‘CADS must have made a packet out of this lot,’ said the wiry Scottish golf professional, a member of the European Ryder Cup team, who was queuing alongside Treasure. The two, who were friends, had returned to the buffet to refill their coffee cups after a modest, stand-up meal consisting mostly of cold meat cuts and fresh fruit.
‘Yes. Best attendance I can remember,’ the banker agreed, turning to survey the packed room. ‘Food was adequate too. All things considered,’ he added with a grin.
‘Considering the price of a ticket, you mean? Enough to pay for a slap-up dinner at the Ritz probably.’ The other chuckled. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know the money’s needed. And it’s a grand cause. I’m glad to ante up for it any time. My wife’s just shared a sprig of grapes with the Prime Minister and a Hollywood Oscar winner. That’s heady stuff, don’t you think?’
The Celebrities Against Drugs Society, CADS for short, usually held its early spring invitation luncheon here at the House of Lords—in the long, prettily papered Cholmondeley Room (pronounced Chumley) next to the terrace overlooking the Thames. As always, the event this time was high on prominent attenders and low on pomp. The other three CADS’ quarterly lunches were held at the MCC Cricket Ground in May, at Wentworth Golf Club at the start of a tournament in September, and at Covent Garden Opera House in November.
At the foundation of the CADS, members had been recruited almost exclusively from among sportsmen and women, but, in the ensuing nine years, leading figures from politics, religion, the arts and industry had been drawn in. Individually and collectively, members engaged to give their time, talents and money in the fight against drug abuse, and, as rôle models, to promote the same objective by setting a personal example, especially to the young. Molly Treasure, who her husband had last seen sharing a joke with the Bishop of Chichester and a bespectacled pop singer, had been one of the first actresses to join. She had been recruited by Berty Grenwood, a featherweight boxing Blue in his Oxford days, and one of the organization’s first sponsors, as well as the titular host at today’s function. Mark Treasure had never formally become a member because he refused to be rated as a celebrity. He just contributed to the funds and came to some of the lunches in support of Molly and Berty.
‘I think your delicious wife is signalling you,’ said the golfer as he and Treasure moved away from the serving table.
‘Time to leave, I expect,’ said the banker, looking at his watch. CADS lunches were usually arranged to be over by two-fifteen. There were no formal speeches, only some brief words of welcome and thanks from the annually elected Chief Cad—on this occasion a recently knighted novelist.
‘Darling, you haven’t said hello to our favourite dancer,’ Molly exclaimed after her husband had elbowed his way back to her. He had stopped to exchange greetings with Andras Linkina, whose recent dour mood seemed to have been temporarily lifted by the vivacious female German violinist he had brought as his guest.
‘Good to see you, Stephen,’ said the banker, shaking hands with one of the Royal Ballet’s most admired soloists. ‘We’re coming to watch you in the new production of Façade next month,’ he volunteered, fairly but not totally certain that he had the details right. Ballet came some way after opera in his list of favourite diversions.
‘Thank you, Mark, and for turning up today,’ replied the dancer, who was a member of the CADS committee. His voice was breathy, and deep-throated.
‘Actually it’s a revival of Checkmate they’re doing, darling, not Façade,’ Molly corrected her husband.
‘Good try, though,’ said Treasure, unabashed.
‘Absolutely. Same period, but music by Arthur Bliss not William Walton. Easy mistake to make, love,’ Stephen put in quickly, with a sympathizing smile, and leaving it uncertain as to which of his two listeners he had been addressing with the last endearment.
The dancer was well built, fair-haired and ruggedly handsome, with laughing eyes, a lantern jaw, and as mannered in his movements off the stage as he was on it. ‘And now I want you both to meet a really very dear friend of mine. Very dear indeed,’ he went on, with an over-played preamble, as he moved gracefully to one side revealing a drab young woman who had been standing behind him. Whether the woman had been waiting there for some time or had been engaged with someone else wasn’t clear, though it seemed that the former was the likelier case judging from her forsaken appearance. Stephen now presented her to the others with rising fervour, his right arm pressed into the small of her back, his left hand taking hers, and deftly lifting it chest high across his own body. It was altogether as though she was a dancing partner he was bringing forward for a curtain call—except that the shapeless, shabbily clad figure and the object of these special attentions made them seem comical and, for her, evidently embarrassing.
‘This is Nora Hawker,’ said Stephen. ‘Nora’s the committee’s most indispensable honorary secretary whom I love to distraction,’ he completed, this time drawing her closer to him and planting a kiss on her pallid cheek in a somewhat less than distracted fashion.
‘I’ve heard a great deal about you, Nora,’ said Molly, taking her hand warmly. ‘I believe Stephen told me you once worked for one of my husband’s companies. Was it the bank? Grenwood, Phipps?’
Nora Hawker gulped. ‘No … not the bank … it was … I worked for Regal Sun Assurance. In Holborn … but only as a secretary,’ she replied in a dry, halting voice, twice having to clear her throat as she spoke, and leaning forward, shoulders hunched, chest hollowed, hands now clasped together tightly below her waist.
‘Sounds as though we were careless in letting you leave,’ said Treasure, hoping she wasn’t someone he should have remembered—although as non-executive chairman of the insurance company there was an excusable limit to the numbers of employees he could be expected to know, even at head office.
‘My mother was taken ill. I had to give up regular work to look after her.’ In addressing Treasure the speaker seemed a trifle less nervous than she had been before.
‘Our gain, though,’ Stephen enthused. ‘Nora keeps the membership list up to date from home. And the annual subscriptions. So complicated, and such a labour.’ He ran one hand up across his curly hair, then down the back of his head bringing it to rest finally under his uplifted chin, the fingers posed like an open plinth.
‘It’s … it’s a privilege to be of service,’ the woman put in seriously, and boldly for her.
‘Bless you,’ cried the dancer, then, turning to Molly, he said: ‘And you must remember Nora’s twin brother Bobby, the dancer? He was such a promising boy.’
The actress’s right hand went to her mouth in a sharp reflex reaction. ‘My dear, you were Bobby Hawker’s sister? I should have realized. I can see the likeness now.’ She reached out to touch the other woman’s arm. ‘He had such talent. I was … I was so sorry at the time. You must miss him still.’
‘Yes.’
Molly turned to her husband. ‘You remember Bobby Hawker? He died very young. So tragically. It was …’ She hesitated.
‘They made him a drug addict. They killed him,’ said Nora with stark firmness, and to Treasure again.
‘Bobby and Jimmy Atler were … were very close,’ Stephen supplied, filling the ensuing conversational gap, and darting a glance at Molly.
‘Atler the footballer? Who plays for the Eels now?’ asked Treasure.
‘That’s right,’ said the dancer. ‘Great CADS supporter. Absolutely dedicated to the cause. Especially since Bobby’s death. Jimmy and Nora don’t really … What I mean is, Jimmy never makes the spring and winter lunches, but he always buys tickets.’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ Nora said with firmness, as though she were under an obligation to admit as much. ‘Jimmy’s always offering to bring me. Or give me his ticket like now. I’ve never wanted to come with him before, though. Except today I … I’m glad I’m here.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry Jimmy couldn’t be here too.’
‘That’s right, love,’ said Stephen putting his arm around her again and giving her a squeeze as though she had said something especially commendable.
‘It’s certainly an impressive gathering,’ said Molly.
‘Yes,’ the younger woman answered, but hesitantly as though that might not have been the reason for her presence.
‘D’you follow football, Miss Hawker?’ Treasure asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Although if Jimmy Atler’s a friend, of course—’
‘He was my mother’s friend, not mine,’ she put in, pulling at the corners of the orange silk scarf knotted around her neck.
‘I see.’
Stephen again broke the awkward silence that followed. ‘The papers say you’re going to be chairman of the Eels, Mark. Was Ray Bims going anyway? Because of the scandal? And was he really murdered? By Stan Bodworski? They’re saying the police are keeping—’
‘The police interviewed Stan Bodworski and haven’t … detained him,’ the banker interrupted.
‘Is there anyone else in the frame, as they say?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Treasure replied untruthfully, since he had several candidates in mind for that unenviable position.
‘Poison is too kind a death for a millionaire drug dealer,’ Nora Hawker uttered suddenly in a penetrating voice, loud enough to turn the head of the attractive Olympic swimmer being charmed by Berty Grenwood several paces away.
‘Why does Merlin Court mean something to me? The police inspector mentioned it, and it’s been bugging me ever since. Do we know someone there?’ Treasure asked Miss Gaunt as he was leaving her office for his own after arriving back at the bank. They had checked his appointments for the afternoon.
‘I believe Mrs Grantock has premises there,’ Miss Gaunt replied, looking up again from her keyboard.
When Treasure’s meticulous secretary volunteered to him that she ‘believed’ something, he had long understood it meant that the something was indisputable fact. Otherwise she’d have gone to look it up.
‘Whoever Mrs Grantock may be,’ he replied, still hovering in front of her desk, his eyebrows raised while he waited for further enlightenment.
Miss Gaunt pushed back her chair and removed her glasses. ‘She and her husband run a finishing school for foreign nationals. She wrote last year asking if you’d recommend it. You said you would, if … if opportunity arose.’ She made a face indicating that he hadn’t thought opportunity ever would. ‘Oh, and Mrs Grantock is Linda Linkina that was. Andras Linkina’s oldest daughter. He sometimes gives talks to the students.’
The last valuable intelligence gave Treasure a sudden empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, despite the adequate lunch. He called Linkina immediately, but the only reply came from an answering machine, which is why he had Miss Gaunt telephone the Grantock Finishing School.
‘Mrs Grantock wasn’t available. But you were right about Mr Linkina being there recently,’ Miss Gaunt related, coming into Treasure’s office between meetings later, and with her notebook and a folder. ‘He was there this morning. Gave a talk to the girls with illustrations on the piano. It’s the most popular session in the term. Well, that’s not surprising, is it?’ Being one of Andras Linkina’s keenest admirers, for once she was unable to suppress a personal opinion. ‘He stayed for coffee with some of the girls afterwards.’ She paused, opening her notebook. ‘D’you want to write to him?’
Treasure shook his head.
‘Here are the papers for your meeting at the Stock Exchange at four-thirty.’ She handed him the folder. ‘And Mr Harden, the manager of Eel Bridge Rovers, rang, asked if you’d ring him back.’
‘Sure.’ He glanced at the time. ‘Would you get him for me?’
After his secretary had returned to her office, Treasure contemplated the worst interpretation of what he had just learned. Linkina, obsessed with the need to clear Bodworski of murder, could well have suborned students from his daughter’s finishing school into clearing his compatriot with false testimony. If this was what had happened, not only would the two girls be liable to prosecution, but Linkina himself could be risking arrest as an accessory to murder—or even, perish the thought, as an actual suspected murderer.
Naturally, Treasure was never going to accept that Linkina had poisoned Bims, or beaten up Lilian Bodworski. The fact remained that the Polish pianist had motive enough for both crimes and could have made the opportunity for committing them. At least, that was the way the police might see things, starting with the fact that Linkina could certainly have burgled the Supporters Club since he was one of the people officially in possession of a key to the place.
In the case of Bodworski the banker did not have misgivings born either of friendship or dogged partiality. He had done his best to prove the man innocent at Linkina’s urgent request. In cold reason, if Bodworski didn’t have a real alibi for the afternoon of Bims’s murder after all, in Treasure’s estimation he was still someone with a massive motive for the crime—until, of course, one considered the new competing claim of Ian Crayborn.
If Bodworski had killed Bims, in the last analysis, his reasons could even be defended. If Crayborn had done it, the reasons were despicable, which was why Treasure could not yet bring himself to believe what Joyce Bims must have been equally reluctant to accept. Circumstantially there was a case against the accountant, but only that. Treasure had firmly told Molly to dissuade the first Lady Bims from doing anything irrevocable in the matter for the time being. He had also promised to confront Crayborn and asked Miss Gaunt to find him.
In the course of the busy afternoon, something else pertinent was temporarily driven out of Treasure’s mind. It had stemmed from his parting conversation with Stephen at lunch. They had been alone at the time, and the dancer had enlarged on what he had said earlier about the personal relationship between Nora Hawker and Jimmy Atler. On reflection, this had suggested a possible new relevance to Treasure. He had intended to get back to Stephen about it, but missed doing so.
‘Hello, is that you, Felix?’ he said into the telephone when Miss Gaunt transferred the call to Harden. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘ ’Afternoon, Mr Treasure. Thanks for ringing back. Very good of you. Very good indeed.’ The voice was noticeably hesitant, the gratitude overdone. ‘This is probably out of order, but me and three of the players … we’d like to see you. It’s pretty urgent. To talk about the future, like. Off the record.’
‘I see. You know I’ve no official status at Hugon Road yet?’
‘You’re chairman elect. That’s good enough for us.’
‘Which three players?’
‘The important ones. Malc Dirn, the captain, and the two strikers, Gareth Trisall and Jimmy Atler.’
‘Not Bodworski? Isn’t he important enough?’ But he was testing more than Harden’s opinion of the Pole as a footballer.
There was a pause at the other end. ‘No insult to Stan, Mr Treasure, but he’s too cut up to think straight at the moment.’
It was a stand-off reply. ‘I think I understand. But perhaps some of the other directors should be involved too?’
‘Just you, Mr Treasure,’ Harden replied with more spirit than before. It was evidently the point he was determined to stand on—he and the others, probably.
‘All right. I’ll see you. But off the record as you say.’ He leaned forward to eye his diary. ‘What about this evening?’
‘This evening?’
‘Yes. You said it was urgent.’
‘Oh … oh, great.’ The response was one of pleasure, tinged still with surprise.
‘My house at eight. I’ll arrange a bite of supper.’