Necrocrip (34 page)

Left alone, Atherton stooped first and gathered up the music and put it in a pile in the armchair with the fiddle, then looked around the room for information. She had never been houseproud, but there was an air of neglect about the room. The dust was thicker than usual on the surfaces; there were dead flowers in a vase on the bookcase; opened and unopened mail littered the telephone table; an empty mug stood on the mantelpiece; and a record lay
dumb on the turntable of the record-player, its empty cover forlornly on the floor. He walked over to look at it. Elgar’s second symphony, a reissue of the famous Barbirolli-LPO recording. Strong stuff, he thought. Good for weeping to if you felt that way inclined.

She came back in with a glass of lager in one hand and a whisky in the other. She had obviously taken the opportunity to splash water over her face, for it looked a little less puffy, though shinier, and the edges of her hair were damp.

‘Here we are. It’s only Sainsbury’s. I hope you can drink that,’ she said with a fair approximation of cheerfulness.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ She sat in the corner of the Chesterfield with one foot tucked under her, and he sat correspondingly at the other end so that he could face her. ‘Well.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘Did Bill send you to find out?’

‘He doesn’t know I’m here. I came because I wanted to know.’

‘I’m coping.’

‘Really?’

‘Just about. Fortunately I’ve got quite a lot, on at the moment, including this beastly school concert.’ She gestured towards the music. ‘There’s about eight of us do it. We go into schools that have school orchestras and we sit in and lead the sections. We rehearse in the morning then give a concert to the rest of the school in the afternoon. We do about three a year and it’s horribly hard work and we don’t get paid, but it’s supposed to encourage the young entry. Though why in God’s name we want to encourage more of the little beasts to become musicians when there isn’t enough work for us all as it is, is beyond me. Still, it seems to be the thing to do. The worst part about it is having to stay to school dinner with them. I still have psychological scars from eating school dinners. Do you remember spam fritters, or are you too young? I can never quite work out how old you are.’ She took a breath and looked at him. ‘I can hear myself talking. Will you for God’s sake say something and stop me.’

‘I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think you’d take it this hard.’

‘Oh, you thought I was just a careless little homebreaker did you? Desperate for a man, and any man would do?’ Before he could answer she waved a hand back and forth in the air, rubbing out the words. ‘No, cancel that. I can’t think of any reason in the world why I should be rude to you.’

‘Because I came here asking for it. I’ve given you my opinion unasked before now. I was always willing to interfere.’

‘You were against us in the beginning,’ she said. You wanted me to leave him alone. I’m not sure now you weren’t right.’

‘He really loves you.’

‘I know. But it doesn’t seem to be enough, does it?’

Atherton stirred restively. ‘Oh, come on, you must have known it would be hard for someone like him to break away.’

‘Yes, of course I did. But not this hard. I thought by now he would have argued the whole thing out with himself and come to his decision, but it never seems to get any better.’

‘And now you don’t want him any more.’

‘Of course I want him. But he’s got to want me – so much,’ she anticipated his protest, ‘that the price seems worth paying. I just don’t think he thinks it is.’

Atherton shook his head, not in negation but to indicate it was all beyond him.

‘How is he? How’s he taking it?’ she asked after a moment.

‘Well, he’s keeping busy, like you. But I don’t know whether he’s coping. I was against it at the start,’ he said, meeting her eyes, ‘but now I wonder whether you really can break it off. I don’t know whether he can manage without you.’

‘He did before we met.’

‘You don’t miss what you’ve never had. It’s different now. He’s got used to sharing everything with you.’ He sighed, not wanting to say the sort of things he was saying. ‘This job – it takes a lot out of you. We each have to find a way to cope.’

‘And what’s yours?’

‘Sometimes I get so sick of it,’ he said reluctantly. ‘The squalor and the stupidity and the waste. People think it’s a glamorous job, but it’s not. A lot of it’s boring and a lot of it’s just plain nasty. And most of the villains are so utterly stupid and gormless—’

She nodded encouragingly.

‘Often I wonder why I’m doing it – when it seems more nasty than usual. But then I think, someone’s got to.’ He half smiled. ‘And then when I’m being less self-deceptively noble, I think, what else could I do? Once you’re in it’s hard to get out. It’s your family, you see. More than that, it’s your – your justification. When you’re a copper, you’re larger than yourself because you’re part of the whole. Out there, on the outside, you’d just be you, all on your own, very small and alone. So you stay in.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do see that.’

‘I bear it better than Bill because I’m detached,’ he said, and hearing that that didn’t quite explain it, he raised his hands before him like a man demonstrating the size of a fish, trying to take a grip on what he meant. You see, to us there are two sorts of people – those who commit crimes, and those who don’t – and the difference is absolute, it’s fundamental. To me, I’m different from a criminal in such a fundamental way that I don’t take any colour from them. But Bill doesn’t really see himself as separate from the misery he works in. To be truthful, he doesn’t see himself at all. The ability to stand back from your own personality and view it as if it were a third party is not a universal gift.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Not universal and not a gift.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, waving away what he thought was an irrelevant aside. ‘But he hasn’t got it. And what it means is that he needs you far more than you will ever need him.’

‘Don’t be so sure about my needs.’

‘I know that you can watch yourself suffering and rationalise it. I don’t think Bill can do that. And that makes it harder.’

‘It’s in his own hands,’ she said helplessly. ‘It always was.’ Atherton said nothing. You’re worried about him. What’s he done?’

Atherton sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees. ‘He was always an independent sort of worker. But our new boss likes everything done by the book. Now Bill’s gone off trying to hunt down a man our boss thinks is the bee’s knees. I think he’s going to get himself into trouble.’

‘What do you want me to do about it?’

‘He’s been in trouble before, of course, but I’m not sure this time if he’ll be able to cope. I’m not sure, now, if he’ll even want to.’

‘What do you want me to do about it?’

‘Nothing. I don’t know. It’s not for me to say—’

‘You think I ought to take him back, tell him that he doesn’t have to leave home, that I’ll just be his mistress – is that it?’ He didn’t answer, looking at the carpet angrily. ‘But that wouldn’t work either. That wouldn’t make him happy.’

‘At least you’d be giving him the choice,’ he flashed. ‘What choice does he have this way? You’re blackmailing him!’

He stood up and walked over to the fireplace, and kicked the bottom of the surround, though he managed to pull his kick at the last moment and damaged neither his toecap nor the wood.

‘There’s no right answer,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he muttered, his back turned to her. ‘That’s what makes me angry – not being able to do anything about any of it.’ She didn’t say anything. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better get back,’ he said. ‘I just slipped out for a moment, just to see how you were.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. Her voice sounded so peculiar that he turned to look at her at the same moment as she stood up, and seeing her expression he moved towards her and took her in his arms. She held on to him tightly. A woman he’d never seen before had once held onto him like that, when he had broken the news to her that her husband had been killed in a car accident. There was no sex in it, or even affection. He might have been anyone.

‘I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how it comes out,’ he said kindly. She wasn’t crying, just holding on to him, her arms round his waist, her face pressed against his chest. He held her quietly, and after a while bent and laid his lips against the top of her head.

The Crown and Sceptre, Melina Road, was a Fuller’s pub, thank heaven. Atherton was already there when Slider
arrived, seated at a corner table facing the door, with two pints in front of him.

‘Thanks,’ Slider said.

‘For the pint or my presence?’ Atherton asked tautly.

‘Both,’ Slider said, taking the top two inches down.

‘I’m putting my neck on the block for you,’ Atherton grumbled. ‘I hope you’re at least going to tell me what it’s all about.’

‘I am now. I’m sorry for the way it’s happened, but I don’t see what else I could have done.’

‘I can give you a list, if you’ve got an hour or two to spare.’

‘Sorry,’ Slider said again. ‘First tell me what’s been happening back at the shop.’

‘We’ve broken the news to the Hung Fat crew that Michael Lam is dead. That went down extremely well. One of the sons asked on behalf of the father who the murderer was, and Mr Barrington authorised us to say that it was Ronnie Slaughter, who has since removed himself from the stage.’

‘Barrington’s still going down that road, is he?’

‘It’s a pleasant lane through a smiling and sunlit countryside,’ Atherton said. ‘I don’t think old Hung Fat was a hundred percent convinced, though. He said a large number of things in Chinese to his son, of which his son only translated about a quarter.’

‘Talking of translating—’

‘Yes, I spoke to Slim Kim. He’s pretty sure he can find out about Chou Xiang Xu. He’s got a friend in the business whose daughter Sun-Hi works at the embassy, and if this bloke came over officially it can’t be top secret or anything. He spoke to Sun-Hi this morning and she agreed to make enquiries.’

‘Right. What about Mrs Stevens?’

‘She gave it six on a scale of ten. Too far away to be sure, but it could be. And she took to the silver hair idea without too much trouble.’

‘Suggestible, isn’t she.’

‘She was never going to be a star witness,’ Atherton concurred.

‘Any news from America?’

‘The woman you spoke to at Chang’s firm called this
morning just after you’d left. I don’t know how you sweet-talked her into it, but she managed to get hold of the concierge at his apartment, who confirmed that Chang said he was going straight off on vacation after his trip to England, and that he hadn’t come back in between. She sounded worried, and asked if she ought to tell anyone, like the police or her boss. I said she shouldn’t, but whether that will stick or not I don’t know. If it doesn’t—’ He let the inference hang. Oh, and one little nugget you’ll particularly enjoy – we’ve tracked down the car Mrs Acropolis saw parked by the alley, and it was nothing to do with our case.’

‘How lovely!’

‘As you say. It was a dark red Capri belonging to the mate of a man called Leroy Parkes who lives in the flat below hers. The mate had called on him on his way home from a party, and Parkes didn’t want to say anything because his mate hasn’t got insurance or tax. Mackay got it out of him, and it all checks out And that,’ Atherton said, putting down his glass and looking seriously at Slider, ‘leaves you, my dear old guv’nor, and the question of your future career, if any, in the Metropolitan Police Force. There are those in high places who wonder not a little what you’ve been doing for the past two days.’

‘I’ve got a problem,’ Slider said.

‘Tell me about it!’

‘No, seriously. I think I know what happened now. What I don’t know is whether Barrington is involved. If he is, I can’t go to him with what I know.’

‘Well, I see that,’ Atherton allowed doubtfully.

‘And if he isn’t involved, he’s going to tell me I haven’t got any evidence – which I haven’t, not good enough for the CPS. And there’s information I need that I can’t get without his help.’ He brooded a moment.

‘Two brains are better than one,’ Atherton suggested.

So Slider recounted the interview with Peter Ling.

‘A microchip?’ Atherton said. ‘It’s possible.’

‘It’s more than possible,’ Slider said. ‘Look – Cate has a string of computer shops. He has government and quasi-government contacts. He has the run of the NATO base. He must have known how important and valuable a prototype microchip could be.’

‘You think he stole one?’

‘I think Lee Chang stole one. He had the knowledge and the contacts; he’d worked in microelectronics, and he was based in Silicon Valley where all the big firms are. How he and Cate got to know each other I don’t know, but Ling said Cate went every year to the Computech Convention in California, which is an enormous trade and science fair—’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You’ve heard of it?’

‘Not everyone is computer ignorant, you know,’ Atherton smiled.

‘Oh. Well, I imagine Chang met Cate there – perhaps on several occasions.’

‘Maybe it was a holiday romance,’ Atherton said. ‘He seems to have liked small, slim orientals.’

‘Perhaps. Anyway, one day Chang told him about this chip and how valuable it would be if it fell into the wrong hands, and Cate then offered to do all the planning and disposing if Chang would do the initial stealing.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Let me go on. Cate knew from having been a copper how a plan can fall through because of one little thing going wrong. So his idea was to have double and triple lines of defence. To begin with, the chip couldn’t be smuggled out of the States by Chang, who had to be squeaky clean to get in and out of the NATO base. I think that’s why Peter Leman went to San Francisco. He had no connection with anyone, and no-one was watching him or checking up on him. A microchip’s a pretty small thing and easily hidden if no-one’s looking for it.’

‘So why did Chang need to come to England at all? And in any case, how could he possibly arrange his attachment to the NATO base just for his own convenience?’ Atherton got his question in at last.