Body Line (9 page)

‘He might just have been a very tidy person,’ Atherton said. ‘Not everybody clings to their bits and bobs. Maybe he chucked out all his childhood stuff when his parents died, then got rid of everything else when Mrs R evicted him from paradise.’

‘Or maybe he’s got another pad we don’t know about,’ Hollis persisted.

‘You think there’s an attic in his picture?’ Atherton suggested.

‘Eh?’

‘You think he was leading a double life?’ Slider translated.

‘Not necessarily, guv. But it might be the Hofland house is his town pad, and he’s got another house in the country. He might have a wife tucked away there for all we know.’

‘You’re getting into the realms of speculation now,’ Slider said. ‘The fancy stuff. The Christmas and Easter menus. Let’s stick to what we
do
know.’

‘Which isn’t much,’ said Atherton. ‘It starts with Amanda Sturgess, and stops there as well.’

‘She could be a tasty suspect,’ Mackay said. ‘Wronged wife, pissed off with his womanizing, set on revenge—’

‘After being divorced ten years? Have sense,’ Connolly objected from her desk. ‘She’s a life of her own now. Why would she want to kill him?’

‘Revenge, and money,’ Mackay said. ‘The two best motives.’

‘We don’t know there’s any money,’ Connolly said.

‘Well, anyway, using a contract killer is good for it being her. It’s cold, and it’s arm’s length.’

‘We don’t know it was a contract killer. What about Frith?’ Hollis put in. ‘She’s living with him. Maybe she used him.’

‘Aude said the killer was tall,’ said Atherton, ‘and Frith isn’t.’

‘What’s tall? And how could she tell, hanging off the balcony at floor level?’ Hollis said. ‘She said the killer had dark hair, and Frith has dark hair. And you said he had work boots on.’

‘Let’s not run away with ourselves,’ Slider said. ‘Amanda Sturgess came across to me as a determined and well-organized person who could carry through any project she put her mind to, but we haven’t the slightest reason to suppose she wanted Rogers dead, so let’s just clear as we go, shall we? Mackay, you can look into this agency of hers, see if it’s genuine. Connolly, I want you to look into Robin Frith.’

‘The dyslexic’s Colin Firth,’ Atherton said.

‘Is she getting the ride off him?’ Connolly asked.

‘He could be the lodger, her long-lost cousin or one of her ex-clients, for anything we know,’ Slider said. ‘That’s why you have to look into him. What else have we got?’

There was a bit of a deadly silence.

‘Then get on with this lot,’ Slider said, waving at the bags of Rogers’s effects, and took himself off to his office to make phone calls.

Dennis Markham, the ballistics man, rang. ‘I’m sending over the report to you,’ he told Slider, ‘but I thought I’d tell you what it says.’

‘I’m not going to like it, am I?’ Slider guessed from the sympathy in his tone.

‘Sorry, mate. Wish it was better news. We’ve got a match with a weapon used in a non-fatal shooting three years ago, a post-office robbery gone wrong in Lewisham. The gun – a .38 revolver – seems to have been let off by accident. The evidence of the postmaster was that three masked men came in brandishing the shooter and shouting for the money. He hit the alarm, the one with the gun let off a shot into the ceiling, and they panicked and ran for it. Didn’t get a penny. Local police had a fair idea who it was, but they couldn’t get the evidence against them, so nothing happened, except that the suspected lads made themselves scarce. So you see?’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Slider. ‘It sounds like a rental.’

‘Got it in one,’ said Markham.

‘Blast.’

‘Sorry about that. And given that it was used in a fatal this time, chances are it’ll have been melted down by now.’

It was an unhappy fact that there was no need for criminals to go to the trouble and danger of buying illegal firearms these days, when they could rent them by the day for an extremely reasonable fee. The dealers kept large stocks and rotated them, and if an individual weapon looked likely to be too notorious it was destroyed. There was nothing to link the firearm with its owner except the word of the criminal, and it would be a foolish criminal who dropped the dealer in it. Murder did not carry the death sentence any more, but grassing up a firearms supplier did.

‘I hope you weren’t depending on a lead from it,’ Markham went on.

‘I never expect anything but trouble and disappointment from shootings,’ Slider said. ‘Thank God they’re rare enough in this part of the world.’

‘One in the back of the head – sounds professional,’ Markham sympathized.

‘I don’t know what the world’s coming too,’ Slider complained. ‘What ever happened to the traditional bash on the coconut with the handy blunt instrument?’

‘Beats me,’ said Markham.

Atherton and Hollis had been going through the financial side together.

‘According to the bank statements,’ Atherton said, laying them in front of Slider on his desk, ‘he has a regular monthly income, paid direct into his account, from something called Windhover. Here, you see – and here. Fifteen thousand every month.’

‘Which sounds like a salary,’ Hollis said. He blew through his scrawny moustache in disgust. ‘Hundred and eighty kay a year? Nice work if you can get it.’

‘But it’s not a huge amount for a top consultant,’ Atherton objected. ‘A GP can make that much. It’s not nearly enough for our fancy-dan Dirty Doctor.’

‘Maybe it’s not his only income,’ said Slider.

‘There’s nothing else incoming in the statements,’ said Atherton.

‘O’ course,’ said Hollis, ‘we don’t know that this is his only bank account. If he did have another house somewhere—’

‘You haven’t found any documents to suggest he had?’

‘Well, not so far. But like I said, there just doesn’t seem enough stuff here, to me. And we haven’t found anything like a contract of employment, or any correspondence with this Windhover.’

‘What is it, anyway?’ Slider asked.

‘Don’t know yet, guv,’ said Hollis. ‘The bank’s being a bit sticky. You know what they’re like.’

‘We might need Mr Porson to lean on them,’ Atherton said.

Slider was running a finger down the statements. ‘Regular outgoings,’ he commented. ‘This one, three thousand and change, must be the mortgage.’ He calculated in his head. ‘That’s not enough, though.’

‘Could have put in cash.’

‘It would have had to be a lot of cash,’ Slider said. ‘Utilities bills, council tax. What’s this one, five thousand exactly?’

‘Automatic transfer into a savings account with the same bank,’ Atherton said. ‘We’ve found a statement for that. There’s about four hundred thousand in it. That’s about six years’ worth, plus interest.’

‘Credit cards, two,’ Slider noted.

‘Paid off in full every month by direct debit. And here’s the thing – there’s not a whole hell of a lot on them. Clothes, petrol, drinks and meals, but in moderate amounts. It’s not exactly the lifestyle of the rich and shameless.’

‘Adding it all together –’ Hollis took over – ‘it leaves him with a small surplus each month – which fluctuates only by a little – and a growing savings account which he doesn’t seem to draw on. Which doesn’t make sense to me. It’s all too tidy.’

‘There
must
be some more money somewhere,’ Atherton said. ‘I’m starting to think Colin must be right –’ with a glance at Hollis – ‘and there
is
another house somewhere.’

‘Don’t get carried away,’ Slider admonished. ‘You only think there’s some more
paperwork
somewhere. He could have had a safety deposit box.’

‘Not at this bank. We asked.’

‘Or something hidden in the house. Have all the papers come over now?’

‘Yes, guv,’ Hollis said. ‘Bob Bailey says he should have finished this afternoon, but he’s emptied all the drawers and cupboards.’

‘Hmm. Well, you’d better find out who this Windhover is and what they were paying him for. And while the four hundred thousand might not be a Blair-type fortune, it’d be nice to know who comes in for it. You haven’t found a will?’

‘It’ll be with all that other paperwork,’ Atherton said, ‘in that hidden cupboard we haven’t found. Behind the secret panel in the library.’

FIVE

Frith Element

T
here is a certain amount of luck in police work – not so much in finding things, but in finding them early on in the search rather than late. Connolly, charged with finding out about Robin Frith, had begun by looking up the last census for Amanda Sturgess’s house at Ealing Common, and had found Frith listed there, all present and correct, in 2001. That was only a bit more than a year after the divorce. Quick work. Was your woman maybe doing the nasty with Frith all along, while blaming the Dirty Doctor for not being able to keep his lad in his pants?

Even more interesting was that Frith’s profession in 2001 was listed as riding instructor. Given the Guv’s description of Amanda as a sort of rich man’s Margo Leadbetter, it was either dopey or dotey – she wasn’t sure which – that she should have been shacking up with the stable boy, so to speak. A bit of Lady Constance and Mellors in that carry-on. Of course, that
was
nine years ago, so he might have moved on to a different profession by now. But then she remembered that Atherton had said the Guv had smelled horses when Frith came in, and given the reputation of the Guv’s nose, maybe he was still at it. Riding instructor? You wouldn’t make a lot of jingle at that. Maybe he was just the lodger after all. Stranger things had happened.

Of course, he might just be riding for a hobby; but if he was still teaching Thelwell kids to fall off ponies, where was the stable? Hyde Park? Richmond Park? Somewhere out west of London, Uxbridge, Denham, whatever? The field was huge. She started west of Ealing and worked a sort of arc northwards round London, but got no nibbles. It was when she had got as far as Harefield that the word Sarratt on the map caught her eye. Amanda had said Frith was an old friend. She came from Sarratt. And Sarratt was a country place where they’d just as like have horses. Give it a try. What harm?

She found the right place at the first attempt: a stable just outside Sarratt called Hillbrow Equestrian Centre. She knew it was the right place because right there on the website at the top under the title it said, ‘Proprietor: Robin Frith BHSI.’ What did BHSI stand for, she wondered. Big Hairy Sappy Ijit, maybe. It was a grand class of a place: swanky-looking stables with a clock-tower yoke in the middle of the roof. Indoor manège, all-weather outdoor school, cross-country course. Offered tuition in cross-country, dressage and showjumping, as well as basic lessons. Also did livery. Young horses trained. Children a speciality, hacks in the beautiful Chiltern countryside, blah blah blah. Maybe with all that going on, he
was
making some money, he wasn’t just a no-hoper after all.

‘I used to ride when I was a kid,’ she told Slider when she took it to him. ‘Summer hollyers in Connemara and Kerry. And not just beach ponies – I went in for gymkhanas, even did a bit of cross-country once. So I can talk the talk, guv. If I went to this place saying I wanted to take it up again, sure I could find out something about the boss.’ To his apparently doubtful look she added, ‘Most of the people who work at stables are females. If your man Frith is a bit of a Bob, they’ll all be secretly in love with him. They’ll be gagging to talk about him to someone.’

‘I don’t doubt you could get them to talk,’ Slider said. ‘I’m just wondering if it’s the best use of your time.’

‘Well, guv, the ex-wife’s the only connection we have, and we know the deed was done by a man. If they’ve been shacked up such a long time and she did want the doctor done, who’s she going to turn to? And you did say he’d dark hair and was wearing work boots, and that’s all we know about the killer.’

‘All true.’ Slider sighed. ‘Well, we don’t have such a hell of a lot of leads, so you might as well find out what you can.’

‘Thanks, guv.’ She turned away eagerly, and he called after her.

‘But remember it
is
a village, where gossip spreads like wildfire, so don’t go giving anyone the idea that Frith is a suspect, OK?’

‘You can trust me, guv. I’ve just got a feeling there’s something queer about the set-up, Lady Connie and the gamekeeper, and him moving in so quick after the divorce. There’s a story there.’

‘I’m all for stories,’ Slider said. ‘As long as they lead us somewhere.’

From the way Fathom bounced into Slider’s room, bringing with him the faint fragrance of sweat mingled with Obsession for Men, it was obvious he had not come simply to chalk up another NTR from the Front.

‘Guv, I think I’ve got something!’

‘All right, I’m buying. In fact, I’ll have two.’

‘Come again?’ The large, excitable lad was not very quick on his mental toes.

Slider waved it away. ‘What have you got?’ He enunciated clearly for the hard of thinking.

Fathom presented a video cassette. ‘CCTV,’ he said proudly. ‘Well, you know the Aude female said when she was hanging off the balcony, she saw the perp go down the end of Hofland and turn left?’