Stranglehold (7 page)

He was not quite sure how long he had been sitting there when John Castle came into the room, carrying with him an air of subdued satisfaction. ‘I'm glad you're still here, Mr Kemp. The police want to see you.' The Secretary enjoyed that involuntary slight stiffening which the word induced in his Chairman.

‘If it's about the arrangements for policing our matches next season, I've already told you: you deal with all that, within the budget we've allocated.'

‘No, it's not about that. It's top brass, I think. A Superintendent Lambert. He wants to see you about a murder near the ground last night. A strangling, I believe it was.'

Castle permitted himself the small insolence of a long look at the Chairman's powerful hands.

Vic Knowles did not drive far before he stopped the Sierra. He had set off with no idea where the car was heading, anxious just to get away from the ground. As soon as the floodlights of the Oldford Football Club stadium were out of sight, he stopped the car and put his head in his hands.

His mind raced with a variety of emotions, not all of which he understood. He was glad to be employed again in football. It was the only thing he knew well, and with all his faults he loved his sport. It was still for him the ‘beautiful game'; it was still the sport which stirred him, when he witnessed the ‘total football' of the Dutch, or the Brazilians' instinctive brilliance and improvisation.

And he still felt himself capable of managing well; he had brought out the best in hardened professionals, he had spotted and developed young talent in the years which were now behind him, and he could do it again. His pulses quickened at the thought, as they had done each time he took on a new job over the years. He had the gambler's optimism that each new venture would bring a great success, as well as the gambler's lack of self-knowledge and refusal to confront unpleasant reality.

Normally, he would have savoured his new post, wanted to stay near the ground which was to be the physical setting for the triumphs which might lie ahead. Yet this time he had driven himself quickly away from any sight of the ground. He had been overwhelmed by the wish to put distance between himself and Kemp, to remove himself while there was still time from the man he was already aware was going to control him.

He felt the meshes of Kemp's net closing already about him. How much did the man know? He had been shaken by that sudden shaft about his gambling debts. Knowles had the feeling that his new Chairman knew everything. Kemp would have been delighted: that was the very impression he had wished to create. Knowles felt as if he was even now under observation, though his reason told him that the notion was absurd.

Perhaps he should not take the job, after all. There was nothing signed. But he had agreed it now with Charlie Kemp, who was not a man to cross. Besides, he needed the money, desperately. He didn't think Kemp had even half-believed that stuff about other offers he was considering. The man seemed to know his every secret. Perhaps he knew he had been in Oldford last night. Perhaps Kemp even knew what he had done last night.

Paranoia crept into the warm car and settled around Victor Knowles.

‘Feeling a little under the weather, are we, sir?'

He started violently at the words, snatching his hands from his face. He was so dazzled by the sudden sun that his head swam a little, and he could not immediately focus either his eyes or his mind. It took him a moment to register the dark uniform and the black and white hat; the policeman was in shirt-sleeve order because of the heat, but his tie as he stooped dangled through the open driver's window and almost touched Knowles.

‘I'm – I'm all right.' Knowles looked nervously around him; in his distress, he had not worried where he parked. He could see no yellow lines, and he was not near a junction.

The policeman nodded briefly to his left, and his colleague came over from the patrol car to join him. There was a smell of whisky from the driver: perhaps he had been sleeping it off. ‘Is this your car, sir?'

‘Yes. I'm Vic Knowles.' Once that name had carried weight; now the policeman looked impassive, and Knowles added, more nervously than he had intended, ‘The football manager.' It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he had just taken on the managership of Oldford, but he remembered just in time that it was all still secret and unofficial, that he had agreed with Kemp to say nothing until his predecessor had been safely dismissed.

‘Could you give me the number of your vehicle, please, sir?'

Knowles frowned, smiled weakly, felt very stupid. ‘I never do know the number of my own car. I know there's a five in it, and it's a G registration.' He remembered that, because it grated: once he had had a car with the current registration letter provided free for him every year. He was dimly aware of the second policeman walking slowly round the car, looking at the tyres, examining with interest the small dent in the rear wing and the wisps of dried grass trapped at the extremity of his front bumper. ‘I haven't had this car very long, you see.'

‘Yes, I do see, sir. Do you happen to have the registration documents for it?'

‘Not here, no. I thought –'

‘Driving licence? Insurance?'

‘No. I don't think so.'

‘Well, you can produce them at your nearest police station within five days, if that should be necessary.' The policeman looked at him for a few seconds, assessing his condition, then nodded again to his companion. ‘We'll have to ask you to take a breath test, I'm afraid, sir.'

‘But look, I haven't drunk much at all. I –'

‘Then you won't have any trouble with this, sir. Just an even breath. I expect you've seen these things before.'

The policeman's deliberately unemotional tones unnerved him more than outright aggression would have done. He stood beside the car and blew into the bag, filled with a sudden, irrational fear. Were these officers in Kemp's pocket? Had the man dosed him with drink and sent them after him on some sadistic whim? Knowles was sure he hadn't drunk much in the hospitality suite, but you never knew how much you were taking when spirits were poured from a bottle. And he'd had quite a bit last night, both before and after. Didn't they say it could linger in your bloodstream until the next day?

He was dimly aware of the other policeman using his radio behind the car; the metallic, distorted sounds which came back through it scarcely sounded like words. When he had last done this, there had been crystals in the plastic container. Now, there were lights on the outside of the cylinder: it seemed more final, more damning. But the red light did not come on. He stared at it for a moment, as if he feared it would come on when he relaxed. Then he tried to breathe more easily, even attempted a truculent little smile, trying to see the outcome as a triumph of the individual over police persecution.

The officer was as carefully impassive as he had been throughout. If he was disappointed at this result, he showed no sign of it. ‘That's all right then, sir, as far as that goes. But you aren't very much below the limit. We usually point out to people in these circumstances that it really is better not to drink at all if you're going to drive.'

Knowles brought out his most dignified vocabulary and bearing, what he thought of as his collar and tie mode. ‘I appreciate your concern, Officer. And of course you have a job to do. But now that we're agreed that I have broken no law, I think it's time –'

‘I've been instructed to ask you to accompany us to the station, Mr Knowles.' This was from the other policeman, coming suddenly into his vision from behind the car.

Knowles, who had been concentrating his pompous efforts upon the officer with the breathalyser, was thrown off key by this development. ‘But you've just said I'm within the limit. What the hell –'

‘It's not in connection with any motoring offence, sir.'

For a moment Knowles toyed with the wild impulse of driving off at speed, leaving the two policemen to gaze after him and make what they could of it. Then words from his childhood which he thought he had long since forgotten came back to him. And with the words, a picture; a picture of a father, dead now for ten years and more. ‘Never fight the police, Victor,' he had said to a round-eyed boy in short trousers. ‘The police and the Army are too big to fight, even if you think you're in the right.'

He realized with surprise that it was a precept he had always observed. ‘Then what on earth do you want with an innocent citizen?' he said. He was sitting in the driver's seat again now; it was difficult to draw himself up to his full height and give the question dignity when the law was towering above him.

‘There was a serious crime committed in this area last night, sir. Not half a mile from here. Your car is one of a number known to have been in the district at the time of the crime. The registration number is recorded at the station.'

PC Rogers was slow and methodical in his speech, like a patient uncle instructing a child in the complexities of adult life. Yet he could not have been more than twenty-two, and Knowles felt insulted by his ponderous delivery. ‘I had nothing to do with your damned crime.'

‘No one has accused you, sir. If what you say is true, we shall still need to eliminate you from our inquiries.'

He was reciting a formula, and they both knew it, but that did not lessen Knowles's irritation as they proceeded with the exchange. ‘Are you arresting me?'

‘Certainly not, sir. You would merely be helping us with our inquiries into a serious crime.'

Knowles, hearing the last of the necessary clichés, began to wonder how much they really knew about his movements on the previous evening. He said as firmly as he could, ‘And of course I'm only too anxious to give you all the assistance I can.'

Rogers noticed that this man had not once asked them about the nature of the serious crime they had mentioned. Odd, that.

By the time he had waited ten minutes in the CID section at Oldford, Vic Knowles had recovered enough of his composure to be rather more aggressive.

DI Rushton was younger than him by a few years. He had not a grey hair in sight. And he had kept himself in better condition: that was always an irritating thing for an athlete to contemplate. Knowles said, hoping to establish immediately the goalposts for this exchange, ‘Are you in charge of this case, then?'

Rushton's brown eyes regarded him coolly for an instant before he said, ‘No. I keep an overview of the material we're collecting, and organize the documentation. Superintendent Lambert is in overall charge of the investigation.'

Knowles riffled through his knowledge of television crime to decide how exalted these ranks were. He let a little edge of sarcasm creep into his voice as he said, ‘A Super in charge: this is big stuff, then.'

‘It's murder, sir.' If Rushton enjoyed the little frisson of apprehension the revelation brought, he gave no sign of it. ‘The autopsy has now established that officially.'

Knowles felt himself already fretting in the face of the Inspector's calmness. How could these men be so matter-of-fact about the ultimate crime? ‘And what connection do you think I have with the crime of murder?' He tried to be as calm as the man opposite him, but he felt the slight tremble which came into his voice on his mention of the word.

‘I very much hope no connection at all, sir. Perhaps you will be able to demonstrate that to our satisfaction in the next few minutes.' Rushton's steady brown eyes had never left Knowles's mobile face since he had come into the interview room.

Knowles thought: He's enjoying this, the bastard; enjoying having me on the spot; enjoying the fact that he knows more than I do about the present state of the case; enjoying watching me trying to pick my way through this marsh without falling off the path.

Rushton said, ‘The DVLC computer gives your name as the owner of the red Sierra you were driving today. It also gives your address as Sutton Coldfield. Is that correct?'

‘Yes.'

‘But you were in this area both last night and today. Did you stay in Oldford last night?'

‘Yes.'

‘And what was the purpose of your visit to the town?'

Knowles glimpsed at last the possibility of a little prestige in a situation which had seemed hitherto to have been designed to humiliate him. He leaned forward a little towards the impassive young face on the other side of the table. ‘This must be in confidence for the moment, Inspector, but I'm expecting to be confirmed as the new manager of Oldford Football Club in the next couple of weeks.'

The brown eyes widened a little; the rest of the long face remained impassive. A cold fish, this Rushton. ‘I see. I thought Trevor Jameson was the Manager.'

Damn! Just his luck to get a soccer fan. ‘He is, but not for much longer, I'm afraid.'

‘I see. I didn't know that. Mr Jameson is a neighbour of mine.' Rushton allowed his distaste to overlay the simple statement of fact.

Things were going from bad to worse. ‘Look. Perhaps I've said more than I should have done. But you asked me why I was here, you see, and I was trying to be helpful. Between you and me, I don't think Trevor knows much about it yet, but that's the way it is in football. I saw Mr Kemp this afternoon –'

‘Charlie Kemp?'

‘Yes. The Chairman of the club. I had an appointment, you see.' Knowles's fingers stretched up to the thin gold chain beneath his open-necked shirt, twisted it for a moment, then dropped away as he saw the inspector's eyes upon them.

‘Yes, I see, Mr Knowles. What I don't see is why you were in the region of the ground at midnight last night, when your appointment was for this afternoon.'

Rushton, beneath his careful politeness, was enjoying Knowles's discomfort, and both of them realized it. ‘I – well, I thought I'd come and look at the set-up here. I had a look round the club, saw how prosperous it was, and –'