Just Desserts (20 page)

When all this was over, he would definitely give up the habit.

For a few minutes, he could not dismiss the thought that he might not be at liberty when all this was over. Then he felt the lightness in his head as he went out to the Ducati. Better go carefully, on the way back to the golf course. It would be ironic if the police picked him up just for speeding, after what he'd done last Wednesday night.

Unlike Liza Nayland, Chris Pearson was anxious to be interviewed in his own home. Bert Hook had no objection to that. A drive through the Gloucestershire lanes, even on the nineteenth of December, with the temperature low and the trees leafless, had its own charms after the pressures of the station.

The near-white sun was already low, but the winter sky had that crisp blueness which seems to be deepened and accentuated by the long English twilight. The pasture fields rose between walls and hedges towards the long ridge of the Malverns on their left, a landscape which had not changed much in several hundred years. The gaunt skeletons of oak and chestnut stood like sentinels over ancient farms, as if protecting them against the changes which besieged the life around them.

It was an illusion, Bert Hook knew – the country now employed a twentieth of the people who had made their living from it a century earlier, and television aerials and discs rose above the old farmhouses and cottages – but an agreeable illusion, nonetheless. And the lanes were pleasantly free of traffic: they met only one other car on their journey to Pearson's village.

Pearson had the wide oak door of the long thatched house open as they went up the path. He said, ‘The wife's out for the afternoon in Cheltenham at a meeting of the Fine Arts Society. We won't be disturbed.'

Hook wondered if the unnecessary detail, like his readiness to receive them, betrayed nervousness in a man who he would have thought was rarely troubled by nerves. Pearson took them into the neat dining room with the prints of the Middle East on the walls, where they had spoken five days earlier.

Lambert waited unhurriedly until they were all sitting down and Hook had his notebook at the ready, watching how Pearson's fingers drummed briefly upon the table, how he stilled them and withdrew his hands from sight below the table top, as if he feared their movements might betray him. Then he said, ‘We now know rather more about the murder victim. It seems that some people, including you, withheld information about him at our first meetings.'

It was a challenging start, and it looked for a moment as though Pearson would show his annoyance at it. But he controlled himself and said, ‘I told you what I knew about Patrick. I answered all your questions.'

Lambert gave him a bleak smile. ‘When you know nothing about a dead man, as we did then, it is not easy to know the right questions to ask. I said “withheld information”. I did not accuse you of a direct lie.'

‘Patrick was a good friend to me. You can't expect me to blacken his reputation, especially after he died like that.'

‘A fair point, in normal circumstances. But you do not need reminding that these are hardly that. Is it true that Mr Nayland was a womanizer?'

Chris looked up into the calm face with the grey eyes which studied him so closely. He had not expected so direct a question; he had become used to the cautious, respectful reactions of the people Pat Nayland had employed at Camellia Park. ‘Yes. Pat wasn't good at resisting anything in a skirt – or in trousers, if it was female and attractive. Is this relevant?'

‘It may be. I don't need to explain why.'

Chris nodded slowly, taking his time, taking care to disguise his relief at this line of questioning. They didn't know the important thing he had concealed, just as Liza Nayland hadn't known when he spoke to her yesterday after the inquest. ‘Yes. I can see that now. I apologize for not mentioning this aspect of Pat's character to you last Thursday. I can only say that it would have seemed disloyal, on the day after he had been murdered. Pat was a good friend to me.'

‘Mrs Nayland didn't seem to us to be aware of her husband's predilection for other women. Do you think she was?'

He gave it thought, happy to stay on this theme, which could surely not harm him. ‘No, I don't think she was. But I didn't see her often, you know. She very rarely came to the golf course.'

‘But if she had, she would have seen things which distressed her?'

It was almost a statement, rather than a question. He was quick, this man. Chris wondered how much more they'd discovered which they weren't revealing to him yet. They'd talked to every one of the staff at Camellia Park, he knew that. He'd better be as frank as he could, in this area where he was not threatened. ‘Pat flirted with every pretty woman. Nothing wrong with that. But if he got the slightest encouragement, he went further.'

‘Are you aware that many years ago he had a conviction for Indecent Assault?'

‘No. But it doesn't really surprise me. And the leopard hadn't changed his spots. I sometimes thought that the modern laws about sexual harassment would catch him out, but he got away with it.'

For a man who'd claimed to be anxious to respect a dead friend, he was now being almost too frank. But that was what they had asked him to be, after all. Lambert said, ‘And who in particular attracted his favours?'

Chris Pearson smiled ruefully. Behind the smile, his brain was working quickly. He was pretty certain now that they knew the important name. He couldn't afford to conceal it; on the contrary, he could only see that it was in his interests to reveal it and divert suspicion. ‘I told you, Pat wasn't very discriminating, or even very cautious. He was prepared to put it about wherever the opportunity offered. But I think he had a long-term affair going with Joanne Moss.'

‘How long ago did this begin?'

‘I couldn't be precise about that. I knew Pat would make a pass at her, as he did at most attractive women, but I didn't know he'd had a favourable response. Joanne at least was very discreet about it, particularly in the early days. And she was only working part-time at first, and they no doubt met away from the course. It's been rather more obvious in the last couple of years, to me at least. But Joanne has never spoken about it to me, and I've never raised it with her. For all I know, she still thinks no one but the two of them knew about it.'

‘And did he confine his extramarital attentions to his mistress?'

It seemed a strange way of phrasing the question. But they were trained to be accurate, to exclude any possibility of confusion, he supposed. ‘No. I told you, he was unable to resist a pretty face or a female curve. He was always flirting with the more attractive women golfers on the course, testing the ground for more serious approaches. Pat was discreet when Joanne was around, but I doubt if he was capable of being faithful to any woman.'

‘You said last time we spoke that you were very close to him. Did he discuss his affairs with you?'

This had gone far enough. He had given them every impression of being open and helpful. He didn't want to emerge now as a man who betrayed confidences. ‘Professionally close, I should have said. We developed the course together, and discussed every aspect of that project together. But he was, after all, my employer, and both of us knew it. We didn't discuss his women. Had Pat asked my opinion on his behaviour with women, I should have given it, but he didn't.'

‘You clearly know more than anyone left alive about the running of Camellia Park. Mrs Nayland acknowledged that.'

Chris said stiffly, like a man who is suspicious of praise, ‘I believe that is true. It was and is my job, after all.'

‘You are no doubt familiar with the pay-sheets, then.'

It had been slipped quietly under his guard, like a stiletto slid silently into the ribs. He said, ‘No. That is one thing Pat kept to himself.'

‘Even though you were familiar with all aspects of the development.'

His own phrases were being thrown back into his face; but there was no ring of irony in Lambert's voice, just a careful, persistent curiosity. Chris summoned a smile and said, ‘That was the one aspect that Pat kept to himself. He said if people were content with what he paid them, there was no need for them to know what anyone else earned.'

‘And you accepted that?'

There was no need for him to admit to how much it had irritated him. They couldn't have found that out from anyone else, because he had never revealed his annoyance to others; that would have meant a loss of face. ‘I accepted it happily enough. It was a harmless foible, probably not unusual among the owners of small businesses, for all I know. I was happy enough with what I earned myself, and there had always been an understanding between us that there would be a partnership for me, in the medium term.' He had carried that off rather well, he thought.

‘An understanding between two ex-military men?'

‘I hadn't thought of it that way. But I think I mentioned when we spoke last week that our military background probably contributed to a happy working relationship.'

‘You did indeed. However, you didn't tell us that you spent the last three of your Army years in the SAS.'

‘Didn't I? Well, I suppose I—'

‘Royal Artillery, you said. No mention of the SAS.'

Chris knew that this adversary who kept so still was watching him as intently as ever. It was unnerving, but he could think of no way of stopping it. ‘We weren't encouraged to talk about the work we did in the Special Air Service. Most of the members are recruited from Parachute Regiment volunteers. I was approached after my service in the Falklands. We are supposed to remain anonymous.' A little of his pride had seeped into the explanation, but there surely couldn't be anything wrong with that.

‘Trained in combat procedures, aren't you, in the SAS?'

He saw the way this was going. ‘Part of the initial training course involves learning the most effective methods of killing people. The premise is that you should be able to defend yourself and your mission if you get into desperate situations.'

‘You would know how to kill a man with a knife.'

‘If necessary, yes. If I were in a one-to-one situation or worse, and I felt my own life was threatened.' Chris outlined the conditions carefully, for he could see where this was going now.

‘You would know exactly where to stab a man, if you wished to kill him quickly.'

‘Yes.' He felt the need to make some amelioration of the stark admission. ‘A man may also be killed as Pat Nayland was killed, with a random blow which strikes lucky and hits a ventricle.'

‘You know that this is what happened?'

Chris Pearson smiled. ‘I can guess at it. I have, as you have just said, a certain amount of knowledge about how people may be killed.'

‘Indeed. And you are right about the ventricle, though it remains to be seen whether it was luck or expert knowledge which rendered the wound fatal. Do you know who administered that blow?' Lambert was quiet, unsmiling, intense.

Chris forced himself to take the time to formulate his response. ‘I don't know who killed Pat. You seemed to be implying that because I had been trained in certain forms of combat, I must have killed him. I was trying to point out that there were other possibilities, that's all.'

It was Hook, looking up from his notes, who said, ‘We don't like luck, Mr Pearson. We like to proceed on probabilities. We find them more reliable as indicators. It is bound to arouse our interest when we find that someone has knowledge which could have helped him in a particular situation.'

‘The fact that I was in the SAS does not mean that I killed Pat. It's ridiculous to suggest it.'

‘Not so ridiculous, Mr Pearson.' Lambert was sober but insistent. ‘Of course your service in the SAS does not mean that you murdered a man. But the fact that you chose to conceal that service is bound to arouse our interest.'

‘I told you: SAS personnel are not expected to boast about their work.'

‘Was Mr Nayland wearing a watch on the night of his death?'

The switch of ground was so sudden that it seemed discourteous. Chris tried to assess the question as his mind reeled, to see what hazards it might hold for him. He said, ‘I can't remember. Is it important?'

‘You said on the day after his death that you checked the carotid artery to make sure that he was dead. That you detached Mrs Nayland, who was holding the corpse, as gently as you could. You don't recall whether he was wearing a watch?'

They made it sound as if he was hiding something, as if it was absurd to suggest that he could have been so unobservant. But he genuinely could not remember, and nor could he see where this was leading. ‘No. I had too much on my mind with the man lying dead and blood all over the place to notice whether—'

‘Do you recall whether Mr Nayland was wearing a watch earlier in the evening?'

‘No. Is it important?'

‘Did he habitually wear a watch?'

‘Yes. Most people do.'

‘A good watch?'

‘I expect so. Pat normally bought good stuff. Whereas as far as I'm concerned, modern electronics mean that even a cheap watch—'

‘If you have any further thoughts on the matter, please let us know. Have you decided who killed your employer?'

He'd already denied that he knew who had struck that fatal knife-blow. Now the repetition of the question made it sound as if he must know, as if he must be concealing some vital information. That was the penalty, he supposed, for holding back his knowledge of Pat's womanizing, of his own SAS training. But they still hadn't unearthed the thing he felt was really important for him to conceal.

That gave him confidence. He managed to keep calm, even to conjure up a smile at the absurdity of the notion that he should be protecting a murderer. ‘If I knew who'd killed Pat, you'd be the first one to hear from me, Superintendent. I don't think this was a family killing. Beyond that, I've no idea.'