Blood Sinister (39 page)

Chronologically he might have been twenty-eight, but there was something in this man which had never been young, was as old as ambition itself. Close to, there was a hint of fox in the hair, though it was hard to see under the gel, and a spark of red in the eyebrows; and there were freckles on the backs of the pale hands. Large hands, they were, bony and strong, undecorated except for a thin, old gold ring on the left little finger. The fingers of the right hand drummed a moment impatiently on the desk as he spoke into the telephone, and then snapped a paper over with a sharp sound. Strong fingers, with short-cut, well-kept nails. Very clean.

He put the phone down at last. ‘Well, Inspector, what can I do for you?’ he asked uninvitingly. He looked at his watch. ‘I can’t give you long.’

‘In that case,’ said Slider, rousing himself from the clutches of his thoughts, ‘I’ll be direct.’

‘I wish you would.’

‘I’d like to know where you were on Thursday the twenty-first of January. Thursday week past.’

Tyler’s eyebrows went up. ‘That is not what you are supposed to ask.’

‘You agreed to talk about Piers Prentiss,’ Slider said, ‘so I assumed you wouldn’t mind telling me that.’

Tyler seemed to consider. ‘Well, if you already know that I was with Piers all day that Thursday—’ he began.

Slider interrupted. ‘Ah, yes, I know that’s what he was supposed to say,’ he said apologetically, ‘but you know Piers – or rather, you did. I’m afraid he blurted it all out. About you leaving on Thursday morning. He managed to remember to tell Peter Medmenham that you were with him all day, but by the time I went to talk to him, he’d forgotten your instructions.’ The really scary thing, Slider thought, was how little impact any of this had on Richard Tyler’s expression. His face remained impassive, his eyes bright and thoughtful. Whatever he would do, he would do, Slider felt. You might as well try and talk a lion out of eating you.

‘I think you’d better leave,’ was what he did eventually say.

‘Oh no, don’t say that! Because we’ve got so much to talk about. Look, to save you trouble, I’ll tell you that I know you were at Phoebe Agnew’s flat on Thursday. You left your fingerprints behind.’

‘Impossible!’ he said quickly.

Slider leaned forward a little. ‘Because you wiped them all away?’

‘Because I wasn’t there.’

‘Well, I admit you did a very good job,’ Slider went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘You’ve got a wonderful intellect and a photographic memory, as I’ve been told by several people. You made a mental note of everything you touched so that you could wipe it afterwards. You even had the wit not to wipe the whisky glasses, which you knew you hadn’t used, so that any prints there would incriminate someone else – Josh Prentiss, as it happens. You know Josh, of course?’

Something did stir in the amber depths then; but Tyler said calmly, ‘You are talking complete drivel. Your statement is a nonsense for the simple reason that you do not have my fingerprints to compare with any you might have found at the flat.’

‘You’re right, of course. I’m just assuming the rogue set – the set that doesn’t belong to anyone else – is yours. And you won’t refuse to give me your prints for comparison, will you?’

‘Certainly I refuse.’

‘Oh. That makes things difficult. I can, of course, bring pressure to bear on you, but I wouldn’t like to do that. It’s much better if you do the thing voluntarily. Much better for
your reputation as an MP to be seen to be helping the forces of law and order. And, after all, why shouldn’t you have supper at Phoebe Agnew’s flat? Nothing wrong with that, is there? She was your mother, after all.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tyler said, but he sat down, rather slowly, behind his desk, and Slider felt a tired surge of triumph. If he really didn’t know, he’d have thrown Slider out. But he wanted to hear – to know what Slider knew.

‘Your date of birth and that of Phoebe Agnew’s illegitimate child are the same. She gave her son to be adopted and the order went through the Nottingham County Court. Your parents lived in Nottinghamshire, and you were their adopted child. That’s as far as I’ve got at the moment, but tomorrow I shall get a reply from the County Court records office and the two ends will be brought together, so it would be a waste of time for you to deny it. And why should you? She was a mother to be proud of, wasn’t she? A very fine journalist and a woman of intellect.’

‘Go on,’ said Tyler, without emphasis.

‘Oh – well, all right. I suppose she discovered your identity in the course of researching for her biography of you – did you know about that, by the way?’

‘No. I had no idea she was intending to write one.’

‘I suppose she told you about it when she invited you to supper?’ No answer. ‘We have your finger-marks, you remember. On the unit in her sitting-room, the one under the window that the hi-fi sits on. I suppose you must have leaned on it when you poured coffee or something.’ He demonstrated on the edge of the desk with his hand. ‘Palm and four fingers.’

Behind the bright eyes a reel was being replayed. Slider’s information was tested against memory. Tyler sighed, just faintly, and said, ‘Since you seem to know so much, I will admit that she telephoned me at the office to invite me to supper. I refused, naturally, and then she said she had some important information that she had uncovered while researching my biography. Given her reputation as a journalist, I was inclined to give her credence, but I told her she must tell me what it was about there and then. She was unwilling at first, but when I threatened to put the phone down, she told me the same story that she seems to have sold to you, about her being my real mother – which is absolutely not
true, by the way.’ So, Slider thought, he’s going to play the end game. ‘I’m afraid the poor woman was demented. I don’t know what was wrong with her, but I do seem to have an extreme effect on some women. She was obviously obsessed with me, but I think there was already some mental instability, and I’ve heard she drank very heavily. At any rate, I told her she was mistaken and put the phone down very firmly. And that’s all I know.’

Slider shook his head slightly. ‘I’m afraid that’s not true.’

Tyler continued impatiently, ‘It is a matter of public record that I was in the House on Thursday night. There was an important division at seven-thirty and the whips were out. You will find my name entered amongst the Ayes. I think that must be conclusive enough evidence even for you.’

‘Yes, I know you voted. I’ve checked that,’ Slider said. ‘Of course you left her alive. You dashed up to Westminster for the division, to make sure you were known to be at the House. But you weren’t there earlier. It’s an easy place to dodge around and not be seen in, so that even if no-one could swear to having seen you, no-one could swear you weren’t there. You were in the division lobby at seven-forty, as everybody knows. And then you went back to Phoebe Agnew’s flat.’

‘Absolute rubbish. I’m not going to listen to any more of this,’ Tyler said, but he didn’t move. His shining eyes were fixed on Slider, and for all his experience, Slider couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. Perhaps all it was was vanity, the desire to hear himself talked about.

‘You were there at the flat with Phoebe at a quarter to nine when Piers telephoned her. Piers told me all about it.’

‘Piers couldn’t possibly have known—’

‘That you were with her? Why, because she didn’t mention your name?’

‘No, because I wasn’t there,’ he said calmly.

‘While he was on the phone to Phoebe, he heard your pager go off in the background.’

‘One pager is exactly like another,’ Tyler said.

‘Not quite. Each type has a different bleep. Obviously there are lots like yours, but the bleep he heard was that sort. He recognised it. He’d heard it before when he was with you. It troubled him so much when he finally remembered hearing it,
because he couldn’t think what you were doing there. Did he ask you on Sunday – this last Sunday, I mean? Did he put his worries to you?’

‘Be careful what you say,’ Tyler said. ‘Be very careful.’

‘Oh, I’ll be careful. And there are no witnesses to this meeting, so it doesn’t matter anyway, does it? But I have checked with your office, and they did call you on the pager at a quarter to nine that evening. Because no-one knew where you were – they thought you were in the House, but they couldn’t find you. It’s all making sense, isn’t it?’

‘Not the slightest. So what was I doing at the flat on this extraneous second visit, in your fevered imagination?’

‘Phoebe Agnew had told you on your first visit what she wanted you to know – the thing that was troubling her so desperately for the last few weeks of her life. You had to dash off for the division, because there was a three-line whip, as you’ve agreed. But you couldn’t leave it there. All the way up to Westminster you must have been thinking about the implications of what she said, and realising that if it ever got out, your career would be over. So you went back and killed her.’

Tyler gave a shout of laughter. ‘What? Oh, this is very entertaining. I’m glad I granted you this interview. Go on. When you’ve finished, I’m going to have you removed, and I think you’ll find your career is pretty well over, but I’d like to know how far your imagination stretches.’

‘You were careful,’ Slider said. ‘You telephoned her to make sure she was alone – I’ve checked the records of your mobile, and the call is there. Afterwards you wiped away all your finger-marks – you even remembered to wipe the flush-handle of the loo, which was pretty smart of you, because that’s one that’s usually forgotten. There was just the one on the unit you missed, but no-one’s perfect, are they? And you collected all the paperwork on yourself, which you’d got her to show you on the first visit – I suppose that’s why you stayed to supper, wasn’t it, to give you time to make sure you found out everything she had on you.’

‘More,’ said Tyler, leaning back in his chair. ‘This is fascinating.’

‘Unfortunately for you, you were seen leaving the second
time. By two people. One of them saw you walking down the street re-tying your tie – the one you used to strangle her. He said you had a file or newspaper or something under your arm – the missing file, I suppose. Destroyed now, I imagine?’

‘Imagine is right.’

‘The other person saw you actually coming out of the house. Interestingly, she mistook you for Josh. And she was the one that moved the body, by the way. It must have been a terrible shock to you when you read the details of how the body was found.’

Something glinted in the depths of the golden eyes. ‘Go on,’ he said, but he wasn’t laughing now.

‘There’s not much more,’ Slider said, dully. He was very tired now. ‘The next day, as soon as the news broke, you telephoned Piers to tell him to keep your relationship secret, just in case anyone put two and two together. But in the end you decided you couldn’t afford to take the risk. If it got out, it would be the end of you. And Piers had confided his inconvenient worries to you. So Piers had to go as well.’

‘Why on earth should I worry about my relationship with Piers being known?’ Tyler said loftily. ‘I am quite comfortable with my sexual orientation, and so, I can assure you, is the Party.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ Slider said. ‘But they wouldn’t be so happy about incest, would they? That’s almost the last taboo, really, when you think of it,’ he added conversationally. ‘That, and possibly necrophilia.’

Tyler sat very still, staring at him, not in fear or anxiety, but it seemed in deep thought.

Into his silence, Slider went on. ‘There were one or two little clues that put me on to it. Small things. Josh Prentiss’s first name is actually Richard. He was called Josh to distinguish him from his father, another Richard. He and Phoebe Agnew had one sexual encounter, when they were both the worse for drink, at a post-finals party in June 1969 – that was when you were conceived. But afterwards Josh was quick to repudiate the encounter, and he was already attached to Anona Regan, Phoebe’s best friend. So she didn’t tell him. She never told him, in fact, just went away quietly, had the baby, and gave it up for adoption.

‘I don’t know whether she harboured a secret love for Josh
all her life, or if she was just chastened by the experience. But after that she never let herself get attached to anyone. She concentrated on her career, and had casual affairs. But I imagine parting with her child was a deep vein of hurt. Then in the course of researching your biography, she discovered the truth about who you were. That was enough to make her thoughtful, but not deeply unhappy – after all, you were doing well in your chosen career, and she must have been glad to know how you had turned out. But then the unthinkable happened. You started an affair with Piers – he blurted it out to her at Christmas, even though you had impressed on him it was to be kept secret. Ironic, isn’t it, that the only person he told was the one who really mattered.’

‘Ironic,’ Tyler said tonelessly.

‘Though I dare say she would only have been the first of many – not the world’s most discreet man. Anyway, it was from that time that she became more and more anxious, started drinking heavily, obviously wondering whether it would be worse to tell you or not tell you. At a dinner party at New Year, she tried to persuade Piers to give you up, but he was deeply smitten, and wouldn’t hear of it.’

‘Piers was very attached to me – and I to him,’ Tyler said, with a creditable attempt at a little break in the voice.