Necrocrip (12 page)

‘There’s his car, anyway,’ Atherton said as they drew up behind the red BMW. He got out and strolled down to peer through the window. ‘He had all the extras,’ he said from his pinnacle of knowledge. ‘He’s added about six K to the basic car, so he couldn’t have been short of a bob or two.’

‘Could it have been the car Mrs Kostantiou saw parked opposite the alley?’ Slider wondered. ‘It’s red.’

‘She picked out a Ford Sierra from the book,’ Atherton reminded him.

‘Yes, but with hesitation. She says she doesn’t know anything about cars; and they’re not all that different in shape to a quick glance.’

‘If she’s that vague about it, she’s not going to make much of a witness, though, is she? And anyway, the car being here doesn’t fit in, does it? Even if Leman did drive Slaughter to the shop for some obscure reason, how did it get back here after he was murdered?’

‘Slaughter drove it.’

‘Can Slaughter drive?’

Slider shrugged. ‘Can a hedgehog swim?’

‘I don’t know,’ Atherton said. ‘Can it?’

‘Useless speculation, that’s all. We’ll take the car in, anyway, and go over it. Might find a handy patch of blood, hair or skin.’

‘Twitching curtains at twelve o’clock, Guv,’ Atherton said in an undertone.

Slider looked across the road. ‘That’ll be Suzanne’s mother, I suppose. Better have a word with her. Do you want to go and do it, while I have a shufti upstairs?’

Upstairs it was all freshly decorated, newly carpeted, and recently furnished at some expense. There was a large television and video, sound system with plenty of CDs, wardrobe full of expensive clothes, modern kitchen equipped with a microwave and a freezer full of Marks and Spencer ready meals, and a bathroom with gold taps. When Atherton came back, he found his senior going through the contents of the bedroom drawers.

‘Phew,’ said Atherton, flopping down on the bed.

‘That bad?’

‘She’s living proof of the adage that superficiality is only skin deep. Tongue on wheels, dressed like mutton, obsessed with appearances. Very hot on the subject of Peter Leman not being good enough for her little girl, and so she told him! Flashing his money about – fast cars – and who knew where it all came from? Never had a job as far as she could tell. Here today and gone tomorrow. Probably a drug dealer for all she knew. She’d forbidden her Suzanne to have anything more to do with him, and Daddy agreed with her. Daddy is a bank manager. She was only a bank manager’s daughter, but she received many a deposit.’

‘Is Suzanne the only child?’

‘There’s a much older sister, apparently: married to a barrister, three children, two cars, an Irish wolfhound and a swimming pool. Second home in the Dordogne. Private education.’

‘Ah.’

‘I got the lot. No wonder Suzanne fancied a bit of rough trade.
Nostalgie de la boue.’

‘No wonder she asked no questions.’

‘What have you found?’

‘He certainly lived here – gubbins everywhere. And he
certainly had money, but where it came from, I’m no wiser. I’ve found his cheque book, bank statements, credit card bills, but no salary slips. He was a sharp dresser and did all his food shopping at Marks and Spencer, and there’s a cupboard full of booze – spirits and imported bottled lager – but no cigarettes, syringes or little glass tubes.’

‘A clean-living boy.’

‘I’ve also found his passport.’

‘Interesting reading?’

‘I think the Customs and Excise men would have found it fascinating. He was in and out like lamb’s tails. America, Hong Kong, Turkey, Bangkok, Algeria. Last trip San Francisco six weeks ago.’ Slider frowned. ‘Business of some sort, that’s for sure – using the word in its widest sense. Even with his unexplained wealth, he’d hardly be popping back and forth like that for pleasure.’

‘Maybe he just liked air stewardesses. Or stewards, come to that. Or both. Hardly matters, though, does it? Wherever his money came from, he’s thrown his hand in now.’

‘Must you?’ said Slider. ‘All the same, doesn’t it seem strange to you that this flash, jet-setting, BMW-driving,
Guardian-reading
type should take on a part-time job at a fish and chip shop, and then suddenly join up for one night of love with Ronnie Slaughter?’

‘Yes,’ said Atherton bluntly. ‘The words
love
and
Ronnie Slaughter
do not bed down easily together in one sentence. On the other hand, why should Slaughter lie about it? If he was going to lie, he’d lie the other way – especially since he says he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s gay.’

‘Unless the real reason for his meeting Leman was even more dodgy. Remember he didn’t say anything about Leman at all until we faced him with the witness statement. Then when he realised we knew it was Leman he’d met, he made up a reason for it.’

‘But what a reason! Surely he could have come up with something more convincing than that?’

‘But you’ve just indicated you believe it because it’s too incredible to be a lie.’

Atherton raised his eyebrows.
‘Credo quia absurdum}
Well, you’ve got something there, Guv. Except that I don’t believe Ronnie Slaughter’s that bright.’

‘Unless he’s so bright he’s able to make us think he’s stupid,’ Slider said tauntingly.

‘Oh nuts,’ Atherton said. ‘You could go on like that all day.’ He wriggled, and felt underneath him. ‘What am I sitting on?’ He stood up and patted the counterpane, and then whipped the covers back to reveal a man’s handkerchief crumpled up in the middle of the bed. ‘Hullo-ullo-ullo! What’s this?’

‘It’s used, that’s what that is,’ Slider said distastefully as Atherton bent down to peer at it.

‘Certainly is – and if I’m any judge, it wasn’t his nose he blew on it. The lad had nasty habits.’

‘At that age, the essential juices flow fast and frequent.’

‘I suppose Suzanne was otherwise occupied. Do you suppose he was keeping this for later – a secret cache?’

‘Wait a minute,’ Slider said suddenly as the idea occurred to him. ‘That could be just what we want.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Atherton said firmly. ‘I’ll get pregnant the conventional way, thank you.’

‘Have you got any evidence bags?’

‘In the car.’

‘Get one, then. Don’t you realise, whichever nose he blew on it, there’s DNA in them thar folds.’

‘Of course! We can get a proper match with the corpse at last. Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘Because I’m brilliant and you’re stupid,’ Slider said pleasantly.

‘I knew there was a reason. I’ll go and get the bag.’

Joanna came to meet him for a late lunch, and they went to the Acropolis for steak and kidney pie, mashed potato, carrots, peas and cabbage, prepared and served as only the caffs of old England can do it.

‘Do you think you’d be able to tell if a man you were sleeping with was bisexual?’ Slider asked.

Joanna looked at him gravely. ‘It’s Atherton, isn’t it?’
she asked after a moment.

‘Eh?’

‘I don’t blame you, Bill. God, I’ve often fancied him myself! But why,
why
didn’t you tell me from the beginning?’

‘No, seriously, would you? Is it a thing you could tell?’

She made a thoughtful gravy inlet in her island of mashed potato. ‘Depends how well I knew him, I suppose. I’d like to think I would, but it doesn’t mean that a young, inexperienced girl also would. From what you’ve said, this Leman type was pretty well leading a double life. Presumably he was skilled at deception, or he’d have been found out long ago.’

‘I don’t understand the girl,’ Slider grumbled. ‘She’s smart as paint – pretty, intelligent – she’s got a job with a publishing company—’

‘She’s not all that intelligent, then.’

‘She could have any man she liked—’

‘Men don’t like going out with smart, pretty, clever girls. They like to feel superior.’

‘All the same,’ he said patiently, ‘she can’t be lacking opportunity. Yet she goes out with this chap she knows virtually nothing about, who has no history or friends or relatives, who won’t be pinned down, who comes and goes and is unaccountable. He works in a fish and chip shop two nights a week, and she never even asks him where he gets his money, although she says he had plenty.’

‘You think he was a villain, then?’

‘
I
don’t know. But usually when people won’t say where the money comes from, it’s because they’ve got something to hide. And there was nothing in his flat to indicate that he was investing it in any of the usual ways – no share certificates or dealing papers or anything of that sort. But his bank balance was healthy, and he paid in large amounts of cash from time to time. All we know is that he went abroad a lot on short trips.’

‘Sinister!’

‘But she says he was very fond of her, and seems in no doubt about it. And she’s genuinely distressed that he’s dead, and quite adamant that he wasn’t a bender.’

‘Is there no doubt that he went to bed with Slaughter?’

He shrugged. ‘He wanted to. Or at least pretended to want to. Unless Slaughter’s lying.’

‘Well, perhaps he is. I mean, if he fancied Leman and made a play for him and Leman reacted with horrified rejection, he might not be able to admit it.’

‘But that only provides a stronger motive for the murder. And in any case, he
does
say that Leman rejected him.’

‘True.’

Slider shook his head. ‘And in any case again, Leman certainly went for a drink with Slaughter and then went back to his flat with him. He didn’t do that under duress.’

‘Still, it doesn’t make any difference to the case, does it, whether he wanted Slaughter or only pretended to, or even didn’t? He met him for some reason, went home with him for some reason, quarrelled with him about something, went back to the shop with him, and got himself murdered.’

‘Quite. But it does help when you present a case to the Great British Public if it has a modicum of credibility and consistency about it.’

‘You sounded just like Atherton then.’

‘No, no, he sounds like me.’

‘Oh, sorry. What about Leman’s car, by the way? If he was killed at the chip shop, how did it get back to his flat?’

‘We have to assume Slaughter drove it there. Obviously he couldn’t leave it outside the shop, and if he was clever enough to conceal the murder, he was clever enough to think of that.’

‘Can he drive?’

‘He says not, but that doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people who’ve never taken a driving test can drive, and a negative of that sort is impossible to prove, anyway. But if he did drive the car back to Castelnau, he’ll be bound to have left some trace of himself in it, even if it’s only a single fallen hair, and forensic will find it.’

‘I see. Well, the case is pretty well wrapped up now, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve got your man and everything, haven’t you? No big problem about it, is there?’

‘No more than usual, I suppose,’ he said cautiously. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because of my concert tomorrow – you know, the charity gala with the reception afterwards? I’ve been offered a guest ticket for it, and I’d rather like you to come along.’

He looked doubtful. ‘Will I like it? I wouldn’t have to wear a dinner jacket, would I?’

‘An ordinary suit would do. I’m not proud. And yes, you will enjoy it. The music’s lovely. And if the reception’s really terrible, we’ll sneak out and have a late supper at La Barca, how’s that?’

‘All right. Why not?’ he said.

‘You might be a bit more gracious. It’s a very grand do, you know. There’ll be royalty there, and the stalls will be stuffed with VIPs and hotshots from the world of entertainment, all doing their bit for charity. What you might call a Cause Celeb.’

‘In that case, I’d love to come.’

‘These tickets are not easily come by,’ she told him severely. ‘They’re changing hands for more money than an unsigned Jeffrey Archer.’

He’d just reached the top of the stairs when the lift door opened and Barrington emerged explosively like the Demon King. The baleful eyes fixed on Slider.

‘My office. Five minutes,’ he barked, swivelled on the ball of one foot, and dashed off.

Interpreting this as a request rather than a set of random phonemes, Slider plodded after, following the faint whiff of sulphur that lingered on the air. With the difference in their metabolisms, he reckoned, it would take him the five minutes to get there. What would it be this time, he wondered: a window-box for the CID room? The length of Beevers’ sideburns? McLaren’s edible thumbmarks on his report sheets? The trouble was, it was very hard to learn to care about spit’n’polish. You either did or didn’t, quite naturally, from birth – like being able to sing.

Outside the office – which unlike every other DS’s office in the land kept its oak inhospitably sported – he waited, consulting his watch, until it was time to rap smartly and listen for the wild bird cry from within.

‘Come!’

Since it was plainly still save-a-word week, Slider said nothing as he presented himself. Barrington was not pretending to read, which on the whole seemed ominous. He had his hands on the desk a little farther apart than shoulder width, as if he was about to push himself up by them, and it had the effect of making his upper body look larger and more muscular than ever.

‘The department car,’ he said abruptly, ‘is the blue Fiesta down in the yard, yes?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Slider, with the imperturbable air of one no longer to be caught out by life’s random demands on his attention.

‘It’s in a disgusting state. The outside is dirty. There’s a chocolate wrapper in the dash compartment and an empty hamburger carton on the floor in the back. And the whole thing stinks of chips.’

McLaren, of course. He grazed all day long like a Canada goose, starting at one end of their ground and working his way across. He usually reached the McDonald’s on Shepherd’s Bush Green about midday.

‘It’s not good enough,’ Barrington snapped.

‘No sir,’ Slider agreed amiably.

‘I want it cleaned up. And I want no more eating in the car. Or in the CID room. What do you suppose a member of the public would think if they came in and saw our people eating at their desks?’

Slider declined that invitation to suicide. ‘Will that be all, sir?’