Dear Departed (30 page)

But it left them with their work to do all over again. Running Man was a washout – it was impossible to believe now that Dennis Proctor had had anything to do with it, and it was very plain that Darren did not know him. And it seemed equally indisputable that Standing Man was not either of them. So who was he? Was he the murderer or had he merely stopped to ask the time or something?
Was he Toby Harkness?

Atherton must have been thinking along similar lines, because he said now, ‘So we’re left with Toby.’

‘If he was Standing Man, where are the clothes?’

‘Yes, there weren’t any tracksuit or jogging-type clothes in the flat at all. And in fact from what I know of him from his colleagues, he wasn’t the exercise type – which is confirmed by his chubby, under-muscled bod.’

‘Which is not to say he couldn’t have bought them for the purpose,’ Slider said, ‘and chucked them away afterwards.’

‘The knife, the knife,’ Atherton muttered. ‘It’s all on the knife. I hope the lab gets on with it!’

‘Does it occur to you,’ Slider said, a mile further on, ‘that there’s no reason to think he’d use the same knife? He could equally have bought a new knife for the purpose, and thrown that away afterwards.’

‘You do have these lovely thoughts,’ Atherton complained, hunching deeper into his seat.

As they trudged upstairs from the yard, Slider realised he was hungry again. His late lunch seemed a long time ago. ‘What about some nosh?’ he asked Atherton. ‘I don’t think I can wait until Joanna gets home. Are you hungry?’

‘Starving. I didn’t get any lunch.’

‘Oh, the glamour of police work! I’m just going to tidy my desk, and then I’ve had it for the day. How about a ruby? There won’t be much else open around here this time of a Sunday.’

‘Okay, I’m game.’

They reached the door of the CID room, just as Wendell, one of the loaners from uniform, came off the phone. He turned to Slider, his excitement palpable, and Slider had a sinking feeling that Sunday had a few surprises left up its sleeve, and the chances of a curry were receding faster than a prime minister’s hairline.

‘What is it, lad?’ he asked. ‘Break it to me gently. I’m in a fragile state.’

‘Someone’s found some clothes, sir. Looks as if it could be what we’re looking for.’

Monday was rubbish collection day in Ashchurch Grove, a side-street that cut off a bend of Askew Road, running between it
and Goldhawk Road. The residents were accustomed to putting out their rubbish on Sunday night, because the bin men came early in the morning. Not that they were strictly bin men round there, since they would only pick up black plastic sacks.

Mrs Emerald O’Connor, who was elderly and rather wispy about the chin, nevertheless looked braced by the shock of her discovery rather than upset. Slider supposed that anyone who had lived through the war would be hard to shake; and besides, what old people like her often suffered from most was loneliness and boredom. Here was something new and different in her life, and something, moreover, which made her the centre of attention to all these nice young policemen.

She didn’t waste a moment, and was off into a tirade about the garbage situation like an over-eager runner getting off the blocks before the gun fired. ‘It’s the cats, mostly. You can’t keep a cat away from rubbish, not when it’s only in a sack. You can see them hanging round on Sunday nights, dozens of ’em, just waiting for people to put the sacks out, and the minute the door’s closed they’re down there clawing the bags open. And then it’s stuff everywhere, bones and packets of this and that and – well, I wouldn’t like to say what! And people put their stuff out far too early. Sunday night, it’s supposed to be, but I see them bringing it out Sunday morning, even Saturday. Some of ’em put a bag out any old day they like, just to get it out of the house, never mind anyone else’s convenience! Oh, no. And there it sits, spreading rubbish about because of the cats, and smelling like the Dear knows what. And all because the bin men won’t empty a bin! Have you ever heard the like? What’s a bin man for if he won’t lift a bin? Too dainty, that’s what they are. Afraid of hurting themselves! So we all have to suffer. It’ll be rats next, you mark my words. Where I lived before we had them, rats as big as cats, dirty things!
And with all the food these restaurants throw out, it’s a wonder we haven’t all been bitten to death in our beds. It’s a crime and a sin to waste food, that’s what I’ve always said, but that one across the road throws out enough food to feed the five thousand every morning. And people passing by see the bags out and they just dump stuff on top. It’s nothing but a temptation to bad habits and dirtiness.’

Shorn of the by-way perambulations, what her story amounted to was that she had brought her meagre black sack
of rubbish (‘Two sacks is supposed to be the maximum, but what some of them bring out – well, you’d think it was the whole contents of the house. It’s a wonder they’ve anything left in there!’) down the front garden to leave it in the approved spot by the front gate. As she put it down, she noticed that someone had thrown a plastic carrier bag of rubbish over her hedge into her garden, something that happened not infrequently. She went to retrieve it and put it with the black sack for the bin men to take the next morning.

‘And I picked it up carefully, I can tell you, because you never know what’s in them things. Broken glass, needles, anything – and worse. But this one was squashy, like something soft, and one of the cats must have clawed at it because it was ripped down the side, like you see it. And naturally I have a look to see what’s in there, and I can see it’s something grey, and a dark stain on it. Well, of course, then I remembered that nasty business in the park with the poor girl that was murdered, and I remembered it said in the paper that the police were looking for bloodstained clothing. It must have been the smell of the blood that made the cats go after it. Nasty things, cats. I don’t like ’em. Dogs, now – I always had a dog, up until a few years ago when my old Dandy died, and I didn’t feel I could cope with starting again with a puppy, not at my age, but I often wish I had, because a dog’s company, now, not like a cat, standoffy creatures they are …’

She babbled like a running brook as they examined the immediate area. It was plainly only too easy to walk along with a carrier bag in your hand and simply lob it gently over a suitable fence or hedge when no-one was looking. And dumping rubbish in this way was clearly such a commonplace thing that even had someone seen you they would probably not remark it or remember it. Mrs O’Connor had no idea when the bag had been left there. She hadn’t noticed it at all until she brought the rubbish down. It could have been there all week, or it could have been left this morning. She simply couldn’t say.

The bag proved to contain a grey hoodie with bloodstains on its front – smears, Slider thought, that looked as though the knife might have been cleaned on it – and a pair of latex surgical gloves, also bloodied.

‘Well,’ said Slider, with satisfaction, ‘we’ve got him now. He

must be an amateur to have thrown out the gloves like this. Even if we couldn’t get any DNA off the hoodie, we’d certainly find some cells inside the gloves. Thank heaven for the stupidity of criminals.’

‘If it was Toby, I can see him being clever enough to think of wearing gloves and daft enough to dump them like this,’ Atherton said. ‘Definitely not firing on all cylinders. Well, this is better than a poke in the eye.’

‘It’s the best,’ Slider said, much cheered. ‘We get Chattie’s DNA out of the bloodstain and the murderer’s from the gloves or the clothing, and we’re home and dry.’

‘More work for the lab. Can we fast-track this stuff as well?’

‘Oh, definitely. If there was anything faster than fast track, I’d even pay for that.’

There are many sacrifices made on the altar of Hymen, but it probably doesn’t matter as long as one is sure of the discretion of the spouse. And Slider had good reason, in his own opinion, for telling Joanna about Atherton’s romantic difficulties. He didn’t tell her that Marion Davies had rejected him, only what Atherton had said about finding he was unhappy with someone who wasn’t Sue.

They were having boiled eggs for breakfast (folic acid in the yolks, prevents spina bifida, he thought automatically. Childbirth had become much more complicated since his son and daughter by his first marriage had been conceived). Joanna sat across the table from him, the sunshine in her tumbled bronze hair, the shadow of her breasts under her muslin robe both disturbing and comforting. She looked tired, he thought. Three long days of hard work were too much for her in her— He caught himself up, smiling inwardly. Women throughout space and time had worked long and hard in that condition and never thought twice about it. But there was such a fuss made these days about pregnancy that it was hard not to fall in with it. Joanna had more than once complained that the medical profession seemed to regard it as some kind of serious illness.

Joanna sipped her tea as he told her about Atherton, then put down her mug and said, ‘I can see you want me to say something about it but I’m not sure what. He’s missing Sue. I’m not surprised. They were very good together – better than I think he was ever willing to admit.’

Slider thought that was unfair. ‘He did offer to marry her.’

She gave a faint smile. ‘The ultimate sacrifice. How generous.’

‘You know I don’t think that,’ he said, hurt.

‘But I think you do – subconsciously. It’s atavistic. For centuries men have regarded marriage as a trap in which the only beneficiaries are women, and you can’t change that mindset in a minute.’

‘Well, let’s not forget that it was Sue who rejected him, and not vice versa.’

‘I know, and I could kick her.’

‘I thought you wanted to kick him?’

‘Oh, yes, that too,’ she said, as if she were not contradicting herself. The workings of a woman’s mind were deep and mysterious, he thought. He remembered the old adage, that having female hormones was like drinking twenty-five cans of lager: you can’t talk rationally or drive properly.

‘He was an ass to take a huff and not pursue her,’ Joanna went on. ‘I mean, that’s traditional too, isn’t it, saying no the first time just to test your suitor’s resolve? Read Jane Austen – and I know Jim has, so he ought to have recognised it. But, then, she was an idiot not to realise how fragile he is.’

‘Fragile?’ Slider exploded.

‘Psychologically. Those serial womanisers always are. Low self-image. It’s only by numerical conquest they can reassure themselves of their worth.’

‘I think he just likes sex,’ Slider suggested mildly.

She grinned. ‘Who doesn’t? But you must admit he was a bit crazy, the way he had to have anything that moved. But of course,’
she went on, buttering more toast, ‘Sue’s fragile too. She had a rotten relationship with a man who knocked her about, and it’s made it hard for her to trust. Jim ought to know
that.’

‘You do make things complicated,’ he complained.

‘
I
do?’

‘You women. Why can’t two people just like each other and get on with it?’

‘Darling, you’re so sweet,’ she cooed.

‘Well,
we
’re all right.’

‘We’re exceptional people. Intelligent, well adjusted.’ She eyed him. ‘What is it you want me to do? Talk to Sue? Talk to Jim?’

‘I’m not sure that we ought to get involved. They’re both adults, after all.’

‘As the bird with the broken wing said, that’s a matter of a
pinion. But it’s always difficult,’ she added, ‘with people who get to their age without being married. It takes adjustment and compromise for two people to live together, and the older you are, the more set in your ways, and the harder it is to change.’

‘Hm,’ said Slider.

‘If I get a chance, I’ll talk to Sue. And Jim, if the opportunity arises.’

‘All right, but don’t say I told you to. I’m having a hard enough time with this case without hurt feelings intruding.’

‘Yes, it was awful about poor Jasper. It’s terrible when it happens to someone you know. Is he going to be all right, do you know?’

‘Probably yes. Physically, anyway.’

Joanna knew he was thinking of Atherton, who had been stabbed in the course of an investigation a couple of years back and had taken a long time to recover his nerve – if, indeed, he had recovered it completely even now.

She said, ‘A few people last night said they weren’t hugely surprised that Toby went off the rails, because he’s been in the balance for ages, only surprised about the level of violence. I didn’t know him, but Stef Beaton, the clarinettist, said he’s known Toby for years, and thought he was barmy. He had a total obsession with a girl some years ago and ended up practically stalking her. Her father had to warn him off in the end.’

‘Pity we didn’t know that earlier. So people were talking about the incident already last night?’

‘Goss gets round the music world like grass through a goose. I was first told about it at lunchtime. It’s a terrible shame for Baroque Solid as well, because I can’t see how they can survive the loss of two of their members at this stage – not to mention the shock of what happened. If they were established, they could recruit replacements, but it will all be too personal and delicately balanced at the moment. And they were so talented. It’s a great loss.’

Slider nodded absently. ‘Did the gossip mention that Toby confessed to having killed Chattie Cornfeld?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Did he really? There was some loose talk that maybe he had done it – you know the way people speculate – but not that he’d confessed. But that’s good, isn’t it, from your point of view?’

‘Yes,’ said Slider, ‘if he really did do it. He’s so disturbed, it’s possible it was a false confession.’

‘Oh. But why do you think he didn’t do it? I mean, passionate jealousy, a woman who’d rejected him, a rival – it makes sense, especially given this near-stalking thing in the past.’

‘Well, of course, I didn’t know about that. He had no police record.’

‘No, the girl’s father sorted it out. It does add a bit of flavour to the confession, though, doesn’t it?’