Hard Going (13 page)

‘No, I like dogs,' he said. Buffy, who evidently spoke human, responded by putting one paw on his knee. He removed it, gently but firmly. This relationship was going no further.

June Bygod, or Buckland, whatever she was now, sat on the sofa facing him, and thought from the direction of his eyes that he was looking out of the window over her shoulder. ‘Lovely view, isn't it? We get the occasional golf ball coming in – one broke the bathroom window last year – but it's a small price to pay for a vista like that on to open country.' She said this without irony. She spoke with exaggerated refinement, like an early Mrs Thatcher, as if she were disguising a country accent with too much RP. Cruelty to vowel sounds, Slider thought. ‘So, how can I help you? Shepherd's Bush, did you say? I don't know anyone from Shepherd's Bush.' A little laugh. ‘Oh, except my ex-husband Lionel, but he's Hammersmith, really. Anyway, I'm sure he hasn't broken any laws. He's not the type.'

She hadn't heard, then? Well, thanks to the cottaging MP's frailty, it hadn't made the national dailies. ‘I'm very sorry to have to tell you that he's dead,' Slider said.

She looked at him alertly, head a little tilted, questioning frown. ‘Dead? When?'

‘He died on Tuesday. I'm afraid I have to inform you that he was murdered.'

You got a lot of reactions in the Job, but he wasn't really expecting this one. She smiled. The smile was quickly removed, and she said, ‘Oh dear, I don't mean to – of course, murder's no smiling matter. But if you knew Lionel, you'd know how ridiculous that sounds. You must have got the wrong name somehow. Really, you've made a mistake. I mean, who on earth would ever want to murder Lionel?'

‘It's no mistake. As to who would want to murder him – I was hoping you might be able to help me with that.'

‘What on earth do you mean?' She seemed slightly affronted.

He responded to the urgent poodle eyes by gently scratching the curly poll as he answered. ‘Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to do him harm?'

‘No, of course not,' she said, at once and firmly.

‘When did you last see him?'

‘Oh, I really can't remember. Ages ago. I haven't had anything to do with Lionel for years, not since we split up. We exchange Christmas cards, and that's about it. I don't know anything about his life now. We went our separate ways and that was that.'

‘That was because of the court case, wasn't it? The Roxwell case.'

She frowned. ‘Oh, you know about that, do you? Well, it wasn't so much the case as all the unpleasantness afterwards. The newspapers, and the reporters hanging around outside all the time. The terrible things they said.' The strained RP was slipping, and she sounded more like a middle-class midlander now. ‘It wasn't possible to have a normal life any more. That dreadful man, Derek Crondace—' She paused. ‘You don't think it was him who killed Lionel, do you? He threatened him most dreadfully at the time. It was one of the reasons I left. I saw no reason why I should be put in the firing line when I had nothing to do with any of it.'

‘It's one of the possibilities we're looking into,' Slider said in the mildest possible way. He didn't want her getting off on that. ‘You say you haven't had any contact with him, other than Christmas cards? Did you part on bad terms, then?'

‘Oh,' she said with a throwaway gesture, ‘not that, so much. I don't think it was possible to be on bad terms with Lionel. He was the world's mildest man – everyone took advantage of him. No, it wasn't a bitter parting, I don't mean that, but it was all over between us and there was no sense in pretending otherwise. I felt he'd ruined my life through his ridiculous crusade, and I wanted out. I wasn't prepared to suffer alongside him while he rode out on his white horse, in his shining armour, especially when I didn't agree with it.'

‘By crusade, you mean—?'

‘Defending undefendable criminals. Like that dreadful Roxwell man. He was so obviously guilty, he ought to have gone to prison for what he did, but Lionel got him off – and
used his own money to do it
! And let us in for all that dreadful – unpleasantness.' She seemed dissatisfied with the word. ‘I can't describe to you what it was like,' she went on in a low voice. ‘All those horrible accusations. And then of course one started to wonder – well, whether there was anything in it.'

‘And was there?'

She hesitated, looking in his direction, but through him. ‘I don't know,' she said at last. ‘I'd never suspected anything like that before. He seemed normal enough to me. A bit milk-and-water, maybe. A bit over-polite, if you know what I mean. Sometimes a woman likes a little bit of, you know, the cave man to come out in her husband.' She gave a coyly roguish smile that made Slider blench inwardly. ‘But of course I didn't know where he was every hour of the day. And his practice meant he mixed with some pretty strange people. And why did he take up for Roxwell if he didn't have some special sympathy for him? You had to ask. It did make me wonder whether he was just
too much
of a gentleman, if you get my drift. Well, once you start having doubts …' She shrugged. ‘You can't just dismiss them.' She paused a moment. ‘Has he been getting up to anything like that in Shepherd's Bush?'

‘We have no information to suggest he has.' He changed direction. ‘How did you first meet him?'

‘My father was a solicitor, in Stamford, and Lionel did his training there. We met and fell in love – he was very handsome, tall, distinguished-looking. His father was a barrister, you know, and I always thought Lionel was wasted as a solicitor. He should have gone to the bar instead. He'd have looked so wonderful in the robes, in court. But he always said he was happier as a back-room boy. No ambition, that was his problem.' She shrugged. ‘Anyway, we married, and Daddy made him a partner, and when Daddy retired he bought the practice. But he wanted to do more criminal work, so he sold it, we moved to London, and he set up there.'

‘How did you like moving to London?'

‘Oh, I was very happy. What girl wouldn't want to swap a place like Stamford for the big city? But of course as he got more successful we saw less and less of each other. Splitting up in the end wasn't such a big step,' she remarked, ‘because we were already pretty much living separate lives.'

‘He had a particular interest in the theatre, I believe?'

She looked slightly cross. ‘Oh, he was mad about it. Went to see all the plays. It got to be a bone of contention, if truth be told, because, well, I like the theatre as much as anyone – I've seen
Phantom
twice – but all that Shakespeare and stuff, people droning on and on and not the faintest idea what they're talking about …! I tried to be interested at first, for his sake, and a nice musical's one thing, but as to being bored stiff night after night – it's not to be borne. And the seats are so uncomfortable! But Lionel got the bug at Oxford when he was doing his law degree. He was in the Drama Society, so I suppose he fancied himself a bit of an expert.'

‘He acted in OUDS?'

‘He actually wanted to be an actor at one time, but apparently his father didn't approve, made him to go into law. But whether he'd have been any good … He didn't do the acting at Oxford, you see, he did the backstage stuff – stage manager and lighting and so on. They always want people for that, because most people want to be on the stage, so anyone who's willing to do the boring stuff is very popular. And of course a lot of those Oxford people went on to be professional actors, so he knew them personally, and when he went to a play he could go backstage and schmooze with them.'

‘Didn't you find that exciting?' Slider asked. ‘Meeting the celebrities?'

She sniffed. ‘It's not like they were film stars. Well, he did do a production with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor once at the Oxford Playhouse, but I never got to meet
them
. Gyles Brandreth, yes – oh, and he knew that Diana Quick from back then. But that was about the best of it. Not exactly earth-shaking. And anyway, there's nothing glamorous about the backstage of a London theatre. Dirty and dark and cramped. And there's mice everywhere! And of course it was him they wanted to talk to, not me. I'd end up squashed in a corner longing for a gin and tonic while they talked rubbish about the play that I didn't understand one word in three of. So, no,' she ended with elaborate irony, ‘I didn't find it exciting. I was happy for him to go without me.'

Slider was getting a pretty clear picture of the marriage and the difficulties thereof – highbrow, modest, gentlemanly Lionel and his lowbrow, impatient, scornful bride who wanted him to be more macho in the bedroom and in his profession – but he wasn't sure it was getting him any closer to who killed him. And however modest and retiring he was, he must have been tough enough in his professional life, because he was in criminal law, and it was the solicitor who met the clients face to face, not the barrister.

‘How did he meet Mr Wickham Williams?' he asked on the back of that thought.

She made a moue. ‘Oh, that was one of his theatre contacts again. Hugo was another theatre nut, like Lionel. He'd been at Oxford as well, and they could talk about it for hours. Bored everybody stiff at dinner parties.'

‘So they were friends as well as colleagues?'

‘Oh yes. I never really got on with Magda, though – Hugo's wife. She was a barrister too, and I found her very cold, and a dreadful snob. At Hugo's funeral the seating arrangements were just an insult – she had Lionel in the second row, just behind the family, while I was stuck way back. She said afterwards it was because Lionel was doing a reading so he had to be at the front but there wasn't room for partners as well, and she apologized, but I could see the way she looked at me. She thought I wasn't good enough for them because I didn't go to university.'

There were certainly some old resentments there, Slider thought. This was a woman who knew how to hold a grudge. He imagined the Bygods' married life being one long series of pointed silences, tight lips and plates being slammed down on tables.

‘One thing I meant to ask you was about next of kin,' Slider reminded himself. ‘Were there any children?'

‘No,' she said, sharply, in the sort of tone that said this was a topic best not explored.

Slider drew breath to ask the next question when the dog jumped up and started to bark, prancing towards the door. Outside there was the sound of a vehicle arriving, its door slamming, and a moment later the front door was opened and a man's voice bellowed, ‘June? Juney!'

‘In here,' she trilled.

‘Didn't that parcel arrive?' the cross voice went on, coming closer. ‘Didn't you ring about it like I told you?'

The dog frisked back in, and hot on his tail came a very tall, lean man with wiry grey hair, pale blue eyes, and the raw complexion of a man who works outside but subscribes to the ‘real men don't moisturize' school of grooming. He was wearing smartly fitting jeans, a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, displaying strong, brown forearms, and desert boots. He seemed to be in his late fifties and his face gave the impression of being good-looking, until you examined it more closely and discovered the nose was too small and the mouth rather pink and petulant. It didn't help, of course, that he was scowling furiously.

‘If I don't get it today the whole job's going down the pan,' he began angrily as soon as he reached the door. ‘I
told
you to ring me if it—' He stopped as he saw Slider, and his face registered uncertainty mingled with an incipient ingratiation as he wondered if he were a client.

Slider, who had risen politely, looked towards June for an introduction. Her lips were tightly closed and her eyes sparkled with something that boded her mate no good – the sort of something that said
must you show me up in front of visitors
? ‘This is Phil, Phil Buckland,' she said. ‘Detective Inspector—?' She'd forgotten the name.

‘Slider.' They shook hands. Buckland's was large, knuckly and hard as a plank. He evidently worked with them. ‘Mr Buckland,' he said, managing to get a faint question mark on to it.

‘I only use Lionel's name for my business,' she added quickly. ‘I started it up when we first split up, before I met Phil, and the customers knew it, so it made sense not to change.'

‘What can we do for you, Inspector?' Buckland asked, swallowing his irritation with an effort. He managed a golf-social, nineteenth hole sort of smile. ‘Don't tell me June's not been paying her parking fines again?' He turned the smile on her with a hint of menace in it. It looked as though the parking fines were an old bone of contention.

‘It's nothing to do with parking,' she snapped.

‘Speeding, then. I told her not to paint that pink poodle on the van,' he offered Slider merrily. ‘Makes it too conspicuous.'

‘Phil,' she said warningly. ‘It's nothing like that. It's serious. Lionel's been killed.'

‘Killed? What do you mean, killed? In a road accident, you mean?'

‘No, I'm afraid he's been murdered,' Slider said.

Buckland looked from one to the other, seeming puzzled. ‘Well, June doesn't know anything about that,' he said at last. ‘She's not seen him in years. And I've never even met the man. What are you asking her about it for?'

‘For one thing,' Slider said, ‘we don't know who the next of kin is. You were saying there were no children?' he said to June.

‘No,' she said. ‘And his parents are both long gone. He hadn't any brothers or sisters, either. I suppose I'm the nearest thing he had to family,' she concluded with a nervous laugh.

‘You were no family,' Buckland said roughly.

Slider thought how sad it was to end one's life so thoroughly repudiated. He tried one last tack. ‘I believe he was quite well off,' he said. ‘I don't suppose you'd know who he would have left everything to?'