Child's Play

by Reginald Hill

  Inside, however, there were signs of change, subtle but significant. Several of the doors off the large but gloomy entrance hall were closed for a start. In Great Aunt Gwen’s time, no door and few windows were ever closed as this interfered with her animals’ right of total access to every part of the house. Also the hall itself was surely not quite so gloomy as before. The heavy velvet drapes which, even when drawn open, still inhibited ninety per cent of the light entering via the stained-glass windows on either side of the door, had disappeared, and on the dark green silk wallpaper two lighter rectangles showed where half-length portraits of King Edward and Queen Alexandra had glowered out of gilded frames these past seventy-odd years.

  The kitchen had changed too, but not subtly. There were bright new chintzy curtains at the windows, a new sink unit in stainless steel had replaced the ancient deep-crazed pot one, yellow and white vinyl tiles covered the old stone floor and there was a new drop-leaf formica table in bright blue in place of the old solid-state wooden one which had impeded passage for all but the very slimmest.

  At this table sat Rod Lomas, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Lexie,’ he said, ‘you must be early.’

  ‘You’ve got two minutes,’ she said.

  ‘Time for another coffee, then,’ he replied.

  She didn’t answer but stared at him with that expression of nervous determination he was beginning to recognize.

  ‘All right,’ he said, rising. ‘I’ll get my jacket.’

  He left the room. Miss Keech poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Lexie. The Old Mill Inn girls had always thought of her as old, but today, aged about seventy, she looked somehow younger than Lexie could ever recall. It was perhaps the touch of colour which varied the hitherto unbroken blackness of her clothing; a red silk scarf at her neck, a diamanté brooch at her bosom.

  ‘You’ve got the kitchen nice,’ said Lexie.

  ‘Thank you. It’s never too late for change, is it?’

  Lexie sipped her coffee and did not reply.

  Miss Keech laughed, and this was as surprising as the vinyl tiles and the red scarf.

  ‘You must come again, Lexie, and talk over old times.’

  This time Lexie was saved from having to answer by Lomas calling, ‘Ready!’ from the entrance hall.

  ‘Thank you for the coffee,’ was all she said as she left, but Miss Keech only responded to this evasion with that surprising laugh once more.

  Outside, Lomas, though not particularly tall, made a great business of folding himself into the Mini.

  ‘This is a most selfish kind of car for you to drive,’ he complained. ‘Can’t you afford something larger?’

  ‘I can’t afford this,’ said Lexie, accelerating to the forty m.p.h. which both her own caution and the car’s limitations dictated was the optimum maximum speed.

  ‘But your mad social life demands that you have wheels,’ mocked Lomas.

  Lexie replied seriously, ‘The buses don’t run very late from town. And I like to get across to Leeds quite a lot.’

  ‘What excitements keep you late in town and take you across to licentious Leeds?’

  ‘I like to go to concerts,’ said Lexie. ‘And they’ve got the opera at Leeds.’

  ‘Good lord!’ said Lomas. ‘Of course. The will! Auntie Gwen left you all her operatic records. It struck me as odd when I saw that.’

  ‘Odd to leave them to someone like me?’ said Lexie.

  ‘Well, not exactly that …’

  ‘It would seem odd, I suppose,’ said Lexie. ‘But she knew I liked music. She made Dad send me to piano lessons. Dad thought they were a waste of time, but she said a girl should have music. He didn’t argue with her, but he kept on at me about the expense.’

  ‘So you’ve got more reason to be grateful to Gwen than most of us,’ mused Lomas.

  ‘Not really. When Dad said it were a waste of time for me to stay on at school, she backed him up there. Education was for men; girls had to settle for accomplishments like drawing and playing the piano, and then get married and settle down to mothering handsome, talented boys.’

  ‘Do I detect a bitter note?’

  ‘Mebbe. But I was grateful about the lessons, even if I got them for the wrong reasons. And I don’t play bad. Great Aunt Gwen liked me to play for her, and sing a bit too. That’s how I started with the opera.’

  ‘And you drive all the way to Leeds in this antique just to listen to that caterwauling? You’re full of surprises, little Lexie. What about real art? The theatre? Shakespeare!’

  ‘Yes, I quite like it,’ she said seriously. ‘But music is different, isn’t it? I mean, it takes you out of …’

  She glanced down at her skinny frame and Lomas felt an upsurge of pity.

  ‘You look jolly nice to me,’ he said gallantly.

  She looked at him in puzzlement and said, ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes, you do. I’ll be proud to have you along as a family claque on my first night next Monday. With Mummy, of course.’

  ‘She’s staying that long, is she?’

  ‘You knew she was here?’ said Lomas in surprise. ‘I didn’t know myself till last night.’

  ‘She’s been out to the Old Mill to talk to Dad,’ said Lexie. ‘Jane told me when I got home from my class.’

  ‘Has she now? I’ve not seen her myself. I just got a message via Keechie inviting me to lunch at the Howard Arms today. She doesn’t let grass grow under her feet, does she? And what do you imagine Mummy and your father found to talk about?’

  ‘Don’t know. He didn’t tell me,’ said Lexie, though as Jane had also told her about Andrew Goodenough’s visit, she was able to make a guess.

  She dropped Lomas outside the theatre. As he got out of the car, he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. It was done too quickly for her to take evasive reaction and her small gasp of surprise only rendered the kiss a little less cousinly. She was careful not to crash her gears as she drove away.

  In the office, she found Eden Thackeray already at his desk. He had been in a strange, almost distracted mood the previous afternoon but now he seemed back to normal.

  ‘Lexie, my dear. Would you get me the police on the phone? Detective-Superintendent Dalziel.’

  A few moments later Lexie heard a voice like a mastiff’s roused from slumber growl, ‘Dalziel.’

  She put her employer on.

  ‘Hello. Eden Thackeray. Listen, I was just wondering if you could spare the time to have lunch with me. Yes, today. I thought the Gents at one.’

  ‘The Gents?’ said Dalziel dubiously.

  A couple of years earlier he had been persuaded to apply for membership of The Borough Club For Professional Gentlemen, having been a guest several times and expressed appreciation of the solid fare, cheap booze and plentiful snooker tables. To the embarrassment of his sponsors, some member had exercised his right of the anonymous blackball and Dalziel had vowed never to go near the place again unless through a pole-axed door at the head of a vice-squad raid.

  ‘Yes, I know there was that unfortunate business, but the villain responsible will surely be more pained by your presence than your absence.’

  It was the right psychological approach.

  Dalziel said, ‘Right. One o’clock it is.’

  Putting the phone down, he demanded of the empty air before him, ‘And what does that cunning old sod want?’

  The air did not reply.

  In the middle of the morning, Andrew Goodenough turned up for his appointment with Eden Thackeray.

  When Lexie took in the coffee and biscuits a few minutes later the two men were already down to business.

  ‘I already have CODRO’s agreement to proceed in this business and I have made an appointment to see Mrs Falkingham of WFE in Ilkley early this evening when her assistant, Miss Brodsworth, will be present. I don’t anticipate any objection there. I’ve conferred with the two nearest relatives, Mrs Windibanks and Mr John Huby …’

  Thackeray cough
ed discreetly.

  ‘My secretary here is Mr Huby’s elder daughter,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Goodenough uncertainly. ‘How do you do?’

  ‘I’m very well, thanks,’ said Lexie. ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No.’

  After Lexie had left, Thackeray said, ‘You may rely on her discretion, I believe. And in any case there can be no clash of interest. I know Huby’s solicitor and I do not doubt that his advice has been that to make a claim on his own behalf would be a waste of money. No doubt you will be offering an ex gratia compensatory payment …’

  He smiled. Goodenough smiled back.

  ‘Negotiations have been opened,’ he said. ‘They are a matched pair when it comes to bargaining, Windibanks and Huby. I’m only glad they’re not working in concert. Still, I don’t doubt we will reach an accord. Which leaves only one question to be considered by the learned judge hearing our suit. Is there any mathematically significant possibility of Mrs Huby’s son turning up to claim his inheritance? That’s what I’m here to ask you, Mr Thackeray. I presume Mrs Huby was assiduous in pursuit of evidence that her son was alive, and no doubt she confided the results of her researches to you.’

  ‘You mean you would like to use Mrs Huby’s efforts to prove her son was alive in order to prove he must be dead?’ murmured Thackeray. ‘Now, there’s ingenious. Still, for once I see no harm in frankness. Do you know about the advertisement?’

  Goodenough shook his head.

  ‘Well, it happened like this. Three years ago, Mrs Huby had a serious stroke. For a while, it was thought she might die, but in fact she made an excellent recovery, in body at least. Mentally, there was a little vagueness, plus, and this was the significant thing, a strong delusion that the stroke had been deliberately provoked by a malicious demon, masquerading as her son!’

  ‘Good God!’ exclaimed Goodenough.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ smiled Thackeray. ‘The will had been in existence too long before this for the question of unsound mind to arise. But she was now convinced that the devil in all his black malice was bent on striking her down so that she would remain alive but be incapable of pursuing the search for Alexander. Therefore she devised an advertisement to be placed in the papers in the event of another stroke. I helped her to a form of words I thought likely to provoke fewest fraudulent replies. She’d advertised before, of course, and I dare say spent a pretty penny in buying useless information from mountebanks. This time, respondents were instructed to get in touch with me. The advert gave her name, said that she was seriously ill and not expected to recover, and was placed in all the main Italian papers.’

  ‘Just Italian.’

  ‘Yes. She wanted it worldwide, but I persuaded her to limit it to Italy. That’s where her son went missing and that was where she was convinced he’d remained.’

  ‘Did you get any replies to the ad?’ asked Goodenough.

  ‘A few. All quite obviously frivolous or fraudulent. Then at her funeral, a man appeared …’

  ‘What kind of man?’ demanded Goodenough.

  ‘Sunburnt. Lightweight Italian suit. The same rather square face that John Huby has. He knelt at the graveside and cried out Mama! It caused quite a stir, I can assure you.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Goodenough, enthralled. ‘What happened.’

  ‘Nothing. Well, many things, but nothing as far as the mysterious stranger was concerned. He just disappeared in the confusion. No one saw him again and I think we’d all decided he was best forgotten. Until yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Thackeray. ‘I found him here in this office. He claimed he was Alexander Huby. He didn’t stay long. He seemed strangely nervous, or perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all. He promised to return with proof positive of his identity. Well, he has not yet reappeared. But the significant thing from your point of view, Mr Goodenough, is that before he left, he had said enough to persuade me that he could present a case to be answered. Impostor he may be, but unprepared he is not, believe me!’

  Chapter 9

  Deputy Chief Constable Neville Watmough sat in the bar of The Borough Club For Professional Gentlemen and sipped his sherry. This of all places in the world was where he felt most at home, and he didn’t exclude home. Here he was in the true power centre of the city. Only a few yards away sat Councillor Mottram, local magnate and, more importantly, chairman of the Police Committee who would shortly be interviewing him. He had greeted Mottram warmly, as a fellow clubman, but not over-effusively, and made no effort to join the councillor and the young man who was his guest. Mottram, he hoped, would appreciate this refusal to do anything which might smack of canvassing support.

  But that he would receive it, he had no doubt. Was he not, after all, known to the man as a respected fellow-member of the Gents, long-time committee man, and soon to be President-elect? He must surely also be regarded as Chief Constable-elect! Everyone knew that Tommy Winter had been demob-happy for nigh on two years and he, Neville Watmough, had been running the show single-handed. He had missed no opportunity of expressing his frank and unqualified belief in police accountability. Liaison with the Police Committee had never been closer and no opportunity had been missed to urge upon its members the high quality of policing in mid-Yorkshire, its smooth traffic flow, its efficient administration, even its above-average detection rate. If you want to see my memorial, look around you! thought Watmough grandiloquently.

  And you need not look too far either. It was one of his most laudatory though least advertised triumphs that when some ill-advised and irresponsible members had proposed Dalziel for the Gents, Watmough had blackballed him without a second thought.

  Here perhaps was the last safe place. Here he could sit in peace, contemplating the sunlit heights of a political future as he waited for the guest who was going to help to pilot him there.

  That guest entered the bar at that moment, a small dark man in his mid-thirties, his every movement eloquent of that restless energy which was his most obvious characteristic.

  ‘Neville! There you are!’

  ‘Ike! Nice to see you again.’

  Ike Ogilby, editor of the Sunday Challenger, shook Watmough’s hand warmly, then gestured to the young man who had followed him rather diffidently into the room.

  ‘Neville, I hope you don’t mind, but I brought one of my bright young things to meet you. Henry Vollans, Neville Watmough, Deputy Chief Constable and soon to be Chief, we all hope!’

  Casting an anxious look towards the chairman of the Police Committee who happily seemed not to have heard this perhaps over-confident assertion, Watmough shook the young man’s hand.

  ‘Let’s have a drink,’ he said. ‘Ike, your usual? Mr Vollans, you’ll join us?’

  ‘No, really. I was just going to be in the area seeing a colleague on the Evening Post this lunchtime and Mr Ogilby thought I should meet you. I’ve got to dash now.’

  ‘See you back at the factory, Henry,’ said Ogilby.

  ‘Yes, sir. It’ll probably be late. I’m going back via Ilkley, remember.’

  ‘Yes, fine. Cheers.’

  Vollans left. Watmough ordered Ogilby a Scotch and soda.

  ‘Pleasant young chap,’ he said. ‘Grooming him for the big time, are we?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ smiled Ogilby. ‘I just like to put my boys in direct touch with the real power sources wherever I can. Never know when your name might come in useful. He could be parked on a double yellow at this very moment!’

  The two men laughed, but both of them knew that what they were joking about was a basic truth.

  Their liaison went back several years. On an official level it was easy to justify on both sides. The Challenger got the news and the Force got the image. Everyone was happy.

  But each of the men nursed other, longer-term motives.

  For the present, Watmough relied on the paper to give him a good neutral press, giving offence to neither the Arcadian Squirearchy to the North of his a
rea nor to the People’s Republic to the South. But once the Chief’s job was his, then he wouldn’t care who he offended! He intended to become a national figure. Four or five years of pontificating on Law and Order via the media in general and the Challenger in particular would see him ready for the next big step - Westminster!

  Ogilby didn’t much mind how Watmough’s career developed. To be going on with, there was a constant stream of inside information which could be more inside still if he made Chief Constable. And if he then ended up in Parliament, well, no journalist ever objected to have a close relationship with an ambitious MP. Even if his dreams came to nothing, Ogilby reckoned there’d still be a nice juicy series of memoirs for the Challenger to serialize. Top Cop Tells All. Watmough would have been surprised to know how closely documented were all the off-the-record juicy bits imparted to Ogilby over the years, ready as an aide-memoire for his chosen ‘ghost’.

  Meanwhile they consorted like lovers in a space-capsule, each certain he was on top.

  ‘Good of you to come so far,’ said Watmough.

  ‘Not at all. It’s only forty minutes and I wanted to pop into the Post anyway. Besides, I always enjoy eating here.’

  Privately Ogilby regarded the Gents as something Dornford Yates might have invented on a bad day or P.G. Wodehouse on a good one, but he lied with the ease of occupational practice.

  ‘Good. Let’s go through, shall we? Bring your drink.’

  They made their way out of the bar and into the long, rather chilly dining-room which had something of the smell of a school refectory.

  Here Watmough halted so suddenly that Ogilby got jammed beside him in the doorway.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the DCC in the voice of one who has drunk and seen the spider. ‘No, George, could we stay up at this end, please?’

  This last was to the catering manager who was trying to usher Watmough to his usual privileged window table, but he had no desire whatsoever to sit there today, for at the next table along slumped the huge bulk of Andrew Dalziel.

  He looked up now, saw Watmough and waved the lamb chop he had just impaled on his fork.