Game Over

glad he had not had to shake hands.

Bell looked to be in his late fifties, although he could have been older but very well preserved. His face was firm and pleasantly tanned, and Atherton supposed it was handsome in a tough Daniel Craig sort of way. He did not have to suppose that women would find Bell attractive – that was well documented. But to talk of Candida Scott- Chatton fancying a bit of rough was to miss the point entirely. This was a rich, powerful and clever man; and after being married to her earl (who by all accounts was a bit of a wet), then mistress of virtuous Ed Stonax, and having worked in the charitable sector all her life among fluffy volunteers and the terminally well-meaning, she might well have been pining for stronger meat and drink even without knowing it. And Atherton could see that it would be intoxicating – if you could keep it down.

Nine

Green Unpleasant Land

‘Well, Sergeant, what did you want to talk to me about?’ said Freddie Bell. He did not look at his watch, nor say, ‘I’m a busy man,’ as lesser men would. He stood quite still, an extra stillness in this unnaturally quiet room, as though like a black hole he drew all sound and movement into himself. Atherton could feel the astronomical mass of him and almost wanted to take hold of something to keep himself from sliding helplessly across the carpet like a pin towards a magnet.

Was that why they called them magnates? he wondered frivolously. He took a grip on himself and got to the point. ‘Ed Stonax,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ said Bell, his eyes searching Atherton’s face briefly. ‘I read about the murder. Terrible thing.’ His voice was dark and gritty but without accent, except a sort of man-of-the-people ordinariness. He had grown up in t’north but had long ago shed any regional markers. ‘Some punk broke in and robbed him. But you’ve got the man – didn’t I see on the TV you’ve arrested someone?’

‘Yes,’ said Atherton.

‘Well, it doesn’t look as if you need my help, then.’ One of several telephones on the massive desk rang, and he said, ‘Excuse me. I have to take this.’ He went round the desk so that he could answer without turning his back on Atherton, and kept his eyes fixed on him as he said, ‘Yes?’ and then listened. ‘Let him go to a hundred, then cut him off. No. Tell King and Morris to stand by. OK.’

He put the phone down, sat down, and gestured Atherton to a chair in front of him. ‘So, what is it, then?’

‘Can you tell me when you last saw him?’

‘Month, six weeks ago. He came to see me here. Had a brief chat, then he was on his way.’

‘What did you chat about?’

‘This and that. Time of day. Nothing in particular.’

‘He came to see you, and then didn’t have anything in particular to say to you? I find that hard to believe, such busy people as you both are.’

Bell made a restless movement. ‘He asked me about Salford Quays. Big retail development in Manchester.’

‘I’ve heard of it. What did he want to know?’

‘He asked how much a development like that would stand to make for an investor. I told him it depended on how much you had to pay for the land.’

‘Why did he ask you that?’

‘I don’t know. I said did he have something in mind and he said no, he was just interested. Then he asked me about government investment – Salford had quite an injection for the infrastructure – and I said he should come and see me when I had more time and I’d tell him what I knew. Then he pissed off.’

Atherton could make nothing of all this. ‘Did he often ask you for investment advice?’

‘No. Doubt if he had anything to invest. Anything else?’

Atherton took the plunge. ‘Candida Scott-Chatton,’ he said. Bell’s expression, bright and watchful like a cat at a mouse hole, did not change. ‘I understand you’re seeing her.’

‘Yes. What about it?’

He wasn’t going to offer anything. Atherton was going to have to ask. ‘I wondered how you felt about the fact that she was also still seeing Ed Stonax.’

‘Why should I feel anything about that?’

‘Well, there was an occasion some years back when you got rather riled about a similar situation. A fight outside the Ram pub in Manchester, a young woman called Sharon Railton, a – shall we say? – business rival called Gus Oldfield. Oldfield ends up in hospital with a knife wound. Ring any bells?’

As he spoke, he saw Freddie Bell relax, and was intrigued. What had he been afraid of, Atherton wondered, that was worse than having this bad episode from his past brought up again?

‘That was ten years ago,’ he said, ‘and you know perfectly well that the police found no knife and Gus refused to press charges. It was just a bit of high spirits, a friendly tussle, and the press got hold of the wrong end of the stick, as usual. There was nothing between me and Sharon Railton and she was free to go out with anyone she pleased as far as I was concerned. And Gus accidentally wounded himself when he slipped over and fell on some broken glass.’

‘It was a very neat wound for broken glass,’ Atherton said. He had read the files. Frustration on the part of the police breathed from every line. Despite the fight taking place outside a popular pub at chucking-out time, following a violent argument inside about the girl, the witnesses had all melted away when questioned. No-one had seen anything.

‘Gus said himself that was what happened, Sharon confirmed it, and I don’t know why you’re dragging all this up again. I’m a peaceable man. I’ve never gone tooled up. I don’t need to.’

‘A man as powerful as you,’ Atherton said, ‘with so many loyal employees, certainly doesn’t need to.’

But Freddie Bell only laughed and shook his head. He ought to have been – or at least have pretended to be – annoyed at the suggestion, but he wasn’t, which bothered Atherton more than a bit. ‘It’s no good sizing me up for Ed Stonax’s murder. You’d never get me to fit. Apart from everything else, I liked Ed. He and I worked on several projects together, and I gave him money on more than one occasion for his campaigns. Why on earth would I wish him harm?’

‘Men have fallen out over less tasty dishes than Candida Scott-Chatton.’

‘She’s a grown woman, she can choose for herself who to go out with. And I’m not so infatuated I can’t cope with her seeing another man as well. I knew it was Ed she was in love with, and good luck to it. I didn’t want to marry her. I’m not the marrying kind. Besides, it was Ed who suggested it.’

‘Ed Stonax suggested you started seeing his woman?’ Atherton said with derision; and yet he felt uncomfortably that it was going to turn out to be true. Freddie Bell might have literally fought his way out of the mean streets and have built his empire on ruthlessness and sometimes questionable acts, but he had crossed the line now into a world of such wealth that it guaranteed its own respectability. He looked massive and unshakable, like a national monument.

‘Look,’ he said, easing himself in his chair as if for a long chat, ‘I’m going to tell you the whole story, because I can’t afford to have you lot tramping about all over my business and my private life. This is the truth, and you can believe it or not, it’s up to you.’

‘Fair enough,’ Atherton said.

‘I’ve known Candida for a long time,’ said Freddie Bell. ‘I always quite fancied her. She isn’t as strait-laced as she looks, you know. That girl likes a bit of fun. She could drink you under the table, and get her in the right mood and she’s got a stack of filthy stories that would curl your nose-hair. A lot of those public-school, rich-daddy, Tatler girls are like that. Butter wouldn’t melt and all that, but they go like trains in the right company. Anyway, Cand was married to that twerp Bannister when she was eighteen and only just out of school. It was her parents’ choice, and she went along with it because she didn’t know any better, and he wasn’t bad looking. But he was so wet he was a non-starter, and he must have bored her to tears. So she started doing