Game Over by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Read Free Book Online Page B

old-fashioned chippiness about people with double-barrelled names.
    Candida Scott-Chatton was tall, blonde and classically beautiful, exquisitely dressed in what Swilley would have liked to bet was a Chanel or Prada suit – something expensive and exclusive, anyway – with pearls at neck and ears. No hair of her smooth bob was out of place, and her make-up was so perfect that it gave her a kind of expressionless immobility, as if, having got herself to this state of perfection, she didn’t want to do anything else with her face for fear of spoiling it.
    Swilley shook her hand (thin, extremely cold, with long fingers made longer by polished nails so perfect Swilley guessed they were false) and looked into her eyes. The blue eyes that looked back were as cold as a highland spring.
    ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this,’ Swilley said. ‘I gather you’ve heard what happened to Mr Stonax. You must be very upset.’
    ‘I’m devastated,’ said Candida Scott-Chatton. She didn’t meet Swilley’s eyes and her voice was rather high and strained, but it seemed to Swilley more like nervousness than grief. ‘Of course, we live in dangerous times and we all know something like that could happen to any of us, any time. But somehow you never expect it to happen to you, or to someone you know.’
    She doesn’t care a jot, Swilley thought.
    Perhaps something of the thought showed in her face, because Scott-Chatton turned away abruptly, went behind her desk, and with her back turned took out a handkerchief and seemed to attend to her nose and eyes with it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a muffled sort of voice. ‘Will you give me a moment?’
    ‘Take your time,’ said Swilley, unmoving and unmoved.
    When Scott-Chatton turned back her eyes did seem a little moist, but Swilley, determined to yield nothing, told herself that that was easy enough to fake.
    ‘Won’t you sit down?’ Scott-Chatton gestured to a leather upholstered upright chair by the desk, and Swilley sat. ‘I’m not sure that there’s anything much I can tell you, though I’m willing to help in any way I can. On the news they seemed to be saying it was a burglary that went wrong. Is that true?’
    ‘That’s what it looks like,’ Swilley said. ‘How well did you know Mr Stonax?’
    ‘We’ve been friends for some years. He was always interested in environmental and countryside issues, and of course he was environment correspondent at the BBC at one time, so we tended to meet in a professional way quite often.’
    ‘But you were more than friends, weren’t you?’
    She seemed taken aback. She paused too long for the answer, whatever it was going to be, to look unstudied. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said faintly, uncertainly.
    ‘I think you do,’ Swilley said, interested that she should want to deny the connection. She wasn’t married – Swilley had checked that in Who’s Who . ‘I should mention that we’ve spoken to his daughter.’
    Was it relief that flickered through her eyes? She said now, in a calm voice, as if she had never prevaricated, ‘We’ve been lovers for about two years, if that’s what you mean.’
    What else? Swilley thought. There was something here she didn’t understand. ‘When did you last see him?’
    ‘Oh – it would be last week. We went out to dinner. Wednesday evening, I think? Or Tuesday? No, Wednesday, the twenty-third. We both have busy lives, so we don’t – didn’t – get to see each other as often as we’d like.’
    ‘And how did he seem on that occasion?’
    ‘Just as usual.’
    ‘Was he worried about anything? Preoccupied?’
    ‘No, why should he be?’
    ‘What did you talk about?’
    There was a hint of impatience in the reply. ‘Goodness, I can’t remember. Nothing in particular. Just what we always talked about. Why on earth are you asking me these questions? What relevance can our dinner conversation a week ago have to his being attacked by a burglar?’
    ‘It’s