Hole in One Read online

  ‘I’m sure he is,’ said Sloan. ‘But Peter Gilchrist is only half straight.’

  ‘Crooked,’ said Leeyes succinctly.

  ‘Up to a point,’ agreed Sloan. ‘But not to the point of murder.’

  ‘Sloan, I am not prepared to sit here all afternoon and …’

  ‘What Gilchrist urgently needed to know from Garwood,’ said Sloan hastily, ‘was whether or not his company Calleshire Consolidated was going to tender for the development work at the Golf Club.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Garwood almost certainly told Gilchrist privately that they weren’t. He didn’t have to, of course, but I think he did.’

  ‘It would have been like him. So?’

  ‘So Gilchrist could then go ahead and fix the price of the tender with his two pals, Luke Trumper of Trumper and Trumper (Berebury) Ltd., and Nigel Halesworth of United Mellemetics. Probably on the usual understanding that he would divvy the profit with them afterwards. Remember, his firm was known to be short of work anyway so in that sort of set-up he’d naturally be the one to get it.’

  ‘Bid rigging,’ divined Leeyes on the instant. ‘That’s what that’s called.’

  ‘Definitely against the law,’ agreed Sloan tacitly.

  ‘So that’s why Matt Steele could be so sure that Peter Gilchrist would let Doug Garwood win the Matheson Trophy,’ snorted Leeyes.

  ‘Well, sir, he’s not going to beat Garwood, is he? Not when he owes the man a favour. And it’s easy enough to lose your own ball.’

  Leeyes still sounded dissatisfied. ‘I don’t see where murder comes in to this,’

  ‘It didn’t until Steele also caddied for a match between Gilchrist and Brian Southon, a match that Southon arranged by making sure that Eric Simmonds was ill enough to have to give him a walkover.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Matt Steele caddies for that match, too, with old Beddoes.’

  ‘Who still doesn’t hear a thing.’

  ‘Matt Steele does, though,’ said Sloan warmly. ‘He hears Southon, who you know is Garwood’s number two at Calleshire Consolidated, make up some cock-and-bull tale and informally suggest a bit of recompense on Doug’s behalf for Doug having given Gilchrist the info.’

  ‘Opportunity makes the thief,’ said Leeyes sagaciously.

  ‘You can imagine how he put it – valuable commercial information, Doug not liking to ask himself, and all that guff.’

  ‘I can,’ said Leeyes grimly.

  ‘Brian Southon probably extracts some reward from Gilchrist either in cash or in the shape of favourable treatment from Gilchrist’s firm at the expense of his usual suppliers. The sort of thing that’ll do him a bit of good with Doug, perhaps.’

  ‘Business is business,’ said Leeyes ineluctably.

  ‘What Southon didn’t know,’ said Sloan, leaving this pagan sentiment aside for the time being, ‘is that Matt was present both times and put two and two together.’

  ‘What they both forgot,’ said Leeyes grandly, ‘was pas devant les domestiques.’

  ‘Pardon, sir?’

  ‘It’s how the French warn you about loose talk. They say “not in front of the servants”.’

  ‘Quite so, sir.’ That must have come from the winter of the Superintendent’s “French Without Tears” evening class. ‘Very wise of the French.’ Sloan coughed and, trying not to sound sanctimonious, changed tack. ‘And what neither of them had studied, sir, was the Old Testament.’ He had his Mother’s Bible Class to thank for this. Her Sunday lunchtime mantra was that the Bible was better than any of his text-books on crime.

  Superintendent Leeyes rose suddenly to his feet, pointed and said ‘Look out. That shot’s going to be out of bounds.’

  ‘The Second Book of Kings,’ Sloan persisted. ‘I understand it was forbidden to have it read aloud in monasteries at mealtimes on account of its being too exciting.’ That came from his Mother’s Bible Class, too.

  ‘Sloan, if I find you’ve been having me on …’

  ‘Chapter Five,’ said Sloan. ‘Elisha wouldn’t accept anything for the good turn he did Naaman but Elisha’s servant Gehazi had overheard all and tried to get something out of Naaman all the same.’

  ‘I still don’t see why …’

  ‘I think that’s when Matt would have thought it would be a good idea to put the screws on Brian Southon for acting like - er – Gehazi.’ He hesitated. ‘And cut himself into the action, so to speak.’

  ‘Big, big mistake,’ pronounced Leeyes. ‘Southon wouldn’t have stood for that. Couldn’t have. Besides, once you pay dane-geld you never get rid of the Dane.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan placed that quotation without difficulty. It had come straight from the evening class “Kipling - A Man For All Time”, when for at least two weeks the Superintendent had tried to treat those twin impostors “Triumph and Disaster” just the same.

  And failed.

  ‘It seems that Steele was a bit of a chancer anyway,’ said Sloan. ‘Out for what he could get, girlfriend included.’

  ‘Doug Garwood wouldn’t have stood for anything that wasn’t hunky-dory,’ declared Leeyes, ‘that’s for sure.’

  ‘Southon’s got much too much to lose by then. He’d be out on his ear if Steele split on him to Garwood, and he couldn’ t have afforded that. Not with a wife into antique silver. Besides …’

  ‘Besides what?’

  ‘Besides that’s not all, sir.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Leeyes gruffly.

  ‘Steele was also present when the three contenders for the development work played with each other. They’d all chosen to enter the Kemberland Cup together.’

  ‘Good communication in a natural setting is what you need when you’re setting up a cartel,’ declared Leeyes authoritatively. ‘And no records.’

  ‘Something that Crosby said brought it to mind.’

  ‘Crosby? Are you sure?’

  ‘He drew my attention to the fact that when you kicked one of them, they all limped.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan gazed down the eighteenth hole, a recission of the many shades of green, and thought about Gilchrist, Trumper and Halesworth all playing together under an English heaven so that they could rip off their own Club.

  ‘Any sector where there are very few competitors is vulnerable to an agreement in restraint of trade,’ said Leeyes horta-tively. ‘The Club made a big mistake in wanting to keep the work in-house.’

  ‘Those three wouldn’t have taken any notice of Matt Steele overhearing them either because they hadn’t cottoned on to his being such a bright cookie. They didn’t know their chat would have been right up his street seeing as he was reading business studies and economics and had heard Doug Garwood being asked into the bargain.’

  ‘And where does the girl Hilary Trumper come in?’ asked Leeyes, his eyes still on the fairway in front of him. A working life-time with police estimates had left him still unable to distinguish between economy and economics and he automatically shied away from both words.

  ‘She says that Matt passed some of his suspicions about the cartel on to her.’

  ‘She’s all right, you say?’

  ‘Shaken to her little wattles,’ said Sloan, ‘and bruised where he’d got his hands round her throat but alive all right.’

  Leeyes grunted.

  ‘Matt asked her to keep an eye open while he was away, that’s all. He didn’t mention Southon’s involvment to her. She says she’d never have got into his car if he had.’

  ‘I do wish people would leave police work to the police,’ said the Superintendent pettishly.

  Sloan coughed ‘If the girl’s father were implicated, then I wouldn’t have been surprised if Matt planned to demand his own terms for the marriage when he got back. Like an early seat on the Board.’

  ‘Far-sighted lad,’ commented Leeyes sardonically. ‘Mind you, marrying the boss’s daughter never did a man any harm.’

  ‘I think she’s had a lucky escape, sir.’ He paused. ‘She
doesn’ t think so yet but she will – given time.’

  Leeyes came as near as he ever did to awarding an accolade. ‘Just as well you got there in time,’ he said.

  ‘Only just,’ said Sloan truthfully. ‘It was a near thing and I don’t like to think what would have happened if Crosby had been any slower.’

  ‘And I,’ said Superintendent Leeyes pointedly, ‘don’t like to think what will happen if he gets any faster.’

  Gerald Moffat was still sitting in the Clubhouse in front of the picture windows that gave out onto the course. With him were Major Bligh and James Hopland.

  ‘I don’t think we should have put that fellow Leeyes in charge of the flagpole,’ said Major Bligh. ‘He doesn’t know the first thing about it. Look, it’s practically sunset and they’re only just hoisting the Club standard. It’s all wrong.’

  ‘I can tell you he’ll never make a vexillologist,’ snorted Moffat, ever the schoolmaster. ‘The man doesn’t even know that half-mast doesn’t literally mean halfway down the mast.’

  ‘What does it mean, then?’ asked James Hopland.

  ‘Half-mast means that it’s been lowered just enough to take another flag on top, that’s all,’ said Moffat. ‘The flag of the new head of the family should fly just over the flag of the man whom you’ve just lost. It should only be lowered enough to take the new one. No more.’

  ‘The king is dead, long live the king,’ remarked Bligh.

  ‘He should have left it to Arthur,’ said James Hopland.

  ‘I said to Leeyes that we haven’t lost a member anyway,’ said Major Bligh. He looked at the other two. ‘Do you know what he said?’

  ‘Tell us?’ invited Hopland.

  ‘He said we’d lost four members.’

  ‘Four?’

  ‘One to prison and three who would have to resign for offences against some Act or other making cartels illegal.’

  ‘We may have lost them but not to death,’ said Moffat, a stickler if ever there was one. ‘That’s what flags are all about.’

  ‘Then there’s the boy Steele and old Bobby Curd,’ said Hopland. ‘They did die. What about them?’

  Major Bligh said quietly. ‘I think we’ll just take it that it’s been lowered for them.’ He sighed. ‘Easier than trying to tell Leeyes anything, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’ll do the Major a bit of good, though,’ said Dickie Castle comfortably, ‘all those other men not being there. Gilchrist would have been bound to have knocked him out in the next round of the Pletchford and now he won’t.’

  ‘I reckon old James Hopland’ll be in with a chance in the Matheson Trophy now,’ said Bert Hedges. ‘Since all those younger players will be out of the way.’

  Shipley scratched his chin. ‘Don’t forget Doug Garwood.’

  Bert Hedges grinned. ‘Doug? He’ll be much too busy supervising the new work to play golf.’

  ‘I thought,’ stumbled Edmund Pemberton, ‘that he didn’t want the job.’

  Bert Hedges looked cunning. ‘He doesn’t.’

  ‘That makes him the best person to give it to,’ explained Dickie Castle. ‘Can’t you see that, young Ginger?’

  Edmund Pemberton had no answer to this and shook his head.

  ‘By the way, young Ginger,’ said Bert Hedges magnanimously, ‘we’ve lined up someone for you to caddy for tomorrow.’

  The boy’s head came up eagerly.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Dickie Castle. ‘A man called Moffat. Gerald Moffat. Slow but sure.’

  ‘Very sure,’ said Hedges. ‘And, young Ginger …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If anyone you’re caddying for loses his ball in The Gulf Stream, just let us know. No going in after it yourself. That understood?’

  Edmund Pemberton nodded.

  ‘Another thing,’ said Bert Castle. ‘Don’t let Mr Moffat leave his number nine-iron anywhere on the course, that’s all.’

  ‘I ought to have tumbled to Southon sooner,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan.

  He was back in Alan Pursglove’s office at the Golf Club on the Saturday morning with Detective Constable Crosby. They were not so much catching up on the paperwork as taking it down from the walls to be used in evidence.

  ‘I don’t see how …’ began Crosby. He was still sporting two black eyes collected from a muscular Southon.

  ‘Because he’d taken such very good care to make sure that there were reasons for either his fingerprints or his DNA being in all of the suspicious places,’ said Sloan. ‘He’d used the greenkeeper’s truck to help cut the greens as well as to carry the body out to the bunker.’

  ‘And told us so,’ agreed the Detective Constable. ‘Early on.’

  ‘Gerald Moffat’s club was found in his bag, don’t forget,’ said Sloan. ‘He probably took it that day they played together and it’s the one that killed Curd, too. Forensic say so.’

  ‘So it must be true,’ said Crosby. ‘Mustn’t it?’

  ‘Best of all,’ said Sloan, ignoring this, ‘he played a ball into the bunker at the sixth on the Sunday.’

  ‘Never up, never in,’ chanted Crosby.

  ‘So if his footprints had been found there,’ said Sloan ignoring this, too, ‘they could be explained. And he went to see the professional for advice on shanking to make sure everyone knew about it.’

  The door of the room opened and a woman’s head came round. ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Sergeant Perkins. ‘Molly said to try in here. There’s some food to come, you’ll be glad to hear.’

  ‘Good,’ said Crosby.

  ‘You may not like it but it’s all they had at this time of the day.’

  ‘Better than nothing,’ said Crosby.

  ‘They call it “Yips”,’ said the policewoman, ‘but it looks like pork scratchings to me.’

  ‘Hilary Trumper?’ began Sloan.

  ‘More glad to get back home than she ever thought she would be,’ said Sergeant Perkins, who had restored a good few youngsters to their official dwelling-places in her time. ‘And as soon as the trial’s safely over Granny’s taking her away for a long holiday Round the world cruise or something.’

  ‘Good for Granny’

  ‘They don’t want her around when the commercial case comes up,’ explained Sergeant Perkins. ‘Or Granny, come to that,’ she added, having now met that formidable matriarch.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Sloan, having met her too. ‘I gather she is not pleased with her sons.’

  ‘That’s an understatement. How are you getting on here?’ asked Polly Perkins.

  ‘You could say,’ said Sloan deftly, ‘that we’re making space on the wall for an election notice for the Committee.’

  ‘Ah …’ She grinned.

  ‘Voting’s next week,’ said Crosby. ‘Never up, never in,’ he added inconsequentially.

  Polly Perkins went over to look. ‘Rupert Almeric Leeyes? I never knew he was called Rupert Almeric.’

  ‘You do now.’ Sloan sat back. ‘Then, thank goodness, I think we can shake the dust of the place off our feet.’

  Sergeant Perkins looked unusually bashful. ‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘The Lady Captain thinks I ought to join. She says I’ve got just the figure for the game and she’ll put me up.’

  ‘Never up, never in,’ said Crosby again.

  The plot is based on the Old Testament story in the 2nd Book of Kings,

  Chapter Five, verses 1 – 27.

  Also by Catherine Aird

  The Religious Body

  Henrietta Who

  The Complete Steel

  A Late Phoenix

  His Burial Too

  Slight Mourning

  Parting Breath

  Some Die Eloquent

  Passing Strange

  Last Respects

  Harm’s Way

  A Dead Liberty

  The Body Politic

  A Going Concern

  Injury Time

  After Effects

  Stiff News

  Littl
e Knell

  Amendment of Life

  Chapter and Hearse

  CATHERINE AIRD is the author of more than twenty crime novels and story collections, most of which feature Detective Chief Inspector CD Sloan. She holds an honorary M.A from the University of Kent and was made an MBE. Her other works include Amendment of Life and Little Knell. She lives in England.

  Apart from writing the successful Chronicles Of Calleshire she has also written and edited a series of village histories and is active in village life.

  HOLE IN ONE. Copyright © 2005 by Catherine Aird. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited

  eISBN 9781466820739

  First eBook Edition : May 2012

  EAN 978-0-312-34229-6

  First U.S. Edition: August 2005