Free Loose Head by Jeff Keithly Page B

he was just telling me Weathersby had been our ‘anonymous benefactor,’ and later that night, John confirmed he had been. But there was more to it than that. After all, knowing John, generosity on that scale would’ve been completely out of character. He was legendary for squeezing every pound coin until it screamed. I can’t remember the last time he so much as bought a round of drinks.”
    An incident from our tour of Canada, six years previously, suddenly leapt to mind. One night in Vancouver, five or six of the lads, including John and I, were on our way to a Gastown restaurant for dinner. A grizzled, ancient homeless man had asked us for change. “We can do better than that, can’t we lads?” John had said, and, with a wolfish grin, invited the man to join us for dinner. John sat the poor old dosser down at our table, despite the disapproving glares of the staff, and proceeded to order the finest the house could provide, all the while regaling his guest with tales of his rugby prowess and amorous conquests. As we watched in awe, old Aqualung, unable to believe his good fortune, tucked in with a vengeance that left us fearing for his digits.
    “John had just finished some sordid story, something about waking up tied to a strange bedstead with alligator clips attached to his scrotum, and ordered a large armagnac. Then he got up and went for a piss.
    “We awaited his return. Then waited, and waited some more. But John was already back at the hotel, laughing that hyena laugh of his. In the end, he stuck us with the bill, not only for his own meal, but for the old wino’s tab as well. And that was John’s idea of a fine joke. On us,” I finished.
    Brian pondered this moving anecdote. “So your point is...?”
    “John wasn’t a generous man, except with himself. Look at how he treated Tess and his children. He begrudged them every pence. Why would he suddenly pay for a separate suite to provide a venue for the boys’ bad behavior on tour? He’d never done that before.”
    The light of reason was slowly kindling in John’s bloodhound eyes. “You told me he was a man who always had to have the upper hand – an edge of some sort.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I finally spoke to the man who sold him Finch-Hatton’s rifle. Weathersby paid cash.”
    “£200,000.”
    “In used hundred-pound notes.” Brian tapped his teeth with a pencil, a mannerism he had when the old brain cells were firing at an especially rapid clip. The tapping stopped. “Your friend Weathersby was shearing black sheep.”
    “I’m inclined to agree. And the Hastewicke Gentlemen were his flock.”
    “What would you wager that, when I ring the security staff at your hotel in Vegas tomorrow, they tell me they found some recently-filled holes in the walls of suite 455? Holes for fiber-optic video cameras, the latest stuff, sited to cover every angle of the sitting room, the bedroom and the toilet?”
    I nodded. “And when we return from tour, John has the boys over, one by one, for a friendly drink. Then he brings out the computer, and treats them to a video replay of their worst indiscretions, complete with editing, soundtrack and popcorn.”
    “It’s diabolical, really clever – what better candidates for blackmail could there be than a bunch of wealthy nobs on rugby tour? I shudder to think what they might have got up to. They’d pay through the nose to keep it quiet.”
    I knew only too well how true that was, and suddenly felt a bit queasy as the magnitude of John’s sacrilege struck home. “Or resort to more primitive means of ensuring his silence. After all, the bond of rugby touring is firmly rooted in mutual sin. If he really did this, some might think John got what he deserved.”
    “But murder? Come on, Dex – that’s a bit harsh, just to keep a bit of slap-and-tickle from the wife.”
    “Some of us have more to lose than others.” Then a sudden thought occurred, and the plate I was washing almost slipped from my