One Under

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘I’m glad, sir,’ Slider said. But he felt a dissatisfaction all the same. He would have liked to finish it himself, though he knew it was not possible, not with something this big. But he’d have liked to witness the arrest of Marler and of Millichip in particular. These operations could take years – sometimes many years before anyone came to trial. And unless Marler turned on his erstwhile protector, they still only had Shannon as a witness to Kaylee’s murder. Most probably the defence – if it ever came to trial – would accept that it was more likely that the drunken girl had fallen to her death. The disposal of the body was harder to explain away, but might not result in jail time, even if they pinned it on anyone. And it was Kaylee where it all started for him.

  Porson was still talking, about the taxi drivers, the probability of other girls coming forward, some of the big names turning Queen’s evidence in return for a non-custodial sentence. ‘And there’s still the bribery, corruption and fraud in the North Kensington Trust,’ he said, almost rubbing his hands. ‘We haven’t even got started on that. Of course, they’ll take that away from us as well, seeing as it’s connected. But we’ll have some people on the task force. Mr Carpenter’s suggested it’ll be at least three from here.’

  ‘Three?’

  ‘Not you,’ Porson said quickly. ‘You can’t expect that. I’m going to suggest you give them Atherton, for one. Put your best player in.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Slider. ‘And what about me?’

  ‘Oh, I think that’s all blown over. You’ll have a clean record, don’t worry – though I wouldn’t cross Mr Carpenter again in a long while, if I were you.’

  ‘So I can come back?’

  The eyebrows shot up. ‘Not now. Bloody hell, take your holiday first! You don’t get offered a free one that often.’

  ‘I thought I could just come in for a few hours a day, work myself back in gently. With three of the team away with the task force, we’ll be short-handed. And Hart’s time is up soon.’

  ‘I’ve had a word with her. She’d like to come back permanently, if you want her.’

  ‘Yes, I want her,’ Slider said. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘All right. I’ll put that through, then. And I’ll put in for some more personnel while we’ve got people away at the task force. Probably won’t get it, but no harm in asking.’ He made a note on his desk pad, then looked up. ‘You know, this is a very delicate business. And it’s not over yet. Big heads might roll, and when they do, a lot of the blood’ll spurt this way. You want to keep your head down for a bit. Don’t draw attention to yourself.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I don’t think HQ really knows what to think about you,’ Porson said thoughtfully. ‘Whether to love you or hate you.’

  ‘I can live with that, sir.’

  ‘Frankly, sometimes, neither do I.’

  On the television news, footage of the arrests of Millichip and Marler. Millichip being escorted into his local police station, tall, powerful in a dark overcoat, his grey hair cut very short. A momentary glimpse of his face turned camerawards, skull-like in the grey early morning light, his expression grim, very grim.

  Marler coming out of his house and getting into a police car, bravely hoisting the tattered standard of his PR smile one more time for the assembled press.

  Both men later released without charge on police bail, pending further investigation. It was just the beginning – more, much more to come.

  Another day, another funeral. The weather had turned clear and sunny, though still cold, with a wind coming down from the northeast with the Arctic steppes in its breath. Hammersmith cemetery had been cleaned up and made beautiful by the council some years back, a place of velvet grass, mature trees and old, serene headstones. Charing Cross Hospital staff often went there in their lunch hour for a bit of green peace and quiet.

  Kaylee Adams had been kept on ice all this time, awaiting someone’s say-so to bury her, but there had only been her mother, and once she went into hospital it was obvious she couldn’t make a decision. Now she was gone too, and the council was having to inter both of them, mother and daughter, since there was no one else to arrange and pay for it. Buried ‘on the parish’, as the old term was. They were being cremated at the same ceremony, and the ashes interred together. It was as dreadful an occasion as Slider could imagine.

  There was no need for him to go, but he went anyway, and Joanna, thank God, went with him. ‘I don’t think you ought to be alone,’ she said.

  Connolly also went. ‘I can’t help thinking about Julienne,’ she said.

  Julienne was there, accompanied by a social worker, who looked as though it was about the worse day in her life, too. Julienne, thin as a stick, her face old with sorrow, was wearing a dark green tartan skirt and a black anorak, which had the air of having been drawn from a common wardrobe, and had her hair tied back with a bit of black velvet ribbon. Her skinny legs in thick black tights stuck out from under the short hem like well-gnawed bones.

  When she saw Connolly, she broke away from her escort and ran to her, and buried her head in Connolly’s stomach. Connolly sat with her through the short service. Slider thought that if it had been a film or a TV series, Connolly would have adopted the troubled child and become her role model and saviour. But real life wasn’t like that.

  The two coffins slid away along the conveyor belt, one behind the other in silent procession, like buses easing along the Cromwell Road, and the shutter came down behind them. Julienne gave one convulsive sob, and it was all over. Joanna squeezed Slider’s hand, and they got up and fled to the cold sunshine outside. Slider was as surprised as delighted to see Freddie Cameron seated near the back of the little Gothic chapel, neat in a fitted black overcoat over a dark suit. He nodded to them, and went outside to wait for them for a chat.

  ‘Freddie! It’s nice of you to come,’ Slider said, with a heartfelt look.

  Cameron shook his hand, and kissed Joanna. ‘Thought I should, given that I started the whole thing off,’ he said.

  ‘No, that was me,’ Slider said. ‘Going to Harefield in the first place, when I had no business.’

  ‘Just as well you did, as it turned out.’

  ‘I don’t know. The shit storm is only just beginning. Are we really any better off?’

  ‘Don’t you start doubting,’ Freddie said. ‘How are the rest of us to cling on?’

  ‘You can’t put it all on me,’ Slider said, alarmed.

  ‘Man with no self-confidence,’ Joanna remarked. And to Cameron: ‘You’ve seen the newspapers, of course?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cameron. ‘Damned nasty business. Of course, everyone around my office is wondering how the thing came out. Must have been a leak.’

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ Slider said hastily.

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t,’ said Freddie. ‘In fact, one or two of my underlings have been looking at me, given I was the one who examined the corpse. I was able to head them off with an appropriate look of innocence. But I did hear something of interest.’ He paused and looked curiously at Slider, as though wondering whether to go on or not.

  ‘About the leak?’ Slider asked.

  ‘Mm,’ said Freddie. He looked at Joanna, and then away at the trees, just coming into leaf. The cold weather had held everything back. There were some Japanese cherries amongst them, covered with blossom that looked like crumpled, pink-dyed tissue paper.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Slider saw Connolly emerge from the church with Julienne attached like a barnacle to her hip. They stopped, and the social worker hurried up to make a threesome. He thought painfully of Hollis’s plain children, bewildered and clinging together. And Hollis was still dead. That was the worst thing about death, that you could never rewind. Then suddenly, shockingly, he thought of his mother’s funeral – something he rarely revisited, in memory or dream. That had been this time of year, too. They’d had a dog, then, a black and white collie called Ben. Dad had left it at home, but it had broken its lead and followed them
, and when Slider came out of the church it had been waiting in the porch, head low, eyes upturned, looking guilty at one end and so, so glad at the other to have found them again.

  He shook himself. ‘Come on, Freddie. You can’t drop great clunking hints like that and not tell us. What did you hear?’

  Cameron turned his head back to them. ‘I don’t know if there’s anything in it. You know the witness went to an investigative journalist, who passed it anonymously to the various news desks, all at the same time.’

  ‘That’s what I heard,’ said Slider.

  ‘Nobody knows who the journalist was, but rumour says was a female,’ Freddie said. ‘British, but she’s been working in the States for a while. That’s what I heard, anyway. Just come back to the home country to take up a new job. It made me think how much kudos it would have given her with her new bosses to take them that story as an exclusive. She must have had some pretty powerful reason to go the altruistic route instead.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Slider, his voice seeming to him to come from a great distance, ‘she thought the whole business was too shocking to want to make personal gain out of it.’

  Cameron nodded kindly. ‘No doubt that’s what it was,’ he said.