Game Over

were after her.

‘I can’t stay long,’ she said, fumbling in her handbag for a cigarette. She offered them to Swilley, who took one in the interests of the case, though she hardly ever smoked any more. Shawna lit them both and savaged the weed as though it was her last. ‘She doesn’t like me smoking,’ she said, ‘and of course I can’t do it in the office, but it’s in my contract, two ten minute breaks as well as lunch-hour, and she can’t stop me taking them. But I daren’t be a minute late.’

‘All right, what did you want to tell me?’ Swilley asked calmly.

‘Only to set the record straight, that’s all, because it’s so shocking about poor Ed Stonax. He was such a lovely man. He often used to come into the office, and always so polite and friendly. Not like some people, who think they’re better than everyone else. But he was a complete gentleman.’

‘Well, up to a point,’ Swilley said. ‘There was that three-in-a-bed stuff last year.’

‘Oh, that!’ Shawna said with robust scorn. ‘Well, if you want my opinion, there was something fishy about that. I said so at the time. He just wouldn’t do a thing like that. If you want to know what I think, I think he was drugged to make him do it. Because there was no way he would have if he was in his right mind.’

‘But then why didn’t he complain about it afterwards?’

She shrugged. ‘Oh, well, you know how these things go. Once something’s been in the papers no-one ever believes you again. He’d have just looked like a fool to argue. And according to what I heard they gave him a big settlement, so unless he wanted his job back he was better to leave sleeping dogs lie. And he wouldn’t have wanted it back after that, would he? Besides, they’d never have given it him anyway because I believe that’s what they did it for, the whole photo thing – to get rid of him. But that wasn’t good enough for madam.’ She jerked her head back towards the office. ‘Dropped him like a hot potato as soon as he was in trouble.’

‘I heard that she stood by him,’ Swilley said.

‘The moment she realised there was bad publicity in it, she gave him the elbow. She’s mad about publicity – lives for it – but it’s got to be the right kind. Got to reflect well on Miss Snooty Pants and the old school, doncha know.’ She put on a ludicrous ‘posh’ accent.

‘When you say she gave him the elbow . . .?’

‘There was this time, just after it all broke, when she phoned him and I picked up the line by mistake. Well, I couldn’t put it down again because it would have made a click and then she’d have thought I was listening.’

‘So you listened?’

She had no shame about it. The end had justified the means for her. ‘I heard him say they needed to talk about it, and she said no they didn’t, there was nothing to say. So then he said could he come round and see her and she said he could, but it wouldn’t make any difference, he wouldn’t be able to change her mind. So then he rang off and about half an hour later he came in through the door and she took him into her office and shut the door. I couldn’t hear what they were saying – they must have been keeping their voices down – but then she buzzed me and when I went in they were standing on opposite sides of the room, and she was quite red in the face and he was looking really fed up. So she says, all polite and chilly, “Will you have a cup of coffee?” And he says, “No, thank you. I’d better go.” Might just as well have said, “No thanks, it’d choke me,” because it was obvious he’d been pleading with her and she’d been giving him the old heave-ho. So he just up and leaves, and she turns to me and says, “I think you should know that Mr Stonax and I are no longer going out together.” I felt like saying, surprise, surprise!’

‘I wonder why she would tell you that,’ Swilley said, almost to herself.

‘Well, we all knew how things were between them before that, so I suppose she was making sure we knew she wanted nothing more to do with him. Too good for him, the stuck-up cow.’

‘But he had two-timed her in a pretty nasty way.’

‘I told you, I never believed in that. He was set up. Anyway, what about “stand by your man”? She should have forgiven him and taken him back,’ Shawna said sententiously, straight from the pages of whatever magazine she had most recently been reading. It wasn’t Country Life, that was for sure. ‘Anyway, before you can turn round, she’s started going out with someone else.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Freddie Bell,’ Shawn said, with a certain ripe, significant look.

‘The casino mogul?’

‘That’s him. And a real rough diamond he is. When he comes in the office to see her it’s “What are you lot staring at? Haven’t you got any work to do?” Never stopping for a chat like poor Mr Stonax did.’

Swilley was fascinated. ‘Are you sure about that – Candida Scott-Chatton going out with Freddie Bell? I wouldn’t have thought he was her type at all.’

‘Well, if you want my opinion, she likes a bit of rough. And of course he’s mega-rich. It got her into the papers all right – didn’t you see?’ Swilley shook her head. ‘They were photographed together all over the place. Rubbing Mr Stonax’s nose in it, I thought.’

‘So she wasn’t still seeing Ed Stonax?’

‘You kidding? He was history. Besides, Freddie Bell’s not the sharing type, and he’s got a temper on him. He broke that bloke’s arm just for looking at his girlfriend funny – didn’t you read about that? It was in What She Wants and Chat magazines.’

‘I don’t get those.’

‘I couldn’t live without them! It’s the only way you find out what’s really going on in this world. Anyway, that was years ago, but it shows what kind of man he is. I suppose that’s what she likes. So all I’m saying, if she comes over all holier-than-thou and pretends to be the grieving widow, don’t you believe her.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Christ, I must go.’ She dashed the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out.

Swilley said, ‘Thanks, you’ve been a great help. Just one last thing – did she see Mr Stonax at all after that time?’

‘Oh, yes, now and then, because they were interested in the same campaigns. But it was just official stuff. Freddie Bell would never have stood for anything else.’

The rest of Stonax’s flat seemed as immaculate as the drawing-room, except for the obvious signs of forensic activity. There were taped ‘safe lines’, and Slider conducted Emily Stonax through them to look around the flat. She seemed pale but in control, and said that she couldn’t see anything out of place or missing. ‘It all looks just the same,’ she said. There was a bad moment when they looked into the spare room. She said, ‘He made the bed up for me,’ and pressed her fingers to the inner corners of her eyes, to keep the tears back. When they came to his bedroom, she couldn’t speak at all.

Bob Bailey came up to say to Slider in a low tone, ‘We didn’t find any money, credit cards or wallet, but there are a couple of watches in one of the drawers. If you could ask her . . .?’

Slider offered her his handkerchief and she shook her head, dragged out another tissue, blew her nose briskly and said in a reasonably controlled way, ‘They’ll have been his old watches. Dad had a gold Oyster Perpetual he wore all the time. He loved it. He was always mad about watches and of course he needed a good, reliable one in his work, but the Oyster was his great treasure. Candida bought it for him last Christmas, and I don’t think he ever took it off, except in the shower.’

Seeing she was back in charge, Bailey asked, ‘We didn’t find a mobile phone . . .?’

She turned to him. ‘He had the latest Nikoti Cyber-box, the F283. It’s a 3G Smartphone that does everything – VGA camera, camcorder, mobile, broadband, video calling, the lot, plus the electronic notebook facility. You can write or dictate notes into it and download them to your computer through a wireless link. He took it everywhere. It would have been in his pocket.’

Slider nodded. Even he had heard of the Cyber-box. There had been queues round the block in New York when it came out, gadget aficionados wanting to be the first to own one. It made robbery from the person look a better bet.

‘We’ll put a trace on it. And on his credit cards, once we have the numbers. I suppose all that sort of thing will be in his office.’ There was something at the back of his mind which wouldn’t come forward, but it prompted him to ask, without really knowing why, ‘Did your dad have a fountain pen or a fancy ballpoint? A Mont Blanc or anything like that, that he carried in his pocket?’