Only a Game (25 page)

‘So he was necessary. But you called him a necessary evil.'

Lanchester considered his reply. He was used to being cautious, after many years of being badgered by journalists. But this was a different and more serious situation. ‘Capstick was involved in some pretty dubious enterprises and had some very dubious associates: I know enough about the way he made his money to say that. I suspect the police in the Midlands know more than I do, though there have never been any criminal proceedings against him.'

‘Reliable evidence to mount a case is hard to come by, when people are in a position to threaten witnesses and many of the people involved have criminal records themselves.' Peach had spent an hour on the phone and the police computers himself, enlarging his knowledge of James Capstick.

‘He wasn't the man I wanted to see buying Brunton Rovers three years ago. But there weren't many other candidates. To be frank, there weren't any. But when I said that I regarded him as a necessary evil, I meant that I was never convinced that he had the interests of the club at heart. I felt that he was at best an asset-stripper – that he'd sell what property and what playing assets we have and leave the club in a sorry state. I stayed on the board in the hope that I could prevent that, but I was well aware that I was pretty well powerless. The most I could do was to expose any of his moves for exactly what they were rather than allow him to put the gloss he wanted on them. I would have done that in this case, but I couldn't have prevented the sale of the club.'

‘Do you think this deal will still go through?'

Lanchester shrugged his well-suited shoulders. ‘Who knows? The radio suggested at lunch time that the sheikh who was planning to buy the club is no longer interested. We shall see.'

‘Tell us exactly what happened on Saturday night, please.'

Edward wrenched himself away from his contemplation of the future of his beloved Rovers. ‘We were all full of excitement at the victory over Liverpool. I can remember the fifties, when they were in the old second division with us and we were more or less equals. Those were the days! But a victory over one of the top teams now is a bigger and rarer event than ever it was then, so we were all very excited and happy. Until Capstick breezed in and told us he was selling the club!'

‘I can see what a damper that must have put on things. I understand that you were the first person to react to it.'

‘I expect I was, yes. I suppose I usually spoke up first when someone had to oppose Capstick, if you want the truth. But then I had less to lose than most other people who were around, hadn't I? He could always chuck me off the board, if I went too far, but he wanted me there, as a representative of the town and the old days. And I suppose I had a certain respectability, didn't I? I suspect that men like Jim Capstick crave respectability, in spite of themselves.'

‘You're probably right. And he probably expected you to oppose him. Did you offer him any sort of threat?'

Edward Lanchester smiled. ‘I'm sorry. I don't mean to treat this lightly – a man has died, after all, even if he is a man I couldn't respect. It's just that the idea of me threatening a man like Capstick is slightly ludicrous, you see. I'm sure I'd have threatened him with whatever I could which was legal, but I had no weapons at my disposal. Capstick held all the cards: he owned the club and could do with it as he thought fit. He took a great delight in telling me just that in front of the assembled company.' A little tic of pain twitched his cheek, and they had a glimpse of the proud man he had been and perhaps still was.

‘Wasn't Mr Capstick at all apologetic about his news?'

‘Capstick wasn't an apologetic man. Arrogance was more his forte. He said he was sorry to have to interrupt the merrymaking with his news. That much was probably true. But once he'd announced the takeover, he positively enjoyed emphasizing the fact that there was nothing any of us could do about it, that the decision was his and his alone. He was one of those men who liked to assert his power openly rather than go quietly about things.'

Peach looked at him steadily for a moment. ‘There was something you could do and one of you probably did. You could remove him from the scene. That might stop this deal going through.'

Lanchester smiled ruefully. ‘As I said, the media, and especially our wonderful sporting press, are speculating that this might already have happened. The mysterious sheikh has apparently reserved his position. I suppose there is some chance that whoever inherits James Capstick's assets – Helen Capstick, I presume – will not be as enthusiastic to dispose of the club as he was. There has even been a local report in the
Evening Telegraph
that I will be asked to take over the chairmanship. I wouldn't do that, even on a temporary basis. My time has gone.'

Peach waited for a moment to see if he would elaborate on this, but the silver-haired man said nothing more. The DCI asked quietly, ‘Who do you think killed James Capstick, Mr Lanchester?'

Another smile. Edward was not shaken by a question he had anticipated, which also signified to him that the interview was almost over. ‘I don't know. I'd tell you if I did, despite the feelings about him that I've just expressed to you. If this were crime fiction, I suppose I'd be yelling hysterically that I don't know and I wouldn't tell you if I did. But this is real life, and the law must be upheld.'

It was Peach's turn to smile. ‘So in real life, you probably think some of the people in that room on Saturday night are more likely candidates for murder than others.'

‘No. I've thought about it over the last forty-eight hours, of course, but I really have no idea. Our chief executive and our manager had been told they were likely to lose their jobs. I noticed that Debbie Black was also very animated at the time. I scarcely know Helen Capstick, but for all I know, she might have other and more personal reasons to be rid of her husband. I presume she will be a very rich woman as a result of this death. But speculation is useless, because I find it impossible to suspect any of these people of killing anyone. I don't envy you your task, Detective Chief Inspector.' He paused, and this time his smile was ironic. ‘I suppose that even an ageing ex-chairman who sees his beloved club being destroyed might be a candidate for you.'

‘Indeed. When did you leave the club on Saturday night?'

Lanchester looked as if he was enjoying playing out this little charade. ‘I suppose it would be about an hour after Capstick said he was going up to his office. I can remember that when he left I immediately sat down in the corner of the room. I suppose I must have been more shaken by the news than I'd cared to show to Jim Capstick. I appreciate that it would simplify your task if I could tell you that I'd garrotted the man in his office before leaving, but I cannot do that.'

‘Did anyone see you leave?'

‘One of our stewards had been locking all the doors in the players' section. Harry's been around for years – he must be as old as I am. I said good night to him. I then drove here and didn't go out again, but there are no witnesses to that.'

His sad face gave a glimpse of his loneliness. Peach nodded. ‘You know this club better than anyone, Mr Lanchester. If anything occurs to you which might be even marginally relevant, please ring the CID section at Brunton immediately.'

At nine o'clock, the drizzle had set in for the night. Darren Pearson's windscreen wipers flapped steadily as he drove to his wife's flat. There were pools of water now in the gutters; in one stretch in the lower part of the town, a drain was clogged and the water stretched dark and sinister across the road, so that cars waited cautiously to crawl along the middle in low gear.

He sat in the Vectra for a moment before he went into the block of flats, but as usual the thoughts which he found so easy to marshal in a working context refused to be forced into a logical sequence when he was beset by emotions. By the time he knocked tremulously on the plain wooden modern door, he was not even sure that he was doing the right thing, whereas he had been quite certain that he was before he set out.

Margaret Pearson must have divined his confusion from his face. She made him accept the offer of tea and sit in the big armchair she had brought to the flat from their old home. She set a beaker he had not seen before in front of him and said, ‘Everyone's talking about that death at Grafton Park. You must have had a busy day.'

He smiled weakly, his face grey and drained. ‘It was murder, Meg.'

‘I guessed that. “Suspicious death”, the police said. They don't give much away, do they?'

‘I don't think they know much, yet. But you're right, they wouldn't tell us if they did. I've been trying to calm everyone down and carry on as if nothing has happened, but it isn't easy. All anyone wants to talk about is Capstick's murder.'

‘Well, that's natural enough, I suppose. But I can see it must make things difficult for you.'

He smiled at her, grateful for even this conventional, meaningless sympathy. ‘It complicates things, being a murder suspect yourself. You wonder all the time what other people are saying about you when you're not there.'

‘But surely the police can't think you had anything to do with it?'

Her surprise and concern were genuine and instinctive, and again he was ridiculously pleased. ‘It isn't just me, Meg. It's everyone who was in the hospitality suite on Saturday night when Capstick announced he was selling the club. Well, all those who stood to be losers by it, anyway.'

‘I've never been close to a murder enquiry – never even had to think about it.'

‘It's an odd feeling. You can't believe that it's really happening to you. And according to the papers today, the takeover might now be off. I might keep my job, as a result of this killing.'

Both of them were silent for a moment. Then she found herself voicing the thought she had told herself she would not raise. ‘How are you getting on otherwise?'

He gave her an acrid smile. She wouldn't even name his vice openly, as if the very word might bring its own curse with it. At one time he would have lied to her. He had determined before he came here that he would lie to her no more. ‘I'm fighting the urge to bet. Gamblers Anonymous are a great help.'

‘Fighting but not winning?' She had been over this ground too often to deceive herself.

‘I went back to my old betting shop last week. They refused to take the bet.' When they had lived together, he would never have admitted either the visit or the refusal. Now he was ashamed, but the confession brought also a kind of relief.

‘Because of the debt you're in. Because of what you already owe them.'

‘Yes. They rendered me a sort of service didn't they? It didn't feel like it at the time – all I felt was humiliation.' He stared straight ahead of him, not daring to look at her. ‘It's the only time I've lapsed, Meg. And they protected me from myself. I told them all about it at Gamblers Anonymous. We're a strange, disparate bunch there, but we help each other. Their support is a strength to me. You said it would be.'

‘I didn't know that. I just knew that you needed every ounce of support you could get.'

‘Yes. I need you, Meg. I need your support, if I'm to beat this.'

There was a long pause, with neither of them looking at the other. Then she said bleakly, ‘I've heard that too often before, Darren.'

‘I know. This time it's true, but how can I expect you to believe that?' He turned suddenly to her, his face frighteningly close, so that she could see the deepening lines round his mouth, the desperation in his grey, haunted eyes. ‘I need you to come back home, Meg. I can beat it, with you to help me.'

‘I've been making a life of my own here, a new life.' It didn't sound convincing, even to her.

‘There's no one else though. No other man who really matters.'

‘There isn't, but that doesn't mean that you can presume—'

‘I'm not presuming anything, Meg. I'm asking. Pleading, if I'm honest. I can beat the gambling this time, but only if I have you to help me.'

‘That's blackmail.' But she knew as she said it that it was but a ritual protest.

‘Maybe it is. I didn't mean it to be that. But I know that it's true.'

‘You're saying that the rest of your life is in my hands. That's not fair, Darren.'

‘I've gone beyond what's fair, Meg. But I do know what's true. I know that if I have you to help me I can do it. I've learned my lesson at last, but I need you at my side to win this war.'

He wanted to say more, but he sensed he shouldn't. He could feel their two wills wrestling with each other, almost as if it were a physical contest. Eventually she said, ‘The rent on this place is paid in advance until the end of May,' and they both knew in that moment that she was going to give in. ‘I'm reserving the right to come back here at any time in the next few weeks, if you let me down.'

‘And so you should. But I won't let you down.' He took her into his arms and kissed her, softly but at great length. ‘When will you come, Meg?'

‘No point in delay, once we've made a decision, is there? Tomorrow. When I've stopped the milk and the papers.'

Both of them smiled at this sudden descent from high emotion into practicality. He could think of nothing to say, so he said, ‘The neighbours will be glad to see you back,' and both of them smiled at the welcome banality of it. He was at once overjoyed and suddenly exhausted, and he left shortly afterwards.

Meg Pearson sat for a long time after he had left, staring at the blank and silent screen of the television. She would have expected a turmoil of emotions, but she felt instead quite numb. She had no idea whether she was right to accept Darren's assurances of reform, when he had let her down so many times in the past.