Murder on the Second Tee (18 page)

Flick tried to hide her fury. ‘Well where is the money clip now?’ she asked.

‘If Saddlefell has any sense he’ll have got rid of it.’ An idea came to him. ‘In fact, my guess is he’ll have chucked it out of his window into that little pond outside the hotel. Watch out, mind, because they’ve stocked it with piranhas.’

Flick got up without a word and left. The encounter with No had not gone well. He smiled, scratched his crotch and slurped his coffee, not minding that it had gone cold.

* * *

Flick sat at the table in the police room, seething. Failure was one thing but to be mocked by No when before their encounter she thought she held the best cards was unbearable. She could not wait to be rid of this dreadful inquiry which was going from bad to worse. Wallace came into the room and sat opposite her.

‘Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ll get to the bottom of this. They say the darkest hour is just before dawn. Did you learn anything from Mr Osborne?’

‘No, except that leopards don’t change their spots. He had some ridiculous theory that Saddlefell threw the money clip out of his window into the little pond between the hotel and the golf course.’

‘Is it so ridiculous? If we drained the pond and looked for it, people would see us doing something. And it’s possible we might strike gold.’

Flick shook her head but thought for a moment. If Jamieson heard that she had ignored a suggestion from Osborne, whom he clearly rated, her stock with him would drop further, and she wanted to be able to say that she had done everything possible during her time in charge of the inquiry.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’

‘There is one other thing, ma’am. The manager of the hotel would like to have a word with you. He’s concerned about our apparent lack of progress and the hotel is getting the wrong sort of publicity at the moment.’

Flick sighed. She picked up the phone and arranged to go straight through to the manager’s office. This time she asked Wallace to come with her.

The manager, Leonard Taylor, was in his early forties. Fit-looking, with blond, receding hair cut very short, he wore a charcoal grey business suit and a green tie. He rose to shake Flick’s hand, a polite smile on his face. ‘Thank you for coming to see me, Inspector,’ he said.

After showing his visitors to comfortable chairs and ordering coffee he sat in an armchair and explained his concerns. ‘Frankly, this is not good for business. We offer five star luxury, excellent food, a spa and golf. We want our guests to feel safe and secure, and I am aware of a number who have become very anxious, particularly after the second murder here in one of our rooms. Obviously your investigation takes priority, but the police presence is intrusive and our guests are finding it hard to relax. May I ask how you see things going from here?’ The smile was disarming and the tone was reasonable but Flick knew that a representation to her superiors was not far away.

‘We are very grateful for the help you have already given us and we are making progress,’ she said. ‘Our interviews with staff and guests not involved with the bank are nearly complete. We will be able to give you a better idea tomorrow, but before we scale down the police presence in the hotel there is one thing you could help us with.’

‘What is it?’

‘We need to drain the small pond between the hotel and the golf course. We have reason to think the murderer may have thrown something quite small into it.’

Taylor looked surprised but unruffled. ‘Certainly. We drain it regularly. We might do it now if you like. It’s best done on a Sunday as there’s no play on the Old and you won’t be bombed by sliced drives from the seventeenth tee. Shall I set that up now?’

‘Yes, please,’ Flick said.

‘I’ll phone the duty engineer. But before we start we’ll have to make arrangements for Jack and Tiger.’

‘Jack and Tiger?’ Flick asked. Were there really piranhas in that innocuous looking little pond?

Taylor grinned. ‘Yes. The resident goldfish. It’s a pretty high-tech operation but first we use an old-fashioned net to put the two fish in a tank until their fresh water is ready.’

Flick managed a smile, finished her coffee, thanked Taylor and left.

‘Let me know when they’re ready to start draining,’ she told Wallace.

* * *

The first thing Baggo noticed was that the car in which he had arrived at Haleybourne was in a completely different league from those in the car park, an assortment of mid-range Fords, Mazdas and Skodas, some of them a few years old. The clubhouse had been a grand, rambling house in its day, but the ivy strangling its red brick walls failed to hide crumbling pointing and some loose bricks. The paintwork on the front door and round the windows was peeling and the tall chimneys had a precarious look. A bald man, in what looked like gardening clothes, emerged from a side door and pulled his caddy-car across the car park to the first tee where an older man was swishing his club impatiently.

Baggo identified the pro’s shop, a wooden building beside the first tee whose window offered ten per cent off all purchases of new equipment. ERNEST MILDENHALL PROFESSIONAL was written in crisp red letters above. Baggo noted that the building appeared better maintained than the clubhouse. It was clean with shiny white gloss paint on the window frame and door jamb. Feeling self-conscious wearing a leather jacket with his computer case slung over his shoulder, he pushed the door open and went in.

An assortment of golf clothes and equipment was attractively displayed. Behind the counter stood a man who could have been a sprightly seventy-five or a prematurely grey forty-something. He had a strong, well-tanned face and stooped slightly. His air of authority marked him out as Ernest Mildenhall. Beside the till was a pile of books entitled
Mr Chips
. The cover showed a dark-haired Mildenhall executing a short pitch. In a corner of the shop a man gripped an iron club, an expression of intense concentration on his face. A stocky young man, smartly-dressed like his boss, was describing how the club was weighted. Grateful for Lance Wallace’s thorough note-taking, Baggo guessed the young man might be Bruce Thornton’s friend, Tony Longstone, but if he was to get him to talk freely he would have to get him on his own.

‘Can I help you?’ Mildenhall asked, not entirely welcoming.

‘I am hoping to take a lesson,’ Baggo said. ‘I do not have my clubs with me, but I was advised to come here. I have just started the game and I am as keen as mustard.’

Mildenhall gave him the ghost of a smile. ‘We can arrange that. When do you want your lesson?’ Baggo detected a trace of West Country burr.

‘Now, please. I have come out from London specially.’

‘Did you not think to phone to make an arrangement?’

Baggo pulled a face. ‘I am very sorry. I wanted to see this place before I committed myself. You see I hope to join somewhere. And I plan to buy clubs to use when I am in Britain,’ he added.

‘All right,’ Mildenhall said. ‘Tony, you give this gentleman a lesson and I’ll help Mr Alford choose his new irons. That will be fifty pounds for half an hour, please.’

By the time Baggo had paid by credit card Longstone had put on a waterproof jacket and fetched a club and a bag of balls. Baggo smiled at him. ‘I will need to borrow a club, please. Do you have a five iron that I may use?’

Longstone looked puzzled but went to the back of the shop and returned with a club. ‘Right-handed, I presume?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Baggo said and they set off. It was warmer than it had been in Scotland and a watery sun made the day quite pleasant. It was a good day for golf.

As they walked together towards the practice area Baggo pumped Longstone for information. In its heyday one of the leading clubs to the west of London, Haleybourne was going through difficult times. The clubhouse was a listed building. Heritage watchdogs had blocked a series of proposals to bring it up to contemporary standards and the roof had needed fixing. The considerable cost of doing that had, however, been dwarfed by the cost of repairing flood damage to four holes adjacent to a river, flood damage that had been repeated two years later, with no guarantee that it would not recur. In order to spread the cost of all this the committee had reduced membership fees to entice new members and for a time the course had been overplayed. The more discriminating members had resigned and many of the new influx had not stayed. With a constantly changing membership, a vulnerable course and an out of date clubhouse the soul of the club had been lost and more new members were sought.

Despite the decline of the club, Ernest Mildenhall had continued to prosper. Renowned for his prowess at chipping, he wrote articles for golf magazines and was in demand as a teacher, even coaching a small number of tournament professionals who found the short shots a bit fiddly. He was a gifted retailer and his business was good enough to keep himself and two assistants fully occupied.

As Longstone hesitantly described the club’s problems, Baggo wondered why Parsley should want to belong to such a place. He had lived in Wimbledon, probably two hours’ drive away, and it lacked the class and facilities he would have insisted on.

They arrived at the practice area and for ten minutes Longstone adjusted Baggo’s grip and stance and tried to improve his pivot.

‘Ooh, can we have a rest?’ Baggo sighed, putting a hand to his lumbar spine. ‘I was sad to read about the assistant here who was murdered in St Andrews.’

Immediately Longstone went on the defensive. ‘Are you a journalist?’ he asked sharply.

Baggo decided that honesty was the best policy. The professional seemed to be a straightforward young man. ‘No. I am a policeman, and I am trying to find out why your colleague died and who killed him.’ He produced his warrant, which Longstone examined as if he had not seen one before.

‘Right,’ he said slowly. ‘Mr Mildenhall said I wasn’t to speak to journalists. Can I help you?’

‘First, can you explain the black eye he had?’

‘Oh yes.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘That was me trying to balance a driver on my finger. See?’ He took the five iron from Baggo and placed the end of the grip on his right index finger so that the club was vertical then took away his other hand. The club wobbled for a while but remained balanced on his finger until he grabbed it. ‘Anyway, it didn’t work and I caught Bruce just above his eye. He was very good about it but Mr Mildenhall was furious.’

‘Is he a good boss?’

The pause was eloquent. ‘He is, providing you stay on the right side of him. He’s taught me a lot. Bruce too.’

‘Did you see much of Bruce away from work?’

‘No. We got on well, but we didn’t live near each other, so we didn’t socialise much.’

‘Did you know anything about his private life?’

‘No. He didn’t say much about that.’ Longstone frowned. ‘I saw on Twitter someone was saying he was gay, but I don’t believe it.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged and looked uncomfortable. ‘He wasn’t the type, know what I mean? And some of the things he said …’

‘He said anti-gay things?’

Longstone was blushing. ‘Well, we all do, in the shop. I suppose we take our lead from Mr Mildenhall.’

‘What sort of thing does Mr Mildenhall say?’

For a moment Baggo thought he would refuse to say more, then he said, ‘He describes men who are you know, girly-like, as “great fucking pansies”. It’s the worst thing he can call someone, I think. Was Bruce gay?’

‘Yes, and he was finding it very difficult, not only here at work but also at home. His parents could not accept it.’

‘Was he with a man when …?’

‘He was in an hotel room he shared with his lover, but no, at the time he was killed he was about to play Santa Claus at a Christmas Fayre. But I have another question. Was he cross-eyed or anything like that? Did he look at you properly when he spoke to you?’

Longstone screwed up his face. ‘There was nothing unusual about him,’ he said definitely.

‘Is there anything you can tell me that might help identify his killer?’

‘I don’t think so. I liked him and I’ll miss him,’ Longstone said softly. ‘He was hoping to play some events on the Challenge Tour next year. I think he might have gone all the way. He was always working on his short game and he was deadly round the greens. Deadly …’

Baggo changed the subject. ‘Can you tell me about Mr Hugh Parsley? He also was killed at St Andrews.’

‘Are their deaths connected? Was Mr Parsley …?’

Baggo could not help smiling. ‘I think their deaths may be connected. That is why I am here. But no, Mr Parsley was definitely not Bruce’s lover.’

Longstone nodded, as if he were pleased. ‘There’s not much to say about Mr Parsley. He didn’t come very often and changed his shoes in the car rather than go into the clubhouse. He always seemed to play with his wife, who wasn’t a member, and they went round in a buggy. He just came into the shop, paid for his wife’s ticket and the buggy and went out. They often played just a few holes.’

‘So he didn’t have friends among the other members?’

‘No. They seemed very snobbish, the Parsleys. In the shop we called them Mr and Mrs Posh.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me about them?’

‘Well, they usually arrived in different cars, always top of the range. And they talked a lot while playing, as if they were both very busy and this was a chance to catch up with each other. They’ve been here more often in the last few months than during the rest of the year, though the course hasn’t been in great condition.’

Baggo thought for a minute then phoned Lance Wallace on his mobile. ‘Where are you right now?’ he asked.

‘In St Andrews.’ There was excitement in Lance’s voice. ‘We’ve made a breakthrough.’

‘I think I am on to something too. Please get someone to use a mobile to take photos of all the women on the whiteboard and send them to me on this phone ASAP.’ He turned to Longstone. ‘Thank you, Tony. You’ve been most helpful. I must ask you to stay here with me till a colleague phones back. While we wait, what were you saying about my pivot?’

A steady drizzle carried on a biting North Sea wind made Flick wish she was indoors. For what seemed an eternity Ally Hay, the hotel engineer, had been trying to catch Jack and Tiger using an angler’s net while she, Wallace, McKellar and two constables watched with a mixture of amusement and impatience. For all their usual dignified progress round the pond, the large, fat goldfish could put on a turn of speed when avoiding a net. Eventually both were deposited in a plastic crate with enough water to keep them alive. They briefly thrashed their tails in anger then calmed down.

‘Jack after Jack Nicklaus?’ Wallace asked.

‘Aye,’ Ally replied, ‘“the Golden Bear” as he was called. He’s the one with the gold on top of his head. Tiger’s the paler one, which is funny, I suppose. We used to have Bobby, after Bobby Jones, but the heron ate him.’

‘The thing we hope to find is quite small,’ Flick interrupted the idle chatter. ‘Can you filter the water as it escapes?’

‘Oh yes,’ Ally replied, ‘you’d be amazed at what we find in there. Lots of golf balls from the seventeenth, obviously, but also rings, bracelets, credit cards. A few things don’t get in there by accident, know what I mean?’

‘I think I do,’ Flick said.

Ally went to a tiny iron door set low in the hotel wall and used a key to open it. He pressed a button, turned a dial then pressed a second button. A dull thud came from the pond and the surface began to move.

‘I’ve put it on the narrowest filter, so it’ll take a bit of time, but nothing will escape,’ Ally said.

As the dark water seeped away down an underground pipe, Flick scanned the windows of the hotel. If No was watching, she could not see him. On the first floor she saw Sandi Saddlefell and Eileen Eglinton staring down from their rooms. Either of them, or Belinda Parsley, whose room was to the right of the Eglintons as she looked at them, could have tossed a money clip from their window into the pond. There was a small strip of roof above the ground floor but it would have been easy to throw a small missile over it.

‘What do you do with the golf balls?’ Wallace asked as numerous white blobs appeared at the bottom of the pond.

‘We keep a few, sell a few and give a few to charity,’ Ally said.

The water, which had been about four feet deep, was nearly all gone and on the bottom Flick guessed there must have been at least a hundred golf balls. ‘Is it alright for these two constables to climb in and sort through what’s left?’ Flick asked.

Ally nodded. ‘No problem. There’s thick plastic at the bottom. If we let water escape it would affect the water table and the links supervisor would be raging. The fairway’s lower than we are here.’ He pointed towards the golf course.

The two younger constables went into the pond and began to hand balls out to Wallace and McKellar, who put them into clear plastic bags. Another bag was for rubbish and Flick held a small evidence bag just in case.

‘Put that back!’ she shouted at one of the constables in the pond who had slipped two balls in good condition into his pocket.

Sheepishly he pulled them out and placed them on the bank. When Flick turned away he made a face at her, earning a scowl from Wallace.

It did not take long to clear the pond. There were three bags of balls and one of rubbish, mostly bottles and cans. There was a layer of silt on the bottom and Flick ordered the constables to search it by hand. There was no point in half measures.

‘Here’s more rubbish,’ the ball-taker said with disgust, chucking a round, dark object towards the appropriate bag.

‘Let’s have a look,’ Flick said as McKellar bent to pick it up.

It was a pair of woman’s tights wrapped and tied round something heavier. Flick replaced her leather gloves with plastic ones. Carefully and slowly, she untied the knot and unwrapped the sodden fabric. Inside was a golf ball, made by Nike and in good condition.

Wallace held out an evidence bag and she dropped it in. The tights bore no label, but were brown and thick. Flick held them up and saw they were large size. She bagged them and, suddenly impervious to the cold, she sat on the low wall between the hotel and the course and thought.

She thought of three women, one taller and generally bigger than the others; a tall, thin man practising his putting in his room without a ball; a golf club store with only one left-handed set, belonging to a man; a man signing autographs using a gloved hand.

‘You play golf, don’t you, Wallace?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And right-handed players usually wear a glove on their left hand?’

‘Yes.’

‘So left-handed players will use a right hand glove?’

‘Yes.’

At this point his mobile rang. It was Baggo. Wallace moved away to take it. When it was over he made a quick call to Gilsland in Cupar then came back to Flick, who continued to sit on the wall deep in thought.

She asked, ‘Do you ever get right-handed people who play golf left-handed and vice-versa?’

‘Absolutely. Phil Mickelson’s the best example. He’s right-handed but golfs left-handed. They say Ben Hogan may have been left-handed.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A terrific player from the past, but there are lots more examples.’

Flick nodded. Wallace sat beside her on the wall as the constables continued their fingertip search of the pond bottom.

It did not take them long. ‘There’s nothing there, ma’am,’ McKellar said. ‘Shall I get Ally to fill it up again?’

‘Yes,’ Flick said, then added half to herself, half to Wallace, ‘So no money clip. But why, and why Thornton?’

Wallace’s phone rang again. It was Baggo. Wallace listened for a while then turned to Flick.

‘It’s Baggo. He may have the answer to your questions. I’ll put my phone on speaker. The inspector’s listening,’ he added to Baggo.

‘Inspector, ma’am, the late Hugh Parsley came to play golf at Haleybourne with a woman who was not his wife but whom he passed off as his wife. They had long, intimate conversations as they went round in a buggy together. Neither of them were known here otherwise. I have with me Mr Tony Longstone, a colleague and friend of Bruce Thornton’s and he has positively identified the woman he had known as Mrs Parsley as …’

‘Eileen Eglinton,’ Flick cut in.

‘Gracious, yes. We have reached the same conclusion by different routes.’

‘Please ask Mr Longstone one thing. Does Mrs Eglinton play right or left-handed?

After a pause Baggo said, ‘I see the point. Yes, she plays right-handed. She must have killed Thornton because he recognised her. He expressed condolence for the death of Mr Parsley and addressed the remark to her. The real Mrs Parsley was also there and thought nothing was strange apart from the fact that Thornton did not look at her when talking to her. Mrs Eglinton was so concerned about the truth coming out that she killed him at the earliest opportunity.’

‘What are you going to do now?’ Flick asked.

‘I am going to catch the first flight to Edinburgh. Now that we have solved your murders, I must catch my money launderers.’

Wallace ended the call. By now the pond had been refilled through small pipes in the sides. Ally tipped the crate over the water and Jack and Tiger were unceremoniously returned to their home.

‘Right,’ Flick said to Wallace, ‘get these tights and that ball to the lab ASAP. There may be fingerprints on the ball and I bet Parsley’s blood was spattered over the tights. I hope they’ll find some trace of it despite the water. Now, let’s get her.’

* * *

Flanked by Wallace and McKellar, Flick knocked for a second time on the Eglinton’s door.

‘Y’er wasting yer time. They’ve gone oot,’ Sharon told them as she tried to steer her cleaning trolley past them.

Flick rounded on her. ‘When?’ she demanded.

‘Ho, I dinnae take note. I’ve mair to dae than that.’ Seeing the anger on Flick’s face she added, ‘Weel, maybe ten minutes ago.’

Flick looked at Wallace. ‘Go downstairs and find out where they’ve gone.’ Turning back to Sharon she said, ‘Please open this door for us. This is an urgent police investigation.’

Unhurriedly, Sharon folded the towel she was holding and put it on the trolley. She took her pass key and opened the door. It was clear that the room had not yet been made up, but it was not untidy. On one side of the bed was an autobiography of Bobby Jones. On the other was a biography of Harold Macmillan and a slim, battered paperback,
St Andrews Ghost Stories
. Flick had read this collection of far-fetched tales spawned by the Royal Burgh’s often bloody history. It was not her sort of book but gave an intriguing perspective on her new home town. The Eglintons had made no attempt to pack and there was no evidence of a hurried departure.

‘Don’t touch this room, please,’ Flick told Sharon. ‘We may need to search it.’

They left Sharon muttering rebelliously and went downstairs. Wallace was with the porter, who was on the phone. ‘They took a taxi ma’am, and Joe here is talking to the taxi company. Joe says they were wearing coats. They said they were going into town.’

‘Thanks, mate.’ Joe put down the phone. ‘The cab dropped them off at the end of North Street about five minutes ago.’

After Wallace had thanked Joe, Flick told him to get as many officers as possible searching for the Eglintons. ‘No sirens or flashing lights, though,’ she added. ‘We don’t want to spook them. McKellar, you come with me. Your local knowledge may be useful.’

* * *

Shocked by the notion that the grand woman he knew as Mrs Parsley had murdered his friend, Tony Longstone gave Baggo his contact details then the number of a local taxi company. As they walked back to the pro’s shop Baggo told him what the next steps might be.

‘Will I have to give evidence?’ he asked.

‘If there’s a trial, almost certainly, and it’ll probably be in Scotland,’ Baggo told him. ‘I advise you not to talk about it too much,’ he added.

By the time they reached the shop the taxi had arrived. ‘Thank you for improving my pivot!’ he shouted as he climbed in.

As the taxi driver tried to avoid the potholes in the golf club drive, Baggo phoned Lance Wallace.

‘They’ve gone, the Eglintons have gone,’ Lance told him. ‘I’m trying to organise a search of the town.’

‘Have you listened to the bug in Forbes’s room today?’

‘There was nothing interesting overnight, apart from you-know-what. This morning we haven’t had time.’

‘But with the murderer identified this is the time to push forward on the money laundering. They may be rattled. I am heading for Heathrow now and I should reach St Andrews by early evening. Do you have anyone at the hotel who might listen to the bug now?’

‘DC Di Falco’s still at the hotel. He’s supposed to interview departing guests, but tell him I said he should help you.’ He gave Baggo di Falco’s number.

Baggo’s call interrupted di Falco and Jocelyn the under-manager in a conversation about their favourite films. Bored with quizzing guests, he was delighted to do something more exciting. He readily understood the instructions on operating the device and what he should listen for. He promised to phone back as soon as possible.

‘Come on,’ he whispered to Jocelyn. ‘Come and see some real police work.’

* * *

North Street runs west to east and is a continuation of the Cupar road. A cinema, some flats and fine old university buildings along its left side, it reaches the cathedral wall and does a right U-turn to go back on itself as South Street. Unlike the nearby castle, which was battered by French guns in the sixteenth century, the huge medieval cathedral, in its day the premier ecclesiastical building in Scotland, was ruined by poor architecture, storms, a fire, lack of money and looting. A number of houses in the vicinity were constructed using sandstone removed from the cathedral. Today the stark ruins of this formerly magnificent and important building are preserved by Historic Scotland. What remains of spires, arches and windows is surrounded by a well-kept graveyard in which the different tombstones indicate the length of tenure of their corpses. Many of these grey slabs lie flat on the ground, to be peered at by visitors. Others are more elaborate, such as the engraved stone set in the boundary wall marking the resting place of Young Tom Morris, the brilliant golfer at the end of the nineteenth century who died tragically young of a broken heart. The whole area is enclosed by a high, thick wall built as fortification in medieval times and built to last. Towers and turrets break up the wall and more modern sections close any gaps that have occurred over the years.

Also made to withstand the ravages of time, at the west end of the ruined cathedral, St Rule’s Tower stands tall, square and strong. Erected in the twelfth century, it is some thirty-three metres high and the top can now be reached by a spiral stair containing one hundred and fifty-one steps.

If the bloodstained history of St Andrews was not sufficient, the historic parts of the town have spawned a number of ghost stories. A beautiful girl, dressed in white and mummified in one of the towers along the wall, is said to haunt the cathedral. The ghost of Prior Robert of Montrose, a good man stabbed by an evil monk and cast off the north side of St Rule’s Tower, has been seen leaping onto the parapet and jumping from the top of the tower.

Flick had little time for such fantasies; they were simply local colour, but having seen the book of ghost stories beside the Eglintons’ bed, she had little doubt that, having been dropped at the end of North Street, they would head for the cathedral. Following her hunch, she threw the car into a space beside the narrow Monument Gate and rushed in. She looked round desperately. The drizzle had stopped, the wind had softened to a mere zephyr and there were even fleeting hints of pale sunlight. Few visitors were inspecting the cold, damp fragments of history that afternoon. A couple wearing raincoats walked beside the north boundary wall, perhaps seeking the haunted tower. Neither of them was tall. A tall man wearing a tweed cap and a raincoat came round a corner of St Rule’s Tower and stood at the entrance. He was joined by a big woman in a thick coat and trousers. She was bare-headed.

‘It’s them!’ Flick hissed to McKellar as the woman appeared to insert something before entering the tower. The man did the same.