‘Did you speak to someone at the County Bridge Union?’
‘There won’t be anybody there until this afternoon, but they gave me the contact details for the tournament director at the County Finals that year. Lives on the Blackdowns at a place called Clayhidon.’
One junction down on the M5, Louise took her chance in the car. ‘Are you sure about this bridge thing?’ she asked. ‘I mean, they settled the litigation twenty years ago.’
Dixon had known it was coming. The last time Louise had questioned his judgement, he’d been flying by the seat of his pants, a whole major investigation team following little more than a hunch. Not that he’d told anyone except Jane, of course. But that was the SIO’s job, to make the difficult decisions and record them in the Policy Log so he could be blamed later.
The Policy Log. That would need updating before Charlesworth ambushed him again.
‘What else is there?’ he asked.
‘There’s the car, the Fiat 500,’ replied Louise.
‘Mark’s working on that.’
‘The person dressed as an occupational therapist.’
‘And what else could we, or should we, be doing about that?’ asked Dixon. ‘That we aren’t doing already?’
‘Nothing, I suppose. It’s not as if we’ve got a big team either. Calling it a “regional task force” may make it sound bigger, but there are fewer people than last time for the graffiti thing. Killing students must be more important than killing old people.’
Louise had a point, and it was one that had occurred to him, not that there was much he could do about it either way. He reached into the back of the Land Rover, picked up the road atlas and dropped it in her lap.
‘I’ve got it on my phone,’ she said, taking the hint. ‘It’s on the road between Clayhidon and Hemyock.’
A bungalow, as it turned out, with a front garden that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years; the rotting wooden bench was collapsing under the weight of the branches of a fir tree. A conservatory at the side of the house, where the garage should be, not that there was a car in the drive, anyway.
A ramp up to the front door and a hand rail. Key safe too. Bridge seemed to be the preserve of the elderly.
An old man was sitting in the conservatory, a blanket over his legs tucked down beside the wheels of his chair. He was gesturing to the front door and shouting, ‘It’s open.’
Dixon waved, a cat escaping when he pushed open the door.
‘Your cat’s got out,’ he said. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Yes, fine,’ replied the old man. ‘He’s next door’s anyway, but they never seem to feed him, so he comes here.’
‘Mr Wilkinson?’ asked Louise.
‘And you’ll be the police. I do remember our conversation. It was only this morning.’
Dixon perched on the windowsill, his back to the glass and the sloping concrete driveway leading down to his Land Rover, which he’d left across the drive.
‘Some oaf has parked across my drive, otherwise you could have pulled in,’ said Wilkinson, the glint in his eye telling Dixon the old man knew full well whose car it was.
‘We wanted to ask you about the bridge County Finals and the year it ended in a court case. You were the tournament director, I think,’ he said.
Wilkinson laughed quietly to himself. ‘I remember it well, although the complainants didn’t have the bottle to speak up at the time. They said nothing to their opponents, or to me; never asked for an auction to be reviewed by the tournament director, which is their right. They just went to the local press the following day. Frankly, I’d have banned them for life, but the union had other ideas.’ He curled his lip. ‘Some bright spark kept saying, “Justice had to be seen to be done.”’
‘And was it?’
‘It was to the extent that those two who were banned ended up being reinstated, but they had to go to court. I gave a witness statement to their solicitor. I remember it well. Nothing was drawn to my attention during play and I can recall no irregularity, or even a suggestion of impropriety being made until the following day.’ The old man was clearly seething at the memory. ‘And that’s the best place for newspapers, in my opinion,’ he said, gesturing to a cat’s litter tray in the corner of the conservatory.
Dixon was getting close, he could feel it, but how and why were beyond him. Nothing for it, but to keep digging.
‘Were you involved in the Regional Qualifier?’ he asked.
‘Not that year. I used to go as a referee – not as the tournament director you understand – but we were away on a cruise that year. The Icelandic fjords; jolly nice it was too.’
‘Can you remember who competed for Somerset?’
‘The two accused of cheating were there, and their accusers, oddly enough, but I can’t remember who else. The team varies – sometimes it’s two pairs, sometimes three, and once we sent four pairs, from memory. It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘I couldn’t honestly tell you now. It’s changed anyway, I think. You’ll need to ask someone at the Bridge Union.’
‘Do you recall what happened to the court case?’
‘It settled, I think. Rumour had it that there was a payoff, but I’m not sure.’ Wilkinson gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘You can imagine what the rumour mill was like. It was the talk of bridge clubs countywide for years. If it isn’t any more, that’s only because those of us who remember it are either dead or dying.’
‘Have you seen the news recently?’ asked Dixon.
‘Don’t watch the news, don’t read the news. I don’t even have a television that works. I had the licence people here snooping only the other day.’
‘Deirdre Baxter and Michael Allam, the two who were accused of cheating—’
‘I remember the names, now you come to mention them.’
