Philip Turnbull still found it hard to keep his face from breaking into huge involuntary smiles as he sat in Angela’s office an hour after winning his third-round match in four sets. She congratulated him on the victory, leading into the interview by way of a discussion about a couple of tricky points which could have turned the match against him. She watched him finally manage to subdue the huge beam into serious concentration.
“You haven’t got me here for a point-by-point analysis of today’s match,” he said. “I suppose you’ve got some more questions relating to Petar’s death.” He paused, thinking. “It’s a sad irony, really, that Petar helped me to win today.”
“Oh, really?” Angela raised her eyebrows invitingly.
“Hmm, he gave me some hints about my game; a couple of tactical things that I don’t normally do. On reflection, I think my own coach had also been trying to get me to understand the same things, but somehow it wasn’t clear, or…” He grinned. “Maybe I’m just too thick to take it in. But when Petar spoke to me he made sense of it so that I felt confident enough to have a go. It was a bit of a risk today, but it paid off – as you see.” The big grin was once again in evidence. “Mind you,” he added, a slightly puzzled expression creasing his brow, “I really do think I’ve told you all I know.”
Angela hastened to explain. “Yes, I’m sure. But you know how it is. As we learn more, we find ourselves having to go back over what we’ve already heard and get clarification.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“By the way, when did Petar give you these hints about your game?” she asked, as if it was an aside.
“On Sunday afternoon, when I was here practising,” he replied.
“Was Stewart there at that moment?”
“Well, no; I don’t know where he was just then. Petar wouldn’t have…” He stopped, a mild look of embarrassment in his eyes.
“Petar wouldn’t have advised you about your game in Stewart’s presence,” said Angela.
Philip’s brow cleared and he gave a sheepish grin. “No. I think Stewart would have taken a dim view of his coach giving advice to another player, especially one that’s going to be his rival quite often.” He attempted an insouciant grin but there was a cloud behind his eyes now. As with the first time she had interviewed him, he found something fascinating to study on the back of his hand. When he looked at Angela again his expression had become what she could only describe as stoic, all joy extinguished.
“But you’re also his teammate in the British squad.”
“Ah yes, but, you know, he who pays the piper and all that. Stewart was the one paying, and Petar was the piper in this particular case.”
Angela nodded as she thought about this for a moment. She couldn’t imagine anybody who remembered Petar at the top of his game recognizing him from this description. She found it easy to believe, however, that this is how the Bickerstaffs would view the situation.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said slowly. “That might have put Petar in an awkward position. But from what I hear, he really was very keen on nurturing talent where he recognized exceptional ability. So I expect he just couldn’t resist coming out with things here and there that would point someone in the right direction.”
“That was Petar all right!”
“You do have exceptional ability, you know, Philip.”
“Thank you.” Philip couldn’t hide the look of gratification on his face but Angela sensed an underlying fear. In the brief silence that followed, Angela realized Philip had no intention of picking up the cue she’d offered him. This hesitancy only served to strengthen her conviction.
“Why aren’t you ranked higher, Philip?” she asked, as if the question had just occurred to her and it was an aside to the main thrust of the interview.
She experienced a momentary elation as he flashed her the wide-eyed, frightened look of a rabbit caught in headlights before lowering his head to study his hand again. She was sure she had found the right track. “Oh, I’m a bit of a late developer,” he said, with an attempt at casualness. “My game’s only been really coming on in the last year or so.”
“This is true,” agreed Angela, in the manner of a tennis expert. She let another pause elapse between them. “But I find it quite amazing that with your game, and your ability to return, you haven’t beaten Stewart since goodness knows when.”
Philip again tried to find something interesting about the back of his hand but Angela fixed her eyes on him and waited. Eventually, as if against his will, he brought his face up to hers, pale with fear.
“He’s a better player than me?” The proposition came out in a subdued voice quite devoid of conviction.
Angela smiled kindly at him and gently shook her head. “No, he’s not,” she said. Philip stared wildly around as if looking for some means of escape. Angela sat forward slowly and leaned on the desk.
“What’s he got on you, Philip?” she asked.
If Angela had stripped Philip naked in a roomful of people he couldn’t have looked more exposed. In the moments after she had spoken, he stared wide-eyed at her and in those eyes she read a strange mixture of panic, despair, fear and, somehow, relief. Then his face began to crumble; he aged visibly about fifteen years and buried his head in his hands with a deep, anguished groan.
Angela allowed a few minutes to pass. Although she was sure Philip was innocent, she was acutely conscious of her primary function at this club and realized that the best way forward was to proceed along official lines. “Did you kill Petar Belic?” she asked.
His head jerked up at once. On his haggard, strained face there was a look that managed to be astonished and horrified at the same time. “No!” he protested.
Angela had guessed what his answer would be. “I have to ask the question,” she said. He nodded and slumped back in the chair. She could already sense an easing of the tension in him because he now had a forum where his secret could come out.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Inwardly Angela smiled. Philip was speaking as if he had just made a full and frank confession of whatever the issue was between him and Stewart, whereas he’d said nothing and had simply responded to what was, in fact, a shot in the semi-dark on her part.
“I need to hear what you’ve got to say first,” she replied, deliberately vague. In spite of the relief that her shot had gone home, she still didn’t know what she was encountering, aware that although she’d caught him off guard he might get his head together any moment, start getting cagey and demand a solicitor be present.
“Oh, it’s all so stupid!” he said. But she could see him relaxing. He had the opportunity to let out something that had been bottled up for a long time and wanted to take it.
“Philip,” she said, “before you begin, I would like to remind you that I’m investigating a murder and I’m only interested in what might have a bearing on that.” She caught and held his eyes. “I work for the Metropolitan Police, not the International Tennis Federation.” A responding gleam in his eyes showed that he understood her meaning. He leaned forward onto the desk between them and prepared to unburden himself.
“It all began a couple of years ago. I just can’t believe how crass and stupid I was. I’d just been accepted onto the British squad and I was full of it. Full of myself I suppose, as well,” he added with a rueful grin. “Anyway, I wasn’t meant to be playing, that’s why I took the risk. Stewart invited me to this party. It wasn’t a party that had anything to do with the tennis world. Vinni had invited Stewart and he asked me if I wanted to come. Really, looking back, I think he just wanted to have someone drive him home, because when he asked me if I wanted to go with him the question of going in my car got mixed in with the invitation. I looked up to him a bit because… well… he was the main man, I suppose; the star with a glittering future and me just the new boy on the team. I think I felt flattered that he’d asked me. I thought, ‘Hey, I’m going partying with Stewart Bickerstaff, tennis star!’”
Angela nodded.
“Anyway,” continued Philip, “you can guess what happened. There were drugs going round at this do. I didn’t notice at first, but as the evening progressed I saw certain people disappear into a room down the hall and when I heard a couple of whispers about ‘lines’ I guessed they must be doing coke.”
“So what did you do?”
“I didn’t know what to do at first. I went up to Stewart and got his attention, because he was in the middle of some group, chatting and laughing. Anyway, I managed to whisper my concern and said, ‘Should we be here?’”
“How did he react?”
Philip shrugged at the memory. “He didn’t seem bothered. He said what ‘some’ people might be up to in a room down the hall was their business. Then he smiled at me and said, ‘Why don’t you try some?’”
Philip paused and Angela raised her eyebrows. “What did you say to that?” she asked.
“I said, ‘No way, man, that’s the pits,’ or something like that. I felt outraged, to be honest. I forgot all about my gratitude at being invited in the first place. And I was embarrassed because I didn’t know anybody else there. I didn’t even know Vinni then; I only knew her as somebody in the fashion industry and a connection of Stewart’s. She became a sports promoter later. But Stewart just smiled and told me not to get my knickers in a twist. He said he didn’t mean it. He meant if I fancied a little lift, just to give me a buzz, not the hard stuff. All he had to do was ask Vinni. Why not give it a go? That’s how he put it. It wouldn’t do any harm.”
“Oh dear,” said Angela. “The slippery slope appears.”
“Yeah, got it in one,” agreed Philip. I hedged and said what about our tournament? We had one on the go at the time but I’d already played my matches. Of course, Stewart knew this and said it would be perfectly safe as I wouldn’t be playing again. Well, I didn’t want to appear naïve, or too innocent, and having started off getting outraged about coke I felt it would be a bit silly to get on my high horse about a lesser drug.”
“The softening-up process.”
“Spot on, and didn’t I just fall for it so easily? Well, long story short, I took some speed.”
“What happened then?”
“I felt bad about it but told myself that I’d been stupid and should put it out of my mind. But wouldn’t you know it? One of the other blokes on the team got some sort of a bug and I had to take his place in a doubles match the next day. I was sitting in the locker room before the match. Stewart came up to me and asked if I’d enjoyed the party last night, and I just said how good it was, thanks again for inviting me. And it started as simply as that. He sat down beside me and said, ‘Don’t worry about the speed you took last night; I’m not going to say anything.’”
“What did you say?”
“I just said, ‘Thanks. Cheers, mate,’ but something about the way he said it gave me a really hollow feeling.”
I’m sure it did, thought Angela. “Has he ever mentioned it again since?”
Philip looked at her with a very bleak expression on his face.
“Only every time we play,” he said.