Body Line

Recent Titles by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles from Severn House

THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER

A CORNISH AFFAIR

DANGEROUS LOVE

DIVIDED LOVE

EVEN CHANCE

HARTE’S DESIRE

THE HORSEMASTERS

JULIA

LAST RUN

THE LONGEST DANCE

NOBODY’S FOOL

ON WINGS OF LOVE

PLAY FOR LOVE

A RAINBOW SUMMER

REAL LIFE (
Short Stories
)

The Bill Slider Mysteries

GAME OVER

FELL PURPOSE

BODY LINE

This first world edition published 2010

in Great Britain and in 2011 in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

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

Copyright © 2010 by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia.

Body line. – (A Bill Slider mystery)

1. Slider, Bill (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

2. Murder–Investigation–Fiction. 3. Police–England–

London–Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

823.9’14-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6957-9 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-301-4 (trade paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-7801-0002-9 (e-book)

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.

For Ali and Giles, with love.

ONE

The Wrath of Grapes

‘
Y
ou look terrible,’ Slider said as Atherton slid into the car.

‘I feel terrible. I’d have to be dead three weeks to feel better than this,’ Atherton said. His voice gave him away – he sounded as if he’d been smoking forty a day for a week. ‘You, on the other hand . . .’ he added resentfully.

‘You shouldn’t mix your drinks,’ Slider said mildly.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t sit in a jazz club and sip wine. It isn’t hip.’

‘If you were any more hip you wouldn’t be able to see over your pelvis.’

With Emily away in Ireland covering the elections, and Joanna doing a concert in Harrogate, Slider and Atherton had had an all-too-rare-lately boys’ night out. They had gone to Ronnie Scott’s for a Charlie Parker evening: Gilad Atzmon on sax, with a septet backing. Later on some of the Central boys coming off duty had arrived and the session had turned into a long one, moving from Ronnie’s to the flat of one of them nearby.

‘It was a good evening, though,’ Slider said.

Atherton agreed. ‘I can’t remember when I last heard live jazz.’

‘When I worked Central, I often used to slip into Ronnie’s at the end of a shift. Heard all the greats back then – met quite a few of them, too. The atmosphere’s not the same, though, now they’ve banned smoking.’

‘True. Without the fog you can actually see the performers across the room.’

‘Yes, but . . .’ Slider let it hang.

‘I know,’ said Atherton. ‘It’s weird. I hated smoky pubs and bars, but without smoke . . . It’s like waking up with someone you picked up when you were really, really drunk.’

‘It’s a long time since I did that,’ said Slider.

‘At least you went home to a bed and a missus. The kits had been shut in on their own all day, so when I got home they wanted a vigorous workout. They were wall-of-deathing round the house until dawn. Once every circuit they’d land heavily on my stomach and bawl, “Get up and play!”’

Atherton had inherited two Siamese, Shredni Vashtar and Tiglath Pileser, from his previous relationship. They had originally been intended to cement it – ha ha. Fortunately, Emily loved cats; and even more fortunately she was a freelance journalist and worked from home a lot. The kits liked company.

‘Well, you smell nice, anyway,’ Slider said, catching a breath of Atherton’s expensively subtle aftershave. ‘Maybe too nice for police work. A blast of Old Corpsebuster can make a big difference to that all-important first impression.’

‘Oh, blimey, it’s not a stinker is it?’ Atherton said. They were on their way to a murder shout.

‘I don’t know anything about it, only the address. Three Hofland Crescent.’

‘Where’s that? It doesn’t ring a bell.’

‘Back of Sinclair Road. I know
where
it is, but I don’t think I’ve ever been there.’

‘So it could be anything. Could be something that’s been down a cellar for a week,’ Atherton said. ‘And I haven’t had any breakfast yet.’

‘Maybe just as well.’

Shepherd’s Bush was not beautiful, but it had something to be said for it on a bright, breezy March morning. Clouds were running like tumbleweed across a sky of intense, saturated, heraldic azure. The tall, bare planes on the Green swayed solemnly like folkies singing Kumbayah. All around, the residents – young, old and middling – were sleeping, getting up, planning their day, thinking about work, school, sex, shopping, footie. Some were perhaps dying. One was dead in what the police called suspicious circumstances, and that, fortunately, was unusual. Homicide, even in the most crowded capital in Europe, was not the great eraser.

The Monday morning traffic was squeezing down the side of the Green to the West Cross roundabout, and piling lemming-like beyond it into Holland Park Avenue. The right turn lane at the roundabout was clear except for a pair of ditherers. ‘Tourists!’ Slider said, gave them a couple of bloops and swung round into Holland Road. A moment later Atherton roused himself from his torpor to say, ‘Here’s Sinclair Road. So where’s this crescent?’

It was misnamed – not a crescent at all, but a little snip of a straight road leading off Masbro Road at an angle. They had to leave the car in the only space left in Masbro Road and walk the rest. It was bitterly cold, despite the sunshine. The icy wind was coming down direct from the north, which accounted for the searing clarity of the sky, but it meant there was nothing between the Arctic floes and Slider’s skin except some wholly inadequate clothing.

Seduced by the sun, Atherton hadn’t worn an overcoat either. He shivered beside Slider like a fastidious cat. PCs Renker and Gostyn, on duty at the barrier closing off the crescent, were bundled into multiple layers, and stood massively impervious to the wind-chill factor – as weather forecasters so blithely called it these days. They smirked a little as they moved the barrier to let them through. Beyond it, there were unit cars and the forensic waggon blocking the road, and other uniforms keeping the curious residents and the press back from the blue-and-white tape which made a clear space in front of the house.

The sight of the house made Slider forget the cold for a moment. While the other side of the street consisted of a perfectly standard row of 1840s artisan cottages, their destination was one of a terrace of four Regency villas, harmonious in proportion, exquisite in detail, white-stuccoed, with the original fanlighted doors, and a little wrought-iron balcony at each first-floor window. ‘It’s a gem,’ he said, pausing in admiration.

‘Unexpected,’ said Atherton, who had had to start noticing architecture since he had been working with Slider.

‘They’re earlier than anything else around here,’ Slider said. ‘They must have been here first – when Shepherd’s Bush was still a country village. They’d have had a view over the fields in those days.’

‘Must be worth a fortune. I had a look at a cottage like one of
those
,’ Atherton said, jerking his hand over his shoulder, ‘for Emily and me, but they were going for nearly seven hundred thou, and they’re just two-up, two-down.’

‘I think we can surmise that our victim is a man of means,’ Slider concluded.

‘Well, thank God for that. Maybe we won’t need the industrial strength cologne after all.’

Detective Constable Kathleen ‘Norma’ Swilley, returned at last from maternity leave, was co-ordinating the troops on the scene. She had arrived back just in time to replace Hart, who had passed her sergeant’s exam and secured a posting to Fulham – a good promotion, though she went with many a wistful backward look. ‘You’re fam’ly,’ she had informed Slider’s firm tearfully at the leaving do, and had insisted on kissing every member of it full on the mouth – even McLaren, which was quite a feat. She’d had to compete with a vegetable samosa. McLaren never saw the point in wasting his lips on anything other than eating, which was perhaps why he hadn’t had a date since the Thatcher administration.

Swilley – whose sobriquet, bestowed for her considerable machismo as a policeman, seemed rather inappropriate now she was a mother – was sensibly wearing a trouser suit over a roll-neck sweater, and a big, thick overcoat: cream wool, wrap-around and belted, Diana Rigg style. She looked warm and delicious. Well, Slider thought she looked warm, and Atherton, slightly wistfully, thought she looked delicious. Swilley had been his one notable failure in his pre-Emily career as a hound.

Connolly, the newest member of Slider’s team, was talking to the next-door neighbours at Number 5, a well-dressed elderly couple, so tiny and immaculate they could have earned spare cash standing around on wedding cakes. They huddled in their doorway as though sheltering from a storm.

‘Deceased’s name is David Rogers, guv,’ Swilley reported. ‘He’s a doctor, according to the neighbours. That’s Mr and Mrs Firman.’ She gestured discreetly towards the elderly couple. ‘Lives alone – divorced or maybe single, they’re not sure – but has girlfriends round. Neighbours in Number 1 and 7 are young couples, but they’re out at work. No one at home in Number 7, and all there is in Number 1 is the nanny. Fathom’s in there having a go at her, but I don’t think he’ll get much change out of her. She doesn’t speak much English.’

‘Who’s inside?’ said Slider.

‘Forensics and the photographers. Doc Cameron’s not arrived yet. The local doctor pronounced, then had it away on his toes. He looked nearly green. Probably never seen a gunshot wound before.’

‘They are reassuringly rare,’ Slider said.

‘Well, it wasn’t pretty,’ said Swilley, who had seen her share of nasty sights. ‘Shot in the head.’

‘Suicide?’ Atherton queried. If so, they could get out of this icy wind double quick and back to the nice warm station.

‘Not unless he was a contortionist. Also—’

Connolly joined them at that moment and said, ‘Are we going in, so?’

Slider eyed her. ‘What’s this “we”?’

‘I’ve never seen a gunshot wound. Wouldn’t it be grand experience for me?’ she said innocently. ‘I’ve got everything we’re going to get outta the owl ones. Not that they know much. Didn’t hear the shot – deaf as Uncle’s donkey. They didn’t know there was anything going on at all until the girl dropped in.’

‘The girl?’

‘The girl outta Rogers’s house.’

‘There was a
witness
?’Atherton said. ‘Nice of you to mention it.’

‘I was just about to,’ Swilley said, ‘when I was interrupted.’

‘Where is she?’ Slider asked.

‘At the hospital,’ Connolly answered. ‘She jumped out the window or fell offa the balcony – they don’t know which. Landed in that bush outside their front window.’ It was a large, clipped bay, which had been flame shaped, but was now hit-by-a-heavy-body shaped. ‘She literally dropped in.’ Connolly grinned. ‘Frit the life outta them, banging on the window. She was in bits, sobbing with fright and babbling about your man being dead. So the owl ones took her in, made some tea—’