Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George
Lynley said, “It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to talk in front of her. I should have seen that at once because God knows I wouldn’t have wanted to do any talking in front of my mother. She doesn’t give you much space to move about, does she?”
Jimmy scratched his arm. He scratched his shoulder. He went back to picking at his shirt.
“What I’m hoping,” Lynley said, “is that you can help us clear a few details off the slate. You aren’t under arrest. You’re here to help. We know you were in Kent, at the cottage. We’re assuming you were there on Wednesday night. We’d like to know why. We’d like to know how you got there. We’d like to know what time you arrived and what time you left. That’s it. Can you give us some help?”
Behind him, Lynley heard Havers inhale, then the smoke from her cigarette wafted more strongly towards them. Once again, Lynley carefully laid out the evidence that supported the boy’s presence in Kent. He ended with, “Did you follow your dad?”
Jimmy coughed. He lifted the front legs of the chair a half inch or so.
“Was it a guess on your part that he’d be going there? He said he had some things to see to. Did he sound upset? Anxious? Did that tell you he was going out to meet with Gabriella Patten?”
Jimmy lowered the chair legs.
Lynley said, “He’d seen a solicitor recently. About divorcing your mother. She would have been upset about that. You may have seen her crying and wondered why. She may have talked to you. She may have told you—”
“I did it.” Jimmy finally looked up. His hazel eyes were bloodshot, but they met Lynley’s directly. He said, “I did it. I chopped the sodding bastard. He deserved to die.”
Behind them, Lynley heard Sergeant Havers stir. Jimmy pulled his hand from his pocket and dropped a key onto the table. When Lynley made no remark, the boy demanded, “Tha’s what you want, isn’t it?” He pulled cigarettes from his other pocket, a squashed packet of JPS from which he managed to extricate one, partially broken. He lit it with Sergeant Havers’ matches. He needed four tries to make his fingers work the knob of sulphur against its striking pad.
“Tell me about it,” Lynley said.
Jimmy smoked deeply, holding the cigarette with his thumb and index finger. “Thought he was a toff, did Dad. Thought he could do anything.”
“Did you follow him to Kent?”
“I followed him everywhere. Whenever I wanted.”
“On the bike? That night?”
“I knew where he lived. I been there before. Bugger thought he could say anything and make things all right. No matter how much crap we took off him.”
“What happened that night, Jimmy?”
He went to Lesser Springburn, Jimmy said, because his father had lied to him and he wanted to catch him in the lie and throw the lie in that rotten bastard’s face. He’d said that they had to postpone their holiday because he had cricket business to attend to, urgent business that couldn’t be put off. Something to do with the test matches, the Ashes, an England bowler, a friendly match somewhere…. Jimmy didn’t remember and he didn’t care to because he hadn’t believed the lie for a moment.
“It was her,” he said. “Her out in Kent. She’d phoned him and said she wanted to fuck him a good one like he’d never had before, she wanted to give him something to remember whiles he was in Greece with me, and he couldn’t wait to do it. That’s how he was when it came to her. Randy. Like a dog.”
He didn’t go directly to Celandine Cottage, Jimmy said, because he wanted to take them both by surprise. He didn’t want to risk them hearing the bike. He didn’t want to chance that they’d see him on the drive. So he overshot the turn from the Springburn Road and went on to the village. He parked behind the pub, where he shoved the bike into the shrubbery at the edge of the common. He hiked along the footpath.
“How did you know about the footpath?” Lynley asked.
They’d been there as kids, hadn’t they? When their dad first moved out there while he played for Kent. They’d go at the weekend. He and Shar would explore. They both knew about the path. Everyone knew about the path.
“And that night?” Lynley asked. “At the cottage?”
He jumped the wall next to the cottage, he explained, the one that gave onto the paddock that belonged to the farm just to the east. He’d sidled along it till he came to the corner of the property belonging to Celandine Cottage. There he’d climbed the fence and leapt over the hedge to land at the bottom of the garden.
“What time was this?”
He didn’t know. It was after time was called at the pub in Lesser Springburn, though, because there hadn’t been no cars in the car park when he got there. He stood at the bottom of the garden, he said, and he thought about them.
“Who?” Lynley asked.
Her, he said. The blonde. And his dad. He hoped they were enjoying their fuck, he said. He hoped they were sweating over it proper because he decided then and there that it was going to be their last.
He knew where the extra key was kept, in the potting shed under the pottery duck. He fetched it. He unlocked the kitchen door. He set the fire in the armchair. He sprinted back to his motorbike and set off for home.
“I meant them both to die.” He smashed his cigarette into the ashtray and spat a shred of tobacco onto the table. “I’ll get that cow later. See if I don’t.”
“How did you know your father was there? Did you follow him when he left Kensington?”
“Didn’t need to, did I? I found him all right.”
“Did you see his car? Parked in front of the cottage? Or in the drive?”
Jimmy looked incredulous. His father’s car was more precious to him than his flaming dick, Jimmy told them. He wouldn’t of left it outside, not with a garage standing right there. The boy dug in his packet of cigarettes and managed to rescue another mangled one. This one he lit without any difficulty. He saw his father through the kitchen window, he said, before he put out the lights and went upstairs to do her.
Lynley said, “Tell me about the fire itself. The one in the armchair.”
What about it? Jimmy wanted to know.
“Tell me how you set it.”
He used a cigarette, he said. He lit it. He stuck it in the bleeding chair. He ducked out through the kitchen and made for home.
“Take me step by step through it, if you will,” Lynley asked. “Were you smoking a cigarette at the time?”
No. Of course he wasn’t smoking it at the time. What did the cops think? That he was some sort of wally?
“Was it like these? A JPS?”
Yeah. That’s right. A JPS.
“And you lit it?” Lynley asked. “Will you show me, please?”
Jimmy inched his chair away from the table. He said sharply, “Show you what?”
“How you lit the cigarette.”
“Why? You never light a fag or something?”
“I’d like to see you do it if you will.”
“How the hell you expect I lit it?”
“I don’t know. Did you use a lighter?”
“Course not. Matches.”
“Like these?”
Jimmy jutted his chin in Havers’ direction, his expression a look of you-can’t-trip-me-up. “Those’re hers.”
“I realise that. What I’m asking is if you used a book of matches since you didn’t use a lighter.”
The boy dropped his head. He fixed his attention on the ashtray.
“Were the matches like these?” Lynley asked again.
“Sod you,” he muttered.
“Did you take them with you or use matches from the cottage?”
“He deserved it,” Jimmy said, as if he were speaking to himself. “He bloody deserved it and I’ll get her next. You just see if I don’t.”
A tap sounded on the door of the interrogation room. Sergeant Havers went to it. A murmur of conversation ensued. Lynley observed Jimmy Cooper in silence. The boy’s face—what Lynley could see of it—was hardened into an expression of i
“Sir?” Havers spoke from the doorway. Lynley went to join her. Nkata was standing in the corridor. “Little Venice and the Isle of Dogs are reporting in,” she said. “They’re in the incidents room. Shall I suss things out?”
Lynley shook his head. To Nkata, “Get the boy something to eat. Take his prints. See if he’ll hand over the shoes voluntarily. I expect he will. We’ll need to get something for a DNA sample as well.”
“Tha’s going to be dicey,” Nkata said.
“Has his solicitor arrived?”
“Not yet.”
“Then see if you can get him to volunteer before we release him.”
Havers interjected quickly with, “Release him? But sir, he’s just bloody told us—”
“Once his solicitor’s got him,” Lynley continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
Nkata concluded the thought. “We got trouble.”
“Work quickly. But, Nkata—” this as the DC set his shoulder against the door—“keep the boy calm.”
“Got it.”
Nkata slipped into the interrogation room. Lynley and Havers headed for the incidents room. It had been set up not far from Lynley’s office. Maps, photographs, and charts hung on the walls. Files were scattered across desks. Six detective constables—four male, two female—had stationed themselves at telephones, at filing cabinets, and at a circular table spread with newspapers.
Lynley said, “Isle of Dogs,” as he entered the room, flinging his jacket over the back of a chair.
One of the female DCs replied, a telephone balanced on her shoulder as she waited for someone to answer on the other end. “The boy comes and goes all night long, just about every day of the week. He’s got a motorbike. He exits through the back and makes a hell of a row riding it along the path between the houses, gunning the engine, sounding the horn. Neighbours couldn’t swear he was out on Wednesday night since he’s out most nights and one night sounds pretty much like the other. So maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, with the odds on maybe he was.”
Her partner, a male DC dressed in faded black jeans and a sweat shirt with the arms cut off, said, “He’s a real yob, though. Rows with the neighbours. Roughs up littler blokes. Talks back to his mum.”
“What about his mother?” Lynley said.
“Works at Billingsgate Market. Leaves for the job round three-forty in the morning. Gets home round noon.”
“Wednesday night? Thursday morning?”
“She never makes a sound other than to start her car,” the female DC said. “So the neighbours couldn’t give us much on her when we asked about Wednesday. Fleming was a regular visitor, though. Everyone we talked to verified that.”
“To see the children?”
“No. He showed up in the afternoons around one, when the kids weren’t home. He generally stayed two hours or more. He’d been there earlier in the week, by the way. Maybe Monday or Tuesday.”
“Was Jean at work on Thursday?”
The female DC used the phone to gesture with. “I’m working on that. I can’t rouse anyone who can tell us, so far. Billingsgate’s closed till tomorrow.”
“She said she was home on Wednesday night,” Havers said to Lynley. “But there’s no one to corroborate because she was by herself except for the kids. And they were asleep.”
“What about Little Venice?” he asked.
“Gold,” one of the other DCs said. He was sitting at the table with his partner, both of them dressed for simultaneous day tripping and blending into the environment. “Faraday left the barge somewhere around half past ten on Wednesday night.”
“He admitted that much yesterday.”
“Add this to it, sir. Olivia Whitelaw was with him. Two different neighbours noticed them going because it’s evidently something of a production, getting Whitelaw off the barge and up to the street.”
“Did they speak to anyone?” Lynley asked.
“No, but the trip was an odd one for two reasons.” He used his thumb for the first, his index finger for the second. “One, they didn’t take their dogs, which isn’t the norm according to everyone we talked to. Two—” and here he smiled, showing a wide gap between his front teeth, “according to a bloke called Bidwell, they didn’t come tripping home till half past five the next morning. Which is when he himself came tripping home from an art show in Windsor that turned into a drinks party that turned into what Bidwell called ‘a blooming bleeding blessed bacchanal but mum’s the word to the wife, you blokes.’”
“Now that’s an interesting turn of events,” Havers said to Lynley. “A confession on one hand. A set of lies where no lies are necessary on the other. What d’you suppose we’ve got here, sir?”
Lynley reached for his jacket. “Let’s ask them,” he said.
Nkata and a second DC stayed to man the telephones, with directions to hand Jimmy Cooper over to his solicitor once he arrived. The boy had surrendered his Doc Martens at Nkata’s request, had suffered through having his fingerprints and his photograph taken. To the casual solicitation of a few strands of hair, he’d lifted one shoulder wordlessly. He either didn’t fully understand the implication of what was happening to him, or he didn’t care. So the hairs were harvested, placed in a collection bag, and labelled.
It was well after seven when Lynley and Havers cruised over the Warwick Avenue bridge and turned into Blomfield Road. They found a space to park at the base of one of the elegant Victorian villas overlooking the canal, and they walked quickly along the pavement, descending the steps to the path that led to Browning’s Pool.
No one was on the deck of Faraday’s barge although the cabin door stood open and the sound of either a television or a radio combined with cooking noises came from below. Lynley rapped against the wooden gazebo and called out Faraday’s name. The radio or television was hastily muted on the words “…to Greece with his son, who celebrated his sixteenth birthday on Friday…”
A moment later, Chris Faraday’s face appeared below them in the cabin. His body blocked the stairway. His eyes narrowed when he saw it was Lynley. “What is it?” he said. “I’m cooking dinner.”
“We need to clarify a few points,” Lynley said, stepping down unbidden from the deck onto the stairs.
Faraday held up a hand as Lynley began to descend. “Hey, can’t this wait?”
“It won’t take long.”
He blew out his breath, then stepped to one side.
Lynley said, “I see you’ve been decorating,” in reference to a collection of posters that hung haphazardly on the pine walls of the cabin. “These weren’t here yesterday, were they? This is my sergeant, Barbara Havers, by the way.” He examined the posters, dwelling particularly on a curious map of Great Britain and the unusual manner in which it had been divided into sectors.
“What is this?” Faraday said. “I’ve dinner on. It’s going to burn.”
“Then you might want to turn the fire down a bit. Is Miss Whitelaw here? We’ll want to speak with her as well.”
Faraday looked as if he wanted to argue, but he turned on his heel and disappeared into the galley. From beyond it, they could hear a door opening and the murmur of his voice. Hers rose in answer, saying, “Chris! What? Chris!” He said something more. Her answer was lost when the dogs began barking. More noise followed: the rattling of metal, the shuffling of a body, the clicking of canine nails on a linoleum floor.
Within two minutes, Olivia Whitelaw had joined them, half-dragging, half-walking, her weight on the walker and her face haggard. Behind her, Faraday moved round the kitchen, banging pot lids and pots, slamming cupboards, ordering the dogs out of the way with an accompanying and angry, “Ouch!” and “Goddamn it!” to which Olivia said, “Have a care, Chris,” without removing her attention from Havers, who was wandering along the wall and reading the posters.
“I was having a lie do
“Your story’s not clear on last Wednesday night,” Lynley said. “Apparently, there are some details you’ve forgotten.”
“What the hell?” Faraday came out of the galley, the dogs at his heels and a dish-cloth in his hands, which he was drying. He lobbed it onto the dining table where it landed onto one of the plates laid for dinner. He went to Olivia’s side and when he would have helped her into one of the chairs, she said brusquely, “I can cope,” and lowered herself. She flung the walker to one side. The beagle dodged it with a yelp. He joined the mongrel in an investigation of Sergeant Havers’ brogues.
“Wednesday night?” Faraday said.
“Yes. Wednesday night.”
Faraday and Olivia exchanged a look. He said, “I’ve already told you. I went to a party in Clapham.”
“Yes. Tell me more about that party.” Lynley rested his weight against the arm of the chair opposite Olivia’s. Havers chose the stool next to the workbench. She crackled through her notebook to find a pristine page.
“What about it?”
“Who was the party for?”
“It wasn’t for anyone. It was just a group of blokes getting together to blow off steam.”
“Who are these blokes?”
“You want their names?” Faraday rubbed the back of his neck as if it was stiff. “Right.” He frowned and began a slow recitation of names, hesitating now and then to add something along the lines of, “Oh right. Bloke called Geoff was there as well. I’d not met him before.”
“And the address in Clapham?” Lynley asked.
It was on Orlando Road, he told them. He went to the workbench and pulled an old address book from among a collection of large battered volumes. He fingered through the pages, then read off the address, saying, “Chap called David Prior lives there. You want his number?”
“Please.”
Faraday recited it. Havers jotted it down. He shoved the address book among the other volumes and returned to Olivia, where he finally sat in the chair next to hers.
“Were there women at that party as well?” Lynley asked.
“It was stag. The women wouldn’t have fancied it much. You know. It was one of those sorts of parties.”