Loose Head

by Jeff Keithly

  “Why, John? Why me? We’ve been mates for years.” Bernie hated the note of pleading in his voice, but he couldn’t stop it. “I’m your son’s godfather, for Christ’s sake! How could you do this to me?”

  “I told you, Bernie.” John’s toothy grin failed to touch his eyes. “It’s business. I need money as much as the next man. More than the next man, truth be told. Either you swim with the sharks, or you’re lunch. It’s all the same to me. The others will be all the more eager to pay up once they see what happens to you.”

  “Others?” Bernie was aghast – this couldn’t be happening. “There were more?”

  “Of course there were more!” Weathersby laughed, a sound like the grating hinges of a long-unopened tomb. “The lads were remarkably unrestrained, but after all, it was Vegas. Sin City, the bloody Yanks call it, and not without reason! So. By 5 p.m. Friday, then! And one other thing.”

  Weathersby had leaned across the desk, and Bernie could smell the whisky on his breath. “Just a caution – surely unnecessary, in such civilized company. But it’s best to be clear about these things. If anything should happen to me – if I should die, under any circumstances, in the next five years, a copy of this file will find its way into your wife’s hands.”

  “But... but that’s unreasonable, old man! What if you have a car crash, God forbid, or a coronary, or...”

  “Then I won’t care about you any more, Bernie. And by the way, the same holds true if anyone else on the team, or the police, get so much as an inkling of our little arrangement. So mum’s the word! Who knows? You might even want to include me in your nightly prayers.”

  Back in the present, Bernie fought down the rising panic that threatened to unman him. For better or for worse, John was dead; that was immutable fact, and he’d better get used to it. Whatever arrangements John had made for this contingency were already in motion. There was no way to stop them – unless Dex...? But Dex had told him he was off the case. Well. There was nothing for it. He was a lord, a scion of the English aristocracy. He couldn’t disgrace that honorable legacy of power, privilege and dignity – it was unthinkable. He would just have to go down with the ship.

  That thought triggered another. And with a ghastly smile, Lord Delvemere reached for the phone.

  III

  Before I proceed with this fascinating narrative, a rugby physics lesson is in order. When two rugby scrums collide, eight large men, arms wrapped tightly around one another, endeavor to force the other scrum backward, like two massive Cape buffalo bulls locking horns over a particularly large-uddered female. This involves both an initial impact, often of a violent nature, and a subsequent shoving/wrestling match that frequently ends with one or more human bodies contorted in a highly unnatural position.

  It is undeniably true that the front row of the scrum – the two props, always among the largest and strongest men on the field, with the smaller hooker in between – take the lion’s share of the abuse, in their role as shock absorbers and as the interface – the adhesive agent – between the two scrums. Shoulder, neck and elbow injuries are the bane of all front-rowers; if you haven’t had at least one major surgery in the course of your career, well, you haven’t been trying hard enough, have you?

  Bernie was no exception; I knew that, particularly in recent years, he had suffered from chronic pain in both shoulders and an elbow. So his wince, when I squeezed his shoulder, didn’t exactly constitute an admission of guilt. Still, it made me wonder.

  Whoever had shot John Weathersby would have a saucer-sized contusion on his shoulder from the rifle’s donkey-like kick. That I knew, flexing my shoulder with a grimace, from personal experience. Finch-Hatton’s massive H&H rifle lacked one modern innovation – a rubber recoil pad. The steel crescent at the butt of the rifle had crushed my shoulder with the force necessary to counteract 5,000 foot-pounds of impact energy, when the bullet found its target. Whoever had absorbed that recoil would still be feeling its effects.

  The case against Artemis Paul was now nearly complete; after lunch, I met with a representative of the Crown Prosecuting Service, Terry Chapman, to discuss strategy, evidence, and the roster of charges we would be bringing. Paul had already been arraigned for kidnapping, attempted murder and assault on a police officer; after sampling the fruits of my investigation, Chapman decided to add tax evasion, facilitating prostitution, usury, intimidation and further charges of assault. The Martin Wallace murder investigation would be handled as a separate prosecution.

  By the time we added up this grocery-list of offences, Terry thought my off-the-cuff estimate of 20 years in prison, with time off for good behavior, might have been a bit on the lightish side. Despite the distress this might cause Mrs. Paul and the children, my heart somehow refused to bleed.

  I returned to my office, but there was still no sign of Brian. I began to feel the now-familiar prickling of unease whenever I contemplated the murder of John Weathersby. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that John would have made arrangement to reveal all he knew, should he die before or soon after he had collected his ill-gotten gains. It was simply too obvious an insurance policy for Weathersby to overlook.

  The thought of these ticking time-bombs from beyond the grave, waiting to explode in my teammates’ faces, made me feel both impotent and furious. Furious with them, for being so unbelievably stupid. And furious with John, for perpetrating such a monstrous betrayal. For the first time in memory, I could summon not an atom of sympathy for a murder victim.

  It was nearly four o’clock when Brian finally strode in, waving, to my relief, a sheaf of thick five-by-seven envelopes. “Relax!” he grinned “– you look as anxious as I do, waiting for Fee to come back from dropping the kids at her sister’s for our quarterly sex night!”

  That gave me pause, despite my worries. “Quarterly? Are you joking?”

  “You are a bachelor. After 15 years of marriage, don’t you think I’m grateful for whatever scraps float my way? Haven’t you noticed that my left hand and forearm are twice the size of my right? But you’re off the topic. You and your mates owe a debt of gratitude to my improvisational brilliance. If £100,000 was the going rate, these envelopes, whatever’s in them, are worth a thousand times their weight in gold.”

  Sir Steven Barnes, Weathersby’s lawyer, had, not surprisingly, been less than cooperative. Brian had politely asked him for the use of the lost-luggage key referred to in Weathersby’s will; Sir Steven had merely smiled in sad amusement and, regretfully, declined.

  Brian, expecting no more, had merely informed Barnes that a Section 1 warrant was in the works, and that once it arrived, he would be back to take possession of the key. Then, leaving Sir Steven’s office, Brian had concealed himself in a convenient alcove down the hall, and waited.

  Five minutes later, Sir Steven had come to his office door with a balding, middle-aged man whom Brian recognized as his clerk. After a brief, muttered conversation, the man set off down the hall, with Brian sauntering discreetly behind.

  At Euston Station, as expected, Barnes’ clerk made a beeline for the left-luggage area. Extracting a key from his pinstriped pocket, he opened a locker, extracted a bundle of padded envelopes, and turned to encounter Brian and DC Goodspeed, warrant cards out.

  “We’ll take those, thank you very much,” said Brian, extracting the bundle from the clerk’s suddenly-nerveless fingers.

  “You can’t do that! That’s privileged material!”

  Brian raised one bushy eyebrow. “Are you Lord Southampton’s solicitor?”

  “No, but...”

  “Are you in fact a solicitor at all?”

  “No, I’m Sir Steven’s clerk. But...”

  Brian shoved a copy of the Section 1 warrant into the man’s nerveless fingers. “In that case, I’m confiscating these envelopes in the Crown’s name. They’re evidence in a murder investigation.”

  Now they sat on my desk, mute but ominous. I sorted through the addressees. Lady Jane Plantagenet. Lady Sarah St.
John Barlowe. Catherine Seagrave. All wives of various Hastewicke Gentlemen. The fourth envelope was addressed to Sir Lewis Trilby, chair of the board of directors of the Magwitch Project, Bob Lestrange’s charitable foundation. Another, larger envelope was addressed to Cyrian O’Toole, the Sun’s gleefully malignant society column. John had been more vindictive than I had supposed.

  As Brian looked on, I unfolded my clasp-knife, pulled a random envelope from the stack – that addressed to Catherine Seagrave – and disemboweled it. A jewel-case fell out; it contained a disc labeled “The Hastewicke Gentlemen in Las Vegas, 2005 – Roger.”

  “I’ll do the honours,” said Brian, popping the disc into his CD-ROM drive.

  The first image that appeared was a wide view of the sitting-room of a suite – couch, table, chairs, entertainment system, mini-bar – identical to the one I had occupied in Las Vegas. In the lower left-hand corner of the screen was the door; after a few seconds it opened, and Roger Seagrave, the Hastewicke Gentlemen’s greyhound-elegant right wing, entered, with a... companion on his arm. After a few moments of preliminary groping and face-sucking, they made their way to the couch, and... suffice to say that even I, a policeman of more than 20 years’ experience, who long ago thought he’d seen it all, obviously hadn’t. “Shitting ‘ell,” was all I could croak.

  I can’t remember the last time I had last spent such an excruciating 20 minutes. It was about as enjoyable as a prostate exam from Andre the Giant. When the last guttural shriek of passion had died away, the computer screen mercifully went dark, and our eyes returned to their sockets, Brian just looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “I think I know why,” I replied to his unspoken question. “But you can never be sure, can you? The heart of man is a fathomless mystery to all but himself.”

  Chapter 8

  Everything about Las Vegas was exhilarating to Roger Seagrave – the warm sun, the gin-and-tonic-scented desert air, the palm trees, the blissful anonymity, the freedom, the gaudily fantastic hotels, the smell of money in the air. Any pleasure human ingenuity could conceive was for sale here – the “escort services” listings in the Yellow Pages were as thick as a magazine and sorted by fetish, the bars were open 24 hours; there were even slot machines over some of the urinals. Only the Americans could devise something so grandiose, so repellently vulgar -- and so irresistible.

  You couldn’t help but admire them. Sixty years ago, this vast fairytale city had been nothing more than a shitstop in the endless desert between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Now look at it – a fantastic oasis in the tarantula-infested wasteland, more surreal and grandiose than any mirage, beguiling the mind like a potent drug.

  At this moment, however, Seagrave was more concerned with his own survival than with local history. He stood on a lush, sun-warmed rugby pitch on the campus of the University of Nevada, arms outstretched, awaiting the arrival of the rugby ball that floated high above him, tumbling lazily end-over-end, now at its apogee, now beginning its descent.

  At field level, half a dozen members of the Old Blues – alumni of the University of California at Berkeley and some of the most accomplished rugby players in America – thundered toward him, intent on reaching him just in time to separate him from the ball. As it nestled into his arms, Seagrave hopped deftly to his right, sidestepping his opposite number, the Old Blues right winger. He hurdled an ankle-tackle from another onrushing opponent, then accelerated smoothly, splitting two more would-be tacklers and leaving them grasping at empty air.

  He was in full stride now, gliding swiftly up the touch-line, with teammates in support and calling for the ball. With serene detachment, Seagrave saw an Old Blues flanker rocketing toward him; he dummied a pass to Richard Devilliers, the Hastewicke Gentlemen’s fullback, on his right wing. The flanker went for the fake, and Seagrave sprinted calmly on, past midfield, toward the 22-meter line, still untouched.

  The last line of the Old Blues defense now closed in: the fullback and outside centre, angling him toward the touch-line. At the last possible instant, Seagrave lofted a beautifully-calculated up-and-under kick over the heads of the onrushing tacklers, sidestepped the Old Blues fullback and hared in pursuit of the ball. For just a moment – one brief, blissful moment – he felt 21 again, soaring over the ground, liberated from the weakness and nattering pain that were his constant companions in this, his 55th year. The ball descended, and his perfectly-timed leap brought it to hand and carried him over the try line for the touch-down, his second try of the match.

  Seagrave accepted the congratulations of his teammates with barely-concealed elation, the score now 27-14 in the Hastewicke Gentlemen’s favor. A few minutes later, the referee blew the familiar three blasts on his whistle, signaling full time. The Hastewicke Gentlemen were through to the final, thanks largely to Roger Seagrave’s brilliant play.

  As he rummaged through his kit-bag a few minutes later, pulling on sweats to ward off the surprising chill of late afternoon in the high desert, Seagrave encountered the note that had been slipped under the door of his suite the morning before: “An anonymous benefactor wishes it to be known that Suite 455 has been booked through the weekend for the discreet use of any Hastewicke Gentleman...”

  The tour manager, Henry Bell, happened to be close at hand. “Well done, Roger,” he said “– decent little canter there at the end. Reminded me of old times.”

  Seagrave smiled sadly. “Some days you feel as though you can outrun time, but he always catches you up in the end. There is something about this place, though – makes me feel like a kid again.”

  “Must be all the sin in the air,” Bell observed with a wink.

  “Speaking of which --” Roger lowered his voice. “Would suite 455 be... available this evening?”

  Bell consulted his PDA with a conspiratorial grin. “As a matter of fact, it is.”

  “Good.” Seagrave finished puling on his sweats and, accepting Henry Bell’s outstretched hand, heaved himself to his feet. He felt his excitement quicken, as a half-formed, long-harbored fantasy suddenly assumed more tangible shape. ”Consider it booked, then.”

  II

  An hour later, Seagrave, clad in retina-scorching Hawaiian swim trunks, was soaking up the heat of the glassed-in pool terrace at the Bellagio, headquarters for the Hastewicke Gentlemen during their week’s stay. There was an ice-cold Budweiser in his hand, and he contemplated his immediate future with placid contentment. The team had five more days in Las Vegas; after tomorrow’s tournament final, they would have 72 responsibility-free hours in which to sample every vice and sordid amusement Vegas had to offer. And Seagrave, with no worries about money, intended to make the most of them.

  It was tours like this that kept Roger Seagrave playing rugby, long after most sensible men would have hung up their boots forever. He loved the chaffing, the camaraderie, the social side of the game; but more than that, he still loved the on-field warfare. Most of all, he loved the element of skill that made the Hastewicke gentlemen so feared in old-boy rugby circles – the precise kicking game, the fluid passing, the near-telepathic backline play that testified to their more than 30 years as teammates.

  As for his position on the team, well, Seagrave knew he wasn’t one of the dominant personalities – a Ian Chalmers, a John Weathersby, a Jester Atkinson, whose forceful leadership and quirky senses of humor set the tone for the rest of the lads. He was content to be a back-row boy, a good companion on tour, respected, he hoped, as much for his contributions on the field as his gentle wit off it. Oh, he knew that his meticulous, even finicky, personality raised some eyebrows; he did like things just so, and his habit of carefully folding away his clothes in the bureau, polishing his boots before each match, and dressing elegantly afterward brought him in for a measure of abuse at his teammates’ hands – for example, the time they had replaced his custom-formulated toothpaste, delicately flavoured with lemongrass and mint, with Preparation H. Still, a man on rugby tour had to be prepared to suffer the occasional indignity.

  Somewhere de
ep inside, Roger knew he was nearing the end of his playing career, and something at the very core of his being cried out in anguish at the thought. Some day, perhaps soon, a bad fracture, a catastrophic knee injury, a severe concussion, would bring the curtain down on his rugby career. But until that day came, he was determined to play every match as if it was his last.

  Seagrave was an analyst in Ian Chalmers’ old stock brokerage firm; his X-ray-like ability to see past the gloss of a company’s financial reports and accurately assess its coming performance, coupled with an ear for insider gossip, had made him a partner seven years ago.

  Seagrave had been married for 31 years, to Catherine, a gentle, heavyset woman who had grown progressively stouter in the years following the birth of their now-grown daughter Elizabeth. Roger had never complained. But eighteen months ago, Catherine’s doctor, alarmed at the growing toll her obesity was taking on her circulatory system, ordered her, on pain of early death, to lose 200 pounds, and keep it off. To her surprise, and, secretly, Roger’s, she had succeeded, and now wore a size 6. But this superhuman triumph of will was not without its surprising side-effects, at least as far as their marital dynamics were concerned.

  The soothing female voice of the hotel operator, crackling over the P.A. system, suddenly intruded on his reverie. ”Mr... Rhinodong. Mr... Suckah... Rhinodong. Please pick up a white paging telephone.” Then, a moment or two later: “Mr. Bollox. Mr. Harry Bollox. Please go to a white paging telephone for a message.” And finally: “Lord Ivabiggun. Lord... Ivabiggun. Please pick up a white paging telephone...” Seagrave grinned at George Waters, the Hastewicke scrum-half, who was swimming nearby. “Sounds like one of the boys is getting bored.”