gang members getting stabbed, or about the riots that sometimes took place even in England’s cities, what could possibly bring people to hurt others.

  But now she thought she understood that a bit better. Because, to protect her son, she was fast discovering that she herself would be willing to do anything, anything at all. And that, set against her instinctive pacifism, a fierce maternal instinct won hands down.

  Fixing Lorcan Greeves with a hard stare, she jerked her head towards the car park. She saw him flinch and look stalwartly away.

  Her lips thinned.

  If he thought he was simply going to be able to ignore her, then he had another think coming.

  She moved a little closer, and when, as she knew he must, his furtive glance once again sought her out, she again jerked her head, more imperiously than ever, towards the car park, her jaw jutting out pugnaciously.

  She knew that he wouldn’t want to talk to her, but human nature being what it was, she also knew that, in the end, he wouldn’t be able to resist her silent summons. Even if you knew the news wasn’t going to be good, not knowing was even worse. And that it was far better to get unpleasant things over and done with, rather than have to fret about them.

  And so, after another minute or so of the silent battle raging between them, she saw his shoulders eventually stoop in defeat, and watched him shuffle back from the others and head towards the small car park.

  Here, she was a little disconcerted to see that two police cars were parked, along with an ambulance. A constable guarded the entrance at the bottom, where a wider set of gates allowed vehicular access. So she headed for the far side of the concrete area, near the hedge, where a slight bend in the greenery would hide them from the sight of both the constable at the gates, and the majority of the rest of the people on the field. Here, a large white transit van had been parked, and Marie took full advantage of it to slip behind it, yet further out of sight of prying eyes.

  A moment or two later, Lorcan tentatively joined her. He looked nervous, and was visibly sweating, and Marie had to quickly hide a grimace of distaste. He really was a pitiful specimen of manhood. It was no wonder that his first wife had left him, and that his fiancée had so easily fallen for Tris Jones’s more robust charms.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here, Mrs Rawley?’ Lorcan asked, trying to sound jaunty and puzzled, but only succeeding in sounding nervous.

  ‘I want to know what’s going on between you and my son,’ Marie demanded, wasting no time and going straight to the heart of the matter. If he thought that she was going to allow him to take control of this meeting, and turn it into nothing more than a pleasant and civilized little chat, she needed to gain the upper hand now.

  She saw his small grey eyes flicker about uneasily, and ignored the slightly sickly grin that twisted his lips.

  ‘Between me and Mark?’ he echoed, wondering frantically just what the lad might have told her. Didn’t he know enough to keep schtum? And then he realized that, of course he did, and that the woman in front of him was merely fishing. She had to be. ‘I can assure you, Mrs Rawley …’ he began jovially, but already Marie was moving.

  She took two quick steps closer to him, her face tight and white with anger and tension. Without thinking about it, Lorcan took a rapid step back, which brought him up against the prickly hawthorn hedge. He felt the small twigs sticking into his back, making him want to scratch.

  ‘Don’t bother coming up with some lie,’ Marie warned him. ‘I know when something’s going on. What have you got him doing? That’s what I want to know.’

  Lorcan blinked, searching desperately for something to say that might pacify her without giving anything away, but, to his dismay, found his normally quick brain going blank.

  ‘Nothing,’ he muttered miserably. ‘He’s just doing some research for me, that’s all.’ It was a pitiful excuse, and he knew it the moment it left his lips, but it was the first thing he’d been able to come up with.

  Marie gave a rather inelegant snort. ‘Research, my eye! You’re a stockbroker, working in a London firm. I may not know much about such things, but I’m pretty damned sure that you don’t ask teenage boys still in school to do research. You lot have trained lackeys for that.’

  Lorcan blinked. ‘Not always, Mrs Rawley. Sometimes we have to be ultra discreet, you know. If we think stocks are—’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ Marie hissed, sensing that he was about to try and baffle her with science or economics or some such thing.

  She might have left school at sixteen, and worked in a garden nursery all her working life, but that didn’t make her stupid. Or naïve.

  ‘You’re dragging him in to your vendetta with Tris, and I’m not having it,’ Marie said, all but stomping her foot in frustration.

  And when she saw the man in front of her open his mouth in another attempt to bamboozle her, she decided desperately that it was now or never. She had to take control, before he had time to get the upper hand. Before she had time to get cold feet.

  It was time for her to go into her act.

  And the fact that Lorcan Greeves was still pressed so ridiculously up against the prickly hedge and looking so pathetic and easily intimidated, spurred her on.

  She could do this! She could.

  She reached a little clumsily into her bag, suddenly dry-mouthed and sick with nervous tension. Her whole body was beginning to shake, but she managed to curl her fingers around the small, sharp knife that she’d slipped inside the bag before coming out of her house. It was a black-handled kitchen knife that she usually used to peel potatoes with, but it looked sharp and impressive enough.

  She drew it out and waved it with a triumphant flourish in front of his face, the blade glinting obligingly in the sun. She only hoped that he wouldn’t notice just how badly her hands were shaking.

  Lorcan went utterly white, and bleated out something incomprehensible.

  ‘You j-just leave him alone,’ Marie Rawley said. ‘I’m warning you. I’m at the end of my tether and I w-won’t stand for it. Do you hear?’ Her voice came out a little squeaky, but she didn’t mind. She was trying her best to look like a neurotic woman, and one who was capable of anything. Wasn’t that what was supposed to scare men more than anything? An armed woman, who wasn’t quite in her right mind?

  Because, like so many before her, Marie had always regarded Lorcan as a bit of a nothing and a nobody. The kind of man to be ignored, or taken for granted. His mother had always treated him like it, and his wives and girlfriends, apparently, had taken their cue from her. As did his so-called best friend. They all got what they wanted from him, because they all knew that he was the sort of man who never stood up for himself. He was one of life’s born victims, and everyone knew it. Including Lorcan himself. So why should she treat him any differently?

  So all she had to do, she’d reasoned out beforehand, was to act like an overbearing woman making demands, and he’d be bound to fold, just like he always did. He’d buckle down and give in to the stronger force and meekly do as he was told, because that’s the way that men like him always acted.

  Wasn’t it?

  So what Lorcan Greeves did next took her completely by surprise. It clearly took Lorcan by surprise, too, because, after a shockingly brief moment of action and reaction, when the blood quickly started to flow, he looked
as shocked as Marie Rawley.

  Erica Jones was standing pensively beside her husband, who had taken her place in the deck chair just inside the cricket pavilion door. She had a hand resting comfortingly on his shoulder, but her eyes were like lasers on the two men approaching them, and she looked tense.

  Graham Lane eyed up the elegant red-haired woman thoughtfully and gave a low, near-silent whistle under his breath.

  ‘Blimey. That trouser outfit she’s wearing must have cost a mint, sir,’ he said, and when his chief’s eyebrows rose questioningly, he grinned a trifle shame-faced. ‘The wife,’ he added succinctly. ‘She’s a bit of a fashion aficionado and can cost down to the last penny any outfit that any woman is wearing from a distance of ten paces, and the knack’s sort of worn off on me. I reckon everything that redhead’s got on has an Italian designer label on it that’d make your head spin. And I bet that very chic hairdo has to be the result of work done in some swanky salon down in London somewhere – the local hairdressers wouldn’t be good enough for that cut. And those pumps she’s wearing are Jimmy Choos, or I’m a monkey’s granddad. Jewellery’s discreet, I’ll give her that, but costs a packet too, I’d say.’

  ‘Thank you, Marie Claire,’ Causon said caustically. ‘If police work ever fails to live up to your expectations, I suggest you apply for a job on Vogue.’

  Graham Lane grinned, showing a flash of perfect white teeth along with the fact that he’d clearly not taken any offence from his boss’s habitual sarcasm.

  As they approached the couple in the doorway, however, the policemen’s manner became more grave.

  ‘Inspector?’ Erica coolly greeted the older, heavier man, having instantly clocked him as the man in charge. She held out one hand firmly as they reached her, forcing the initiative. Obligingly, he shook her hand briefly. She wore just a plain gold wedding band, on the third finger of her left hand, but the inspector felt, rather than saw, Graham Lane notice her long, red, professionally manicured nails, and he couldn’t help but raise a speculative eyebrow. No doubt, Causon mused sarcastically, with carefully concealed amusement, his sergeant could have informed him of the name of the shade of nail varnish, and where the lady’s manicurist had probably purchased it. Exclusively at Harrods, perhaps? Or would that be Selfridges?