Body Line (29 page)

‘No use. But some people would still give a person hell,’ he said. ‘Some people did.’

‘Silly. We don’t have enough time together as it is. Why waste it on hell?’

‘Wonder woman,’ he said, and let her go.

‘Is the case going to break soon?’ she asked. ‘Is that what the trip’s about?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can only hope so.’

Kate appeared in the doorway, eyes everywhere. ‘Were you two smooching
again
?’

‘It’s only the second smooch of the evening,’ Joanna complained. ‘You make it sound like non-stop romance.’

‘Well it’s yukky when old people do it.’

‘I thought you were watching TV,’ said Slider pointedly.

‘Adverts,’ Kate said. ‘I’m hungry again. Is there any cake?’

Kate was always eating, and was as thin as a rake. Good genes – or a hyperactive metabolism. Or both. Irene was the same. Long may it last, Slider thought.

‘I could make everyone Bournvita,’ Joanna said. She and Slider exchanged an amused look.

‘I didn’t know you had any,’ Slider said. ‘Do they still make it?’

‘I’ve got hot chocolate. It’s much the same.’

‘Oh, yeah, hot chocolate,’ Kate said. ‘Cool!’

‘Not, it’ll be hot,’ Slider corrected.

Kate looked scornful. ‘You’re not a bit funny, you know,’ she said with imperishable dignity.

‘Southwold, the last posh seaside resort,’ Atherton said. ‘Houses here cost as much as in London.’

‘Didn’t I read somewhere that the government’s letting the coastal defences go?’

‘Yes, and they say the rivers on either side of Southwold will back up and refill the marshes and the town will become an island. At which point,’ Atherton said, ‘the townsfolk will probably rejoice. Well, we’ve got a nice day for it.’ The bitter north wind had dropped at last, and although it was overcast, at least it was dry. ‘It was nice of Joanna to think of inviting Emily to the picnic. She was a bit miffed that I was having to work.’

‘It’ll be nice for Jo as well,’ Slider said. ‘They’re going to play rounders after they’ve eaten, to wear the children out. It’s a bit like having dogs – now there’s no PT at schools you have to run them about until they’re exhausted at the weekend or they chew up the furniture.’

It continued overcast until they reached the turn-off for Southwold, which had its own microclimate: you could see a clear division in the sky all along the coast, grey to one side and blue to the other. The sea sparkled, deep blue, and the leaves were further along here, with the hedges greening and the oak already in olive-yellow curls. ‘I can see why people would want to live here,’ Slider said.

Atherton shuddered. ‘I’m with Norma on this one. There’s no life outside London.’ They were just entering the little town. ‘There’s Station Approach. Well, that was easy.’

Southwold had had a railway once, and at that time extra roads of late-Victorian and Edwardian terraced cottages and semis had been added around the ancient core of what would otherwise have remained effectively a village. A drive-past established that Rogers’s house was a semi in dark red brick, with a slate roof and bay windows on both floors, a typical 1890s house, solid and adaptable, of the type known as ‘London dog-leg’ which could be seen in suburbs all over the country.

Slider went past again and then found a place to park in the next street. ‘Did you see anyone about?’ he asked.

‘Anyone watching the place, you mean? No.’

‘All right. Let’s go. But keep your eyes peeled.’

Slider went alone up to the door, while Atherton stayed on the other side of the road, but there was no answer to his knock, and the place felt empty. He rejoined Atherton, looking at his watch. ‘It’s still church time. That might be where she is. I think we should wait for a bit and see if she comes back.’ There was a little scrap of green more or less opposite the house, with a bench, presumably for the convenience of people waiting at the bus stop there. They sat down. ‘Try not to look like a policeman,’ Slider said.

‘Try yourself,’ Atherton said. ‘I’ve got this.’ He pulled out a newspaper from his pocket and unfolded it.

‘Is that today’s?’ Slider said, surprised – they had started off early.

‘No, it’s yesterday’s. I haven’t read it yet. I thought I might have a chance to read it in the car, but it comes in handy now as a stage prop.’

‘As long as no one notices it’s yesterday’s.’

Atherton rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, please! Most people wouldn’t notice if their own leg dropped off.’

There were remarkably few people about, and very few cars, and it was pleasantly restful, Slider thought, sitting in the sunshine, which actually had quite a bit of warmth to it, and listening to the sparrows bickering in nearby hedges while Atherton read his paper. He leaned back and half-closed his eyes, hoping they looked like ordinary people. He saw no sign of anyone who might be a villain, no men sitting in parked cars or loitering purposelessly within sight of the house. He hoped there was not a more efficient and professional surveillance going on, but he doubted there would be. If they had been going to kill the wife as a risk, surely they would have done it at the same time as Rogers.

Fifteen minutes later a woman came along the pavement on the other side of the road, and Slider knew instinctively that it was their quarry, even before she slowed. She cast a nervous glance around, but it passed with hardly a hesitation over the man absorbed in his newspaper and the one dozing in the sun, and she stopped before Number 23 and reached into her handbag for her key.

‘It’s her,’ Slider said to Atherton without moving his lips. ‘Let me go first – don’t want to frighten her. Come over when I signal.’

Atherton observed with amused approval how Slider could move like a cat when he had to, was across the road in a flash and yet managed not to appear to be hurrying. The woman had her key in and the door was opening when Slider got up beside her, and Atherton saw her jolt with shock. But the guv was a very soothing and reassuring sort of bod. He was discreetly showing his warrant card, talking all the while, and the woman was looking at him with saucer eyes like a rabbit before a snake. Now she flicked a glance across at Atherton, nodded slightly; Slider gestured to him to come; and they went inside, leaving the door ajar for him.

They were in the hall when Atherton went in, shutting the door behind him. Slider was helping her off with her coat, he saw with amusement. Probably she had been at church. She wasn’t wearing a hat, but she had on a smart dress and coat, and plain, low-heeled shoes. She turned to look at Atherton with wide, anxious eyes.

‘This is my colleague, Jim Atherton,’ Slider said. Atherton proffered his warrant card, but she only glanced at it briefly: she had accepted Slider now, and therefore what came with him. She nodded to him, and turned her attention back to Slider.

She was quite a surprise to Atherton. He had expected a busty babe, if not a bimbo, or failing that, at least a sleek and high-powered beauty. This, after all, was the one of all the many that Rogers had actually married and wanted to leave everything to. But Helen Marie Aldous was nothing you would pick out in a beauty contest. She was not even terribly young – probably in her late thirties or early forties. She was around five-foot five, with an unremarkable figure – not fat, but solidly put together – and dark brown hair in the sort of practical, short, curled style that Atherton had heard Connolly describe as a ‘Mammy-hairdo’. As to her face, it was perfectly pleasant, but if the original Helen’s had launched a thousand ships, this one would have been looking at a couple of tugs and the Isle of Wight ferry, tops.

Mind you, he thought on further inspection, she might have gone up the shipping register a bit in better times. She had obviously been crying a lot recently, and not sleeping too well: her eyes were swollen and brown-bagged, and she wasn’t wearing any make-up. Her expression was doleful, and her pale mouth drooped at the corners, which made her look older. But even at her best she wasn’t going to be someone who turned heads. Had Rogers been drunk when he met her, or did she have other qualities which spoke to the man who so far, it had to be said, had shown the depth of a rapidly evaporating rain puddle when it came to women?

She was looking at Slider earnestly, as if ready to read the truth or otherwise in his face when she asked, ‘So it’s true then? He is – dead?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Slider said with such gentleness even Atherton was touched. ‘I saw him myself.’

‘I wasn’t sure. There was just one mention in the paper, and then nothing. I thought it might be a trick. I suppose I didn’t
want
to believe it.’

‘I don’t know if it helps at all,’ Slider said, ‘but it would have been very quick. He wouldn’t have suffered. He wouldn’t even have known it was coming.’

She looked up at him consideringly. ‘No, I don’t think it does help. Not much. Not at the moment. But one day it might. All I can think of is that he’s not coming back. I’m never going to see him again.’ She stared at nothing for a blank moment, her face slack, her hands loose at her sides, and then came to life again, as though a faulty relay had reconnected. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Thank you. That would be very welcome,’ Slider said. Atherton knew his methods: people with something to do with their hands talked more easily.

She led the way through the house. The stairs were straight ahead and the narrow hall dog-legged round them – hence the name for the style. There were two reception rooms on the left, one with the bay window to the front and the other with French windows to the back. At the end of the passage, straight ahead, was the original kitchen and scullery, which had been knocked together and had an extension added, to make one large kitchen-breakfast room. It was a very nice room, bright and sunny, with white walls and an oak floor, expensive modern fitments with granite work surfaces, and at the far end a large refectory table in the breakfast-room section, which had French doors on to the garden. A glance into the two rooms they had passed had shown them well furnished in an upper-middle-class taste. It was a comfortable house, the rooms were a good size, and it was no longer a surprise to Atherton that David Rogers had felt he could, at least partially, live here. It was certainly a lot more homelike than the Radisson Suites style of the Hofland Crescent house.

‘Can I help?’ Slider was saying.

‘No, I’m fine,’ Helen Aldous said. ‘Please sit down.’

Slider and Atherton sat at the table, one on either side, turning their chairs so they could face towards her, and she moved about, filling the kettle, putting it on, getting out teapot and tea caddy. ‘Do you mind mugs? And Earl Grey or builder’s?’

‘Mugs are fine,’ Slider said. ‘And builder’s, if you don’t mind.’

Atherton would have had Earl Grey for preference, but Slider always had his reasons so he just said, ‘Same for me.’

Slider, without even thinking about it, felt builder’s was the choice of the likeable and reliable man you could trust and tell things to. It seemed to work. She didn’t smile – she looked as though she’d never smile again – but she nodded as if in approval. Her movements about the room were brisk and capable. She didn’t slump in her misery, and Slider thought this was from old discipline. The way she walked and carried herself, the movements of her short-nailed hands, the awareness of her eyes – except in those pulled-plug moments of utter despair – all said ‘nurse’ to him.

‘Tell me how you first met David,’ he said. He wanted to get her talking while she was still busy with the tea-making, but he wanted it to be the easy stuff first. The more she told him before she got to the hard part, the more the hard part would flow.

‘That’s easy,’ she said. ‘He was a doctor and I was a nurse. We met at the Cloisterwood – that’s a private hospital in Middlesex.’

‘Yes, I know it,’ Slider said. His voice conveyed that there was nothing sensational at all in this revelation. ‘I didn’t know he worked there.’

FIFTEEN

Artful Dodgers

‘
H
e didn’t,’ Helen said. ‘He visited from time to time, but I think that was just to see Sir Bernard Webber – socially, I mean. They were old friends.’

‘So where
did
he work?’ Slider asked, careful not to make it sound important.

‘When I first saw him, I thought he was a consultant at another hospital.’

‘When was that?’

‘That would be – about seven years ago. In the spring of ’03. I’d just gone to Cloisterwood from the Royal Free. It had been open about two years then. I wanted to get into plastics, but there were never very many openings in the National Health, so I thought I’d make the switch to private.’ She poured tea. ‘Do you take sugar?’

‘No, thanks. Neither of us.’

‘Well, that makes it easy. No, don’t get up. I can manage.’ She brought the three mugs over and sat down at the end of the table, between them.

‘So you were on the plastics side at Cloisterwood,’ Slider said, to get her going again.

‘Yes.’

‘And how did you meet David Rogers?’

‘I bumped into him. Literally. I was going in the staff entrance as he was coming out and he cannoned into me, nearly knocked me over. I banged my funny-bone on the door frame, so I was hopping about in agony, but you couldn’t want to be bumped into by a nicer person. He was so charming and apologetic, you’d think he’d broken my leg at least.’ She looked up sharply. ‘It wasn’t phony. I was never much to look at, not like some of the glamour-pusses on the wards, but I’ve had my share of pick-up lines. Men always think nurses are easy. And I know a bad hat when I see one. David wasn’t like that. He was just genuinely a nice man. He was really sorry for barging into me – and believe me, most consultants would have knocked you to the ground without thinking twice about it. And while he was making sure I was all right, we looked at each other and something just clicked.’ Her face softened as she remembered it, and for a moment she looked almost beautiful. ‘He asked if he could buy me a coffee to settle my nerves. I said I was just going on duty, and he said could he see me later, then. So we made a date. And it started from there.’