The Players And The Game Read online

  ‘Fine,’ Paul said heartily. ‘Good idea.’

  ‘There’s something else. Do you know a girl named Joy Lindley? In Brian Hartford’s office.’

  Paul crossed one leg over the other knee, showing an area of smooth silk sock. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Are you having an affair with her?’

  The leg was uncrossed. Paul looked astonished but not alarmed. ‘Of course not. I took her out for a couple of drinks one evening, that’s all.’

  ‘That was a stupid thing to do. Brian’s having her shifted to another department.’ Lowson paused. ‘A girl of nineteen in our office, Paul, a junior junior, and you’re taking her out to drinks.’

  ‘I’ll tell you how it happened.’ He launched into the story of her mistake about the memo and then grinned. ‘I was just applying those principles in Esther’s paper, all that stuff about encouraging the staff.’

  Lowson did not smile back. ‘Do you know a girl named Monica Fowler?’ To his dismay he saw Paul flinch. ‘There’s a letter here from her father. Her mother is the sister of Joy Lindley’s father. When Joy started talking about you at home they recognised the name. The letter was sent to Brian Hartford.’

  Paul Vane had gone very pale. A tic appeared in his cheek. He put up his hand, then withdrew it.

  ‘Is it true, what the man says in this letter? You’d better read it.’ He passed over the letter and said, with an awareness of the incongruousness in the remark, ‘I had no idea you were connected with a youth club.’

  ‘It seemed – I always got on well with young people – tried to help them.’ He looked up from the letter, and spoke with something like indignation. ‘A lot of this is rubbish. I never had sex with Monica.’

  Bob Lowson felt as though he were a piece of elastic being stretched, stretched. When would he break and explode in wrath? ‘Tell me how much they’ve got wrong. The girl was thirteen. She was good at basketball, played for the youth club team. You coached them. She told her parents you often kissed her, you were always feeling her, several times you exposed yourself, you asked her to feel your privates and she did because she was frightened.’

  ‘She was never frightened. She was ready for anything. And it was all exaggerated.’

  ‘She was thirteen. Didn’t you know how dangerous it was?’ A vague hopeless gesture. ‘Then there’s all this sickening stuff about it being impossible to make reparation. How much did they take you for?’

  ‘Two hundred.’ In a barely audible mutter he added, ‘When I’d paid it they wrote and told Alice anyway.’

  ‘Don’t you see–’ Lowson began again, then stopped. He found stupid behaviour unbearable, and this was very stupid. Looking at Vane’s head bent again over the letter, avoiding his gaze, another thought occurred to him. ‘This was four years ago. How many other times has it happened? With girls under age, I mean.’

  ‘Only once. Earlier. Her parents were very understanding.’

  ‘But it could happen again. Any time.’

  ‘No. I’m over it now. I resigned from the youth club. I don’t have anything to do with them now, young girls.’ Eagerly he said, ‘I mean, Joy Lindley is nineteen.’

  The whole thing was ridiculous, pathetic. Lowson had a strong desire to laugh. ‘Look, Paul, very likely half the girls under fourteen today are on the pill. For all I know, this Monica was a young tart and her mother and father played you for a sucker. I don’t care what you do or who you do it with. That’s not the point. The point is that I’m not having the organisation mixed up in a scandal if I can avoid it. I won’t have Timbals put at risk because you can’t keep your hands off young girls.’

  ‘It’s not like that, you don’t understand.’ With the tic beating in his cheek he asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

  Lowson said that he would have to think about it, and later that day talked again to Brian Hartford. As he had expected, Hartford’s reaction was to say that they would be better off without a Personnel Director who mucked about with young girls. He found himself defending Paul, and wondering why he did so. There was no doubt that something about Paul’s persona made a strong appeal to him. But Lowson was not an introspective man, and he solved problems like these by ignoring their emotional content and committing himself to some practical action. He saw that he would have to make concessions to Hartford. He agreed that Paul should be sent on a Jay Burns Lawrence course, whatever that was. His future would depend on the report they received. From the gleam in Hartford’s eye it was apparent that he had little doubt what sort of report it would be, but if this meant offering Paul up as a sacrificial lamb, Bob Lowson felt that he had deserved nothing better. In the meantime he wrote a brusque letter to Mr Fowler, saying that the firm knew of the incident in the past, and that they were quite satisfied that Mr Vane’s relationship with Miss Lindley was purely a friendly one.

  Sally Lowson spent the evening in Pamela’s tiny flat near King’s Cross. The flat was dingy, but according to Pam, King’s Cross was going to be the next fashionable district. Sally had been jittery ever since her interview with the police. Now she talked about going to them and telling them everything she knew.

  ‘Do what you want, but that’s plain stupid.’ Pam turned from the salad she was tossing. ‘What will you say? You know Louise wrote a letter to some man, you don’t know if he replied. You’ll be in the doghouse with everybody, and for what? I’ve got a better idea. I’ll write to him myself.’ Over their cold chicken and salad she elaborated. ‘This man wrote to me, right? And we decided he seemed like a creep and didn’t go on with it.’

  ‘Have you still got the letter?’

  ‘Tore it up,’ Pam said through a mouthful of salad. ‘Why don’t I write to him again, say I’m sorry I didn’t answer before, say let’s meet. Then we go along together.’

  ‘And what happens after that?’

  ‘If he’s sexy, sweetie-pie, we have fun. And if he’s old, you know, sixty or seventy, that might be fun too. I’ve often wondered what it would be like with a really old man.’

  ‘But supposing he’s the man who–’

  ‘Why, of course, sweetie, what we do quite early on is to drop in some phrase like “I think you know my friend Louise Allbright” and watch his face. If we think he’s been mixed up in something nasty we tell the fuzz.’

  ‘Pam, I don’t know. I keep thinking about her.’

  Pam cleared away the plates. ‘Don’t be soppy. You said what a boring girl she was, and I never met her so you can’t expect me to cry my eyes out.’

  ‘Suppose something goes wrong.’

  ‘We’ll meet him together, what can go wrong? Twenty to one he had nothing to do with it, but anyway we say “You are Colonel Plum and you committed the murder with a hatchet in the dining-room!” Come on, stop looking like a sick cow and help me clear this stuff away. Freddy and Adrian are coming round in half an hour.’

  Later Sally rang up and told her mother that she was spending the night with Pamela. Her family had met Pamela. She had been to a good school and her father was in the Foreign Office. Bob and Valerie rather approved of her. Freddy and Adrian stayed the night too. Adrian worked in a merchant bank, Freddy had just opened a new boutique. In the morning they all drank orange juice and black coffee and went to work. For Sally it was a foretaste of the kind of life she would lead if she moved in with Pam. At some point in the evening she had agreed enthusiastically that Pam should write the letter.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Story of a Typewriter

  ‘We may have found the typewriter,’ Plender said. ‘Pawnbroker in Chelsea named Marks says the details we gave check with one he had in a week ago. Brought in by a young woman. He’s got her name and address.’

  Hazleton grinned at him. ‘What are you waiting for? Get on your horse.’

  Sammy Marks was brisk, smart, obviously intelligent. He showed Plender a specimen of something he had typed on his Olivetti. The sergeant compared it with a photostat of the ‘Abel’ letter, and it was obvious th
at they had been typed on the same machine.

  ‘Just bless Jewish curiosity, Sergeant,’ the pawnbroker said when Plender congratulated him. ‘And the fact that I like to try out everything in my stock. So I test this one, and then I remember the police notice, and I think “Those letters out of alignment, ain’t they the same?” And they are. So I pick up the telephone.’

  Plender, who had met few Jews but always believed that they would try to put something over on you, expressed his gratitude again. ‘You said a young woman brought it in.’

  ‘Five days ago, right. Good-looking bird, very cool, just above medium height, early or mid-twenties, dark hair, no wedding ring, wearing a dark green trouser suit.’

  ‘You should have been a detective, Mr Marks.’

  ‘I notice things, that’s why I’m going to be rich one day. Now I’ll tell you something else. She said it was a temporary embarrassment. That’s what they all say, but with her it could be true.’

  ‘What did you give her?’

  ‘More than I should have done. Five on the typer, twenty on this.’ He pushed across a ring with a single diamond flanked by two rubies. ‘But it’s not a bad ring. If she doesn’t come back I won’t make a loss.’

  ‘Have you got her address?’

  Marks pushed over the relevant page of his book. Plender saw Peacock, 59 Overbury Court, Kensington, W8, and made a note. The pawnbroker leaned over the counter and smiled. His teeth looked sharp as razors. ‘Ask me whether I think it’s right.’

  Just like all Jews, can’t help showing off, Plender thought. ‘Do you think it’s right?’

  ‘The name, no. The address, possibly. But don’t expect too much.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It’s the kind of thing I know,’ Marks said simply. You catch up with her, you’ll find I’m right.’

  Plender put a hand on the machine. ‘I’ll have to take charge of this. I’ll give you a receipt.’

  The pawnbroker sighed. ‘Do your duty as a citizen, and what does it ever get you but trouble?’

  Overbury Court was a slightly decayed block of flats near Holland Park Road. The lift was self-operating, and there was no porter. Walking along the corridor with its identical grey-painted doors each differently numbered, Plender, who had married six months earlier and had a semi-detached modern house with a nice little bit of garden back and front, wondered how people could choose to live in this way. He rang the bell of 59. The door opened to reveal a short plump girl with a mass of frizzy hair. She stared at him.

  ‘Are you Miss Peacock?’

  ‘No. I’m Bella.’ She began to shut the door.

  ‘Just a minute. Does she live here?’

  ‘No. What are you from, a debt-collecting agency?’

  He showed his warrant card. The girl did not seem impressed. She called back over her shoulder, ‘Hey, Jen, there’s somebody asking for Miss Peacock. Is that the name of the girl who skipped?’

  Another head appeared behind and above Bella’s frizzy hair and Plender thought: That’s the one. ‘He says he’s the fuzz. Do we let him in or do we stand on our rights?’

  Plender thought she looked rather like his wife, who was very cool like this girl, and had the same sort of dark good looks. She said now, ‘Who did you want?’

  ‘I’m looking for Miss Peacock. She pawned a diamond ring and a portable typewriter recently.’

  Bella’s mouth dropped slightly open. ‘Hey, Jen, that’s–’

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it, miss? The pawnbroker described you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said calmly. ‘It’s the first time I’ve pawned anything, and somehow I didn’t want my name on his ticket. You’d better sit down.’ She cleared papers off one armchair and sat in another herself. ‘What’s it all about?’

  ‘Routine inquiries. Your name’s not Peacock, is it?’

  ‘It’s Vane. Jennifer Vane.’

  The name dropped into place, like tumblers in the lock of a safe. Vane, the man who had seen Louise home one night, and who got a bit flustered when it was suggested that he liked young girls. He had a daughter, or was it a stepdaughter? This would be the girl. Could she be the one who had met Louise after that film show? It seemed hard to believe, but Plender had known more improbable things to be true. He decided not to mention Rawley at present.

  ‘Why did you put those things in pawn, Miss Vane?’

  It was the frizzy-haired girl who answered. ‘Because she wanted the bread, why d’you think?’

  Jennifer said, ‘Let’s have a cup of coffee. Bella, love, you make it, will you?’ When the other girl was out of the room, she said, ‘I don’t know your name –’

  ‘Plender.’

  ‘–but what’s up, Mr Plender? I put those things in hock because we’ve just moved in here, and it turns out that the girl we took the place from skipped, owing a month’s rent and leaving some bills unpaid. That’s why Bella thought you were a debt collector.’

  ‘And the money for these things helped to pay the back rent?’ Plender smiled. ‘I’ve been hard up myself, I can believe it.’

  ‘Right. Even at that it’s a cheap flat, and cheap flats in London are like gold dust. I’ll get the things back when our cash position’s a bit less dicey.’

  Plender did not reply or comment. He was imagining what she would be like in bed. Would she be better than Gloria? It would be like having Gloria, except that this girl was somehow totally different from his wife while being strikingly similar. He was diverted from these thoughts by Bella, who came in and dumped down three cups of coffee. ‘Am I supposed not to be here? Or am I your partner in crime?’

  ‘Stay by all means,’ he said. ‘The inquiry’s about the typewriter. It may have some connection with an investigation.’

  ‘The typewriter?’ Jennifer Vane’s eyes opened wide. Her appearance of incredulity was convincing. ‘That’s impossible. I mean, I brought it from home. It’s my father’s, though I’ve often used it too. We’ve had it for ages. I only moved out a few days ago, and I took it because I thought it might be useful.’

  ‘Did your family know you’d taken it?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I don’t understand. What’s this all about?’

  ‘I don’t know too much about it myself. I’ve just been asked to make these inquiries, that’s all. It came from up above, you know.’ He pointed to the ceiling, and grinned. ‘Thanks very much anyway. Lovely coffee. By the way, can you let me have your parents’ address?’

  It was the one he knew, in Rawley.

  Hazleton called round at Bay Trees on the following evening. Alice Vane opened the door, took him into the living-room where cards were spread out on the table, and called her husband. He came in wearing old trousers, dirty at the knees. He explained that he had been down in the cellar.

  ‘Marvellous, the cellars in these old houses. Just fixing some wine racks to the walls for all the bottles we haven’t got.’

  Hazleton considered him. Vane had hair rather longer than the DCI approved of, but he seemed an agreeable enough fellow, and looking at Alice’s delicate profile bent over the cards he thought that she must have been a beauty in her time. Plender had said there was something odd about them, but to Hazleton they appeared a normal couple.

  ‘Another grilling, Inspector? It was your sergeant last time. Are you prepared to drink with me? I believe that’s always a good sign.’

  Hazleton accepted a whisky, and waited until it was in front of him. ‘It’s about an Olivetti portable typewriter that was in your possession, sir. I should like to know where you got it and when, and where it is now.’

  ‘My little Olivetti.’ Many criminals are good actors – indeed, they tend to over-react rather in a ham actor’s manner, and Vane’s appearance of surprise meant nothing in itself. ‘But what on earth’s that got to do with anything? Jen’s got it now, hasn’t she?’

  His wife, bent over the cards, said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve seen Miss Vane. I understand she
’s had it only for the last few days. It’s an earlier period we’re interested in.’

  ‘Do you mind telling me why?’

  The DCI said formally, ‘A letter we believe to have had a connection with the case was typed on that machine.’

  ‘On my machine?’

  ‘There’s no doubt about it. It was typed at some time before the twenty-seventh of May, probably a few days earlier.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, there isn’t anything I can say. I bought the Olivetti about eight years ago, used it quite a bit at one time for typing reports and so on, not much lately. Then it was in store. It moved here with us – no, come to think of it, a few weeks before us. It was in the stuff we had moved in here before we came in ourselves, isn’t that so, love?’

  ‘I believe so,’ Alice said, muffled.

  ‘When we bought this house we had some trouble more or less at the last minute. The seller had a higher offer. That was after we’d moved in a lot of stuff because we thought everything was settled. In the end our agent persuaded him that he ought to take our offer.’

  ‘Tell me about it. And if you can do some checking of dates I’ll be glad.’ The inventory from the storage firm showed that several items, including one portable typewriter, had been delivered to the house on the tenth of May. The Vanes had moved in on the first of June.

  ‘It’s very much like Planter’s Place,’ Hazleton said to Paling. ‘For three weeks anybody could have been sent along by an estate agent, and they could have used the typewriter. Plender’s talked to Darling, the agent who sold the house, and he says he didn’t send anyone. That’s reasonable, because he regarded the house as sold. But Darling’s supposed to be a pretty fair stick-in-the-mud, and another agent called Gammon sent several people. He’s a pretty bright character, Gammon. We’ve checked out all the people we can find, including one who made a higher offer to the seller, and they all seem harmless. But there are some we just don’t know about.’