Play to the End

by Robert Goddard

  A few minutes later, we were standing in the grounds of the Royal Pavilion, near the entrance to the Museum. It was cold enough to ensure we were in no danger of being overheard. A dusting of frost still clung to the grass where the sun hadn’t reached. And Jenny’s breath clouded faintly in the air as she spoke. Anger as well as a chill wind had reddened her cheeks.

  “You set me up, didn’t you? It was a test, to see which way I’d jump. Well, congratulations, Toby. You twitched the lead and I came running.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I should have realized you’d put Ian Maple up to it, of course.”

  “Up to what?”

  “Drop the pretence, Toby. It won’t wash.”

  “You’ve spoken to Ian Maple?”

  “You know I have.”

  “No. I don’t. When was this?”

  Jenny shifted her gaze and took a long, slow breath. The white-on-black photocopies were clutched tightly in her hand. I reached out and tugged gently at them. She let go.

  “The print’s come off on your fingers,” I remarked, irrelevantly. She shivered, tempting me for a moment to put a warming arm round her shoulders. But of course I didn’t. “Why don’t we grab a coffee somewhere?”

  “Tell me the truth, Toby.” She looked me in the eye. “Did you send Ian Maple to see me?”

  “No.”

  “He came to the shop just after we opened.” Which meant before I phoned him from Viaduct Road, I realized; nice of him to mention the visit. “He was very…insistent. And the things he said about Roger…” She shook her head. “I don’t believe any of it.”

  “I told him you wouldn’t.”

  “So you did send him?”

  “No.”

  “But everything he knows…”

  “He had from me, I admit.”

  “Including this nonsense about Oswin being abducted?”

  “Not nonsense, actually.”

  “It must be.”

  “If you’re so sure, why did you look these up?” I fanned out the photocopies in my hand.

  “To remind myself of the facts. Which Roger told me a long time ago, in case you’re wondering.”

  “And what are the facts, Jenny?”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Perhaps you should read them for yourself.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “Because you might not believe me.”

  “If we could agree on what the truth is, Jenny, we’d have no choice but to believe each other.”

  Her mouth tightened. Her focus flicked cautiously around the middle distance. Then she said, “All right. We’ll talk. But you’ll have to read the Argus reports first. Then we’ll both know what we’re talking about. There’s a café in the Museum. I’ll wait for you there.”

  I sat down on a bench where the surrounding buildings screened me from the wind but not the sunshine and sorted the photocopied sheets into chronological order.

  There were seven in all, the first five dating from November 1995. A short but prominent article, accompanied by an indistinct photograph of a car cordoned off behind police tape in a country lane, reported Sir Walter Colborn’s death in the issue of 14 November. The headline reads, PROMINENT LOCAL BUSINESSMAN KILLED IN COLLISION WITH CAR. It goes on:

  Sir Walter Colborn, former chairman and managing director of Brighton-based plastics company Colbonite Ltd, died yesterday after being struck by a car while walking along a lane close to his home, Wickhurst Manor, near Fulking. The incident occurred shortly after 3 p.m.

  The driver of the car, a dark-blue Ford Fiesta, has not been named. He has been detained in custody and is assisting the police with their inquiries.

  By the following day, the Argus was able to report SURPRISE MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE FOLLOWING DEATH OF SIR WALTER COLBORN:

  Police yesterday charged a man in connection with the death on Monday of prominent local businessman and politician Sir Walter Colborn. Kenneth George Oswin, 63, from Brighton, has been charged with manslaughter and will appear before Lewes magistrates tomorrow.

  Another page of the same issue carried a fulsome obituary of the eminent departed.

  Walter Colborn was born in Brighton in 1921. He was the grandson of the founder of Colbonite Ltd, a plastics company based in Hollingdean Road, Brighton, which closed in 1989. Walter Colborn was educated at Brighton College and went up to Pembroke College, Oxford, after serving with distinction in the Army during the Second World War. He succeeded his father as chairman and managing director of Colbonite in 1955 and later served as a West Sussex County Councillor for many years, latterly as deputy leader of the Conservative group. He was also energetically involved in a host of charitable causes and was a prominent member of the Brighton Society and an adviser to the West Pier Trust. He was knighted in 1987 in recognition of his distinguished record of public service. He married Ann Hopkinson in 1953. The couple had one son, Roger, who survives Sir Walter. Ann Colborn died in 1982.

  Next day, Kenneth Oswin was remanded in custody by Lewes magistrates, according to a terse paragraph lodged obscurely near the bottom of a page. Someone had cottoned on to his connection with Colbonite by the day after, however, raising the profile of the case. MAN CHARGED WITH MANSLAUGHTER OF SIR WALTER COLBORN WAS FORMER EMPLOYEE ran the headline, above an article revealing how Roger Colborn had got in on the act.

  Roger Colborn, son of the late Sir Walter Colborn, confirmed yesterday that Kenneth Oswin, the man charged with manslaughter following Sir Walter’s death on Monday after he collided with a car being driven by Mr. Oswin, was a former employee of Colbonite Ltd, the Brighton-based plastics company, founded by Sir Walter’s grandfather, which closed in 1989. Mr. Colborn, who assisted his father in the management of the company, said he knew of no reason why Mr. Oswin should bear Sir Walter any ill will. Mr. Oswin, he added, had been “generously treated, like all the company’s staff, at the time of its closure, a regrettable but unavoidable event brought about by increasingly intense foreign competition”.

  How nice, how bland, how very reasonable Roger sounded. There was no mention of chloro-aniline or cancer or shell companies or deftly dodged compensation. The average uninformed reader probably concluded, if they concluded anything, that Kenneth Oswin was some kind of nutter with a grudge, the details of which would emerge at his trial.

  But there was to be no trial, as a paragraph in the Argus for Wednesday, February 7, 1996, made clear.

  Kenneth George Oswin, 63, of Viaduct Road, Brighton, the man awaiting trial for the manslaughter of Sir Walter Colborn last November, died yesterday at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where he had recently been transferred from Lewes Prison. He had been suffering from cancer for some time.

  That wasn’t quite the end of the matter, however. An inquest followed two months later, skimming over the ground that a trial would doubtless have examined in depth. SIR WALTER COLBORN’S DEATH WAS UNLAWFUL KILLING, CORONER RULES, ran the Argus headline.

  An inquest heard yesterday that the prosecution would have argued at the trial of Kenneth Oswin for the manslaughter of Sir Walter Colborn that Mr. Oswin intended to do Sir Walter serious and probably fatal harm when he drove a Ford Fiesta car into him on a quiet country lane near Sir Walter’s home north of Brighton on the afternoon of November 13 last year.

  Detective Inspector Terence Moore of Sussex Police told the coroner that the collision occurred on a stretch of the lane with good visibility and that examination of the car showed that Mr. Oswin had first struck Sir Walter a glancing blow, knocking him to the ground, then reversed over him. A charge of manslaughter was only preferred to murder because of doubts about Mr. Oswin’s state of mind, which might well have justified a plea of diminished responsibility. Mr. Oswin was suffering at the time from cancer, of which he later died while awaiting trial. Detective Inspector Moore added that Mr. Oswin consistently denied deliberately killing Sir Walter, but refused to give any account of what had occurred on the afte
rnoon in question.

  The coroner said in his summing-up that the outcome of Mr. Oswin’s trial could not and should not be taken for granted, but that a verdict of unlawful killing was clearly appropriate in the matter of Sir Walter’s death. He added a personal tribute to the deceased, whom he described as a great loss to the community.

  I went into the Museum and up to the café on the first floor. Jenny was waiting for me at a table overlooking the art gallery. She’d have been able to see me coming from there, though the intensity with which she was staring into the frothy remains of her cappuccino suggested she might easily have missed me. I bought a coffee for myself and joined her.

  “OK. I’m up to speed on the facts,” I said quietly, laying the sheaf of photocopies on the table between us. “Those the Argus printed, at any rate.”

  “Kenneth Oswin murdered Roger’s father,” said Jenny, leaning forward across the table and treating me to a lengthy, scrutinizing stare. “You accept that?”

  “Yes.” I had to. Derek’s suggestion that the collision was accidental could only be wishful thinking at best. His version of the event was seriously at variance with the facts. “But the question is: why?”

  “Because he blamed Sir Walter for the cancer that was killing him.”

  “With good cause.”

  “Yes, Toby. With good cause.” She went on staring at me. “You think Roger’s answerable for his father’s cavalier attitude to the health of the Colbonite workforce?”

  “I think Roger aided and abetted his father in evading responsibility for the consequences, Jenny. By which I mean financial consequences. I also think Roger may have taken extreme steps to silence Derek Oswin on the point.”

  “Rubbish. I don’t believe for a moment Roger’s even been to see Oswin.”

  “Where’s Derek gone, then?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You say Roger told you about all this a long time ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “How come you didn’t recognize Derek’s surname when I mentioned it to you, then?”

  “Roger never actually told me the name of the man who killed his father, as far as I can remember. If he had, I might well have forgotten. I didn’t think it mattered. I still don’t.”

  “What about the cancer cases, Jenny? Not a penny paid in compensation. How does Roger square that with his conscience? How do you?”

  “Sir Walter resorted to undeniably shady tactics when he wound the company up. Roger makes no secret of that. He protested against them at the time and fell out with his father as a result.”

  “We only have Roger’s word for that, presumably.”

  “I believe him.”

  “Naturally. And let’s suppose it’s true. Just for the sake of argument. Suppose Roger really did advocate coming clean about the chloro-anilines but was overruled by his old man. Why didn’t he do something about it when Sir Walter died and he inherited the wherewithal to pay out some long overdue compensation?”

  “He considered the idea. He took advice.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “To pay out in one case would mean paying out in all. It would have bankrupted him.”

  “Well, we couldn’t have that, could we?”

  “As a matter of fact…”

  “What?”

  “He has…helped…in a few of the more desperate cases. With hospice fees and the like. He’s had to be…discreet about it.”

  “To avoid admitting general liability?”

  “Yes. So, is that what you’re accusing him of, Toby? Trying to repair some of the damage his father did without ruining himself in the process?”

  “No. That’s your gloss on what I suspect he’s really been up to. And I’m not the only one who suspects it.”

  “Ian Maple said you’d spoken to Roger’s uncle.”

  “Yes. Informative fellow, Gavin. See a lot of him, do you?”

  “I’ve never met him. But I know his version of events can’t be trusted.”

  “And how do you know that? Because Roger told you so, perhaps?”

  “His sister Delia says the same.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yes. And I can arrange for her to say it to you as well if that’s what it’ll take to make you call off this…ludicrous campaign.”

  “Denis is dead, Jenny. And Derek Oswin is missing. I’m not making any of that up. I think Roger is a dangerous man to know.”

  “Ah. So, you’re trying to protect me.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Why indeed?” She sat back and shook her head at me. “Surely you can see you’re deluding yourself, Toby? Denis died of a heart attack. It’s sad, but it could have happened at any time. As for Derek Oswin, so what if he’s gone walkabout and left his house in a mess? You can’t blame Roger for that.”

  “Can’t I?”

  “You’re not going to believe anything I tell you, are you?”

  “Are you going to believe anything I tell you?”

  Jenny sighed. “For God’s sake…”

  “It cuts both ways, you know. You think I’m deluding myself. Well, that’s exactly what I think you’re doing.”

  “Yes.” She almost smiled then, some of her old exasperated fondness for me bobbing briefly to the surface. “I suppose you do.”

  “Tell me what you’d accept as proof.”

  “Proof?” She thought for a moment, then leaned forward again. “All right. Delia has no axe to grind. Certainly not in Roger’s favour, anyway. He bought her Colbonite shares as well as Gavin’s and ultimately netted a substantial profit on them. So, she should resent him on that account. Agreed?”

  “Yes,” I responded, suddenly cautious. Gavin had portrayed his sister as a fellow victim of Roger’s machinations. He’d even suggested I ask her to corroborate his story. But Jenny seemed oddly confident Delia would back up Roger’s version of events. If she did, I wouldn’t have proved my case. In fact, I’d have gone a long way towards disproving it.

  “Come and see her with me. She knows the history of all of this. And she’s an honest person. I can assure you of that. If she sides with you…I’ll have to take it seriously.”

  “And if not?”

  “You’ll have to take it seriously.”

  “How do I know this isn’t a set-up?”

  “You have to trust me, Toby. That’s how.”

  I drank some coffee, studying Jenny’s face over the rim of the cup. She was right, of course. I had to trust her. If I didn’t, I was lost. But she’d misunderstood me, anyway. It wasn’t her I suspected of setting me up. Not that it mattered, really. I’d left myself without an escape route. “All right. Let’s do it.”

  “When?”

  “You tell me. There’s a matinée today, so I’m pushed for time, but I’ll fit it in.”

  “I’ll have to give Delia some notice. How about this afternoon—between performances? She lives in Powis Villas. It’s a short walk from the theatre.”

  “I know where she lives. Gavin gave me her address.”

  “All right. I’ll phone her and explain.”

  “Why not phone her right now?”

  “Why not?” Jenny smiled at me defiantly, took out her mobile and dialled the number. A few moments passed; then she started speaking. But only to leave a message asking Delia to call her urgently. She rang off. “I’ll let you know what I fix up. It may have to be tomorrow, of course. I can’t speak for Delia’s availability. I’d better be going now. I’ve left Sophie in charge long enough.” She stood up and reached out for the photocopies, then changed her mind. “You can keep those.”

  “Thanks. It’ll spare you the effort of hiding them from Roger.” I regretted the remark instantly. But there was no taking it back.

  Jenny looked down at me with a kind of baffled pity. “You really don’t understand, Toby, do you?”

  “Don’t I?”

  “No. And it seems, God help me, that I’m going to have to prove that to you.”

 
I tried Ray Braddock again after Jenny had gone. Still no answer. I had his address, of course, but there was no point going there if he wasn’t in. I walked back out into the cold, clear, late-morning air, where the shadows were long, but sharply etched. I looked across at the minarets and onion domes of the Royal Pavilion and spared a sympathetic thought for sad old fat George IV. All he’d really wanted to do was enjoy some cosy domesticity with Mrs. Fitzherbert, who happened, after all, by every seemly definition to be his wife. Yet they were forced to live apart. Their separation was in many ways George’s own fault, just as losing Jenny was mine. But culpability doesn’t make such miscarriages of life easier to bear. Quite the reverse, actually.

  It was just gone noon and there was little I could usefully do before joining the three musketeers for lunch. Why I gravitated to the Cricketers I’m not sure, except that it had become something of a midday habit. What I hadn’t realized was that it was also a midday habit for my self-appointed friend Sydney Porteous.

  “Great to see you, Tobe. Couldn’t keep away, hey?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Allow me the distinct pleasure of buying you a drink. Pint of Harvey’s best?”

  “I’ll plump for tomato juice, thanks. There’s a matinée this afternoon.”

  “So there is. Very wise.” He ordered a Virgin Mary and a top-up for his own pint. “Shall we huddle by the fire? It’s brass monkeys out there today.”

  Drinks in hand, we went and sat down. Syd smacked his lips at another swallow of beer, while I sipped my under-Worcestered tomato juice and glanced wincingly around at the ever tinselier auguries of Christmas.

  “Wrecks the whole month, doesn’t it?” said Syd, evidently reading my thoughts. “Piped carols and office parties. Who needs them, hey? Not pagans with no office to go to, that’s for sure.”

  “Quite.”

  “Still, my Christmas is shaping up to be a little less throat-slittingly depressing now Aud’s on the scene. She’s really looking forward to seeing you on Sunday, by the way.”

  “Sunday?”

  “She’s cooking you lunch, remember?”