Joanna Clarke had amazed every tennis fan in the country as well as herself by winning her first-round match. She beamed with pleasure when Angela congratulated her.
“Oh, thank you, yes, it’s such a relief to be through.”
As soon as she’d finished speaking, though, a worried expression appeared at the back of her eyes and Angela wondered why. She was fresh from a win with nearly forty-eight hours till her next match. Most people would want to savour the moment. Of course, the indications were that she had just been dumped by a highly desirable boyfriend and that was enough to take the gloss off any sort of victory. Angela quickly took in the bitten nails and the pallor of an otherwise flawless complexion. Joanna wasn’t very tall by modern female tennis player standards: about five feet five. She had light brown hair, hazel eyes and sat stiffly in her chair looking very much as though she wanted to be somewhere else.
“Right,” continued Angela gently. “I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you questions about a much less pleasant subject.”
“I understand,” replied Joanna in a small, tight voice.
Angela launched herself into the now familiar preliminary questions. The times and details relating to Sunday’s meal contained no surprises. After the younger woman had finished, Angela smiled in a friendly manner and relaxed back in her chair hoping that it would encourage Joanna to do the same, but the girl remained rigid.
“It must have been an awful shock when you heard that Petar was dead, Joanna,” she began. She noted the sudden flash of sadness in Joanna’s eyes.
“I’ll say. I was really upset. I still can’t quite believe it.”
Angela nodded. “That’s normal, especially with a sudden death. How well did you know Petar?”
“He was very kind to me.”
“Yes?” queried Angela, hoping the question in her voice would invite further confidences.
Joanna kept her gaze fixed on the edge of the desk between them, but her voice wobbled a little as she continued: “He was just always nice to me. He was very positive about… things. He made me feel special.” She started to flounder, and there was a pause. Then she seemed to get herself back on track and looked Angela in the eye, clear about what she wanted to say. “Petar tried to encourage me, to build up my confidence. I’ve not been playing too well lately; well, I know I’ve won today and I’m really pleased with that, but I’ve been a bit off form for quite a while now. Petar tried to help me; tried to point out things here and there that would improve my game.”
“And did they?” asked Angela. She was intrigued. She had the definite impression that at first Joanna hadn’t been talking about tennis.
“Oh yes,” Joanna looked quite animated now. “He was fun to be around.”
“So – he didn’t seem to have any worries lately, anything on his mind?”
“No, I wouldn’t have thought so. I think things were going well for him…” Joanna tailed off as if unsure about the appropriateness of what she had been about to say.
Blast, thought Angela and told herself very firmly to depart from the box-ticking exercise and take a risk. “I understand there was the chance of a reconciliation with his wife,” she ventured.
Joanna looked relieved that the subject had been broached and visibly relaxed. “Yes. I think he was really happy with the way things were going. You could tell.”
Joanna looked so manifestly glad about the new accord between Petar and his wife that Angela felt no qualms about probing further. “I gather that Lavinia Bannister wasn’t too pleased about this development,” she said.
A gleam appeared in Joanna’s eye that might have been a distant cousin of malice, but it was gone in an instant. Her lip curled ever so slightly and then, surprisingly, she giggled. “It was a bit embarrassing really, and it was all Stewart’s fault.”
“Oh really? Are you referring to a particular occasion?”
“Yeah. It was when we were deciding to go for a meal on Sunday. After we’d settled on the restaurant I saw Petar walk off a little way and make a call on his mobile. I heard him say, ‘Hi, Una’ and then he went out of earshot. Vinni was at the club and I could see her talking to some people on the other side of the room. We were still kind of hanging around before actually leaving when Vinni came over to us and Stewart invited her to join us.”
“Ah, that must have been awkward.”
“It was. I pulled Stewart back and told him that I thought Petar had invited Una, but he just told me not to be silly, that Petar wouldn’t do that when he was at the club with Vinni.”
“Was Petar at the club with Lavinia, as such?” asked Angela. Joanna frowned as she thought about it.
“Well, to be honest I didn’t really think so. Some of the publicity work she does is related to tennis and she represents a couple of players, so… I mean, she would have been there for her job anyway and I didn’t see them talking to each other much. Mind you, it was quite crowded for a while. Stewart seemed convinced they were there together so I didn’t argue.”
Angela nodded. This was becoming interesting. “So what happened then?”
“I think Petar sent her – Una, I mean – I think he sent her a text. He was texting while we were all hanging about waiting for a table. In any case, she didn’t turn up.”
“Have you any idea how Lavinia felt about that?” asked Angela, thinking back over Philip Turnbull’s account of a muted argument.
Joanna nodded. The amusement in her voice was unmistakeable. “She was furious,” she said.
“Really?” asked Angela, putting as much encouragement into her tone as she could.
“Oh yes! When we had sat down, Petar excused himself to go to the loo and he left his jacket over the back of the chair. She thought nobody had noticed but I saw her take his phone out of his side pocket and she just went through the menus as if it was her phone and she was checking something. I reckon she saw the text he sent to Una. She certainly would have seen her name in the call log. Her own handbag was on Petar’s chair at that point and she made as if to put the phone into it but I saw her slip it back into his pocket.”
“So she was keeping tabs on the prospect of Petar getting back with Una?”
“I’ll say. She’s been in denial about it for weeks, but now… well, she can’t keep it up much longer.”
“How has she managed to be in denial? Even I’ve heard the rumours.”
Joanna grinned. “Her story is that Petar and Una have had to talk about the kids. Milan is going to be doing his GCSEs this year and they have to discuss where he’s going to do A levels – at a sixth-form college or whatever. And Lucija is finishing junior school in the summer, and there’s been all the business of choosing a senior school for her. But basically they are – were – getting back together again and you can tell that Petar’s – was – really pleased about that.”
“I gather Lavinia wasn’t too happy during the meal, either,” ventured Angela, reluctant to stop the flow.
“That’s right; she wasn’t. She’s saying she was his partner but she could never manage to persuade him to move in and lately she couldn’t even get him to stay the night. Well, I don’t especially like Lavinia but being dumped is no fun…”
She tailed off as a pink flush spread across her neck and face and she cast a brief, self-conscious glance at Angela. Angela nodded as if the answer and its rider were no more than she would expect. She didn’t want Joanna to feel embarrassed, partly out of a sense of compassion but also because she would probably want to speak to her again and didn’t want the younger woman to feel anything but comfortable in her presence. She guessed this well had far from run dry, but she already had much food for thought in what she’d heard so far, and felt it to be enough for the moment. Besides, Joanna’s last remark seemed to have recalled her own situation and Angela could see that misery had descended on her. A mask of sadness settled across the young woman’s features and her head and shoulders slumped.
Angela waited long enough to let her recover, thanked her for her time and let her go.
She felt acutely aware that it was getting late. Her team would be tired. It was time to get them in here, see what they had been up to and examine the information they had managed to find out.
Five minutes later, she gazed solemnly around at them all and sensed a collective hope that they would be sent home after this meeting – a desire with which she felt in total sympathy.
“OK,” she said. “It’s been a long day and we all want to go home so let’s get on with it. Rick, Jim, what have you got?”
Jim spread his hands. “The invisible man, I think, Angie. We’ve spoken to the security guards who were on during the night. One or two of them saw him leaving the club with some friends for a meal, but not one of them saw him come back in again. The thing is, the gate is manned twenty-four seven so someone must be lying.”
Angela cocked her head slightly and assumed a sardonic expression.
“And why would they lie?”
Jim grinned. “Oh, well now, that’s a toughie.” He tapped his lips and feigned puzzlement. Angela waited, humouring him. “OK, I’ve got it. If someone had popped out and was having a forbidden smoke or something like that, attention would be diverted, wouldn’t it?”
Angela smiled, “When we get back to the incident room we need to put a large question mark in felt-tip pen by the words ‘security staff’ on the board. While we’re on the subject of security – did all those questioned know Petar?”
“Yeah, they all seemed to know who he was, Angie,” replied Rick. “He was a member here anyway and also, as a coach to Stewart Bickerstaff, he had a pass. Nobody said they didn’t know him by sight.” Angela nodded and made a mental note of what she had heard – “They all seemed to know who he was” and “Nobody said they didn’t know him by sight”. She would be willing to bet that Jim and Rick hadn’t spoken to the men individually but had gathered as many as were available together and addressed them as a group. She conceded that they still didn’t know if this would develop into a murder enquiry but even so she didn’t want any cracks in the investigation through which possibly important witnesses could slip. She opened her notebook to start a list that she hoped wouldn’t grow very long: Follow Up/Go Over.
“What about CCTV?” she asked.
“Sorting that out is next up on our list, Angie,” replied Rick.
“OK, what about the ground staff?”
“Nobody around at that time,” supplied Jim. “They put their lawns to bed for the night and went home.” Angela nodded and wrote “keep an open mind” by the words “ground staff”.
She brought everybody up to speed on the interviews she herself had conducted during the day, then dismissed the team for the evening.
Patrick leaned across the bed and topped up Angela’s glass. She thanked him and sank further back into the pillows piled against the headboard before taking a sip. “Mmm, that hits the spot,” she said, setting the glass down on her bedside cabinet. “How’s your day been?”
Patrick refilled his own glass and sat cross-legged on his side of the bed. He wanted to know all about her first day at running a case but could see she wasn’t yet ready to talk about it.
“Pretty routine,” he replied. “The most interesting thing happened just after I got home. I had a call from Martin.”
“Oh, really?” Martin was Father Martin Buchanan from the nearby parish of the Immaculate Conception, where Angela and Patrick attended Mass. Angela found herself wondering idly where Tessa Riordan would be going to church during the tournament.
“Yeah,” continued Patrick. “He wants me to take someone under my wing for a while. It’s a man who’s been lapsed for some years and has just come back to the church. I’m to introduce him around and, er…”
“Befriend him?”
“Yeah, that’s it; just until he’s found his feet. Martin says his idea of keeping a Lenten fast is to drink an inferior brand of whisky, but his heart’s in the right place.”
This made her laugh out loud, as he knew it would.
“That’s my girl; you look a bit better now. I was worried about you.”
“Really, darling?”
“Yes, you looked so pale when you first came in, and I thought you seemed strained.”
“I think it must have just hit me as I walked in the door. I’ve been on good form all day.”
“Hmm… running on adrenalin, I expect.” He peered into her face, his eyebrows raised. “Do we have flight?”
Angela grinned. “Funny, that’s just how Superintendent Stanway put it when he gave me the job. ‘This is where you get your wings’ is what he said.”
“Congratulations, Inspector; how does it feel?”
“Well…” she was thoughtful for a moment. “I’m quite excited about it. I think it’s going to be OK.” She frowned.
“But what?”
Angela shook herself. “I’ve got a sneaky feeling that my biggest problem will be working with Jim and Rick. Well, no; actually, Jim.”
“Ah.”
“Mmm,” she mused. “He’s not slapdash as such and I don’t think he’d actually cut corners. It’s just that he’s inclined to glide round them a little too smoothly. And Rick’s a nice bloke but I don’t think he’s strong enough to contain his partner. The thing is, we have to work together and I don’t want to have them becoming resentful if I point out elementary stuff about collecting information which even the most raw recruit could get their head round. Trouble is, Jim’s a bit bull-headed. I had to hint to him that his attitude wasn’t as helpful as it could be, and I don’t think he liked it very much.”
Patrick took a sip of his wine and studied Angela for a moment, his head cocked to one side.
“What?” she asked eventually.
“You get on pretty well with your colleagues, don’t you, Angela?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she answered, puzzled at the question.
“The thing is, you’ve been promoted because it’s perceived that you’re a competent officer. You have the intelligence and imagination necessary for the job. You haven’t been promoted in order to be more popular.”
Angela nodded. Before he had moved into the coroner’s service, Patrick had been a policeman himself, reaching the same rank that Angela now held.
“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks for that, Paddy. I’ll deal with it as and when the situation demands.”
“That’s my girl,” he said. They chinked glasses and drank in companionable silence for a few minutes.
Angela was aware, though, that Patrick showed no disposition to lean back against his own pillows. Eventually she spoke. “You’ve put my mind at rest, Paddy.”
He looked at her. “That’s good, darling. I’m glad I’m able to help.”
“Perhaps I can do the same for you.”
He turned a look of astonishment on her. “How did you…?”
She smiled. “We’ve been married a couple of years now, Pads. We’d be a bit thick if we hadn’t learned to read each other at least a little in that time.”
He gave a short laugh and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, but the ensuing silence showed that he still felt awkward about proceeding and Angela knew she was going to have to help him out.
“Whenever you jolly me along or encourage me about something and I take on board what you’ve said, you usually say to me, ‘That’s my girl.’”
“Am I that predictable?”
“Don’t worry, I like it.” Angela moved over so that she could put her hands on his knees and look directly into his face. “The thing is, I’m not your only girl, am I? You have another one that takes up a lot of your attention.”
“My goodness, you have learned to read me well.”
Angela smiled. “So, what’s happening with Maddie?”
When Angela had met Patrick four years earlier he’d been a widower for twelve years with a seventeen-year-old daughter. Angela watched him take a deep breath before speaking, wondering why he was nervous about what he had to say.
“Her plans to share a flat with her two best friends from uni have fallen through.”
Angela nodded.
“And she hasn’t managed to get a job yet,” said Patrick.
“Yeah.”
He paused. “You already know?”
Angela laughed, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Linzi’s accepted a proposal of marriage from that geeky bloke she’s been dating forever and Gemma’s had a very good job offer from America. Oh, and Maddie’s applied to a couple of places in the City.”
“Wow.”
“You are dozy, you know, darling. You seem to think I don’t have any communication with your daughter unless it’s through you.”
A relieved expression lit up his face. “So it’s all right – I mean…?”
“As far as I’m concerned, this is her family home and she’ll always have a place here.” Patrick knelt up, grabbed Angela to him and held her close for a long time. “Mind you,” she said, nuzzling into his neck, “we’ve got a bit of work to do. If you remember, when I moved in we just dumped a load of the stuff from my flat in her bedroom and shut the door on it.”
Patrick released her and leaned back against the headboard. “That’s no problem.” He looked at her. “Dozy, eh? Oh, what the heck, you’re probably right.”
“That’s my boy.”