Killing Time (30 page)

And with a nod he swayed away. Slider watched him go and wondered if it was possible to be drunk just on noise, because the world wasn’t making much sense to him just then and his head was reeling, but he hadn’t touched a drop. Not even the Scotch, more was the pity.

Hart had left her car at the station, so he drove her back there. ‘Are you all right to drive home?’ he asked.

‘I only had two glasses,’ she said. ‘You were right. It was like urine re-cyc.’

‘How would you know?’

‘Anyway, I got to get changed, then I’m going up the canteen for a cup a coffee before I go home,’ she said. She looked at him hopefully, but his mind was elsewhere, and he merely grunted. In his office he found a message asking him to call Det Sup Smithers, giving her home number. He telephoned Joanna first.

‘What are you doing there?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were at the farewell party.’

‘I was. But I’ve come back here to do some thinking.’

‘Are you coming home? I was just going to have some supper. Oatcakes and cheese and a very large malt whisky. In the bath.’

He visualised it. ‘Which one?’

‘We’ve only got one bath.’

‘Which whisky.’

‘The Macallan.’ But she had already guessed that he was going to say no. ‘I’ve got no clothes on,’ she added hopefully.

‘I was just ringing to say don’t wait up for me, I might be late,’ Slider admitted.

‘Oh.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Just peachy,’ she said. ‘Except that I’ve been getting funny phone calls.’

‘What sort?’

‘I say hello, they put the phone down.’

‘How many? How often?’

‘Three this evening.’

‘Oh. Are you worried?’

‘No, not really. It’s annoying, more than anything.’

‘Don’t answer any more. Put the answering machine on,’ he advised.

‘What if you want to call me?’

‘You’ll hear my voice on the machine, and you can intercept.’

‘But I’m not sure it’s working properly.’

‘I thought you were going to get it fixed. Oh, never mind now. Look, put it on anyway, and if I want to phone you – it picks up on the fourth ring, so I’ll let it ring three times and stop, and then ring you again immediately.’

‘All right. Are you on to something? Is that why you’re staying late?’

‘I wish I were. Every new bit of evidence I get seems to make things foggier instead of clearer.’

‘It’ll come to you,’ she said. ‘Virtue brings its own reward.’

‘That’s a misquotation,’ he said.

‘Just testing.’

He pressed the receiver rest to get a new dialling tone, and dialled Pauline’s Richmond number.

‘Pauline? It’s Bill.’

‘Oh, hi. Well, I’ve done it for you. Don’t ask me how. He’s going to ring you – but not at home and not at work. Give me your mobile number.’

Slider told her.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll give this to him, and he’ll contact you and arrange a meet.’

‘When?’

‘He knows it’s urgent,’ Pauline said. ‘That’s all I can tell you. He’s got to watch his back. Leave it to him. And – Bill? Be careful.’

‘I always am.’

‘No you’re not. I heard about that attack on you, and your sergeant – what’s his name?’

‘Atherton.’

‘That one. It’s a dangerous game now. That’s why our friend agreed to contact you. He wants to keep you out of it, to save his own skin.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ Slider repeated. ‘Pauline, thanks for doing this for me. I really appreciate it.’

‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘All part of the service. D’you know why I never got married?’

‘No,’ Slider said, puzzled.

‘I didn’t think you did. When you’ve got this case out of the way, I’ll hold you to that meal. But I warn you, it’ll be a credit-card job.’

‘Nothing’s too good for you,’ Slider said.

Almost immediately he put the phone down it rang again. He answered it and was greeted by silence. He thought for a moment it was one of Joanna’s ‘funny phone calls’, but after a moment Irene said, ‘It’s me.’

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘Why should anything be the matter?’

‘I know all your tones of voice. What’s the matter?’

She seemed to have difficulty voicing it. ‘I’ve been trying to ring you all evening,’ she said at last.

‘Well I’ve only been here about a quarter of an hour. I was at Honeyman’s farewell bash.’

‘I don’t mean there. I was trying to ring you at home.’

He prickled with advance warning of a storm. ‘Where?’

‘Where you live, of course,’ she said shortly. ‘Sergeant Paxman gave me your home number.’

‘Oh, did he?’

‘I told him it was urgent. Anyway, why shouldn’t he?’ Irene said sharply. ‘He knows I’m your wife. Is it supposed to be a secret?’ Slider couldn’t answer that. ‘So I rang there, and a woman answered.’

‘And you hung up, of course. That explains it. She thought you were a heavy breather.’

‘Who is she?’ The question was both naked and urgent. Slider dithered over what was best to do or say, what would hurt all involved the least.

‘No-one you know,’ he said at last.

‘She didn’t sound like a landlady.’

‘You can tell that from “Hello”?’

‘Bill, don’t torment me,’ Irene said. ‘You’re living with someone, aren’t you?’

‘I should have thought that was self-evident.’

‘You know what I mean. You’ve got another – you’ve got a woman.’

No way out of it. ‘If you must put it that way – yes.’

‘It’s that black girl, isn’t it? That’s why you took her to see the house. You’re going to move in there with her.’

‘Irene, for God’s sake! I told you WDC Hart is one of my firm, a loaner until Atherton’s on his feet again. I’d just gone to see the house was all right, that’s all, and she happened to be with me.’

‘You don’t have to lie to me,’ Irene said pathetically. ‘Why shouldn’t you have another woman? It’s only natural. You’re an attractive man. I couldn’t expect you to be a monk for the rest of your life. I just wish you’d had the courage to tell me, and not make me find out that way.’

‘Why do I feel I’ve strayed into a Celia Johnson movie? Watch my lips: I am not having an affair with Hart!’

‘Well it looked like it, from what I saw. And you said you’re living with someone.’

‘You’re the one who can tell everything from one word on the phone. Couldn’t you tell that wasn’t Hart?’

Irene made one of those extraordinary and devastating leaps of logic that women seemed to be capable of when sniffing out infidelity. ‘Oh my God,’ she said with the horror of absolute conviction in her voice, ‘it’s that woman at the pub, isn’t it? When I had lunch with you. The one who came in, and you said she was Atherton’s friend.’

‘She is Atherton’s friend.’

‘Yes, and the rest. I
knew
she wasn’t his type. My God! No wonder you seemed so put out when she turned up. I thought it was because you were ashamed of being seen with me.’

‘Oh
Irene
—!’

‘But why did you have to lie about her? You could have told me. I’ve got no right to complain, after all.’

‘You were in the middle of telling me that Matthew wanted to go home. I thought—’ That was a sentence too delicate to finish.

‘Well, obviously,’ she said bravely, ‘there’s no question of that
now. I’m sorry I embarrassed you by mentioning it. I had thought that maybe it wasn’t too late, maybe we might be able to get back together – for the children’s sake if nothing else – but obviously it’s too late for that now.’ She drew a slightly quivering breath. ‘If only I’d spoken earlier, maybe it would have been different. But I suppose you couldn’t have forgiven me even then. I’ve made a mess of everything, haven’t I?’

‘It’s not your fault,’ he began, but she interrupted him.

‘It is. I never knew when I was well off, that’s what it was. And I suppose I didn’t really think, when I walked out, that it was an irrevocable step. It was a sort of cry for attention, really, I suppose. I was just trying to make you notice me. I never thought properly about the consequences.’

‘Oh, Irene,’ he said helplessly.

‘It’s all right, I know, I’ve made my own bed and all that. Do you love her?’

‘Look, I don’t think—’

‘You can tell me that, can’t you? She’s not much to look at,’ she said dispassionately, ‘so I suppose it must be love. Or was she just available? She wasn’t really Atherton’s girlfriend, was she? I’d hate to thinkyou were getting yourself involved on the rebound. I mean, don’t rush into something with the first female to come your way, just because she’s desperate and you don’t like being alone. It would all be such a waste if we both ended up unhappy.’

This was terrible. He was on hot coals. ‘Are you really unhappy?’

She paused before answering. ‘Does it matter if I am? I mean, if there’s nothing to be done about it? If you’ve got someone else and it’s serious, we’re never going to get back together again. Or is it,’ she added hopefully, ‘just a passing thing?’

‘It’s serious,’ he said unwillingly.

‘How can you be sure? You can’t have known her long. You’ve only just met her.’

It seemed an ideal moment to begin setting the record straight. ‘I’ve known her a long time,’ he said.

‘What, because she was a friend of Atherton’s?’

‘A friend of both of us.’

There was a silence in which he could hear her computer grinding to a conclusion, but he couldn’t think of a thing to
say to interrupt the process. He wanted to tell her the truth, but couldn’t break the habit of subterfuge which had built up around his relationship with Joanna. He found it intolerable that she should blame herself entirely for the situation, but feared bringing down her wrath on his head by confession. But they were adults, weren’t they? And now that they had parted, surely the truth could be borne? It must be the best option, so that everyone knew where they stood, and a final and amicable arrangement could be made.

‘Look,’ he began – the most fatal, incriminating word a man could ever say to a woman.

‘You were having an affair with her,’ Irene said with chilling certainty. ‘Before. Weren’t you?’

‘Look, I—’

‘I
knew
there was something going on! I just couldn’t fathom out what. But I told myself I was imagining things. And then, when Ernie started getting interested in me—’ She found her anger. ‘You let me feel guilty! You let me take all the blame, and all the time you were having an affair! You were sniggering behind my back with that – with that—’

‘Irene, for God’s sake, it wasn’t like that.’

‘How long?
How long?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Surely it doesn’t matter now. We’ve both got someone else. We’ve both got new lives. What does it matter whether—’

‘What does it matter? You let me go through agonies of guilt about breaking up our marriage, and all the time you were messing around with that – that –
bitch –
and you ask me what does it matter? My God, she isn’t even good-looking! How could you do it to me? It’d be bad enough if she was a dolly bird, but how could you betray me for that fat cow?’

‘Don’t talk like that. All that recrimination stuff is over—’

‘Oh, don’t you believe it, chum! I haven’t started yet!’ Irene spat, incandescent with rage. ‘There’s a few things going to be different from now on, I can tell you! I’ve been treating you with kid gloves, thinking I was the guilty party. Now you’re going to find out a few realities of life. By the time I’ve finished with you, you’re going to wish you’d never touched that bitch with a ten-foot barge pole. Your feet won’t touch the ground, I promise you that.’

‘Irene—’

‘You’d better get yourself a lawyer, Bill Slider!’ she yelled, and slammed the phone down.

Slider replaced his receiver and contemplated it in unhappy silence for a while. ‘I don’t think I handled that very well,’ he said at last.

‘You all right, guv?’ Hart asked from the doorway.

He looked up sternly. ‘Have you been listening?’

‘Not me,’ she said indignantly. ‘I just got here.’ She eyed him with interest. ‘You look a bit down. I was just going off. D’you fancy a drink?’

He thought of Irene phoning up for a rematch and being told he’d gone down the boozer with Hart. Or even coming to find him and walking in on them. In any case, he had to be alone for when the Scotland Yard man rang. ‘No, thanks all the same. I’ve got some thinking to do. You go on home. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

When she had gone he sat a bit longer, staring at nothing, frowning in thought. And then he got up, making sure to grab his mobile, and went out. He was parked on the corner of Abdale Road – he couldn’t get into the yard – and as he came out onto the street his mobile rang. There seemed to be no-one around. He stepped back against the wall and answered it.

‘Yes,’ he said into it.

‘You were expecting a call from me,’ said a voice. It wasn’t a question.

‘Yes.’

‘I can meet you now. Mention no names. You know where they found the PC who got hurt?’

‘Yes.’

‘There. Ten minutes. Don’t get followed.’ He rang off. This was a very cautious fellow, Slider thought. Ten minutes didn’t give him long to make sure he wasn’t followed – no time to drive circuitously. He hurried to his car. He decided to park in Hammersmith Grove and walk the rest. He saw nothing in his rear view, nothing suspicious when he parked and got out. There were people about, but no-one seemed to be paying him any attention – or deliberately
not
paying him attention – and he had no sense of being watched. Besides, this was his home ground, and it seemed absurd to be taking all these precautions
on these ordinary streets. He walked without elaborations down the quiet backstreets, only keeping an ear open for footfalls, and snatching a look behind when he abruptly crossed the road. There was no-one about.

When he reached the waste ground he felt more ill at ease. The lighting came only from the railway line above: there were deep shadows everywhere and blackness under the arches. He did not know what de Glanville looked like. Or sounded like, come to that – he was assuming the call came from him, but supposing someone else had got his mobile number, someone who had a grudge against him? There were plenty of those in his past, let alone the present case. He stepped onto the waste and kept close to the wall, and reaching the first arch backed just inside it and stood still, listening and watching.