The Players And The Game by Julian Symons Page A

office, and she often gave him a slightly embroidered account of life there. She told him now about the Personnel Director taking her out to drinks.
    ‘He s ever so nice. I mean, quite old, but you’d never guess it from his clothes and you can talk to him, I mean, just as if he was someone about twenty-five. Of course I suppose being Personnel Director makes a difference. I mean, you’ve got to get on with people. Mr Vane’s very good at that.’
    Mrs Lindley had an arthritic condition that kept her more or less immured in an armchair, from which she rose only with the aid of a stick. Like many invalids she had an enormous appetite, and also a tenacious memory for misfortune and catastrophe. Now she paused with a piece of pork pie from the tray in front of her half way to her mouth. ‘What name did you say, Joy?’
    ‘Who? Oh, Mr Vane. I think his name’s Paul. Yes, that’s right.’
    ‘Edgar.’ Mr Lindley, who had been listening with placid pleasure to Joy’s recital, looked startled. ‘Get my letter file from the bedroom.’
    Edgar never queried his wife’s requests, but did as he was told. The file contained all the correspondence she wished to preserve, her battle with the Electricity Company over an account, the complaints to the Council about a new housing estate uncomfortably near their home, the angry correspondence with other members of the family about things that should have been left to her in an aunt’s will. Now she went slowly through the file until she found a particular bundle of letters. The pork pie was pushed aside. ‘Edgar.’
    He had watched with apprehension. Abandonment of food meant something serious. ‘My dear.’
    ‘You must ring your sister Hetty. At once.’ She contemplated the tray in front of her, and said with satisfaction, ‘I shan’t want any more supper.’

Chapter Eleven
Conference
     
    The problem of Louise Allbright had now passed far beyond the range of Hurley, who had received such savage rebukes that he wished he had never heard her name. The people present at the conference called for discussion at County HQ in Markstone, ten miles from Rawley, were the top brass of the county police. Hazleton was there from Rawley, with Detective Chief Superintendent Paling from the County HQ, and the Chief Constable, Sir Felton Dicksee. The most important question to be settled was whether the county should handle the investigation, or whether they should call in Scotland Yard.
    Sir Felton turned over the papers and reports in front of him. His dislike of paper work was well known. His friends said that he was essentially a man of action, his enemies that he was unable to read. ‘Never mind all this bumph,’ he said now. ‘The thing is, where are we, Paling? What have we got?’
    Angus Paling put his fingertips together. His fingers were long and narrow. They were in keeping with a long narrow body and a long narrow head, with a cockscomb of silver hair. There was a sort of fastidiousness about Paling which irritated Hazleton, who thought that he was not much of a working copper. At the same time, Hazleton grudgingly admitted that he knew how to talk.
    ‘The crucial thing, as I see it, is the discovery of the holdall and bag. Unless Louise left it on the bus by accident, which is so unlikely that we can rule it out, we must accept that something has happened to her. If so, then there are two possibilities. Either she went up to London and whatever happened occurred there, or the holdall was deliberately planted in that bus to take attention away from Rawley.’
    Thank you for a statement of the blindingly obvious, Hazleton thought. Sir Felton said quite so, the thing was whether they were happy to deal with it themselves. Paling arched his silver eyebrows and looked at Hazleton, who recognised an old tactic of the DCS. Hazleton would express an opinion. Paling would say that he was prepared to go along with what had been suggested. If everything worked out well Paling would