Shallow Grave (30 page)

‘You were hiding something in the bushes. Covering it with something,’ Slider suggested.

‘It was Jennifer, wasn’t it?’ Atherton said. ‘Jennifer’s body.’

‘Jennifer’s body,’ he repeated. He looked exhausted, run to the end of his strength. The Kindly Ones, Atherton thought, had bayed him at last.

‘You were seen walking with her along the embankment to
the bushes. But she never came back, did she?’ Slider said. ‘What did you do, Eddie? Tell me.’

‘Her body.’ Eddie looked at him in agony, his eyes focused now. ‘She’s dead.’ He quivered all over, as a frightened dog shivers. ‘I’ll never see her again. Oh, what have I done?’

‘Tell me about it,’ Slider urged, and to Atherton, his gentleness was a terrible thing, as a sword is terrible; and yet to a man fleeing the Erinnyes perhaps a welcome thing. Andrews looked at him with the hope with which such a man might look at his executioner: the hope only of an end to it all.

‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘I want to tell you.’

Porson read the statement aloud as he hoofed restlessly about the room.

‘I found out she had been cheating on me. I swore I would kill her. I was looking for her all evening. I had been drinking a lot. I met her by the path that leads down to the footbridge over the railway and we quarrelled. I led her onto the embankment and killed her in the bushes and covered her with my jacket. Later when it was quiet I carried her up the garden and put her in the hole I’d dug on Mrs Hammond’s terrace. I was going to fill the hole in in the morning, but Mrs Hammond found her first. Now I’m sorry she’s dead and want to get it off my chest.’

Porson paused in his peregrination and tapped the paper with his finger-nail. ‘Good work,’ he said. ‘And within the week, too. An expertitious result like this will bring us a lot of kewdos with the Powers That Be, I can tell you, Slider. Especially as it’s a nice, clean, straightforward case: confession plus corroboration, obvious suspect, comprehensive motive, creditable witnesses – nothing to tax the imagination of the twelve men and true. I think there’s no doubt the CPS will prosecute on this one, and a conviction will do us no end of bon.’

For a rare moment he was still, away in some pleasurable place of plaudit. His big hands twitched as he received a commendation and shook the hand of the Assistant Commissioner, as a dreaming dog’s paws twitch at that special rabbit moment.

Slider stirred a little, unhappily. Confession is as confession does, he thought, and there was something unsatisfyingly bloodless about this one. The show without the substance. Someone
somewhere wasn’t inhaling. But he must try to be specific for Porson: he didn’t know him well enough to play the old instinct card, as he could have done with Dickson in the dear dead days of long ago.

‘He doesn’t say how he killed her,’ Slider said. ‘Or how he met her there. And what became of the jacket?’

‘Eh?’ Porson said, dragged unwillingly back to cold reality.

‘The jacket, sir. He wasn’t wearing one in the morning, and we’ve been over every inch of the embankment and the garden. There was no jacket in his pickup, either.’

‘Well, he could have dumped it anywhere,’ Porson said.

‘But why would he? It wasn’t as if there was any blood.’

Porson looked kindly. ‘Well, obviously this statement is only a preliminary starting place. There’s plenty more work to be done; d’you think I don’t know that? But you don’t need to lose any sleep. He’s put his hand up, that’s the main thing. This is not the moment to go picking hairs and getting bogged down in the fine print. Cut yourself a bit of cake, Slider: you’ve done a good job.’

‘Sir,’ Slider said, unconvinced.

‘Come on, you don’t need me to tell you how the thing works: he feels relief after confessing, and out comes all the rest – if he’s handled the right way up. That’s down to you – asking the right questions is your providence.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ve every confidence in your interrogatory technique.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Porson was on the move again. ‘As he’s here voluntarily, we’re not on the clock, that’s one good thing. We won’t arrest him unless he looks like taking a wander – that’ll give us a chance to get all the witnesses taped up and labelled. Get the old chap who saw them – Tarrant, is it? – get him in and we’ll do a line-up. And get the motor witnesses to come and look at the book and pick out the van they saw in the square. Tomorrow will do for that.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Meanwhile, give Andrews half an hour, spot of grub and a cup of tea, and then have another go at him. Take him through the timetable, and run him gently up to the murder so he doesn’t even see it coming, get my drift?’

Slider got it. Excitement was making the Syrup unusually direct. Quite comprehensive, in fact.

Slider was late home, after the failure of the Porson Plan Mark I: Eddie Andrews cantered gently up to the fence, had not precisely refused, but had jumped carelessly, scattering brushwood. He was willing to co-operate – too willing, in Slider’s view: he followed wherever he was led, like a bloodhound on an aniseed trail, and the result was a less than compelling narrative. He didn’t deny anything, but he didn’t offer any explanations for the things that bothered Slider, either; he seemed to want the answers laid out for him as well as the questions. It left Slider restless. Everything added up to Eddie Andrews, and yet nothing added up. It was like eating without swallowing, making love with gloves on.

Talking of which, Joanna was home, and miffed that she had had a rare Saturday evening free and he had not been there to share it with her. ‘I know it’s not your fault. I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying it’s a pity, that’s all.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Had something to eat. Watched that film we taped the other day. The Clint Eastwood thing.’

‘Oh, I wanted to see that,’ he protested.

‘Don’t worry, by the time you get the leisure to sit down and watch it, it will be far enough in the past for me to watch it again.’

He was mollified. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything to eat in the house?’

‘Didn’t you get anything?’

‘Not since …’ He pondered. ‘Breakfast, actually.’

‘They let you starve all day? You ought to stand up for yourself.’

‘Like Narcissus?’

‘What an educated quip. You sound like Atherton.’

‘Never mind all that. Your mind should be on me. Food, woman, food!’

Obligingly, she looked in the fridge. ‘Well, there’s salady stuff.’

‘I hate salad. I wish it was winter.’

‘That was practically a pout. Actually, when I say salad, it’s
just a sort of honeymoon salad – lettuce alone. There’s some cheese and a bit of pâté left, but the bread’s a bit old.’ She looked at her lover’s suffering face and said, ‘Tell you what, there’s some bacon in the freezer compartment. I could whack that into the microwave to defrost it, and make you a toasted bacon sandwich. How would that do?’

‘I love you,’ Slider confessed.

‘So you say. It’s just my cuisine you fancy, really.’

‘You have a beautiful and curvaceous cuisine, but I love you for your mind, as well.’

One bacon sandwich thing led to another, so Saturday night was not a total flop after all; but Sunday started badly. He overslept and woke feeling doomed and heavy in the legs, and Joanna rushed in in a panic and said her car wouldn’t start.

‘I’ll have to take yours.’

Slider hated to be without a car. And he hated anyone else driving his. Irene wouldn’t have asked; but with a new relationship you have to tread gently. He gave his objection mildly. ‘Can’t you go by public transport?’

‘Not possibly. I’ve got a rehearsal in Milton Keynes this morning, then that blasted dedication service or whatever it’s called at Eton, and then back to Milton Keynes for the concert in the evening. I can only just do it
with
a car. Why do I take on these ghastly economy-class dates?’

‘Because you need the money.’

‘You’ve only got to get to Shepherd’s Bush, haven’t you?’

He couldn’t refuse against such reason, little as he liked it, and heaved himself out of bed. ‘You ought to get rid of that old wreck and get yourself something reliable,’ he grumbled, searching his jacket pocket for his keys.

‘Are you talking about my car or my man?’ she asked, eyeing his gummy state.

‘And how am I supposed to get to work?’

‘You could cycle up the avenue, but you haven’t got a bike. Or you could call out the AA and take mine when they’ve fixed it.’

‘I haven’t got time for that.’

‘You’d better have, or I’ll have to take your car tomorrow as well,’ she said, taking the keys from his nerveless fingers and kissing him hard on the lips in the same movement. ‘’Bye. Love you. Good luck with your murderer.’

‘See you tomorrow,’ he said glumly, knowing she would not be back before midnight.

Things didn’t get better. Eddie Andrews was still in pliant mood, and willing, not to say eager to make a further, expanded statement. But the details he added were vague in the extreme, and when pressed to be specific about times, places and materials he fell back on, ‘I can’t remember,’ and ‘It’s all confused – just a blur in my mind.’ He seemed more cheerful, and was eating well. Now he had confessed, the responsibility had been taken from his shoulders: it was a syndrome Slider had seen before – indeed, it was the basis of the Catholic Church’s success – but in this case he didn’t find it comforting.

Andrews readily agreed to an identity parade, but Sunday was not a good day for organising a line-up, and Slider had to rummage through the staff to make up the numbers.

‘I’ll do it,’ Swilley said kindly, when Slider asked for volunteers.

‘I don’t think his heart could stand it. McLaren – no, of course he knows you. Anderson, then. For me, laddie.’ Anderson got up, grumbling. Slider surveyed the room. The uniform loaners were in plain clothes today. ‘What about you, Defreitas?’

‘Not me, sir. I’m allergic to line-ups.’ Defreitas said hastily. ‘Take Renker. He wants a break.’

Renker stood up. ‘I don’t mind, sir.’

There was a chorus from around the room.

‘Don’t do it, Eric!’

‘Never volunteer, son!’

‘I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, mate!’

‘Yeah, whatever happened to him?’ Renker enquired. ‘“Stretch” Polanski, the ten-foot Pole?’

‘That’s it!’ Slider exclaimed. ‘Not another word! Anderson, Renker, Willans – front and centre. You’ve volunteered. And when all this is over, I’m going to run away and join the circus.’

The three men filed out from their desks with a show of reluctance. ‘I thought this
was
the circus,’ Renker protested. ‘Otherwise, how come all the clowns?’

Slider rolled his eyes. ‘Everyone’s a comedian. Get downstairs, you three. And for God’s sake, try not to look like policemen.’

* * *

Tosca waited in the front shop, where she and Nicholls fell instantly and deeply in love, while Mr Tarrant did his duty. He did not pick out Eddie Andrews.

‘No,’ he said regretfully after a long and careful scrutiny of the line, ‘it isn’t any of those. The one at the end – number eight,’ this was Renker, ‘he’s about the right height. But he’s too fair. Number two’s hair is more like it.’ This was Anderson. ‘But he looks too heavy and broad. And I don’t think he’s quite tall enough. And three, four and five are much too short.’ Number four was Andrews.

Slider took Mr Tarrant out. ‘I’m sorry,’ the old man said. ‘I wanted to help. But none of them looked right to me, and I couldn’t say they did if they didn’t.’

‘Of course not,’ Slider said. He hovered over a delicate area. ‘Regarding the height of the man you saw, sir, in your statement, you did say he was only “a bit taller than the woman”?’

‘No,’ Tarrant said anxiously, ‘I said he was
quite
a bit taller than the lady. I did tell the other officer, the one who came to my house, that I thought he was a very tall man, but your officer talked about perspective and about it being dark, and he pointed out – well, he persuaded me I was mistaken. But I
did
think at the time that he was very tall. Tall and slim.’

‘And with fair, wavy hair?’

‘Brown,’ Mr Tarrant said firmly. ‘A lightish brown, perhaps, but not fair or blond. And definitely curly. Quite tight curls.’

McLaren was unrepentant. ‘He wasn’t all that sure what he’d seen, guv. I had to help him out a bit. I didn’t twist anything, just talked him through it, so as to get it down clearly.’

‘Clearly?’ Slider was keeping a tight hold on himself, but it wasn’t easy. ‘He says brown hair and you write fair? He says curly and you write wavy?’

‘Well, guv, I mean, how’s he going to tell the difference anyway between light brown and fair? I mean, he’s across the road, and it’s quite wide there. And it’s dark, and he’s an old bloke, and his eyes are probably not up to much.’

‘McLaren, you are a waste of space!’ Slider raved. ‘You have the intellect of a brick! If he couldn’t see across the road, what’s the bloody point of having him as a witness?’

McLaren shifted uncomfortably. ‘I don’t mean to say he
can’t see, but – you know – I was just, sort of, guiding him a bit.’