Game Over

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Ask me anything,’ she said. ‘I want to help.’

  Slider took the chair opposite her, on the other side of the lamentable coffee table. It reminded him to ask, ‘Has someone offered you coffee?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ she said, nodding towards Asher. ‘I didn’t want any, but I’d love a glass of water.’

  Atherton beat Asher off the mark and brought it. The soft room had a water-cooler, but was also provided with proper glasses so he was spared the shame of bringing her a plastic cup. She took it from him with a smile that did things to his spine, and he took himself off to one side, out of her line of sight to Slider, so that he would not distract her, but also so that he could study her face without her looking at him. There was something about her that he could not take his eyes from. Slider, a normal but almost-married man, had merely felt her attractiveness, but it had pierced Atherton like a skewer to the vitals. She took his breath away.

  ‘Would you begin by telling me what happened this morning?’ Slider opened. He knew it, of course, from Swilley, but he found it helped to get people talking, to repeat something they’d already said. Safe ground, easy to get across. ‘You’ve just flown in from America, I believe?’

  ‘Yes. I live in New York now. I’m a journalist – freelance, but I do a lot of work for the New York Herald.’ Her lips gave a quirk that would have been a smile in other circumstances. ‘It’s not quite challenging the New York Times yet, but it’s getting there. There’s a good team, dedicated to serious news, and it already had a lot more international coverage than most other American papers. Dad’s such a help there – was such a help,’ she corrected herself faintly, her eyes lowering for a moment. Slider saw her swallow hard and then brace her shoulders, sitting up straighter.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. She made a little ‘carry on’ gesture with her hand, and went back to tormenting the tissue. ‘So why did you make the trip to London today?’

  ‘I come home three or four times a year to visit Dad. I was due a break, and he said he wanted to see me, so I packed a bag and hopped on a plane. I rang Dad on my mobile from Heathrow but he didn’t answer. I thought it was a bit odd because he knew what time I was getting in, but then I thought he must have had to go out suddenly.’ She frowned. ‘Though if he’d gone out he’d have put the answer-machine on. I ought to have thought of that.’

  ‘People can forget,’ Slider said, helping her out.

  ‘Not Dad,’ she said. ‘He was a journalist. Communication is everything. Anyway, I took a taxi home and let myself in. And I saw—’ She couldn’t quite, for all her determination, say it aloud. She took a breath and said, ‘You know what I saw. So I rang the police.’

  ‘You didn’t touch anything or move anything?’

  ‘I know that much. I went across to Dad just in case—’ She shook her head. ‘I could see it was no good.’ She met Slider’s eyes. ‘I’ve never seen anyone dead before. Of course, Dad’s seen dozens, maybe hundreds of bodies. I suppose if I want to call myself a proper journalist I ought to be able to face up to things like that. But it’s hard when it’s your own father. It must be harder, surely, than with a stranger?’

  He saw that she wanted him to answer. She was deferring to his knowledge, given his job, of looking at dead bodies. He was touched, and impressed that her intellect was still functioning independently. She was not one who would enjoy the histrionics of grief, and he had seen plenty of those over a long career and admired her for it. ‘I think it’s always hard, whether it’s a stranger or not,’ he said. ‘If you care about people. Something has been taken away that can’t be replaced.’

  He felt Atherton stir at that, and supposed it a rebuke for getting too personal. But this woman was going to have to help them a lot, and he wanted to treat her as an equal by taking her questions seriously.

  ‘You don’t get used to it?’ she followed up his answer.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘You cope.’ She nodded thoughtfully, and he got back on line. ‘You say you let yourself in?’

  ‘I have my own key,’ she said.

  ‘You have your own room there?’

  ‘Not that, exactly. I don’t keep any stuff with him any more – that’s all in New York. But somehow, wherever Dad lives is still “home” to me.’

  ‘Does anyone else have a key that you know of?’

  She shook her head, but a faint colour touched her pale face. ‘I don’t know for sure, but he might have given one to Candida.’

  ‘Candida?’

  ‘You don’t know about her? She’s his . . . girlfriend? Mistress? I don’t know what the proper term is. I’m not being censorious,’ she added with a frank look. ‘I don’t mind about her, honestly. Why should I? Mummy’s dead, and anyway she left him long before that. He’s entitled to a life of his own. I just don’t know how you would classify her. Candida Scott-Chatton. I expect you know who she is?’

  Atherton anticipated Slider’s ignorance. ‘She’s the head of the Countryside Protection Trust and a spokesman on ecological matters.’

  Emily Stonax looked at him. ‘And a journalist.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of her,’ Slider said, who actually had – and had seen her on television, round about the time of the Countryside March. Tall, blonde, aristocratic, gorgeous. And hard as nails – as he supposed she’d have to be with such a thankless brief. ‘Do you have an address for her?’

  ‘Ten, Hyde Park Terrace,’ she said promptly. ‘It’s just off Queen’s Gate, near the Albert Hall. I think she and Dad were quite close. I mean, she stuck by him after that business last year?’ The sentence ended on an upward note as she looked to see if Slider understood the reference. He nodded. ‘I suppose someone will have to tell her,’ she added, faltering.

  ‘We’ll do that. Unless you’d rather . . .?’

  ‘No. God no. I don’t want to have to tell anyone – is that normal?’

  ‘It’s normal not to want to put it into words.’

  ‘That’s what it is,’ she said eagerly. ‘If I say it, it will make it real. Luckily there’s no family to speak of. Since Mummy died, it’s just the two of us.’

  ‘So, no other keys that you know of?’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t have handed them out. I don’t even know that Candida had one, really. Dad was quite safety-conscious. I mean, there were locks on all the windows and a deadlock on the door.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘The door was closed when I got there and there was no damage to it. I mean, someone didn’t jemmy their way in. Is that why you’re asking about keys? That policewoman I spoke to said it was a burglary. Is that what you think it was?’

  ‘His wallet and watch seem to be missing. His pockets were empty, and they haven’t been found anywhere else in the house.’

  ‘Someone killed him and went through his pockets?’ Tears jumped into her eyes for the first time. ‘They killed him for that?’

  ‘We don’t know if anything else is missing. The flat is very tidy and there’s no sign of any disturbance.’

  ‘Yes, Dad was always very tidy.’ She wiped the wetness from below her eyes. ‘He gave me a hard time in my teenage rebel years. But it was a good lesson to learn.’

  ‘Do you know if he kept anything valuable about the house?’

  ‘Well, the paintings and bronzes were quite valuable, and those little Etruscan figures on the mantelpiece.’

  ‘They’re still there.’

  ‘I don’t think he ever had much cash about him – he preferred cards, like I do. He wasn’t the sort to have envelopes full of tenners in a shoe box in the wardrobe, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Did he have a safe on the premises?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s never had one to my knowledge. But I suppose he might have had one put in recently and not told me about it. It wasn’t something that would ever come up in conversation.’

  ‘Later, when the forensic teams have finished, I’d like you to come back to the flat, if you will, and look around, see if you
can tell if anything’s missing.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. She studied his face. ‘You don’t think it was a burglar, do you? You don’t think he was killed for what was in his pockets?’

  ‘I’m not at the stage of thinking anything yet. I have to consider all possibilities.’

  She was thinking. ‘If it wasn’t burglary, I know the next question: did he have any enemies?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Slider said with a small smile, admiring her spirit. She reminded him a little of Joanna, in the way her mind worked doggedly through the logic. (Joanna! He must phone her before she left Eastbourne.)

  Emily Stonax blew her nose, reached into the massive handbag by her feet to exchange the soggy tissue for a fresh one, and said, shaking her head, ‘He was a well-known figure. Thousands of people knew him from television, millions probably recognised him, and there are so many nutcases about these days who will attack anyone famous. Look at Jill Dando. But if that’s what it was, it’s no use looking for reasons, is it? As to specific enemies, it’s hard to think anyone could hate him enough to kill him. He was such a good man. He was honest, and he was an idealist. He believed in goodness.’

  Atherton spoke. ‘He was a career journalist, and then he worked for the government, but we haven’t heard anything of him since that trouble last year. Do you know what he’s been doing since he left the DTI?’

  A spot of colour appeared in her cheeks. ‘He didn’t leave. It was character assassination. He hasn’t had another job since. How could he, after that? No-one would touch him. As far as I know he’s been living on his capital.’

  Atherton said, ‘But a man like him wouldn’t do nothing.’

  ‘No, I’m sure he kept up his interests – his charity work and so on – but he was terribly shocked and low for a while after the photograph thing. Although just lately I’ve suspected there was something he was working on.’

  ‘Only suspected?’ Slider said.

  ‘Well, he usually talked to me about his work, but if it was something investigative and serious he would keep it to himself until it was all worked out. Not that he didn’t trust me, he just wouldn’t tell anyone. That way no-one could be put in a difficult position. And just lately when I’ve phoned it’s been quite hard to talk to him, as if his mind was elsewhere. He gets like that when he’s writing sometimes. You talk to him but nothing much comes back. It’s like blowing out of a window.’

  She obviously thought of something, and Slider said encouragingly, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I had been meaning to come over for a visit next month, but when I rang Dad to thank him for my birthday present, he asked me if I could make it sooner. As it happened I didn’t have anything urgent on, so I said I’d see if I could get a last-minute ticket, and I did.’

  ‘Did he say why he wanted you to come?’

  ‘I asked, of course, and he said he had something he wanted to talk to me about, but he wouldn’t tell me what. I said couldn’t it wait until next month, and he said it was rather urgent, but that it was nothing to worry about, and not to be anxious.’

  ‘So what did you think it might be about?’ Atherton asked, intrigued.

  ‘Well, my first thought was that he’d got some bad news about his health. Then I thought – well, I thought maybe he and Candida were getting married or something. Although there was no reason not to tell me that on the phone. So I assumed it must be something work-related, that maybe he had a really hot story lead for me.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have told you about that on the phone?’ said Atherton.

  ‘Phones aren’t secure, you know. Suppose it was something to do with the government? The US government, I mean. You never know who might be listening. And there’d be documentary evidence to show me. Papers, photos. But that was just a guess. He was being tight-lipped, and when he’s like that you can’t shift him.’

  There was a knock at the door and Swilley looked in to say that Porson was back. Slider decided to take a break. Miss Stonax was looking drained.

  ‘I still have some more questions I’d like to ask you,’ he said, ‘and I’d like you to look at the flat later, but I can see you’re tired and you must be hungry by now.’

  She considered a moment. ‘I’m starving,’ she discovered.

  ‘Then may I suggest that Constable Asher here takes you up to the canteen, and you can get some lunch, and we’ll talk again afterwards. How would that be?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ve nowhere else to go,’ she said bleakly.

  That was so true, it gave Slider a pang of pity. ‘Is there anything else we can do for you?’ he asked gently.

  ‘I’d love a shower and a change of clothes. I’ve been in these things since yesterday.’

  Slider nodded. ‘Asher will show you where. You’ve got things in your bag to change into, I imagine?’

  ‘Obviously,’ she said, and then remembered her manners. ‘I mean, thank you. You’re very kind.’

  Outside, in the corridor, Atherton said, ‘Poor kid.’

  ‘Kid? That’s a bit rich, coming from you.’

  ‘Manner of speaking,’ Atherton said. ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘It could be that he was investigating something after all—’

  ‘And it turned round and bit him?’ Atherton finished.

  ‘Yes, but what could it be that was worth his death? Let’s not get carried away by conspiracy theories. It could still have been simple robbery.’

  Atherton rolled his eyes. ‘Must you always see both sides of everything?’

  ‘And it could have been accidental,’ Slider went on reasonably. ‘Maybe the intruder only wanted to knock him out, and just hit him too hard. And then panicked and ran away.’

  Three

  So Long Succour

  Porson was standing by the window, reading. He hardly ever sat down unless he really had to. He looked up at Slider appeared in the doorway and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Got something already?’

  ‘Not yet, sir. There’s something else I need to talk to you about.’ He closed the door and told him about the telephone call from The Needle.

  Porson frowned, fiddling with a paper clip. ‘He knew you were in the car?’

  ‘It may have been a lucky guess. Or he may have been able to hear the engine noise in the background.’

  ‘Or he may have been following you,’ Porson concluded. He thought a moment. ‘If he knew you were on your mobile, he must have known we could trace the call.’

  ‘I’ve put Swilley on it already.’

  ‘Then as soon as he rings again we can pinpoint him?’

  ‘Yes, and he must know that as well as we do,’ Slider said.

  ‘Hmm. What’s he up to?’ Porson said.

  ‘Playing us for fools, if I know anything about him,’ Slider said. ‘It won’t be that easy to catch him.’

  The eyebrows levelled out. ‘Well, it’s out of our hands now, anyway. He’s a big player and he’s wanted in high places. I’ll pass it on to Mr Wetherspoon and he’ll pass it to SOCA, or whichever SO is handling him. It’ll take it off our budget and manpower, at least.’

  ‘That’s a blessing, sir,’ said Slider.

  Porson gave him a scowl for the irony. ‘Don’t you think of going after him on your own!’ he barked. ‘I’m not interested in mock heroics!’

  ‘How do you feel about the real kind?’ Slider murmured, though he knew he shouldn’t.

  Porson looked more kindly at him. ‘You know and I know these slags just want to put the frighteners on us. Nine times out of ten they don’t mean it. But Bates – well, I’m not saying be worried, but keep your wits about you. I don’t want one of my officers walking into a trap, and there’s something queer about this. Doesn’t smell right.’ He rapped the end of the paper clip on the desk in an irritated rhythm. Slider was interested that Porson’s nasal radar was making him uneasy, too. ‘Why’d he have to surface now, of all times?’ Porson burst out at last. ‘Just when we’ve got our hands
full.’

  ‘I presume I should leave my mobile switched on, so that the tracing unit can do the necessary?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Porson, miles away.

  ‘You’ll let me know what’s being done?’

  The attention snapped back to the present. ‘Of course, laddie. I’ll keep you in the loop. Anything they tell me, I’ll tell you.’

  Which wasn’t the same thing, of course.

  ‘But meanwhile, you concentrate on the Stonax business. That’s sacrospect. We want answers on that and we want ’em quick.’

  When Slider got back to the CID room it was quieter than a Trappist library. The troops that were back were eating sandwiches at their desks. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘We got you one, guv,’ Mackay reassured him crumbily. ‘It’s on your desk.’

  ‘I got you a jumbo sausage baguette,’ Norma Swilley added informatively.

  McLaren leered at her automatically. ‘Jumbo sausage? Oy-oy!’

  ‘The king of single entendre,’ Norma said witheringly. ‘I’ve got the report on that car, boss.’

  ‘Come through,’ he said, heading for his office. ‘McLaren, get me a cup of tea.’

  ‘What did I do?’ McLaren protested.

  ‘It’s your turn,’ said Slider.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since the sausage remark.’

  The sausage was still warm, and they had remembered the mustard. What it was to have a highly trained team at your fingertips! He took a huge bite. He was ravenous. Swilley perched on his windowsill – it seemed to be everyone’s preferred place for making reports to him – and looked at her notes. The weather was still warm enough for her not to have gone into trousers, for which the man in him was grateful. He was happily spoken-for, but there was no harm in admiring the scenery, even if you were on a non-stopping train.