Death Watch (33 page)
But in any case, how was he going to prove anything, one way or the other? The more he discovered about this case, the less progress he seemed to make. It was taking all the running he could do just to stand still, as Atherton said sometimes.
Meanwhile, of course, the troops were out scouring the ground for news of the O’Mafia, which their Beloved Leader would very much like to find at the bottom of everything, with solid evidence attached, and Gorgeous George trussed up and gift-wrapped with pink ribbon round his testimonials. Slider sighed. He was getting that internal sensation of pressure under the skull which came from absorbing too many unconnected facts which led nowhere, rivulets of water running away into sand. And there was a tune wandering around in there, too, using up valuable space and driving him mad. He laid hold of its tail as it went past and hauled it out to see what it was.
How do you solve a problem like Maria?
The Sound of Bloody Music. Combined Services Gala Charity Performance, with the dead-keen-on-Amdram Hammersmith Fire brigade. Round in circles, he thought. The facts don’t run away into sand, they disappear up their own logic.
Anderson bounced into Slider’s office.
‘You sent for me, Guv?’
‘Yes, sit down. Where’s Hunt?’
‘On the blower. I left a message for him.’ Anderson sat.
‘All right. You can start without him. How did you get on?’ Slider asked.
‘We found out that Colum Neary and Gorgeous have
been hanging out together at the Philimore in North End Road.’
‘Freddie O’Sullivan,’ said Slider flatly. That’s all I needed.’
‘S’right Guv. They’ve been seen with their heads together. We also heard that the three of ’em’d been to some place out in the country to see about renting a house.’
‘A place in the country? That sounds familiar. Go on.’
‘Well, Phil and I went and rousted Firearms Freddie, and he was as nervous as a turkey in December. We leaned on him a bit, and he let slip some old horse apples about meeting the Nearys purely for social purposes –
Nearys
plural, you notice. So, since we know Mickie and Hughie are still banged up, it must have been Johnner or Brendan he was talking about, or both, back from the Republic and raring to go.’
‘It’s possible,’ Slider said.
‘Unless there’s some more cousins we don’t know about yet.’
‘God forbid.’
‘So what d’you make of it, Guv? We reckoned it must be something pretty big: Firearms Freddie for shooters, Gorgeous George for wheels, and the little house on the prairie for a base—’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Phil and me. We think it looks like a big armed robbery.’
‘The house doesn’t come to much. They’ve got to have somewhere to live, and we know they’ve always preferred the wide open spaces.’
‘Still—’ Anderson said hopefully.
‘Yes,’ Slider agreed. ‘It looks as though they’re certainly planning something, and whatever it is, I don’t like it already. Did you get anything on Neal while you were carousing in the Philimore?’ Anderson looked blank for a moment and Slider raised a patient eyebrow. ‘You did remember that was the point of the exercise, I hope?’
‘Yes, Guv. I mean no, we didn’t manage to tie Neal in with Neary. But we’ve got him seen with Gorgeous George at the Shamrock all right.’
‘Thanks. We knew that already.’
‘And if we put salt on Freddie’s tail, he’s bound to crack sooner or later. He can’t stand being leaned on. His nerves’ve never been the same since that firebomb went off in his lock-up and set his hair alight.’
‘I don’t think Detective Chief Superintendent Head will authorise any more overtime,’ Slider said, ‘even for the pleasure of rousting Firearms Freddie.’
‘Well, I don’t know, Guv. He’s very keen to get something on the Nearys, and Phil’s asking him—’
‘What?’
Anderson looked studiously unembarrassed. ‘That’s who he’s phoning – didn’t I mention? Mr Head asked him to let him know as soon as he got back.’
‘And you let him?’ Slider put his hands on the desk with soft menace. ‘Get Hunt in here now.’
‘Yes sir,’ Anderson said. ‘I think he—’
‘Now. And don’t you leave the building until I’ve spoken to you again.’
Hunt faced him across his desk woodenly.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Slider asked.
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t you “sir” me, you two-faced, conniving little shit,’ he said pleasantly. ‘When you get back off an assignment, you report to me, not to the DCS. How long have you been in the Job?’
‘Sir, Mr Head asked me to let him know what went down—’
‘I always knew you were stupid, Hunt, but I never knew your name derived from rhyming slang.’
That one was over Hunt’s head. ‘I was just obeying orders from a senior officer, sir,’ he said stubbornly.
‘You were what?’ Slider said dangerously.
Hunt’s eyes shifted a little. ‘I – er – I thought it was a special mission, sir.’
‘Who d’you think you are, George Bloody Smiley? Special mission! I know what you’re after, and if you think
that’s the way to get it, you’re even more stupid than you look, which I would have thought was actually impossible. Just listen to me, peanut-brain. I’m going to be around a lot longer than Detective Chief Superintendent Head, and when he’s finally got his shiny new buttons, and he’s just a cloud of dust on the distant horizon, you’ll still have me to answer to.’ Hunt stared at his feet, but the tips of his ears were red. ‘Did you really think he was going to take you with him on his way to the stars? You pathetic pillock. Nobody’s got room on their firm for a backstabber. Not Mr Head, not anyone.’
‘Well, what am I supposed to do, if he asks me?’ Hunt said sulkily.
‘You come to me, and let me sort it out. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Now you can make your report to me, as you should have done in the first place. And if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I promise you I’m going to make your life such a misery you’ll wish you were pushing paper at Interpol. I’ll stick you on every time you so much as blow your nose. Do you understand?’
‘Sir,’ Hunt said again. He seemed abashed, at least; but being Hunt, he was probably still not entirely convinced he wasn’t being mightily put upon.
Dickson listened in impassive silence, but at the end a slow smile flushed through his face, finishing up in a full Thomas Crapper of gleaming white porcelain.
‘Now we’ve got him,’ he said – he almost chortled.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Slider said happily. ‘Thank God for Hunt, and I never thought I’d hear myself say that.’
Dickson eyed him with what in anyone else Slider would have been sure was shyness. ‘Thanks for coming to me with it.’
‘They taught us in the army never to waste ammunition, sir.’
‘You were never in the army.’
‘No sir.’
Dickson stared at him, perplexed. ‘You’re a funny bloke,
Bill. I never quite get the hang of you.’
Thank you,’ Slider said modestly.
Dickson reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Bells. ‘Glasses in the top drawer of the filing cabinet,’ he said. Slider fetched them, and Dickson poured two healthy-looking well-tanned drinks. He handed one to Slider. ‘I didn’t mean that as a compliment, you know,’ he went on, lifting his own glass and contemplating the contents. ‘People don’t like what they can’t understand – particularly in the Job. Well, I don’t have to tell you that, do I? If people don’t understand you, they assume you’re laughing at them, and that won’t make you popular.’
‘ “Be popular” has never been number one on my list of things to do today,’ Slider said indifferently.
‘There you go again, you see. I’m telling you this for your own good Bill: you’re a damn good copper, one of the best I’ve ever worked with, but unless you change your attitude, start polishing what needs to be polished and licking what needs to be licked, you’ll be a DI for the rest of your life.’
Slider smiled. ‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘I give up.’ Dickson shook his head sadly, gestured with his glass, and drained its contents. The strain of so much personal exposure was telling on him, and when he put the glass down his face was its usual terrifying mask of conviviality.
‘About this case: Mr Head, with the aid of our little department mole, has got very excited about the Nearys. Colum’s obviously up to something, probably on his brothers’ behalf, and he’s keeping some very unhealthy company. Now Mr Head wants to redirect our resources to breaking up the O’Mafia before it gets going again. That’s far more important than Neal’s murder – if indeed a murder it be, quoth he.’
‘But I thought—’
‘Well don’t. Breaking up a gang bent on armed robbery scores fifteen points with Special Branch. Catching a local murderer can’t compete with that.’
‘No sir.’
‘It’ll make the troops happy,’ Dickson observed judiciously. ‘Lots of overtime, surveillance details, hanging around pubs and clubs, which is where they like best to be.’
‘Yes sir.’
Dickson drew breath and shed the complaisant mien. ‘But I decide how my own men are deployed, not the DCS. He’s spending tomorrow with his beloved wife, poor bitch, and his three charming children, so that gives us twenty-four hours unmolested. You’ve still got some lines to follow up, haven’t you?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Good. Stay on the case, use everyone you’ve got, get me something I can use to buy us more time. I don’t like leaving jobs half done. Keep plugging away at it, Bill. Something’s got to give, and an old copper’s instinct tells me it’s going to happen soon.’
‘I TOLD DICKSON I STILL had lines to follow up, but I’m damned if I know what they are,’ Slider said.
‘There’s Gorgeous George,’ said Atherton. ‘He’s got to be involved somehow.’
‘Yes, and the bastard did lie to me. We must have another chat with him, point out the error of his ways. I think I’ll save that pleasant little task for myself.’
‘You deserve a treat,’ Atherton agreed.
‘Meanwhile there’s the Forrester side to pursue, and I don’t see how to proceed.’
‘There are still Mrs Hulfa, Mrs Sears number one, Gary Handsworth’s mother, and the beguiling Mrs Mouthwash who were around at the time. One of them might have heard something about Forrester’s death not being an accident. And at least we can get some idea if it was commonly held that Neal and Mrs F were consorting.’
‘But that’s all sixteen years ago. We still have to prove she was there on the night of Neal’s murder. She has no alibi for the time of death, and the logic of it holds up, but that’s not enough even to give her a tug and search her flat.’
‘Oh well, you know what you always say to me,’ Atherton said cheerfully. ‘Go through the motions, Guv. Go through the motions. You never know what will turn up.’
‘Thank you, Mr Micawber. All right, put the team onto it, check everything that can be checked on the other deaths. And find out where Mrs Forrester was when Sears
was murdered. She must have been interviewed at the time. If we can connect her with the Sears murder, that’ll be a start.’
‘Right, Guv. Of course, she might have hired a hit man to off him, had you thought of that?’ Atherton grinned.
‘Oh, go away,’ Slider said wearily.
He drove slowly, hoping the magical properties of forward motion would turn over the heap of leaves in his brain and uncover something that wriggled. He had the sensation that something was missing, or had been forgotten, but that, of course, might be perfectly normal paranoia. Mrs Forrester was a very intelligent and, he had no doubt, determined woman, but there was no such thing as the perfect murder. There must be some way of proving she had been there.
Perhaps this long trip into the past had clouded the issue. There were too many people to think about. Perhaps he should go back to first principles, look at the Neal case as it had first appeared to him, before all the personalities and emotions got in the way. He turned down Conningham Road to cut through to Goldhawk Road and avoid the traffic, and thought, the Red-Headed Tart: he still hadn’t sorted her out. Perhaps, after all, she was the key to everything. If he could only find her, she might supply all the missing pieces.
And almost at the same instant – or perhaps it was what had made him think of her at all – he saw Very Little Else, sitting on a garden wall on the corner of Scott’s Road, scrabbling through her latest carrier. Luckily there was a gap in the end-to-end parked cars along the kerb just ahead. He pulled into it, and got out to walk back and talk to her.
‘Hullo, Else. How’s it going?’
She looked up at him warily for a moment, and then recognition spread over her features. ‘Oh, ’alio Mr Slider.’ She went back to her scrabbling. ‘Got a biscuit in ‘ere, if I can only find it.’
‘You picked a nice sunny spot to sit down,’ he said, parking himself beside her, though not too close, and upwind.
‘Yeah, I got my special places,’ she said, relinquishing the search. ‘You gotter know where you can an’ where you can’t, see? No good if they come and turn you off, is it?’
‘That’s right. What about Gorgeous George’s? Is that one of your places?’
‘What, his garridge? No, that’s no good. Too much shadder. Corner of the park’s better. I can see his place from there all right, though. Told you, didn’t I?’ she chuckled.
‘Told me what, Else?’
‘Told you he knew all about it, didn’t I? That feller what got killed in the fire.’
‘Yes, I remember. And Gorgeous George was a bit naughty. He said he didn’t know the man.’
‘Lyin’ sod. He knew ’em both – him and the girl.’
‘Well, the girl was renting his flat, we knew that.’
‘He knew her from before that. He’s known her years and years,’ Else said scornfully.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Course I am. Why else’d he let her have his flat? He don’t let no strangers stop there.’ She lost interest in the subject abruptly, and resumed her burrowing in the murky recesses of the bag.
‘But how do you know?’ No answer. ‘Else, how do you know he knew the girl before?’
She looked up. ‘Got a biscuit on you, Mr Slider? I had a whole packet in ‘ere. Dunno where they’ve gone.’
