More Than Meets the Eye (3 page)

For the first time, Lorna wondered whether the strain of the strange, loving battle she was conducting in her home was affecting her conduct outside it.

At Westbourne Park, Hugo Wilkinson was nothing like as exhausted as Lorna Green. At fifty-five, he was a couple of years older than Lorna, but he had energy to spare.

It was a curious life, being the head chef with responsibility for the kitchens at Westbourne, but over the three years Hugo had been in post, he had grown used to it and found that the work suited his present needs.

The clientele, for a start, was very different from that of the fashionable restaurant by the Thames he had left to come here. Older and more polite, which was good. Much more conservative in their choice of dishes, which was not so good. After finding that his more adventurous items had few takers, he had been forced to revise his menus for the premier restaurant at Westbourne Park. But the place was licensed for weddings and other functions, which gave him the occasional chance to spread his catering wings.

The oddest factor about Westbourne for a chef was the change in working hours. Like most men of his calling, Wilkinson had grown used to working at top pressure through hot and frantic kitchen evenings and not arriving home until after midnight. The odd working hours had helped to destroy his marriage, he told anyone who asked him about his private life. It was a useful ploy; people usually nodded their heads sympathetically and did not press him any further about the real reasons.

At Westbourne, with its opening hours of ten to six, the peak period was in the middle of the day; the restaurant was invariably full at lunchtime during the summer months. You worked intensively for four hours or so. Then you were less stressed as people came in for teas. During the evening, when most chefs were dealing with temperamental staff, high emotions and colourful language, you could relax. On a summer evening like this, you could enjoy the gardens in tranquillity, or even enjoy a game of croquet on the Theatre Lawn.

Croquet wasn't a hobby of Hugo Wilkinson. Nevertheless, he often went out on to that great lawn with its raised grass stage, where outdoor performances of Shakespeare had once disturbed the wildlife. He was always delighted when he heard the shrill voices of Jim Hartley's sons. The head gardener was trying to introduce Sam, eight, and Oliver, six, to the joys and mysteries of cricket, and Hugo would join in as an extra fielder and underarm bowler whenever he was free. He'd no children of his own and he'd never enjoyed cricket much at school, but with a tennis ball and children of this age, he was a valuable addition to the ranks.

Tonight, there was no cricket or croquet and Hugo Wilkinson was indoors and restless. It seemed a pity to waste a still and perfect summer evening, but he was waiting for a phone call. It was one he couldn't take on his mobile in the grounds. They'd agreed not to use mobiles, because you needed to be certain that no one else could overhear the conversation. You couldn't be too careful; secrecy needed to become a habit. That had been drummed into them by the man who'd been in this from the beginning and they were all happy enough to accept it.

Hugo watched a little television, read a few pages of his thriller, put in a couple of clues in his crossword, but found he could settle to nothing. The last glimmers of light were seeping away from the western sky when the phone shrilled in the corner of the room. Five past ten, his watch told him. He was across the room and lifting the receiver as the second rings began.

‘Wilkinson.'

‘It's there now.'

‘Thank you. It will be well received.'

This was the code that was agreed between them, when the leader had emphasized that brevity was essential. The line went dead immediately. It all seemed a little silly and melodramatic, Hugo thought, as he stared down at the phone. It was like some Masonic ritual, though he had never known the Masons to favour brevity. He'd been a member for a few years before deciding that the arcane ceremonies had little to offer him. There weren't many Masons in the world of haute cuisine, so that he'd enjoyed few companionable handshakes and no advantages in the promotional stakes.

He hadn't realized how tense he'd been, until the call brought him satisfaction and relaxation. He went over and turned on the computer which stood on the small desk at the side of the room. These were the times when it was best to live on your own. You didn't have to dive like a rat for cover when anyone else came into the room. You didn't have to wait for hours or even days to indulge yourself.

You could go about your business and pursue your little hobbies undisturbed.

Whilst Hugo Wilkinson fretted and waited for his phone call, Detective Chief Superintendent John Lambert was thoroughly enjoying the long summer evening. That did not mean it did not contain moments of tension, because he was on the Ross-on-Wye golf course.

He was partnering Detective Sergeant Bert Hook whom he had introduced to golf, despite this sturdy son of Herefordshire's declared contempt for a game he had previously declared appropriate only for toffs and the seriously deranged. They were playing in the second round of the club's knock-out fourball competition. And thanks to Lambert's steadiness, Hook's high handicap, and a little luck, they were winning.

That was satisfying, for they were playing against a cagey and experienced farmer from the Forest of Dean and one of the club's bright new talents, a young Glaswegian called Alex Fraser, who played off a handicap of two and was proving every bit as good as that implied. Alex was slightly built and looked even younger than his twenty years. Whether because he was a little in awe of the older men around him or whether because he wished to concentrate on his golf, he didn't say much. He was perfectly polite, but responded mainly in monosyllables, even to his partner from the Forest, who was no great conversationalist himself. But the excellence and accuracy of his striking compelled a respectful silence in his three companions.

Hook had been a sturdy Minor Counties cricketer for almost two decades and was now rapidly improving at golf. Although he still held a seventeen handicap, he had holed several crucial putts on the outward half. Lambert, who played off eight, had not looked like a single-figure man at that time, but two pars on the tricky tenth and eleventh showed his quality. The pair were two up when they came to the twelfth tee.

The twelfth at Ross is a picturesque short hole, played over a large pond which is alive with roach and bream. The pond stretches invitingly in front of the tee, but finishes well short of the green. Only an absolute novice or an absolute mishit would deposit a ball in the water.

Bert Hook's ball disappeared with an impressive splash into the very middle of the still and inviting pool.

‘Bad luck!' said his farmer opponent automatically.

‘Bad bloody shot more like!' said Hook dismissively, slamming the offending club back into his bag.

‘It can happen to anyone,' said John Lambert consolingly. The fact that he said it through clenched teeth rather took away from any consolation Bert might have felt. He was left to meditate on the truism that there are very few shots in golf, good or bad, that do not please someone. No doubt his two opponents had been extremely gratified by this one.

Lambert teed and addressed his ball carefully, then dispatched his six-iron shot into the middle of the green, some four yards behind the flag. He accepted the congratulations of the other three modestly and gave Hook a reassuring smile. Bert for some reason thought of it as admonitory; no doubt his attitude was influenced by the ripples still visible upon the previously still waters of the pond.

Alex Fraser pitched and stopped a gentle eight-iron six feet below the flag, watched Lambert nurse his putt carefully down the hill to the side of the hole, then struck his own putt confidently into the middle of the hole for a two. Back to one down.

The Lambert/Hook partnership halved the tricky thirteenth, then the long par-four fourteenth, where they both received shots. Fifteen and sixteen are two shortish par-fours, and the young Scot made birdies at both of them to put his side one up with two to go. It was not just Alex Fraser who was saying little as the players toiled up the long seventeenth which is agreed to be the most difficult hole at Ross. The police partnership had the advantage of shots here, and Lambert sank a curling eight-feet putt for an unexpected four to square the match.

The sun had sunk behind the Welsh hills to the west as the four contemplated the long descent of the eighteenth hole to the final green and the clubhouse. Lambert hit his drive a respectable distance and straight. Hook was too far left and could not reach the green with his second. The farmer found the trees on the right, but young Alex hit a three-wood to exactly the spot he had chosen on the fairway. After watching Lambert bounce his ball accurately into the green, Fraser hit a short iron which stopped impressively within a few feet of the flag.

After the two lesser players in this little drama had failed, it was left to Lambert and Fraser to act out the final action. After ritual consultation with Hook about the line, Lambert crouched over his ball and dispatched it impressively to within a foot of the hole. The four was duly conceded. Then young Alex stepped up to his ball, glanced twice at the hole, and rolled his putt slowly into the heart of the hole for an impressive winning three.

With but minimal help from his older partner, he had secured victory for them against Lambert's impressive steadiness and Hook's huge handicap advantage. It wasn't until he stepped forward with a shy smile and removed his baseball cap to shake hands that they registered his most distinctive physical feature. His hair was the brightest red that either Lambert or Hook could recall in their now considerable experience.

Alex Fraser was as taciturn in the clubhouse as he had been on the course. He was perfectly polite, maybe even excessively so, but he said very little. Even when they questioned him with genuine interest about his Glasgow upbringing, he delivered only terse and colourless answers. It was understandable, thought Bert Hook. He was with men who were much older and with whom he had nothing in common other than golf. Bert said, ‘I'm not used to the handicap system in golf. I've always played games where the better player or players were expected to win.'

Alex Fraser nodded and confessed that his greatest interest was in the club championship, where everyone played off scratch and the best player on the day did indeed win. But he hastened to say modestly that there were many better players than him and that he could never have made it as a professional. Then he subsided into silence again and sipped his beer contemplatively. As dusk deepened and the lights were switched on in the clubhouse, his hair seemed an even more startling red than it had done outside.

It was a most unexpected subject which suddenly brought animation to young Alex. John Lambert and the Forest of Dean farmer shared an interest in gardening and Lambert, who had paid one of his regular visits to the National Trust gardens at Westbourne Park, was enthusing about the variety of the plants there and the fact that there was always something interesting to see, whatever the season.

Alex Fraser said suddenly, ‘I work at Westbourne.'

He glanced at the three faces around the table, then down again at his beer. John Lambert realized with amusement that he was blushing. The redness emphasized the freckles around his temples. Lambert said, ‘I didn't take you for a horticultural expert, Alex.'

‘Oh, I'm not an expert.' Fraser looked even redder and more embarrassed. ‘I've got a year's apprenticeship there. We didn't have a garden at home, but I worked in the Glasgow Parks Department and found I enjoyed it, so I wanted to learn more.'

‘And are you doing that?'

‘Oh, yes. We're not just cheap labour for weeding and mowing and hedge cutting, as I thought we might be. They let me try my hand at everything. I'm learning all the time and enjoying myself as well.'

He made that sound a combination he had never expected. He was genuinely animated by his enthusiasm for the work at Westbourne, as he had not been through the rest of the evening. He chattered happily and interestingly about his days at the great garden, until he stopped abruptly and said, ‘Sorry. I must be boring you with all this.'

‘Not at all,' said Bert Hook. ‘It's good to find someone genuinely excited by their work.' He'd been careful to say ‘someone' rather than ‘a young man'. In Bert's probably biased view, too many golf club members were prepared to write the young off as an amorphous mass of trouble.

As he lay in bed that night, Alex Fraser reflected that he'd chatted easily to a Chief Super and a Detective Sergeant, without even being under arrest at the time. Most of his contemporaries in the great Scottish city of Glasgow wouldn't have believed that.

A
lison Cooper was five years younger than her husband, but she considered that she was a good deal younger than that in terms of outlook and personality.

She wasn't prepared to be buried alive in the English countryside, for a start. When Dennis had first got the job of curator at Westbourne Park, life had seemed idyllic, but that had only lasted for a few weeks. She might be forty-nine now, but she was aware of the latest trends in popular music. Although she affected to deride the cult of ‘celebrity', she perused organs of popular culture like
Hello!
and was as well acquainted with the doings of the Beckhams as she was the latest rumours and counter-rumours concerning the royal family.

And she had a lover. That was bang up to date: both a feminist assertion and a twenty-first century trend, she felt. Why should the men be allowed to have all the fun? Older and wiser women might have told her to beware of getting out of her emotional depth, but Alison wouldn't have listened anyway. She had never had much time for older and wiser women.

You shaped your own life and made your own mistakes, in her view. As she looked out of the window of the hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon, this lover didn't seem to be much of a mistake. This must be one of the most sought-after and most expensive rooms in this expensive town, she thought with satisfaction. You looked from the window straight across the wide waters of the river to the newly refurbished Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. There was a cross-section of people young and old on the terrace beside the river, as well as a steady traffic of boats large and small upon the Avon. This place teemed with life and she had a luxurious room from which to view it.