Hard Going (24 page)

‘He
was
a solicitor,’ Atherton reminded her.

‘Still, intimations of mortality and all that. And he wasn’t expecting to pop off for a while yet.’

‘But then,’ Joanna said, ‘where’s the old one?’

‘Lodged somewhere we haven’t found yet,’ Atherton said. ‘Maybe the next of kin we haven’t traced yet has it in a drawer.’ He handed the plate to Slider. ‘Have the last of the mashed potatoes, to soak up the gravy.’

‘Thanks, I will.’

There was a silence for a moment.

Joanna, looking at Slider, broke it. ‘The really odd thing – or at least, how it comes across to me, the way you’ve told it – is that cheque. He sat down to write a cheque in the presence of the murderer.’

‘It isn’t odd if the murderer is Mrs Kroll,’ Slider said. ‘He’s just doing his normal work, she’s pottering about behind him. The cheque needn’t be anything to do with her.’

‘But that doesn’t work with anyone else,’ Joanna said. ‘If it was anyone else, the cheque must be something to do with them, or why was he writing it at that particular moment? Which is why I asked about the will.’

‘I’m not with you,’ said Atherton.

‘Because,’ Joanna said, ‘who wouldn’t bother to wait for the cheque? Someone who was going to get the money anyway.’

There was a brief silence while they thought about it, then Atherton said, ‘Well, the Krolls are still the best bet. They’re desperate for money and we know they were there.’

‘But then there’s the Crondaces,’ Emily said. ‘And what about the jealous, violent Alistair Head? The press would love that one.’

‘That’s why they mustn’t find out
anything
,’ Slider said, laying down his knife and fork, ‘until and unless we have some reason to suspect him.’

‘Hey, it’s me,’ Emily said, offended. ‘I don’t talk.’

‘Pay no attention. He’s smitten,’ Atherton said. ‘Diana the huntress has bayed and netted him. Pudding?’

‘You made
pudding
?’ Emily was impressed.

‘I had guests,’ he said with dignity, standing up and reaching for the plates. ‘It’s just a simple lemon tart.’

‘God, your lemon tart!’ Emily swooned. ‘Will you marry me?’

‘Get in line,’ Slider and Joanna said at the same instant, looked at each other, and laughed.

Dad was alone when they got back, greeted them with a calm and perhaps rather sleepy smile, said goodnight and took himself off to his own flat.

‘It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop,’ Joanna said when he’d gone. ‘Do you think anything happened?’

‘He’d have told us, surely, if it did,’ said Slider, helping her out of her coat.

‘I don’t think it can have. I mean, she’s obviously gone. We’re quite early. I thought she’d still be here.’

Slider smiled. ‘What makes you think she isn’t still here?’

‘But – what? Oh, you mean she might be waiting for him down in his flat.’ Joanna was enlightened. ‘I never thought of that.’

‘That’s why I’m the detective,’ Slider said. ‘And you’re just the beautiful, desirable woman.’

Joanna considered that for a moment, and then said, ‘What do you mean, “just”?’

On Monday morning a fine, steady rain was falling from a zinc-coloured, featureless sky. Roads glistened, traffic swished, leaves gave up and plummeted suicidally to be splattered dead on the pavements.

Slider was in early, came into the CID room shaking off his coat and found McLaren there alone. ‘Are you the first?’ he asked.

‘’Cept for Hollis,’ McLaren answered. ‘He’s in the bog having a shave.’

‘Again? He was shaving in there the other day.’

‘I think he’s sleeping here,’ McLaren said. ‘You know his old lady chucked him out?’

‘No, I didn’t. I knew they were having problems.’

‘She’s got a new fancy man. Technician down the King Edward Hospital. He’s better off without her,’ he added sourly. McLaren’s wife had done much the same thing, Slider remembered: junked him for a newer model, one who’d be around more. It was Police Wife Syndrome. So often they ended up wanting someone with a nine-to-five job. Happened to musicians, too, as Slider knew from Joanna’s stories.

But McLaren’s dumping was ancient history. Slider remembered the much-vaunted blind date. ‘How did your date go, anyway? With – Natalie, was it?’

McLaren’s face took on a look of dumb bliss. ‘It was great, guv. She’s really, really nice – just like Maura said.’

‘Got a nice personality, has she?’ Slider asked, straight-faced.

McLaren looked defensive. ‘Yeah, well, she has. She’s a nice person. But she’s not a dog. I mean, she’s not some supermodel, but she’s perfectly all right looking. Anyway, we’re going out again.’

‘You hit it off, then?’

‘Yeah, she’s a laugh. We had a great time. Likes her pint. Plays darts, an’ all.’

‘Well, I’m pleased for you,’ Slider said, heading for his own room now he’d done his duty.

But McLaren followed, and lingered in the doorway. Slider looked up. ‘Yes, I’ll have a cup of tea, if that’s what you’re going to ask,’ he tried.

‘Oh – righto.’ Still McLaren lingered. ‘Guv,’ he began with uncharacteristic hesitancy. ‘When I took Natalie home – she lives down Twyford Avenue.’

‘Well, that’s handy for you,’ Slider said, perplexed. Twyford Avenue was in Acton, ten minutes from the station, but why was McLaren telling him?

‘Yeah. But as we went past the North China, I see Jim Atherton come out.’ The North China was a Chinese restaurant on Uxbridge Road popular with coppers.

‘Oh?’ said Slider. ‘Well, a man must eat.’ That was the evening Atherton had said he had plans: he had turned down an invitation to eat
chez Slider
.

‘He had a woman with him,’ McLaren said awkwardly. ‘I know her – seen her before. She’s that solicitor from Kintie and Abrams, did the defence for Graham Hunter. Tall skinny bird – a looker. Jane Kellock, her name is.’

‘Yes, I remember her,’ Slider said. That was the Melanie Hunter case, some months back. He became brisk. ‘Well, why are you telling me?’

McLaren stared at his feet and fidgeted. ‘I just thought—’

‘Probably you didn’t,’ Slider interrupted. ‘It’s none of my business and it’s none of yours. Just get me a cup of tea, will you? And say nothing about this to anyone. I don’t like gossip in my firm.’

McLaren went away, and Slider tried to put the unwelcome piece of information out of his mind, but it didn’t want to go. He remembered Jane Kellock – yes, she was a looker all right. Tall, slim, gorgeous. And a dresser. They had met a few times on the circuit in the course of the job. He remembered how well she and Atherton had got on together at a meeting they’d had, the three of them, concerning the Hunter case. And Atherton had always had a weakness for solicitors – when it came to ‘legal briefs’ he was always wanting to get into them rather than out of them.

Kintie and Abrams had their offices in Acton High Street – the North China was a short walk from there. Slider remembered those times recently, while Emily was away, when Atherton had come in looking as if he hadn’t been home …

Damn it, Slider stopped himself angrily, he was not going to think about it! He had enough on his plate with Lionel Bygod and the various suspects, without getting entangled in his people’s private lives. He wished he hadn’t asked McLaren about his date now. Set a bad precedent. And now here was Hollis coming in, freshly shaven and damp about the hairline. He didn’t want to know about that, either, but he couldn’t help remembering that Hollis’s wife was called Anne-Marie, she was Irish, and that she was diminutive and over-lively with a tendency to go off in company unexpectedly like an unstable blonde firework. It had always been hard to picture her and the self-effacing, gawky-looking Hollis together.

Sometimes a trained memory could be a curse.

‘Guv,’ Hollis began.

Slider interrupted him, afraid of some fresh hell of revelation. ‘Kroll’s movements. And Crondace’s. That’s what we’ve got to get on with, pronto.’

‘Right, guv.’ Hollis looked slightly surprised at being told to suck eggs, but carried on gamely. ‘They just rang up from the shop to say Mr Wetherspoon’s in the building. Thought you might like to be warned.’

It was unnerving to know the Commander was on the loose and might appear at any moment. Slider couldn’t concentrate on the work in front of him, and his mind, unhitched from the shafts of duty, would keep wandering off and browsing along the grass verge of speculation about Atherton’s private life.

He was glad when Paxman rang up from the front desk to say someone had come in with information about Bygod.

‘Taxi driver,’ Paxman said. ‘Sounds all right – could be useful. Want me to send him up?’

‘No, I’ll come down,’ Slider said. He could be fairly sure he wouldn’t stumble into Wetherspoon down there. He felt like a sitting duck here at his desk.

The taxi driver had a shaven head and a clipped but vigorous beard, so he looked as if he had his head on upside down. He was waiting in the shop, and stood politely as Slider appeared and invited him to come through: a short-coupled, stocky man – ideal taxi-driver physique – with small neat features and noticing blue eyes.

‘Michael Mansard. Mike,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’d have come in before only I didn’t know the old man was dead. They’re saying murdered – is that right?’

Slider led him into the cleanest of the interview rooms and gestured him to sit down. ‘Who’s saying?’

‘Oh, word gets round – eventually,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Someone drove past and saw the police tape and someone else read something in the local paper and put two and two together. Then when I found it was the address I’d picked up a fare
and
the same day, I reckoned I’d better come and tell someone, in case it was important.’

‘If it was the same day, it’s probably very important,’ Slider said. ‘Tell me in your own words exactly what you did.’

‘Well,’ said Mansard, settling himself, ‘it was Tuesday last week. I drive for Monty’s – you know?’

‘I know,’ said Slider. Monty’s Radio Metrocabs was a Shepherd’s Bush institution. The garage was under the railway arches on the other side of Goldhawk Road, and though the eponymous Monty had died several years back, finally succumbing to overweight, cigars and terrifying blood pressure, his widow Rita and mistress Gloria continued to run the business as if he was still there. Rumour had it that his last cigar was still resting in an ashtray in the Portakabin from which they operated the radio side of it. They had always been the best of friends, united by an exasperated affection for Monty and disappointment over their children. Each of them had borne Monty a son, neither of whom had any interest in the business – or, indeed, even in getting out of bed in the morning.

‘Right,’ said Mansard. ‘Well, I was on my way back from Ealing – I’d done the airport and got a back fare as far as Northfields – when Gloria comes on, telling me to pick up this fare in Shepherd’s Bush Road and take him to Soho. Name of Bygod. He’s used our garage before. I’d not driven him, but I’d heard of him – he was a good tipper, and that always gets about, you know?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘So I goes to the address, rings the doorbell – one of them intercom jobs – and the old geezer comes straight down. Tall, skinny bloke, three-piece suit, nice weasel over it – cashmere, I reckon.’

‘What time was that?’ Slider asked.

‘Eleven forty-five, near as I can say. Well, I open the door for him, seeing as he’s obviously a gent, and he thanks me nicely – ever such a nice old boy, lovely voice, like an actor – and asks me to take him to La Florida in Wardour Street. So I did. Traffic was pretty average, so I gets him there about quart’ past twelve. He pays cash and gives me a nice tip, so I says, “Would you like me to book you in to get picked up later?” Well, rather us than some cruiser, that’s what I reckon. But he says, “Thank you, but I don’t know how long I’ll be.” So I says, “Just give a ring then, if you want us,” and he goes in and that’s that.’

‘You actually saw him go into the restaurant?’

Mansard looked a little abashed at his own softness. ‘Well, he was an old boy – didn’t look all that well, if you ask me – so I waited to see him safe inside. I reckoned he was meeting someone, and once he was inside they’d take care of him. And that’s the last I saw of him.’

Slider pondered. ‘You say he didn’t look well?’

‘He was very thin, and not what I’d call a good colour. But he was pretty old,’ he added with a shrug.

‘What was his mood like? Could you tell if he was happy, sad, worried – anything?’

‘I didn’t see that much of him to say, really. He was very polite, and gents like that don’t show their feelings much. Maybe he was a bit serious, like he’d got something on his mind,’ he added doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure I could swear to it.’

‘Well, thank you,’ Slider said. ‘You’ve been very helpful. I only wish you’d come in sooner.’

‘Didn’t know, did I?’ Mansard said, standing up. ‘Gloria’ll confirm the times and the address, if you need it. I asked her about him ’fore I come in, but he never rang again that day to get picked up, so he must have picked up a cab on the street to come home.’

‘Thanks,’ said Slider. ‘I’ll have a word with her, just to double check, but I’m sure you have all the details right.’

‘I’m really sorry somebody done the old boy in,’ Mansard said in valediction. ‘He was a real gent.’

‘So I believe,’ said Slider, brow creased in thought.

‘So that lets Mrs Kroll out,’ said Hollis, leaning against the whiteboard. ‘She was telling the truth. Bygod went out quarter to twelve. She’s left the house at half past two, and she’s covered after that.’

‘Unless he came back before she left,’ Swilley said.

‘Not likely,’ said Connolly. ‘Go all that way to lunch and back by half two? What class of a lunch would that be?’

‘A cancelled one, perhaps,’ Slider said. ‘If the person he was meeting didn’t turn up, he might have waited half an hour and then come home. But we can easily find that out. It does look rather as though Mrs Kroll is in the clear. But we know Bygod did come home at some point, and we know he was probably dead by seven because he didn’t answer the door and there were no lights on when Plumptre called. Which leaves a couple of hours when Mr Kroll could have come back to the house. So he’s not out of it yet.’