‘No, of course not.’
‘So, what do you think?’
Thanet paused before replying. He desperately wanted not to say the wrong thing. He chose to prevaricate. ‘Would you tell me first how thoroughly you’ve looked into this?’
Very thoroughly, he discovered. Ben knew precisely what the selection procedure involved, how long the training would be. He was also aware of the graduate entry scheme and its advantages and disadvantages. And of course he had had first-hand experience of the kind of demands police work could make on a man’s domestic life, through his father. No, he certainly wasn’t going into this with his eyes shut.
‘So come on now, Dad. Tell me what you think.’
‘All right. I’ll try to be frank.’ Thanet paused for a moment before continuing. ‘As you know, your mother and I have always hoped that if you proved bright enough, you’d go to university. There’s no point in pretending otherwise. Nor is there any point in pretending that if you don’t we won’t be disappointed. At the same time we both feel that it’s your life and your career that’s at stake and it would be wrong for us to try and impose our wishes on you. So, you have to make up your own mind and the best I can do in the way of advice is to say to you what I would say to any other bright young potential recruit who came along: that you shouldn’t rush into this, that you should get some experience of life first. Maturity is a great help in the force, both in terms of relationships with the public, who don’t like policemen who look wet behind the ears, and in terms of helping you personally to deal with difficult situations. So I would say go to university and take some time out for travel, either before or afterwards. Then when you’ve got your degree see if you still feel the same. If you do, then go ahead, and good luck to you.’
‘And that really is what you’d say to anyone in my situation?’
‘Definitely, yes. The other point is of course that at the moment entry is difficult. Most forces are swamped with applications. But I don’t see that as a particular problem in your case. I think you’d have a pretty good chance of getting in, provided you can find a force which is recruiting and you’re then prepared to wait several months before starting training.’ Thanet felt that he couldn’t be fairer than that.
Ben was silent, thinking over what his father had said.
‘If you like,’ Thanet offered, ‘I could arrange for you to talk, in confidence, with someone else. I’m sure the Super would be only too happy to advise you.’
Ben grinned. ‘It’s OK, Dad. I trust you. He’d probably only say the same as you. In fact, you’re only confirming what I already suspected.’ Ben heaved himself out of his chair. ‘Thanks.’
Thanet was longing to ask if this meant Ben had reached a decision, but he restrained himself. Don’t push it. As it was, the outcome looked far more promising than he had hoped.
He had just switched the light off in the sitting room and started up the stairs when the telephone rang. At this hour of the night it could only be an emergency at work or Bridget. Praying that it was the latter he hurried back down and snatched up the receiver.
Relief flooded through him at the sound of his daughter’s voice.
‘Dad? Oh thank goodness! I’m sorry I haven’t managed to get through to you before!’
Apparently Bridget’s host family in Adelaide had met her at the airport, scooped her up and borne her straight off into the outback where they were spending a few days at a holiday home lent them by a friend. This had no telephone and Bridget hadn’t realised that she would therefore be incommunicado for some time. On their first trip to a town she had seized the opportunity to ring.
‘I realise it must be the middle of the night there, Dad, and I’m sorry if I’ve woken you up, but I felt I must grab the chance.’
‘Don’t worry. I wasn’t in bed anyway. It’s a relief to hear from you. It sounds as though you’re having a great time.’
‘Oh, I am! Love to Mum.’
Thanet would have loved to talk to her longer but they had agreed before Bridget left that these calls would be brief, because of the expense. Anyway, it was enough just to know that she was safe.
Thanet went to bed a much happier man and expected to go out like a light. But peace of mind, it seemed, was not enough to keep at bay the crowded impressions of the day. Always, at the beginning of a case, there was so much to think of, to remember, to plan, that he tended to find it difficult to go to sleep and tonight was no exception. They shouldn’t forget, as he had said to Lineham, that Kent had been only part of Jeopard’s life. He had actually lived and worked in London, when he wasn’t away on his travels, and presumably had contacts there of which they as yet knew nothing. His publishers, for instance, or his literary agent, if he had one. All his papers and correspondence would be there too. Yes, they really ought to make a visit to his flat a priority. Tomorrow morning they would skim through the reports and if there was nothing urgent they would get clearance from the Met and be off. As Monday was a weekday and parking in the capital such a problem it might be best to go by train – so long as he was back in time for his visit to the chiropractor. Joan would be furious if he missed it after having had to wait for a month before getting an appointment. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He didn’t know exactly what chiropractors did but whatever it was he was sure it would be painful. And he really didn’t think it would do any good anyway. He’d tried physiotherapists and osteopaths but none of them had really made any lasting difference. Experimentally he eased his back, wincing as pain stabbed. Well, it could be worth a try, he supposed. If there was even a thousand to one chance it might help, it would be worth taking it.
He felt as wide awake as ever. Perhaps he should read for a while? He had brought Jeopard’s book up with him. He didn’t want to disturb Joan but her deep, even breathing indicated that she was sound asleep. He switched on the bedside light.
Joan stirred and sighed but did not awake and he reached for the book and studied again the inspired jacket design. Was Chinese landscape really as spectacular as that? It looked so mysterious, so exotic, kindling a longing he had never known before, to see other cultures, other climes. He’d never had the opportunity to travel, himself. He and Joan had never been able to afford really expensive holidays and when he was young it hadn’t been such an accepted part of a young person’s preparation for life. Nowadays it had become almost routine for youngsters to take off either before or after college or university. They even had a name for it. The gap year, they called it. And some of them, like Max Jeopard, got a taste for travel, were never again content to settle for less than constant movement, new experiences. Though very few managed to capitalise on that restlessness as Jeopard had.
Thanet turned the book over and studied Max’s photograph again in the light of what he had heard about him today. Yes, there was no denying the charisma of which Anthea’s mother had spoken with such bitterness, and although for some that charm evidently wore thin, for others it seemed never to have lost its power. However hard Tess had fought to struggle free of it she had always succumbed in the end, and it had been strong enough to bind Anthea to him through an absence of over two years in the hope that he would one day come back to her.
What made you tick? Thanet silently asked the smiling, confident image. And just how did you overstep the mark? What was it that cost you your life?
Perhaps this book could provide an answer, or part of one.
He opened it and began to read.
FOURTEEN
It was usually Thanet who rose first and took Joan a cup of tea in bed but next morning it was the other way around.
‘What time is it?’ he said, sitting up with a jerk and squinting anxiously at the clock.
‘Don’t worry. It’s only ten to seven.’ Joan sat down companionably on the edge of the bed with her tea.
‘I must have slept through the alarm.’
‘I’m not surprised, with such a long day yesterday. You fell asleep with the light on. Reading this,
I presume.’ She reached for Jeopard’s book, which had fallen on to the floor.
‘Yes. It’s fascinating. It was written by the victim. His one and only, as it turned out. His mother gave it to me. She was so proud of him.’
‘Poor woman. Imagine how she must feel.’
‘Which reminds me!’ said Thanet. ‘Bridget rang last night.’
‘Did she? Oh, good! What a relief! Is she all right?’
‘Fine.’ Thanet explained what had happened.
‘Did Ben wait up for you, by the way? Nothing was said, but I got the impression he was going to.’
‘Yes. We had quite a long talk. Did he discuss this new idea of his with you?’
Joan shook her head. ‘And I wasn’t going to broach the subject. I think he wanted to have a heart to heart with you first. Did you reach any conclusion?’
Thanet related the conversation. ‘So it looks as though there might still be a chance he’ll opt for university.’
‘Oh well, we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.’ Joan was still holding the book and now she tapped it and said, ‘Perhaps you ought to give him this to read. It would do him good to travel. Lovely cover, isn’t it.’ She turned the book over, studied Max’s smiling face. ‘What an attractive young man!’
‘He was only twenty-nine,’ said Thanet, suppressing an involuntary little spurt of jealousy. He felt ashamed of himself. Jealous of a man who was almost young enough to be his son, and a dead man, at that! Whatever next?
‘What a waste! He looks as though he had a pretty good opinion of himself, though.’
‘He did, by all accounts.’
Joan put down her cup, flicked through to the beginning of the first chapter and began to read aloud.
I flew into Beijing – Peking, as it is known in the Western world – three weeks to the day after the massacre in Tiananmen Square, my mind full of the sounds and images we had witnessed on our television screens: the advancing tanks, the terrified faces of the students, the shots, the screams, the blood.
Until then, we had been told, the spirit of optimism had been running high in the young people of the Chinese Republic. They had been convinced that the future was in their hands, that a new era was about to dawn, and they were confident that nothing could stem the tide of revolt against the stultifying tyranny their country had suffered for so long. Had all this hope been crushed out on that hot summer night, extinguished by the ruthless action of the elders of the old regime?
I was about to find out.
‘Stirring stuff,’ she commented. ‘Certainly makes you want to read on.’
‘Oh he was talented, no doubt about that. But now I really must get up. I’ve got to go to London this morning.’
‘You haven’t forgotten your appointment with the chiropractor?’
‘How could I?’ said Thanet with a grin. ‘You’ve reminded me often enough!’
After attending the morning meeting and dealing with various administrative matters Thanet and Lineham caught the 9.45 to Victoria. The decision to travel by rail had been clinched by the news that there had been a serious accident on the M20 near Maidstone. Fortunately the train was virtually empty and they were able to talk.
A certain amount of information had come in since yesterday, though nothing particularly constructive. A little research into Sylvester’s background had confirmed that he was a successful businessman, dealing in road construction and heavy plant hire. His daughter would have been a catch for any man, as Lineham had pointed out.
Wakeham had found and interviewed the waitress who had handed the note to Jeopard, but had learned nothing useful about the person who gave it to her. She had, she said, been very busy at the time. Someone had simply left it on her tray when she had gone to fetch fresh supplies of drinks. It hadn’t been in an envelope, had simply been a small sheet of white paper, folded once and with Max Jeopard’s name on it in capital letters. She knew who Max was because he had been pointed out to her as the prospective bridegroom. She had not waited to watch him read it and had been indignant at the suggestion that she might have taken a peek at its contents.
‘Pity,’ said Thanet. Ethics could sometimes be a hindrance.
Now Lineham said, ‘That note. The fact that it wasn’t in an envelope suggests that it was written on the spur of the moment. So I wonder where he – or she – got the paper? I mean, you don’t go along to a party with a notepad in your pocket, do you?’
‘Was there a pad beside the telephone in the hall?’ said Thanet.
‘I didn’t notice, but I imagine there was.’
‘Pity we didn’t think of this before. We slipped up there, didn’t we. I bet it’s had a dozen messages scribbled on it since then.’
A further search of Jeopard’s clothes had failed to produce the note and so far no trace of it had been found in the swimming pool. If its arrival had not been witnessed by several people Thanet would have begun to doubt its existence.
‘There’s only one explanation why it can’t be found, isn’t there?’ said Lineham. ‘The murderer must have taken it away with him.’
‘But how on earth would he have got it back, if it was in Jeopard’s pocket? If there was a struggle there would have been no time. Unless he jumped into the pool after Jeopard went in, of course, and took it out of his pocket while he was in the water. In which case he would have been dripping wet. And,’ said Thanet, his voice rising slightly in excitement, ‘someone was!’
They stared at each other. ‘Sylvester!’ said Lineham. ‘He had to change his clothes, he told us, after going in to pull Jeopard out. But no, that won’t work. That was later, much later. Jeopard had been missing for, what, half an hour by then.’
‘Missing, but not necessarily dead,’ said Thanet.
Lineham stared at him. ‘You mean Jeopard might still have been alive when Sylvester found him?’
‘It’s possible, surely?’
‘But that means . . . Let’s work it out. Say it happened as we suggested before, and it was Sylvester who sent the note to Jeopard, pretending that it was from some girl. Sylvester didn’t go to look for him until ten o’clock. Would Jeopard have hung around for twenty minutes waiting for her to show up?’
‘He might have, if he was sufficiently intrigued. But there’s another possibility.’
‘What?’
Thanet leaned forward. ‘Say the note was genuine. Say it was from a girl. Say it did suggest an assignation in the pool house, and Jeopard decided to keep the appointment.’
‘And Sylvester saw her leaving, perhaps! Yes. It could have been like that! He would have been furious, to think Jeopard was messing around with another woman at his own engagement party. So there was an argument which got out of control and bingo! The rest, as they say, was history.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Thanet, shaking his head. ‘Would Jeopard really have slipped off to meet another woman on an occasion like that? Pretty unlikely, surely.’
‘Depends. He strikes me as being the sort of chap who was easily flattered and also the type who would enjoy an element of risk, of clandestine excitement, if you like. Or he might simply have turned up out of sheer curiosity.’
‘But in any case, that scenario wouldn’t explain the disappearance of the note, would it?’
‘True. But your first suggestion would. That Sylvester engineered the whole thing.’
‘Maybe. We’ll just have to wait and see. It’s pointless to speculate about this, really, when we haven’t a shred of evidence to go on.’
Unlike the previous day it was a dull, grey morning and by the time the train pulled into Victoria station it was pouring with rain. Jeopard had lived in the maze of streets behind Victoria and in normal circumstances they would have walked there but today Thanet took one look at the weather and decided on a taxi. There was no point in getting soaked to the skin within minutes of their arrival.
A few minutes later they were deposited in front of a newish block of flats which had no pretension to
style and nothing to recommend it, so far as Thanet could tell, but proximity to the main-line station.
‘I’d hate to live in a place like this,’ said Lineham as he worked his way through the various keys on Jeopard’s key-ring to discover which one opened the street door.
‘If you want to live in London it’s convenient, I suppose.’
‘Ah, got it,’ said Lineham triumphantly as the door clicked open. ‘I wouldn’t,’ he said as they consulted the list of flat-owners and waited for the lift. ‘Want to live in London, I mean. Not if you paid me.’
‘Just as well we don’t all feel the same.’
Jeopard’s flat was one of three on the fourth floor and as Lineham went through his routine with the keys again the door of the flat across the landing opened a crack and an eye peered out. In the background a radio was playing.
‘Who are you?’ The voice was female and Thanet tried to sound his most reassuring as he turned and advanced a few steps. ‘Police, madam.’
‘I wondered when your lot was going to turn up. Thought you’d have been around yesterday. Give us a look at your identification.’ A hand emerged through the slit.
The door was still on the chain, Thanet realised as he obligingly laid his warrant card on the outstretched palm. The hand disappeared and the door closed. He grinned at Lineham, who had by now found the key to Jeopard’s flat and was waiting impatiently to go in.
Another rattle and the door opened, wide this time. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ she said.
Her name was Ellie Ransome and she was tiny, less than five feet tall, with a frizz of improbably red hair and make-up so exaggerated that it wouldn’t have been out of place in a circus. She was wearing a ginger-coloured Crimplene suit with a fawn blouse and misshapen down-at-heel slippers which were clearly too comfortable to throw away. Thanet judged that she was well into her sixties. He and Lineham raised eyebrows at each other as she led them into her living room. He had thought, yesterday, that Mrs Greenway’s sitting room was the most crowded he had ever seen but in comparison with this it was positively uncluttered. Cardboard cartons of all shapes and sizes were stacked all around the walls from floor to ceiling, sometimes three or four deep, so that there was barely room for the little furniture the room contained. His eyes skimmed over the boxes, registering that they contained – or had contained – chiefly electrical goods of all sizes and descriptions, ranging from microwaves, television sets and CD systems to kettles, toasters and shavers. He and Lineham looked at each other again.
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