One Under

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Slider let the echoes cease before answering. ‘I didn’t mention Mr Marler to Sir Giles, sir.’

  Carpenter was caught up short. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I didn’t mention Gideon Marler.’

  There was a silence. The implications slowly filtered through Carpenter’s brain. The layout inside the heads of commanders and above was very different from ordinary policemen, and it took a few moments, but he got there.

  ‘You must have,’ he said flatly.

  ‘No, sir. I’m very clear that I didn’t. The only name I mentioned was Tyler Vance. If he immediately complained about that to Gideon Marler, it means that there is something to investigate.’

  ‘I’m well aware of what it does and doesn’t mean, thank you. I don’t need you to teach me my job!’ Carpenter thundered. His brow was worried. Slider was not without sympathy. When you were at the bottom, like him, the brown shower got up more momentum. But those nearer the top, like Carpenter, got it freshest and hottest.

  After a moment, he asked in a more normal voice, ‘What do you think Sir Giles had to do with Tyler Vance?’

  Slider explained. Carpenter listened with increasing fidgetiness. ‘You’ve got nothing but a second-hand report from this girl.’ For girl, read slut, Slider thought. ‘You don’t know that this Golden Eagle is Marler, or that Canonbury is Cobra.’ His downturned mouth expressed his disgust at the silliness of using code names. ‘Or that either of them had anything to do with the Vance girl.’

  ‘But isn’t it interesting, sir, that when I ask Sir Giles Canonbury about Tyler Vance, he goes straight to Gideon Marler, and Mr Marler complains to the AC?’

  ‘Interesting is not the word I’d use.’ But Carpenter was thinking. There was a long silence. Then he said, ‘I don’t know what to say to you, Slider. We’re facing horrendous budget cuts and loss of personnel, and you seem set on demonstrating that we’re overstaffed by investigating things that don’t need investigating, and opening up cans of worms all over the damn place in the process.’

  ‘I’m just doing my job, sir.’

  ‘Don’t lecture me about the Job!’ Carpenter exploded. It was at this moment that seniors in the good old days would shout that they were in the Job when you were in short pants, laddie. But in fact Carpenter was younger than Slider and had come in through accelerated promotion on account of his university degree. That verbal weapon was marked U/S in this case.

  He seemed to make up his mind, turning his head away slightly as though tiring of the whole thing. ‘I can’t waste any more time on you,’ he said. ‘This is not an argument or a discussion. I’m giving you a categorical order to leave Mr Marler alone. There are ramifications that are well above your pay grade, things going on that you don’t need to know about. It’s enough for you to know that this comes from the very top: do not contact him, attempt to interview him, do not investigate him – or any of his influential friends. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Quite clear, sir,’ said Slider.

  Carpenter did not entirely relax. He stared at Slider minutely, looking for cracks. ‘You’ve plenty of proper work you ought to be concentrating on,’ he said. ‘Our clear-up rate is not what it ought to be.’

  ‘Sir.’ Slider took himself to be dismissed and turned away.

  Carpenter called after him, ‘And you can take this as a general warning, Slider. Any more infractions from you, and you’ll be looking at suspension, possibly dismissal. Keep your nose clean.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Slider, and went.

  Outside the PA looked up at him with sympathy. She may not have heard the words from within, but she’d have heard the tone. Slider met her eyes, and she said in a low voice, ‘Not a nice way to start a Saturday.’

  Slider was grateful for the kindness; but afterwards he thought she might have been referring to Carpenter’s Saturday. He was going from here to play golf, and having to bellow at junior ranks first thing could put him off his game, poor fellow.

  SIXTEEN

  Billingsgate on a Warm Day

  Porson was not in, thank God, which meant that Slider didn’t have to report to him yet what Carpenter had called him in for. There was no need to telephone the old boy at home and spoil his whole Saturday. He’d find out soon enough.

  He’d reckoned without Carpenter’s zeal. Carpenter had rung Porson at home, and Porson arrived while Slider was still taking his coat off.

  He shut the door of Slider’s room behind him, but he didn’t roar, which was sign in itself of the seriousness. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, rather than barked.

  Slider told about his visit to see Canonbury, and how Canonbury had gone straight to Marler, despite Slider’s not having mentioned his name.

  Porson looked grave. ‘These parties …’ he said at last.

  ‘They’re going to a lot of trouble to protect them,’ Slider said.

  ‘They don’t like their privacy being trammelled on.’

  It was Atherton’s ‘sense of entitlement’ argument – and it carried a lot of weight. But Slider said, ‘Tyler Vance was fourteen. Kaylee Adams was fifteen.’

  ‘Vance died of natural causes,’ said Porson. ‘Adams – well you don’t know how she died.’ Slider didn’t point out the obvious. Porson knew as well as he did that disposing of a body was a serious offence, worth good jail-time. And now Porson looked sad, which was unnerving. Slider could cope with him bellowing and pacing, but not this. ‘It’s serious this time,’ he said.

  ‘I know, sir,’ Slider said quietly.

  ‘I’ve stuck up for you over the years, because you’ve been right and protocol’s been wrong. We’re not here to make ourselves popular, we’re here to do the Job. That’s always been my viewstand. But the Job’s changing.’ He stared at Slider for a long time with melancholy eyes. ‘It’s not me so much. I’ve got a secured pension. Could have been more if I’d got the promotion, but there’s only me now the wife’s gone. I’ll manage. But you’ve got a family. You’ve got to think of that.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said.

  ‘I’m serious. These people mean business. There might be something behind all this or there might be nothing, but either way they don’t want you sticking your nose in. They don’t want stones lifted. And they have ways to stop you.’ He searched Slider’s face for a sign that he was taking it all in. ‘They could invoke the Official Secrets Act, you know. Have you thought of that? That could be two years in the slammer. Do you know what they do to police officers in jail?’

  Slider didn’t need to answer that. He had gone cold all down his back.

  Porson sighed. Which was worse than the sad look. ‘I can’t protect you any more, not on this one. You’ve got to leave Marler alone. And his friends. That’s my final word on it. Got to be.’ He looked around him, like a man saying goodbye. Then he became brisk. ‘What are you doing in, anyway? This isn’t your weekend on.’

  Slider played the game. ‘I had some things to catch up with, sir. Paperwork.’

  ‘Get it done and go home,’ Porson said. ‘See your family. Take the kids to the park.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Slider.

  It was Atherton’s day on, and he was there, at his desk, and looked up as Slider re-opened the door. ‘Trouble?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘A final warning. Leave Marler alone, or …’

  ‘It’s your arse?’

  ‘At least.’

  Atherton studied him. ‘It’s serious, then?’ Slider nodded. ‘What are we going to do?’

  That ‘we’ warmed him. But he said, ‘I shall do what I can to find out how Kaylee Adams died, without, if possible, brushing up against Mr Marler or any of his friends. But nobody else should get involved. It could lead to disciplinary measures.’

  Atherton digested that. Then he shrugged and said lightly, ‘I always said I wasn’t cut out to be a policeman.’

  Hart and Connolly arrived together. Slider explained before they could take their coats off. ‘You’d better go hom
e again,’ he concluded.

  Connolly was indignant. ‘What about Jessica? What about Shannon? We can’t just abandon them.’

  Hart only shrugged. ‘There’s plenty we can do wivout breaving on Mr Marler’s works. I vote we stay. I’m only here temporary, anyway.’

  ‘Disciplinary action would follow you wherever you went. I don’t want you to jeopardize your careers. Go home.’

  Now Hart grinned. ‘I ain’t here anyway. S’my day off.’

  ‘Mine too. We’ll just be careful, so,’ Connolly reasoned. ‘Walk like the cat. I’m going to follow up those other names on the donor’s list, see what there is about ’em on the internet. What harm?’

  ‘I’m gonna see if I can find where Shannon’s brother’s gone to. Maybe she went to stay with him,’ said Hart.

  Swilley, who was also officially on, appeared in the doorway, a vision of loveliness in beige slacks and a jumper in a shade of blue that brought out the colour of her eyes. For years she had been hunted relentlessly by what had sometimes seemed like every male in the Job in Hammersmith, and their lack of success had forced them to label her a lesbian. The fact that she had now married her long-term boyfriend and had a daughter with him did not much diminish the power of the rumour. If a woman wouldn’t go to bed with you, she must be a lesbian, right?

  All this tumbled through Slider’s mind in a micro-second, and he said, ‘How’s your little girl?’ They’d called her Ashley. Swilley’s husband’s name was Tony Allnutt, and Slider was so sensitive to the fact that the child was called Ashley Allnutt that he always referred to her as ‘your little girl’.

  ‘Oh, she’s fine, sir,’ Swilley answered, only slightly surprised by the question. There was a wisdom that said there was no point in wondering why bosses said the things they said. You just rolled with it.

  ‘Who’s looking after her while you’re at work?’ Slider asked, thinking of George. Not everyone was lucky enough to have a parent in a granny flat.

  ‘Well, Tony’s home today,’ she said, and seeing he wanted more, said, ‘When we’re both at work, she goes to nursery, and I’ve got a neighbour who fills in the gaps. We do all right.’

  Slider nodded. ‘You must miss her, though.’

  ‘Of course. But she’s well looked after.’ Swilley’s look said clearly, that’s enough of that. ‘Boss, we’ve got the report on Peloponnos’s home computer. Apparently, ludicrously easy to open the password protected files, considering what was in them was porn.’

  Slider winced at the contiguity of the subjects. He wished now he hadn’t asked her about Ashley. ‘How bad?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Not the worst, but bad enough,’ Swilley said. ‘Underage girls.’

  ‘Boys too?’

  ‘Just girls.’ She made a moue. ‘I’m wondering if that’s what his mother’s hiding. Maybe she walked in on him one day and saw what was on the screen. Or maybe he printed something off for later – bedtime reading, so to speak – and she found it.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Slider said. He pondered a moment. ‘It doesn’t help us really. I was hoping for something implicating Marler, or at least confirming the parties.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Swilley said, ‘but at least it gives us a reason to go on looking at him. And if his path happens to cross that of some other, eminent people …’

  ‘Don’t take risks.’

  ‘No, boss. Who would have thought old George was one of those? He seemed such a mild-mannered nobody – and his PA obviously loved him. It just shows you never know – this blasted porn business goes deep and wide.’

  Slider nodded. ‘It’s a cesspool,’ he said. ‘All right, pass it on to SCD5. They’ll know what to do with it.’ That was the specialist child abuse investigation team.

  Atherton poked his head round the door. ‘I think you’d better come and have a look at this,’ he said.

  They had a television set in the corner of the outer office, which was on all the time, with the sound turned down, tuned to a rolling news programme. Everyone was standing round it. Atherton turned up the sound, but Slider had already spotted the name ‘Canonbury’ on the moving ribbon at the bottom.

  ‘Sir Giles Canonbury, the eminent heart surgeon, was found dead this morning in his Buckinghamshire home. Sir Giles, 69, is best known for pioneering the use of replacement heart valves sourced from pigs. He was a consultant at the Royal Free hospital and had many well-known entertainers among his patients, giving rise to the nickname “heart surgeon to the stars”. Sir Giles, who was unmarried, was also a noted big game hunter, though his weapon was a camera rather than a rifle, and several of his photographs have appeared in international exhibitions. Most recently he had been giving evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee considering the future of the NHS.’ Pause. ‘The Prime Minister is today to visit …’

  Atherton turned the sound down. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Now that’s what I call fishy.’

  ‘Found dead,’ said Swilley. ‘That could mean anything.’

  ‘Usually means something untoward,’ said Atherton, ‘otherwise they’d have said “died”.’

  ‘But when did he die?’ Slider asked. ‘He was supposed to appear on Newsnight last night, but they said he was indisposed. Does that mean he was already dead? Or did he feel ill, call off and go home?’

  ‘What you really mean is, was it your visit that made him feel ill?’ said Atherton.

  ‘Don’t be cute,’ said Swilley. ‘If it was suicide …’

  ‘He lived in Chalfont St Peter, didn’t he?’ Atherton asked. ‘Do you want me to ring Buckinghamshire police?’

  ‘God, no!’ said Slider. ‘What part of “do not investigate Gideon Marler or his friends” didn’t you understand?’

  ‘There’s no reason anyone at Buckingham would shop us. They’re not Met.’

  ‘You just don’t know how far Marler’s influence goes. Remember he seems to be protected by the AC. No, we’ll have to find out some other way.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Connolly cautiously, ‘maybe we shouldn’t try. I mean, after the warnings.’

  Slider didn’t answer, but Swilley knew him better. ‘We have to know,’ she said – meaning Slider had to. You go and interview a man to stir him up, and you stir him into death. That’s not nice to live with. ‘Boss, what about the local journos? They generally know everything.’

  ‘Good thought,’ said Slider. He looked at Atherton.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘A short life and a merry.’

  ‘Be discreet.’

  ‘Always.’

  Canonbury’s house was outside the village and most fortuitously only a hundred yards down the lane from a pub, which meant that the press camped outside the gate could take it in relays to escape the boredom and the drizzle for a warm and a wet in the Jolly Cricketers. And that meant that Atherton could stay put and have the sources come to him. There was no trouble about getting anyone to talk, and for the price of a pint they were as happy to talk to him as to anyone else.

  The basic facts had already filtered down from the attending doctor, who had once been snubbed by Sir Giles at a village fete and had therefore been all the more eager not to respect his privacy.

  ‘Overdose of narcotics,’ said the man from the Buckingham Gazette.

  ‘Barbiturate,’ said the man from the Bucks Herald, who considered himself a harder-nosed newshound. The Gazette, in his view, was a property-and-car-ads rag and didn’t do proper news at all, so their man shouldn’t even be here.

  ‘Same thing, innit?’ said Gazette.

  ‘The question is,’ said Atherton, ‘was it accident or suicide?’

  Gazette stared at him. ‘Not likely to be an accident, is it? Not when it was an injection. Ain’t you ’eard?’

  ‘Must have missed that bit,’ said Atherton.

  ‘Massive overdose,’ said Herald. ‘Felled him like a horse. Half the amount would have done it, the doc said.’

  ‘Wanted to make sure, didn’t he?’ said Gazette. ‘He wa
s a doctor, he didn’t want any mistakes.’

  ‘So they found the hypodermic by the body, did they?’ Atherton said innocently.

  ‘Right there, laying on the coffee table,’ said Gazette.

  ‘Who called it in?’

  ‘Housekeeper,’ said Herald. ‘Tommy Carling, he’s a copper, friend of mine, he told me. His mate Danny Ryan was the first one on the scene. This housekeeper came in the morning like usual and found him in his lounge on the sofa, dead as a herring, with the hypo on the table in front of him.’

  ‘On the sofa?’ Atherton queried. ‘So when did they reckon it happened?’

  ‘Oh, I can tell you that,’ said Herald, happy to be the source of all enlightenment. ‘Tommy said the doc reckoned he was dead eight to twelve hours, so he must have done it when he got home last night.’

  Blast, Atherton thought. That wouldn’t make the guv happy. ‘Do they know what time he came home, then?’ he asked.

  Another journalist had just come in, damp of hair, smelling doggily of wax jacket. He had a face lined with too much knowledge of humanity, and a sardonic eye. ‘Hello, my merry lads, what’s all this?’

  ‘Oh, bow the knee, boys,’ said Herald sourly, ‘it’s the national press. Who dragged you in, Purser?’

  ‘Eminent heart surgeon,’ said Purser. ‘It’s national news. Who’s buying?’

  ‘This gent,’ said Herald tersely, indicating Atherton.

  ‘Concerned member of the public, are you?’ the newcomer said, looking Atherton over and obviously clocking him as a copper.

  ‘Something like that,’ said Atherton. ‘Pint?’

  ‘Always. Now,’ he said, settling an elbow on the bar, ‘the interesting bit is, Canonbury was supposed to be on Newsnight last night, but he cancelled. Then he comes home and tops himself. What’s that all about?’

  ‘You tell us,’ Herald invited, miffed at having his spotlight nicked.

  ‘You’ll have to do your own sniffing around. I’m not going to spoon-feed you. Oh, ta very much.’ He received his pint from Atherton, and turned to face him so that his back was to the other two. He took a long draw from the top and said quietly, ‘What’s the police interest in this?’