Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George
“But she said nothing about Fleming?”
“Gabriella’s no simpleton despite the fact that she occasionally acts like one. And she’s no fool when it comes to positioning herself financially. The last thing she’d have been likely to do is to burn her bridges with me before she was certain there was going to be a new way to get across the river.” He ran his hand back through his hair, fingers spread, in a gesture that seemed designed to emphasise its thickness. “I knew she’d been flirting with Fleming. Hell, I’d seen her flirt with him. But I thought nothing of it because pulling men was nothing out of the ordinary for Gabriella. She’s on automatic pilot when it comes to blokes. Always has been.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Sergeant Havers asked the question. She’d finished her whisky and pushed the glass to join the other that Patten had earlier moved to one side of the table.
Patten’s answer consisted of the word, “Listen,” and he held up his fingers to still their conversation. From the far right side of the garden where a bank of poplars formed a boundary, a bird had begun to call. Its song was liquid and warbling, rising to a crescendo. Patten smiled. “Nightingale. Magnificent, isn’t it? It almost—but not quite—makes one believe in God.” And then to Sergeant Havers, he said, “I liked knowing other men found my wife desirable. It was part of the turn-on, at first.”
“And now?”
“Everything loses its amusement value, Sergeant. After a time.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Two months short of five years.”
“And before?”
“What?”
“Is she your first wife?”
“What’s that got to do with the price of petrol?”
“I don’t know. Is she?”
Abruptly, Patten looked back at the view. His eyes narrowed against it, as if the lights were too bright. “My second,” he said.
“And your first?”
“What about her?”
“What happened to her?”
“We were divorced.”
“When?”
“Two months short of five years ago.”
“Ah.” Sergeant Havers wrote rapidly.
“Am I to know what ah means, Sergeant?” Patten said.
“You divorced your first wife to marry Gabriella?”
“That’s what Gabriella wanted if I wanted Gabriella. And I wanted Gabriella. I’ve never wanted anyone quite as much, in fact.”
“And now?” Lynley asked.
“I wouldn’t take her back, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve no particular interest in her any longer, and even if I had, things went too far.”
“In what way?”
“People knew.”
“That she’d left you for Fleming?”
“One draws the line somewhere. With me, it’s infidelity.”
“Your own?” Havers asked. “Or just your wife’s?”
Patten’s head, still leaning back against the chaise longue, turned in her direction. He slowly smiled. “The male-female double standard. It’s not very attractive. But I am what I am, a hypocrite when it comes to the women I love.”
“How did you find out it was Fleming?” Lynley asked.
“I had her followed.”
“To Kent?”
“She tried to lie at first. She said she was just staying at Miriam Whitelaw’s cottage while she sorted out her thoughts about what to do with her life. Fleming was just a friend, she said, helping her out. There was nothing between them. If she was having an affair with him, if she’d left me for him, wouldn’t she be living with him openly? But she wasn’t, was she, and that proved there was no adultery involved, that proved she’d been a good and faithful wife to me and I’d better instruct my solicitor to keep that in mind when he met with hers to talk about the settlement.” Patten rubbed his thumb along his jawline where a dark stubble of whiskers was shadowing his face. “So I showed her the photographs. They, at least, cowed her.”
They were photographs of her and Fleming, he went on without embarrassment, taken at the cottage in Kent. Fond greetings at the doorway in the evening, passionate goodbyes in the drive at dawn, energetic grapplings in an apple orchard not far from the cottage, one enthusiastic mating on the garden lawn.
When she saw the photos, she also saw her future financial status dwindle rapidly, he told them. She flew at him like a spitting cat, she threw the photos in the dining room fire, but she knew she’d lost the larger part of the game.
“So you’ve been to the cottage?” Lynley said.
Oh yes, he’d been there. Once, when he’d delivered the photographs to her. A second time when Gabriella phoned with a request to talk things out and see if they couldn’t arrive at a reasonable and civilised manner of ending their marriage. “That was a euphemism, the talking,” he added. “Using her mouth for speech has never been Gabriella’s forte.”
“Your wife’s gone missing,” Havers said. Lynley glanced in her direction when he heard the unmistakably even and deathly polite tone of the remark.
“Has she?” Patten enquired. “I wondered why there was no mention of her on the news. I thought at first she’d managed to get to all the journalists and make it worth their while to keep her out of the story. Although that would have been a monumental project, even for someone with Gabriella’s power of suction.”
“Where were you on Wednesday night, Mr. Patten?” Havers jabbed her pencil against the paper as she wrote. Lynley wondered if she was going to be able to read her notes later. “Thursday morning as well.”
“Why?” He looked interested.
“Just answer the question.”
“I shall, once I know what it’s got to do with anything.”
Havers was bristling. Lynley intervened. “Kenneth Fleming may well have been murdered,” he said.
Patten set his glass down on the table. He kept his fingers on the rim. He seemed to be trying to read Lynley’s face for its degree of levity. “Murdered.”
“So you can understand our interest in your where-abouts,” Lynley said.
The nightingale’s song rose from the trees again. Nearby, a single cricket gave answer. “Wednesday night, Thursday morning,” Patten murmured, more to himself than to them. “I was at the Cherbourg Club.”
“Berkeley Square?” Lynley asked. “How long were you there?”
“It must have been two or three before I left. I’ve an itch for baccarat and I was winning for once.”
“Was anyone with you?”
“One doesn’t play baccarat alone, Inspector.”
“A companion,” Havers said testily.
“For part of the evening.”
“Which part?”
“The beginning. I sent her off in a taxi around…I don’t know. Half past one? Two?”
“And afterwards?”
“I continued to play. I came home, went to bed.” Patten moved his glance from Lynley to Havers. He seemed to be waiting for more questions. He finally went on. “You know, I’d hardly be likely to kill Fleming, if that’s where we’re heading, as it appears we are.”
“Who followed your wife?”
“Who what?”
“Who took the pictures. We’ll need the name.”
“All right. You’ll get it. Look, Fleming may have been screwing my wife, but he was a damn fine cricket player—the best batsman we’ve had in half a century. If I wanted to put an end to his affair with Gabriella, I would have killed her, not him. At least that way the bloody test matches wouldn’t have been affected. Besides I didn’t even know he was in Kent on Wednesday. How could I have known?”
“You could have had him followed.”
“What would be the point?”
“Revenge.”
“If I wanted him dead. But I didn’t.”
“And Gabriella?”
“What about Gabriella?”
“Did you want her dead?”
“Certainly. It would be far more cost-effective th
“You haven’t heard from her?” Lynley asked.
“From Gabriella? Not a word.”
“She isn’t here in the house?”
Patten looked genuinely surprised, eyebrows lifted. “Here? No.” Then he seemed to realise why the question had been asked. “Oh. That wasn’t Gabriella.”
“If you wouldn’t mind substantiating the fact.”
“If it’s necessary.”
“Thank you.”
Patten sauntered into the house. Havers slouched in her chair, watching him through narrowed eyes. “What a pig,” she muttered.
“You’ve got the Cherbourg information?”
“I’m still breathing, Inspector.”
“Sorry.” Lynley gave her the number plates of the Jaguar in the garage. “We’ll want Kent to check if there’s been a sighting of either the Jag or the Range Rover near the Springburns. The Renault as well. The one on the drive.”
She snorted. “You think he’d stoop to rattling round in that?”
“If he’d stoop to murder.”
One of the farthest french doors opened. Patten returned. He was accompanied by a girl, no more than twenty years old. She was wearing an oversize sweater and leggings. Her body moved sinuously as she crossed the flagstones on slim bare feet. Patten put his hand on the back of her neck, just beneath her hair, which was blacker than seemed natural and cut in a short geometric style that made her eyes look large. He pulled her closer to him and, for a moment, he appeared to breathe in whatever scent was coming from her scalp.
“Jessica,” he said by way of introduction.
“Your daughter?” Havers asked blandly.
“Sergeant,” Lynley said.
The girl seemed to understand the intention behind the exchange. She slid her index finger through a belt loop of Patten’s jeans and said, “You coming up now, Hugh? It’s getting late.”
He ran his hand down her back, in very much the same way a man strokes a prize race horse. “A few minutes,” he said. And to Lynley, “Inspector?”
Lynley lifted his hand in wordless indication of the fact that he had no questions to put to the girl. He waited until she had returned to the house before saying, “Where might your wife be, Mr. Patten? She’s disappeared. As has Fleming’s car. Have you any idea where she may have headed?”
Patten began to recap the whisky bottles. He set them on a tray along with the glasses. “None whatsoever. Although wherever she is, I doubt she’s alone.”
“Like yourself,” Havers said, flipping her notebook closed.
Patten regarded her. His face was untroubled. “Yes. In that respect Gabriella and I have always been remarkably similar.”
CHAPTER
6
Lynley reached for the folder of information from Kent. He began to flip through the crime scene photographs, his eyebrows drawn together above his spectacles. Barbara watched him, wondering how he was managing to look so wide awake.
She herself was knackered. It was nearly one in the morning. She’d had three cups of coffee since their return to New Scotland Yard, and despite the caffeine—or perhaps because of it—her brain was doing flipflops but her body had decided to cash in its chips. She wanted to put her head on Lynley’s desk and snore, but instead she got to her feet, stretched, and walked to the window. No one was on the street below them. Above them, the sky was soot grey, rendered incapable of ever achieving true darkness because of the teeming megalopolis beneath it.
She pulled thoughtfully on her lower lip as she studied the view. “Let’s suppose Patten did it,” she said. Lynley made no reply. He set the photographs aside. He read part of Inspector Ardery’s report and raised his head. His expression became thoughtful. “He’s got motive enough,” Barbara continued. “If he rubs out Fleming, he’s got his revenge on the bloke that was rolling in Gabriella’s knickers.”
Lynley bracketed off a paragraph. Then a second one. One in the morning, Barbara thought with disgust, and he was still going strong.
“Well?” she asked him.
“May I see your notes?”
She returned to her chair, dug her notebook from her shoulder bag, handed it over. As she walked back to the window, Lynley ran his finger along the first and second pages of their interview with Mrs. Whitelaw. He read something on the third, something else on the fourth. He turned another page and twirled his pencil against it.
“He told us he draws the line at infidelity,” Barbara said. “Maybe his line is murder.”
Lynley looked in her direction. “Don’t let antipathy become your bedmate, Sergeant. We don’t have enough facts.”
“Still and all, Inspector—”
He gestured with the pencil to stop her, saying, “When we do, I expect they’ll support his presence at the Cherbourg Club on Wednesday night.”
“Being at the Cherbourg Club doesn’t exactly eliminate him as a suspect. He could have hired someone to set the fire. He’s already admitted hiring someone to have Gabriella followed. And he didn’t exactly go skulking round the bushes himself to take those pictures of her and Fleming that he was talking about. So there’s another hiring for you.”
“Neither of which is illegal. Questionable, perhaps. Tasteless, to be sure. But not illegal.”
Barbara guffawed and returned to her chair. She flopped into it. “Pardon me, Inspector, but did our little Hugh manage to give you the impression he wouldn’t stoop to something as tasteless as murder? When did this occur? Before he talked about his wife’s amazing talents at fellatio or after he trotted out whatsername and gave her bum a nice squeeze just in case us rozzers were too thick to figure out what was what between them?”
“I’m not ruling him out,” Lynley said.
“Well, praised be Jesus.”
“But accepting Patten as the premeditated killer of Fleming presupposes he knew where Fleming was on Wednesday night. He’s denied knowing. I’m not convinced we can prove otherwise.” Lynley replaced photographs and reports in the folder. He removed his spectacles and rubbed his fingers on either side of the bridge of his nose.
“If Fleming phoned Gabriella and told her to expect him,” Barbara pointed out, “she could have phoned Patten and dropped him the word. Not deliberately, mind you. Not with the intention of Patten’s running out there to make Fleming cold meat. Just a bit of the old in-your-face-Hugh. That follows what he’s told us about her. There were other blokes who wanted her, and here was the proof.”
Lynley appeared to consider his sergeant’s words. “The telephone,” he said reflectively.
“What about it?”
“The conversation Fleming had with Mollison. He may have mentioned his Kent plans to him.”
“If you’re thinking a phone call’s the key, then his family must have known where Fleming was going as well. He had to cancel the trip to Greece, didn’t he? Or at least postpone it. He would have told them something. He had to have told them something since the son…what was his name?”
Lynley looked through her notes, flipping forward two more pages. “Jimmy.”
“Right. Since Jimmy didn’t phone Mrs. Whitelaw on Wednesday when his dad failed to show. And if Jimmy knew why the trip was cancelled, he may have told his mum. That would have been natural. She was expecting the boy to be gone. He wasn’t. She would have asked what happened. He would have explained. So where does that take us?”
Lynley pulled a lined pad from the top side drawer of his desk. “Mollison,” he said as he wrote. “Fleming’s wife. His son.”
“Patten,” Barbara added.
“Gabriella,” Lynley finished. He underlined the name once, then a second time. He considered it thoughtfully. He underlined it again.
Barbara watched him for a moment, then said, “As to Gabriella, I don’t know, Inspector. It doesn’t really make sense. What’d she do? Pick off her lover and then blithely drive away in
“According to Patten.”
“We’re back to him. See? It’s the natural direction.”
“He has motive enough. As to the rest—” Lynley indicated the file and the photographs, “we’ll have to see how the evidence stacks up. Maidstone’s crime scene team will have finished with the cottage by mid-morning. If there’s something to be found, they’ll be bound to find it.”
“At least we know it wasn’t a suicide,” Barbara said.
“It wasn’t that. But it may not be a murder.”
“You can’t say it was an accident. Not with the cigarette and the matches that Ardery found in the chair.”
“I’m not saying it was an accident.” Lynley yawned, dropped his chin into his palm, and grimaced as the stubble on his face seemed to give him an idea of what hour it was. “We’ll need the number plates on Fleming’s car,” he said. “We’ll need to circulate a description. Green, Mrs. Whitelaw said. A Lotus. Possibly a Lotus-7. There must be paperwork on it somewhere. At the Kensington house, I should guess.”
“Right.” Barbara reached for her notebook and scrawled a reminder in it. “Did you notice the extra door in his bedroom by any chance? At the Whitelaw house?”
“Fleming’s?”
“Next to the wardrobe. Did you see it? A bathrobe was hanging from a hook in it.”
Lynley stared at his office door as if attempting recollection. “Brown velour,” he said, “with green stripes running through it. Yes. What about it?”
“The door, not the bathrobe. It leads to her room. That’s where I got the bedspread earlier.”
“Mrs. Whitelaw’s bedroom?”
“Interesting, don’t you think? Adjoining bedrooms. What does that suggest to you?”