Grief Encounters (26 page)

Serena said: ‘Good God!’

‘Which god would that be?’ I asked.

Having the captain and the chef on board was inhibiting, so Tristan told them to take two days off. The four of them were happy to stay in Monaco and the abundance of restaurants there would ensure they didn’t go hungry. Tristan and Teri had gone off in a speedboat with a couple anchored nearby, and Richard and Fiona were lying on the bed in the forward cabin, having just made love. Sunlight reflecting off the waves was dancing on the roof above them, and Richard, his carnal needs satisfied for the moment, was thinking about the casino. A sports car raced along the promenade, its raucous exhaust briefly drowning out the lapping of the water against the boat’s hull.

If there’s no such thing as a run of good luck, it follows that the same applies to bad luck. In their visits there he’d made mainly even-money bets: either between red and black or odds and evens. It’s all about laws of averages. Over a long enough period of time the house should pay out just as much on red as on black, as much on odd as on even. The casino earned its money because of the 37
^th
number on the wheel, namely the 0. When this came up the house took all. It was a modest payment, but it swayed the spin of the wheel in favour of the house. It was the humble zero, hidden and ignored by the players, that made roulette a mug’s game.

In over two hours he’d lost
£
2,000, and Tristan slightly more. At one point he’d been
£
22,000 in deficit, but by careful scrutiny of the wheel he’d turned this briefly into a
£
15,000 gain, then lost it all to a capricious bounce of the ball. He knew where he’d gone wrong. He
knew
, and wouldn’t make the same mistake again. The money meant nothing to him, but taking on the wheel, and beating it, was the second biggest thrill he’d ever experienced.

‘What are you thinking?’ Fiona asked without turning to him. She was lying on her back, arms and legs spread, a fine dew covering her body from their exertions in the warmth of the cabin.

‘About you,’ he replied. His leg was across hers and he drew his big toe up and down her calf. ‘We could go somewhere special: the Maldives; Acapulco; anywhere you like. You know how I feel about you.’

‘No you’re not,’ she told him. ‘You’re thinking about the casino. I’ve seen that look in your eyes when we’re in there.’

‘Yeah, well.’

She was quiet for a while, thinking about her past, wondering how much to disclose. She said: ‘Did I ever tell you about one night at the Perroquet d’Or?’

‘In Paris?’

‘That’s right.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘It was when I was in Saudi. A friend invited me to go to France with him. He was head of a trade delegation, buying jet planes. It was all very
hush-hush
.’

‘Does Tristan know about this?’ Richard asked.

She laughed. ‘No. Not that bit. I’ve told him about the gambling, though.’

‘Go on.’

‘He took me to the Golden Parrot. Apparently they’d signed the contract, he’d received a colossal backhander, and now he was ready to celebrate with a night at the tables. He lost a few, won a few and was getting worse for wear on champagne. I was growing bored, and I like my lovers sober. He said just a little longer and watched the wheel spin for about ten minutes. Then he placed his bet. I was wearing a red dress. He said he’d share his next winnings if he could take the dress off me; red was his lucky colour; all sorts of stuff like that. As he’d had all my other dresses off me I’d nothing to lose, so I said yes. He put a million pounds on red.’

Richard sat up. ‘A million! Jesus! What happened?’

‘He won, and I kept my half of the deal. Next day we flew back to Saudi.’

‘The jammy sod. Did he keep
his
half of the deal?’

She was quiet for several seconds, then said: ‘No. He thanked me for going with him, told me exactly where I stood and gave me
£
500 to cover my expenses.’

‘The bastard. Did you finish with him?’

‘Not straight away.’

Richard sensed that the story wasn’t over. ‘Go on.’

‘I kept friends with him, biding my time. A few days later he held a party to celebrate the arms deal and invited all sorts of important people. Saudi princes, ministers of this and that, the chief of police. You can imagine. I wasn’t invited because he was a married man, but he asked me to supervise things at his country house outside Riyadh on the day of the party. So that’s what I did.’

Richard propped himself up on one elbow and turned to her. It was getting interesting. ‘What happened next?’ he invited.

‘Oh, I just got the drinks mixed up. I knew where he kept his hard liquor and somehow managed to fill the soft drinks dispensers in his huge American fridge with Three Barrels brandy and Bell’s whisky.’

‘Ha ha!’ Richard laughed. ‘That’d teach him. Was he arrested?’

‘Yes. If any one of them had been there alone they’d have shared a drink and said nothing, but because everyone was there they had to appear to be shocked and offended. Hypocrisy isn’t a half of it. He was stripped of office and sentenced to two hundred lashes, but he skipped the country and fled back to Paris. As far as I know he’s still there.’

Richard said: ‘And that was when you learnt that playing the game was fun.’

‘Yes. It was wonderful. I’d never felt anything like it before.’ She turned to him and placed a hand on his stomach. ‘Shall we have another try at the casino, see how
your
luck is running?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. I’d like that.’

‘But not just yet, though,’ she said, and moved closer to him. 

I couldn’t remember the name of the department I needed. Once we had a murder squad, which is
self-explanatory
and therefore too snappy and simple for the modern police force, so they changed it to the homicide and major enquiry team. While they were at it they changed the fraud squad into the economic crime unit and the serious fraud office became the serious organised crime agency. We don’t have a
trivial
organised crime agency. More accurately, these bodies became HMET, ECU and SOCA. Then there’s the NACP, NBPA, NCOF, NCPE, and so on. I logged on and scoured the Home Office glossary of obscure names but couldn’t find what I wanted amongst all the junk, so I rang someone.

‘What do they call that lot who look into the antics of the animal rights people and the
anti-abortionists
and the anti-fur coats lobby and the anti-third runway pressure groups and every other anti-something crowd?’ I asked.

‘Is that you, Charlie?’ came the reply.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s nice to hear from you, and I’m feeling fine, in case you’re interested.’

‘Long time no see. How are you?’

‘Top of the world. How are you?’

‘Terrible, fed up, over-worked. So who are they?’

‘Have you looked in the Almanac?’

‘Come off it,’ I said. ‘It only comes out once a year. They change these names more often than I change my mind.’

‘You’re allowed to write amendments in the back, you know.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind. Any ideas?’

‘Hang on…Yes, here we are: you want the national extremism technical coordination unit, known as NETCU. Self-explanatory, really, don’t you think?’

‘Like an Ikea instruction manual,’ I replied. ‘Do you have a number?’ I wrote it down, then asked: ‘As a matter of interest, where are they based?’

‘A secret location somewhere on a trading estate in the heart of England.’

I thanked him profusely, promised to join him for a drink the next time I was in London, and rang the number. In seconds I was asking a DS if they’d ever heard of the Reverend Jonathan Leary, or if there was a cell of anti-abortion activists in Oldfield.

That drew a double negative, but I learnt that the anti-abortion movement was having a small renaissance and that an American sky pilot with extreme views and a huge television congregation was due to address a rally in Oldfield at the weekend, at the start of a UK tour. They’d tried and failed to have him denied entry, and it was feared there’d be clashes between opposing groups outside his meetings. In the US Bible Belt they shoot doctors who perform abortions, and he was vociferous in his support of this, referring to the gunmen as American heroes.

‘Any talk like that,’ I was told, ‘and we’ll have him by the short and curlies and he’ll be on the next plane home.’

‘But you’ve never heard of Jonathan Leary?’ I asked again.

‘He’s not on our database, but we’ll soon make that right.’

‘Will you be having a word with Oldfield about expecting trouble, or do you want me to?’

‘We’ll take care of it.’

‘OK. Thanks for your help.’

So that was that. The reverend was gearing up for a pitched battle in defence of the sanctity of life from what he regarded as the forces of evil, and I’d had him put on record as a possible trouble-causer bordering on terrorist. Within minutes he’d be listed by MI5 and his chances of employment in certain fields would be mysteriously blocked. I didn’t know if this would mean within the Church but I wouldn’t be betting on him ever becoming an archbishop. I felt a heel, wondered if I’d done him a disservice, but I could live with it.

Next I rang Gillian Birchall. ‘This is coming to be a habit,’ she said, after I’d introduced myself in case she didn’t recognise my husky tones.

‘If it’s inconvenient let me know,’ I told her, but she said it wasn’t.

‘I’ve spoken to the Reverend Leary,’ I began, ‘and I was wondering how you stood on abortion. Is there an official school policy?’

‘Abortion?’ she replied. ‘We don’t talk about it. The girls are too young, in my opinion. We only have them until they are eleven, but some more
so-called
progressive schools may raise the subject with girls of that age.’

‘But you’re not anti-abortion?’

‘The school or me personally? I believe in freedom of choice, Inspector, although I’m uncomfortable with the thought of late abortions. The school doesn’t have an opinion. How do you feel about it?’

‘Me?’ I replied, slightly off my guard. ‘I feel the same as you, except I’m a man, and as such don’t believe I should have a vote on the subject.’

‘Can I ask what this has to do with the Reverend Leary?’ she asked, so I told her that he’d given all the right answers about evolution, but I’d taken a peek inside his shed and seen the pro-life placards that he was manufacturing. Then I told her about the rally.

‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve never heard of him being associated with anything like that. Do you think he could be behind my problem? I’d say it was a preposterous idea.’

‘Have you ever spoken out supporting abortion?’ I asked, ‘or had conversations about it with people you don’t know too well?’

‘No, never. Well, not since college, and my views on the subject aren’t all that obdurate.’

‘Have you ever given advice on the subject, to a former pupil, for example?’

‘No.’

‘Then I suspect we’re looking up a blind alley. Try not to worry about it.’

‘I won’t, and Inspector…’

‘Yes?’

‘Thanks for taking me seriously. I appreciate it.’

I made myself a coffee and took it down to the incident room, sipping it while staring at the drawing of Magdalena that I’d done all those years ago. She was handsome rather than pretty or beautiful, with a Slavic slant to her eyes that added to her exoticism. Plenty of men would want to make love to her, that was certain, but did any of them want a more permanent relationship?
Bedable
but not wed-able? How many times had she woken after a night of passion to find the other side of the bed cold and empty? The sexual revolution was well under way, back then, but for some it was a hollow experience, undertaken because that’s what you did, and hey, we were having a good time, weren’t we? Weren’t we?
Weren’t
we?

Is that why she fell in with a roughneck like Ennis – because he offered her stability, something more permanent than the hippie crowd she moved with could offer? Until he started robbing banks and was put in the slammer for a third of a lifetime. The best third.

And then there was the money. Whatever happened to that? I sat and thought about it, there in the windowless incident room with the fan blowing across me every half-minute and a fluorescent light flickering above the whiteboard. We didn’t allow the cleaners or the janitor in there while it was active with a case, so we’d have to put up with the flickering tube or replace it ourselves. That would involve completing a risk assessment report and a stores requisition chitty for the tube. It never ends.

A phone rang on one of the desks. It was Dave. ‘Hi, Chas,’ he said. ‘Where’ve you been hiding all morning?’

‘Important stuff to deal with, Dave. Any news to tell me?’

‘’Fraid not. The trail’s colder than a polar bear’s rump. Do you want a sandwich bringing in?’

‘Yes please.’

‘What sort?’

‘Ham with the slightest trace of French mustard.’

‘What do you want it in?’

‘About five minutes.’

‘What sort of bread, dumbo?’

‘Oh. Any sort. Wholemeal. Sliced. Anything.’

‘What about a pudding?’

‘Yoghurt. Strawberry yoghurt.’

‘Yoghurt? How long have you been eating yoghurt?’

‘OK, an Eccles cake then, if asking for a yoghurt would ruin your credibility with the lady who runs the sandwich shop.’

‘I don’t think she sells yoghurt. Is anybody else in?’

‘No, just me.’

‘Right. Won’t be long.’

I found the original file for the robbery that put Ennis inside and looked for the name of the investigating officer. Then I rang the national association of retired police officers and asked if he was still alive. He was, and they gave me his number after checking with him. I knew they would – there’s nothing a retired bobby likes more than being phoned and asked about one of his cases. Usually we have trouble getting people to talk; with old-timers it’s getting them to stop.