Killing Time (29 page)

‘Sorry?’ Slider said.

‘Oh, sorry,’ the stranger said. ‘I thought you were one of the French delegates.’

‘Are we expecting French delegates?’ Slider asked, puzzled.

‘What?’ said the stranger, upping the stakes to bewildered.

‘Guv,’ Hart said, tugging Slider’s sleeve and gesturing towards the door. The parting of crowds had revealed the notice board – one of those fuzzy black slatted things with white plastic letters pressed into it. ‘We’re at the wrong bash.’

The management of the hotel, the board announced, was welcoming an international electronics firm to the Chiltern Suite.

‘Oh, are you the police?’ the stranger said, relieved. ‘You’re next door, in the Pennine Suite. All look the same, these places, don’t they?’

Slider and Hart stumped next door. Directly in line of sight of the entrance was Ron Carver so deep in conversation with Mr Wetherspoon that he practically had his tongue down his ear. Slider did not find that immediately reassuring. A waitress with a hopeless expression offered a tray of filled glasses and Hart took one of white wine.

‘Better not,’ Slider said. ‘You’ll be running all night. Safer to wait and have a pint later.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ Hart said. ‘I’m black, enni? Guts of iron. Drink anything.’

Honeyman came up and formally shook hands with both of them. ‘Nice of you to come,’ he said. He teetered a little on his tiny toes – from inebriation, it was plain, as well as nervousness. ‘And I see you’ve brought WDC – er—’

‘Hart,’ Slider supplied.

‘Hart. What a good idea. Very dull, these affairs. Middle-aged men in suits talking shop. You’ll brighten us up, er—’ He had forgotten Hart’s name again already. ‘Pity there won’t be any dancing. I’d have made sure I put my word in, stolen you from Slider here.
Droits de seigneur
, eh, Slider?’

Slider could feel Hart seething at this ponderous non-PC gallantry, and kicked her discreetly before she could jump down poor old Eric’s throat. ‘That’s right, sir,’ he said pleasantly. ‘There’s a good crowd, isn’t there?’ He glanced round at the assembled barons of F District. There were even some Area demigods – easily distinguishable because their dinner suits fitted them. Did they all know they had been brought here under false pretences, that the farewell was premature?

Honeyman intercepted the glance and looked even more nervous. ‘Yes, very gratifying. The most senior ranks will be going to dinner downstairs later, after the presentation, of course, but meanwhile, I want everyone to enjoy himself. And herself, of course. Themself. Oh, you haven’t got anything to drink,’ he noticed, with obvious relief at being able to interrupt himself.

‘I’m driving, sir,’ Slider said quickly.

‘Ah. Yes.’ Honeyman blinked. Since when did the CID worry about that? ‘Commendable. Commendable. Well, I must circulate.’ He turned away, and then back. ‘Er, Slider – that confidential matter we spoke about earlier? You didn’t – er—’ He cocked a significant eye at Hart.

‘You said it was confidential, sir,’ Slider said reassuringly.

‘Ah yes. Good. It’s just that – well, with so many senior ranks present – you understand.’

‘Yes, sir, perfectly.’

When he was gone, Hart said, ‘I fink he fancies you, guv. D’you want me to make myself scarce? I don’t wanna be a gooseberry.’

‘How would you like to spend your days tracing stolen cars?’ Slider said coldly.

Hart grinned. ‘All right, I’ll be good. Who’s that Mr Carver’s so thick with? If he gets any closer they’ll have to get married.’

‘That is our Area Commander, Mr Wetherspoon,’ Slider said impressively. ‘Curtsey while you think what to say; it saves time.’

‘Oh, is that Weverspoon?’ Hart said. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about him. He’s getting up this charity concert, ain’t he?’

‘He was born getting up a charity concert. He’s very keen on that sort of thing,’ Slider said. A waitress arrived at his elbow with a silver tray of pieces of chicken tikka each speared with a cocktail stick. Slider and Hart both took one to get rid of her. The pieces were nicely calculated, just too large to put in the mouth whole, and just too small to bite without the remainder falling off the stick. They were also very hot. Hart evidently favoured the ‘one go’ approach. She chewed briefly and swallowed. ‘I see you’ve got an iron throat as well as an iron gut,’ Slider said.

Hart twirled the cocktail stick. ‘What you sposed to do wiv these things, anyway?’

‘No-one’s ever come up with a satisfactory solution to the problem.’

‘They can be lethal, you know,’ Hart said. ‘Wedding reception down our way, once, this bloke ate a bit of quiche or whatever without taking the stick out. His wife said, “’Ere, y’ve been and swallered your stick, yer daft get.” “Oh blimey, so I ’ave,” he says. They were just ’aving a good laugh about it when the stick goes right frough his windpipe and he chokes to death, before you can say vol-au-vent.’ She eyed him defiantly. ‘It’s true. Put a bit of a crimp on the party, I can tell you.’

‘I really needed to know that,’ Slider said. ‘Here—’ And he relieved her of her stick and put it with his own in his top pocket, whence they would later, no doubt, return to haunt him. Wetherspoon finished with Carver, looked around, spotted Slider and started towards him. Significant? Slider wondered. Wetherspoon was a very tall, rather angular man, with grizzled, tightly curling hair that grew upwards above the temples, giving his head a strangely square look. He always reminded Slider, for some reason, of an Airedale terrier. It was rumoured of him that he had once, as a young man, smiled, but disliked the sensation
so much he had resolved never to do it again. Some said that the one time he had smiled it had been at a woman, which had led to his having to marry her, hence his disillusionment. Slider, who had once met Mrs Wetherspoon, was inclined to believe the story.

‘Ah, Slider – a word,’ said Wetherspoon.

Slider obediently gave him one. ‘Sir.’

Wetherspoon turned on Hart a smile that would have freezed the tassels off a stripper. ‘If you’d be so kind,’ he said. Men who packed his amount of fire-power did not need to specify the kindness. Slider jerked his head at Hart and she moved reluctantly away. ‘Yes, Slider,’ Wetherspoon continued when they were alone. ‘You’ve made certain enquiries about Mr Honeyman’s predecessor, in connection with a case.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Even allowing for Wetherspoon’s designer charmlessness, Slider felt there was some little hint of disapprobation in the tone.

‘The case is not, in fact, one of yours.’

‘No, sir, but—’

‘There are reasons,’ Wetherspoon trod over him, ‘very serious operational reasons, why your enquiries cannot be answered. In fact, your enquiries must not be pursued. Do you understand me?’

The words
yes, sir
hovered obediently at Slider’s lips but he resisted them. ‘I appreciate that it may be a delicate area—’

‘No, I don’t think you do appreciate,’ Wetherspoon said. ‘Mr Honeyman has passed on your thoughts to me, and I don’t see that you have any evidence at all that your case and Carver’s are connected in any way. It is for Carver to decide what is or isn’t relevant to his own case. In any case, I have told him what I have just told you – that there must be no enquiries along the particular line you raised with Mr Honeyman. He understands that. Do you?’ Slider drew breath to argue and Wetherspoon leaned his head a little closer and lowered his voice threateningly.
‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said.

Wetherspoon straightened up. ‘Good. Now that that’s out of the way, we can concentrate on enjoying this splendid party. But you haven’t got a drink.’

‘I’m driving, sir.’

‘Ah. Very commendable,’ said Wetherspoon, almost duplicating Honeyman’s reaction. He glanced down at the glass of red in his hand. ‘Pity though – I chose the wines myself. Do you like wine?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Good. You don’t have any sort of talent I haven’t heard about, I suppose?’

Slider had lost him. ‘Sir?’

‘My concert, man, my concert. Singing, dancing, conjuring? Comic monologue? Play the piano, at all?’

‘Not even slightly,’ Slider said.

‘Pity. Well, you must do your bit by selling tickets. Set a good example. I expect every officer, inspector and above, to sell at least twenty tickets. Friends, neighbours and whatnot. Get in among ’em.’ He paused on the brink of a monumental descent into the vernacular, a jocularity aimed at winning the common soldier’s heart. ‘Bums on seats, that’s the name of the game! Must make it a raging success. For the kiddies, you know.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said. Wetherspoon gave him one more deeply unfavourable look, nodded, and went away. Slider felt the side that had been nearest him begin to thaw.

Hart reappeared. ‘Trouble, guv?’ she murmured.

‘No, just being told there are things it is better for a detective inspector not to know,’ Slider said. He looked across at Carver and saw Carver’s gaze quickly averted. He’d have liked to know what Carver had been saying to Wetherspoon, though – and vice versa. ‘I wonder if he was told the same thing. It didn’t look like it.’

‘Come again?’ said Hart.

‘Do you ever get the feeling that everyone else knows something you don’t?’

‘That’s paranoid,’ Hart said.

‘You’d be paranoid if everyone was plotting against you,’ Slider complained.

A waitress thrust another tray at them, and Slider took what appeared to be a cocktail sausage on a stick, but which proved – as he discovered when he bit it – to be merely a tube full of boiling fat, which instantly glued itself to the gums behind his upper molars and inflicted third degree burns. ‘Bloody hell!’ He grabbed Hart’s glass and swilled desperately.

‘Not your night, guv,’ said Hart sympathetically.

‘Why didn’t I join the fire brigade when I had the chance?’ Slider said bitterly.

The party ripened like a mould culture. Officers were getting drunk. The noise grew. Slider got separated from Hart. He got buttonholed by an agonisingly boring man from Hammersmith nick who seemed to know him a great deal better than he ought considering Slider couldn’t remember his name and only recollected ever having spoken to him once, and who wanted to talk to him about crime statistics. He ripped himself free at last like sticking plaster, and began to push his way slowly but purposefully through the crowds, trying to look as though he was on his way somewhere, in the hope of avoiding any more conversations. He was beginning to get a headache.

And then suddenly Honeyman was at his side again, clutching two glasses of amber fluid. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were shiny. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m having a proper drink.’ He proffered one glass. ‘Join me? You weren’t serious about that not drinking because you’re driving business were you?’

Slider hesitated. Honeyman seemed to have become almost human. ‘I didn’t fancy the wine, sir.’

‘Sensible man. Filthy stuff. But for God’s sake, don’t call me sir. Not here. Chance to let down the barriers for once.’ He jerked the glass at Slider, swilling the liquid dangerously up the side. ‘Whisky. Scotch, in fact. Took you for a Scotch man. Was I wrong?’

Slider took the glass just in time. ‘I prefer a pint, sir, but I like Scotch.’

Honeyman leaned towards him with a fascinating smile. ‘Between you and me, Wetherspoon fancies himself as a wine-buff. Hasn’t a clue! Reads the Sunday supplements, watches the TV, takes it all as gospel. And the man’s the most frightful bore about it. Never accept a dinner invitation to the Wetherspoons’,’ he warned solemnly. ‘He’s got a sign over his front door.’ Honeyman drew it in the air. ‘“Welcome. This is what death is like.”’

Slider wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to laugh. ‘I don’t think I’m ever likely to be invited,’ he said.

‘No, I don’t suppose you are. Welsh claret,’ he added from a bitter memory all his own. ‘Afghanistan Côtes du Rhone. Nuits
St Bogota. What was that advertisement? “Not a drop sold till it’s five weeks old.” Ah, this is more like. Well – cheers.’

‘Cheers,’ Slider said obediently.

Honeyman sank half his Scotch, glanced quickly round, and then looked at Slider. ‘I suppose you’re wondering what’s got into me. I suppose you’re thinking, my God the old fool’s finally flipped his lid.’

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘The thing is, you see, that I’m suffering from a sort of last-day-of-term – oh, what’s the word?’

‘Euphoria?’

‘That’s it. Together with a dislike of being poisoned. And being talked to like a half-witted schoolboy. This is all strictly confidential, mind,’ he added with belated caution. ‘Where’s that lovely young girl of yours? You won’t repeat anything I say?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Being talked to like that. That’s what gets my goat. I’m going to have another of these.’ He drained his glass, looked around as if wondering where the bottle was, and then turned back to Slider. ‘Talked to like an idiot schoolboy. At my own retirement party. After thirty years in the Job. It’s not on.’

‘No, sir.’

‘So I wanted to tell you, Slider, that I’m on your side. You do what you have to, and I’ll back you up. To the hilt. All the way.’ He swayed suddenly, and had to shift his feet to regain his balance. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. Slider couldn’t believe his ears. Honeyman looked at him almost gleefully. ‘Didn’t think I had it in me, did you? I know what you chaps think of me. But I tell you this – I’m a policeman, first and last. Not a politician. Not a businessman. Not a civil servant. And you are too. That’s what I like about you, Slider. You’re a good egg. D’you want that?’ He gestured abruptly towards the tumbler in Slider’s hand.

‘No, sir,’ Slider said, and gave it to him. Honeyman took a gulp.

‘I’d like to bring this one home before I go. This case. Sir Nigel Grisham’s involved. It’s high profile now, you know.’

‘Yes, sir.’ High profile now, because of Sir Nigel – but who cared about Sir Nigel’s friend, the dancer-cum-prostitute he paid for and exploited? Fame was all, fame excused all. Jay Paloma had been right.

‘Do it for me,’ Honeyman said, ‘and I’ll back you all the way.’

‘I’ll do my best, sir.’

‘I know you will. Good man. Not many of us left. Not like that lot.’ He gestured with his eyes in the vague direction of the rest of the world. ‘Got to go. Presentation and speeches next, and then I’ve got to go and have dinner with
them
. Well, I won’t be leaned on. They’ll find out. I’ll sweet-talk all they like, but I won’t be leaned on.’