Just Desserts Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also by J.M. Gregson from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  by J.M. Gregson from Severn House

  Lambert and Hook Mysteries

  GIRL GONE MISSING

  MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

  AN UNSUITABLE DEATH

  AN ACADEMIC DEATH

  DEATH ON THE ELEVENTH HOLE

  MORTAL TASTE

  JUST DESSERTS

  TOO MUCH OF WATER

  CLOSE CASS

  SOMETHING IS ROTTEN

  A GOOD WALK SPOILED

  DARKNESS VISIBLE

  IN VINO VERITAS

  DIE HAPPY

  MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

  Detective Inspector Peach Mysteries

  WHO SAW HIM DIE?

  MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD

  TO KILL A WIFE

  A TURBULENT PRIEST

  THE LANCASHIRE LEOPARD

  A LITTLE LEARNING

  MURDER AT THE LODGE

  WAGES OF SIN

  DUSTY DEATH

  WITCH’S SABBATH

  REMAINS TO BE SEEN

  PASTURES NEW

  WILD JUSTICE

  ONLY A GAME

  MERELY PLAYERS

  LEAST OF EVILS

  JUST DESSERTS

  J.M. Gregson

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2004 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  This eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn Digital an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2004 by J. M. Gregson.

  The right of J.M. Gregson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Gregson, J.M.

  Just desserts

  1. Lambert, John (Fictitious character) - Fiction

  2. Hook, Bert (Fictitious character) - Fiction

  3. Murder - Investigation - Fiction

  4.Detective and mystery stories

  I. Title

  823.9'14[F]

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-316-7 (epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6120-7

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To Fred and Paula Soutter,

  whose splendid restaurant provided the setting

  for this sinister story

  One

  Everyone seemed to like him.

  That is normally a good thing, an admirable thing. In this case, it would eventually make things very difficult for the police. But no one was thinking about policemen at the time.

  Patrick Nayland was a model employer. Both his workforce and his customers seemed to think that. And this was the kind of business where there was plenty of evidence.

  Nayland owned a small golf course outside the old market town of Oldford, in that green and pleasant part of England between the rivers Severn and Wye, where Gloucestershire runs into Herefordshire. It is a quiet and beautiful area, with the mellow stone villages and rolling hills of the Cotswolds to the north and east and the high mountains of the Brecon Beacons to the west.

  This was not a pretentious golf course: it had only nine holes, and a short and undistinguished history. In the early nineties, when the proliferation of golf courses was being encouraged by a government anxious to emphasize the new leisure which was to be a feature of life in the years ahead, Patrick Nayland had obtained planning consent for a new golfing development.

  With this secured, he paid a grateful farmer what seemed an extravagant price for a piece of difficult agricultural land. It had been suitable only for sheep yet Nayland had paid well above the going price for pasture land. The Gloucestershire man who had farmed this hillside since he was a boy grinned gratefully as he took the money: here was another city-dweller who had made his money too easily and spent it too freely, he decided.

  But Patrick Nayland knew what he was doing. The land was beside the main road from Gloucester to Oldford. As his modest development took shape, with the forthcoming golf course proclaimed on a large sign beside the road, there was considerable interest from passing motorists. Nayland kept the changes to the minimum, using the natural contours of the land wherever possible, using the earthmoving equipment he hired just to level some areas for greens and to gouge out the small number of bunkers he thought necessary.

  He planted a hundred saplings, which in due course would become quite large trees, fringing the fairways, but not narrowing them too much and not near enough to the greens to cause serious golfing problems. He did not want a course that was too difficult. ‘Challenging’, that word beloved of more ambitious golf-course architects, was not for him. This development would be mainly for beginners and novice golfers. The game itself was quite challenging enough for them. Patrick Nayland knew his market.

  He had his nine holes ready for play within fifteen months, and the customers flooded in. At first, the grass on the fairways and the greens was rather coarse and patchy, but it steadily improved with mowing. Soon you could see the shape of the holes and the landmarks provided by the bunkers, which he filled with striking, near-white sand. The place began to look like a real golf course.

  And everyone liked the man who owned it.

  The people who played at the long-established courses like Ross-on-Wye and the Rolls of Monmouth turned their noses up a little at the modest new nine-hole venture, but even they had to acknowledge that the new course served a useful purpose. It enabled people who had never played golf to try out this intriguing but often infuriating sport to see if it suited them. They could even hire clubs, if they couldn’t find a relative’s discarded ones in the attic or the garage. They could introduce themselves to the game without the considerable expense of joining the waiting list at an existing high-profile club or of purchasing shining new golfing equipment.

  The venture prospered over its first ten years. Nayland gave it an impressive entrance and called it Camellia Park Golf Club. As the trees grew and the greens improved, the land matured into quite a nice-looking little course, pretty enough to attract golfers of both sexes and all ages, but modest enough in length to flatter their often limited abilities. Patrick Nayland even played it occasionally himself, waving
to his patrons with a lordly proprietorial air, though he retained his membership and played his more serious golf at the nearby Ross-on-Wye Golf Club.

  He visited Camellia Park regularly, keeping a fond and sometimes critical eye upon its development, but he did not manage the place himself. He employed a manager who kept a daily check on the takings and the outgoings and supervised the staff. He had found exactly the man he needed in Chris Pearson, who at forty-seven years old was just two years younger than Nayland himself.

  They shared other things as well as their generation. Patrick Nayland had been a captain on a short-service commission at the time of the Falklands. He had seen active service in that curious backwater of a war, and become a major as a result. The promotion hadn’t prevented him leaving after five years of the military life to pursue a career where individual initiative was not restricted by Army rules.

  Yet perhaps he retained a respect for the qualities instilled by military discipline, for when he was looking for someone trustworthy and reliable to run Camellia Park, he was swayed by the Army career and the impeccable references of Christopher Pearson, who had risen through the ranks to become a warrant officer class 2. That was the rank enjoyed by sergeant-majors, and perhaps Nayland unconsciously assumed that his relationship with his manager would be that of officer and senior NCO.

  Whatever the psychology involved, the partnership worked well as the new business venture developed. Pearson was a tough, no-nonsense manager of the office, the modest clubhouse, and the labour taken on as the course developed. Tough but fair: the course and domestic staff learned that they would get away with very little, but that good work would be recognized and rewarded.

  And the owner of the enterprise, who had distanced himself from the day-to-day problems of the course with Pearson’s appointment, remained popular with staff and customers.

  On one of the last days of November, Nayland and Pearson were walking round their golf course together, devising a programme of winter work for the green staff. When the need for cutting the grass was gone, there would be time to trim trees back, to lay one or two new stretches of path, to repair the edges of bunkers which had grown shabby and unkempt with summer use. The list grew, for both men wanted the busy little course to be as neat and as fair as was possible; Chris Pearson kept a note of everything they agreed as they walked the fairways purposefully among the golfers.

  There were plenty of those, for this was an unseasonally benign, mild day at the end of November. The temperature was scarcely lower than that of August, and only the early twilight and the myriad shades of red and gold on the trees and hills reminded you that autumn was well advanced. The man who owned the course and the slightly taller figure at his side did not hurry their work, for it was a pleasant day to be out in the open, and both of them knew there might not be another day as benign as this until the spring.

  They agreed and marked the precise point where a flowering cherry was to be planted behind the fourth green, decided that the tee behind the sixth should be extended and that the one on the eighth should be given extra drainage to enable it to stand up to the traffic it was now carrying with the success of the course.

  Most of the golfers recognized the manager if not the owner of the enterprise, and the pair received many greetings and not a few compliments on the condition of the course as they proceeded. It was the kind of day which made people happy with life in general and philosophical about the deficiencies of their golf. Even the two men who were so familiar with this scene, who knew every rise and fall of the land, every patch of grass on the little course, took a moment when they had finished their work to gaze at the crimson of the sunset and the black profile of the maturing trees against the horizon.

  There was an agreeable interval of silence before Chris Pearson said, ‘I thought we might consider taking young Barry on full-time. The takings warrant it, and with the number of regulars we now have, I’m sure the winter green fees will be up on last year.’

  Barry Hooper was a young black man they had employed for the last six months, initially part-time, then full-time, but only on a temporary basis. Patrick Nayland said, ‘It’s not a good time to take on new outdoor staff, with the winter coming up. There isn’t the same work on the course as when we’re mowing every day.’

  ‘There’s enough for two men, with the winter programme of works on the course we’ve just agreed. The drainage and the new paths are quite big projects. I don’t think Hooper will have time on his hands, but if he has, I can always get him to give a hand with the catering or in the bar at the weekends. Young Barry doesn’t mind turning his hand to anything, and he lives near enough to come in whenever we want him. He has his own transport.’

  ‘But are you happy to take the lad on permanently, Chris? It’s not easy to get rid of labour, after the probation period. And Hooper had a pretty chequered employment record before he came to us.’

  ‘I know that. But he’s settled in well here. He loves the outdoor work. And he’s not a shirker. He gives full value for what we pay him.’

  Nayland grinned. ‘With a greenkeeper like Alan Fitch and a manager like you, he won’t get much chance to slack, I’m sure.’ He had made the proper noises, asked the ritual questions expected of the man who paid the wages, but he had always been going to accept the suggestion about this latest addition to the permanent staff. Hooper was a good worker and in truth they paid him not much above the minimum wage.

  The decision made good commercial sense. He would give the lad a small rise, when the pace of work quickened on the course in spring. ‘All right, you can tell him he’s now on the permanent staff, a proper member of the team.’

  Chris Pearson wondered if it was a residue of Nayland’s Army officer’s training that made him constantly stress the importance of the team ethic. But it was appropriate enough, with the small, carefully selected workforce they employed. He said, ‘It will be a nice surprise for the boy, with Christmas not too far away.’ Barry Hooper was twenty-two, but both he and Nayland had reached the age where they thought of such men as lads.

  ‘Speaking of Christmas, I thought we might take the staff out for a meal some time in December,’ said Nayland. It’s ten years since this little enterprise began, and a modest celebration seems to be in order.’

  ‘Good idea!’ said Pearson promptly. ‘Did you have anywhere in mind for this little party?’

  ‘I thought we might push the boat out. Go to Soutters Restaurant in Newent.’

  Pearson whistled softly. ‘That would cost a bit.’ Soutters was quality: well worth the price for its food and its ambience, but not cheap.

  Patrick Nayland grinned. ‘We can afford it, once every ten years. And it’s a small, intimate place, just the right size for us. We could take over the whole restaurant for an evening for our little party. They’re pretty fully booked in the run-up to Christmas, but I’ve already reserved an evening for us. I’ll confirm it, and you can let the staff know next week.’

  It sounded like a most agreeable evening. It should have left Chris Pearson with a warm glow of anticipation as darkness fell and he was left alone in the office behind the reception area.

  He could not work out quite why he felt so apprehensive about the evening at Soutters. Celebrating the first ten years was a splendid notion, and could only encourage everyone to pull together in the months ahead. It could only help to make the boss more popular still.

  For, after all, everyone liked Patrick Nayland.

  Two

  ‘We’ll have a nice meal together. Open a bottle of wine and relax over it. It’s a while since we did that.’ Liza Nayland’s words to her daughter rang falsely bright and cheerful in the big modern kitchen.

  ‘Can’t do Saturday. I go out on Saturday nights.’

  ‘I know you do, dear. We’ll make it Sunday then. We’ll eat around six thirty. I’ll get some of that fillet steak you like in the morning.’

  ‘He likes, you mean.’

  ‘Not “he”, Michelle
. “He” has a name, you know. I don’t know why you can’t just call him Dad.’

  ‘Because he’s not. That’s quite simple, Mum. I’ve got a dad, and it’s not him.’

  Her mother sighed wearily. ‘You’ve got to move on, Michelle. You’ve got to face facts. You’ve got a new life now.’

  ‘You have, you mean. Don’t pretend that I have. It wasn’t my choice. I wasn’t even consulted.’ Michelle Nayland knew she wasn’t being fair, that she was behaving more like a child than a woman of twenty-three. But at that moment she had no desire to be fair.

  Her mother forced herself to remain calm: they had been down this road often enough before, and things would only get worse if she showed her anger. ‘You were consulted, dear. And I know you didn’t see things my way. That’s a pity, but I had to go ahead and make my own decision. You may think I’m ancient, but I’ve got a lot of my life still to live, I hope!’

  Michelle grinned, forced herself to relax. ‘Of course you have, Mum. I can’t disguise the fact that I wish you’d chosen to live it with someone else, but it’s not fair of me to go on moaning about it. Look, make that meal fairly early on Sunday evening, and I’ll be there and smiling!’

  ‘It’s a deal. And I bet you don’t leave the steak, whatever you say.’ They were happy with each other again, increasingly so as they moved on to other and less emotional things.

  Michelle told herself that this wasn’t the moment to reveal her news. Instead, she must steel herself to be nice on Sunday evening.

  Her mother obviously still didn’t know about Patrick.

  Alan Fitch, the greenkeeper at Camellia Park, was one of Chris Pearson’s ‘finds’, one of the reasons why the modest little golf course had been so successful in its first ten years.

  Fitch had spent eleven years in the Merchant Navy, a period which he claimed was responsible for the versatility which everyone remarked in him. He could turn his hand to most things, and his willingness to do so had been his most valuable quality in getting the new venture off the ground and into eventual profit.