Just Desserts (28 page)

Chris decided he must take some more pictures, showing how the trees had grown and the fairways matured from meadow grass to something much better in the last few years. He got out the blueprint for a full eighteen-hole course and studied it for a few minutes, planning a couple of minor amendments, diverting himself happily with the thoughts of how he would press forward once this unfortunate business was out of the way. They'd have a club professional, once they got the full eighteen holes going. There was ample room for the shop he would need at the end of the clubhouse building.

He thought at first that he would sit behind his big desk to talk to the policemen, play the man at the helm dispensing lordly advice to his visitors, helping them where he could and being politely blank where he couldn't. Twenty minutes later, he was shifting the furniture again, bringing an extra armchair in from the small members' lounge outside so that they could sit more informally, equals discussing the regrettable death of the man who until last week had owned and controlled Camellia Park.

He felt himself becoming palpably more anxious as the time they had arranged approached. He even went out and walked briskly around the course, waving to the taciturn Alan Fitch, exchanging pleasantries with one or two of the golfers he recognized. He couldn't remember when he had last had time to kill, and he didn't enjoy the feeling. And he found that all the time his eyes strayed towards the entrance to the car park from the main road.

They came exactly as they had arranged, at three o'clock. He took them into the office he had so carefully prepared, seated them as he had planned, and said, ‘We can chat here without being disturbed. And no one can hear us. The walls are pretty soundproof anyway, but I've sent Joanne Moss home a little early. It's Friday afternoon, after all, and she's a good worker, and it's only three days to Christmas.' He felt himself talking too much, saying more than he needed to say, filling up space with words whilst words were still safe.

Lambert said, ‘We know considerably more than when we last spoke to you, Mr Pearson.' He contrived to make it sound like a threat.

‘That's good. The investigation is progressing well, then?'

‘Some of our new information concerns you. There are things we feel you should have revealed to us during our previous meetings.'

‘Really? I can't imagine what you are referring to, but I assure you that this must have been an oversight on my part rather than any deliberate wish to—'

‘What is your present position here?'

‘I am the General Manager. Chief Executive, if you like. I oversee all the activities at Camellia Park, both on the course and in the clubhouse. I reported to Patrick when he was alive, but in the new situation I shall—'

‘I understood that situation had already changed your position.'

He made himself pause, telling himself that there was nothing to worry about here, that he could handle this easily enough. He nodded, forcing a smile. ‘I hadn't planned to mention this, simply because I thought the information was still confidential. Obviously you have talked to Liza Nayland and she has told you that she proposes to offer me a partnership in the firm.' He waited for confirmation from the two observant faces opposite him, received none, and went on more uncertainly, ‘It is very gratifying to me to have my commitment to the place and its development recognized in this way. Patrick was planning to offer me a partnership, and Liza has chosen to honour that commitment.' He knew it sounded stuffy and formal, but that was probably the appropriate note to strike about this.

‘Have you anything in writing to prove that Mr Nayland intended you to become a partner in the firm?'

Chris made himself smile as he shook his head. ‘We didn't operate in that way. But there was an understanding from the early days that, provided things developed satisfactorily, I would become a partner in due course. It was his money which financed the whole thing, but my know-how which developed it. This place has been my whole life in the last ten years.'

They caught the emotion in his last sentence, noted the quick, nervous smile with which he sought to mitigate that intensity. Then Lambert said, ‘You must have been devastated to learn that Camellia Park was to be taken over by European Fairways Limited.'

Chris felt the blood pound in his temples, even as it seemed to be doing strange things like draining from his face. He knew his voice was uneven as he said, ‘You must be mistaken. There is no question of any takeover. Mrs Nayland and I agreed on Monday that I was to become a partner in the firm. She confirmed to me this morning that the lawyers have drawn up a formal agreement, which I think we shall both sign in the next few days.'

‘The representative of European Fairways spoke to us yesterday. We have checked out what he said with other senior members of his firm. We are confident that Mr Nayland had agreed to sell out to them, six days before his death.'

Chris felt his world crashing about his ears. Just when things had been going so well, his brain kept repeating inconsequentially. He said, ‘I knew nothing of any such agreement. It must have been just a tentative one. Informal. Incomplete.' He was groping for words. ‘This is the first I have heard of it.'

‘I'm afraid it had gone much further than that. Mr Nayland had made a verbal agreement. Terms had been agreed. The formal documents for the takeover are with European Fairways, who were expecting Mr Nayland as sole owner to sign them this week.'

‘I knew nothing about this.' He repeated it stupidly. It seemed at this moment more important than anything to convince them of that.

‘And was Mrs Nayland equally ignorant of the approach from European Fairways?'

‘Yes. She wouldn't have offered me a partnership otherwise, would she?' Suddenly, he saw the chance of a way out. If Liza knew nothing about the sell-out, as she didn't, then perhaps he could convince them that he was equally ignorant. ‘I doubt whether we shall wish to sell out now. We shall have to discuss any approach together, as partners. You must see that.'

He felt like a crab wriggling sideways, trying to make deep water and obscurity, to escape from the calm, unblinking gaze of this policeman who suddenly seemed so much older and more knowledgeable than he was.

Instead, he was pinned squirming to the hot sand, as Lambert said, ‘When did Mr Nayland tell you that he intended to accept the bid from European Fairways, Mr Pearson?'

‘I just told you, he didn't! I knew nothing about this!'

Lambert studied him for a moment, estimating his state of mind as calmly as if he were some biological specimen. ‘Tell us about the row you had with Mr Nayland on the day before he died.'

‘Row? What row was that?' He felt his pulses racing again; that seemed to deny him the capacity for rational thought, so that he had no means of devising a reasonable reply. ‘Pat and I didn't row. We discussed policy, even had occasional disagreements, but—'

‘You were heard shouting at Mr Nayland, in this very room.' Lambert looked round at the walls, with their charts and photographs, as if they could bear witness to that fateful exchange. ‘He shouted back at you and things became more heated. The shouting went on for a good ten minutes. I'd call that a row.'

Chris tried desperately to think of a logical explanation, but all he could see was Patrick Nayland, yelling at him that he was going to sell, that it was good business, that he couldn't guarantee the future of his General Manager or anyone else at Camellia Park. He said, ‘All right. We were arguing about this bloody takeover bid. But everything else I've told you is true. He had promised me a partnership. That had been our understanding from the start. It's why I took a smaller salary to do the job. It's why I stayed here when I had offers to go to bigger jobs.'

‘And you didn't think it right to tell Mrs Nayland that there was a takeover bid on the table when you talked to her on Monday?'

Chris shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. ‘I was amazed she didn't know. And I was only claiming what was my due. What was best for everyone. I'd have taken Camellia Park on from strength to strength, made it eighteen holes. I'd have made it one of the best golf clubs in the area.'

He stopped, not because his enthusiasm had run out, but because he realized that he was speaking for the first time of what might have been rather than what was going to happen.

Lambert said quietly, ‘And Patrick Nayland was stabbed to death on the day after you had been told that all these hopes had been dashed. Were you holding that knife, Mr Pearson?'

‘No.' He couldn't get out more than the monosyllable, and that in a voice so low that it would not have been heard if there had not been such absolute quiet in the room. Out on the course, a man yelled in triumph as a putt dropped on the last green, and there followed the sound of banter with his companions, an ironic accompaniment to the deadly serious events within the clubhouse.

Lambert said, ‘You were seen re-entering the restaurant just before the body was discovered.'

It was quiet, almost matter-of-fact, and it took the shaken Chris Pearson a moment to appreciate the full implications. ‘Yes. I expect Michelle Nayland told you that, because I remember her looking at me as I came back into the room. But it was quite a while before the body was discovered, as I remember it. Patrick wasn't down there when I was in the gents' cloakroom.'

‘This is information you didn't offer to us in two previous meetings.'

‘No. It would have implicated Michelle, wouldn't it, and I didn't wish to do that.' Even he was not sure as he said it if it was true.

Lambert ignored it. ‘You had the opportunity to kill Patrick Nayland. And you have just outlined for us a very strong motive for murder. A motive you had resolutely concealed from us throughout our investigation.'

‘I know. But I didn't kill him. And I don't know who did.' He felt tired now, incapable of any further prevarication to save his skin. He was waiting for the words of arrest.

Instead, Lambert said briskly, ‘Don't leave the area without informing us of your movements, please, Mr Pearson. If you think of anything else which may have a connection with this killing, you should get in touch with us immediately. It is plainly now in your own interest to do so.'

T
he Christmas lights were on in Gloucester. They winked cheerfully in streets both ancient and modern.

The shops were open late on the night of Friday the twenty-second of December, anxious to make the most of the great commercial festival that is the modern Christmas. Seasonal songs blared, hideously distorted, through speakers hastily rigged over the shopping malls. In the brightly lit caves of commerce, shop assistants with permanently painted smiles strove desperately to be helpful and cheerful at the end of their most exhausting day of the year.

At the lower end of the town, the medieval cathedral was floodlit, its massive elevations soaring in majestic permanence towards a navy sky which had not changed since man lurched upright from the primeval forests. The cathedral choir was singing the 500-year-old ‘Coventry Carol', the lofty, almost unworldly acoustics preserving the existence of a minority Christmas until the world should return to it.

All this Lambert and Hook saw and yet did not see as they drove through the city. Their minds were concentrated fiercely on the interview which was to come.

Joanne Moss brewed the tea as she heard the bell ring at the door of the flat. She brought the tray in as she invited the two big men to sit on her sofa. ‘You've probably eaten, but I've put some of my home-made parkin on, in case you fancy a piece. The golfers at the club put away a lot of it each week, but they're hungry men when they've played!'

She appeared perfectly at her ease, her hands steady as she poured the tea into the china cups. She noted that and was pleased with her own performance. It was surely important that she remained calm now. It was the third time she had spoken to them and she felt that all might be safely over after this.

For they had surely discovered nothing. In all probability, this would be the last time she had to deal with these two. Today, for the first time since Pat's death, she had found herself looking forward to a new year and a new period in her life. After what she had achieved, she would go forward with confidence.

She was conscious of the CID men studying her, waiting for her to settle, She put a small table beside each of them and placed the cups and saucers and the plates with the parkin upon them. She felt herself acting a part, playing the wholesome middle-class female she had never been, as she ministered unhurriedly to the needs of these strange visitors.

When they still did not speak, she said cheerfully, ‘Well, what progress have you made? Are you anywhere near to an arrest?'

‘Very near.' Lambert had not moved a muscle since he sat down. The steam rose unheeded beside him from the tea he would never touch.

She hadn't expected to hear that. She said lamely, ‘That's good, then, isn't it? Get things all tied up before Christmas, perhaps.'

‘Sometimes the most obvious solution is the correct one. That's why we're always interested in the last person who saw a murder victim alive.'

‘Yes, I've heard that. But in this case—'

‘In this case we had to be interested in the first person seen with the body.'

She tried not to react, forced herself to complete the sip of her tea she had already begun. ‘But that was me, in this case, wasn't it? Or have you discovered some other—'

‘When did Patrick Nayland tell you that your affair was over, Mrs Moss?'

The formality of the title sat oddly upon the brutality of the question. She said, ‘He didn't. And you've got it wrong, it wasn't just an affair. Pat and I were going to be married.' She gazed past him, towards the point on the wall where the picture of she and Pat together had once hung.