Kill My Darling (32 page)

‘That'll be nice.'

‘Think about something I can do for you, to make you happy. When the case is closed.'

‘Oh, there is something. And it doesn't have to wait until then.'

‘What's that?'

‘Finish your drink and I'll show you.'

Slider lay awake, the darkness pressing on him soft and unpleasant, like a fat person sitting on his face. The wind had gone round and the iron grip of the cold had loosened at last – the temperature must have gone up ten degrees since they went to bed. He had to slip his feet surreptitiously out from under the duvet to cool off.

Beside him Joanna was full fathom five, down deep where the busy and good go by night; but he had known as soon as they turned out the light that he would not sleep. Somewhere in the darkness, untouchable and near, Melanie Hunter waited, creeping towards him in encroaching tendrils like grave-damp. She was dead; nothing for her now but decay and oblivion; nothing of her but the faint whimperings of her ghost.

But what had she been? She had lost her father when she was hardly more than a child; had lost her own child soon afterwards. She had gone to the bad, then had tried to make good. Her child taken from her – she had always been more sinned against than sinning. She had done her best to be what she had been expected to be, worked hard, succeeded, got a career, helped others, tried to love Scott Hibbert – tried so hard, because you have to love someone, don't you? And good boyfriends are hard to come by. But she had not wanted to marry him, not dared risk a child. How far had she really consented to the abortion? How deep did the guilt run in her?

He heard her in the darkness, but could not hear her words.
Tell me who did it
, he begged her. He felt around restlessly in his mind for the end of a thread to catch on to. He had spent the evening, before Joanna came home, reading through his copy of the notes, which he had brought home; but they refused to fall into any pattern, just whirled about like leaves blown by a gusty wind.

She had tried to be good, make something of herself, had succeeded pretty much. But something was wrong somewhere. Ronnie Fitton had said there were things no one knew about her. She had a secret. Was it the secret that killed her?

Fitton said she wasn't a happy person; that everyone fed off her and no one cared how
she
felt. Life and soul of the party – the smiling clown, sad under the paint, that old cliché. But clichés became clichés because they were true. She was loved by many – but not enough. And then, perhaps, someone had loved her too much?

Wiseman and Hibbert, both so tempting, but both out of the frame. So unless it was Fitton after all . . . Say, for the sake of argument, it wasn't Fitton. We're back where we started; clean slate. Begin again, forgetting surmises. Begin again with what we know.

She went home, stopped off for a Chinese takeaway – but it wasn't for her. She'd just had a big meal; and she didn't, in fact, eat it. She must have bought it for someone else. But who would you buy a late-night takeaway for? A flatmate, your boyfriend, a housebound neighbour just possibly. Someone close.

She parked the car and went into the flat, but came out again with only her door keys. And, presumably, the takeaway. So it must have been almost immediately or the takeaway would have gone cold. Came out with only her keys, so she had expected to go back, and soon. Just pop out and back again. To deliver the food? Where? A neighbour? But then why hadn't they come forward?

She came out with just her keys but she didn't go back in. She wasn't killed in the flat or anywhere in the house. She left the area – but not in her car. So: someone else's car. She got into someone else's car and drove away with them, despite having only her keys with her. If she wasn't coerced, it must have been someone she knew and trusted – like Hibbert. But it wasn't Hibbert.

And the takeaway – she must have taken the takeaway out with her. So could it be that she had bought it
for
the person in the car? But why, then, drive off with them? And if they had a car, why couldn't they get their own takeaway?

Because they had no money? There was the missing two hundred quid. Hibbert could have taken it, of course. But maybe it was the takeaway person. But they had a car. Yes, but you can have a car and be strapped for cash on a short term basis. But who would she do such a thing for? And even if she gave them money and food,
why did she get into the car
?

Hibbert worked because he was the person closest to her; Wiseman worked because of his temper and because he had spoken to her on the phone just before she left the Vic and bought the takeaway. Why had he denied that, by the way? But it wasn't either of them.

Something happened in his mind, a click and thunk, of things shifting and falling into place. It was like the bit in an Indiana Jones film when a lever is pulled and massive blocks of stone rearrange themselves to reveal a secret door. It couldn't be, could it? He felt the blood running under his skin as the excitement of ideas increased his heart rate. It seemed unlikely; there were large problems in the way; and yet it answered many other questions.

At all events, they had nothing else to go on; it was worth a shot. And he knew that now he had thought of it, he would never rest until he had made the enquiries. He oozed carefully out of bed, gathered his clothes and took them to the bathroom to dress, went downstairs and put the kettle on. He couldn't go yet, not at this time of night. He would spend the rest of the time, until it was a civilized enough hour to leave, reading the file again.

If it were true, would she have told Fitton? No – and Fitton said he didn't know. But might he have guessed? Possibly. Possibly. He was a man who had had more to do with sudden death than your average punter. And he had loved Melanie.

Joanna came downstairs with George who – Slider realized belatedly – had been bouncing and chuntering up there in his cot for some time, possessed by the urgency of his usual early morning hunger.

‘Couldn't sleep?' Joanna asked. She put George in his chair and located and delivered a rusk to his grasp almost without opening her eyes. She yawned mightily and George stared at her with huge eyes, David Attenborough encountering a new species.

‘Sorry if I disturbed you,' Slider said.

‘You didn't, this time. I was out to the wide.' She rubbed her eyes, and only then registered what he was wearing. ‘You're going out? she said, and didn't manage to disguise her disappointment. Well, she was only human. And she'd planned a lovely leg of lamb.

‘I'm sorry,' he said abjectly.

‘It's because it was a girl, isn't it? You're never like this when the victim's a man.'

‘Not true. I always feel responsible.'

‘All right, but it's worse when it's a female. Especially a young one.'

‘I can't help it,' he said unhappily. ‘Men are supposed to protect women and children. That's what we're for.'

She softened. ‘You're a dear old-fashioned thing.'

‘Don't mock me. Not you.'

‘No, I wasn't. You're right. So, can you tell me about it?'

He hesitated.

‘OK, I know.' He never would articulate when his thoughts were only half formed, in case speaking drove essential links away. ‘But you're going out,' she said.

‘I'm sorry,' he said again.

She shrugged. It was only what she had come to expect. Unlike Irene, his first wife, she didn't resent him for it. But then she had a job that took her away at unreasonable hours, too. Perspective made all the difference to a marriage. ‘Just tell me this – you're not going to do anything dangerous, are you? There won't be guns? Or knives?' she added. Knives were almost worse. For while a bullet might go anywhere, a knife was almost sure to go somewhere.

His face cleared and he smiled; like one of those April days when the clouds suddenly part and for an instant the sun belts down as if it had been doing summer up there all the time. ‘I'm just going to look at some records,' he assured her.

It was definitely milder. The wind, he discovered as he stepped from the house, had backed westerly, bringing with it an unbroken grey cover of cloud, too high for real rain, but dispensing the sort of fine mizzle you don't even realize is there until you turn your face upwards and feel it prickling your skin like tiny insect feet. Haar, his mother had used to call it. She said it always came when you'd just put your washing out. The absolute disproof of the adage it never rains but it pours.

Greenford came under Ealing police, and he went first to their headquarters in the hope that they had kept copies of everything, because otherwise it was the Home Office or the Department of Transport, neither of which was likely to be welcoming, let alone accessible on a Sunday. The previous boss of the Ealing CID, Slider's old nemesis Gordon Arundel – a serial womanizer known behind his back as Gorgeous Gordon, who had also been notoriously unhelpful to coppers outside his own borough – was no longer there, having been promoted suddenly up and sideways like a lamb snatched by an eagle. Rumour had it that he had been doinking the borough commander's wife and daughter at the same time, unknown to any of the three of them, or his own wife, until one exquisitely embarrassing Christmas party when a social collision took place that would have seen the Hadron physicists drooling with envy.

On the other hand, DC Phil Hunt, the rhyming policeman, who had once been one of Slider's firm, was still there, and as luck would have it was on duty that day. Hunt was easy to manipulate: chit-chat a few minutes, reminisce a few minutes, hint that they could do with his unique qualities back at Shepherd's Bush (with fingers crossed behind his back that he didn't take him at his word and put in for a transfer) and Hunt was ready to move heaven and earth to prove to Slider that he
could
move heaven and earth. The crash records? Yes, no problem at all. Yes, they had everything, except the papers from the subsequent public enquiry – all the original records from the time of the crash and the immediate aftermath, certainly. He would take Slider down to the records room personally and make sure he had everything he wanted.

The records clerk was a young female uniform who looked at Hunt as though she had just found him on her shoe. Hunt, however, had always been as perceptive as a box of rocks when it came to women, and said in a proprietorial manner, ‘This is Mo Kennet, the wizard of the records room. My old boss, DI Slider, Mo, all the way from Shepherd's Bush on an important mission. The lovely Mo will see you get everything you want, guv. Just leave it to her.'

Hunt loitered as though he intended to stay and officiate, and Kennet and Slider stood locked in a bubble of embarrassment, until she roused herself to say, ‘Thanks, Phil. I'll take care of it. Hadn't you better get back and man the phones?'

He beamed nauseatingly. ‘Always looking after my welfare, is Mo. Famous for her kind heart – isn't that right, love? When are you going to come for a ride in my car? I know you like motors.' His voice changed from crass suggestiveness to pure love when he went on, ‘I've just had this new exhaust kit put in – cost over a hundred quid just for the parts, but it was worth it. You should hear her now – purrs like a big kitty till you put your foot down, and then—'

Hunt always had been able to bore for England about his cars, which Slider had believed had taken the place of a sexual partner in his life. He intervened while he and Kennet still had the use of their faculties. ‘Thanks a lot, Hunt. I appreciate it. I can manage from here.'

Kennet made an eloquent face at Hunt's departing back, but became completely sensible when she turned to Slider to ask him what he wanted. In ten minutes he was sitting at a reading desk with the first of the files, while she brought in more and dumped them on the neighbouring desk to leave him room.

‘That's the lot, sir,' she said finally, brushing her hands off. She looked at him curiously. ‘If there's anything I can do to help . . .? I mean, it was before my time, of course, and I only know what I remember from the news, but I'd be happy to trawl for you if there was anything in particular you were looking for?'

‘Thanks, that's very kind. I'm on a bit of a fishing expedition, but I'll give you a yell if I need help.'

‘Okey-doke. I'll just be through there.' She gave a rueful smile. ‘Nothing much on today, so I'd be glad of something to do. Get you a coffee or anything?'

‘No, thanks, I'm fine. Thanks a lot.' He smiled at her kindly and she obediently removed herself, though curiosity was sticking out all over her like boils. A good girl, that, he thought. She could go far.

He began to read.

SIXTEEN

Sleight of Hand

I
t had been a terrible incident, with a hundred and eight killed and two hundred and twenty-four injured: the second worst rail accident ever in England, surpassed only by the Harrow crash of 1952 which involved three trains, two of them expresses. The Greenford incident was a head-on crash between a passenger express out of Paddington, diverted from the fast rail because of engineering works, and an eastbound local train that had just left Greenford Station. The subsequent long and costly public enquiry had finally blamed driver error, which was easy to do since both drivers had been killed; but badly placed signals and lack of sufficient training had also been cited, management of both the train and track companies had been obliged eventually to resign, and compensation claims had dragged through the courts for years.

Slider read the general reports from police and fire brigade to get the overall picture, and then went on to the medical records. Yes, here it was at last: Hunter, Graham Dennis Ormonde, aged forty-two. Dead at scene on arrival of medical personnel.

His head had been crushed by falling debris, which had also almost decapitated him, severing the neck almost to the cervical spine. Death would have been instantaneous. A very quick glance at the photographs were enough for Slider. Hunter had been identified on the scene by paramedics going through his pockets, who had discovered a wallet in his inside jacket pocket containing business cards and credit cards, and in another pocket a letter addressed to him from an individual in Bristol, and several bills.